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maiassensibleblog · 4 years

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Dear theatre people, this is what I mean when I say theatre is elitist...

(All views expressed are my opinion).

I’ve been considering whether now is the right time to post this but when theatre comes back (which it will, it must), it cannot look how it looked before. I love theatre with all my heart, it is the part of my life that heals the most. But the industry drives me crazy.

I want to address the questions: Why don’t people go to the theatre? And why don’t people care about theatre? My perspective is from a West End theatre goer who is working class, not white and not straight. I am not involved in making theatre and do not desire to be involved.

To answer this huge question, I’d like to start with two definitions:

Elitist: Relating to or supporting the view that a society or system should be led by an elite.

Inaccessible: Unable to be reached.

I often see people asking “why don’t people go to the theatre?” with only responses related to accessibility. When we talk about accessibility, we need to consider barriers such as ticket prices, geographical location and ableism. An awful lot of people are not stopped by accessibility, but they do not go to the theatre. Why? Theatre is elitist.

Elitism is the feeling that you do not belong in a space because the people who are there are different from you and often appear to think they are better than you. In my opinion, this is the reason that the general public do not care about theatre. Elitism is built into the theatre world and this has only been highlighted recently through the BLM movement (I don’t need to go into this here, you’ve all seen it).

From a personal perspective, I’m privileged to have been going to the theatre since I was tiny. We didn’t have a lot of money but my mum was really good at finding deals on tickets and I grew to love theatre more and more as I grew up. I go around once a week and see a lot of off West-end stuff. I, a seasoned theatregoer, feel elitism every time I go to the theatre. I will elaborate on these in the sub-topics below but I wanted to point out that I am somebody who is relatively confident around the elitist feeling, imagine if you aren’t. You just wouldn’t bother and that is what we’re seeing.

Tickets

The first thing I would like to discuss may seem to sit between accessibility and elitism but getting affordable tickets sits in with elitism in my opinion. I am often asked how I can afford to go to the theatre so often and my answer is always I know where to look. Why do theatres feel that it is acceptable to hide their cheap seats? The only thing that is achieved here is keeping theatre for those who know where to look.

If you have not be brought up around theatre folk, you don’t know that day seats exist. Even when theatres advertise and say something like “£15 day seats available”, people who do not know anything about theatre will not have a clue what that means. They won’t know the difference between a digital lottery and a regular in-person day seat, they won’t know how to press buy now just at the right time on TodayTix to get a rush ticket. Having cheaper options does improve accessibility but the way it has been done doesn’t serve to reduce elitism.

Put yourself in the shoes of somebody who has never been to the theatre before. They see a poster for a musical that looks amazing, they google it, they see decent seats for £100+. They decide to go for the £30 option in the Gods. They feel ripped off and don’t bother again OR they know that those are crap seats and don’t bother at all. There is nowhere on that main booking page that mentions cheaper, good seats. That is telling people that they only deserve good seats if they’re rich. That is elitist.

Image

My next two points spill into each other, but they are not the same thing. What do you think of when you think of somebody who goes to the theatre. We all just thought of the same old, white couple. They tut at young people who talk at interval? Yeah we all know the type. It’s amazing that these people, who usually have disposable income, go to the theatre and spend money there but they are coming anyway. Why are you therefore using them to advertise?

Some theatres do this amazingly (Bush, Soho, Young Vic, loves) but most don’t. Some shows have gone too far (looking at you Heathers West End transfer) but think: What is the demographic that you think would want to come, but isn’t? If you’re trying to attract non-theatre goers, they have to see themselves in those who are recommending it.

Obviously, some known reviewers have to be included to keep the regulars in but theatres must start including a wider range of reviewers, they must be open to criticism from young people, queer people, Black people... Then, they must show the faces of these reviewers in their advertising, they must include their views using their vocabulary. And once you get these voices (and start respecting them), theatres must start taking these views into account. A mainstream producer actually listening (and properly listening) to the views of not the mainstream critics? That is revolutionary. That’s showing you’re willing to change.

Etiquette

This is the big one. Theatre etiquette is elitist. I’m sure many people know what I mean by this: Hushed tones even when the show isn’t on and you’re in the bar, FOH using theatre-y vocabulary to usher people places (even things like “the house is open” mean nothing to people who aren’t in theatre), expected restraint to reactions towards what’s happening on stage. I’ve never been to a theatre that doesn’t use vocabulary that would be alienating to non-theatregoers. Only a few theatres don’t have that feeling of “we’re better than you” hanging in the air.

I have been told that I do not match up to people’s ideas of expected theatre etiquette twice outside of fandom things. I remember them both. Once, I was laughing at funny moments during a funny play. The second time I was talking to my friends excitedly at interval and had some older theatre-goers tut and ask us to be quiet (hun, it’s the interval). As I mentioned, I go to the theatre all the time, I generally conform (even when I hate it). Imagine how you’d feel if you didn’t know the nonsense rules.

The solution? Dismantle the rules.

People dismiss panto because is does this and it’s the least elitist theatre out there. Stop getting on your high horse about people openly enjoying themselves. And to those panicking, very few people are actually going to chat their way through a whole show they’ve paid money for.

We need more relaxed performances. We need more for disabled people but we also need more for young people, where they can react to what’s going on during the show and whisper to each other about it.

We need more sing-a-longs. Musicals can create an amazing fandom this way. Six is doing an amazing job because they’ve fostered this environment. Imagine a Hamilton sing-a-long. Just sit in that for a moment. Imagine a person who had never been to the theatre before and has heard a few songs of the soundtrack getting the feeling of a gig from the theatre. It’s powerful and it needs to happen.

Shakespeare

Nothing exhibits the elitism of theatre more than Shakespeare. The sheer prevalence of it. And, I’m going to say it: Nobody fully understands what’s going on.

Why, as an industry, are you all so obsessed with a sexist, racist, homophobe who died in the 1600′s? People alive today are writing plays about stories that people want to hear, in a language that people can understand. Commission them.

That is all on that.

Secrecy

There’s certainly something to be said about keeping the magic of theatre alive by keeping tricks a secret. I totally appreciate and love that about this art medium. You watch things happening in real time that look like magic and it’s beautiful.

However, the secrecy around productions has gone too far. Why are full on HQ recordings of shows being filmed for them never to see the light of day? I have seen the argument that people will not feel the need to watch the show if they have seen a recording but I have only seen that argument from people who work in theatre. Listen to the people who just go to the theatre. I don’t know what I can actually say to convince the industry of this, but theatre people will still come because there’s nothing like live theatre.

What you will do by releasing a good recording is open the show to the masses (and make money from it). You will essentially be building a fandom. People can watch football on TV but choose to pay for a ticket to go watch live because it is a different experience. People can listen to a band but choose to pay for a ticket to go to a concert because it is a different experience. It is the same thing. You honestly need to get over this because I think this is a massive reason why this elitism still exists.

Also why not release HQ footage even as a trailer? Stick it on YouTube for free, get ad revenue and advertise.

These are just a few things that need to be taken into consideration when theatres re-open. Theatre must come back better and stronger than it was before and it must get more people in the room. The people will need art.

This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal. - Toni Morrison

#theatre #theatre culture #west end #broadway #elitism #opinion

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maiassensibleblog · 4 years

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Privilege and Power: The role of mixed-raced people in the anti-racism movement

Disclaimer: This is an opinion piece but please do call me out on any way I’ve messed up here.

During this article, I am using mixed to describe anyone of mixed raced heritage but mainly those of us who are Black/white mixed. I will be using the term Black to describe people whose heritage is not mixed with a white ethnicity. I don’t mean this to say that mixed people cannot identify as Black but to distinguish. I love my blackness and this is a nuanced conversation.

Some background for those of you who don’t know me. I was born and raised in London. I have a white British mum. My dad is a second generation immigrant from London, whose heritage is Guyanese (the heritage of this country is incredibly interesting so please have a google if that interests you). I’m the mixed white/Black Caribbean on the diversity forms. I have 3a hair and am very much brown in terms of skin colour. I am aware that mixed folk around the world identify very differently to mixed Brits (and particularly Londoners) so please allow me to sit in my context.

I used to feel a bit lost in times like this but I’ve read and listened a lot and feel like I know where I can stand here.

The understanding of our own privilege

A definition of colourism, for those of us who are unfamiliar: Colourism is prejudice or discrimination against individuals with a dark skin tone, typically among people of the same ethnic or racial group.

The most important thing that I think we can do is acknowledge our own privilege and do so openly and generously. I say the following assuming that you understand that we suffer at the hands of racism.

Firstly I think it is important to acknowledge privilege do because we are privileged and we can’t exactly claim to be anti-racist if we don’t openly understand the ways that we benefit from white supremacy. Mixed people exist on a spectrum, so this will vary hugely between people but we are all better off than our Black counterparts, whether that be through colourism, economically (one white parent isn’t exactly hurting us) or culturally. By culturally, I mean that we are often second or third generation plus immigrants and are therefore culturally ingrained in white culture (think access to education, use of language in a way that white people approve of, even the food we eat).

I don’t think this needs to come with guilt, I think recognising privilege is incredibly productive, should alleviate guilt and make us productive within a movement. It is powerful for us to openly show that we know we are privileged because it will be seen by white people. Understanding of our own privilege is the first step in combating the problem and we (ideally) need every single white people to do that. They will see us saying that we, people you probably see as Black, benefit from white supremacy too and will not stand for it anymore. That is powerful.

We have to make colourism our problem

Calling out our own privilege is also incredibly important because mixed people perpetuate colourism. It’s something I know I’ve been doing of years without having a clue that I was. When we call for diversity and settle for the light skin offering because we see ourselves in it, we aren't doing well enough. When we accept or congratulate brands because they’ve produced products adapted to light skin blackness, we are not doing well enough. When we do not use Black owned brands because we are served just fine by the white ones, we are not doing well enough. We all do these or similar things and we must be hyper aware of it.

We also suffer from colourism and for me that’s definitely manifested as internalised racism in the past. The fear of tanning, the brightening of photos, the weird acceptance of racist microaggressions by our friends. It’s bad for us, our identity and self-esteem but it’s worse for out Black counterparts because they only ever see the suffering from it. Colourism lives within us and its got to go. We need to mop that nonsense up, do the work, read all the books and fully engage with this movement.

Our existence in Black spaces

How heavily we should be visible in black spaces is a really loaded debate and rightfully so. Exploring it fully is beyond the scope of this and I do not feel well read about to provide any actual answers. What I will say is that the rights of Black folk will never be equal until all of us are represented. Should mixed people take the place of a darker black person? No. Never ever.

Us mixed folk may feel unrepresented in Black spaces but we are overrepresented or misrepresenting Black folk in white spaces. These are separate issues. I think Black visibility in white spaces is what matters to push this progress right now. We have to be aware of this and why we are being asked into a space. We cannot take a spot away from a Black person (by all means suggest that you’d love to be there to provide a mixed perspective because that conversation needs to happen and one person cannot speak for a diverse group).

This is an incredibly nuanced conversation that I really want Black folk to engage with us in. I’ve talked about this here. I think we need to be aware that mixed inclusion in black spaces is a different issue to racism. In-fighting about it needs to happen compassionately and not in front of white folk because we’re on the same side.

The use of our privilege

Once we’ve done the work to check our own privilege, we should be excited because we have an amazing opportunity. Those ways that we benefit from white supremacy and colourism must be harnessed. We need to be using our privilege to open up conversations in spaces that Black folk may never be invited into.

We are related to people who uphold white supremacy. For some people, your blood relation will not be enough to listen to you but for many it will be. I’m sure we’ve all experienced white silence and ostracising for calling out racism within the white side of our families (this is racism btw, tell them this constantly, they’ll either start to learn or at least you’ll ruin their day). It isn’t fun for us but we do find ourselves in those spaces with very little effort. Let's use those spaces until we’re sure that every person is anti-racist. Call out microaggressions, ruin Christmas dinner.

I also think we need to make sure we equip our white relatives who are allies with resources, an understanding of their importance and a constant push to be the voice for us when the racist relatives do not think we are listening. They are also doing important work and although it isn’t our responsibility to be thankful for it, letting someone you love know that you see them is energising for both of you.

Whichever parent of yours is white must be as divisive as you when you’re not there and if they’re not already doing that, explain why they must be. Remind them that silence is violence. Decent parents aren’t going to want to do that to their kids. Make your cousin's into anti-racist spies and have them call out nonsense when your racist aunts and uncles are most relaxed in their white bubble. This is how we can mobilise into their spaces and this is a unique position.

