Climbing the walls

[rivkat]

I’ve been following some of the discussion about counteragent’s recent fanwork about fourth walls, SPN, and marital relations, and I have a lot of thoughts. Initially, I should say that I loved it as a fanwork; I thought it effectively communicated its story and allowed me to invest in the characters.

What intrigues me most about various reactions is the idea that there has to be a single “villain” of the story. Do I have to pick?

Let me unpack that a little. As to Kripke (here, “Kripke” will stand for “the forces that get SPN to TV in the form it has”): No, I don’t think he has an obligation not to speak about/back to fandom. It's not Fight Club and it's not his Fight Club anyway. Yes, I do think he executed his portrayal of fangirls very badly, in line with SPN’s general problems with women, sexuality, and women’s sexuality. And we can totally call him on it! I’ve seen lots of fans debate issues of power, appropriation, othering, and so on in our own works; just because SPN’s creative forces are unlikely to listen to criticism in this vein is no reason to exempt SPN.

And one of the things SPN’s specific portrayal of “Supernatural” fandom did was contribute to the popular denigration of women’s icky sexualized overinvestment in fiction (fanboys took their hits too, but not in the same way). Becky can definitely be an awesome character, but it takes work to make her so, and the show didn’t see her that way (see: her transfer of affection from Sam to Chuck and how that was played). Specifically, the episode counteragent’s story is about foregrounded the extent to which female fans’ investment is about sexual desire for the male leads and portrayed that as laughable.

Unsurprisingly, this is messy! Because one thing that might happen when a man sees a portrayal of female fans’ sexual desire, and connects that to his wife’s fandom, is that he will conclude that her sexual desire is focused elsewhere: she doesn’t want him, she wants them. And, bonus, her wanting is ridiculous! His wife would rather have this ridiculous fantasy than the real him! The problem I have with the portrayal is different than the problem he has, and his problem may well be bound up with patriarchal assumptions, but it also strikes me as well within normal human range for people in apparently/default monogamous relationships.

So she feels outed.

On to the husband as villain: What fascinates me about this work is how people feed their own experiences into it (I think this is something that visual works are even more subject to than textual ones, so we were having reactions to the images that were hard to articulate in conventional meta terms); I’ve even seen people who commented that they imagined the existence of panels that weren’t present when they looked back.

Is the husband an abusive/worthless/controlling whatever? Well, he might be. The fact that they had nice interactions before the fight, in which he gave in to her desire to watch SPN, tells us nothing about whether he’s abusive etc. except that he’s not a monster 100% of the time. Likewise, his freakout over what being a fangirl means—all that time she spends on the internet, desiring other men—suggests to me that he is capable of freaking out. If you judged me by the worst thing I said in the heat of passion, especially if I was in a fight about some underlying issue like how much emotional energy my partner was supposed to be devoting to me, well, I hate to think how that would end.

So she freaks out too. In my own version of the story, they both calm down later.  Multiple readings!

There’s a lot I haven’t even touched on—it’s a rich and possibly contradictory work. I haven’t talked about the baby, the expectations that mothers will devote libidinal energy first to children and then to men and never to themselves, the emotional effects of exhaustion in the first months of childrearing, the extent to which you do need to attend to others’ needs as well as your own, and the outlet that fandom provides just not to think about all that stuff. (I also haven’t talked about the reaction that essentially casts the woman as the villain of the piece for not dumping the guy/getting herself knocked up by a man who’d get angry over her investment in fandom/etc., because I am not prepared to react calmly to that. SPN blames enough women already for their choices and circumstances for my taste, thanks.)

Now I really need to finish grading.

Comments

[cathexys]

Yes. All of that!

I was surprised by many responses (and a little bit disappointed by some and a whole lot annoyed by others)!

The one thing that got me too was the singular message that so many seemed to desire. To me (like you) there were many complicated issues getting negotiated within a complex cultural context, and the comic addressed many if not most of them.

I did think making Kripke or the husband the villain was a reading that didn't do justice to the comic; and to blame the woman REALLY pissed me off. But so much yes on Becky's sexuality not being presented positively (nor her having much positive agency as opposed to the fanboys) and even more yes on the issues of women and esp mothers not being allowed to put their own libidinal desires first, to dare to have needs.

