#when a woman with a much smaller audience does shit its awful and everyone should unsubscribe and block

[aweisz]

i want to vaguepost so bad

[bereft-of-frogs]

I always find it odd how broadly speaking, MCU things do well with gen audiences, like Loki got the highest critical scores out of the three MCU shows so far but then for each project there seems to be some really passionate hate too from certain internet corners. Like, I heard someone say Black Widow was awful and I'm like... really?... awful?

Presuming this ask is from me talking last night about I wish the Loki series was the worst show I’ve ever seen, because god I’ve watched some bad shows - Black Widow certainly had its flaws and I wouldn’t count it in the top of the MCU by any means, but again, good god I wish it were the worst movie I’d seen this year alone.

I think the reason general audiences rate these things higher is contextual. Most general audiences go in knowing roughly what they’re going to get out of a high budget tentpole film. They’re going in expected to be entertained and not expecting to have to really think so much so they’re largely satisfied because their expectations have generally been met. Good rating. Boom. Done. And then they don’t think about it until they’re looking for the next thing to do on date night.

The two groups of people who hate these films loudly, consistently, vocally tend to be: the people who think Marvel is ruining all of film and culture and is a moral blight on the world because people aren’t watching Citizen Kane anymore or something. That was a pretty extreme generalization of their viewpoint, I’m sorry haha, and they do have half a point - Disney is fast reaching a terrifying monopoly status in the industry, and their distribution model is really hurting smaller cinemas, and it’s hard to get started as a filmmaker nowadays, just to name a few problems with how dominant they’ve become. But also no, you, individual moviegoer who just wants to watch some pretty people fight each other with good special effects, are not responsible for the death of all culture, and also these people are around for every mass popular phenomenon and surely will be to the end of time.

The second group is the diehard fans who are constantly analyzing and building up expectations, sometimes for years, and are disappointed when those expectations aren’t met, even if otherwise the thing is well constructed. These are people with a personal investment and possibly some...unrealistic ideas about what Marvel Studios is actually able to do, and also have sort of lost sight of what general audiences would want, so they’re crushed when the narratives they’ve built up over time aren’t actually done. I mean, I think sometimes that they’ve even lost sight of what other diehard fans would want, and assume that their singular vision is of universal appeal. I just remember a lot of the most dominate ‘the Loki series better do [this]’ stuff had me going ‘oof I kinda hope it doesn’t...’

But yeah, I think the hate comes from passion and...building up unrealistic expectations and losing sight of how and why these movies appeal to other fans or general audiences.

And I can certainly sympathize, because that was definitely Endgame for me. I think the difference is I can recognize that Endgame was a fairly well produced film, even if I was personally really disappointed by the tone and plot decisions, and I got why people liked it. I think we should really make more room for people to be like 'personally, it was really bad for me, but I also understand how others can like it'. I also often cite Kingsman: The Secret Service as a movie that I personally hated. I really hated it. I had a huge problem with it (and similar to Endgame was also going through some personal stuff that may have colored my experience) but I can still recognize why people enjoyed it and it was a ‘good’ movie.

I also think a lot of the really extremely online fandom types that get this upset over Marvel movies/series...don’t watch a lot of TV. And that’s not me just making stuff up, people talk about that! There are so many posts nowadays where people specifically talk about not being able to get into any new things, or only caring about Loki, or only reading fanfiction. And like, do whatever, I don’t care, but I do watch a lot of television. I make time and space to watch a good deal of television, and I feel like people who are watching more have more of a grasp on the highs and lows, shall we say. Aka, there’s a lot of shit to filter through and when you watch a greater breadth of TV (or film...I’m more in a TV phase right now, but same for film) I think it’s easier to recognize quality and be able to sort things into ‘objectively good’ ‘objectively bad’ categories. (And the related ‘good but I didn’t like it for personal reasons’ ‘bad but I did like it for personal reasons’ subcategories.)

And I will say, I can also sympathize with feeling really confused when you really don’t like something and then it gets a bunch of positive reviews. The true worst TV series I watched this year, Amazon’s Dark/Web, has a good blurb from Den of Geek and a few Emmy nominations (though I’m assuming they were technical...I have to assume they’re technical lol). My so-far least favorite film, Pieces of a Woman, has a 7.1 on IMDB and got good reviews. And it does kind of suck when you’re like ‘hey what the fuck, how is everyone not seeing how bad this is?’ but...I think that’s only solved by watching a lot of TV/movies and getting a sense for your own tastes and different levels of quality, and our society opening up more space for people to feel comfortable saying things like ‘I really didn’t like it, but I can see that it’s well-made and I’m glad you enjoyed it!’ or vice versa. (Which, given how we can barely get people to stop looking for moral reasons to hate something when they just don’t vibe with it...I don’t have a lot of hope lol.)

