I disagree
Apr. 11th, 2010 11:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gmonkey42Someone linked to this post:Storming the Battlements or: Why the Culture of Mary Sue Shaming is Bully Culture.
It's the standard defense of Mary Sues, claiming that making fun of Mary Sue fics is misogynist and conveniently ignoring the fact that it's not about OFCs per se, it's about shitty writing. The post starts (after some insultingly obvious stuff about how Words Mean Things) with descriptions of alleged Mary Sues that turn out to be **gasp!** written by professionals! (Incidentally, why not include an example of a character from a published work that people have actually called a Mary Sue? Like Bella Swan or Ayla?) The only one I'm familiar with is Number One from Star Trek. Who appeared in exactly one episode (or two if you count The Menagerie as two episodes). A character can't be a Mary Sue if she wasn't around long enough for us to know anything about her beyond a few basic facts. Also, Author of the post? I guess I have been living under a fucking rock then, because no, I was not aware that she's been your favorite thing about Star Trek ever since you saw the movie with the hot, young actors and discovered that Star Trek existed six months ago. This lack of awareness that there are readers beyond your circle of friends might begin to explain the problem.
So I disagree that anyone would call Number One a Mary Sue - unless they, like the author, are constructing a straw man argument. What characterizes a Mary Sue isn't that they have special, unique traits. There are basically two types of protagonists in sci-fi/fantasy: regular person dropped into extraordinary circumstances and Chosen-One-type characters with special, unique traits. This alone does not make the character a Mary Sue. Bad writing does. We are not shy about pointing out when a canon character is a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. People have argued that Harry Potter is kind of one, for example. Orson Scott Card's Ender is a huge, obvious Gary Stu and people have been (rightfully) quite harsh about it. So contrary to the author's accusation, we don't consider published works to be above criticism.
By the author's criteria, Spock would be a huge Gary Stu: he's the first and only Vulcan/Human hybrid, he's the grandson of the de facto ruler of the planet, he's really, really good at chess and music and science and martial arts, lots of people are attracted to him, he has a troubled relationship with his parents, the Captain is his BFF; I'm sure you can all think of more. But he's clearly not a Gary Stu. Why? Because we're a bunch of hypocritical meanie-heads with a double-standard? NO, it's because Spock is actually WRITTEN WELL. As I'm sure Number One would have been if she'd been around long enough for us to get to know her. Incidentally, y'all know D.C. Fontana is a woman, right? But yeah, we're totally biased against female writers.
The author goes on to get all sarcastic and once again exaggerates our position by saying
Yeah. She's actually defending the pepper jack cheese thing. And assuming a priori that all the readers will agree that it's absurd to object to it. Has she read these fics she's defending?
It pisses me off when people try to co-opt feminism to defend something stupid that people who happen to be women do. No, it's not even that, it's to attack the critics of that stupid activity. Writing poorly well into your thirties and throwing a fit when anyone calls you out on your poor writing might feel like empowerfulment but that doesn't automatically make your critics misogynists. What about all the Mary Sue fics where the author tosses in sexual assault to give the character a suitably tragic past? That's pretty offensive to this feminist right here. What about how approximately 99.99% of Mary Sues meet the Beauty Standard to a greater extent than any human could and how their worth is demonstrated to the audience mainly via their sexual desirability to the male characters? But yeah, we critics are totally the sexist ones.
The next section involves the author, unsurprisingly, getting all butthurt over how she almost quit writing as a teenager after some internet meanies made fun of her no doubt execrable attempt at writing. Here's an idea: STOP DEMANDING ATTENTION BY POSTING YOUR WORK ON THE INTERNET. They can't have it both ways; either they post publicly in order to get a chance at being a BNF but also risking ridicule if they suck OR keep their writing relatively private, only showing it to people they know will be gentle with their criticism. It is no coincidence that it tends to be Mary Sue authors who post authors' notes like "NO FLAMES" and "I won't post the next chapter until I get five more positive comments!" If they want attention lavished on them by lots of people then they cannot demand that all of that attention be positive.
The author quotes another pro-Mary Sue post:
That's a spurious argument: the vast majority of ALL fanfic is written by young(ish) women. It's not like there's a huge pool of male fanfic writers whom we avoid criticizing. And it's not exclusively a female fantasy. There are plenty of published male writers who suck and we're not shy about saying so: Dan Brown for example, and Orson Scott Card as I mentioned above. Self-insertion is a fantasy of young people, not just young women, and crappy writers of all genders (and ages) use it. But in communities that are about discussing fanfic, we're talking almost exclusively about works written by women. The fact that they're women doesn't mean they should be off-limits to criticism, nor does it mean any criticism is automatically motivated by internalized sexism. To the contrary, a lot of the criticism directed at Mary Sues is about the sexist tropes employed by the Mary Sue authors.
So yeah, I'm going to keep reading and enjoying Mary Sue-bashing posts. And when people criticize me for it? I'm not going to get all whiny and threaten to quit the internet.
