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lunasarielSo here's how this works: every so often I get a bee in my bonnet about something or other, and feel the need to pontificate about it. I climb up on my little LJ-soapbox and post some long, obtuse ramble about whatever the issue o' the day is. While doing so, my apparent age becomes about 70, and my sense of humor drops by at least 37.8%. That's exactly what I'm doing here: whingeing on about an issue that only involves me peripherally, and doing so deadly seriously.
As anyone who has glanced at this blog knows, I recently went to see X-Men: First Class, and enjoyed the hell out of it. I enjoyed it both as the next installment of a fandom that I adore, and as a piece of entertainment in its own right. Any print-to-film adaption, whether it's a novel, comic book, graphic novel, short story, hell, even an essay being adapted, or whether it's television or a movie that it's being adapted to, should be able to draw in viewers on its own merits. Naturally, those who have read the source material will get a lot more out of it, but I should be able to go in cold, knowing absolutely nothing about the characters or the world they inhabit, and enjoy the film or series for what it is.
This is where the one part I didn't like about XMFC comes in: the ending. The writers tried to shoehorn in too much character development and too many important events into the last few minutes, which derailed several character arcs, screwed with the pacing of the film, and led to at least one seemingly nonsensical event. The three main things I have problems with are Raven dropping her beloved brother like a hot potato to join her new BF(F) Erik in fanaticism, Charles being completely okay with his equally-beloved sister's decision to abandon their dream of peace in favor of terrorism and mass murder, Erik's decision to abandon pretty much his only friend in favor of the people he'd spent the entire movie doing his best to kill, and Charles being paralyzed. The first three don't work because it doesn't track with their growth as characters, nor is it in line with official canon. The last, however, is not only out of sync with canon, but defies the laws of physics. But I've ranted on all this before, so I won't subject you guys to that again.
The reason I'm writing today is that, in one of my comms, a discussion of ableism has come up. Quite a few fanfic writers have been writing fix-it fics that attempt to rectify two things: what people are calling "the Divorce" (Erik choosing to abandon Charles and his ideals) and Charles' paralysis. Honestly, I agree with them, and I do so for two reasons. First, it's poor screenplay writing. For the entire movie, the point had been that Charles, through kindness and understanding, was able to temper Erik's bloodlust and help him to be more than just some revenge-driven psycho. Given this, Erik's decision to abandon Charles and his worldview comes across as severely out of character. Similarly, there was no dramatic point to Charles getting shot in the back. If Erik had stayed, then Charles' paralysis would have been a great plot twist, but as things stand, it could honestly have been cut from the movie, no problem. Nobody seems affected by it, except for Charles, obviously (and even he seemed to be more concerned that his BFF had dumped him than that he would never walk again); it was just there to hurry the characters along to the point where they could be recognized as their older counterparts from the trilogy proper. Second, it's poor canon. Yes, both the Divorce and Charles' paralysis did eventually happen, and both had enormous effects on the story. The problem here is that they happened too soon. In X3, we clearly see Charles and Erik working together to build the School, and Charles is walking just fine. As things are, they simply don't have the time to have developed the deep emotional bond that would give their enforced enmity such pathos forty years down the road. The reason I found their relationship in the trilogy proper so poignant is that they had clearly spent so much time together that they really were more like brothers than mere friends, but their idealism forced them apart. In a similar, albeit less intense vein, the loss of Charles' legs is a major event (at least in the comics!verse), but one that Magneto had nothing to do with. So I'm not saying that the Divorce or the paralysis should be completely erased, I'm just saying that they should have been delayed until A) a time more in keeping with comics canon, B) a time where it would make more sense for their characters, or ideally C) both.
Buuuuuttt getting back on point now! *end ramble* I hadn't realized this, but apparently, some people have been getting really, really offended over people wanting to write out Charles' paralysis as it occurs in XMFC. To them, this trend is indicative of a certain mindset within the fandom that paraplegia is somehow disgusting and needs to be "erased." Honestly, I hadn't noticed anything like this, but as I'm not disabled myself, so I wasn't exactly looking for it. But I understand that this is an extremely sensitive topic, and one that affects millions of real people worldwide, some of whom read XMFC fics and feel marginalized or oppressed by other fans' treatment of Charles' injury. However, at least from my point of view, these particular fix-it fics hinge more on adherence to canon than some sort of abhorrence of paraplegics.