Another thing that I think we should appreciate about ourselves is that we are able to hold conversations with just enough white-washing that people who would not usually do so, are willing to engage. We also do this with very little effort due to our cultural privilege. Look after yourselves as we will be emotionally affected by having to do this (anger, frustration, hopelessness) but we do know how to do this. Believe me, I am terrible at not getting angry and just being frank but I also know that it isn’t helpful when they’ve not even acknowledged that they have white privilege. We’ve grown up around these people before we realised that they were actually racists so we know how they speak and what they like to hear.

I think the most important thing to say is to keep the momentum going. Be relentless. Let’s make it impossible for our white family to not see our blackness but harness the white privilege we benefit from to create real progress. We all have a place in this movement and we can harness magic.

#blm #black lives movement #black lives matter #mixed race #mixed #racisim #race #personal

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maiassensibleblog · 4 years

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Falling out of love with an old friend: How to be a Potter fan in 2020.

This is an opinion piece, views are my own. Although in this poorly referenced state, it is still better referenced than JKRs essay.

I have been a massive consumer of all things Harry Potter since my early teens (I’m now in my mid-twenties). From pretty early on, it become more than just about the books and films and I found fanfiction.net and tumblr to experience the potterverse in more depth. I’ve explored the world more and more as an adult and have had peaks and troughs of obsession with it but the universe has always been a part of the world in my head and my social life.

I had been saying for a while that JKR no longer had control of this universe. I’d been saying it because I was on her side, that I thought she couldn’t possibly be problematic- that Warner Bros. were controlling her words on sex abuse scandals and the lack of lgbt representation or that the queerbaiting in Cursed Child couldn’t be helped.

My opinions have changed. She is an unlearning, problematic white TERF.

Let me just prefix this with the fact that this article is not for people who haven’t decided whether JKR is problematic yet. I’m talking to the people who are trying to find their place in this world now. If you’re on the fence, here, here and here are some good starting points on why she’s such a problem now.

This isn’t new.

Her recent tweets have made me revisit the original stories with this new eye and I’ve noticed problematic themes at all levels. I am going to be forgiving of myself for not noticing these when I first read the stories aged 10. It isn’t as forgivable that we’ve seen who she’s been following and liking and ignored it. We’re adults, and those of us who have only reacted to this recently are reacting too late. There’s nothing we can do about this other than make up for lost time.

This time has shown me to be critical even if I love something and to be unrelenting in my position in the fight for people in situations of injustice, no matter the view of my fandom. I don’t think the growth that we’ve been through in such a short time can be unravelled from the lockdown or BLM movements and in time I’m sure we’ll be thankful for the time and fire we had in us.

Something that I think we need to reconsider is this: We always say that we’ve learnt to be good adults because we were brought up on love and acceptance in these books as children. But were we?

Harry Potter is centrist liberalism at its best.

What was fed to us was a “(trying to appear) progressive” TERF-mentality of realising the trans people exist but not wanting them in your bathroom kind of nonsense. I mean this about all kinds of issues; race, gender, class... This can be seen in a number of cases: The quite frankly offensive reveal of Dumbledore’s queerness, when she made it clear if somebody was black, so this type of “other” probably should’ve come up? She also wrote a whole chapter written by Rita Skeeter on him when she could’ve used any number of homophobic slurs to even give his queerness a whisper. But nope.

There’s also the anti-semitism of the goblins (Worth mentioning that she didn’t create this problem, but she certainly didn’t handle it with any transparency. This is not my lane but info here).

Not to mention the massive lack of Black and Asian characters at Hogwarts. We’re all very aware of the Cho Chang situation (a *mess*), the explosive-loving Irish guy, the reduction of descriptions of black characters to their hair or simply the word “black” (re-visit descriptions of Kingsley, it’s remarkably bigoted). I’ve written about Black Hermione before, and I stand by little 2016 me. But no matter how much I saw her as me as a kid, JKR didn’t write Hermione as Black. We would know about it. (Also, on race, I would’ve loved to see race and blood purity interact in the cannon. It’s something I’m exploring now in fic and I’m really flailing with it.)

I would finally like to discuss the use of house elves as actual slaves. I actually think this illustrates JK’s liberalism perfectly. The idea of house elves could be a wonderful, progressive exploration of the issues surrounding slavery to an audience of children and I’m still a bit mad at the missed opportunity. Harry is obviously distressed by the treatment of Dobby, a house elf that he gets to know, and deals with freeing him. However he doesn’t question the treatment of any other elves (wtf Harry? This is a bit like saying “I have a black friend”). When we reach book 5 and Hermione takes an interest in freeing the elves, she is shut down not only by her friends (she has to give up in order to keep Harry and Ron’s respect) but by the elves themselves. We were literally taught that enslaved beings want to be enslaved and not to bother helping them because they are happy as they don’t know any better and your friends will dislike you for trying. (Hermione being a super white feminist has been handled beautifully by others, so I would recommend looking into Hermione and S.P.E.W).

This all shows me that Harry Potter taught us to be accepting, but not to the point that would put us at a disadvantage or look outside our little worlds or properly consider marginalised folks worldviews.

In the cultural and historical context of these books, published from 1997 to 2007, there are some aspects of the books that are forgivable. But we no longer live in that context, nor did we when the final few books or Cursed Child/FB were published. Considering that by this time, Rowling would have been well-travelled, she could and should have been better.

Anyway my point of all this is to point out that this is not new and that we’re being very reactionary by only really discussing this now. Even though my friends and I have been screaming queer-baiting about CC for years and trying to make our little fandom world better, we can’t ignore the fact that this is too late and we must now spring into action.

Does all this mean that Harry Potter was bad for us?

Every child goes through developmental phases. One of these is moving from an egocentric worldview to understanding that things exists outside your world and then appreciating others perspectives- this is abstract thinking or Theory of Mind. There are a few theories of when this takes place, but the literature usually cites from around 6 months to 11 years. The level that the Harry Potter books ask us to look at the big wide world is wonderful for children. It must’ve done us a lot of good.

I think the refusal of JKR to improve the universe in the CC or FB universes is the problem. She is not exhibiting the abstract acceptance that is possible of her now-adult audience and couldn’t take the backlash at every bigoted move.

We aren’t good because of Harry Potter, I think we’re good because Harry Potter made us think as children and we didn’t stop learning and getting better. We outgrew it. You can even see this in our fanworks- so progressive and varied and creative.

Does that mean we should move away from Hogwarts for good?

The “read another book” crowds have been out in full force the past few weeks and I get it. We need to grow up. But I would argue that we have already in untangling the creator from the art. (And we do read other books, I promise).

I think that if you’re a Potter fan and look around at your friends, your partners, your clothes, your homes and see how entwined your life is with this universe, the mourning that we’re feeling shouldn’t be surprising. It probably shouldn’t be, but this universe is our culture and our relationships. And I use the word “universe” intentionally. Very few of our worlds are in any way linked to JKR as a person. She did lose control of her world years ago. There are swaths of examples of art being separated from the artist, but we cannot do this blindly as we have been for years.

I’ve really been searching for a way to navigate this in my own head. Just turning a blind eye and continuing as we are, however far removed we’ve become from JKR, would make us complicit and therefore transphobic. Is there any way for us to continue loving this world now?

We know that the original Hogwarts isn’t a safe place for us LGBT folk but the love, support and comfort I have felt from fandom for those things about me and the community that we’ve created doesn’t have anything to do with JKRs bigotry. The world that we’ve created around her universe is a safe place.

So what now?

I do not think that the attempts to rollback trans rights recently can be separated from the rise of TERF rhetoric from powerful people. Art controls culture therefore we must be responsible with our consumption of art. That being said, there are some things I have think will be necessary going forward:

1. I will listen to trans people on the Potterverse.

2. I will not give JKR any kind of platform.

3. I will not give her any money (intentionally).

We do not have to be big consumers anymore. We’ve all already got the books and the films. There will always be second hand merch hanging around to buy. It isn’t something we can ever completely buy out of- she is getting royalties from parts of the world we can’t even fathom but we have to be aware of what we are buying into and avoid it where possible.

4. I will write, read and amplify fanfiction and fanart that makes Hogwarts safe. I will write trans and gender non-conforming folk into my fics.

5. I will continue to unpack her universe as an adult who can think critically and trash the issues in there as publicly as my platform allows.

6. I will call out my friends when they’re not doing good enough and expect the same in return.

The question of how to proceed comes with how much of this discourse is acceptable to the people who are suffering from her rhetoric the most? And that is a question that we must answer personally. I think we need to be really reflective about it, and have constant conversations which amplify marginalised voices. That is how we will keep growing, and the only way we can keep our Hogwarts safe.

Some fantastic resources:

Mermaids: https://mermaidsuk.org.uk/

The Trevor Project: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/

Gendered Intelligence: http://genderedintelligence.co.uk/

Beautiful dissection of her essay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paVH1PdOfwc&t=46s

Older video on the tweets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USoIAWVkCvk&t

General discussion on separating the art from the artist: https://www.vox.com/culture/2018/10/11/17933686/me-too-separating-artist-art-johnny-depp-woody-allen-michael-jackson-louis-ck

On JKR and seperating the art from the artist: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2019/12/19/jk-rowling-and-the-separation-of-the-art-from-the-artist/#4bfd8e5fe0e0

On JKR and separating the art from the artist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdtdbnW2IDw

#Harry Potter #TERF #jkrolwing #jkr #potter #Potterverse #potterhead #fandom #feminism #lgbt

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maiassensibleblog · 5 years

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Not all that we are: On the crazy fangirl trope and how it harms girls. (Abridged)

This is an abridged version of the full essay that I wrote here (please also see that version for the bibliography). The full essay is long and I don’t expect anyone who isn’t in fandom to read it (although if you have 10 minutes you should read that version, because it is so much more comprehensive than this). This takes out a lot of the quotes but provides an overview to those non-fandom folk and objects of fangirls that I so desperately want to read this.

__________________________________________________________

I asked for experiences where people had been made to feel less than because they were a fangirl.

I’ve realised that I am respected as an equal person in most situations except in fandom. Something about the expectation of me as a blushing, out of control fan makes me lose my confidence as a normal person and it is hard to break that expectation down. I feel like I am starting from below them and I have to make a massive effort to act intelligent and normal.

I’m referring to grown-up fangirls, where most people would agree they are not doing anything wrong, or anything which is actual stalking.

I’d like to argue that our treatment of fangirls mirrors societies treatment of girls and young women as stupid, complicated people who are obsessed with men because we want them sexually or romantically.

On the need for the barrier

There is often a physical and metaphorical barrier between fans and “talent”. I believe that this barrier needs to be there because it keeps everyone safe.

I want to make it clear that we understand that the “talent” are not our friends (not that the possibility for us to be isn’t there) and that we should behave appropriately at all times.

I think that we need to express ourselves more on both sides, but the issue isn’t all the communication between actors and fans and is more public perception of fangirls. This perception is massively encouraged by parents, friends and management who agree with the crazy fangirl trope.

On the “crazy fangirl” trope

“When I told my family that I’ll see [a play] again when I’m [on holiday] my dad asked me “why would you see a play that you already saw one time?” And wasn’t really open to hear an answer, and my brother just started joking about how I need a psychiatrist. Nothing too hostile, but annoying.”

Every single one of us has been called a crazy fangirl at some point. In my research, I have come across the term “Celebrity Worship Syndrome (CWS)”, where researchers have attempted to rationalise what is essentially fangirling. Research suggests that interest in celebrity culture is not uncommon and generally people with this interest do not exhibit CWS (1). I think it is important to distinguish between fangirling and psychosis.

It is natural to feel like you know somebody that you are a fan of, but this should come with the self-awareness that you don’t actually know them, and in the majority of cases we are aware of this and fine with it. Somebody who feels a deep, real connection with somebody they don’t know and acts upon this by stalking or other inappropriate behaviours is experiencing some kind of pathology, which should be taken seriously and not dealt with by name calling.

When somebody calls me crazy, it is mostly annoying because I instantly know that this person has no interest in understanding why I love what I do. It instantly belittles my interest and is the reason why activities associated with fandom are seen as having less value as other activities.

On sexism and the double standard of being a girl

“There’s definitely a difference between how fans of different things are treated. People accept someone buying a really expensive season ticket for football much more than they do if people want to spend all their money in other ways. Football is very much a fandom, but it’s historically been more acceptable socially than people who go to conventions for instance.”

Why do people seem to have different expectations of people in different fandoms?

Put simply, fandoms which are traditionally female tend to be more discredited than traditionally male fandoms.

A good example of this is the way female sports pundits are discredited or the way women are treated in traditionally male fandoms like gaming (3,4).

