In which I display my postmodern analytic bias.

I really absolutely hate this new meme running around in which people list the stories they’ve written featuring minorities. Of course, the meme never actually says minorities anywhere but it asks about character gender and race (and in some cases age, disability, sexuality and class), which are several of the defining qualities of a minority group.

Now, I like the idea of the meme. It’s a good exercise in consciousness-raising of our prejudices and biases in what we choose to write and (presumably) be interested in and promote. I think the concept is good (though the first couple of posts with the meme were notably lacking things like, oh, disability, age, religion, sexuality, and class. Hell, as far as religion, they’re all lacking that, I think. Jewish characters, anyone?).

No, what I question is the validity of the method.

It’s easy to talk about racism or sexism or ageism or whatever-ism within a culture itself. We’re talking about the thing and the whole of the thing. Talking about isms within a media source gets a heck of a lot trickier. You have a dual problem facing yourself here: are we talking about isms contextually or metatextually?

Contextual isms take place within, and only within, the canon source. This may take the form of a more familiar ism, such as the blatant racism we see in Life on Mars. The entire male cast save Sam is racist, homophobic, ethnocentric, and seriously misogynistic (Gene Hunt being the biggest dick of them all when it comes to this). In a more modern setting, you have Richard Tyler on The 4400 dealing with it in the past and in the present, both personally and in terms of his two relationships with white women. Or the episode Route 666 on Supernatural which deals with not only racist people but a racist ghost.

But an ism may not be so clear cut as this. There’s canons in which skin color is no indication of social class. In the anime/manga Ai no Kusabi, society is stratified by (ostensibly) hair color. Within the society, a supercomputer named Jupiter genetically created a ruling caste (the Blondies), characterized by their blonde hair. The lowest caste is the people with dark hair (brown or black) and stratifies up until you reach the ruling caste. Of course, the real divide isn’t really about hair color, it’s naturally born vs. genetically created. So is the minority the more obvious divide along hair color (paralleling skin color) or are we looking deeper to the social class segregations which are the true indication of status within the society?

was doing the meme some before I left for work. She asked me if I considered River Tam, from Firefly and Serenity, as a minority character. My first response was on the lines of, “oh, hells no!” The Tams, Inara and, to an extent, Shepherd Book are the oddballs of an already extremely odd crew because they’re all from middle/upper class, educated and privileged backgrounds. That automatically excludes people from being considered a minority in my book. But said something that made me think about this (and my own personal working class based anti-rich biases). She said that the upper class, contextually, in that universe is Chinese based. The written language is almost solely Chinese (or at least a character-based language that presumably evolves from Chinese), the spoken language is ubiquitously peppered with Chinese, and a lot of the dress is Eastern-influenced. We talked about this a bit more and the final conclusion was essentially “cannot be determined.” The point of the story here is that “classic” signs of minority status may not actually be applicable within a contextual universe.

The flip side of this is the metatextual side. Shows don’t exist in vacuums. If they did, no one would be watching because the gravitat — Okay, bad joke, I know. But there are three key ingredients to fandom: source creators, the source canon and the fans of the source. Classic isms, classic minority markers might not exist within a canon universe in and of itself, but they certainly do for the fans and the unconscious (or conscious) biases they bring in when watching/reading a source. has to scold me in discussions and cry foul sometimes because, since I come from a poor working class background, I have a very strong bias against the rich and wealthy (that seems to get stronger the older I get). That bias influences what I prefer to watch or read, what characters I like, even what types of stories play best with me (god forbid someone show me a Horatio Alger story). This is problematic for me as a viewer/reader in particular because most sources are geared toward a comfortable middle or upper middle class setting since that’s what most people consider themselves as or aspire to.

Because I’m hypersensitive to presentations of class or caste status within sources, I judge sources that deal with this issue (or not) with a stronger critical eye than I might others. It’s the same with any other ism. Does a show have subtle racism, by showing all black characters in support of a single white character? Are women conspicuously absent in this source or do we see them as lead characters? Etc.

