case: (Default)
Case ([personal profile] case) wrote in [community profile] fandomsecrets2021-02-14 02:34 pm

[ SECRET POST #5154 ]


⌈ Secret Post #5154 ⌋

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


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 38 secrets from Secret Submission Post #738.
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.

(Anonymous) 2021-02-14 07:46 pm (UTC)(link)
I completely agree with the sentiment, I hate and despise that kinda thing

I don't agree with using the term "deconstruction" to describe that but that's not really your fault, OP

(Anonymous) 2021-02-14 08:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Out of interest, why do you distinguish between what OP is talking about and the term deconstruction?

(Anonymous) 2021-02-14 08:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Hm.

So, for me, 'deconstruction' is basically about looking at a work of fiction, for instance, or a genre of fiction, or any kind of text or whatever, as an artifice, and teasing out the contradictions, oppositions, tensions, problems, irreconcilable elements, etc within that artifice, and then recasting the original work in light of an awareness of those contradictions, often playing them off against each other. So deconstructing the superhero genre, for instance, is primarily about understanding the contradictions inherent in the construct of the superhero genre as a fictional genre.

On the other hand, the kind of thing that I understand OP to be talking about is principally concerned with *realism*. So for instance, with superheroes, it would be answering the question, "what would superhero stories look like in reality". Now, that can be put to use as a technique in deconstructing things - after all, realism is basically a literary technique. But realism isn't really inherent to something like the superhero genre. The tension between superheroes as a genre construct and realism is really not one that's inherent in the superhero genre. So I don't think that deconstruction is the right word to describe it. It's more a rewriting of the superhero genre based on fundamentally different premises (although unfortunately, the people who engage in it are not really aware that this is what they are doing) than it is engaging with the premises as they exist.

That's how I think about it I guess.

(Anonymous) 2021-02-14 09:12 pm (UTC)(link)
[nayrt] this is basically what I think - that like, highlighting internal contradictions in a setting (like how a lot of superheroes refuse to kill villains, but absolutely kill mooks) is or can be part of deconstruction; but going 'if superheroes were real they'd all be sociopathic rapists' is not. That's just the writer telling on himself.
meadowphoenix: (Default)

[personal profile] meadowphoenix 2021-02-15 08:33 am (UTC)(link)
hmm, I don't think there's any appreciable literary difference to separate that out from deconstruction. There is always a tension between audience and genre and that's always inherent to the genre. For instance, a contradiction inherent in the structure of the superhero genre is that the audience is investing in ethical framework that is "unallowable" in their own lives. That's part of the genre. In fact, I don't think you can actually separate the superhero genre from a philosophical commentary of the audience's real world. Therefore, "what if superheroes were in our reality" is a valid deconstruction.

I think there's a difference in "this is why everything would fail" and "this is the adjustments superheroes would need if in our reality." Both are deconstructions, but the former is a flat-out rejection of the themes and frameworks advanced in the superhero genre as a whole. And frankly that's a bummer of a read/watch/listen and suggests something contemptuous for the genre itself (I think Watchmen skirts this line). But that doesn't exclude it from being a deconstruction.