“I play MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games) and I found if it’s clear that you’re female you get people trying to kick you out more frequently than if you’re equally shit but playing as a male presenting character. Actually, [my boyfriend] has got two characters in the MMO we play, and he’s a commander on both characters - which basically means he’s highlighted as a leader. One character is female and the other is male. He usually only uses the male as a commander because fewer players follow his orders when they think he is female.”

Within gaming, the sexism is blatant, but this sexism extends to more female-dominated fandoms, such as movies.

“I actually only post selfies on Facebook if it’s someone from a TV Show/Film I know that men like. I’d never dream of posting stage door selfies with theatre actors there!”

Even in spaces filled with women, we are still controlled in our expression in our love for these things. Just as men should be able to post a picture of themselves at a football game every weekend for a year, women should be able to post selfies with a Disney star.

On the sexualisation of fangirls

So why are we treated this way as women? Several people brought up the idea that fangirls are seen to only be interested in an actor because they fancy them.

“I don’t like the assumption that if we are a fan of young males, we must fancy them.”

Unless we explicitly say so, it isn’t right to assume that a fangirl fancies anyone. And even if they do, we’re all consensual adults and we are not going to jump them. It isn’t any different from us fancying a guy in a bar and behaving in the same way we would then. To be honest, we’re less likely to come onto someone we’re a fan of because the confidence that is required to see ourselves as equal.

In a world where girls are explicitly shamed when they are sexual, it is ridiculous that it is assumed that we are after sex. I think it is quite arrogant of anyone to assume that a girl fancies someone because they are a fan of their work. There’s nothing more upsetting than someone thinking that I like a character just because it is played by a good looking man. Maybe this is true, maybe it isn’t, but neither should be assumed and neither is more valid than the other.

It is also frustrating and dangerous that some male celebrities are taught to think that fangirls are easy because they aren’t getting any elsewhere. The worst consequence of this is when a man takes advantage of a fan and sleeps with them, which is quite common and is often rape because that’s not an equal balance of power and in many cases that girl cannot give informed consent. Equally, if a girl wants to sleep with someone and is mature enough to give consent

What can you do if you’re the “talent”?

I hope that I’ve made it very clear that I don’t think celebrities are required to be “good” with fans. Actors do not ever have to come to stage door or sign at premieres as that is not part of their job. However, I would like to ask you to be aware that you are in a position of power and to try to treat fangirls as equal people.

I asked people what they would say to the objects of their fangirling that may help break down the barrier of communication, and here’s a few replies I got:

“I’m a fan as it is one thing that brings me happiness. But I could very easily survive and thrive if I didn’t happen to have that one thing, it’s not all I am.”

“Sometimes I worry that actors almost pity us being there all the time like that’s all we have.”

If you care about the fans, which I know so many of you do, all we want is to be seen as an individual person with a life because it can be quite a dehumanising experience. In situations where you can’t actually have a conversation (eg. premieres or signings) simply asking our names or giving individual eye contact would mean the world. If you have time to have a conversation, then let’s have a two-way conversation, nothing shows that you care more and it means everything.

So, what can you do if you’re not involved fandom?

“Everyone in the world has a passion. It’s other people who decide for you whether your passion is a passion or an obsession, purely based on their own prejudices.”

Being a fangirl just means loving something intensely. Simply because we tend to be young women, we should not be invalidated or subjected to name calling.

“As much as other people can’t understand my being obsessed with things, I genuinely can’t understand the reverse? I don’t remember there ever being a time in my life I wasn’t obsessed with something.”

Ultimately, you should be hiring fangirls as your talent representatives, your presenters, your social media managers and your MI5 agents. Fangirls have obsessive, meticulous attention to detail, are excellent at research and have brilliant communication and writing skills. But we can’t put any of this on our CV’s because society has taught us that fandom is a strange, scary place full of psychotic teenage girls with no self control. But believe me when I say that you don’t know what self control is until the object of your obsession is standing in front of you for the first time and you have to say something to sum up what they mean to you in 10 seconds without totally freaking them out.

Mostly, our identities as fangirls should not be all that we are, but we shouldn’t have to hide that part of ourselves to be taken seriously.

Thank you so much to everyone who helped me write this! Your experiences and conversations have been so interesting, and I hope I’ve done you justice.

Again, if you enjoyed it, please do check out the full version here!

#fangirls #essay #thoughts #fandom #fangirling #celebrity #Celebrity Worship

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maiassensibleblog · 5 years

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A letter to 2016 me about fandom. What I’ve learnt from this one that you can take the the next.

A letter to October 2016 me,

The Harry Potter and the Cursed Child fandom is so unique. This is because being about to watch the show again and again is a privilege that few are afforded with, so its small. And thanks to stage door, the actors know who you are, and you are going to able to build a relationship with them. Ok, with some people this will be more of a rapport, but they still don’t just glaze non-focused eyes over you like every other fandom because you are about to become very self-confident and throw love at them.

This absolute blessing has taught me a few things about fandom:

1. Actors are human beings. Fangirls are human beings. You’re equal and anyone who doesn’t treat you like that, doesn’t deserve your attention. And you can talk to them exactly the same as we would any other acquaintance. This realisation is going to quell your anxiety.

2. You’re allowed to have an opinion. You are always going to get hate for disliking an interpretation within fandom but you’re allowed to critique actors the same way you’re allowed to critique doctors, footballers, chefs, writers and any other professional. You know it’s rude to tag them in a thread of hate, or personally hate on them but suggesting that you prefer another interpretation, or that they were having an off day on a public forum is fair game. As a fangirl, you’re as qualified as critics. As in, nobody has any qualifications.

3. Actors are really nice. They’re not annoyed at you. Don’t let anyone tell you that they are. They will tell you if they are, and so far nobody has.

4. The secret to a good stage door is having a two-way conversation. Be yourself. Be weird. The funniest stuff always happens when you let the panic stricken fangirling subside into owning it.

5. Everyone’s opinions are equal and although they can sometimes be incredibly personal, they’re just opinions. Don’t take them as a personal attack on your fave and own your truth. Keep referencing. Fandom policing doesn’t do anything except make you look like you think you’re better than people, and as fandom is already about feeling less-then, don’t do that. You’re making yourself look bad. Unless someone is being an arsehole about someone else in fandom for no reason. Then police away, girl.

6. Debates are good, and are an amazing way to learn more about a character. Debates can also be had with the cast. You are allowed to challenge them (possibly not the first time you meet them, but you know, social cues), they have also thought about their characters a lot. But please refer to point 5.

7. It’s incredibly easy to respect personal boundaries in public places and saying hello isn’t prohibited if you have a good relationship.

8. You’re allowed to call out unfairness. If you fly with an airline 100 times, they give you points leading to free flights. Restaurants give you free food. If this production can’t even respect you as a person who isn’t going to jump their “talent’, call them out constantly. We are worth so much more than this production has ever given us and it teaches you how to fight.

9. Its ok to dislike people in fandom, just ignore them as much as possible and mute the mutuals you have. Subtweeting is dumb, which you’re not, it will stab you back and be really harmful. Just bitch on a groupchat. You’re going to mess up but the personal growth is going to be worth it.

10. Fandom friendships are as valid as friendships formed elsewhere and some of them will be lifetime friends and fight for you through everything. Some will only want to be your friend because you can give them something fandom-wise- they’re not your friends, and they will not fight for you, but you will have a great time with them, and that’s ok. You’ll meet people in fandom that you exist better with out of fandom- you’ll get better at recognising these people soon.

11. Your relationship with the cast will be so much more normal once they’ve left and you’re just sitting in a bar talking about theatre. Cast changes are a good thing.

Love,

2019 me.

FYI: I wrote about the crazy fangirl trope before, and I’m not going to repeat myself, but please read it (its a long one but its some of my best work https://maiassensibleblog.tumblr.com/post/176956675323/not-all-that-we-are-on-the-crazy-fangirl-trope ).

#Fandom #letter to self #personal growth

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maiassensibleblog · 6 years

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Who do you think is worthy of being a Christian? On being gay in the evangelical movement.

I’ve been writing this for two years. It’s still not flawless but as it’s pride month and we’re already calling out the Church for racism anyway, I thought I’d further shake the boat with my ideas on why a lot of Christianity is bad.

If at any point you think this is about you, it’s probably about you. Those of you who it isn’t about will have no reason to feel called out or guilty.

Disclaimers: I am a cis, middle-of-the-spectrum woman, I do not speak for all non cishets. I am not white, so I exist at that intersection too (which is a whole different issue that needs its own space). Also this is my opinion. The intention of this isn’t to sound aggressive (I’m certain I sound aggressive at times but I’m just being blunt), it isn’t asking for apologies or pitty on any level. This isn’t about me. It also isn’t about why Christians can be gay or why you should be nicer to gay people, those resources exist. I do not offer solutions, only a wake-up call.

So hello! I’m Maia, I’m a cisgendered woman and I identify as pansexual. For me, pansexual means that I don’t experience any difference in my sexual attraction towards any gender. I’m more romantically attracted to femininity and I honestly don’t think I could date anyone who is a cisgendered man (but this is a whole different essay).

So that's an introduction to my queerness, but in terms of religion I recently came across the term exvangelical. I grew up agnostic, but found my faith aged 15/16 after attending an evangelical summer camp. I don’t want any of this to diminish my experience of faith that I got at those camps, because it was life affirming and wonderful. From the ages of 16 to about 20 I wholeheartedly believed in the messages that I had been taught there. I even went back to camp as an assistant leader for 2 years while doing my undergraduate degree because I was so grateful for what they had done for me I wanted to pay it forward.

The form of Christianity I was taught was pretty fundamentalist. Looking back, I don’t agree with the attitude of listening to what a leader has to say about something and not reading about it yourself or really questioning it. In my mind, my belief in God was evidence based- it was a personal experience that I wouldn't ever deny today, but my belief in God has never been the problem for me.

Situational teaching

My problem is the way the Bible is taught by those people and the way that we’re taught to sit, smile, nod and believe. I understand that Christians believe that leaders are appointed by God, and that we should listen to them and that’s all well and good, but those leaders are from one group of (mostly) white, British, (at least pretending to be) straight people.

Other leaders come from families who have had 2 children come out as gay, and have had to adjust their theology.

Other leaders come from areas of the world where their religion is constantly contested and have had to adjust their theology.

The teaching that your leader is providing is cultural and situational, because that’s how people work and I think it is incredibly arrogant to believe that anything they are telling you is somehow the fact that they frame it all to be. It’s all opinion and you’re not allowed to question it. That is really, really wrong and dangerous.

I think this form of teaching is harmful. I never fit into this group even when I truly believed everything I was being taught, when I held it so close to my heart that it gave me so much comfort. And that was upsetting then. Now, I absolutely understand why: I questioned them even then. I’m sorry to the leaders I exhausted with my views on women, but my life, views and identity are equally important to a man, and I will not be squashed into your limited view of gender. I still don’t understand why everyone was so afraid of women and their sexuality (I mean I do, it’s about control). I still don’t understand why we talked about gay people more than the temptation to lie or cheat or any other sin that God apparently holds in the same regard. In a world that is so full of hypocrisy, the idea of someone questioning things is terrifying to leaders. I wonder why I was so surprised that they were fine with me falling off.

Evangelism is over party

In my last year at camp, a few days in, I knew that would be my last. I showed up with my life at home nothing like those leaders would agree with. I was in a relationship with my first girlfriend, I was friends with a wide spectrum of cultures, religions and sexualities and I didn’t question any of their validities. I went to church, got involved with youth work and did my bit to do good work there. I think by that point my relationship with God had developed into something more personal, and I had been questioning and reading for myself for a few years, able to understand my theology in a way that I felt worthy of being here.

At camp, I felt so awful that I was endorsing that teaching. According to Kinsey, at least 1:10 people are gay. I know we can never know exact numbers but I knew that a lot of people were not straight and couldn’t help what was being taught. And there were hundreds of teenagers at that camp being taught that they were wrong if they felt that way*. (Ironically, the first time I had a conscious thought that I was definitely not straight was while I was being told that I shouldn’t be at camp. Because I didn’t go home to the same teaching, this didn’t mess me up, but those poor kids who do go home to that).

*I ask for you to cut me some slack for being compliant. Until that year I had been somewhat brainwashed into their teachings and in my final year being outed as a feminist lesbian wouldn’t have been good for my mental health.

By my last year, I had found groups of gay Christians at home. I had found people that were living their truth as a queer person and as someone who loved God and I knew that it was really easy and really intellectually true. I wanted to scream about it but I wasn’t brave enough yet and I knew that I was outnumbered by hundreds of people who believed that they could quote the old testaments feeling about male gang rape (Sodom and Gomorrah), which is obviously wrong, as somehow justifying gay people who wanted to live in a beautiful, Christian relationship with their same sex partner. I was ready to be done. i knew that staying in this world didn’t hold anything other than a fight in it.