What exists on screen and what we see on screen can be two different things. Take Stargate: Atlantis, for example. Within the canon, Teyla and Ronon are not presented as minority characters within their respective civilizations; Teyla is a leader and Ronon’s shown as fairly high up in the military structure. Both are high level operatives on Atlantis as well; when Elizabeth leaves, it’s Teyla that is left behind in charge. (I suppose you could argue that all humans are the minority in Pegasus galaxy, with the Wraith being the dominant ruling class. In the end, all humans are oppressed by the Wraith. However, most of the show focuses solely on human-human interactions and not Wraith-human, so for the purposes of this essay we’re also talking about human-human oppression.) But metatextually, in the eyes of the viewers, both characters are “black.” I use the quotation marks because the term “black” has become sort of a catch-all denoting anyone who looks as if they’re from African descent. Jason Momoa, who plays Ronon Dex, is half-Hawaiian and half-Caucasian. Rachel Luttrel is half-Tanzanian and half-Caucasian. Both are still considered “black,” even if the category isn’t necessarily accurate and thus are minority characters.

So while you can’t really call Teyla or Ronon, contextually, “minorities,” as viewers we see them that way. Same with Teal’c on SG1. The Jaffa are distinctly not a minority. If anything, they’re the majority within human societies in the Milky Way. But because we see so many ethnic Jaffa (not just African-descended, we see Asian-descended Jaffa too. I don’t remember if we see any Hispanic-descended ones off the top of my head, though) in subservient positions to white complected actors, we see this as racism. Maybe it’s right that we see it as racism. Maybe it’s wrong that many, many fans excuse it as ‘well, they’re limited by the actors in Vancouver’ and other statements. Maybe the show’s creators — and the actors, such as Christopher Judge’s much publicized view that the Jaffa should not be played by white actors — are displaying their own biases by casting the actors of the colors they are in the roles they do. But whatever biases the producers, casting agents, and writers have, whether those biases are consistently displayed as racism within the canon depends on the canonical universe.

Does that excuse it, if the actors of color are consistently cast in non-main roles? No, of course not. That’s a true and obvious metatextual bias. However, if those same roles are treated with respect and those characters “of color” are not treated as having a particular, oppressed status, then can the argument really be made that the canon is racist in and of itself? Should Teyla and Ronon, thus, be read as “black” just because their actors are partially non-Caucasian? And, if so, is the bias that all non-full Caucasian looking characters must be read as “characters of color,” any better?

Let’s take this and bring it down to a few examples. How many of you watch Gilmore Girls? Did you know Alexis Bledel (who plays Rory Gilmore) is first generation American? She’s half-Mexican and half-Argentinean. She apparently didn’t even know English until she went to school and her first language is actually Spanish. Supernatural and Veronica Mars fans probably remember Alona Tal (who plays Meg on VM and Jo on SPN). She’s blonde and blue-eyed. She’s cast as the pretty young girl-next-door type in both shows. She’s not actually American. She’s Israeli. The flip side is someone like Edward James Olmos, who plays Commander Adama on the new Battlestar Galactica. Olmos is Mexican, but within the context of BSG, Adama is about as white as you can get without using paint. Or Cote de Pablo, who plays Ziva on NCIS. She’s from Chile and plays a character that’s actually Israeli. For years, in Harry Potter fandom, the character of Blaise Zabini fluctuated between male and female but was almost always white English regardless of gender despite having a specific-to-region Italian name in a series in which the name is pretty much everything. (And you don’t want me to get started ranting on what I think of Memoirs of a Geisha.)

As viewers, as creators, we know all this. But that’s because we exist outside of the canon, not within it.

So how can we accurately dissect our own prejudices when we can never be quite sure if we’re looking through the contextual lens or the metatextual one?

