#the way the media treats shipping especially ships that are dominated by queer people is disgusting | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

twilightoftheapprentice · 6 years

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Okay, where did this idea that noncanon pairings are worth less than canon pairings within queer fandom come from? Thinking that canon was the be-all-end-all only thing that mattered is something we used to make fun of het fandoms for. Like honestly, do you guys think the Xena fandom would still exist after twenty years if it was in any way reliant on canon?

Here are the attitudes I’ve been seeing from some of you:

supporting a noncanon pairing is a waste of time

supporting a noncanon pairing on a show with homophobic writers/actors is especially pathetic

fans of noncanon pairings don’t deserve support, especially if the alternative is fans of canon pairings getting more support

if you don’t support canon pairings, you’re hurting the community

if you don’t support a canon pairing because of something racist/ableist/ homophobic/transphobic/etc. about it, you’re still hurting the community

if you’re supporting a noncanon pairing and something homophobic happens with the writers/actors, you were asking for it because you could have just supported canon pairings

As someone who has spent a great deal of time in noncanon fandoms, literally all of those are things that have been hurled at us from homophobic fans trying to antagonize us, so it’s alarming to see it thrown back on us now by other queer fans.

Here are some things to consider:

For better or worse, shipping noncanon pairings is deeply ingrained in queer fandom. A lot of our culture (the strong sense of community, the heavy emphasis on transformative works, the focus on the characters as individuals, the solidarity between fandoms) stems from the fact that our pairings were always noncanon.

Queer people are allowed to have preferences

The current canon f/f pairings actually represent a very small portion of queer women overall

Noncanon fandoms skew older. A lot of the people shipping the noncanon pairings that are “bad for rep” have been fighting for rep longer than you’ve been in fandom (some of them, longer than you’ve been alive) and probably don’t appreciate being talked down to by the people who have benefited from their efforts

This is all coming to a head now because of the bitterness surrounding the finalists in the zimbio poll being two noncanon pairings that have never had any support from the writers, but it’s been brewing for a while. It was brewing when all the new fans showed up in the Supergirl fandom a year and a half ago and started insisting that anyone who still shipped Alex with whomever they shipped her with in season 1 was hurting the community. It was brewing two years ago when all the new fans showed up in the POI fandom, only to mock the existing fans who had been enjoying the subtext up to that point. It was brewing after the comic con debacle last summer, when fans of a certain popular canon pairing responded by telling supercorp shippers that this never would have happened to them if they’d shipped that pairing instead. It comes out every time something bad happens in a queer fandom and fans seeking solace in the tag have to scroll past 39857324 posts about “why aren’t you just watching this other show.”

Frankly, it needs to stop. This isn’t who we are.

A lot of newer fans don’t seem to realize that this prioritization of getting more canon pairings is pretty new. It wasn’t really a thing at all until maybe 2015. A lot of older fans still don’t prioritize it because, while they realize the rep is important, queer fandom has thrived since long before it existed (and a lot of them still aren’t represented in what we do have). For a lot of us, whether a pairing is canon plays absolutely no role in whether we’re going to ship it. A lot of us, if offered a choice between “this pairing is canon” or “this character gets treated better”/”the show doesn’t devolve into a disaster,” would easily choose the latter. I personally have no interest in advocating for my ships to be canon. Do I want them to be? Yes, of course, some of them at least, but that’s not why I’m here, and it’s not a priority. This being a controversial statement and not the majority opinion is extremely new.

Here are some reasons people are supporting the noncanon pairings over the canon pairings:

Those fandoms are older and people have been in them longer

The people voting for the noncanon pairings don’t watch the shows that the canon pairings are on

Fandoms who can’t rely on canon for validation have to rely on things like polls, so winning the poll means more to them

People are trying to put pressure on/send a message to homophobic writers/actors (”we’re here and there are a lot of us, and we’re not going anywhere”/”fuck you”)

People are trying to send the same message to homophobic fans

People relate more to the noncanon pairings and not everyone's priority is encouraging writers to write more pairings they don’t relate to