I was so tired of it. So I left. I stopped going to Church, I stopped praying and I moved on with my life.

They don’t really care about us

Something that I’ve found absolutely perplexing is that Christians believe that anybody who is not a Christian when they die will go to hell forever. I know that we joke about hell being some sort of amazing sinner party, but they do not believe this. Their hell is a lonely torture chamber, forever (honestly think The Bad Place). Evangelicals claim that they are doing all that they can to keep people out of hell. Spoiler alert, they will only do that if you fit their idea of a good person.

The first time I realised this, I was shocked. One of the people who used to go to a friends church all the time haven’t been for a few months and somebody who knew them said that they’d “fallen off” or something similar. Essentially that they weren’t a Christian anymore. The responses from the people around me (who now thought she would be burned for eternity) were shrugs and “oh what a shames” but no jumping to action to save them. What? Actually what?

And now to me. I’d like to prefix this with the fact that I do not want nor have ever wanted to be saved, I am happy and at too many intersections for you. When I dropped of the Christian face of the Earth, not a single person was there to catch me. I know I’m a queer, black feminist so you’d have your work cut out but the silence was deafening. I can only assume that those Christians I was friends with didn’t think that somebody like me deserved to be in their heaven. If you cannot hold on to your friends when they fall off or grow into a different version of themselves, you really need to look at the issues of your theology because nobody is going to leave the comfort of belief for fun. And I know that you all think you’re immune from judgement (because Jesus) but you aren’t doing the one thing you think you’re called to do (helping God love everyone). God is watching you in your glass houses.

Some people are too far gone, but check in on your friends who have fallen off. They might not want saving but they might still want you as a friend. I know I am not the only one who has been pushed aside by an entire group of Christians for being a bit different. Please enlighten me as to why your Christianity is so weak that you tear yourselves away from everyone who will question you?

Only one type of Christian

This all comes back to my original point. Who do you think is worthy of being a Christian?

No, you don’t think it’s everyone. Think again at all the people you’ve let fall off. Look again at your friends. Because they are all one type of people.

Who do you think is worthy of being a Christian?

The majority of people that you are trying to reach are not like you and if you preach a theology that only fits white, cis, straight, middle-classed people, (I’m not even going to get onto the role of women here), you are isolating most of the world. If your main purpose in life is to be a good witness (I say if, but that is your main purpose as an evangelical), you are not doing that. At no point in my religious journey have I questioned whether God exists to some extent. I think I will believe that they do in some capacity for the rest of my life. God is not the problem, the people are.

I’ve lost the will to find a Christian community that works for me. I’m happy to isolate myself from (most, not all of, some of them are wonderful) my old school/camp friends because I feel like their influence in my life is damaging. I mean the anxiety of pretending is not worth it. They don’t get to tell me that their way of doing Christianity is the only way. Because that's not right even within this country, let alone the world.

Your religion is dying. You know why. Wake up and do better.

Dear queer babies

To anyone reading this who is in whatever kind of relationship with a Christian God and is struggling with their sexuality: do not be afraid that you are gay. Don’t let them “same-sex attraction” you. Being gay is wonderful and you are not alone. You are worthy of being in love, you do not have to be single forever in order to live a life pleasing to your God, but you will lose people through it. They are not worth it if they don’t want to read and learn and grow with you. You shouldn’t be the only one trying to be more progressive. There are communities for you and feel free to send me a message for more details (they’re safe spaces which I do not feel like I should share in this post). And feel free to send me a message if you just want a chat but pre-warning that I might convince you to leave the church and take up yoga instead.

Dear Evangelicals

To anyone reading this who thinks that I’m going to hell: that’s ok if it works for you. As long as you keep that to yourself then you’re only hurting yourself. But your way is not the only way. It is very easy for someone who is able to experience love and companionship and intimacy with another human in a way that works for evangelicals to tell people who don’t fit that they are wrong. But everyone deserves to feel that way with another person. Practice what you preach and love unconditionally if you can’t bring yourself to grow and get with the times. But people are gay. They popped out of the womb gay. And they can live a beautiful life whilst loving who they are meant to love if you let them.

I leave you with this: Who do you think is worthy of being a Christian? If your answer is not everyone, go and do the work to make sure that it is. And if your answer is everyone but your actions show this is not the case, go and do the work and make sure it is. Do better. And if you cannot do better in your Christianity, just be a better friend.

Some videos on why gay Christians can exist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWvLJNaVgrI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXL2qtX7aAc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CmZIakQv6Y

Other resources, mostly for baby queers:

God and the Gay Christian, Matthew Vines

One Body, One Faith: https://www.onebodyonefaith.org.uk/

Inclusive Church (an excellent resource to find your tribe) https://www.inclusive-church.org/links

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/21/gay-christian-church-lgbt

#lgbt #religion #christian #christianity #chruch #gay #evangelism #evangelical #evangelical church #exvangelical

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maiassensibleblog · 6 years

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15 things I wish I’d known before I came out

I’ve been out to some extent for 5 years now, and I’ve learnt a lot.

You are going to be coming out for the rest of your life but it gets easier.

People will always assume you’re straight, and it will always be awkward when you tell them otherwise.

Most people will genuinely not mind, give people more credit.

Some people will mind, won't tell you but slowly cut you out of your life. You’ll find out miles down the road. It sucks but you’re better off without them.

It’s ok to come out to different people at your own rate, it isn’t up to anyone else to decide when you come out.

Men that you turn down stating “that’s flattering but I’m gay” will have an instant defensive mechanism. Some of them will be offensive, some of them will realise they’re dicks and say sorry. Cut them that slack and use it as an educational opportunity.

Women who understand how it works will never think you’re going to jump them and you’ll get a lot of space to flirt with them in a fun way without it being taken too seriously. It’s excellent and you should take full advantage of the enjoyable activity.

Cis men will not take your relationships with women seriously.

You will be catcalled for holding your girlfriends hand and kissing in public. It will never stop being upsetting but that will fuel your activism.

Having a deep emotional connection with another woman is actual magic.

Give people a little time after you come out, but no longer than you can take. It’s their responsibility to grow up and deal with it.

The LGBT community can be amazing but you will also face discrimination within it. Take time to find your people.

Look after baby gays. They need you.

Listen to older gays. They have your back.

Be as out as possible at all times. You never know when you’re helping someone who can hear you.

#coming out #lgbt #pansexual #gay

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maiassensibleblog · 6 years

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Not all that we are: On the crazy fangirl trope and how it harms girls.

A few weeks ago, I sent out a tweet asking for peoples experiences where people had been made to feel less than because they were a fangirl.

I decided to delve into this topic because I’ve recently realised that I am respected as an equal person in most situations except in fandom. In the majority of cases, if I bump into an actor that knows me from fandom in a neutral zone I feel like I am starting from below them and I have to make a massive effort to act intelligent and normal. This isn’t the case with everyone but I always get that shock if they recognise me as a human being whose life exists beyond fandom. I don’t think that any of these people mean to make me feel that way and that it is a structural thing. Something about the expectation of me as a blushing, out of control fan makes me lose my confidence as a normal person and it is hard to break that expectation down.

I wanted to get a scope of how others felt they were treated, so here are some quotes from people from different fandoms, alongside some referenced commentary and opinion from me. (I’ve decided to take names out completely, as well as specific contexts if it isn’t relevant as enough people wanted to keep it anonymous!).

The general landscape of fandom

For the purpose of this essay, I am going to use these definitions:

fangirl noun a female fan, especially one who is obsessive about comics, film, music, or science fiction. (dictionary.com)

fandom noun the fans of a particular person, team, fictional series, etc. regarded collectively as a community or subculture. (dictionary.com)

I’m referring to grown-up fangirls, where most people would agree they are not doing anything wrong. I think this applies to the majority of fangirls, but I wanted to make very clear that I’m not talking about people to hire taxis to follow people, or anything else which is actual stalking.

In general, I’d like to argue that our treatment of fangirls mirrors societies treatment of girls and young women as stupid, complicated people who are obsessed with men because we want them sexually or romantically. As fangirls we experience sexism, belittling and confusion from onlookers pretty much every time we bring up our latest obsession.

“I’ve been mocked and belittled by family members including my parents for my love of bands. They told me I was wasting time and money for people who’d never know I even exist, that I was wasting energy and getting too involved in them.”

On the need for the barrier

There is often a physical and metaphorical barrier between fans and “talent” (I hate the use of the word talent but its a useful umbrella term). I believe that this barrier needs to be there because it keeps everyone safe.

“I'm a big believer in the "fourth wall" between fans and celebrities; we create stuff for each other, and our culture develops alongside celebrities. But we still shouldn't push it on them unless we are 100% certain it will be ok.”

I want to make it clear that we understand that the “talent” are not our friends (not that the possibility for us to be isn’t there) and that we should be behave appropriately at all times. In my head, my relationship with these people is mutually beneficial: (talking about actors) they bring to life characters that I love, I pay them to do so and proceed to support them in the future. And all that should be done with respect and an attitude of safety first.

“I’ve been to a lot of premieres and the ‘celebrities’ are usually cool - the people surrounding them, however, are the issue. I suppose their team have to expect the worst in fans as precaution. I’ve always felt like there’s a difference between protecting the talent and being mocking which happens a lot!“

I think that we need to express ourselves more on both sides, but the issue isn't really the communication between actors and fans and is more public perception of fangirls. This perception is massively encouraged by parents, friends and management who agree with the crazy fangirl trope.

“My issue with big events like premieres is that they use the fans, but they don’t want the fans to have a good time. Publicists only want the noise fans make for cameras, once that’s done and they get one photo op of an actor signing someone they want to whisk them away, even if the actor wants to stay and spend time with fans.”

On the “crazy fangirl” trope

“When I told my family that I'll see [a play] again when I'm [on holiday] my dad asked me "why would you see a play that you already saw one time?" And wasn't really open to hear an answer, and my brother just started joking about how I need a psychiatrist. Nothing too hostile, but annoying.”

Every single one of us has been called a crazy fangirl at some point. In my research, I have come across the term “Celebrity Worship Syndrome (CWS)”, where researchers have attempted to rationalise what is essentially fangirling. Research suggests that interest in celebrity culture is not uncommon and generally people with this interest do not exhibit CWS (1). I’d like to argue that the word “worship” is misleading and unfair to most of us. However, I do think it is important to distinguish between fangirling and psychosis.

It is natural to feel like you know somebody that you are obsessed with, but this should come with the self-awareness that you don’t actually know them, and in the majority of cases we are aware of this and fine with it. Somebody who feels a deep, real connection with somebody they don't know and acts upon this by stalking or other inappropriate behaviours is experiencing some kind of pathology, which should be taken seriously and not dealt with by name calling.

According to the researchers who defined CWS, celebrity worship can be divided into three categories (2):

“1. The entertainment-social dimension relates to attitudes where individuals are attracted to a celebrity because of their perceived ability to entertain and to become a social focus of conversation with likeminded others.

2. The intense-personal dimension relates to individuals that have intensive and compulsive feelings about a celebrity.

3. The borderline-pathological dimension relates to individuals who display uncontrollable behaviors and fantasies relating to a celebrity.”

We should all be aware of overgeneralising groups of people into the worse case scenario. Fangirls exist on a scale of casual to intense but most of us aren’t pathological, and the use of that language is harmful to everyone, including those who may exhibit pathological CWS as it suggests that it isn’t a legitimate, unusual problem.

“I’m known as the girl with weird music taste and obsessions. My stepdad ALWAYS goes “i bet no one else knows them, they should pay you to go” when I go to gig. My bosses call me weird all the time bc i’m a fangirl.”

If incidents of fangirls being really inappropriate actually took place on a regular basis, we would hear about them because there’s nothing the media enjoys more than as excuse to demonise young women. But we don’t hear about it because it pretty much doesn’t happen.

On sexism and the double standard of being a girl

“There's definitely a difference between how fans of different things are treated. People accept someone buying a really expensive season ticket for football much more than they do if people want to spend all their money in other ways. Football is very much a fandom, but its historically been more acceptable socially than people who go to conventions for instance.”

Why do people seem to have different expectations of people in different fandoms?

“Twilight is a teenage girl thing so everyone shits on it. Same for the actresses made in Disney, they are so discredited it's a bit ridiculous.”

Put simply, fandoms which are traditionally female tend to be more discredited than traditionally male fandoms.

A good example of this is the way female sports pundits are discredited or the way women are treated in traditionally male fandoms like gaming (3,4).

“I like video games, I have since I was a kid so I think I have as much experience as guys that like video games. It was only cool to like certain games that are traditionally seen as male. Traditionally male games were automatically assumed to be harder, and better, so more worthy of their time than other games.”

