Once upon a time (like not too long ago), I wrote slash fanfic with Spider-Man. People called me an evil woman who was ruining their superhero and made them cry.
I just heard how Mary Jane dies in Spider-Man: Reign #3.
I'll be expecting an apology any day now. With spider and green goblin kisses.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Monday, February 12, 2007
Your Manolos Don't Make You a Martyr
Lately at work I've been reading an amusing blog titled Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels. I'm not a romance novel reader myself, but Candy and Sarah's mockery of romance novel covers are great, and I am impressed by their liberal quoting of South Park and Homestar Runner. Sometimes they make me want to read romance novels, although I do fear what happened when I started to read Mrs. Giggles regularly.
Mrs. Giggles: [snarks on bad romance]
Me: "Hey, these novels seem quite bad and she seems to have read a lot of books. I wonder what books she likes."
Mrs. Giggles: "The sequel to Flowers in the Attic is the best book ever, despite the overblown plot and characters that I railed about in every other book I hate. It doesn't matter now BECAUSE I LIKE IT!"
Me: "Um ... pass."
But I digress. I still haven't totally given up on one day finding a romance novel I like. Or at least something I like in its cousin, Chick Lit. Granted, Flowers in the Attic (overblown drama, ridiculous situationse and purple prose ahoy), The Devil Wears Prada (whine, whine, whine, I hate my boss, whine) and Fourplay (flashbacks to mom's post-separation behavior ... and no foursomes) have done nothing to change my mind. But I like your occasional romantic comedy movie, particularly one that messes with the formula - I love Secretary, but also dig When Harry Met Sally because of the dialogue. So never say never.
But this isn't about The Bitches. This is about their commentators. (And I don't mean Nora Roberts).
Recently the Bitches posted their reaction to a particularly scathing attack on Chick Lit by columnist Maureen Dowd. They make what I feel are legitimate comments about the condescension some people make towards women-oriented literature. I can dig. Plus, it's been historically true. One book I read, The Friendly Dickens by Norrie Epstein, told of an instance of a man in Victorian times horrified by seeing two women on a carriage ride out in the country and found they were discussing [gasp!] NOVELS instead of the scenery around them. Oh the horrors! But yes, this stuff is nothing new.
However, some of their commentators take the "everyone wants to repress women writers!" to a whole new level, and make accusations that simply are not true.
bungla writes:
How come nobody turns against all the boo-hoo, woe is me, I was abused as a child so I turned to substance abuse and my life broke into a million little pieces fantasygraphies out there with such vitriol?
O RLY? And come on, James Frey was pretty much raked over the coals by plenty of the people when the truth came out, not just Oprah. I remember Richard Roeper also writing a column about how the book was entirely unbelievable to begin with. There have been two parodies of that book in print. Trust me, the vitriol is out there.
As for non-James Frey, I don't have the link with me, but I do remember Slate also putting out a "Can you believe how much this guy has exploited his past?" piece about Dave "The Child Called 'It'" Pelzer. ETA: And here it is, hooray! So, really, these guys aren't immune from criticism.
Miranda writes:
Another ‘women’s pasttimes are silly and so are they’ article. Notice how no one talks about how the frivolity of football/basketball/hockey/etc games.
Hey, I do that all the time! And I've actually been to many and have a right to complain. Granted, nobody listens to me, but ...
There are some men's pasttimes that are criticized. I'm a huge comic book reader -- a typically "male" pasttime. And "comic books" are pretty much synonymous with "badly written, empty headed crap" despite the fact that Time added Watchmen by Alan Moore to its "Best 100 Novels English-Language Novels Since 1923" list, and other books such as Sandman by Neil Gaiman, Blankets by Craig Thompson, and The Dark Night Returns by Frank Miller have earned many awards and acclaim.
Also, the mostly male-oriented Sci-Fi community? It was their genre being called a "lazy way of writing" by PublishAmerica that led to the Atlanta Nights debacle. It's not just the women's genres that are picked on, it's all genres.
December writes:
Maureen Dowd? Oh, riiight. She’s a feminist. Who obviously hates women.
... Um, no.
It is possible, believe it or not, to dislike a type of writing and not dislike the people behind it. I consider myself a feminist, but "feminist" literature like The Awakening by Kate Chopin makes me want to barf. (Why? Frankly, [spoiler alert!] I'm not very fond of a novel that says "since men will never allow you to have everything you want, you should just kill yourself." [end spoiler alert!]) This doesn't mean I hate women. This doesn't mean I hate feminists. This means I don't like The Awakening.
It is also possible to feel alienated from a work or group of works, even if you're technically a part of the target audience. I may be a journalist, but I'm a journalist who went to a public college and had to work at a big Boxmart bookstore with bosses who didn't realize that it wasn't possible to take apart a wood crate with your bare hands or you can't get 60 calendars on a shelf that's only meant for 30. Therefore Andy's ivy-league college, living in New York, I'm-in-a-sucky-job-that-actually-will-help-my-career-but-woe-I-have
-to-get-coffee's problems just don't ring very true with me.
Going beyond the subject, I went to college, but all those "frat house we love beer and tits hurr hurr" movies? I couldn't stand them even when I WAS in college. I also was a girl in high school once, but most girl-in-high-school books and comic books bore the shit out of me. Sometimes a genre doesn't click with a person.
