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ailuronymy · 3 years

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do you think every disabled character in wc is handled poorly? i understand theres def some cases of ableism but at the same time when i hear ppl say that its usually bc the disabled cat wasnt able to become a warrior due to their disability. and i feel like ppl forget, that not everyone irl CAN do what they want after they become disabled. ex. someone wants to be an athlete, but their legs have to be amputated. a cat like briarlight esp i feel is p realistic and could be a source of comfort

Hello there, thank you for writing in. I’m going to reply to this question with a series of questions I think are a bit more useful, given what you’re trying to ask me. I hope that’ll clarify what is a deeply complex, multilayered issue.

Do I think Erin Hunter handles anything in the series “well”? Not really. I don’t have a high opinion of the work of the collective and, broadly speaking, I think every right note they play, metaphorically speaking, is an instance of chance rather than effort, skill, or intention. Stopped clocks are right twice a day, mediocre writers will sometimes do something cool by accident, similar principle. That’s not to say Erin Hunter hasn’t ever done anything on purpose--just that overall the underlying drive of the series isn’t so much quality as it is quantity, and speed of production, and it shows.

Do I think Erin Hunter puts any significant research into how they portray disability? No. I do not think it is a priority for this series. They’re not trying to make a meaningful work of literature, or capture a realistic experience of disability, or tell especially impactful or thoughtful stories, or even make a particularly good or coherent fantasy world. Warriors is a specifically commercial product that was commissioned by HarperCollins to appeal to a particular demographic of drama-loving, cat-loving kids. It’s not really trying to do anything but sell books, because it’s a business, so the text in many ways reflects that. They’re not going for disability representation, in my opinion. They’re including disability in many cases as a plot-point or an obstacle.

Do I think this means that people can’t connect to these characters and narratives in meaningful ways? No. Often I say that a work is completed only when it is read. Before that point, it doesn’t have a meaning: a reader finishes the work through the act of reading, and interpretation, and filling in the spaces and resonance of the story with their own values and experiences. When people talk about subjectivity, this is what they are talking about. What this means in the context of disabled characters in Warriors is that these characters and their stories can be multiple, conflicting, even mutually exclusive things at the same time, to different people, for different reasons.

Do I think characters have to be “good” to be significant to someone? No. I think genuinely “bad” (i.e., not researched or poorly researched, cliche, thoughtlessly written, problematic, etc. etc.) characters can be deeply meaningful, and often are. Ditto above: for many people, and especially marginalised or stigmatised people, reading is almost always an act of translation, wherein the person is reading against the creative work of the dominant culture in a way that the author likely didn’t intend or didn’t even imagine. There’s a long documented history of this in queer culture, but it’s true for just about everyone who is rarely (or unfairly) represented in media. Disabled people often have to read deeply imperfect works of fiction featuring disability and reinterpret them in the process--whether to relate to a kind of disability they don’t experience themselves but which is the closest they’re offered to something familiar, or to turn positive and meaningful what is intended as narrative punishment, or simply to create what’s commonly called headcanon about “non-disabled” characters who echo their personal experiences.

Do I think everyone has to agree? Extremely no. As I said before, people will actually always disagree, because all people have different needs and different experiences. What can be interpreted as empowering to one person might be very othering and painful for another. There is no “right” answer, because, again, that is how subjectivity works. This is especially true because marginalised communities are often many different kinds of people with different lives and needs brought together over a trait or traits they share due to the need for solidarity as protection and power--but only in a broad sense. It’s why there is often intracommunity fighting over representation: there isn’t enough, there’s only scraps, and so each person’s personal interpretation can feel threatening to people whose needs are different. You can see examples of this especially when it comes to arguments over character sexuality: a queer female character might be interpreted as bisexual by bisexual people who relate to her and want her to be, while being interpreted as lesbian by lesbians who also relate to her and want her to be like them. Who is correct? Often these different interpretations based on different needs are presented as if one interpretation is theft from the other, when in fact the situation is indicative of the huge dearth of options for queer people. It becomes increasingly more intense when it comes to “canon” representations, because of the long history of having to read against the grain I mentioned above: there’s novelty and, for some people, validation in “canon” certainty. And again, all of this is also true for disabled people and other stigmatised groups.

