fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2343 ]

[ SECRET POST #2343 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2343 ⌋

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

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[not a repeat, was too big before]

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 055 secrets from Secret Submission Post #335.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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So say you grew up really liking something from, say, the 1990s, that by today's standards would never ever get made, at least not in the same fashion. Maybe the female characters are essentially oversexed talking blow-up dolls, maybe there's some kind of racist stereotype that would never fly. Stuff like that.

Let's say it was your favouritest thing back in the day, but now that you're older and more aware of stuff like privilege and stuff like that, you'd never approve of something like it if it were made today. And then you rediscover it and all its myriad SJ no-nos.

How do you handle this? Do you disown it, saying "I can't believe I ever liked this offensive drivel?" Or does it wind up in a blindspot where you still love it just the same, Liefeld women and all? Or do you acknowledge it has problems but choose to retain your fond memories of it?

Retain the fond memories, but make sure to be aware of the offensive material. sometimes the offensive material will naturally spoil the fond memories anyway.

I feel this way about a lot of Disney movies. I'd say it's the last one for me, acknowledge their problems but still look back on them fondly.

Some of it is a little spoiled now, like when I watch Lady and the Tramp, the "We Are Siamese" song is just so horribly embarrassing to watch, and Trixie reminded me a bit of a prostitute who'd had a rough life.

But it's still a good memory, and I still enoy it.

OTOH I never knew Ursula's design was based off Divine, a drag queen, so that was pretty awesome.

I usually roll my eyes at the SJW who said it's "problematic" and then enjoy it more.

I go by the philosophy that it's okay to like problematic things as long as you understand what's problematic about it and why. If people insist on liking what they like and refusing to acknowledge that it's problematic at all, well... that's just cringeworthy.

Indiana Jones

I just watched one of the movies like yesterday and hoo boy, I wanted to both smack Indiana for being such an abusive shit towards women and sex him up because apparently I still have this teenage fantasy about him being into exotic male dancers or something

and the movies have lots of cultural appropriation and racism but what else is new

I think disavowing stuff is actually incredibly hypocritical. I mean, if something is so irritatingly sexist/racist/whatever that you can't enjoy it anymore, that's one thing. But disavowing on principle? Like, "I can't believe I ever liked this offensive drivel"? Okay...because now we're completely perfect? The present day is not the end of history. The stuff today that we think has no problems at all...well, you just know that in the future, at least half of it will have people twenty years younger than us cringing at how problematic and full of horribly ignorant and prejudiced implications it is.

And I don't think that means that we're stupid idiots for not seeing it, or that the stuff we think is good is actually horrible drivel. It's just a product of its time, its time being now, just like the stuff made in the 1990s or before was a product of its time. Doesn't mean it's all bad, just that it was one in a line of a million rough drafts that are slowly getting better but aren't anywhere near the final draft yet.

So I guess...yeah, we see the flaws better now, and maybe we dislike those flaws enough to not want to revisit it, which is fine, but actually disavowing it and thinking the nice convenient explanation for why we liked it back then was "oh well, clearly, I was an idiot then, but I'm not an idiot now, I swear!"? I think that's actually kind of deceitful. You're throwing out something that probably had a lot of good things about it and that you enjoyed even though it was flawed because you're embarrassed about not noticing its flaws straight away, instead of looking at it and appreciating the good parts (if there are any) and by being aware of its flaws, thinking of ways to recreate those good things with fewer flaws.

tl;dr, but I'm pretty sure I agree wholeheartedly

HOW CAN YOU KNOW IF YOU DIDN'T READ IT

Depends. There are some things that I can overlook and the fondness is strong enough to still look back and enjoy. Other things I watch and just become frustrated with all the problematic aspects that I now notice. A lot of Disney movies and old cartoons are like this for me.

I'm going to use a slightly...off example.

For those of you familiar with Avatar, you know about everything with the Northern Water Tribe and how the women couldn't learn combat bending and how Katara challenged the master who upheld those rules.

I once saw a post on tumblr about how it was so problematic, that POC didn't challenge their elders like that, that Katara acted totally white and it was wrong.

You're smart people, you can smell the BS from here. In the context of the show, there was a war to be fought, and rules had to be broken. But the outside implications of racial-coded actions just reeked of reaching.

Another: I don't have the fond memories that most do of a childhood with Disney. I don't remember watching any of the princess movies and being /so/ attached to them that I refuse to hear a word against these films. So when I see someone point out an issue (and just because they point it out doesn't mean they're right, but they usually are), and some person who was raised by VHS loses their shit and goes "Please don't ruin this for me, it's a harmless film!!!", "Well, it didn't affect ME negatively!", "It's a kid's movie!", because, guess what, nothing is, was, or will be made in a vacuum. There will be implications, clear or coded, and they may or may not affect child A, but child B may feel differently. And even though something may have iffy moments, that doesn't mean you can't like it. I LOVE The Little Mermaid and only saw it last year, and I definitely can see why some people are cold on it.

/Essay.

....the newest Star Trek movie.

Yes I understand the whitewashing. Yes I understand that the female characters were underutilized and oversexualized.

But I loved it all the same.

+1.

You're not alone, and this is why this shit will never change.

(I liked the movie too, but whenever it comes up, I really wish I didn't.)

I honestly don't care all that much.I'm capable of understanding things have cultural contexts. Also I'd say that I'm generally less bothered by "problematic" stuff from American media, because my sensitivities are slightly different to begin with, and because it's always a bit being on the outside looking in.

Raffles/Bunny is my forever OTP, but the stories are very much a product of their time. It's easier to ignore problematic elements in older stories.

Oh man, the Space Adventure Cobra movie. I fucking love it, especially the original dub where they used music from the band Yellow. It's the best kind of retro-future pulp sci-fi that I absolutely love.

The only problem is that the plot of the three sisters of Myras is probably the most appallingly sexist thing I have ever seen. Each queen of the planet Myras will have three daughters; if all three fall in love with the same man, they will merge into a 'whole being' and basically be the perfect woman. If a sister falls in love but then dies, her love is then transferred to the next sister, who then dedicates her life to a man she's never even met. And naturally, all three of these women are 'stuffed in the fridge'.

And yet, I have to admit I was impressed that Cobra was freaked out by these sisters suddenly falling in love with him and not taking advantage of it.

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[ SECRET POST #2343 ]

problematic stuff you still love

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