Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2016-04-06 05:15 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2016-04-06 05:15 pm
[ SECRET POST #3381 ]
⌈ Secret Post #3381 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 020 secrets from Secret Submission Post #483.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
no subject
It's a full on nuclear assault on the soft target without a single piece of shrapnel at the male-dominated media that underlies the issue, that's actually pretty damned impressive. Hey, you might actually make some white girls on tumblr who already feel badly about social issues attempt to "fix" their own sexual desires by writing a few token fics about the poorly-written black guy in their fandom who barely gets any screen time. It will change nothing, aside from making a class of people who are already made to question the validity of said desires even less secure; it builds momentum with, rather than against, the status quo.
It changes nothing, because in every fandom I've ever been in, slash of men of color is written proportional to the weight of the roles given to them and the degree to which they interact with other men of color. It changes nothing, because given that, POC slash writers share the same tendencies as white writer - though you'd attack them all the same, because it's so much easier.
As such, it'd be much, much harder to address the heart of the issue: the male-dominated media in positions of power that perpetuate the casting of white male actors in the most frequent and meaty roles. You'd have to write men with real power and influence and state your case. You'd have to spend your own money on those properties that did put men of color front and center. You'd have to make a more compelling case than simply shrieking ~white privilege~ on tumblr or LJ, one that could potentially result in real change, but would be much, much harder.
We already know which one you've chosen and can appraise the merits of what you have to say accordingly.
(I mean assuming you're not trolling. As always, on the internet.)
no subject
(Anonymous) 2016-04-07 07:06 am (UTC)(link)what makes you assume that people aren't doing both at the same time? every comment ive seen you make in this thread seems to imply you think that criticizing slash fandom is the only thing someone can devote their time to.
me personally, i do both. slash fandom has hella problems, whether you want to sweep it under the rug or not. white men getting roles waaaay over proportionately is also bad, and i speak out on this waaay more than i speak out on slash fandom. but slash fandom isn't above criticism either. you're doing exactly what the anon above you accused you of doing with the whole 'boohoo tumblr girls' comment too, you're playing the white victim card, and it's....kinda gross ngl. like someone pointed it out and you keep doing it. i don't know what fandoms you're in where black men are magically getting all these great fics written about them, but i've seen the exact opposite, where black men with wonderful, well written roles are basically ignored for 'white man #473' background actors just so there can be white on white penis action.
slash of men of color is written proportional to the weight of the roles given to them and the degree to which they interact with other men of color.
wait....am i reading this right? this sounds racist as fuck. are you trying to say men of colour can only be slashed with other men of colour? because that's....wow. that's literally what this entire problem is about, people being scared of their white faves being slashed with men of colour. the huge issue here is interracial slash is very conspicuously ignored.
also...lol, i already put my money where my mouth is. i support projects that place men of colour front and center. i've written to studios, i've engaged publishers, authors, studio execs and more on twitter and reddit. i've tried to hijack amas to get questions about racial casting answered. i back indie projects that places men and women of colour and lgbt people as main characters, supporting characters, and more.
i can do both. not to mention you're committing the fallacy of relative privation here, the whole 'because there are worse problems, you can't comment on this one' fallacy. if someone wants to make racism in slash fandom their pet cause? so what? i'd actually say that's pretty smart, since there's more of a chance of causing lasting change. i used to be pretty adamant about only liking white men, even as a latina woman myself. over time, the more i immersed myself both in real life and in fiction in other races beyond 'white', i found the barriers i would have sworn to you i couldn't change just crumbling like so much sand. nothing was forced, i honestly just found the humanity in other people for the first time where i can say i was lacking it. i started paying attention to men of colour as characters and not 'othering' them in favor of the two nearest white guys. i'm pretty much living proof that this 'ingrained' biases are a product of the culture i grew up in, one which prioritizes whiteness and integration even over my own culture, the reason my mama felt ashamed to speak spanish around white company, all that bs.
so yeah, i say good on people who want to tackle this issue, because it's people like op who got me to change. it's nice, being able to look at a guy and not have to vet him by race, but rather if he makes me laugh, or if i like his smile. it's nice to be able to ship two characters because they have chemistry and subtext instead of because they both have pale skin.
i feel like comments like yours are purposely meant to belittle this problem, but it's a real problem, and people who have the cojones to speak out about it are making change. i can't imagine i'm the only person these discussions have touched.
no subject
wait....am i reading this right? this sounds racist as fuck.
Typo. There was supposed to be a "white men and" in there. Obviously.
See, I've had exactly the opposite experience: when men of color are given major roles, they are slashed as often as the white men in every fandom I've ever been in. Unfortunately, this phenomenon is uncommon.
i don't know what fandoms you're in
I am primarily in video game fandoms, and one of they only video game series I can think of where one of the two male leads is a POC is Army of Two. Specifically, Tyson Rios. His counterpart, Elliot Salem, is white. The crux of the games' characterization revolves around their interaction. There are numerous other white male minor characters, with which slash fangirls could ship Salem if they so chose, even though their interaction with him is minimal in comparison. If your hypothesis is correct, this is exactly what they would do.