I felt like the responses often said more about the people responding than about the comic itself (I saw a lot of younger and/or nonheteronormative folks being annoyed about the Kripke accusations, because they felt like the presentation was shaming him for talking about fandom when in fact it shouldn't be shameful; I saw a lot of women with kids who may be partially or entirely open about their hobbies yet need to negotiate these issues daily read it more complexly; and I wonder if people who are hiding their online activities entirely were strongly doing the Kripke's to be blamed reading?).

Anyway...I do worry about my own responses, because I do fear that heteronormative ideologies and straight privilege is playing into my reactions to a degree. But I also believe that for many of us the sex and the wincest are only the tip of an iceberg that has much more to do with emotional intimacy and time spent on one's own desires....

[rivkat]

Yeah. To me the question of blaming "Kripke" obscures the question of blaming him for what? For talking about/even making fun of fandom? No. For doing it in a sexist way? Yes. You could even see the show reaching towards a making-fun-but-loving portrayal with the fanboys, though it was never going to get to Galaxy Quest.

ETA: And this ties into interpretation: I think it's open whether the husband would have reacted differently to a Galaxy Quest portrayal.

[cathexys]

really interesting point (esp since I just put Galaxy Quest once again into my queue, bc little one couldn't remember us watching it :)

One more thing (and I'm putting it here, bc it's not worth making a post and Cesca thinks I'm overreaching anyway, but...): I actually think the title already shows the ambiguity and complexity. At the end of Frost's poem, we are actually left uncertain whether good walls really do or do not good neighbors make. And so to me the title never read as clearly as breaking the fourth wall's evil. It read much more as there are good and bad ways to break down walls...and as you so astutely pointed out, Becky's representation fed right into the issues that are already complicating women's fannish hobbies a lot of times...

[giandujakiss]

To me the question of blaming "Kripke" obscures the question of blaming him for what? For talking about/even making fun of fandom? No. For doing it in a sexist way? Yes

See, yeah - obv. you know this is how I feel about it. I've just seen a lot of defenders of the show insist that the gags are good-natured rather than mean-spirited, and I ... do not agree, and I tend to find those defenses about as baffling as I do the insistence that the show is not in any way sexist.

[minim_calibre]

See, yeah - obv. you know this is how I feel about it. I've just seen a lot of defenders of the show insist that the gags are good-natured rather than mean-spirited, and I ... do not agree, and I tend to find those defenses about as baffling as I do the insistence that the show is not in any way sexist.

As sexist as I think the show is (and I think it's probably in third place in the Sexist Shows I Watch, Enjoy, and Yet Am Troubled By, behind only Big Bang Theory and Coupling UK), I do see the gag as good-natured, or at least, as good-natured as any of their gags are, meant in the spirit of pigtail pulling rather than a toilet swirl. What's baffling about the reading to you? I'm genuinely curious, as someone who has fallen into both the fangirl category and the LARPer one.

The Real Ghostbusters, especially, read to me as the textual equivalent of the creative staff showing us their unflattering yearbook photos and outing their own geeky (LARPing/gaming) past (it was way to close to the reality of tiny gaming conventions for it to just be the product of their normal "standards" of research *cough*) in an effort to say they fell on about the same level of the Geek Hierarchy Chart. Becky's habits, it says to me, are kooky and odd, but so our ours. (What's missing, of course, in the equivalency it felt like they were going for is that female sexuality, hobbies, and desires have a lot more cultural baggage attached. But it didn't read as intentionally mean.)

[rivkat]

Well, GK I'm sure has her own take, but to me your last sentence is the key: intent. Steeping in the attitudes about women expressed by the show, of course they didn't understand what they were doing as mean-spirited. But not noticing the way they fed into those very attitudes (which they both share and, to the extent the show prospers from its fandom, prosper from women's defiance of) is the problem.

I think the show offers the availability of your reading, but makes it easier, especially for nonfans, to read the Real Ghostbusters as pathetic, not sexually freaky, and the fanboys as weird but harmless/even heroic--and this gets to one of the issues posed by the comic: can you imagine the husband saying "that's what you do?!" about The Real Ghostbusters?