“I play MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games) and I found if it's clear that you're female you get people trying to kick you out more frequently than if you're equally shit but playing as a male presenting character. Actually, [my boyfriend] has got two characters in the MMO we play, and he's a commander on both characters - which basically means he's highlighted as a leader. One character is female and the other is male. He usually only uses the male as a commander because fewer players follow his orders when they think he is female.”

Within gaming, the sexism is blatant. I think that part of this stems from the fact that girls who play video games are not required to dress up, look pretty or act “like a girl” in any way. A girl could easily hide behind her gender, but why should she do so to be taken seriously? Another illustration of sexism in gaming is the sexualisation of female characters within the game. There is absolutely no reason for female characters to have their boobs out (or have massive, disproportional boobs) except for the fact that the character is designed for the male gaze. This not only isolates women who may feel uncomfortable about this, but encourages sexist expectations of women.

This sexism extends to more female-dominated fandoms, such as movies.

“I actually only post selfies on Facebook if it's someone from a TV Show/Film I know that men like. I'd never dream of posting stage door selfies with theatre actors there!”

Even in spaces filled with women, we are still controlled in our expression in our love for these things. Just as as men should be able to post a picture of themselves at a football game every weekend for a year, women should be able to post selfies with a Disney star. These should elicit the same response of being happy that they are happy, not quite understanding why but minding our own business.

On fandom in the workplace

Not only does this sexism in fandom hurt women personally, it hurts our careers.

“I mean you can argue this about fanfiction not being considered serious. Why isn't it serious writing? Because teenage girls write it. I spent fifteen years of my life devoting myself to a creative hobby I can't mention on a CV.”

Fandom is not seen as a productive creative hobby, yet the skills that we develop being in fandom are so transferable to many areas of work. Women are already starting from below men, but they have to leave important skills out of applications. If a woman mentions running a fan account, for example, an employer would assume they are time-wasting and crazy (one example of discouragement can be seen here (5)).

“I think people shame something if its a fandom that is mostly fangirls cause therefore if men don't like it so it's not serious.”

It is important to point out that this isn’t just a fandom vs. non fandom problem. We do it to each other. I know I am guilty of judging people in other (more teenage girl orientated) fandoms in the past and I constantly have to watch myself.

On the sexualisation of fangirls

So why are we treated this way as women? Several people brought up the idea that fangirls are seen to only be interested in an actor because they fancy them.

“Actors/male celebrities see guy fans as a cool dude they can hang out with, they see fangirls as someone they can sleep with or irrelevant smitten girls.”

“I don't like the assumption that if we are a fan of young males, we must fancy them.”

In a world where girls are explicitly shamed when they are sexual, it is ridiculous that it is assumed that we are after sex. On several occasions I have said that fandom is a space for girls to safely express their sexuality, but this is usually about characters, or being allowed to write smutty fanfiction, or having online conversations people they know just enough, but not too much, to talk about masturbation for the first time ever. And this is amazing.

I think it is quite arrogant of anyone to assume that a girl fancies someone because they are a fan of their work. There’s nothing more upsetting than someone thinking that I like a character just because it is played by a good looking man. Maybe this is true, maybe it isn’t, but neither should be assumed and neither is more valid than the other. Also, heteronormativity is harmful.

It is also frustrating and dangerous that some male celebrities are taught to think that fangirls are easy because they aren’t getting any elsewhere (which is not true at all). The worst consequence of this is when a man takes advantage of a fan and sleeps with them, which is quite common and is often rape because that’s not an equal balance of power and in many cases that girl cannot give informed consent. Equally, if a girl wants to sleep with someone and is mature enough to give consent clearly and logically, they should not be shamed by the fandom for doing so.

Basically, as women particularly, we need to be aware of when we are allowing society to sexualise us or shame us for being sexual. Both are nonsense yet we are constantly doing it to ourselves because of the way society frames fangirls and we have to lead to try to change something.

On inter-fandom shaming and self-awareness

I think the worst part of the crazy fangirl trope is that it is so ingrained that we begin doing it to each other.

“And the number of times [my friend] has been me feel awful for being obsessed with [a franchise] when she is actually worse than me when it comes to [a] show.”

I’m sure it’s obvious how ridiculous this is, yet we are all guilty of it. We need to work on this because we’re encouraging the crazy trope and going against each other. I think we all agree that we should ultimately behave with respect and I firmly believe that most of us do. Often, we can be overexcited, loud and obnoxious but we should not label each other psychotic and crazy.

“No fangirl is gonna be like "I know I'm being a dick but I don't care”. You’re always like "I'm not THAT bad”. That's why every time we get shit in [my current] fandom I force myself to take a massive step back to assess the situation.”

If anyone understands, it is going to be people from other fandoms, so lets prop each other up.

What can you do if you’re the “talent”?

I asked people what they would say to the objects of their fangirling that may help break down the barrier of communication, and here’s a few replies I got:

“If I really was the 'obsessed' fan that people paint us to be, then I would have dropped my degree and moved to London and would have been at the show or stage door everyday. But none of us do that, because we see the show for our own enjoyment, not just for the actors.”

“I’m a fan as it is one thing that brings me happiness. But I could very easily survive and thrive if I didn’t happen to have that one thing, it’s not all I am.”

“I want to tell them that I understand when they get creeped out by the fans who ARE like that. It can be hard for celebrities to distinguish because they don’t know us and there can be hundreds and thousands of people who track celebrities so how can they know which is which? We know we are well rounded, respectful fans. But they don’t.”

“Sometimes I worry that actors almost pity us being there all the time like that’s all we have.”

Nothing means more to me than when I’m chatting to someone about their performance and they ask me how my week has been or what I do for a living. That tiny gesture that shows that you know I’m a person raises my self-belief as an equal so much. It’s ok for one actor to want to have a relationship with us and another to not care at all, but if you humour us for half a second, you could make our week.

When I’ve said that I have a pretty good job in the past, I’ve had actors do a proper double-take. I don’t think that I come across as any less intelligent in fandom situations as I do generally so I really think that comes down to assumptions of fangirls.

If you care about the fans, which I know so many of you do, all we want is to be seen as an individual person with a life because it can be quite a dehumanising experience. In situations where you can’t actually have a conversation (eg. premieres or signings) simply asking our names or giving individual eye contact would mean the world. If you want to be really lovely, call your publicist out if they’re being an arsehole, but that split second of eye contact would be more than enough. If you have time to have a conversation, then lets have a two-way conversation, nothing shows that you care more and it means everything.

So, what can you do if you’re not involved fandom?

“Everyone in the world has a passion. It's other people who decide for you whether your passion is a passion or an obsession, purely based on their own prejudices.”

Being a fangirl just means loving something intensely. Simply because we tend to be young women, we should not be invalidated or subjected to name calling.

“As much as other people can't understand my being obsessed with things, I genuinely can't understand the reverse? I don't remember there ever being a time in my life I wasn't obsessed with something.”

I hope I’ve convinced you that we are not crazy and that being really into something doesn’t mean we are psychotic. We aren’t stalkers and in most cases we just truly love and respect a person/thing.

Mostly, our identities as fangirls should not be all that we are, but we shouldn’t have to hide that part of ourselves to be taken seriously.

Thank you so much to everyone who helped me write this! Your experiences and conversations have been so interesting, and I hope I’ve done you justice.

Bibliography:

A note on research bias: There is a serious lack of research that looks at fangirls, particularly compared to that of sports fans, which we are often lumped in with. This is something I see a lot when researching data: we don’t value research on women, particularly young women, so it isn’t well funded. Considering how interesting fangirls could be as psychological subjects, this is a perfect example of how we discount girls. More information on this is available in (6).

1. Maltby, J. Houran, J. Mccutcheon, L. (2003). A clinical interpretation of attitudes and behaviors associated with celebrity worship. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease.. 191 (1), 25-29.

2. McCutcheon,L. Lange, R. Houran, J. (2002). Conceptualization and measurement of celebrity worship. The British Psychological Society. 93 (1), 67-87.

3. Mudrick, M. (2015). Pervasively Offside: A Gendered Analysis of Sportscasting. Doctoral Dissertations.. 772 (1), 1-96.

4. McCudden, M. (2011). Degrees of fandom: authenticity & hierarchy in the age of media convergence. Doctoral Dissertations.. 647 (1), 1-162.

5. Green, A. (2016). Putting fanfiction on a resume, telling an ex-friend’s employer what she’s really like, and more. Available: https://www.askamanager.org/2016/02/putting-fanfiction-on-a-resume-telling-an-ex-friends-employer-what-shes-really-like-and-more.html. Last accessed 13th Aug 2018.

6. Turner, G. (2010). Approaching celebrity studies. Celebrity Studies . 1 (1), 11-20.

#fangirls #essay #fangirl #personal #celebrity worship #psychology #fandom

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maiassensibleblog · 6 years

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Reflections on Pride 2018

It is the end of Pride season and 2018 has been a season of reflection of what Pride means to me. This year has been a very “out” year for me as I am finally out to everyone I care about. I’ve found myself frustrated at the commercial hijacking of Pride over and over again because I feel like we still need that protest so much. Pride is not for straight people with no gay friends to get drunk on the street, it is not for straight boys to find girls to hit on and it is not to sell rainbow hidden capitalist products. (UK Black Pride are doing an excellent job at being the political community that I want from Pride and I hope to get more involved with them this year).

Personally I am not marginalised as far as LGBT folk go. Coming out was pretty easy and I am accepted in all my circles, I feel safe walking around on my own in cities (and if I don’t its not to do with my sexuality, as this isn’t visible) and I am generally recognised as a human by authorities and companies. This year, I’ve realised that I need to be a better ally to more marginalised LGBT people. I need to educate myself more about gender, look after ethnic groups who cannot be out safely and keep an eye on my closeted friends. I’m going to do a lot of reading and volunteer over this year to be better.

So as somebody who has been very privileged, why do I need Pride? I think it is down to microagressions. As a WOC I deal with a lot of these already, so I’m already pretty tired, so my sexuality is just another facet of myself that throws microaggressions at me and, quite frankly, I’ve had enough. The way to erase these is by education, and Pride is a powerful tool. The fact that I am a straight presenting woman with a girlfriend means that people assume I’m straight, and I have to deal with coming out like its a big deal pretty much constantly. My girlfriend and I get catcalled often when we’re literally just holding hands (which increases if one of use is wearing something revealing because obviously we’re doing that for the straight men watching). I don’t feel comfortable kissing her if I’ve noticed somebody noticing us holding hands.

Sometimes I’m up for not caring and breaking boundaries. Sometimes I want a nap and the boundaries to be broken for me.

Pride is a really cool reminder that I’m not doing this alone. The LGBT family has got each others backs and we should all be trying to do better and listening to look after each other. But mainly this Pride season has reminded me that we still need Pride.

#lgbt #gay #girl #lesbian #pansexual #bisexuality #pride #pride month #gay pride #lgbt pride

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maiassensibleblog · 6 years

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Mixed up: On being mixed-raced in 2018 and having nowhere to go.

(2020 disclaimer: I wrote this a few years ago and my use of language, particularly my thoughts about the term POC, have changed since then. This is now in a historical context).

Growing up, I always considered myself to be a white-presenting mixed raced person. I don’t mean this physically, in fact I’m pretty dark looking, I mean that I have always felt more connected to my white family and my British identity that my Guyanese, black family. I was brought up by my white mum, went to a central London school, where I was friends with mostly white people and always felt slightly our of place in situations where I was expected to act like I look. For the most part, this wasn’t an issue throughout my childhood. I grew up in a very multicultural area; my skin colour wasn’t an issue and nobody really mentioned it.

As a young adult, I was forced to confront my race. Not in a negative way, I’ve been very lucky that I’ve never experienced overt racism in London, but it started to come up. I think societal microaggressions got to me first; why couldn’t I find foundation in my colour? Why did I have to size up to fit my hips in clothes? Why didn’t the white boys fancy me like they did my friends? It’s something that I dealt with on my own and I worked through it without much of an issue. Nothing about my race had seemingly impacted on my career progression, or my ability to navigate social situations (except those white boys who wanted the blonde girl, I’m still bitter). I was simply going through a time where I realised that my skin colour could be a problem.

I don’t think that I heard the word “privilege” until I was maybe 16. I hadn’t needed to. I was incredibly privileged that I hadn’t had to think about it in terms of my race. I heard of privilege when I was younger mostly about class, which is a way that I am less privileged, and this was the first time I had felt properly angry about societal structure. The term “white privilege” didn’t pop up in my life until uni. In a sense, I wasn’t “other” at all during this time either. I went to a central London uni, I was surrounded by POC. However, I started to notice that my seniors were mostly white, I felt myself edging towards a glass ceiling with “race” written all over it. I needed role models and there were not any. Black people do not stay in academia and then I realised that, visually, in this world, I was a black girl. I don’t think I realised how difficult it would become having a lack of role models within my field, but it honestly makes you feel like you’ll never reach the top.