People still remember what Swan Queen went through in the 2015 AE poll

People are voting for the pairings they like the most

This is what causes the animosity between older and younger fans. That’s new too. That didn’t exist when I came into fandom, and I’m only 25. It’s not even really the fact that newer fans are so preoccupied with canon that’s the issue. It’s the fact that you expect us to be. It’s the fact that you:

come into fandoms when an f/f couple is made canon and completely dominate them with no regard for those of us who have already been there for years (I was forced out of two fandoms this way and I am Bitter)

say our preferred pairings don’t deserve to win polls or don’t deserve so much fanfiction or whatever else because they’re not canon

accuse anyone who’s utmost priority isn’t revering writers on shows with rep for queer cis, thin, femme, mostly white teens and twentysomethings who get together in episode 4 of not caring about the community

tag all of the above with the ship you’re bashing

If you prioritize canon over the culture I referred to way up there (the strong sense of community, the heavy emphasis on transformative works, the focus on the characters as individuals, the solidarity between fandoms), that’s your choice, but it's not mine. It’s not a lot of people’s, and you won’t let us coexist, or at least not unless we’re willing to submit to a clear statement that you're the ones doing it right, which is a huge slap in the face to the people (older than me) who spent years or decades fighting to not be actively mistreated by the creators of the media they were consuming.

In conclusion, please take a chill pill.

#this started out as one thing and sort of became something else

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whimsical-writer · 7 years

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Okay Rooster Teeth

“Spoilers for Red vs Blue season 15 up to episode 7 beneath the cut. It’s a long post.

From Lopez’s “Tumblr’s going to hate this” joke in Episode 15.6 I get that you’re all used to getting irrational flame and hate over the smallest things from Tumblr users. As someone who enjoys being on the website, even I can admit Tumblr has some seriously ugly parts to it, such as call out culture. Some people where will scream and rage and hate on anything they deem to be “problematic”.

This post will not be like that.

I have no idea if you guys will read this, or if you’ll take away what I hope you will from it. Even if you don’t, this doesn’t just apply to you. This applies to all content creators. This is something I both need from the content I consume and that I must be aware of when I create my own works.

In episode 15.2, Kaikaina Grif makes two “bi-phase” jokes. In episode 15.7, there’s a long gag about Tucker having fathered many child and is raising a fuss about paying child support, and is generally playing the part of the absent black father.

Both these jokes made me incredibly uncomfortable.

I wasn’t upset, not in the sense of being hurt by these jokes, nor was I angry. I watch more Rooster Teeth content than just Red vs Blue. I know from watching these other shows that you guys are good people who try to do good. I know that many of your employees are some form of queer, or PoC, or both. I’m aware that you try to be accepting of different faiths, sexulaities, and cultures. The atmosphere that you produce on your podcasts, behind the scenes, live shows, and at cons is one that is fun, easy going, accepting, and funny. It’s because I am aware of these things that I know that these jokes you make are just that. Jokes. You don’t mean harm by them. But both these jokes play on stereotypes that are legitimately harmful to those they are about.

I’ll start with Kai’s bi-phase joke first, as I am someone who is attracted to multiple genders. People who are bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, however they identify, and are attracted to multiple genders and sexs are treated with suspicion, looked down upon, and harassed by both heterosexual and homosexual people. Both groups tell them that they are “faking for attention”, “just going through a phase”, and / or “you’ll have to pick a side”. Many people say that they don’t want to date people who are attracted to multiple genders because they are more likely to cheat or carry STIs. People who are attracted to multiple genders often have their gender erased, “You’re dating this person, so right now you’re straight / gay”, and in media, characters who are confirmed attracted to multiple genders will not use terms like bisexual or pansexual, instead using phrasing such as “I like people”, or “I don’t like labels”, and these media characters often fulfil the stereotype of the cheating bisexual, or show a distaste for “being tied down”. For those who are heterosexual, this may not seem like a big deal but for those of us who are queer, we have a very important part of our identity denied on a near daily basis, so when many characters instead refusing to name their identity it can be upsetting. Having characters who represent us is hugely important because it shows we are not alone. It gives us someone to look up to. And, in a way that’s just really hard to explain properly, it just makes us feel good to see a character who’s like us. It makes us smile, it can make us cry.

Kaikaina Grif is a character who is very beloved by the community. Since we didn’t have too much canon facts about Kai to build our stories and art off, we had to do a lot of inventing on our own, but the core of Kai came from her actions in the Blood Gulch Chronicles. It was well accepted that Kaikaina Grif was bisexual, from her comment that Tex is badass and hot, and that that thought did not change upon realizing Tex was a woman.