[giandujakiss]

I think that the woman fan is portrayed as grotesque and unmoored from reality, while the men fans get to be heroes. The men's activities are defended as valid with big speeches at the end and bravery and adventure, and women remain just weirdly sexually obsessive with no attempt made to justify their obsession. Men want to be heroes; women want to fuck them, and even though Becky is the only fan in the room who knows the truth, she's consistently shown as delusional. Not to mention that when Kripke wanted to do a story where (men) fans got to be heroes, suddenly the entire gender of the fanbase changed - prior to that, the fanbase was portrayed as female. And all this comes in a show where women are consistently devalued - so it's like he treats the women badly on the show, and then reaches out to fan activities and tells us that we're grotesque for engaging in them.

In other words, I saw his treatment of LARPing and the fact that the men ultimately got to be heroes as much more affectionate than his treatment of women's activities.

[minim_calibre]

I think you're correct that the word "intent" is the key here. It requires intent for me to read something as mean-spirited. Coupling is often just sickeningly mean-spirited regarding its female characters, in addition to buying into gendered assumptions. Supernatural has been, especially in S3. I don't see it here, however, at all. Cluelessness? Yes. Malice? No.

My reaction to the episode was so marked different from that of most of the people I know in fandom, that I've been trying to puzzle out how we can see the same thing and have reactions and readings that are such polar opposites.

[minim_calibre]

so it's like he treats the women badly on the show, and then reaches out to fan activities and tells us that we're grotesque for engaging in them

It's the latter part of this that I don't see. I don't see Becky as grotesque, I suppose. Unmoored from reality, yes, but portrayed as grotesque, no.

Becky's not shown as having something to be ashamed of, nor punished for her activities. They cast her as cute and wrote her as being desirable to a recurring sympathetic male character. They rely on her knowledge of the books to provide passive assistance at the end. She's alive at the end of the episode and has hooked up with Chuck, which is a better streak of luck than most women have on Supernatural.

Of course, this isn't to say that the portrayal isn't problematic. She's in no way treated as three dimensional: we have no real concept of her motivations, nor justifications or speeches, in her relationship with Chuck, she's little more than an object of attraction to be won, and ultimately, in the two episodes she's been in, she's served as little more than human navigation system to get them where they need to go.

[giandujakiss]

I don't think she's portrayed as cute. I think she is portrayed as grotesque. She touches Sam inappropriately and practically has an orgasm in his presence when we first meet her, and she's constantly portrayed as being inappropriately sexual in public. There are all kinds of scary shots about the squick-worthy ways that she comes on to the male characters - it's like a classic demonstration of fear of female sexuality. It's not cute; it's intentionally humiliating. And in the end, it's only her obsession with the books that gets them anywhere - she doesn't get to have adventures or be brave like the male fans do, she only dates whoever she perceives as the most brave.

And just to add - the male fans are shown as being able to separate LARPing from real life -they break character, talk about staying in character - it's a game. Becky is never playing; this is her real life, which is why she comes off as delusional. And at first, the only fans we saw (Monster at the End of This Book) were women. Suddenly Kripke wants to tell a story about fans who actually step in an fight ghosts and the entire gender changes, and doesn't reflect the actual SPN fanbase at all. Becky is not only inappropriately sexual, but that's all she can be - she can't also go dig a grave and fight ghosts and talk about what the stories mean to her in relation to real life, because she doesn't have any boundaries or grasp of reality, and she's not interested in anything other than sexual fantasies.

[crypto]

Maybe this is an idiosyncratic response, but I found Becky to be pretty endearing. I think part of that is the actress, who managed to bring out a winning, sympathetic side to the character. I also enjoyed seeing how she rattled & confounded Sam & Dean.

It's not that your reading doesn't make sense to me, but on an emotional level, I personally can't see her as grotesque -- I just liked her too much.

[minim_calibre]

As clarification, when I used "cute" above, it was sleep-dep shorthand for "cast with a reasonably conventionally attractive actress in the role, dressed and made up to look even closer to western mass media standards of beauty than said actress usually does and framed as an object of desire for a recurring male character."

Not as a behavioral aspect.

re the 'villiain' of the piece, becky.