I’m not under the illusion that I don’t have light-skin privilege, because there are certain aspects of my life where being mixed gives me a massive advantage. For example, I have hair that people compliment. When I was younger, I got told a lot that I was “so lucky” not to have afro hair. I still get told this today but I call people out on the lowkey racism immediately; I would not be lesser if my curls were curlier, thanks very much. This is not how to compliment my hair, but I am aware that my hair will never be deemed as unprofessional. This is just one example of my mixed privilege. Other advantages I have are a white sounding name and a white sounding voice (which is also a location thing but I count it as being to do with being brought up in a white area). These are both super handy at pre-interview stage for any job.

I don’t think people are talking about this limbo that mixed-raced people are caught in enough. On one hand, I look like a black girl at work and I desperately want a sisterhood of WOC to hold my hand while I navigate a world where nobody looks like me. On the other hand, I tend to end up in more white spaces because that’s what I’ve known growing up and I’m aware that I have privilege’s that black people do not have. It has also meant that I don’t seek out black spaces because I somehow don’t think they’re for me, or that I behave too white and I’m taking something that I shouldn’t need (I’m aware that this is ridiculous, but it’s how I feel). This all leaves a weird sense of guilt when I complain about lack of role models or representation because at least half of me is represented, right?

(Actually, this leads me onto an interesting sub-point. I do not feel half and half of two races. I think it’s a ridiculous notion that people have in their heads. I feel like a whole person who’s just a race that people aren’t used to yet and the idea that I should feel half of an affinity to something that already exists is bizarre and I don’t think that’s how it works at all.)

However, when I’m surrounded by mostly white people, I really stand out, more so than I do in spaces full of POC. Black people come in all sorts of shades. White people are white and I am clearly not. I experience the same feeling of “other” that all POC experience in these cases. Like when I visit a new town in the UK and people stare at me, or when I realise that I’m one of two POC at a hotel in Europe. But I’m in those spaces with a bunch of white people, sounding like I do and being able to wear my hair out without offending the fragile white people. So where does that leave me?

Here’s the thing, I have a few mixed-raced friends and the conversations we have bring a lot of comfort. Particularly recently, I have started to seek relationships with people who will understand how it feels to sometimes look different to how you feel. But we aren’t the majority, particularly in my circles, and it’s not enough to have a few friends who feel like this. I need to muster up the courage to step into black spaces like I own it, and not feel awkward and like I don’t belong there. Because I really need those spaces as much as anyone else. I need POC to hold me up and I do, obviously, deserve that space as much as anyone else. It takes a lot of self-assurance to continue to be myself while I’m there because I always feel like I’m whitewashing the situation a bit.

I suppose a lot of this comes down to the fact that we’re constantly told that we’re half of one thing. But this is nonsense. I am a whole person and that person is a person of colour. It is super important for mixed-raced people to accept their privileges, but it is also important for other POC to accept that mixed people are facing challenges pertaining to identity that they do not have to work on. When I was learning about white privilege, I was never told that I was going to face unique challenges as a mixed-raced person. These are discussions we need to have because there are more and more of us growing up and flailing aimlessly for a sense of racial identity that pretty much doesn’t exist yet and we don’t have the spaces to chat about this. We’re also experiencing the struggles that all POC experience, but it’s unclear where we fit into POC spaces.

I suppose the main issue comes down to a lack of understanding amongst mixed people of exactly what their identity is. It is super helpful for organisers of POC spaces to use the phrase “those that identify as…” and I’ve been seeing more and more of that. It is a personal question of whether I, as a mixed person, identify as black. For the purpose of whether I’m welcome in a space, I know that I can and the lack of entitlement to do so comes from a number of reasons, but I do think it’s a conversation worth having and something that should be on the radar of POCs. Just because we have our white identities to fall back on too, I feel really non-white in a lot of those spaces and I’m sort of gagging for you to extend the invitation to your world too.

#race #mixed race #mixed girl #black #POC #BAME

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maiassensibleblog · 6 years

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Why I keep coming back to Cursed Child.

When acquaintances in my personal or work life ask me how many times I’ve seen Harry Potter and the Cursed Child I always lie. I assess the situation and give them a number between 5 and 10 depending on how professional I need to look to them and even with that I usually get a negative (or at least confused) reaction. It certainly isn’t worth being honest about to anyone who doesn’t want to begin to understand why.

I’ve seen Cursed Child somewhere around 45 times since June 25th 2016. I am aware that this is a lot. Yes, I am obsessed. I’ve always been all or nothing when it comes to being a fan (something I’ve written about here) and this was no different.

The first time I saw the play, I felt a bit like I was going to explode. I went with a total stranger and the excitement was unreal. It was the first time I had gone to the theatre alone and experienced a whole day (in an unprofessional capacity) without anyone I knew being there. This social confidence is one of the greatest gifts the play has given me.

I immediately got caught up in the hype and have the most blurry, joyful photos from my first experience at stage door. Over the coming months I learnt how to regularly get tickets and surrounded myself with friends who were equally obsessed with the play.

There are a number of reasons why I’ve kept coming back on average 3 times a month over the past year. Firstly, the way I relate to some of the characters has been incredibly therapeutic. When I first saw Cursed Child I felt an instant connection to Hermione, who I had adored for many years. The fact that she was a WOC gave me something I never thought I would see: actual representation (more on this here). My feelings about Hermione have evolved over the year, as I’ve seen different interpretations of her and had in depth conversations about her with friends. She is a truly great role model, but she is also incredibly flawed and that’s something I’ve been able to learn from. When I started watching the play, I was at the top of my professional game and I knew it. Watching Hermione deal with serious problems has helped me cope with making the many mistakes I’ve made and that is something I will take will me through my career.

I’ve also realised that a lot of issues that Albus is dealing with are things that I left behind in my teenage years having never dealt with them properly. I’d never really noticed that I was carrying around the same emotional baggage that he was about my own dad and having people to talk to about this and be able to thank the actors and writers for giving this to me has taken a big weight off my shoulders and I’m starting to be able to move on from it. My experience of this play is incredibly personal and it has taken going back again and again to work through that.

Another thing that only regulars are able to experience is that every performance is different. It isn’t the same as watching a film 45 times. The actors have some flexibility to play with the characters and their decisions in certain shows resonate with me in different ways. As well as that, we get to experience different interpretations of the roles we love so much with different casts and covers. I’ve had my favorites and both casts; people whose performances have rocked my world.

A couple of covers have really stood out to me: I loved the way Annabel made Delphi so multidimensional, to the point where I felt compassion for her, from her first performances and felt genuine pride when it was announced that she would play her full time this year (I loved her so much that I paid £140 for I5 to see her for the second time. No regrets). Second, James LL’s Scorpius did something to me that I’ve not been fully able to explain but I did a lot of crying in scenes nobody else has made me emotional during. The importance of covers to my experience of the play has been particularly poignant this year, as Gideon’s Harry has really started tying together the reasons the play means so much to me. I sat in my seat, the penny dropped, and I proceeded to cry for 6 hours.

Something else incredibly important to me is the fact that my social life has gone off the charts since I’ve been going to Cursed Child and I’ve learnt a lot about how to deal with challenging social situations. I was by no means lonely before but as an adult it is difficult to find new friends and I have definitely found some good ones! I have moved in and out of groups over the course of the play running. I feel like I watched this fandom grow around me and I am generally very proud of what has been created.

There is something amazing about walking into the theatre and seeing familiar faces and being able to freak out between parts with them. I love checking my phone after a few difficult hours at work and seeing it filled with messages about magic. You all make my world brighter.

My beautiful BOJ girls have made the lowest moments of the fandom something beautiful. I will always be grateful of the games we made up to deal with subtweets and the reassurance we gave each other to prove that everything was great, the cast were not irritated and we should keep doing what we were doing. The three of you are incredible, talented, generous souls that I’m excited to do life with.

I am also so happy to have people to talk about creative stuff with. It is a really big deal to me to be told that writing is not a waste of time and that I should be analysing the theatre I see and reading fiction in my evenings off. I am generally feeling fulfilled. And I’m so proud of what my new friends are achieving in creative fields.

When I first sat down in the grand circle on June 25th 2016 I didn’t imagine that I would fall in love with a girl who I met at stage door on a cold evening the January after. This isn’t the place for me to share all the details of Manon and I’s relationship but Cursed Child has not only brought us together, but given us the confidence to be very “out” and given us the tools to deal with the inevitable difficulties that we’re going to face in an LGBT relationship. I’ve spoken more about why I think scorbus is important for young LGBTQ+ people here (but not for me personally). The way that I interpret the story shows two teenagers on the brink of the lightbulb moment that I had around their age (which, incidentally, I’ve also written about here). This was representation that I wasn’t expecting to see from this play but the scorbus fanfiction that I’ve read (and written) has validated my experience of coming out. Nothing has been perfect but it has all been worth it. And now I get to date my perfect Slytherin and love somebody that I can actually see a future with which less than 5 years ago felt like an impossibility. Someday, I am going to take her backstage and we will stand on those stairs and “fix” act 4, scene 14 to tell our story and we will cry about how much this show has given us and how in love we are.

Finally, from frantically trying to get tickets, to meeting up between parts, to pouring my heart out at stage door are great fun. There is nothing better than having a hard week at work and knowing I have Cursed Child on a Thursday and Friday evening, getting to hang out with some of my favourite people and see something that means so much to me.

I am so grateful that I’ve had this play to set me off into the new phase of my life as a more confident, happy young adult.

#Cursed Child #Harry Potter #scorbus

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maiassensibleblog · 6 years

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On ship wars and heteronormativity (particularly in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child)

*HPCC spoilers*

I don’t think extreme shipping on any side of this debate is healthy. It is always wrong to suggest that actors have any sort of a ship motive. In the end, shipping should just be fun but I think that ships can carry a lot of weight.

Lets first be absolutely clear of what I mean by heteronormativity:

heteronormativeˌhɛt(ə)rə(ʊ)ˈnɔːmətɪv/ adjective denoting or relating to a world view that promotes heterosexuality as the normal or preferred sexual orientation.“the heteronormative codes of twentieth-century mainstream Western cinema”

This is also a great blog (from a straight woman who is doing a FAB job as an ally): https://hannahwitton.wordpress.com/2015/09/13/heteronormativity-in-everyday-life-heteronorms/

The main thing about Cursed Child which I absolutely love is that the romantic situation is so open and ambiguous and could really go either way and that shouldn’t be taken away from anyone. It could go either way at the end. And I understand how somebody who hasn’t really questioned their sexual orientation could see act 4, scene 14 as an indication that Scorose is cannon. I, personally, see it as pre-coming out with some internal questioning but you can’t expect people who haven’t been there to see that.

I do however expect my straight allies to listen and understand why queer voices are more important in this conversation because Scorbus represents a massive missed opportunity. And that’s what it is, not queer-baiting, but a missed opportunity. This is a big issue in the Potterverse and that’s the conversation we need to be having.

There are a couple of points I would like to address:

1) Cursed Child fits some definitions of queer-baiting, but not others. And it isn’t in itself homophobic, however the story is heteronormative and that’s problematic.

According to the urban dictionary (apparently the actual dictionary hasn’t picked this one up yet!), queer-baiting is:

queer baiting When a politician, pundit, or other public figure brings up the completely irrelevant detail about a person’s sexuality, true or untrue, as a way of subtly channeling homophobia to attack them.

queer baiting When an author/director/etc. gives hints, and clever twists to paint a character as possibly being queer, to satisfy queer audiences, but never outright says they are so they can keep their heterosexual audience.

It’s fairly obvious that the second definition fits Cursed Child, but we can’t really talk about homophobia from the actual story. Especially not from watching the play, where it is so open ended. I’m not sure that making Scorbus more cannon would really lose hetero audiences but it would take away a lot of imagination from what happens after the events in the cannon. All the best fanfic are getting together fics. When Romione got together the fanfic went downhill. That’s never going to happen with the next-gen, and that’s a serious positive to the open-endedness (Thanks to @mayhemtothenthdegree for that argument!). Its a real shame that they decided to make Scorpius ask Rose out to achieve this and other ways would’ve been better for the little queers who need looking out for.

Although I don’t think the queer-baiting argument is productive or helpful (sorrynotsorry), the fact that a lot of Scorose shippers are so dismissive of something that is very nearly cannon (especially if you’ve seen it), shows that this story enhances heteronormativity.