Does this make Dowd's condescension any less worse? No. Does this make her ridiculous "You're contributing to the war on terror and should be reading The Red Badge of Courage!" argument any less ridiculous? No.
But does it make her anti-woman? No. Does it mean that men's media is not criticized with the same amount of venom? No.
Mrs. Giggles: [snarks on bad romance]
Me: "Hey, these novels seem quite bad and she seems to have read a lot of books. I wonder what books she likes."
Mrs. Giggles: "The sequel to Flowers in the Attic is the best book ever, despite the overblown plot and characters that I railed about in every other book I hate. It doesn't matter now BECAUSE I LIKE IT!"
Me: "Um ... pass."
But I digress. I still haven't totally given up on one day finding a romance novel I like. Or at least something I like in its cousin, Chick Lit. Granted, Flowers in the Attic (overblown drama, ridiculous situationse and purple prose ahoy), The Devil Wears Prada (whine, whine, whine, I hate my boss, whine) and Fourplay (flashbacks to mom's post-separation behavior ... and no foursomes) have done nothing to change my mind. But I like your occasional romantic comedy movie, particularly one that messes with the formula - I love Secretary, but also dig When Harry Met Sally because of the dialogue. So never say never.
But this isn't about The Bitches. This is about their commentators. (And I don't mean Nora Roberts).
Recently the Bitches posted their reaction to a particularly scathing attack on Chick Lit by columnist Maureen Dowd. They make what I feel are legitimate comments about the condescension some people make towards women-oriented literature. I can dig. Plus, it's been historically true. One book I read, The Friendly Dickens by Norrie Epstein, told of an instance of a man in Victorian times horrified by seeing two women on a carriage ride out in the country and found they were discussing [gasp!] NOVELS instead of the scenery around them. Oh the horrors! But yes, this stuff is nothing new.
However, some of their commentators take the "everyone wants to repress women writers!" to a whole new level, and make accusations that simply are not true.
bungla writes:
How come nobody turns against all the boo-hoo, woe is me, I was abused as a child so I turned to substance abuse and my life broke into a million little pieces fantasygraphies out there with such vitriol?
O RLY? And come on, James Frey was pretty much raked over the coals by plenty of the people when the truth came out, not just Oprah. I remember Richard Roeper also writing a column about how the book was entirely unbelievable to begin with. There have been two parodies of that book in print. Trust me, the vitriol is out there.
As for non-James Frey, I don't have the link with me, but I do remember Slate also putting out a "Can you believe how much this guy has exploited his past?" piece about Dave "The Child Called 'It'" Pelzer. ETA: And here it is, hooray! So, really, these guys aren't immune from criticism.
Miranda writes:
Another ‘women’s pasttimes are silly and so are they’ article. Notice how no one talks about how the frivolity of football/basketball/hockey/etc games.
Hey, I do that all the time! And I've actually been to many and have a right to complain. Granted, nobody listens to me, but ...
There are some men's pasttimes that are criticized. I'm a huge comic book reader -- a typically "male" pasttime. And "comic books" are pretty much synonymous with "badly written, empty headed crap" despite the fact that Time added Watchmen by Alan Moore to its "Best 100 Novels English-Language Novels Since 1923" list, and other books such as Sandman by Neil Gaiman, Blankets by Craig Thompson, and The Dark Night Returns by Frank Miller have earned many awards and acclaim.
Also, the mostly male-oriented Sci-Fi community? It was their genre being called a "lazy way of writing" by PublishAmerica that led to the Atlanta Nights debacle. It's not just the women's genres that are picked on, it's all genres.
December writes:
Maureen Dowd? Oh, riiight. She’s a feminist. Who obviously hates women.
... Um, no.
It is possible, believe it or not, to dislike a type of writing and not dislike the people behind it. I consider myself a feminist, but "feminist" literature like The Awakening by Kate Chopin makes me want to barf. (Why? Frankly, [spoiler alert!] I'm not very fond of a novel that says "since men will never allow you to have everything you want, you should just kill yourself." [end spoiler alert!]) This doesn't mean I hate women. This doesn't mean I hate feminists. This means I don't like The Awakening.
It is also possible to feel alienated from a work or group of works, even if you're technically a part of the target audience. I may be a journalist, but I'm a journalist who went to a public college and had to work at a big Boxmart bookstore with bosses who didn't realize that it wasn't possible to take apart a wood crate with your bare hands or you can't get 60 calendars on a shelf that's only meant for 30. Therefore Andy's ivy-league college, living in New York, I'm-in-a-sucky-job-that-actually-will-help-my-career-but-woe-I-have
-to-get-coffee's problems just don't ring very true with me.
Going beyond the subject, I went to college, but all those "frat house we love beer and tits hurr hurr" movies? I couldn't stand them even when I WAS in college. I also was a girl in high school once, but most girl-in-high-school books and comic books bore the shit out of me. Sometimes a genre doesn't click with a person.
Does this make Dowd's condescension any less worse? No. Does this make her ridiculous "You're contributing to the war on terror and should be reading The Red Badge of Courage!" argument any less ridiculous? No.
But does it make her anti-woman? No. Does it mean that men's media is not criticized with the same amount of venom? No.
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