Do I think this is a problem? Not exactly. It is what it is. It is the expected effect of the circumstances. Enforced scarcity creates both the need for community organising and solidarity and the oppressive pressure to prioritise one’s self first and leave everyone else in the dust (or else it might happen to you). The system will always pit suppressed people against each other constantly, because it actively benefits from intracommunity fighting. Who needs enemies when you have friends like these, and so on. A solution is absolutely for everyone in community to hold space for these different needs and values, and to uplift and support despite these differences, but it’s not anyone’s fault for feeling threatened or upset when you don’t have much and feel like the thing that you do have is being taken away. It’s a normal, if not really helpful, human response. But until people learn and internalised that the media is multifaceted and able to be many things at once, without any of those things being untrue or impacting your truth of the text, then there will be fighting.

Do I think my opinion on disability on Warriors is all that important? No, not really. I can relate to some characters in some moment through that translation, but my opinion on, say, Jayfeather is nowhere near as worthy of consideration than that of someone who is blind. I don’t have that experience and it’s not something I can bring meaningful thinking about, really. That’s true for all these characters. If you want to learn about disability, prioritise reading work about disabled rights and activism that is done by disabled people, and literary criticism from disabled people. And as I mentioned above, remember that community isn’t a monolith: it’s a survival tactic, that brings together many different people with disparate experiences of the world. So research widely.

Finally--do I think there’s only one kind of disabled narrative worth telling? No. For some people, a disabled character achieving a specific, ability-focused dream is a good story. For other people, a story that acknowledges and deals with the realities, and limitations, of disability is a good story. The same person might want both of those stories at different times, depending on their mood. That’s okay. Sometimes there’s power and delight in a fantasy of overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles and defying all expectations. Sometimes there’s value and catharsis in a narrative that delves into the challenges and grief and oppression experienced because of disability. There’s no one truth.

To round all this off, I’m going to give my favourite example of this, which is Cinderella. I think it’s a great and useful tool, since for many it’s familiar and it’s very simple. Not much happens. In the story, she is bullied and tormented, until a fairy godmother gifts her over several nights with the opportunity to go to a royal ball, where she dances with a prince. The prince eventually is able to find Cinderella, due to a shoe left behind, and they are married. In some versions, the family that mistreated her are killed. In others, they’re forgiven.

Some people hate the story of Cinderella, because she is seen as passive. She tolerates the bullying and never fights back. She does every chore she’s told. She is given an opportunity by a fairy godmother, and she doesn’t help herself go to the ball. She runs from the prince and he does the work to find her again. Eventually, she’s married and the prince, presumably, keeps her in happiness and comfort for the rest of her life.

For some, this story is infuriating, because Cinderella doesn’t “save herself”: she is largely saved by external forces. She is seen as a quintessential damsel-in-distress, and especially for people who have been bullied, infantalised, or made to feel less capable or weak, that can be a real point of personal pain and discomfort.

However, for some others, Cinderella is a figure of strength, because she is able to endure such hostile environments and terrible people and never gives up her gentle nature or her hope. She never becomes cruel, or bitter. She is brave in daring to go outside her tiny, trapped world, and she is brave to let the prince find her. She doesn’t have to fight or struggle to earn her reward of happiness and prove her worth, because she was always deserving of love and kindness. The prince recognises at once, narratively speaking, her goodness and virtue, and stops at nothing to deliver her a better life.

Depending on the version, the wicked family disfigure themselves for their own greed--or are punished, which for some is a revenge fantasy; or Cinderella forgives them and once again shows her tenacious kindness, which for others is a different revenge fantasy.

The point? Cinderella is the same character in the same story, but these are almost unrecognisable readings when you put them side-by-side. Which one is right? Which one is better? In my opinion, those are the wrong questions. I hope this (long, sorry) reply is a set of more useful ones.

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yeoldontknow · 4 years

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so I watched brief encounter last night because I was curious... I don’t understand what the main character meant by her committing the violence of falling inlove. I don’t think I understand how being in love could be violent- is it because she’s married?

hi anon! ahhhh! im so happy you decided to watch it! and then came to discuss with me pls do you know how delighted that makes me ;^; if youre not used to classic cinema, or even classic melodrama, i can see how the film would be a bit slow or a bit difficult to connect with. so i really appreciate you taking the time to watch and come up with questions for things. when i say this made my day i mean it lmaooo

the quote i believe youre pulling from is this:

I’ve fallen in love. I didn’t think such violent things could happen to ordinary people.

there are several layers to this statement - emotional, moral, political, societal, etc. im happy to break these down contextually so you can have a better understanding of why this statement is painful and, also, why love is an extremely violent experience. going under a cut because...i have this entire masters degree in film and im not using it so im gonna use it here lmao

at its most basic, yes, you are correct. she says love is a violent experience because she is already married. to love, really love, is an act of violence, especially when you are already promised and making a family to another person. there is an element of ruination here that plagues laura, love as a threat to the stability of the home and family. and we can see this when her son is playing in the street and gets into an accident - a completely innocuous event, but one she sees as an omen of her violence against her own family. karma, but at a level that would start a war among her family and community.

