[fandom] Supernatural wank and authorial intent

[escritoireazul]

So there's wank in Supernatural fandom, in which I participate very little, but enjoy the hell out of the show. I'm not going to link to the wank for a couple of reasons. One is that I think it's gotten enough attention, and I have no desire to add to it. Another is that I'm not actually here to talk about the wank, exactly, but a tangent.

I read the original post (hereafter P1) and though I didn't agree with the tone or the structure, I liked quite a few points brought up by the original poster (hereafter OP). OP said some interesting things (it's good to find and rec new or relatively unknown authors, different characterizations can be fun, it's good to seek out new experiences). I could roll with that, though I can see why people are responding to negatively to the P1.

Then, when someone told the OP that those very good points were being lost in the vitriol, the OP said that wasn't what zie meant at all.

This is why I don't believe that authorial intent is all that important to the interpretation of a piece of writing. The actual words used are much more important than what the author did or did not try to do. Also, this is why I would rather not know and draw my own conclusions because any sort of respect I had for the OP's ideas has been lost, especially because P1 is full of subtle, nasty comments about both specific people and general groups of fans. Without those points, it's more an attack than anything else.

I don't see anything wrong with venting about your fandom frustrations (or frandations, as I just typoed), and I am certainly not one to ask why can't we just all get along, but the OP directed it at Supernatural fandom in what looked like an attempt, however flawed, at opening a dialogue. That would benefit fandom. This? Just starts a wank.

Comments

[buffyfan30.livejournal.com]

What's a wank?

[escritoireazul.livejournal.com]

The Fandom Wank Wiki (http://wiki.fandomwank.com/index.php/Main_Page) might be of some interest. Mostly it's just a big disagreement taken too far, but, well, it kind of varies.

Often it's really hard to look away, even if I don't know the fandom involved. It's weird, mostly.

[roguewords.livejournal.com]

I'm with you. If OP just "wants everyone to get along" then the OP shouldn't have posted P1.

Then again, I might be a little biased because one of my good online friends is one of the people mentioned in the P1.

*thinks* No, I'm not. There was no reason for the OP to go about it like that. And then to refute anything or anyone who said that she might have a valid point but that it got completely lost in the way she said it; well, it just doesn't bode well for the OP becoming anything but wank.


And that's all I'm going to say about this.

[escritoireazul.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty much in the middle on this. I'm not particularly close to anyone on either side of the "discussion", though I can definitely understand why those labeled BNFs are upset and why their friends are upset.

I do think the OP handled the writing badly, unless zie was going for attention, and then zie should have been prepared for the wide range of responses. If you're going to throw gasoline on the fire, you can't be surprised when it burns too hot, you know.

Here via metafandom

[skuf.livejournal.com]

"The message received is the message sent" - I don't believe this to hold 100% true 100% of the time, but some writers (in RL as well as in fandom) could need to keep this one in mind. Apart from that, I personally don't believe the OP's backpeddling that-wasn't-what-I-meant.

Re: Here via metafandom

[escritoireazul.livejournal.com]

I agree. I have to remind myself all the time that, even if it's not what I'm trying to say, what people think I've said has much more of an impact than what I intended to say, if I can't get my intended meaning across. It's all well and good to have a good idea and good intentions, but if you can't convey that, it's not actually doing good for anyone but you. (Generic yous there, obviously.)

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

When reviewing or commenting, you can only judge by what is actually said, not by intent. (This is something most politicians have yet to learn.) On the other hand, some people will take offense at anything. A long, long time ago, well before the days of the internet, I had a rep in a small fandom for giving straight criticism. Lots and lots of people asked me to crit stories, but not because they wanted that detailed critique. What they wanted was to be able to say, "Lil thought it was wonderful." If Lil didn't, it was time to climb into their huff.

[escritoireazul.livejournal.com]

When reviewing or commenting, you can only judge by what is actually said, not by intent.

That pretty much sums up my whole point, and much more succinctly. Thank you.

I do agree that a lot of people will take offense at anything, and I don't think you (generic you) can expect to say anything without offending someone. I also think there's a difference between opening a discussion about controversial topics which will draw fire from people on all the sides and trying to verbally attack people, and then trying to protect yourself by saying that's not what you meant.

Of course, I can't say that's what the original poster meant, either side of it, but it seemed to come across negatively to a lot of people. Which is where I'm back to my original point, that it doesn't much matter how the OP meant it if most people take it a different way. (Not that it doesn't matter to the OP how zie meant it, but if that's not how it's being read, something is wrong with the presentation to the assumed audience.)