Disclaimer: not everyone, etc etc, and obviously I’m not talking about the people who say things like ‘eh it wasn’t for me’. That’s a perfectly natural response! It’s okay to not like things, obviously. What I’m specifically referring to is the people who say whatever new Marvel thing it’s the worst show/movie they’ve ever seen, which thus far seems to be no more than a handful, but their posts occasionally make it to my dash and I do think of them every time I’m watching an objectively terrible TV show like ‘god I wish that were me’ XD

[erinoddly]

Okay, I fumed about this some in the rant I just posted and then deleted, but let’s talk more about this specific issue:

English scholars and gatekeeping literature.

More specifically: Upholding outdated values of what makes a piece of literature ‘worthwhile,’ in this case specifically surrounding collegiate English communities. I’m aware that there are more than likely others outside of the college community who feel the same, but I’m going to talk about what I know.

Last semester in one of my classes, a debate started up. This debate was surrounding the following statement said by one of my classmates:

“Ebooks, self-publishing, and fanfiction are killing literature.”

At first, I thought that there was no way that statement would stand. I mean, it seems so outdated. But the thing was, only a couple of my classmates tried to argue against it. Almost everyone in the class agreed. And among those who did argue, the majority argued against the ebook point, one or two argued against the self-publishing point, and no one argued against the fanfiction point. I was the only person in my class who tried to argue against all three of the above points. And I’m pretty sure that the other people who argued against any of the points....weren’t English majors....

I became an English major thinking that people who studied literature did so because they had an appreciation for it. And I had always had this naive view of the world, where people would want the things they appreciate to be shared with a wide audience, not locked away where only a select few can enjoy it. I thought that this would be especially true for English majors, since so many of our discussions are about the roles and treatment of minorities in society, about classism, about equality.

But instead, I came across more people than I would have liked who seem to actively want to keep literature out of certain hands just because they have a list of criteria of what makes a piece of writing ~*worthwhile literature*~ and if it doesn’t hit every criteria, then it’s worthless and “killing literature” (and trust me, that phrase has me rolling my eyes so hard it hurts. Humans have always been storytellers and we always will be. Literature isn’t dying any time soon. Only your outdated ideals of what it ‘should’ be are.)

So. Let’s start with the idea that Ebooks are killing literature.

The classmate who said this works at a locally owned used bookstore. So I wholeheartedly understand the idea that online shopping is killing local businesses and that being able to buy books in an electronic format is making people less likely to buy physical copies, especially at smaller bookstores. That’s a valid fear that a lot of people have. And I’m not going to get into whether or not that’s factually correct because that isn’t the point (also I’m too lazy to find the research on it.)

The fact is, whether or not they’re killing small bookstores, ebooks make literature more accessible.

My mother has bad eyesight and needs a new prescription on her glasses. But she doesn’t have insurance and can’t get in to see an optometrist. But she absolutely adores reading. So guess what happened when I told her she could get the Kindle app for free on her computer? She lit up like a Christmas tree. It’s so much easier for her to read because 1. she doesn’t have to bend over a physical book and hurt her back and 2. she can make the font as large as she needs to in order to not strain her eyes. She also found books from her favorite authors that were electronic only. And yeah, there are a lot of ethical dilemmas about Amazon. I’m not saying there aren’t. But ebooks can be a better alternative for people with bad eyesight. And there are probably plenty of other disabilities that ebooks help with. Hell, I prefer ebooks sometimes because there’s so much more you can do with a computer interface that makes note taking, highlighting, bookmarking, using indexes, etc. so much easier than a physical copy of a book.

But, you know, it’s funny that my classmates (who are usually young and have decent eyesight) don’t complain about audiobooks killing literature as well. Even though a lot of them prefer listening over reading. But then again, a lot of them find the books they want to read for free on youtube and listen to them there instead of buying an audiobook. But I guess that’s okay.

