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angstandhappiness · 2 years ago

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Intriguing!

So... What do you think about revisiting Danny phantom in general? Revisiting the fandom I've noticed a lot of fanfic that have Danny's parents finding out his deal rather violently, or generally having more violence/angst than the original show..

I’m assuming you’re sending me this ask because of my recent burst of Danny Phantom art, so, it’s probably not a surprise to say I’m doing a certain amount of revisiting myself, and certainly not about to shame anyone else for it. It was a very dear cartoon to me in many ways and left some enduring hallmarks on my own writing, and I can absolutely understand people feeling the same way.

That said, as someone who’s been in this fandom for a while, albeit quietly- there certainly is a thread of macabre interest in fandom spaces, one I don’t always know that I agree with, especially when it comes to the Fentons.

My personal verdict on the Fenton parents specifically is I think they are not handled fairly by canon. This is a problem that Danny Phantom as a show shares with Fairly Odd Parents, though I would argue the Turner parents in FOP are quite a bit worse at this.

Roughly, I think how the Fenton parents are canonically depicted suffers from a phenomenon that affects many parts of the show: DP, as a series, has a bit of a sense of confused priorities between comedy and drama, and as a result, what’s 'real’ in-universe and what’s “just supposed to be a joke”. The kind of humor that DP tends to spring for is exaggerated or shocking behavior- it also tends to be a humor that hinges on the idea that other people are generally inconvenient to the main character. So humor-characterization is inconsistent here- Jack is negligent until it’s more inconvenient to depict him as overbearing (see: Girl’s Night Out and other cases he desperately wants to bond with Danny) he’s a recluse only loved by his wife until it’s more inconvenient to depict him as having an active social life (Masters Of All Time and that he and Maddie are going to a themed party so they’re dressed ‘weirdly’ in public)

A big victim of this is Jack’s sense that ghosts aren’t people and his desire to dissect them. Because here is the thing: it’s all talk, in the worst way. It hinges on the idea Jack- someone who knows enough of what he’s doing that along with Maddie and, in the past, Vlad- ripped two different holes in reality hard enough to permanently alter someone’s relation to undeath- has never seen a ghost before the series as he says in Mystery Meat.

The series has a big problem where it hinges on the Fentons’ inventions and expertise but also wants to treat them like idiots constantly. And if you notice how much I’m talking exclusively about Jack- that’s part of the problem. Maddie, in many ways, outside of episodes that throw her a bone, despite constantly being told by people she’s too good for Jack, is really treated as an extension of Jack. Masters Of All Time even suggests that her choosing Jack in the first place was just a path of least resistance between her two college friends, and she’d have married whichever one stuck around.

The Fentons are not respected as experts, so Jack is given his ignorant line about dissecting a ghost. The Fentons need to remain exaggerated, ridiculous, an inconvenience to Danny- so they threaten his alter ego and point guns at him, but this is funny and not serious and not a reason to be worried about them as parents, because they are not on Danny’s level. Nobody is ever on Danny’s level. There is literally an episode called The Ultimate Enemy. The antagonist is an evil future Danny. The only person who could ever be Danny’s ultimate nemesis is Danny himself.

And when the series stops milking the Fentons for jokes about how they’re so stupid and how Jack is an idiot and Maddie married that idiot but even she doesn’t respect him even though she loves him and dutifully follows him everywhere and god how can these people care about ghosts they’re so ignorant and out of their league-

-then it kinda shuffles its feet awkwardly and goes, yeah. the Fentons love each other, and love their kids.

Yeah, Jack has framed photographs of Maddie, Jazz, and Danny on his personal workstation.

Yeah, in Mystery Meat Jack was seriously debating walking away from his lifework because it upset one of his kids.

Yeah, every time in canon the Fentons find out Danny’s secret they’re immediately all in supporting him.

