fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2962 ]

[ SECRET POST #2962 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2962 ⌋

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

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[Final Fantasy IX]

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03.

[Gaia Online]

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04.

(Guardians of the Galaxy)

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05.

[Batman: Arkham City]

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(Ming Na Wen)

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07.

[Terry Pratchett]

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08.

[The Fall]

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09.

[Markiplier's Youtube Let's Plays]

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10.

(Karen Gillan in Guardians of the Galaxy)

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 014 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I do agree that people can see a movie without doing the stuff depicted in it, but the fact that she calls women who have been abuse victims and criticized it "trolls" and "witches" really makes me dislike her. :/

Yeah.

I'd have a lot less problems with it if it advertised itself for what it is: a guy who's abusive and controlling. That's a fantasy with a clean break from reality!

Advertising it as a romance and actual BDSM is not okay and that's where I take issue.

You're literally saying that the women that go to see it aren't going to be able to differentiate. That they're all so stupid that even with all this incredibly loud and visible criticism, they're going to be oblivious of all of it, sit down, watch a movie, and come out of it suddenly desperate to find someone to abuse them.

I give people more credit than that.

No, I'm not. I'm saying abuse is so normalized and we don't fucking teach the signs well enough that people don't fucking recognize it, and this isn't helping. It's not about stupidity, it's about how we normalize putting down and abusing women to the point that many don't realize they're being abused. Especially when it's billed as healthy BDSM which most women don't know much about anyway.

But sure, keep defending the greedy scumlord who calls abuse victims calling her shit out "witches" and "trolls."

But again, this is literally the exact same argument that people were spouting before Twilight came out. And I'm not saying the argument is wrong: the relationship between Edward and Bella is abusive. The relationship between Christian and Ana is abusive. People know that. There wasn't, as I said, a sudden significant upswing in abusive relationships after girls went to see Twilight. There will not be a sudden significant upswing in abusive relationships after 50 Shades comes out. There'll be a small handful of cherry-picked shock articles that probably won't actually be related to 50 Shades at all, but that's it.

Also, I'm not defending shit. E.L. James is a terrible person, and a shitty author to boot. I'm calling you, and everyone like you, out on this shitty opinion that women apparently can't enjoy a stupid ravishment fantasy without being 100% brainwashed into actually acting it out.

You can enjoy a ravishment fantasy.

However, it shouldn't be fucking marketing itself as anything else. And no, people don't know that. I have literally seen countless people, teen girls and older women alike, who think Christian Grey is romantic as fuck.

But sure. Keep whining about how unfeminist we are for calling a spade a spade. You keep normalizing what happened to me and will happen to numerous women.

Okay, there's no way I can maneuver out of this because you're taking it as a personal attack, so I'm bowing out at this point. Have a good one.

(na)
This "what you like* is problematic and you have to self-flagellate constantly about how problematic it is" movement is one of the things I really hate about fandom right now.

Maybe you can try stop assuming the worse about the people watching stuff like this?

*Or produce, in this case. Though I'm talking about the movie and only the people involved with the movie, not about E.L.

I like how anon's complaints about marketing KEEP being interpreted as complaints about the material itself.

Man, so many people missing the point, so hard.

I've been thinking about this all day, and I'm late but I'm going to reply anyway...

This rant isn't directed at you, just sparked by what you said.

Yes, anon is complaining about the marketing, but what she seems to be saying is that marketing 50 Shades of Crap as a romance will make people see it as a romance. No. It may lure them in under false pretences, but how many times have you -- and I -- been misled by a film trailer? And were we then unable to see the film for what it was?

Some people will love it, yes, but -- assuming it is actually as bad as everyone seems to expect -- there are idiots in every bunch (and some of the people who do love it will love selective things about it, and not swallow it whole).

A person's engagement with a story is complex. People are not bound to come away from something 'problematic' like 50 Shades corrupted. They can come away having vicariously experienced corruption and having worked out for themselves that it's a bad thing.

I don't think people will watch 50SoG and be immediately corrupted by forces of...whatever...like robots.

It wouldn't even be an issue except some people have come away from it with a negative message. Even a slight change in attitude builds up when it affects a lot of people. My biggest issue is the way it's marketed as What Women Really Want and how some men are buying into that. It's what Some Women Really Want (To Fantasize About) and I wish it were treated as such.

But we've no way of know how many people (men) went into it thinking they were going to see What Women Want and came out asking 'Is that what you want?'...