It's the standard defense of Mary Sues, claiming that making fun of Mary Sue fics is misogynist and conveniently ignoring the fact that it's not about OFCs per se, it's about shitty writing. The post starts (after some insultingly obvious stuff about how Words Mean Things) with descriptions of alleged Mary Sues that turn out to be **gasp!** written by professionals! (Incidentally, why not include an example of a character from a published work that people have actually called a Mary Sue? Like Bella Swan or Ayla?) The only one I'm familiar with is Number One from Star Trek. Who appeared in exactly one episode (or two if you count The Menagerie as two episodes). A character can't be a Mary Sue if she wasn't around long enough for us to know anything about her beyond a few basic facts. Also, Author of the post? I guess I have been living under a fucking rock then, because no, I was not aware that she's been your favorite thing about Star Trek ever since you saw the movie with the hot, young actors and discovered that Star Trek existed six months ago. This lack of awareness that there are readers beyond your circle of friends might begin to explain the problem.
So I disagree that anyone would call Number One a Mary Sue - unless they, like the author, are constructing a straw man argument. What characterizes a Mary Sue isn't that they have special, unique traits. There are basically two types of protagonists in sci-fi/fantasy: regular person dropped into extraordinary circumstances and Chosen-One-type characters with special, unique traits. This alone does not make the character a Mary Sue. Bad writing does. We are not shy about pointing out when a canon character is a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. People have argued that Harry Potter is kind of one, for example. Orson Scott Card's Ender is a huge, obvious Gary Stu and people have been (rightfully) quite harsh about it. So contrary to the author's accusation, we don't consider published works to be above criticism.
By the author's criteria, Spock would be a huge Gary Stu: he's the first and only Vulcan/Human hybrid, he's the grandson of the de facto ruler of the planet, he's really, really good at chess and music and science and martial arts, lots of people are attracted to him, he has a troubled relationship with his parents, the Captain is his BFF; I'm sure you can all think of more. But he's clearly not a Gary Stu. Why? Because we're a bunch of hypocritical meanie-heads with a double-standard? NO, it's because Spock is actually WRITTEN WELL. As I'm sure Number One would have been if she'd been around long enough for us to get to know her. Incidentally, y'all know D.C. Fontana is a woman, right? But yeah, we're totally biased against female writers.
The author goes on to get all sarcastic and once again exaggerates our position by saying
Instead of, "write to the best of your ability", the message is: Don't you dare write characters who are too perfect! Don't you dare write characters who are too flawed! Don't you dare make your characters too forthright or too timid, too connected to canon characters or not connected enough!
Don't you dare put any of yourself into your characters, lest you commit the crime of pepper jack cheese!
Yeah. She's actually defending the pepper jack cheese thing. And assuming a priori that all the readers will agree that it's absurd to object to it. Has she read these fics she's defending?
It pisses me off when people try to co-opt feminism to defend something stupid that people who happen to be women do. No, it's not even that, it's to attack the critics of that stupid activity. Writing poorly well into your thirties and throwing a fit when anyone calls you out on your poor writing might feel like empowerfulment but that doesn't automatically make your critics misogynists. What about all the Mary Sue fics where the author tosses in sexual assault to give the character a suitably tragic past? That's pretty offensive to this feminist right here. What about how approximately 99.99% of Mary Sues meet the Beauty Standard to a greater extent than any human could and how their worth is demonstrated to the audience mainly via their sexual desirability to the male characters? But yeah, we critics are totally the sexist ones.
The next section involves the author, unsurprisingly, getting all butthurt over how she almost quit writing as a teenager after some internet meanies made fun of her no doubt execrable attempt at writing. Here's an idea: STOP DEMANDING ATTENTION BY POSTING YOUR WORK ON THE INTERNET. They can't have it both ways; either they post publicly in order to get a chance at being a BNF but also risking ridicule if they suck OR keep their writing relatively private, only showing it to people they know will be gentle with their criticism. It is no coincidence that it tends to be Mary Sue authors who post authors' notes like "NO FLAMES" and "I won't post the next chapter until I get five more positive comments!" If they want attention lavished on them by lots of people then they cannot demand that all of that attention be positive.
The author quotes another pro-Mary Sue post:
...the accusation of "Mary Sue" is most often made against those characters appearing in stories authored by young women. They are problematic (it is said) because they are shameless self-inserts and represent a female fantasy and nothing else.
That's a spurious argument: the vast majority of ALL fanfic is written by young(ish) women. It's not like there's a huge pool of male fanfic writers whom we avoid criticizing. And it's not exclusively a female fantasy. There are plenty of published male writers who suck and we're not shy about saying so: Dan Brown for example, and Orson Scott Card as I mentioned above. Self-insertion is a fantasy of young people, not just young women, and crappy writers of all genders (and ages) use it. But in communities that are about discussing fanfic, we're talking almost exclusively about works written by women. The fact that they're women doesn't mean they should be off-limits to criticism, nor does it mean any criticism is automatically motivated by internalized sexism. To the contrary, a lot of the criticism directed at Mary Sues is about the sexist tropes employed by the Mary Sue authors.
So yeah, I'm going to keep reading and enjoying Mary Sue-bashing posts. And when people criticize me for it? I'm not going to get all whiny and threaten to quit the internet.