Yeah, even not knowing it’s Danny, Jack has an amiable conversation with him in Million Dollar Ghost and the ghost containment units designed by the Fentons get some jokes about that they’re a little cramped but they aren’t horrifying prisons of inhumanity- and as soon as Danny Phantom the ghost boy has a good point, Jack lets him go on purpose.

Yeah, Jack is a competent ghost hunter who can take on Skulker and win as well as beat down the giant lake monster Skulker brought with him in Girls’ Night Out and would do this in a heartbeat, no jokes and no sidetracks, because that monster just chewed on his baby boy and nobody does that to his baby boy.

Yeah, Maternal Instinct is an entire episode of Maddie throwing hands with (or deceiving and manipulating) literally anything she thinks was responsible for getting Danny in this dangerous situation.

...And then the series says “but that’s not funny! Here, have jokes about the Fenton Stockades, that exist and have spikes and Jack wants to put his kids in them for time out, when the spikes apparently don’t hurt given Jack is not injured for being put in there. Here, have a joke about Jack attacking Jazz with a vacuum cleaner because he gets hellbent on the idea she’s possessed for no good reason. Here, have an uncomfortable joke about how badly Jack Fenton wants to vivisect a ghost while it screams. Funny funny funny. Why- why are you flinching?”

It basically creates a comedic situation where the show is constantly winding up like it’s gonna punch you- with the idea that the Fentons are bad parents and this has consequences for Danny and Jazz personally- and then laughs in your face if you flinch. It’ll never actually punch you- but it will sure keep swinging its hand really close to your face and laughing at your reactions.

This is, I’m just gonna say- one of the worst elements of the series, this weird relationship it has with “hahaha are we depicting an abusive family or not? ;)” where its actual point is that Jack Fenton is a person who should be shamed for being overzealous, for caring about this niche field, because nobody cares about ghosts! (unless the entire premise of the show does) Nobody wants to think about ghost science! That’s LAME! (unless Vlad does it)

So I think ultimately this creates a polarizing experience in the fandom. What part of this information do you take?

Do you take, say, my personal approach, which is:

“Hey, so it’s pretty clear and consistent that the Fentons love their kids and wouldn’t hurt them. The Fentons are nice people. They can be obsessive or headstrong but there’s nuanced and salient ways to examine this in the basic framework that they care, both about their family specifically, and in general- and while I think they can have flaws or conflicts with their kids, and with ambient ghosts in the world, I really don’t think they’re in danger of torturing a sapient entity in their basement and it frustrates and annoys me that canon ‘makes a joke’ of them doing these things because it thinks they’re so incompetent that these things are not really malicious actions, when- whether or not you successfully shoot them, it takes a certain kind of person to point a weapon you know is dangerous at something that looks, and talks, like a fourteen-year-old, especially when you’re a parent who has probably at least once in your life worried about something happening to your kids, and the ghost of a teenager means something happened to someone’s kid, in a general sense.

So my end conclusion on the Fentons is I think they are being depicted in a kind of metatextual bad faith, that they are not cruel or malicious people, and in my personal take or understanding on the series, I’d massively dial down those elements, and if any remain, take them seriously as problems they have in their relationships with other people.”

Or do you take an approach more rooted in,

“If the Fentons are shown to be negligent parents they are negligent parents, I’m going to examine and depict them as that, and I find this very hard to forgive, so it’s going to have real and nasty consequences.”

Both are basically valid. The place where I tend to get a little uncomfortable is twofold:

First, I think sometimes people just really want some fictional tragedy to either create or consume, and to that end, you aren’t going to get much juicy drama out of the Fentons being reasonable people. This isn’t evil or unforgivable, but for me, it’s definitely my least favorite fannish content to create or consume. I’m no fan of angst for angst’s sake, and I feel like there’s enough misery and heartbreak in the world that I’m not interested in wallowing in it unless it’s got something interesting to say.

Second- and this is a point I’m gonna be saltier: A lot of abusive Fenton fics that refuse to forgive them for the poorer-taste jokes the series makes, simultaneously give Vlad a blank check, when he has done targetedly malicious things to Danny.

