fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #493 ]

⌈ Secret Post #493 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 14 pages, 332 secrets from Secret Submission Post #071.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 3 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ], [ 1 - posted twice ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

On one hand, the amount of misogyny in the Supernatural fandom depresses me utterly. On the other hand, the fact that its misogyny is interrogated and talked about more than any other fandom I've lurked in makes me a little proud of it, sometimes.

Let me end my ranty-ness, and discuss this like a reasonable human being.

This is the first fandom that I've really been in where I've noticed it going on. To be fair, my other main fandom before this one was Lord of the Rings RPS, and it was very, very easy given the number of male characters to just ignore anyone else completely. I wrote a fic one time with ten different slash couples and I don't think there was a female character in it -- just because there were that damn many slashy options (especially when crossed over with the cast of Troy).

Supernatural fandom keeps weirding me out -- and this is coming from a wincest writer, for goodness sake. I was terribly surprised to see the misogyny out and about in the fandom. And true, a lot of people, I think, just didn't like what they did with Bela, but so many more didn't like her because she was female.

I am glad that it's something that's being discussed in the fandom, but I honestly just don't understand it. The majority of the fandom, to the best of my knowledge, is female themselves. I don't understand how it then follows that the female characters on the show are villified and hated to such a degree. And yeah, it can get into a circle of wank, but I just can't understand the knee-jerk hatred of all female characters except Ellen. And I heart Ellen like whoa, but it seems like she's only accepted because she's a type of gun toting badass mother figure.

I just don't get my fandom, a lot of the time.

God, I could write a paper on my experiences of misogyny in fandom. Last year there was a lecture series on my U about, basically, internet fandoms (with focus on Japan), and one of the professors made a point that fandom provided a uniquely feminist space of women writing for women. I had to put up my hand and object to that, because I've seen way too much BS for it to sit right with me. And the fact that this is women writing for women makes it even sadder.

I started off in the Gundam Wing fandom, and the hatred many of its contributors had for the main female character, Relena, is legendary. To be fair, she was to many an annoying character. But she was vilified and demonized in many fics to the extent that it was completely OOC; Relena-bashing was a genre to itself. The amount of energy spent hating her was almost equal to the amount spent in adoration of one's favorite characters.

Perhaps this is a symptom of needing a character to die for your ship, basically. It's easier to write a non-canon ship if the other character is turned into a monster. We see that happening with characters like Ron in the Harry Potter fandom, so maybe it's not all based in misogyny. But 99% of the time, it happens to women.

There is also the commonly heard accusation of Mary Sue for canon female characters, if they dare display half of the competence of some other male characters like Superman or Jack Sparrow, even when these characters rarely are accused of the same thing. This happened in the Nightlife fandom, where a sweet, teenage psychic was accused of being a Mary Sue. This is the same story which includes a self-made ninja genius and a several-thousand-year old bisexual Puck.

Meanwhile, if a female characters have obvious flaws, like Bela or Jo, they are called bitches or sluts or whores. They just cannot win. After the last episode, I checked out the TWoP forums. Bela was called a bitch 5 times in 20 minutes, and the forum included such comments of, "Well, she was fourteen and obviously not a virgin since Daddy Dearest was fucking her."

I really don't know WHY this happens in so many fandoms. It just completely grosses me out.

[ SECRET POST #493 ]

Re: 14

Re: 14

Re: 14