I'm not going to start this out by saying "I have friends who are disabled," because in my experience, any argument that begins "I have friends who are [disabled/gay/female/black/poor/insert group under discussion here]" is almost always an attempt to justify a racist/sexist/ableist/homophobic/whatever remark. Neither, as I said, am I disabled myself, so this is all just from my point of view. So if you're reading this, and I say something offensive, please know that it was unintentional, and if you point it out to me, I'll make sure to fix it.
OK, disclaimer done! Now on to the meat of the matter: when I read a fanfic that somehow changes events so that Charles walked away from that beach with his spinal column intact, I'm not doing so because I think that losing the ability to walk makes you some disgusting, aberrant cripple that needs to be swept under the rug ASAP so that us decent folk don't have to look at you, I'm doing so because it screws up canon. In neither the comics nor the previous movies was Charles paralyzed in an accident that stemmed from Erik's hatred of humans. In the comics, he was paralyzed in a fight with an evil alien called Lucifer who took Charles' attempt to stop him from conquering Earth amiss. In the previous movies, nobody states outright how Professor X lost the use of his legs, but as I've said, we clearly see him walking, in amicable company with Magneto no less, "twenty years ago" (presumably the mid-1980s).
This is why I think treating fix-it fics that try to un-paralyze Charles as ableist hate speech is a tad misdirected. Believe me when I say I know that this is a sensitive issue, but I really don't think any of these writers took one look at younger!Charles in his wheelchair and thought "Eeewwww! That's gross! Now I have to make him acceptable again!"
The moderator of the comm where all this is going down is asking authors to put warnings on these fix-it fics, just as they would for rape, suicide, or graphic violence and honestly, I don't think this is really that far out of line. When it comes to trigger warnings like this, erring on the side of caution really does seem to be the way to go. Like it or not, paraplegia or any other physical disability is still stigmatized, to varying degrees, in most, if not all, of the world. People read fanfic, especially fanfic about magic superhero mutants, to relax and escape, not to have society's incorrect and negative views of themselves reinforced.
However, making writers put "ableism" warnings on their fics is, I think, a step in the wrong direction. The very word "ableism" indicates a consciously negative view of disability, the same way "racist" indicates a consciously negative view of different races. An "ableism" warning on a fic implies that the author not only made a choice to include a deliberately negative view of disability and disabled people, but also holds those views him/herself and views disabled people in that light, when this is almost certainly not the case. I don't want to be labeled as discriminatory for trying to adhere to canon, but neither do I want people in the real world who actually are affected by disability, either their own or of a loved one, to feel unwelcome in what should be the most friendly and inclusive of environments. One suggestion that a fellow fan put forward, and that I like very much, is to label these fics, not "ableist," but "bullet-free" or "bulletfree AU" This takes the best of both worlds: it allows people to weed out fics that they might find upsetting, and also avoids applying an "-ist" label, which in itself is stigmatizing.
Of course, I'm just talking about fix-it fics here. Fics that actually contain ableism, especially given how widespread it was in the 1960s, should definitely have "ableist" warnings, just as any fics discussing Darwin's race and how it would have impacted his life in 1962 should probably have a "racist" warning. Of course, when I say "fics that actually contain ableism," I don't mean on the author's part. Anybody whose writing has other protagonists sincerely devalue Charles just because he's in a wheelchair not only doesn't understand the characters, but is also kind of a shitty person. What I mean is, if a fic was about someone calling Charles "cripple" or "gimp" and then either him defending himself, or the rest of the team defending him, then it should have an "ableist" warning, but that's because it contains ableist language on purpose. That, I think, is the root of the problem here: people are resisting having to mark their fics "ableist" because there's a world of difference between "Hey! That never happened in any canon!" and "Eeeewww! I don't want to have to think about Charles in a wheelchair!"