Now- do I also have a more sympathetic read on Vlad, and feel like canon also gives him a bad rap? Yeah! But you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say, “I can’t forgive the Fentons for stuff that was tagged onto them because canon thought it was funny, but I’m gonna editorialize Vlad’s depiction to lionize him as the ideal parent figure for Danny to run into the arms of.”

And the main reason I get so worked up in this, is I feel like Jack in particular (when Maddie is characterized as subordinate to Jack, following his cues, etc., and that’s its own demon) is... characterized as kind of a mocking caricature of traits that I personally recognize as an autistic and ADHD person.

Because the reality is? In many practical ways, I am Jack Fenton.

I like a bunch of weird stuff people find unacceptable or gross, like bugs

I’m hyperlexic (that means I talk, a lot)

Scatterbrained, forget words or where I left something or, sometimes, to do something important

Passionate and excitable including and especially in situations where it’s not normal, or expected, to have this much energy

I absolutely can forget birthdays, even for people I love dearly that mean the world to me! It’s horrible! There’s almost nothing I can do about it! My brain refuses to hold onto this information reliably and no amount of caring fixes it.

And being this way, living like this? My worst nightmare has always been that people think I either don’t care or that I’m just too much of a stupid, flippant buffoon to get right.

The thing about Jack is he’s “a person like me” and he’s “a person like me” who was designed to be a joke. We’re clearly expected to view him as untrustworthy, stupid, just like a big dumb dog of a man who barks in the wrong directions, who sometimes, when it counts, fetches a stick like he’s supposed to. Good job, Lassie. You got little Timmy out of the well.

And I am going to say with certainty and confidence that feeling like this is how people see me is the most unbelievably crushing feeling I have ever experienced in my life. That my excitement and passion means I’m unprofessional, stupid, don’t know what I’m talking about. It’s nearly painful for me, as an adult, to watch Danny Phantom because the show can never get off Jack’s case. And the few times it does, he hauls overtime arduously to make a difference, to help, to build something that will protect others, to put his own life on the line to stop hostile ghosts.

And immediately, then he goes back to being stupid stupid dog man. ha ha. why does his wife love him? no wonder his kids don’t ever want to be seen with him. no wonder his best friend is trying to kill him and he doesn’t even know, the big idiot.

(never mind that we see a scenario where he does know. and admits he would’ve forgiven Vlad anyway. but he can’t forgive Vlad hurting Danny.)

So to rein in this wild tangent: I’m not saying all must love Jack Fenton and despair. I’m not even telling people to hide their angst. If I have a sincere request, it’s this:

If you’re inclined to thinking of Vlad as a cool, troubled, complex person (as I do!) and are haunted by the implications of The Ultimate Enemy specifically for Vlad, that when Danny lost everyone else in his life that Vlad really genuinely tried to help, and was not gloating and happy and victorious to have Danny as his protege, and when that went badly, he was haunted to the end of his days by not having been able to help-

-but immediately turn around and think Jack is just a rotten awful person who’d absolutely hurt his own kid in spite of canon to the contrary (when there’s just as much, if not more, canon of Vlad being willfully hostile)

It might be good to examine why you’re feeling this way, and if this might not come down to the fact that even when canon has people call Vlad a desperately lonely fruit loop, it has a lot more respect for him than it does for Jack, and this isn’t because it’s actually taking a stance against any of the qualities it gave Jack that someone might find disagreeable- it’s because Jack’s just “a big old fat idiot nobody likes, right?”

and that’s... not something comfy to buy into.

#Danny Phantom #readmore #I have a lot of feelings about the fenton parents #and about how generally cartoons like to normalize child abuse in the context of jokes #and this creates a very upsetting similarity between parents who are otherwise characterized as good and reliable #but given these jokes anyway #and parents who genuinely seem really nasty #but it's tied up in a bow with 'it's Just A Joke'#readmore +#addition #writing ideas #media analysis #meta

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