When Kai showed up in the season 15 trailer, no one expected her to be exactly like we had written. We understood, in general, that there was going to be a difference between “fanon” and canon. But Kaikaina’s bi-phrase joke took a lot of us by surprised and took away one of the core things about Kai’s character. I understand that Kai is supposed to be a sexual, no filter character whose lines are often written to invoke the “wait, what?” gag, but the fact she was bisexual was important to many of us because of the above reasons. The bi-phase joke not only perpetuated the stereotype that bisexual people are “undecided”, it took away a character who represented us, and turned a character we love into just a joke. We knew Kai would not get the same level of characterization the main characters would. We understand what a side character is. But even minor characters, even in a mostly humorous show, shouldn’t have their sexuality reduced to a joke. Kai’s even more special than other side characters, because she’s related to one of the main characters!

This is why the bi-phase joke made me and many others uncomfortable. It showed yet again that people consider attraction to multiple genders to be something that no one takes seriously or understands.

The next joke is the long gag about Tucker having sired who knows how many children and is going to be the absent father for all of them while whining about paying child support. I want to preface this explanation by stating I am not a person of colour, I am white, so many of my feelings and thoughts on this come from my PoC friends and acquaintances. If anything I say is wrong or offensive, please let me know and I will do my best to correct it and myself.

Lavernius Tucker is another beloved character of the community. Many of us believe Tucker has had some of the most character growth of all the Blood Gulch Crew, even when you include Wash and Carolina. We watched him grow from a young, inexperienced soldier to perhaps the best soldier of the Blood Gulch Crew. In many ways, the Chorus trilogy is Tucker’s trilogy, because of how much he learns and grows over the course of it.

Tucker is a black character. Taking the only canon black character and painting him the sex driven absent father is a huge problem. Again, this is from my understanding of it, but black men have the stereotype as being sexual deviants who don’t care for their children. This is wrong and untrue, but people who believe this look down upon or distrust or outright hate black men because of it. Black men are seen as terrible fathers, despite any and all evidence to the contrary. This is hugely harmful to black men, especially black fathers, who are distrusted around children, even their own. Black men are also seen as sexual predators because of these stereotypes. Reproducing this stereotype in media only makes the matter worse.

We are aware that a huge part of Tucker’s personality is his sexual nature, but at many points in the show it’s implied or outright stated that Tucker doesn’t actually and has never done much sleeping around. In season 11, Tucker implies to Wash that he slept with an entire bachelorette party. Wash questions him about it and Tucker admits that it didn’t really happen. The joke with Tucker was never that he sleeps around, it was that he was trying to look cool by saying that he did. By season 11, he had largely moved past that. He still made jokes of a sexual nature, that will always be Tucker, but the writing showed that he was not the “sexual deviant” type.

The absent father type is also not the kind of person Tucker is. Shortly after Junior is born, Tucker describes the “ideal father-son relationship” as, “you know, where I only see him every other weekend and on holidays.”. The writing and his actions after that quickly show another story. Tucker is upset by the idea of Wyoming and Omega kidnapping his child so they can use him in their plot to dominate the galaxy. When the ship explodes at the end of season 5 and Junior presumably dies, he tells Church that he is leaving Blood Gulch, as in deserting his post, fleeing the army, and stripping himself of a paycheque, in order to find a way to get Junior back. Once he does, he spends months with Junior as ambassadors between the Humans and the races of the Covenant. In season 11, when Wash asks “didn’t you give birth to an alien baby?”, Tucker is immediately defensive and snaps “don’t bring family into this”. When the subject comes up with Doyle in season 13, Tucker goes from being sullen about describing his experience with Crunchbite, to being bright, happy, and enthused when talking about Junior. He proclaims, “FUCK YEAH, Junior is awesome! Here he is on his fifth grade basketball team,” and pulls out a picture of Junior he has been carrying on his person! Tucker is shown, time and time again, to feel protective of his son, to clearly care about his son, and to love his son with his whole heart.

So to have Tucker brush off child support with “Uh, no dude, Junior’s got a basketball scholarship” is not incharacter given his actions with Junior before. Even if Junior is of an age where he’s in college and receiving scholarships, Tucker’s actions before show that, upon hearing and assuming it’s Junior who needs money or support of any kind, he probably would have been concerned about Junior. Continuing on from that, while no one expects Tucker to be able to a present father involved with every possible child he had (it’s implied there are many), he is shown to be responsible. All of the Chorus trilogy is about Tucker being responsible!

Like with Kaikaina, this joke not only supports negative stereotypes but is removing a core part of the character. For Tucker especially, it feels like years of character development were sacrificed to make a gag.

While I did talk about the consequences these jokes had to the characters and narrative, this is also about the negative impact this sort of humor can have over all.