in most filmic universes, romantic comedies especially, we are used to the relatively easy expectations that come from learning to love someone - you meet, you flirt, you are both, ideally, free to experience these types of intense emotions, you come together, you separate (due to...any sort of obstacle), you come back together. in this traditional narrative, we are presented with the notion that falling in love happens in a linear fashion and that, once the two characters have ended their arc and achieved their happy ending, there is not much else that occurs. they lived happily ever after, ever after being an indeterminate amount of time in which we are meant to assume they exist within this state, ceaselessly.

in general, there are two types of love stories - tragedies and comedies. where romantic comedies (in the modern sense, and i am stressing modern sense) end with ‘happily ever after,’ the other alternative for lovers is death. you either overcome your initial obstacle, or you perish, in love, where love becomes a death. so where does that leave brief encounter? neither party have been put to death, but the death is of the will, the passion. and, in brief encounter, it is killed by morality. by choice. i will be coming back to this. because passion is an extremely important element of this film, and it carries the narrative from start to finish.

at its core, brief encounter is a melodrama. melodrama has its own sect of film theory, but in this case ill do my best to keep it simple. and its really important to recognize that this film is british - british melodrama are two extremely different experiences and come from two completely different places of expression.

american melodrama, the most broad sense, was a stylistic set of films, usually from the 40s-50s (even some released in the early 60s) which use a lot of the tropes of classic cinematic narrative story telling - but as irony, parody, or pastiche. great examples of these films would be rebel without a cause, mildred pierce, from here to eternity, imitation of life, etc. in all of these films, and again i am paraphrasing because there is so much relating to melodrama as its own theory and practice, there is an onus on emotional expression and sensationalism. the narrative is driven by passionate action, emotional action, and, almost always, the swell of music weve come to recognize in hollywood cinema. music swells with character emotion, thus assisting in informing the audience in how to feel, and so we are ok regardless if these characters are successful in their plight, because we have felt.

british melodrama operates from an entirely different perspective. yes, like their historical theatrical roots, they favor spectacle and avoid realism. and, again, there is a reliance on the music to lead the narrative. however, the focus shifts from the societal body to the familial body; body concrete rather than body politic. culturally, this is a significant change from the usual reserved emotional experience within britain. and that is where brief encounter becomes something extremely important.

brief encounter was released in 1945, in a post-war period when there were significant changes to womens daily and societal lives, and this film really hones in on the causative anxieties that are born from these sudden changes and, yes, sudden notions of emotional liberation from their families - a new found independence. with the context of this film coming off the tails of WWII, in a post-war society in which there is meant to be peace, laura calls the act of falling in love violent which, for an audience member at the time of release, would have immediately associated that element of violence with war time violence. love is a threat. its dangerous. love at this level is repulsive. love is an insurrection - love is a revolution. and it came to her without her permission. she is bereft. she is on the brink of collapse - and ordinary women, the traditional family house wife, is never meant to feel so eager to ruin her family for a sensation that is, inherently, selfish.

so this brings us back to passion. something that comes up quite a lot in brief encounter, most explicitly at the cinema when alec and laura see a trailer for a film called flames of passion (this is a real film btw! and you might be able to watch it - it too is a melodrama. theres also a queer reading within brief encounter, because of the inclusion of flames of passion, but thats for another day). this brings us to the moral question of love as violence. for this, we can turn to hume and his 4 thesis on moral philosophy, the morals that drive humanity. primarily we will look at the following points:

1. reason alone is not enough to motivate the will, but rather is a slave to passion 3. moral distinction is derived from moral sentiment: feelings of approval (praise) and disapproval (shame, blame) through our inter-relations with others, or through the perceptions of others as they perceive us

for hume, the passions are simply emotions, but they are broken down as direct or indirect. desire is a direct emotion and it arises, without thought, from a place of good or evil, pain or pleasure - and it is only after these feelings have arisen that we are able to consider the feeling. by that same token, bodily or carnal appetites, our carnal desires, is another instinct that arises from unknown origin and only is able to be thoughtfully experienced after we have been confronted with it. and that is the most important piece - desire and carnal desire is an instinct. for hume, love, on the other hand, does not directly cause action - because love is not an instinct. love is learned.