However, in reality, virtually all of the slash in the Army of Two fandom is Rios/Salem.
(As a bonus, the second most popular pairing - Alpha/Bravo, whose interactions form the crux of the third game - is also interracial.)
Go ahead, fact check this. I'll wait. Bring up AO3 and ff.net and do a count.
So, what now? I've debunked your hypothesis. To be sure, the overwhelming majority of ships in other Western game fandoms are white - but the overwhelming majority of main male characters are also white in these games. (Leaving aside the oodles of slash for those video games which only feature Asian protagonists, like the Yakuza and BASARA series. And these are realistically rendered, so there's no "it's 2D it doesn't count" cop-out available.) If those characters are main characters and if they have interactions with the other characters, it is readily apparent that fangirls have no trouble slashing them.
Does the lack of male POC representation in video games bother me? Yes, yes it does. I bought all three Ao2 games at full price not just because I like tactical 3rd person cover shooters, but because this dynamic is relatively rare. This kind of representation is the kind most male POC will see; the kind that can actually make changes.
My concern about this issue, however, won't stop me from calling it as I see it: critiquing the already-demonized, already-denigrated, already-friendly target in lieu of the hard target from which the problem stems because it's just so much easier to go "boo hoo tumblr girls" and "victim card" and "gross ngl" and a litany of other buzzwords at someone who holds no power than it is to do something that will affect real change. "Tumblr girls" already want to listen to you. Should you get more of them to write that token fic about the one black guy that had the one line that time before dying in the second mission of the game, and call that an accomplishment, I'm right here to tell you that you've accomplished fuck and all, because if the white male writer who killed off the black guy in the second mission had instead made him the lead and given him a deep and meaningful part, they would have written fic about him anyway. And that fic they would have actually enjoyed.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2016-04-07 08:03 am (UTC)(link)Assassin's Creed (the whole series) has several POC main characters and side characters and they get shipped just as enthusiastically as any white/white ships does, if not more.
And you could argue that Corvo from Dishonored is a POC, although it's debatable if people from the fictional country he's from are POC or more like darker skinned Italian/Spanish people.
no subject
Good point, DA.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2016-04-07 08:56 am (UTC)(link)lol, i love how a few examples, something the op of the secret literally pointed out, somehow invalidates my 'hypothesis'. a few fandoms that go against the grain don't invalidate anything. this is why privileged white people don't get shit, they think pointing out a few games where people of colour happen to get a fair shake somehow 'invalidates' an overall racial problem.
you're basically pointing out some token poc characters and going "see, no racism here!!" when that's the farthest thing from the truth.
also, fandoms like marvel? exact opposite. the issue is that when given a choice between a decently characterized person of colour or a "meh" white person, people gravitate towards the white/white pairing. poc that get moe screentime, and better characterization? oh, we'd better ship him with that white guy instead! shows like psych? who cares that the show basically shipped them for you, better shove the white guy with the other white guy! scrubs? what, another epic interracial bromance? nah, let's ship him with the grumpy white doctor or the janitor haha that's totally not showing racial preferences waaaat?
you can point out one, two, maybe even three, four franchises where this isn't the case, but western fandom (and yeah, the vast majority of 2d yaoi, like iggy pointed out below) is obsessed with white and/or whitewashed dick. this is talking about a systemic problem.
aaaaand again lol, you keep trying so hard to act like this is the only thing i can talk about, but i've already "punched up", i regularly put my money whee my mouth is, i do activism work, i speak to other people of colour and try and tackle the race disparity...and i also can talk about this. as a woman of colour guess what? even criticizing your precious slash fandom is still punching up! women of colour are made to feel just as excluded. white women are not a 'soft target' (if you wanna talk about buzzwords...), they are literally the most catered to demographic in slash fandom, which is huge. white women get what they want every single time two white men stare at each other a beat too long on the latest fandom darling tv show. (there's a reason this (http://cdn0.dailydot.com/uploaded/images/original/2012/11/7/no_homo.jpg) is a meme) white women aren't friendly to change, otherwise instead of arguing about it they would be standing in solidarity and fighting for change along with us. they don't want change, they certainly don't want to hear about the struggles of people of colour in fandom! they don't wanna do sheeeit.
no, i don't want them to write token fic about the black guy that killed in the second mission, i want them to start paying attention to the nuanced poc characters that are written well. stop making excuses about every single well written black character that you're 'just not into [insert litany of excuses here]' when you ship that exact same dynamic when it's two white dudes. start paying attention to men of colour in the shows you watch and the comics you read, the games you play, and start paying attention to them and their interactions instead of desexualizing them and writing them off.
let's see how you can frame poor white ladies as the victim of the mean woman of colour next, come on.
no subject
But they don't, actually, "go against the grain."
some token poc characters
No, these are main characters and protagonists from some of the largest and most popular video game franchises around.