In essence:
On a slightly lighter note, I mentioned above that XMFC takes place in 1962, but it only seems to be 1962 sporadically. There were some moment's, like Charles' painfully forced "groovy" and the head of the CIA grumbling that women shouldn't be CIA agents and that Moira should go back to the typing pool (which came out as less forced, possibly because the guy playing the head of the CIA probably was actually alive in 1962), which came across as the writers remembering that this movie takes place in Ye Olde Days of Yore and slinging in some dialog to match, but then going back to Default Mode (2011) right after. Seriously, some bits, like Alex's artfully tousled, blonde-highlighted hair and ripped sleeveless sweater and Moira's CIA standard-issue Sexy Minidress Mk III, just made the history nerd in me facepalm.
In that vein, I'd like to see more fics discuss actual issues of the early 60s that would have impacted the team's life. Did Moira catch any flak for being just about the only female agent in the CIA in an era where women were still seen primarily as homemakers? How did Darwin feel about being black, when the Civil Rights Movement was just gathering steam? How did Charles cope with being wheelchair-bound, 20 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act? If Charles and Erik really did have a thing going on, how would they handle it, given that homosexuality was considered a mental illness until 1973? Would they all be progressives on everything, given that their status as mutants would make them more sympathetic to other oppressed minorities, or would their various upbringings and personalities lead them to be liberal on some things and conservatives on others? What did they think about Vietnam? Were any of them called to serve? When Ororo joined the team, what did she think about the decolonization of her mother's homeland, Kenya? I'd even like to see some silly stuff about Raven falling to Beatlemania and playing "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" until Erik turns the record player into a big metal pretzel or Hank tripping and hanging from the ceiling by his feet.
OK, I'm going to wrap up this insanely long, meandering, soapbox-y post before it getseven more completely out of control. Happy Father's Day to all of you dads out there; I'm about to go have dinner with mine!
As anyone who has glanced at this blog knows, I recently went to see X-Men: First Class, and enjoyed the hell out of it. I enjoyed it both as the next installment of a fandom that I adore, and as a piece of entertainment in its own right. Any print-to-film adaption, whether it's a novel, comic book, graphic novel, short story, hell, even an essay being adapted, or whether it's television or a movie that it's being adapted to, should be able to draw in viewers on its own merits. Naturally, those who have read the source material will get a lot more out of it, but I should be able to go in cold, knowing absolutely nothing about the characters or the world they inhabit, and enjoy the film or series for what it is.
This is where the one part I didn't like about XMFC comes in: the ending. The writers tried to shoehorn in too much character development and too many important events into the last few minutes, which derailed several character arcs, screwed with the pacing of the film, and led to at least one seemingly nonsensical event. The three main things I have problems with are Raven dropping her beloved brother like a hot potato to join her new BF(F) Erik in fanaticism, Charles being completely okay with his equally-beloved sister's decision to abandon their dream of peace in favor of terrorism and mass murder, Erik's decision to abandon pretty much his only friend in favor of the people he'd spent the entire movie doing his best to kill, and Charles being paralyzed. The first three don't work because it doesn't track with their growth as characters, nor is it in line with official canon. The last, however, is not only out of sync with canon, but defies the laws of physics. But I've ranted on all this before, so I won't subject you guys to that again.
The reason I'm writing today is that, in one of my comms, a discussion of ableism has come up. Quite a few fanfic writers have been writing fix-it fics that attempt to rectify two things: what people are calling "the Divorce" (Erik choosing to abandon Charles and his ideals) and Charles' paralysis. Honestly, I agree with them, and I do so for two reasons. First, it's poor screenplay writing. For the entire movie, the point had been that Charles, through kindness and understanding, was able to temper Erik's bloodlust and help him to be more than just some revenge-driven psycho. Given this, Erik's decision to abandon Charles and his worldview comes across as severely out of character. Similarly, there was no dramatic point to Charles getting shot in the back. If Erik had stayed, then Charles' paralysis would have been a great plot twist, but as things stand, it could honestly have been cut from the movie, no problem. Nobody seems affected by it, except for Charles, obviously (and even he seemed to be more concerned that his BFF had dumped him than that he would never walk again); it was just there to hurry the characters along to the point where they could be recognized as their older counterparts from the trilogy proper. Second, it's poor canon. Yes, both the Divorce and Charles' paralysis did eventually happen, and both had enormous effects on the story. The problem here is that they happened too soon. In X3, we clearly see Charles and Erik working together to build the School, and Charles is walking just fine. As things are, they simply don't have the time to have developed the deep emotional bond that would give their enforced enmity such pathos forty years down the road. The reason I found their relationship in the trilogy proper so poignant is that they had clearly spent so much time together that they really were more like brothers than mere friends, but their idealism forced them apart. In a similar, albeit less intense vein, the loss of Charles' legs is a major event (at least in the comics!verse), but one that Magneto had nothing to do with. So I'm not saying that the Divorce or the paralysis should be completely erased, I'm just saying that they should have been delayed until A) a time more in keeping with comics canon, B) a time where it would make more sense for their characters, or ideally C) both.