I think the point there is that everyone has bias and, if they’re lucky, they have people around them with different biases and so are exposed (and can expose others) to different views. But often, even with work, the bias remains. It’s especially going to remain if we’re relying on memes like this to expose our true prejudices about race or gender or class or any other master status. What we think is minority status may not necessarily be a minority status and this meme simplifies what’s really an incredibly complex issue, either contextually or metatextually. It’s easy enough, in a meme like this, to say what gender a character is. But it’s not so easy to say if that gender accurately reflects a minority or oppressed status. And when you begin to classify their color, when it’s not established in canon, you have only your biases and metatextual knowledge to rely on.

(The observant will note I haven’t really talked about how fandom vs. source views age, class, sexuality, gender, religion, or disability. Those are, trust me, essays all of their own.)

The other serious flaw in methodology here has nothing to do with bias and everything to do with story construction. The meme is geared toward point-of-view characters. That may skew results because, in the end, the point-of-view the story is written from is not necessarily the main character. Take the book/movie Silence of the Lambs. The point-of-view character is Clarice Starling but, arguably, the main character of the storyline is not Clarice and, instead, Hannibal Lector. The entire storyline revolves around Clarice’s interactions and observations of Hannibal and Hannibal’s manipulations and toying with her. The 4400 features Tom Baldwin, a point-of-view character who participates in every storyline but has none of his own. They revolve all around and are motivated by the people he interacts with. The new Dr. Who is particularly egregious with this as the point-of-view characters are the companions (Rose, Mickey, Jack, Donna, and Martha) but the show is all about and driven fully by the Doctor himself. He’s the main character.

So, yes, I have nasty issues with the methodology of the meme and somehow it devolved into a long drawn-out essay. I guess I was really bored at work and the scientist in me strongly objects to bad methodology when it comes to something geared toward finding statistics?

[Props for this go to , who was forced to be my fact checker and all around sounding board for ‘Does this make sense?’ or ‘Oh my god, I forgot that actor’s name! What is it???’ and ‘how do you spell ubiquitous?’ while I was at work and lacked browsing ability to do it myself.]

Can anyone point me to discussions of religion and religious oppression within fandom and analysis of media? I’m kinda curious and the pickings of what I’ve found on seem… sparse, if this search is anything to go by.

Also a topic (not) to write for another day: imperial Stargate, or, How I Learned To Be A Benevolent Dictator From Watching Stargate: SG1 and Stargate: Atlantis.

Goodbye, Billie Jean.

I can think of no more appropriate topic (unless you want a rant about how Bush is destroying everything this country was founded on and should resign immediately) for the 4th of July than fandom nostalgia.

With the upcoming release of both the Order of the Phoenix movie and HP book 7, I find myself thinking more and more about what gets people to stop reading or stop watching a source canon. You see, I’m not really excited at all about either. I’m looking forward to a surge of academic discussion and analysis of the books and fans following the releases but I think I’m more excited because I think I should be excited as a fan, not because I actually am.

So I wondered what else makes my (and presumably other people’s) interest wane. Long breaks, obviously, can wear a fan down. This seems more applicable to books than visual canons, I think, but the longer times between books the more time fans have to find something that suits them better and actually updates more regularly. Though you may see this happen in visual fandoms too. Some summer shows may be prone to this; there’s a year between when you last show an episode and when a new one airs.

Rapid and sudden casting changes can be a turn off too, I suppose. The Dead Zone, the USA show that airs Sunday nights, just came back two? three? weeks ago with two missing cast members. My favorite two cast members and the show’s sole minority regular. I don’t think I’ll be watching it much this season, except for the bits and pieces I catch after The 4400 is over and I’m getting ready to go to work. Losing a beloved character can destroy a show, even if there are legitimate story-telling reasons within the canon (as opposed to corporate ones at the production level) to kill/incapacitate/make them leave. Some shows can get away with this, of course. Law and Order (the original) has been through how many cast changes? Off the top of my head: Cragen, Stone, Briscoe, Branch, Logan, Green, Southerlyn, Curtis, Carmichael, Robinette, Kincaid, Ross, Lewin, and Schiff. Law and Order’s designed to be plug and play when it comes to their characters. Obviously, we all have favorites (mine are Briscoe and Logan and McCoy and Kincaid) but for the most part, with Law and Order no one blinks an eye if a character leaves and another one enters. They’re stock characters with very little background and substance.