While we're at it, since I knew I would be accused of "cherry picking," (because there is no other recourse when a factual example discredits your argument) when it comes to other games I play with major male characters who are POC and have the crux the meaningful interactions - in addition to Ao2, BASARA, Yakuza, and virtually every JRPG ever set in Japan:
Assassin's Creed - As pointed out by DA above, many of the protagonists are POC, and their most popular slash ships are interracial.
Mass Effect - Shepard/Kaidan by far the most popular slash ship in the fandom, also interracial (unless your Shepard is also 1/2-Asian, I suppose) even though in ME3 Shepard has other - white - male options.
League of Legends (the most popular video game on the planet) - Lucian, Shen, Xin Zhao, Yasuo, and Ekko are some of the most popular characters to slash, not to mention the RPS will be by necessity either POC/POC or interracial - and there is a shitton of RPS.
Far Cry 3 - Vaas/Brody is the most popular slash pairing. Interracial, despite there being plenty of white men to ship Brody with. Including pretty white men!
Far Cry 4 - Pagan/MC and Sabal/MC are the most popular slash pairings. Both POC/POC. (Again, there are white male characters in this game with less frequent/less meaningful interactions with the MC, and somehow the fandom is not all about white dicks touching...)
Infamous Series - Deslin/Any - the first two games feature no major male POC characters; the third has a Native American protagonist, and he is the most commonly slashed character for this game by far, in both inter- and intraracial pairings.
Dead Space Series - Isaac/Carver - by far the most popular slash pairing, around whose interactions the whole third game revolves. Interracial.
Spec Ops: The Line - Walker/Lugo, Walker/Adams, Lugo/Adams - these are the only three ships possible in the game, and they are all interracial. This did not stop fangirls from slashing it. The only major interaction between two white characters, Walker and Konrad, is non-existent as a pairing.
Telltale's The Walking Dead - Lee/Any - the protagonist is black, and none of the other main male characters are. Again, this did not stop fangirls from slashing it.
Unfortunately, yes, these games with POC protagonists/where the white protagonist has most of his meaningful interactions with a male POC are in the solid minority. I cannot, however, think of a single game I've played in which fandom I've been in that satisfies either of those requirements for which there is not a sizable slash following for that pairing as a result. Not a single one.
one, two, maybe even three, four franchises where this isn't the case
No, it's every single one that satisfies those requirements.
Moreover, those fandoms that have POC characters who are minor players but also have meaningful interactions also have minor slash followings (e.g. CoD's Foley/Dunn, Ramirez/Dunn) accordingly.
I... honestly outright reject OP's entire assertion, upon reflection. You're simply incorrect.
So provide counter-examples from games that do have male POC protagonists/major characters the crux of whose meaningful interactions are with the protagonist, or pack it in, save your righteous indignation for the media that created this problem, and have a chance at making meaningful changes.
It's put up or shut up time. I have. Your turn. "Marvel" doesn't count - there are far more major white male characters than POCs, and these interact with other white characters in far more meaningful ways (childhood friend of decades who sacrificed his life on my mission versus "some guy I met on a run and just started working with," for example). You have, at present, two TV shows. Now who's cherry picking?
let's see how you can frame poor white ladies as the victim of the mean woman of colour next, come on.
I don't need to. I turns out, we're already doing exactly what you asked. (Better than you do, it would appear at that, trying to ignorantly write off POC protagonists as "tokens" just for the sake of rhetoric. For the record, as my icon suggests, Rios/Salem is my Ao2 OTP. I have had always zero problems ever putting differently coloured dicks together. If you have, that's your personal baggage and I'm glad you worked that out for yourself.)
no subject
(Anonymous) 2016-04-07 12:28 pm (UTC)(link)...Cortez is not white, for fuck's sake. He's not white at ALL.
no subject
Kinda' defeats AIRT's point even more, though, really.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2016-04-07 09:31 am (UTC)(link)And no, bringing up your alleged activism work and minority status does not automatically mean you're right.
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(Anonymous) 2016-04-09 10:52 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
Everyone brings up Scrubs and Psych over and over again without looking at a broader picture, or what factors might complicate those fandoms. For example, while I have never watched Psych, I have watched Scrubs, and I didn't ship JD/Turk because Turk/Carla was my favourite couple on the show, hands down. And Cox/JD is rivalslash with an element of mentor/student, which are always the most popular types of pairings in slash fandoms. Turk could have white himself and there would still be far more Cox, I guarantee it.
I didn't realize until I hashed it out that no, OP's the one cherry picking out of a misdirected grievance - when men of colour are present and have comparable interactions, slash fandom has no "white cock" problem whatsoever.