[ SECRET POST #2953 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2953 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 034 secrets from Secret Submission Post #422.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

This might explain that:

http://www.slhuang.com/blog/2012/10/03/an-open-letter-to-john-scalzi/#comment-109

tl;dr It wasn't a matter of him only gaining social consciousness after that novel, the cast is a parody of a bad TV show, one that isn't diverse or particularly well written. It's sort of the whole point of the book.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

If ironic shitposting is still shitposting, then surely the same applies to ironic bad writing.

(As a side note, there's an adventure game called Flower, Sun, and Rain that's intentionally awful to make the point that gamers will play anything. I maintain that I won the game--I played it for five minutes and then returned it for a refund.)

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Well... I don't know? Parodies work by mimicking the thing they're parodying and thereby highlighting its faults. Sort of like how Robin Hood: Men in Tightshas Maid Marian in a chastity belt with all the absurd results during a sex scene. The movie isn't going "Woohoo chastity belts and a restrictive notion of female purity!", it's pointing out how dumb that idea is... by showing you a woman in a chastity belt in silly situations. If you go, "Oh, that movie has a woman in a chastity belt, how awful of them!", it's missing the point by miles.

Re: OP

[sarillia]

Not all parodies and satires are successful. I can't speak to this specific book, but the way people say "it's satire!" and leave it at that as though every satire does what it's supposed to annoys me. Sometimes they just don't work.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, that's true. But I think the issue of whether or not it works can be considered separately from the issue of whether or not Scalzi wrote an undiverse cast because he's not very socially enlightened or because he made a deliberate choice to do so in pursuit of a parody. I'm not saying he succeeded in writing successful satire, I'm saying that he was attempting it.

Re: OP

[sarillia]

I agree that those are separate issues. At this point I just have kind of a kneejerk reaction when people immediately start declaring that someone has missed the point instead of acknowledging that there's an argument to be made for whether the satire did its job or not, which you didn't do exactly but your hypothetical example you used to illustrate your point mentioned it.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with this but not all satires don't work either. There are times when they do work and it's just incorrect to say that ironic bad writing is just bad writing. That's just, like, factually wrong.

I can completely get why that would grind your gears though. It pisses me off more than enough for myself.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

This. Like how Galaxy Quest had a busty lieutenant in a cleavagey uniform, an adorable minority child prodigy, and a non-Asian guy playing an Asian character. Because it was a show from the late 70s, when they did all that shit. (I watched Voyagers! and Kung Fu as a child, for example.) The pitch-perfect parody of that magnificent film STOPS WORKING if it's no longer pitch-perfect.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

I thought of Galaxy Quest too, anon. *high fives*

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry, no, Black Dynamite is genius.