fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #730 ]

⌈ Secret Post #730 ⌋

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

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[Persona 4]

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[Soul Eater]

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[Pokemon]

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[Red Dwarf episode "Meltdown", Rasputin/Caligula]

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[Dexter, resized]

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[American Juniors]

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[The Spirit]

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[The Office]

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Notes:

Stuff to do, better early than late, right (:

Secrets Left to Post: 16 pages, 384 secrets from Secret Submission Post #105.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 2 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 3 4 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I don't mean to cover up the disgusting bits and deny that they exist. But I think it's okay to sometimes not take history as srs bsns. It's okay to make fun of it, even the offensive parts of it. It's not like Hetalia is the first one to do this. And lest we forget, Hetalia is a gag comic. It by its very nature is irreverent and oversimplifies and parodies things. If people are offended by Hetalia, I guess they're offended by the entire genre. And that's okay for them to be offended. Personally, I'm not, and I don't think that we each have an obligation to be offended by it.

The problem isn't that Hetalia is making light of the issues. Making light of history is Eddie Izzard's "Hitler never played Risk as a kid..." skit. Dressing history up in moe-boy art and going "how cute, Italy is such a coward~" is a world away.

I think the main problem is that fandom is by majority American, and so isn't exposed to a lot of the actually sensitive issues of European history. They don't know how offensive it is to people in those countries, and try to brush it off as people being oversensitive, because they don't see anything wrong with it. Imagine if there was a Native American People-tan. Imagine the reaction to strips about America-tan kicking them out of their house, but it was all so moe~ and cute~, poor Native-tan, US-tan is soooo meeean~. Wouldn't people think that was just a biiiit skeevy? That'd be more on par with some of the issues Hetalia is playing around with.

tl;dr: Americans telling people not to be offended by wacky Hello Kitty-esque portrayls of their own nations' issues because they themeselves don't see anything wrong with it = GROSSSSSS.

Dressing history up in moe-boy art and going "how cute, Italy is such a coward~" is a world away.
Personally, I disagree. Sexualizing, moefying countries and portraying them as such is so far from any semblance of truth that I think it's dumb to consider it as history. The characters in Hetalia are caricatures and are intentionally exaggerated, simplified, and lacking in factual completeness. How is it not possible to read Hetalia sometimes in the same way one reads a political cartoon? If your concern is that stupid people mistake the caricature for the real deal, then your complaint is against stupid people, not against Hetalia or its presentation.

And as I've said before, Hetalia is not alone in its dumbed-down presentation of real history. What about Gintama and its slapstick presentation of a very turbulent time of Japanese history? Or Histeria, where bloody wars were reduced to dancing and football, while ruthless conquests and expansion were represented by iconic national characters with various neuroses? Real people suffered greatly during those events, but we accept these shows' presentations because haha it's humor and not meant to be taken seriously. It's the same attitude that I personally take toward Hetalia.

While I agree that there are a lot of ignorant people out there, I have to say that there's also a lot of well-educated people who are aware of the history and hot-button topics of different places and who take such things seriously...but can still laugh about it when presented in a less historical, appropriately silly context. For example, I'm Chinese, and my grandparents all suffered under Japanese occupation before and during WWII. Japan and its relationship to China is not a small issue to me. Sure, stuff like that "Rape of Nanking" fic seems kinda skeevy to me, and it's not exactly something that I want to see, but that's the issue--all that's just my opinion.

I recognize that different people are in fandom for different reasons. Some people are in it for teh hawt bishies ^^, some are in it for the quirky history. And when I find art or fic that I find subjectively undesirable, I'm going to sadface a little, and I may tell them that it offends me, but I'm NOT going to tell that person, "Hey you. You're doing this fandom incorrectly. This content offends me. Stop that." I don't have the ethical authority to tell someone to change how they enjoy fandom.

This is Hetalia. It is a comic about nations anthropomorphized as bishies. I think that if you're here to find cultural sensitive portrayals of history, you're going to be disappointed simply due to the very nature of Hetalia's presentation. It is my opinion that due to its mode of presentation, one should expect to occasionally be offended in Hetalia fandom. If you can't deal with being offended, and if you can't deal with others having different tastes and different definitions of humor, Hetalia is probably not the fandom for you.

tl;dr: Anyone telling people they must be offended by wacky Hello Kitty-esque portrayls of issues because they themselves see something wrong with it = GROSSSSSS.

I hate this "They're Americans, they will never understand." thing. Seriously. If anything, the fandom has more fans outside of America, if we're gonna lump them all together.

"If anything, the fandom has more fans outside of America"

Well, that's not true. The English speaking fandom pretty much breaks down like this: http://s02.flagcounter.com/more/X5fy

...But yeah, as an American, I'm kind of hurt by what was said about Americans too.

[ SECRET POST #730 ]

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