Buuuuuttt getting back on point now! *end ramble* I hadn't realized this, but apparently, some people have been getting really, really offended over people wanting to write out Charles' paralysis as it occurs in XMFC. To them, this trend is indicative of a certain mindset within the fandom that paraplegia is somehow disgusting and needs to be "erased." Honestly, I hadn't noticed anything like this, but as I'm not disabled myself, so I wasn't exactly looking for it. But I understand that this is an extremely sensitive topic, and one that affects millions of real people worldwide, some of whom read XMFC fics and feel marginalized or oppressed by other fans' treatment of Charles' injury. However, at least from my point of view, these particular fix-it fics hinge more on adherence to canon than some sort of abhorrence of paraplegics.
I'm not going to start this out by saying "I have friends who are disabled," because in my experience, any argument that begins "I have friends who are [disabled/gay/female/black/poor/insert group under discussion here]" is almost always an attempt to justify a racist/sexist/ableist/homophobic/whatever remark. Neither, as I said, am I disabled myself, so this is all just from my point of view. So if you're reading this, and I say something offensive, please know that it was unintentional, and if you point it out to me, I'll make sure to fix it.
OK, disclaimer done! Now on to the meat of the matter: when I read a fanfic that somehow changes events so that Charles walked away from that beach with his spinal column intact, I'm not doing so because I think that losing the ability to walk makes you some disgusting, aberrant cripple that needs to be swept under the rug ASAP so that us decent folk don't have to look at you, I'm doing so because it screws up canon. In neither the comics nor the previous movies was Charles paralyzed in an accident that stemmed from Erik's hatred of humans. In the comics, he was paralyzed in a fight with an evil alien called Lucifer who took Charles' attempt to stop him from conquering Earth amiss. In the previous movies, nobody states outright how Professor X lost the use of his legs, but as I've said, we clearly see him walking, in amicable company with Magneto no less, "twenty years ago" (presumably the mid-1980s).
This is why I think treating fix-it fics that try to un-paralyze Charles as ableist hate speech is a tad misdirected. Believe me when I say I know that this is a sensitive issue, but I really don't think any of these writers took one look at younger!Charles in his wheelchair and thought "Eeewwww! That's gross! Now I have to make him acceptable again!"
The moderator of the comm where all this is going down is asking authors to put warnings on these fix-it fics, just as they would for rape, suicide, or graphic violence and honestly, I don't think this is really that far out of line. When it comes to trigger warnings like this, erring on the side of caution really does seem to be the way to go. Like it or not, paraplegia or any other physical disability is still stigmatized, to varying degrees, in most, if not all, of the world. People read fanfic, especially fanfic about magic superhero mutants, to relax and escape, not to have society's incorrect and negative views of themselves reinforced.
However, making writers put "ableism" warnings on their fics is, I think, a step in the wrong direction. The very word "ableism" indicates a consciously negative view of disability, the same way "racist" indicates a consciously negative view of different races. An "ableism" warning on a fic implies that the author not only made a choice to include a deliberately negative view of disability and disabled people, but also holds those views him/herself and views disabled people in that light, when this is almost certainly not the case. I don't want to be labeled as discriminatory for trying to adhere to canon, but neither do I want people in the real world who actually are affected by disability, either their own or of a loved one, to feel unwelcome in what should be the most friendly and inclusive of environments. One suggestion that a fellow fan put forward, and that I like very much, is to label these fics, not "ableist," but "bullet-free" or "bulletfree AU" This takes the best of both worlds: it allows people to weed out fics that they might find upsetting, and also avoids applying an "-ist" label, which in itself is stigmatizing.