2) Cursed Child is pretty heteronormative, not just with act 4, scene 14, but throughout.

There’s a couple of examples of this. For example, Scorpius and pretty Polly and then Albus assuming that Scorpius liked that, Ron assuming that Delphi was Albus’s girlfriend, even to the assumption that Rose is into boys (even though this is never confirmed by her). As I mentioned before, this really is a Potterverse problem and I’m sad that it didn’t get better in Cursed Child, since its 2017 and everyone should have learnt.

3) There are plenty of male friendships within plays/film/tv but there are so few accurate accounts of same sex relationships.

The argument that it’s nice to see close male friendships is the only one that really bothers me. If you’re a straight male looking for media representation and are annoyed that this might’ve been taken away from you in one of the many situations this was possible, you need to check your privilege. Harry and Ron, Joey and Chandler, the guys from The Hangover and SO MANY MORE . Yes. one of those links is a list of 20 movies about male friendships. There aren’t a lack of examples.

Cursed Child was an opportunity to end a story with two mates just being queer and that being ok. That wouldn’t be the focus of the story, it would just be part of it. This is the experience that most people have in the Western world in 2017. Its cool and it just is, so why isn’t that represented in media? I always say that I’ve never seen an accurate coming out story that vaguely represents what I went through. And Cursed Child so nearly was. And it kinda still is, because its open and they’re super young so that’s how it would be. So the fact that people feel the need to bash that is sad.

4) You can ship scorose as much as you want, the idea behind it is super cute, but you don’t have the right to bash scorbus.

And in this situation, the voices of queer people should be more important than the voices of straight people because that’s what being an ally is about.

Heteronormativity is a constant reminder that we are not normal.

And whenever it happens to me it feels like I’m being stabbed in the stomach. And I’m not exaggerating. It really hurts. Scorbus is an opportunity to show the very confused young queer kids that they can be normal and mainstream. It was easy for me to come out, but Cursed Child is read all over the world- some kids will have it a lot harder and allowing them to ship this without telling them they’re wrong is an opportunity to show them that they can be ok. I hope that makes sense and I know it may seem dramatic to people who didn’t go through this, but seeing yourself represented, even in fanfic, is a really big deal if you’re coming out. So just let people do it. Scorose is sweet but it doesn’t represent something bigger than itself like Scorbus does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXDfaLzzoo8 (please watch this.)

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maiassensibleblog · 6 years

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On the importance of black Hermione

There is a moment in every person of colours (POC) life where they realise that they are “other”. It might come young, when they ask their parents why the only people their colour on TV are playing the villains. Perhaps it’s when the first white person says they’re “pretty for a black girl”. It might be much later when their white friend gets a job that they’re equally qualified for and they do not. But it will happen.

Canonically, it doesn’t matter what colour Hermione is. Her being isn’t a statement about white supremacy like pure bloods; her name doesn’t evoke any immediate thoughts about her race. She’s a regular British kid.

Any off-the-bat “oh, black Hermione?” responses by white people could’ve been taken as a quick shock and it’s something that for the most part people have either learnt to live with or celebrate. The fact that there was initial shock is a by-product of the institutionalised racism we see in every industry and therefore also the entertainment industry. In this case, this means a systematic bias toward favourable/ plentiful representation of white people while representations of POC are limited/non-existent/negative (eg. Black people as predators, South-East Asians as geeks ect. ect. ect.).

I did not have a problem with the initial “OMG!” reaction. I had it too! This is a system where nobody expects a role to be changed from white to POC (but the other way is seen often (whitewashing)).

As a brown person, I quickly switched to celebration. Hermione represents something I’d never seen a woman of colour (WOC) portraying in a form of media I was so attached to; smart, loving, powerful and imperfect in a very human way. Black Hermione is showing children of colour (not just limited to girls) that they can be Hermione and everything she’s achieved in her life. It’s showing them that they can pursue theatre as a viable career option and that the industry might have a place for them. True progress will come with equal representation and it’s taking brave people to be the first.

If you continue to struggle with the idea that Hermione can be black, I challenge you to firstly consider the consequences of you voicing that publically. The consequence of these opinions is telling these people that they do not have a place in a mainstream, accurate representation of a modern women.

But mostly, I challenge you to consider why you hold these views. Your image of Hermione may have been a white girl your entire life. My image of Hermione was somebody who looked a lot like me before the films were cast: a skinny, brown girl. I grew to love Emma Watsons’ Hermione. She did something amazing for clever girls. But your mental image of Hermione is no more valid than mine. If you feel the right to complain about black Hermione it is because of your white privilege and a lack of understanding about how this applies to our lives. This is an uncomfortable thing to think about but incredibly important to be aware of all the same.

White privilege is having “nude” described as your skin colour, feeling safer, not threatened, when you see lots of police, being able to find affordable jeans that fit both your thighs and hips, being able to walk around new towns without being stared at, never being assumed to be a cleaner/nanny in your work environment (not that there us anything wrong with either of these roles but when you’ve got a PhD in biology and you’re leading a meeting, it’s not a fun thing to happen. Actually, that fact that we see a high proportion of POC in these roles in an example of white privilege). It is never having to fight for fundamental rights for your race, being able to trace your heritage back for thousands of years because your ancestors weren’t dehumanised and sold as slaves and having role models everywhere; from school, to university, to the workplace. White privilege is everywhere. It is the reason that being colour-blind isn’t good enough.

Asking white people to challenge their privilege is not about pointing fingers and calling people a racist, it is about asking them to challenge deep-set, unconscious views they hold about societal structure. It’s asking people to feel uncomfortable otherwise nothing will change. Institutionalised racism is so deep set and often very subtle to the point that those who benefit from it don’t even realise that it’s there. It isn’t an individual white persons fault, but if you choose not to come to terms with the fact that you benefit from it, this is when you do become part of the problem. There are numerous studies in the social sciences field that show that social mobility is good for all of us and it is a very human emotion to feel that nobody deserves to have less of a chance in life due to their race.

There are moments where I wish more people had the opportunity to see Noma or Rakie’s performances, to prove that they really are the best people to bring adult Hermione to life. But they shouldn’t need to. They’ve proven that to the casting directors, who are professionals. Therefore we should safely assume that they were the best people they saw. The only reason for such a large backlash is that they’re black. Personal issues with how this loved character is portrayed were bound to appear no matter her race, but from hate this widespread, we can see that a lot of people have a race issue.

We’ll never know whether it was a conscious decision to audition a WOC for the role or whether it was something that came up during the casting process. However it is now recognised that Hermione is a POC role. I often see comments suggesting that black Hermione is taking the role away from white women, similar to positive discrimination in any workplace. I hope that I have offered sufficient evidence that black Hermione is a good thing for everyone and particularly for WOC, a marginalised community. Most people are happy to pay taxes in a bracket proportional to their wages, so that everyone is able to benefit from public services and this is another form of positive discrimination: it is lifting people up for the good of equality.

Once you realise that POC are discriminated against so often in casting by the majority of roles (particularly the lead roles) being specifically for white actors, often without legitimate reason, and see the sheer scale of whitewashing it becomes clear that the positive discrimination argument isn’t really an argument at all. It isn’t valid to suggest that “the best actor should be cast regardless of colour” because the best actors may the best because of practice, as with any industry, but there are less opportunities for POC to practice and the roles offered are often stereotypical based on race. Ultimately, it comes down to realising that white privilege exists, and the shifting of life long reasoning, which favours white people without any conscious malicious meaning.

The conversation about Hermione being portrayed as a different POC is an interesting one. If the cannon descriptions we have of her physical appearance are that she has “frizzy hair” and she goes on holiday and her skin gets “very dark”, there is so much wiggle room. I think that Cursed Child has a race problem, as does the entire Potterverse. This I know because I can point out the token Asian in the new cast photos and know that he plays a character that has a very stereotypical fate. There is no excuse for the white predominance in the ensemble and that is something that needs to be looked at. There was something so magical about seeing WOC Myrtle last cast and Polly Chapman this year, but they’re first covers, so not every audience get the see this. Bending our ingrained ideas about race is incredibly powerful and challenges us all.

So what about an East or South Asian Hermione? I think the race of Hermione now holds a special weight. I don’t have any answers about what would happen if the Grangers were a different shade of brown. I would certainly celebrate it. And I think it must be done. But it must be done in a way that doesn’t reduce the importance of Hermione being black and what that has done for people of black heritage. It’s something that I want other POC to experience but I don’t want the fact that Hermione could be black to ever be taken away. In real life and fiction, black people are hardly ever considered clever or leaders. Can you imagine ever being able to elect a black, female Prime Minister? It’s mind boggling and feels decades of progress away. But in our fantasy world, that is depicted with grace. This is why I would argue that black Hermione should be celebrated by everyone, not just tolerated.

The casting of black Hermione has created a conversation in the mainstream that has shown us the power of fiction. These conversations have been so important and so productive in many cases. It is about time but it has been the right time. It is vital that we continue to challenge each other’s views on race in order to push positive changes towards true equality.

(Thank you to Susy for reading over this for me, giving super useful feedback and filling in any gaps)

#hermione #hermione granger #harry potter #cursed child #harry potter and the cursed child #POC #woc #black hermione #white privilage #institutionalised racism

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maiassensibleblog · 7 years

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My coming out story

Hi.

I’m mainly writing this for myself, because I realised that I’m starting to forget. And it was tough and now I’m here and I never want to forget. So here’s how I came out.

I have fancied people for as long as I can remember. I’m not sure whether I prefered any gender pre-puberty, but I know I had crushes on people. I have a clear sense that I didn’t ever really want to pursue these and I was happy with admiring from afar and enjoying them.

My first actual crush was when I was 8/9 on a celebrity who was probably about 14 that shall not be named here. It was that kind of infatuation “OMG I want a boyfriend” crush. And, honestly, I don’t think it was real. I think I convinced myself that, objectively, this guy is cute- tell people you fancy him. And I started to believe him too. This wore off after a year or so into nothing.

My next clear memory was my mum asking me whether I was interested in boy’s yet or not. Now, don’t get me wrong, my mum has always been amazing and I was never worried to come out to her at all but this was my first clear memory of heteronormativity that I cared about following. Turns out at the time I was developing a MASSIVE crush on another male celebrity that many of you may be aware of.... (and his girlfriend, which I realise in hindsight). I genuinely fancied him and really felt normal for a while, with moments of feelings towards girls which I didn’t think were abnormal at all.

Skip forward a few years to when I was 15 at Christian camp (which was a place I really loved, but fucked me up somewhat!). We were in a talk about sexuality and I VERY vividly remember the speaker saying

“If you are experiencing same sex attraction, please speak to someone”.

And I thought “oh. Same sex attraction. I have that.”

With no hesitation and no questioning of myself.

But I fancied boys so I could repress this feeling quite easily. Kissing them was fine. I was pretty much fine. Not good, but totally fine.

For a few years I really struggled to work through a lot of internalised homophobia. Even though this was only directed towards myself, I’m so sad that I was ever forced to feel this way by people who thought they were doing the right thing. I hid it so well that I believed it but I’m so lucky that I’ve broken out since.

Once at uni I excited my closeted, evangelical world. I discovered different people, different ways of living and different ways of doing religion. I also kissed some girls.

And I did not specifically fancy these girls but my world shattered.

“Ah. Yeah. I have that.”

It only took me a few months to start to come out for my friends and to my mum. I was bi as fuck and I wanted to date girls asap. I knew that I had been missing out.

I felt alive.

I got a girlfriend within a few months (having never had a boyfriend. I think this has something to do with never actually making myself available to men subconsciously but anyway). I knew this is what I wanted. While I was with this girl I was able to establish my identity as queer and start to enter this community more and more.

It wasn’t until recently that I’ve really been able to put my finger on my experience of attraction. I had months of being single and dating casually that allowed me to figure things out. I am definitely pansexual but I’m more attracted to femininity, where gender is totally irrelevant.

I fancy girls (a lot. like a lot of girls, it’s wonderful).

I fancy boys (all the pretty ones. Like get in my bed).

But I think I’m homoromantic. I don’t know if this is an actual thing or just my trust issues with men, but being with a woman romantically is magic. The level of emotional understanding you can achieve is beautiful and I wouldn’t want to date a man to replace that.

Oh and I’m super monogamous.

It’s a really big deal to give myself to someone emotionally and honestly I’ve only every felt comfortable and safe doing that with girls, even platonically.

And now I’m madly in love with someone who balances me perfectly and I’m really, really good.

Coming out is always worth it as soon as you’re safe, because life is too short to be “fine”.

