Condescension

[pegkerr]

If you haven't see it, here's an exceedingly condescending write up of Lumos, from The Observer.

The writer was mostly talking about being squicked by those freaky slashers. However, if you haven't seen my post written in 2003 about Harry Potter and the condescension of the critics, you might want to take a look it it here.

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I don't have any particular affinity for Harry Potter books films, (how do you say...) "the fandom," or anything else connected to these works, and it didn't read condescending to me. What made you feel put down in that article? It can't have been where the author called herself "hopelessly naive" nor her conclusion, where she says, "It's all amazing. And seeing anybody, let alone 1,200 people enthused with joy about anything is really quite uplifting. And not just anything. Books! It makes my girlish, swotty heart swell with pride."

Maybe it was her calling some of the panels "rubbish" but I've been to cons and I'd bet my left arm that some of them *were*.

K. [the word "freaky" is a quote from some of the conference attendees, not from the article's author, and I didn't see the part where she said or implies that she was squicked]

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Snape, who's been the baddie through six books, is almost universally adored, something which puzzles me until Debbie McLain, a volunteer and 'stay-athome mum' who's the main organiser of Lumos, explains it to me by saying that 'a lot of women are drawn to the characters who they hope may experience redemption'. Oh yes, I think, JK Rowling and the Complex Trope of Female Delusion.

Wow. That doesn't seem condescending to you?

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

No, not really. I don't think I can change people, and I don't think that people change due to some redeeming event. I'm not attracted to bad guys, either, and so I don't really read that quote as condescending.

K.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

So it's okay when George Lucas does it, but it's Female Delusion when fans talk about it amongst themselves? Since redemption is such a prominent theme in myth, why on earth is it appropriate (and not condescending) to call it female delusion here?

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with George Lucas's work to parse a sentence with 4 uses of the word "it". However, I was also just talking about my opinion.
You make a valid point that I was thinking about my relationship with actual people and not fictional characters.

K.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Oh, so sorry! Let me rephrase!

So it is okay (and downright respectable) for prominent film producers, famous writers (including J.R.R. Tolkien and Shakespeare) to consider the possibility that apparently an "evil" or unpleasant character might be redeemed in the progress of a story, but it's female delusion if Harry Potter fans talk about that same concept of at a event at a con dedicated to the topic?

FYI: Darth Vader is a bad guy throughout the first three Star Wars movies, and he kills lots of people and is the main villain, but it turns out that he's the hero's father and Vader admits that he was wrong right before he dies. And we see him as a happy ghost after that, all redeemed and stuff.

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I guess I just don't see the world through the lens of fictional characters.

K.

[lenora-rose.livejournal.com]

Not even when reading/interpreting a quote that is directly discussing a fictional character?

[blpurdom.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes it does. Especially from someone who HASN'T READ THE DAMN BOOKS. (Not to mention, it isn't only female readers who think Snape isn't bad.)

Can we trap her in a jar now? Pretty please?

[cryptaknight.livejournal.com]

That bit struck me as particularly condescending, considering that she's judging people's affinity for a character she admittedly has read very little of. It also demonstrates her woeful lack of knowledge of the subject on which she's reporting; Snape has not "been the baddie through six books," but rather an unpleasant character who was a red herring through the first five books, and left questionable in the sixth.