[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?

[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.

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.

[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.

[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!