#comingout #panseuxal #Bisexual #bisexuality #queer #COMING OUT #gay #girl #homoromantic

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maiassensibleblog · 7 years

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How to be a woman in STEM

When I first started working in science about 7 years ago, I didn’t really see any gender gap in my work. To be honest, in biology, the visible scientists are pretty 50/50 in terms of sex and I didn’t really think about any discrimination I would be facing based on my gender. But when you start to look more deeply into it, you can see the gap. After PhD level, the number of women starts to drop significantly. I think the majority of this is because science doesn’t provide a stable income for many years and women seek that (if not because they want to have children but due to responsibility of their own parents ect.) Most of the people in charge of departments are men. When I see a women I jump at the chance to work with them but we are still pushing from the bottom up!

I also think women have issues in terms of publication bias. Nobody tells you this until you get fairly high up but a paper is more likely to be published if it is attached to a big name or lab. Since most of these names are men, there is bias towards men publishing. And publishing means more funding and therefore more publications in a vicious cycle.

Finally I have come across a LOT of mansplaining in my time, (its why I prefer to work for female bosses) especially during lab meetings. A typical format of a meeting is that one person presents their work, everyone gives feedback and then you move on. This gives everyone a chance to speak so getting your work across isn’t a problem but I find that the men dominate the feedback discussion. I assume this is an issue in many different fields and being aware of it and standing up is difficult.

I’m not an expert of how to deal with these things by any means, but I have been doing this for a few years and I’m at PhD level finally so here are a few tips on how to be a women in STEM:

1. Find yourself a role-model

This can be any woman you inspire to be, they don’t even have to know you’re doing it. Mine was the first PhD student I ever worked with. Apart from being incredibly clever, able and patient, she was unapologetically pretty and feminine and I loved that I could be both of those things. I take great pride in having made it to being like her. I now float around the lab with my lab coat unbuttoned and my short skirts absolutely clashing with my comfy shoes whilst rocking the science.

2. Work for female principle-investigators as much as you can (or at least in a lab with female post-docs)

I know it seems obvious, but women champion women even if they don’t realise they’re doing it. A female PI will nurture you like a man just doesn’t. When my female bosses ask how I am they want a low-down on both my work and my physical and emotional well-being and I don’t feel that male bosses want that. I know your boss shouldn’t be your support but as a student that is half of their job because you’re going through a massive personal challenge and I find that women are much more empathetic to that.

3. Don’t be afraid to speak up in meetings and suggest changes to the structure if you think it will help equality

I spent a couple of months last year working in a lab which had (in my opinion) really difficult lab meetings, where one person coughmancough could easily take control. Firstly, don’t be afraid to politely point out that they have interrupted you- these are very educated people, they’ll realise they’ve done it and apologise. Afterall, if we don’t point things out, how can we expect people in a position of privilege to realise they’re doing anything wrong. Secondly, talk to your PI about how the meetings could be adjusted- for example only a few people speak to give feedback per person ect.

4. Practice self-care

I cannot emphasise how important it is to look after yourself. Constantly check in with yourself- are you feeling positive, have you slept enough, are you eating properly? Science is a difficult place to work- you have to work really hard for little reward except your own satisfaction. Take breaks. Allow yourself to pursue passions outside of science and don’t let yourself feel bad about it.

I think the best thing I’ve learnt to do is take lunch breaks, even if it makes my day a bit longer. I take a walk even if it’s freezing outside, try to chat with some of my coursemates and eat away from my desk. It gives me a bit of room to breath and deal with how stressful the work is.

5. Take praise and use your voice

I used to dismiss it when people said that I was doing great things and that I should talk about what I was doing to inspire the mini-female scientists coming up through school. I don’t think I will ever feel like I deserve to be called inspiring but I am happy to agree that I’m quite clever and I do work very hard and yeah, I’m one of the only WOC at this stage of accademia so I should use my voice.

I am standing on the shoulders of amazing, really brave women who took on a male dominated workforce and made it a lot easier for me to get here but we aren’t done with equality yet and it would be naive to think that. We are educated, creative young women and we should be brave to make the path seamless for those behind us.

Never forget you’re doing an amazing thing. The generation of new knowledge is a gift and you get to know it first. Women think in different and complementary ways to men so when things are more equal, we’re all going to benefit.

#Science #STEM #women in stem #women in science #International womens day #feminist #feminism

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maiassensibleblog · 7 years

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Why I do fandom and how I think we should do fandom

[Views are entirely my own and not aimed at any person/people in particular. This is also a bit outdated from my personal views, but I’m keeping it up cos personal growth is important to show.]

fandomˈfandəm/ noun

the state or condition of being a fan of someone or something. “my 17 years of sports fandom”

the fans of a particular person, team, fictional series, etc. regarded collectively as a community or subculture. “the Breaking Bad fandom”

-Google

I’ve been doing fandom for a long time…

From ever since I can remember, my life can be split into series of very intense fandoms. I grew up with the growth of the internet. I remember it feeling fairly new and exciting when my mum got us a dial up box but I was young and it has kind of always been available to me. The internet fuels fangirls: We live online. Some people think this is a terrible thing, that we’re missing the actual world, but it’s a whole world on there and, an awful lot of the time, it’s a much better, more accepting world.

Harry Potter was my first fandom and has been constant and underlying through everything else I’ve loved. I threw myself onto mugglenet as soon as I had the internet at home. I don’t think I was allowed an account on the forum as a kid but I read the posts and felt “yes, these are my people. I’m not that strange. There are other people who re-read the Harry Potter books on a constant rotation.” I think I was probably in this fandom from the ages of 9-12, mainly watching from the side-lines but having a sense of home.

Then I had the typical tween fandom phase: Zac Efron and related movies. Like EVERYTHING. I was so intense. This was back in the day that youtube was used as social media. I’m pretty sure I liked it so much because my mum wasn’t really aware that I was talking to strangers on there, she just thought I was looking up videos of Zac’s abbs (not entirely wrong but a pretty good cover up, well done 13 year old me!). I made my first fandom friends. We chatted all the time on MSN. It sort of allowed me to separate my obsession and my “real” life and I think it made me a bit less annoying to my school friends.

My mum was amazing with this fandom. She used to take me to premieres to meet him and I would get this shaky, butterflies feeling for weeks afterwards. I, of course, mistook this for being madly in love with him. Spoiler alert: actual love feels completely different to this infatuation but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing for me to experience as a young-mid teenager. If you fancy a celebrity it’s a completely safe expression of your sexuality. This is why I think girls tend to be a lot more intense than boys in fandom: culture doesn’t allow us to express ourselves in many ways and this is seen as totally innocent and acceptable.

Somehow, in all this, I found the energy to count down to the last Potter book for 100 days and get 13 A*-C GCSE’s. And have non-fandom friends. I sort of fell out of the fandom when I was about 15/16.

I then moved onto Doctor Who when I was about 16-21. I think this is when fandom started to become more about the “fandom” than the actual TV show for me. Fandom is literally a kingdom of fans and it is honestly a family of lost, crazy young people who need somewhere to express themselves. I was pretty intense but only really to the people in my fandom (obviously my non-fandom friends knew I loved it) but the friends I made (hello, Kinglets) are still some of my dearest. We’re even going to be bridesmaids at the first wedding in the group.

We go to conventions together, we go the all the actors plays together, we’ll go and find them if they’re filming in London. But mostly, we’re really important friends. I know that I can go to them for anything and that intense start to our friendship has made them really deep.

The Cursed Child fandom

And then we get to now. You can see my post about Cursed Child here. But in short we are binge-watching a play because we’ve sussed how to get tickets pretty much whenever we want them. It is bringing me so much joy and it feels really, really intense: way more than my pervious fandoms. Most my fandom friends live in or close to London because that’s the only way you can really watch the play constantly, some of them I even met at stage door and not online. The reason this is so intense is because it is so accessible. Many of the cast are really active on social media and (if I wanted to, had absolutely no shame and nothing better to do with my life) I could go to stage door everyday.

Since this fandom has been so intense and I’ve been very visible as more than just a username there has been a lot of controversy about why I am doing this and whether it’s appropriate. We have constant conversations on the group chat about if certain people are taking it too far and how and why. They’re just discussions and nobody in that chat thinks they have the right to judge the others because we’ve all got close to that invisible line in the past 6 months but where does the line stand for different people? Obviously we all draw the line in different places based on our perspectives on life. Is it even our responsibility to police each other? We’ve often thought we were better than the younger members of the Cursed Child fandom because we don’t tweet the cast everyday to say we love them and we don’t scream and cry at them (not sober anyway, and we’ve learnt our lesson on that one). But does that make us better? Do we have the right to judge anyone?

Why I do fandom

The reason why I am doing this is easy for me to decode. Fangirls tend to be the clever, successful young people. The popular kids were not and will never be one of us. We have busy lives and we’re really easily bored. I am always thinking and always inside of my own head: if there isn’t something for me to focus on I get fidgety and frustrated. But if we’re the clever kids, how is this intense obsession not taking up all our brain space and preventing us achieving our full potentials? I find that it’s easier for me to focus on my studies when I’m intensely part of a fandom. It helps to give me tunnel vision; with just my work and my fandom to focus on, I have less to be distracted by. I’m a scientist; my success relies upon my obsession with my work. It is already very intense and in order to take effective time out, it helps to be obsessed with my hobbies too.

Second, fandom is my creative outlet. I have to be so calculated and methodical all day and that isn’t all I am good at or enjoy. Writing fanfiction lets me write without having to take the time to develop my own characters because I’m way too busy with my work. Having theatre friends lets me go and see everything and talk about plays in a way that a room full of scientist will never want to. And it gives me a group of people who encourage me to pursue creative hobbies rather than telling me it’s a waste of time.

Finally, and perhaps more importantly, this fandom gives me intense joy. Both watching the play and hanging out with the friends I’ve made through it. The fact that I can experience that joy over and over again and express that to the members of the cast that are bringing that is an absolute blessing. And therefore I am not going to stop doing it because people are jealous or are worried that I’m annoying somebody. This doesn’t mean I won’t adjust my behaviour if somebody has a point but I know why I’m doing this and it’s all because it makes me so happy.

How should we do fandom?

The question about where we should draw the line is much more complicated. We definitely freaked out some of the younger cast members when we started obsessing. This is also a unique fandom because these people are the same age as most of us, we’re adults and so have the awareness that this is, if you really think about it, quite weird. Its taken a few months but I think we’ve reached a balance where we all understand each other. They don’t need to have their guards up with us, we’re joking most of the time. We’re not the fans who are going to follow them to the tube station; we don’t have their twitter notifications switched on so we can reply to them 2 seconds after they tweet anything just to tell them we love them and we aren’t going to hover around stage door except when we’re meant to be doing so after the show. We genuinely appreciate their art.

But should we stop going to stage door when we’ve seen the show? And is it wrong for us to go when we haven’t been in and our friends have? It has reached the point that if anyone is watching the play anyone who is in the area will go and meet them at stage door and just hover behind them because we want to see our friends. I don’t actually get a buzz from seeing Sams’ face, but I do get a buzz from seeing one of the collective. My intention is not inappropriate so I think its fine. Others do not think its fine but I’m not hurting anyone and as long as we’re aware that we should be as respectful as possible, I think this is all good. I’m also never going to stop going to stage door while people seem happy to see me. I’m actually quite perceptive and think I’d be able to tell if people were genuinely done with me.

But I do think that, to some extent, it is our responsibility to police each other. I think that, in general, fandom-policing is a waste of time because you can’t control people who are as intense as we are, and you shouldn’t. But I think that we are an actual group of friends and a sub-fandom of sorts, who have such open access to this play and its cast that we have to follow our own rules and should remind each other to do so. We don’t want to be known as annoying and we don’t want to make people feel uncomfortable. I don’t appreciate when people outside of our group tell us to behave a certain way because they have no way of knowing the context of what we do or previous conversations which may make some things ok for us to do, but not others. But I do think it’s important for us to continue to discuss where the line is to keep having an amazing time.

Fandom is an intense experience for everyone involved. The only way I can describe it to non-fandom people is that it’s like when you fall in love really quickly but it’s with a whole group of people and a thing, all at the same time. It’s a bit like falling but it’s amazing. Of course this leads to insanity for both the members of the fandom, who are loving it, and the objects of it, who are probably confused by the whole thing. If we want to be seen as responsible, adult fandom members it’s so important to keep checking ourselves.

This intensity has hit me as complete and utter joy since I saw Cursed Child for the first time last June. The friendships I’ve made have been so important and are valid and real. We don’t have to justify ourselves to the rest of the world and we aren’t hurting anyone.

I know that I’m a bit annoying and obsessed but as a wise man once said: “Some people are obsessed with heroin” (Daniel Radcliff).

#fandom fangirl fan

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