Again, people who work at Rooster Teeth, I watch a lot of your content. I am well aware that, at the very least, the vast majority of you are good people. You’re not people who hate people for the colour of their skin, or their sexuality or what have you. You write this jokes out of a good nature. You’re ribbing, prodding. You’re not seriously believing that bisexuals are going through phases or that black men make terrible fathers.

The problem is, not everyone watches all of your content. Maybe they don’t realize there’s more to Rooster Teeth than the one or two shows they’re watching, or maybe they’re not interested in the behind the scenes footage or podcasts. So when a joke, such as the bi-phase joke, comes along, it can tell people “oh, the creators of this thing don’t like people like me”. It hurts so much to find out that someone you admire and look up to despises who you are, or, in extreme cases, would be happy to see you and anyone like you dead. People who don’t watch all of your content, or who feel the gap between your words and actions too large, are going to feel pushed away. The parts of the show they do love are going to start leaving a bitter taste in their mouth. As a hopeful one day content creator myself, I know I’d never want to make anyone who enjoys my work to feel like that, and I know no one at Rooster Teeth would ever want to make anyone feel like they were hated for who they are.

Another problem is that, even if someone does watch a lot of your content, they themselves might be a terrible person.

I love the Rooster Teeth community. I’ve found myself a nice little corner where we encourage each other in writing fanfics and original stories, in drawing, in animation, anything. We’re an accepting group from all walks of life who have in common a love for Red vs Blue and other Rooster Teeth shows. It’s the first time I’ve ever felt so welcome among an internet community. We help each other out through difficult times and make people feel loved and welcome.

But not everyone is like this. Any time people gather together, there’s going to be people who are not good. I’m not just talking internet trolls, I mean legitimately racists, sexist, homophobic, what-have-you, or some combination of these things. These people, when they hear jokes that rely on negative stereotypes to be funny, on some level they are thinking “ah yes, it’s okay for me to think these things. I’m not wrong.”. It’s not on a conscious level, but when it comes to some offensive jokes, this is what making them does. It encourages people to continue to think that way.

Rooster Teeth, you write amazing, humorous shows. And I’m aware that dark humor can exist, I’m aware that it’s sometimes totally in character for a character to make a tasteless joke! It’s just really important to make these jokes the right way, and that’s by showing in the writing that the joke was wrong to say.

You guys have actually done this before in Red vs Blue! In season 11, Tucker makes a joke about the hundreds of others on the ship flying the Reds and Blues home about having died horribly in the crash, only weeks after it happened. This is met with silence from Caboose and a flat “proud of yourself” from Wash. It’s clear that Tucker was in the wrong for making that joke.

That is how you can write offensive jokes into a show. Whether it be an antagonist or flawed protagonist, if the writing shows “this behaviour that is occurring shouldn’t be accepted or encouraged. Not only do we as content creators do not believe it, we’re making it clear,” then that’s great! I’m not saying stop the pacing of the scene to have a five minute lecture about why bisexuality isn’t a phase. It just has to be a line or a visual cue to show it. Not every bad joke can be fixed this way. No one is perfect. I don’t expect you guys to churn out perfect, flawless stories where no one is offended. That’s not possible. I understand that there’s going to be times when something sneaks by the radar or, because of your personal experiences, you may not realize why something isn’t cool to say. That’s just part of being human.

Again, everyone at Rooster Teeth, this isn’t meant to be read as an angry, hurt letter. This isn’t a “you guys suck” post. I love Rooster Teeth, I love Red vs Blue, I love your writing! You guys all work together to produce some of my favourite shows, animated or live action. It’s my dream to work for Rooster Teeth animation one day, to see some of the stories I’ve been working as shows on the Rooster Teeth website. I don’t wish failure upon the company, any individual, or any of your shows. I’m writing this because I want to see you guys keep improving your storytelling. And you’ve all massively improved over the years! If I watch content from 3,4,5 years ago and compare it with today’s latest episodes, it’s amazing to see just how much you’ve all grown as a company.

I want to make it clear that so far, that little community I mentioned?

So far we’ve love this season. Some parts have sat better with some of us than others, but overall we’re excited! We’re enjoying ourselves! We’re shrieking in a chatroom together, coming up with wild theory after wild theory, crying when the emotions get high, bouncing excitedly when plot gets revealed! Any complaints or criticism we have comes from the fact we love this show! We love it and we watch it to enjoy it, to analyze it, to get our creative juices going.

I hope you’ve read this all the way to the end. I know this is just my thoughts and perspective, but I hope you give thought to what I, and many others, think about the show and the writing.