That must have been frustrating. I don't understand why people, who know that you gave detailed, straight criticism, expected you to just give them a blanket approval. What made them so special that you should change how you did things? People are strange.

[alias_sqbr]

Hi, I'm here from metafandom, sorry to barge in uninvited but you've gotten me thinking. I will try not to spill anything on the carpet :)

Afaict you're saying the OP accidentally said something deep in the pursuit of disharmony?
Well, snatching brief moments of possibly accidental beauty amongst piles of dreck is what most fandom is about isn't it? :) Look at slash and it's reliance on mostly accidental subtext. But personally I still want to know the authors intentions, I just feel free in ignoring them. For example, reading interviews with JKR where she says she has no intention of making any deep statements with the books doesn't stop me from seeing them as metaphors on whatever, but it does prepare me for such metaphors being mishandled in book 7.

Anyway, your tangent has inspired a tangent from me, on situations where someone posts something disharmonious then claims it was meant to be deep.

On the one hand, I find it reeeally annoying when people say inflammatory stuff and then later are all "Oh but I didn't mean it that way"
On the other hand, I'm quite bad at expressing myself and so often do the whole "Oh but I didn't mean it that way" thing myself. So...I think (I think) that it's ok to re-express yourself and disown previous statements, but you have to take responsibility for what you actually said regardless of what you meant to say. If it offended someone then unless they're being unreasonable in their reading(*) you have to apologise, express yourself more clearly and either justify or clearly say you disagree with whatever offended them. None of this "I didn't mean it that way, stop being so sensitive. Though, really, what's so wrong with that idea anyway?"

(*)Which is admittedly very subjective!

[escritoireazul.livejournal.com]

Hi, welcome. I love to see other people's opinions. (Also, you have a Digger icon, right? I love Digger.)

Yes, that's pretty much what I'm saying. Originall I thought the "deep" parts of the original post were the important parts just presented badly, but once the OP responded, it really looked like they were accidental, unexpected (and, in some ways, apparently unwanted) gold in what was more of an attack. Which was a shame, and learning that made me think less of the OP and zie's intentions.

(Not that I think me thinking more or less of the OP is actually important, here, it just bothered me that ideas I really liked and thought were the point were actually unwelcomed by the OP.)

You're right, of course, that part of fandom is panning for gold and separating the good things from the bad. That's why I quite liked the good parts of the original post, up until the OP disagreed that she meant them, which is where I turned to authorial intent. It really did bug me that she was so unreceptive to the idea that her post had sparked good ideas and discussion amongst the more inflammatory parts.

I think I prefer to keep source material separate from authorial (or musician, or artistic, etc.) intent because, if the author violently disgrees with what I read into it, and doesn't even acknowledge that there can be other interpretations besides what the author meant, it colors the author in a negative light in my mind, and I don't like that. I want to be able to appreciate the author separate from the work, or the work from the author, either way. It rarely happens that the author will respond in a way which makes me not like her or him, but on the rare occassions it does occur, it bothers me enough I just stay away from most explanations.

(I'm rambling here. I can probably break it down better with a different example. I'm not a huge fan of music videos [not fanvids] because I really don't care what the musician thinks the song is about. I like it, or don't like it, because of my interpretation of it. Knowing can sometimes be a bonus, sometimes a negative, but I don't really care to know either way. I'm content with my interpretation, or discussing it with other fans, I don't need a definitive answer from the creator.)

You hit a really good point about responsibility. Of course it's easy to say something and have people take it the wrong way, and it's fine to revisit, reword, rework, etc., the ideas you had, but you can't just wave away the trouble it caused by saying you didn't mean it that way, and everyone's wrong for reading it as if you did. Take some responsibility and admit you didn't present it in a way which got across your actual points. (Generic you throughout this, of course.)

Thanks for stopping in, you really made me think more about it.

[alias_sqbr]

Yep, Digger :)

I hadn't really encountered the idea of authorial intent/death of the author until I encountered online fandom, and while I have some issues with it am waiting till I have a chance to educate myself some more on the subject to argue too strongly in case I end up looking like an idiot.

That said, even if we see the author as just one more voice amongst many, it has been my experience that while sometimes they spout a bunch of crap which kind of takes the fun out of things, they often have really interesting and insightful things to say. Which isn't surprising since they are the person who created this thing I like :) To use your example, I have had a couple of music videos really make me understand and appreciate a song a lot more, opening my eyes to symbolism I hadn't noticed.

Anyway, I think we agree on the main issue at hand here, and you have also made me think, so it's all good :)