An open letter to executive producers, writers, and cast in the age of Twitter, tumblr, AO3, Instagram, Youtube, whatever social media platforms come next, and global audiences.
Congratulations! If you’re reading this its highly doubtful you’re in any way involved in mass media production but I’m fucking sick of shitty audience engagement by multi-billion dollar media companies and anyway this was better than working on my dissertation you’ve probably got a successful show!
That’s fantastic! Your work is being viewed by millions of people! Pat yourself on the back! But wait! Oh dear. There’s a hiccup. Suddenly you notice tweets and messages and questions at SDCC about your characters - your beloved, money-making, copyrighted intellectual property - being…gay??
You didn’t intend this, your protagonist and antagonist and supporting characters and background characters are 100% heterosexual!! What ever will you do?!
Fear not, my hypothetical content creator! I’m about to break down some key do’s and don’ts for when you find yourself suddenly in possession of a queer fandom. I will categorize my advice in three simple levels to help you best choose which type of engagement with your fandom is right for you, your show, and your network: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. Please note: this is not an exhaustive post. I can’t literally write the book for you on how media producers can engage their diverse, 21st century audiences (well, lol I could but you’re not paying me so suck it) and fandoms - like any subculture - vary greatly in demographics, linguistic quirks, norms, and culture. That means there is no ‘one size fits all’ strategy for dealing with your most passionate fans. Theoretically, you have marketing people who earn a paycheck. Make them work for it by doing some actual research instead of just changing the fonts on the SDCC posters.
Ready? No? Well too fucking bad because here we go.
Actually, no, I’m sorry, hold up. We need to lay some groundwork first. Let’s call these our a priori assumptions about fandom in general but queer fandom in particular.
Assumption 1: Your queer fandom is not going anywhere. You’re fucking stuck with us. You will not get rid of us. Better bigger assholes than you show runners, executive producers, marketing teams, writers’ rooms, and casts have tried. We’re still here. We still show up at all the conventions. We still produce fanfiction, art, videos, meta. We still spend ungodly amounts of money, time, and energy engaging with the media you have created. Even sometimes especially when we are angry at it. We are here to stay.
people talk a lot about how public schooling in america is a really fucked up system but i think we should also maybe talk about universities too. like why is being stressed out to a breaking point part of the college experience? why is it accepted and expected that college students will often go without sleep in order to get their work done? i don’t understand why we embrace the idea that college students should be stressed. i think the amount of homework assigned is absurd and unnecessary. it does nothing productive for learning. it just burns students out and makes us lose our drive. and on top of that, we have to pay thousands and thousands of dollars for this torment lmao it’s so ridiculous and honestly kind of sickens me
THIS. I took this weekend mostly off from homework because I analytically know that I don’t have too much and it’s making me absolutely sick with anxiety, even though I really needed the break.
Frollo and Mother Gothel convince Quasimodo and Rapunzel that their lives are dependent on them. The two villains claim the outside world is a terrible place even though they know this is not true. They also constantly emotionally abuse their victims by implying their worthlessness and destroying their self-esteems. Quasimodo and Rapunzel sympathize with their captors and even believe their captors are protecting them and treating them with kindness. However, both captors are merely using and manipulating their victims for their own selfish purposes.
Belle does not sympathize with the Beast when she is treated poorly. She becomes angry and leaves the castle, only returning by her own wish so that the Beast (who saves her) does not freeze to death. She does not respond nicely towards the Beast until he treats her with respect. In this situation, Belle has control and is not manipulated into feeling for the Beast, nor does the Beast treat her disrespectfully after the first night. While the Beast does have an underlying motive as to keeping Belle in his castle, he abandons this idea and sets her free to make her happy. If anything, this story is a case of Lima Syndrome where the captor starts to sympathize with the victim.
Check out this post which refocuses the purpose of Beauty and the Beast from merely (and wrongly) being about Stockholm Syndrome to it’s original purpose.
FUCKING FINALLY
I don’t usually reblog stuff like this, but Beauty and the Beast is my favorite movie and I’d like to have this on my page!
this is actually a very good analysis. I take back all the times I’ve called Beauty and the Beast a ‘stockholm syndrome’ romance.
right okay, her husband pays these dudes to kill her, and they kidnap her, but rather than kill her (they told her they don’t kill women) after a day, they drop her off with a cell phone, the recording of her husband asking for her to be killed, plus the $7000 he paid them, and tell her to go make sure it doesn’t do that again, so she fucking turns up right after the funeral about a week later??, and his ass freaks out and he screams some shit about ghosts, but shes like “lol no bitch i’m real” and hes in jail now and she free af to be with her 8 kids.
…all righty then, 2016, you can just fucking chill now.
WHAT IS THE TRADITIONAL DANCE OF THE VUVALINI AND THE ANSWER CANNOT BE THE ELECTRIC SLIDE.
WE NEED HELP OKAY
I’m sorry, I know you need a real answer, but I’m just stuck on the fact that apparently y’all thought that the obvious answer was the Electric Slide and I just. I just cannot. Because. I have this beautiful mental image of Keeper (who in this nice happy mental image is motherfuckin’ alive) teaching a bunch of Wretched plus the Sisters, Max, and Furiosa (who already knows the traditional dance but it’s been a long time, a lot of height, and a prosthetic arm since then, so she’s refining her technique) the ELECTRIC SLIDE.
What do I do with that mental image.
What.
Edit: FURIOSA TEACHING SOME EX-WARBOYS THE DANCE AFTER THE MOVIE? AND IT BECOMES LIKE THIS THING? YOU WIN A BATTLE AND BUST OUT THE FUCKIN’ ELECTRIC SLIDE I JUST.