Of course, I'm just talking about fix-it fics here. Fics that actually contain ableism, especially given how widespread it was in the 1960s, should definitely have "ableist" warnings, just as any fics discussing Darwin's race and how it would have impacted his life in 1962 should probably have a "racist" warning. Of course, when I say "fics that actually contain ableism," I don't mean on the author's part. Anybody whose writing has other protagonists sincerely devalue Charles just because he's in a wheelchair not only doesn't understand the characters, but is also kind of a shitty person. What I mean is, if a fic was about someone calling Charles "cripple" or "gimp" and then either him defending himself, or the rest of the team defending him, then it should have an "ableist" warning, but that's because it contains ableist language on purpose. That, I think, is the root of the problem here: people are resisting having to mark their fics "ableist" because there's a world of difference between "Hey! That never happened in any canon!" and "Eeeewww! I don't want to have to think about Charles in a wheelchair!"
In essence:
On a slightly lighter note, I mentioned above that XMFC takes place in 1962, but it only seems to be 1962 sporadically. There were some moment's, like Charles' painfully forced "groovy" and the head of the CIA grumbling that women shouldn't be CIA agents and that Moira should go back to the typing pool (which came out as less forced, possibly because the guy playing the head of the CIA probably was actually alive in 1962), which came across as the writers remembering that this movie takes place in Ye Olde Days of Yore and slinging in some dialog to match, but then going back to Default Mode (2011) right after. Seriously, some bits, like Alex's artfully tousled, blonde-highlighted hair and ripped sleeveless sweater and Moira's CIA standard-issue Sexy Minidress Mk III, just made the history nerd in me facepalm.
In that vein, I'd like to see more fics discuss actual issues of the early 60s that would have impacted the team's life. Did Moira catch any flak for being just about the only female agent in the CIA in an era where women were still seen primarily as homemakers? How did Darwin feel about being black, when the Civil Rights Movement was just gathering steam? How did Charles cope with being wheelchair-bound, 20 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act? If Charles and Erik really did have a thing going on, how would they handle it, given that homosexuality was considered a mental illness until 1973? Would they all be progressives on everything, given that their status as mutants would make them more sympathetic to other oppressed minorities, or would their various upbringings and personalities lead them to be liberal on some things and conservatives on others? What did they think about Vietnam? Were any of them called to serve? When Ororo joined the team, what did she think about the decolonization of her mother's homeland, Kenya? I'd even like to see some silly stuff about Raven falling to Beatlemania and playing "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" until Erik turns the record player into a big metal pretzel or Hank tripping and hanging from the ceiling by his feet.
OK, I'm going to wrap up this insanely long, meandering, soapbox-y post before it gets
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-20 06:19 am (UTC)I've got two side characters in wheelchairs. Do I need to be careful? I don't plan to have anybody call them names or otherwise be mean to them on the subject of their, um, non-able status, but even if I did, would I have to put a warning?
There are issues I'd like to address in my arc, such as racsim (Bikky hinted at experiencing it at school in A New Day) and the way disabled people are perceived as non-sexual beings by probably most of the population, but I think I've got my hands full with the homophobia angle. Dee has also spoken to Detective Greenspan in a very male-chauvinistic way, although I don't think that anyone has noticed, and if they have, they don't feel like sticking up for Det. G because she's so annoying.
Anyway, you mentioned above that "...some people have been getting really, really offended over people wanting to write out Charles' paralysis as it occurs in XMFC. To them, this trend is indicative of a certain mindset within the fandom that paraplegia is somehow disgusting and needs to be "erased."
My overwhelming reaction to that is that, unless the fanfics are full of general statements that intentionally diminish the human worth of paraplegics or people with other disabilities, no one actually has any business getting offended about another person's choice to write an alternative fanfic in which an accident or other action didn't take place. Fanfic writers do that every single day, all over the world. They take their favorite characters from an established work, and change things up. If I wanted a character NOT to be turned into a vampire or NOT to marry so-and-so, or NOT to have miscarried in her second trimester, I should be able to write about that without someone getting upset about it for whatever reason.
To be continued in the next comment....