This isn’t even bringing up the point that ebooks are less expensive than physical books. I grew up poor. To me, buying a new book is a luxury. So I get new books way less often than I would like to because I feel like I can’t justify the expense. I mean...upwards of $20-$30? For one book? But I can get ebooks online for $1-$5 sometimes. It’s so much easier to justify buying a new ebook every now and then than it is a physical book, though I still like to buy in person when I can.

Now the next point: Self-publishing

Okay. This one hits hard. My class was discussing this one as if the only authors who self-publish are the ones who were too awful to be accepted by traditional publishers. Which is bullshit. I’m not going to get much into this point because I’m writing this on a writeblr account and this community has talked a lot about traditional vs self publishing and I’m not going to rehash the same arguments.

But there are a couple of things I want to bring up.

Not everything that’s traditionally published is good literature. *cough*50shadesofgraygettingpickedupbyapublishingcompany*cough* And not everything that’s self-published is awful. One of my favorite series of all time was self-published. And sure, it’s got its flaws, but so does any piece of literature.

Getting published traditionally isn’t a matter of skill. You can be a great writer and never get picked up by a publisher if you’re not writing the right thing at the right time or if you’re not lucky or this or that or whatever. And there are some not so great authors who do get published.

And let’s be honest. The publishing industry is a complete mess in need of an overhaul right now. There have been at least two diversity scandals that I’ve heard of just within the last few months, one of which was making major headlines. And this definitely throws a wrench into the ‘getting traditionally published’ idea, especially for authors of color, LGBT authors, or authors that are trying to bring more diversity into mainstream literature. If you aren’t meeting a white man’s ideals of what diversity should be and are lucky enough to get picked to be their token diverse author of the year, you’re not going to get much in the way of marketing, if you’re even lucky enough to get published to begin with. But most of the diversity issues are around POC specifically and I feel like it isn’t my place as a white woman to talk about this any more than I already have.

And even with all this in mind, some people choose to self-publish over traditional publishing. It doesn’t automatically mean that they got rejected and took it upon themselves to share their masterpiece with the world despite the publishing industry telling them it’s a piece of shit, or whatever the gatekeepers think.

And the last point: Fanfiction

okay. listen. i’m done with this argument. we shouldn’t have to defend the existence of fanfiction. and I’m tired of arguing with people over whether or not it’s a literary genre or not. because it is. end of story. i’m not taking any criticism at this time, thank you.

It opens the door to new writers.

Some readers are more likely to read about characters they already know rather than trying to get to know brand new characters, but can also serve as a gateway to introducing to people to reading literature.

Some fanfics are written better than a lot of traditionally published literature than I’ve read.

Fanfic writers don’t even get paid, even when they crank out a fanfic longer than a novel. Like? What saints

It feels like, and I may be wrong but, fanfic writers tend to have more consistent one-on-one interaction with fans and those fans (no offense) in some cases tend to be...how do I say this....extremely entitled.

People have been writing fanfiction for who knows how long. It isn’t exactly new. But just as the internet is making it easier to access traditional literature, it’s making it easier to access fanfiction as well.

And a host of other things. FANFICTION IS NOT KILLING LITERATURE YOU PRETENTIOUS ASSHATS. YOU JUST WANT TO PRETEND THE ONLY FANFIC WRITERS ARE CRINGEY PRETEENS WHO DON’T KNOW HOW TO WRITE. And you know what?? So what if preteens are writing fanfic? That doesn’t mean it has no literary value. And it’s teaching them lessons and helping curate and improve their creative writing skills. It’s like you expect writers to just pop out of the womb with a quill in hand, a cigarette between their lips, twirling their fucking handlebar mustache as they discuss the value of metaphors in Paradise Lost with the doctor before writing a masterpiece as their family takes them home from the hospital for the first time.

TLDR; we can’t argue that something is ‘killing literature’ when literature isn’t dying. The medium is shifting with the times, just like everything else, while some people’s close-minded ideas of what constitutes ‘good’ or ‘worthwhile’ literature is stagnant. It’s irresponsible, as literary scholars, to gatekeep literature. All you’re doing, in the end, is shaming people out of reading in general, let alone reading what you believe are the correct things to read in the correct ways of reading them. You can’t argue the value of minorities, class differences, and diversity in literature and then also try and claim that only certain types of literature are allowed, when narrowing down those types blocks the very people you believe literature is supposed to uplift from accessing it.