[reading-is-in.livejournal.com]

It was a fascinating and thought-provoking comic strip, and I have to say I found the husband in it pretty disturbing/controlling. I don't outright 'blame' the woman for being with him - I'm confused, though, confused as to why she is in a relationship with someone she is ashamed to reveal a fundamental part of her desiring self to. I want someone to talk to me about why she might be doing this. I'm aware that I have some kind of privilege on this issue, having been raised by a strong, eccentric, independent woman who taught me that relationships are between equals and controlling or shaming behaviour is unnacceptable - as a consequence I've only ever dated men who were at least tolerant, at best enthusiastic about my fannish activities (bear in mind I'm only 23, haven't dated that many ;) ). I'm distressed by the number of women who feel this sort of thing could happen to them - that if they were 'outed' something terrible would happen. I understand we are socially conditioned to feel ashamed of certain aspects of ourselves (I'm mixed race) - but we also have minds and critical faculties and the ability to challenge those assumptions, not get ourselves into situations that reinforce them.
As to the depiction of Becky. I think it could have been better, but it also could have been worse. She's articulate, can organize, is fun, and crucially - she's enjoying her life. If she gets killed, I'm going to be very angry, but I dare hope she won't be. And I too enjoyed how much she discomfited the male characters. Kudos to the actress on that.

Re: re the 'villiain' of the piece, becky.

[rivkat]

I think that much depends on what you think happens next and happened before. One fight does not make an overly controlling partner. I also think it's pretty common not to share one's entire self with one's partner; some fantasies work better (in a variety of ways) privately. Moreover--and here's where it gets tricky--I didn't read the protagonist's desires as the same as the desires the show ascribed to female fangirls. When her husband reacted that badly, I read her as feeling betrayed on both sides--but the show is easier to blame: because it made fun of her passion, because it started the fight, because she has more at stake with her husband, and at the core because it presented her desires in a false light.

As has been said before, I blame the patriarchy! But I'd tell the show to fix itself long before I'd tell the woman to kick the man out--though I do hope they calm down and have a conversation about the many, many things she loves in life and how they'll both balance those things.

Specific to your point, her mind and her critical faculties may not be as significant as her baby and her economic circumstances. And again, it really depends on what else is going on in the relationship: I didn't read her as having "gotten herself" into a situation in which it was obvious that the father of her child was an abuser--and even if I did, then the question would be how to provide the resources to leave, which are far from only mental.

Becky: agreed, but "could have been worse" is not sufficient for my purposes. She was definitely available for fan recuperation because of that joy you mention, but she was not even a proto-hero like Demian and Barnes; she didn't get her justificatory speech. I thought Sam & Dean's discomfort was supposed to be the "appropriate" reaction to her from the show's point of view, consistent with the continuing--this week!--portrayal of active female sexuality as crazy/embarrassing/laughable.

Re: re the 'villiain' of the piece, becky.

[(Anonymous)]

"One fight does not make an overly controlling partner. I also think it's pretty common not to share one's entire self with one's partner"

Sure, I agree. But the degree of his reaction upset me. I've only had one serious long term partner, and certainly there were things I didn't share with him - but because he was a kind, thoughtful, open-minded person (or I wouldn't have been intimate with him) there wasn't anything I thought would cause him to storm out on me or react with horror/aggression. As you say, it would depend on the rest of their relationship, but given that the text is the window we are given into it, that's what I'm reading from.

" "could have been worse" is not sufficient for my purpose "

Yes, I suppose ultimately its not sufficient for mine either. But I consider fan recuperation at least as important, possibly more important than source-text (I'm biased. It's one of my objects of research). Then again, the ultimate goal of fan recuperation is to change source-text/society...I think. Not entirely sure. There's a debate about this on metafandom. But my initial reaction to Becky was celebratory - she's a *wonderful* object for recuperation.

I did roll my eyes this week at the incident(s) you're talking about - but I also grinned at the exchange between Dean and the female psychiatrist: 'So...you're my doctor'. 'So...you're my paranoid schizophrenic with a narcisstic personality disorder [whatever she said].' Score!

Re: re the 'villiain' of the piece, becky.

[reading-is-in.livejournal.com]

Oops, I clicked anonymous. That was me :)