#Heza Speaks #RVB #RVB15 #RVB15Spoilers #RVBSpoilers #RVBCritical #Holy hell this is long #Rooster Teeth #Rooster Teeth Critical

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postmodernmulticoloredcloak · 7 years

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I'm really curious about what thoughts you've been having regarding fandom dynamics, but if you don't feel like talking about that rn that's cool, too :)

Well it’s more like that it’s a very complex topic and I am a very small potato and I tend to write things out if I can explain my thoughts in full and clearly and nicely. Also I don’t have much first-hand knowledge of fandom culture and dynamics, most of what I know comes to me through reflections and refractions so to speak, so I’m afraid that I won’t be able to make the topic justice or really manage to express my thoughts clearly and correctly.

Basically, I have read a post about shipping culture especially in regards to what has going on with the Sherlock fandom, which I am not a part of - I have watched the show, I follow some people who post some Sherlock, and I am generally aware of things, but I can’t call myself an expert of the dynamics of the Johnlock fandom. I know that some not very healthy things, to put it mildly, went down there, and I’m not going to say that everything is kittens and roses but I can’t really make statements because as I said I am not fully knowledgeable about the topic.

That said, I think that there is a discourse going on about... shipper entitlement, we could say? I guess that in recent times the relationship between fans and creators have changed, and fans have more chances to interact with (and impact on?) creators. And I guess that among fans there has been a phenomenon of “losing track” of the distance between fandom and the so called Powers That Be, you know? And some Bad Things(TM) have been happening, especially in regards to some fans undoubtedly feeling entitled to the producers, writers, actors choices/opinions/private lives, in various ways.

Now I think there is a discussion about (against?) this kind of “entitlement” from the fans, but I am wary of it. Like - shippers have lost the sense of what “shipping” is! It should be fun and separated from the canon/creators!

I understand the “shipping should not be about stomping your feet until the ship becomes canon” sentiment, or the “shipping should not be about fighting with shippers of other ships” sentiment too. Of course.

But am I the only one that feels that the “protection” of fandom from “entitled shippers” risks to be a form of policing against queer fans’ desire for representation, among other things?

And first of all, this kind of discussion seems to treat every kind of creators as the same. But there is a difference between, let’s say, Moffat and Dabb. Or, let’s say, BBC and a conservative-led American Hollywood franchise. How is it possible to make general statements of what is the correct/appropriate/respectful/etc approach to “TPTB” when every franchise, network, producer, writer, actor etc has their own way to approach the fans, the issues fans are sensitive to, LGBT issues, etc? I think it’s wrong (and inappropriate and disrespectful, and, well... silly) to assume that every creator is the same, some kind of entity that fluctuates above the entertainment media industry.

Second, are we sure that it is a good thing that “shipping” gets confined away from the territory in which fans meet creators? Or is it a way to tell people who “ship” same-gender couples, that’s not canon, it’ll never be*, so stay in your lane? Don’t we just end up in a situation where creators are allowed to queerbait and then it’s the fans’ fault if they’re upset because the creators never said they meant for them to be a couple! Despite them writing a story that was blatantly queercoded, in a way that queer fans have learned to decode for decades of queercoding in visual media production?

*I get the difference between “you can’t be entitled to have your ship become canon just because you like it” (which is totally right) and “shut up you delusional, that’s not what the story is about stop pestering the creators to make the story about it”. Which is usually directed to people who ship couples whose relationship is heavily framed as couple-y anyway. And composed of people of the same gender, which makes me think the problem is not fan-creator dynamics, or whatever, but a way simpler queerphobia.

I am not saying “shippers” are all queer fans that long for representation. There are frankly disgusting things in shipping fandoms and I (a queer person, not straight, not cis, definitely not the kind of “straight girl who fetishizes queer men” fan) will never pretend they’re not there. There are a lot of cases of violation of of boundaries. Yes, fan entitlement is a problem. There are a lot of problems and we can see them from our little corner of the fandom.

But I am wary of a discourse about shipper entitlement.

Just to mention one case I am vaguely more knowledgeable about - I have seen shippers of Steve Rogers ships other than Stucky complain about the fact that the hashtag #GiveCaptainAmericaABoyfriend was dominated by Stucky shippers. I may be biased but how can you call that “entitlement” when the franchise purposely wrote a love story there and then spat in people’s faces? Can you say that every ship is equal when one ship was queerbaited and then brutally denied (let’s not talk about how)? Can you say that Stucky shippers are “entitled”? To what, not being mocked? I wouldn’t call that entitlement.

I hope I have made sense. Feel free to tell me your thoughts!

#fandom issues #shipping culture #destielonfire

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