in brief encounter, laura is admitting that not only does she thoughtfully love alec - love in a way that would not necessarily cause action, but brings her unparalleled pleasure in comparison to a man who simply helps, but she desires him. desires him enough to take action, to release the shackles of her political body and engage in her carnal body, with an appetite that is almost reductive in theory, aligning her with something base. this pleasure inherently causes her pain, yet still, she craves it - without morality.

and through her perception of those around her - her friends, her acquaintances, her own husband - she distinguishes this moral experience as shameful. but, in that shame, she still does not surrender her carnal body. her apetite is awakened, unable for her to be returned to its normal, thoughtful state. at war, now, with herself and her desires, laura is conflicted and ruined, simply because she learned to love and to desire, a violence an ordinary housewife should never experience.

#the cutest anons!#this was literally so much longer than it really needed to be #but i hope you understand now why that quote is literally so painful #why its one of the most quoted lines in film history #there are still so many layers to this #i didnt even talk about concerto no 2 and the agitation of the score #the violent swell and laura enacts violence against her heart #and her heart enacts violence against her mind #youre right anonie that its violent because shes already married #but the context of the film and the moral propriety of post-war england #makes that line an earthquake :(#Anonymous

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radiqueer · 5 years

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Rai@Tired | raikamudapon

[link] Tbh the discourse around the term "fujoshi" is just motivated by shaming women for their interests and sexuality, and specifically trying to seem woke by taking Japanese fan girls down a peg.

Yalls need to stop with that orientalism and colonizer attitudes.

[link] Ok so, One of the biggest differences of how I see Japanese people digesting media and how Americans digest media is the ability to separate oneself from the topic.

Japanese people are used to living with duality. The culture of Japan is all about honne and tatemae, and while a lot of Americans think of tatemae as situational lying, it's a specific form of communication that adds a buffer of space between people. Sometimes that buffer is helpful and sometimes it isn't but that's not what we're discussing today.

In the same vein, Japanese fans consume media with that buffer space, and you see the difference in fandom spaces very keenly. For example, Japanese cosplayers don't tend to roleplay. I feel like the community discourages it, especially in public spaces because the idea is that you are not acting as a character or placing yourself in the character, you are borrowing a character to temporarily express yourself. In america you see encouragement of becoming the character and more closely associating with them in a way you don't really see in Japan. With cosplay, a lot of original outfits with characters isn't as widely accepted, and people are encouraged to add warning tags to heavily modified designs or non-cannon outfits. There's often a buffer between self expression and character expression, and Japanese people in general tend to have a clearer cut between fiction and reality. Americans go the opposite direction, and put themselves personally in to their fandoms. Any criticism or portrayal of a character isn't about the character, it's about *them*.

Bl for many fujyoshi is a way to explore various topics about sex and gender, and have that safety barrier of "this is fiction that has nothing to do with reality". Theres even a famous phrase in bl circles of Japan, which is "BL is fantasy." People arent consuming bl content because they want to it be realistic. With this genre, a lot of American's first exposure to this culture is through groups that carry these Japanese ideas, especially that fiction is not about reality. There's a strong culture in fujyo circles in Japan to keep fujyo media hidden from from minors and uninterested people.

This isn't because gay adjacent media is shameful and should be hidden, but because aside from keeping 18+ content away from minors, the content is inherently not for the benefit of non-fujyoshi, or people looking for canon content. Bl is a fantasy exploration of pre-established media, an additional step away from reality. And you see this influence in american bl fans as well. Most responsible adults discourage 18 under people from interacting with 18+ content. It is going to be much rarer for 18+ bl content to be presented to minors with no prior warning then for het media or media that explicitly sexually objectifies women.

And I think in conversations about this topic is where you see not just misogyny and sexual policing of woman come in, but a lot of conversations and ideas revolve around how "gross" and "strange" and "foreign compared to woke Americans" the entire culture of fujyoshi is.

Trying to insist that Americans determine what definitions of language around a culture not originating or centered in America and sentiments about bl are "appropriate" is colonizing attitudes. It stems from the belief that the cultural values of the colonizer are inherently superior to another country. And treating the norms of a foreign sub-culture that was not only established in Japan but continues to flourish and be the center of media produced by that subculture as gross or strange is honestly tinged with Orientalism of the "sexual far east". It's hard to say that the image that all fujyoshi are women does not influence these ideas as well.

So let's delve in to relations between Japan and America for a hot second. Japan and America have a very unique relationship, especially for countries that are separated by the biggest ocean in the world. Without examining the entire history of the two countries, I want to focus on two points that I think shape the way Americans interact with Japanese media. First, America with it's "black ships" was the one to end Japan's Sakoku policy. They forcefully demanded Japan end it's strict regulations concerning interaction with other countries, start trading with various countries, and to open up to western influences.