ETA Those slight changes build up as well.

Edited 2015-02-14 13:34 (UTC)

More mature men are more likely to ask that question. I don't feel that confident in all of them, though.

Marketing is a very big force in pop culture and a lot of people seem to act like it's nothing. Honestly, that stuff seeps into our brains and affects us in ways we don't realize. There's a reason companies spend millions and millions of dollars on ads - there are psychological studies backing up the fact that they work and they use psychological tricks to increase their effectiveness. Marketing plays a big factor here too. I keep hearing on the radio "ladies, this is for you - I know you're getting excited about 50SoG!" and I cringe every time...there are already soooo many stereotypes out there about What Women Want (and also What Men Want, if we're honest) as well as plenty of guys (and some women) who are convinced they know What All Women Really Want and even go so far as to say women themselves don't know as well as they do (I've seen it several times myself) and it's fucking creepy.

Again, people can have their ravishment fantasies. They are reeeeally not my cuppa, but I'm sure some of the stuff that turns me on leaves other people cold too, so whatev. But if we're going to market abuse as romance and romanticized abuse as women's collective ideal romance and pour tons of money into selling that stuff that way, I'm going to have a problem with it because it will have a cultural impact.

And maybe I'm just being cynical but I honestly think you're giving people a lot of credit to assume that everyone or even most people who go to see that movie (or any movie, or any media at all) will be going in with a mindset of critical analysis. People don't really consume media that way. Many people here do because we're all nerds and we're in a place designed for us to get together and talk about this shit and we all came here for a reason. Most people don't care that much and don't really consciously think about a lot of what they consume. This isn't to say they're unintelligent, just that they take a different approach to media. We are not the target fanbase for most of the stuff talked about on this forum. The target fanbase is basically casual viewers.

Edited 2015-02-14 16:55 (UTC)

I earned my living in advertising for years, both as an account manager and as a copy writer, so I do know a fair bit about advertising and social engineering, and I'm both fascinated by and disgusted by it... But I also know how often it misfires. Because advertising is only one of many -- competing, conflicting, complementary -- influences shaping culture.

I don't know if it's because I'm older or because I'm English and, therefore, from what I'm realising is a very different culture (divided by a common language, as they say), but, yes, I do have a more sanguine view of people than most members of F!S seem to have, and I can't see anything ever changing that. My family members do not have the training in media analysis that we have, and I can confirm that they consume TV and film critically. Newspapers, I find, they tend to believe; TV news, they question.

But people's reaction to 50Shades doesn't have to be analytical (in fact, I'm beginning to think that too much emphasis on meta has broken fandom's ability to consume stories as stories => fandom wank and bullshit, but that's another argument). All people have to do with 50Shades is laugh. Or think, "What a tosser!" Or, "Ewwwww!" Or, "My girlfriend would have my balls for that..."

Ok, fair enough. You certainly know more about advertising than I do if you've worked in it :)

But the 50SoG phenomenon still creeps me out and I hate that it's being portrayed as women's ultimate dream for romance. Whether or not it has a cultural effect (and I think it will), that still just makes me really mad, by itself.

And yeah, your family might consume media in a certain way, but everyone is different and many people blindly accept things they see on TV news and so forth. Sadly.

NAYRT

I think it's probably reasonable to say that many will and many won't. Like I don't think that's a crazy statement. Especially if the creator is being shitty in other contexts.

But at the same time you (I think it's probably the same anon anyway) have been making the same argument for a while and honestly it has led me to reassess a lot of my position on these topics, so sincerely, thanks.

Eh. I think it's a little of column A, a little of column B. There are people who see what's actually going on in the story, and others who don't. One of the radio stations on my area was asking for opinions on it the other day, and a woman called in to say that the books contain neither abuse nor rape, and people who think otherwise need to "educate themselves." So, there's at least one woman in my area who doesn't actually know what she read. And based on her interviews, E.L. James doesn't know what she wrote.

I think there's something wrong with assuming that every member of a group is ignorant, but, unfortunately, some people are. That goes for women and men alike.

Also, I'll say I'm not to keen on the men who think these books "prove" that all women want to be dominated and degraded, and recommend buying them for your woman so she'll start doing what you tell her. That's a lot more offensive to me than someone saying, "some people could get the wrong idea from this, so let's say what'swrong with it."

+11111

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[ SECRET POST #2962 ]

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