Bad writing or plotting is another huge canon killer for me. This one’s a little hard to judge objectively, I think, because one person’s show-killer is another person’s dream. For me, S3 of Veronica Mars was excruciating because it became less about plucky and sarcastic detective Veronica Mars and more about The Veronica and Logan Relationship Hour (see also focus shift). I didn’t like what being with Logan made Veronica and I really hated what Logan would do while he was with her. I thought the relationship and how it was portrayed warped the show and because of it, I still haven’t (and probably won’t) seen the last five episodes of S3. It was just really badly written and handled. But S3 was a dream for a lot of other fans because they loved the Veronica/Logan relationship and it drove the show. S3 of the new Battlestar Galactica was the same way for me. I hated the story lines they put up and quit watching four episodes in.

This may be a smaller concern, along with cast changes, but shows that don’t give me faces I want to see end up on the ‘eh, I’ll find something else in that time slot’ list too. Shows with conspicuous lack of female characters, minority characters, lower class (as opposed to the much more common middle/upper class) characters all ping my radar. I don’t necessarily stop watching but shows like this are always on notice for me. Even worse are the ones who add the female/minority/etc character and it just comes off as completely token. Sometimes, like Bruce in The Dead Zone, they even reference it as token or unusual. That’s always a huge turnoff for me.

Time changes! Urgh, these are the worst for shows. One of my favorite shows freshman year of high school was Earth 2. It was on Sundays, if I remember correctly, and aired right before seaQuest DSV. Or it was supposed to, since the network (NBC, as I recall, but please correct me if I’m wrong) couldn’t seem to make up its mind whether or not to air episodes. Sometimes it was pre-empted for sports, sometimes they aired it a different night completely, episodes were aired out of order and I’m pretty sure they never aired the last one or two episodes of the season. I’m still not entirely sure I’ve seen the entire series (one day that DVD set will be mine. Yes. It will be mine.). So it comes as no surprise the show had no ratings and was eventually canceled. Except possibly to the network executives who scratched their heads and went ‘huh, why’d we spend so much money on a genre show like this anyway?’

A canon’s focus shifting can turn people off too. I know a lot people absolutely despise the HP movies, saying that “these aren’t about Harry Potter, they’re about Hermione Granger.” You can take that complaint or leave it but it’s a legitimate opinion. People get invested in canons for any number of reasons, though I’d argue that the characters are the number one reason overall, and when fans start smelling a change in the winds, there’s going to be blood in the water and a ratings drop. When a focus shift happens, such as going from mostly drama to comedy, fans usually hate it. Sorcerer Stabber Orphen, an anime, did this exact same thing in its second season and completely bombed. Viewers were annoyed by the lack of seriousness in what had been a drama laced with mild comedy and how it changed the characters to make them funnier. Orphen S2 only lasted a few episodes, thanks to the response.

Then there’s the canons we just outgrow. I’m sure I’d enjoy rereading the Baby-Sitter’s Club, because I enjoy a good dose of nostalgia now and then, but I stopped reading those books when I was about nine or ten. I found other authors I could relate to better. What we enjoy as children is rarely what we enjoy as adults, sadly.

And of course, there’s the shows that somehow manage to do some or all of these things and you just can’t quit them. For me personally, House is one of them. I watched every episode this season even though they generally disgusted and annoyed me (barring one or two good ones). Why do I keep watching? It’s because I like the character Chase. That’s the only reason. So, I also kind of wonder what redeems a show for people; what makes them cling to something even though they know it’s bad.

Or what makes people go back to the basics, the beginnings, and why we see resurgences periodically of fandoms like Baby-Sitter’s Club. Can you ever find those books anymore in stores?

What kills shows for you? What makes you cling in hope it’ll get better next episode or next season?