This *greatly* changed the structure of Japan, and honestly the unequal treaties and inability of the Tokugawa shogunate to manage their relations with the west lead to the end of 264 years of governance. (The Meiji restoration is exciting, please read about it.)

The second topic you don't see many people discuss is the occupation of Japan by American(and English) forces from 1945–1952. While a lot of modernization and things that benefited common people occurred during this time, there was also wide spread instances of violence and rape. You still see generational hurt and mistrust in places like Okinawa, Sasebo, and Yokosuka where American navy bases were placed(and still exist today). If you can stomach it, I would recommend looking up statistics and reports, but I warn you the occupation was nasty business for women.

So what does this all have to do with modern fujyoshi? So in both of these time periods, prostitutes and courtesans were an essential part of political interactions. Many Americans gained their stereotypes about Japanese women through these encounters. Specifically these interactions were sexual or tinged with the sexual availability of these women, and looking at the increased rapes during the occupation once American GI focused brothels were abolished, you can see how this lens shaped Americans opinions of Japanese women. The story of madame butterfly is only unusual in that it gives the woman in it any agency in their interaction with american men.

So with this in mind, I think it's easy to see where a lot of stereotypes, specifically sexual stereotypes about Japan and Japanese women come from. America is used to looking at Japan as "the weird strange place of loose morals and loose women of strange sexual proclivities." This is shown how strong the influence of Japanese women as "geisha girls" is to this day, and it tints any conversation of about women and sexuality in Japan.

In modern day, you can see this carry over in to how people look at Japanese idols and women in anime. I would even say that it's evolved to infantilize Japanese women and the view of how Japanese women are expected to behave. A lot of other people have written literature and reading about fujyoshi and how it relates to the sexual liberation of women(without necessarily involving men or gay men) so I won't go in to that here, but there will be links at the end of the thread.

What I want to talk about is how historically America is used to putting itself front and center about any topic about the culture of Japan, and how the views Americans have about morality is considered to be "better" and more "woke"... even without context or how those sentiments shape the ideas of foreign people and foreign based media. But we also have to address how Americans have a huge problem with not being the expert voice in any conversation.

Over the last week, a significant number of Americans have been extremely comfortable in putting the power to decide what Japanese words mean and what Japanese sub-cultures are in their own hands, sometimes even attempting to remove my Japanese voice and background from me in an effort to center their own opinions. And honestly this isn't anything new. Americans are so comfortable with thinking of Asian voices as less influential then their own, that it doesn't stop people from thinking they are the experts about a topic that *does not come from their culture*. You see it with food, you see it with fashion, you see it with everything from equating Asians to *white lite* to assuming that Asians don't exist as mixed people but simply as a monolith.

There are so many people who were comfortable with placing themselves as experts in a sub-culture of Japanese origin that they knew nothing about, simply because they assumed it corresponded with one aspect of themselves. And it is hard to say that the confidence that these people placed themselves and their ignorance in the middle of the topic did not stem from Americans feeling of ownership over everything they enjoy.

The people supporting these people may have thought they were being good allies by blindly supporting them, but I saw very few people bothering to further their knowledge past the loose collection of stereotypes and horror stories I saw from the internet. Some of these feelings of superiority probably stem from the fact that these people assumed that all fujyoshi or bl content consumers are women. Misogyny isn't just the expression of hate towards women, but also the idea that non-women inherently have a more valuable opinion then woman, or that women's ideas are inherently less valuable then anyone elses.

I saw a lot of misogyny this week, both internal and external. There was hate from many people, for the idea that people they assumed women were thriving in a sub-culture that does not involve real gay men. I saw people who could not imagine that men were not at the center of a subculture created and supported by both women and queer people. I even saw examples of women bringing up their experiences as a gender they do not identify with in order to raise their voice against other assumed women. But the voices that attempted to de-legitimize assumed women grew even louder once they were speaking against Asian people, because there is an inherent assumption that their views are qualified, their opinions more valid, their morals better.

And honestly, this isn't just an issue with white and eurocentrific supremacy, this is an issue of American supremacy.

And that is certainly something we need to talk about.

link: thread by @futekiya

link: thread by @dionysiaca

link: thread by @raikamudapon

please consider donating to @raikamudapon’s ko-fi

[reformatting mine]

#fujoshi #fujoshi discourse #racism #fandom #fandom meta #original #long post #rape tw

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