Comment part two
Date: 2011-06-20 06:22 am (UTC)Like the Team Jacob fans getting incensed with the Team Edward fans, it's really not fair to get mad at someone else's choice, form, or style of self-expression. I've seen horrible art hanging on walls of galleries depicting violence and suffering. I personally don't like it and I don't want to have to look at it. (I was once in a restaurant trying to eat, surrounded by some really nauseating canvases due to the fact that the restaurant like to showcase different new artists every month) I personally don't like it, but I don't have to look at it or buy it. There may be other people who love it, but just because I hate it doesn't mean that I should demand that it be changed.
I similarly disagree wholeheartedly with NewSouth Publishing's recent decision to excise all 219 instances of the 'n-word' in Huckleberry Finn. That was a real time in history, people really did casually throw that word around and really did feel justified in the sense of superiority they felt over people of color. We can't just erase history because it makes us uncomfortable today. We should have the courage to explore it and preserve records of it so that we can measure how far we've come.
I've read some godawful fanfics where writers with no skill and apparently no access to spellcheck took the characters so far from canon that I began to wonder if they had gotten two fandoms mixed up in their heads. It never occurred to me for one second to drop them a line insisting that they cease and desist. I don't care whether someone thinks they've got a good reason (read 'politically correct') or not. No reason is good enough to try to control another person's artistic choice, unless the artistic choice is illegal or fomenting hatred. Where will it all end?
Do we need to start putting warnings on everything we create, apologizing for our preferences just in case the fact that we desire/admire one thing and don't desire/admire another causes someone to feel upset? I mean, I can understand that people should be fairly warned about excessive violence or character deaths, but I don't think that writers or artists should be vilified for the accurate depiction of history or society, or for having one character say something hurtful to another character. If an angry, male character calls a female character a filthy whore, will that be covered by a general warning about profanity, or does there need to be a disclaimer apologizing to sex trade workers for propagating the stereotype that they are second class citizens who can be preyed upon with semi-impunity?
We certainly live in interesting times! I hate political correctness because I find it oppressive, but at the same time, I'm willing to admit that it can ultimately have some positive after-effects as well. For example, when I was a child and a teen in Canada, racial slurs were much more common than they are today, and so was male chauvinism. Political correctness has extinguished much of that, and I think that has been a good thing. But I wouldn't want to see it taken to extremes.
Re: Comment part two
Date: 2011-06-20 07:06 pm (UTC)I can't recall hearing the word "ableism" any time before this either (although I was aware that discrimination against disabled people existed, I wasn't aware of this word in particular), so either it isn't all that common or I'll be joining you under that rock.
I think your fics should be okay. The problem that people seem to have with the XMFC fandom is that there are quite a few of these fix-it fics, which they see as trying to marginalize disabled people as a whole. The fact that you have two disabled characters, if anything, should be a pro, not a con. They have complex story arcs, just like everyone else, and the fact that you plan to address the way disabled people are perceived as non-sexual beings by probably most of the population is also a point in your favor. So you should probably be okay without plastering Justice with warnings. Looking forward to the next chapter, btw!
I completely agree with you on the fanfiction thing. Like you said, the very point of fanfic is, basically, to ask "what if?" Many fanfics explore the effects of changing one or more major events in a character's life, and if getting paralyzed doesn't count as a major event, I don't know what does! And no, I haven't seen any fanfics that deliberately try to make disabled characters seem subhuman or somehow less important or likeable than their non-disabled (abled? able?) counterparts, so I'm having a hard time seeing what the big screaming emergency is.
Ugh, the "LALALALALA THE N-WORD DOESN'T EXIST!!!!!" thing. Part of the power of Huck Finn for people today is to see an accurate depiction of life back when slavery was still a widely accepted practice, warts and all. Like you said, history like this should be preserved, not erased, so we can be reminded of how wrong things went in the past and see how far we've come.
The line between PC-ness and outright censorship is a fine one indeed, and certainly sometimes people overstep that line. Like you said, PC-ness does have its benefits, like getting rid of the widespread use of racial slurs and male chauvanism, but at its worst, it makes people afraid to speak their minds, for fear of getting slammed by the PC Police. And isn't the point of PC-ness to remove the fear of oppression?
Thanks for your thoughts! It's nice to see that I'm not alone in thinking that this is kind of weird.