I'm supposed to be WRITING, damn it.
A comment I posted elsewhere in regards to whether the majority-male congoers was intentional:
I definitely think the change from fangirl to fanboy was intentional. The writers know who their audience is -- considering the in-jokes they throw around in-show, the Wincest references and just how many cons so many of the people involved with the show have attended, they'd have to be a new and blisteringly impressive level of stupid NOT to notice that their audience -- at least the loyal internet folks who hit the cons regularly -- is predominantly female. How many years do you get your picture taken with fans before you figure out how many of them have boobs?
The thing is, if the congoers in the episode had been majorly female, we'd just be having the same wank from a different angle. The problem with presenting the current SPN fandom as is in the internal canon is that too much of the real-life behaviors of fans at cons would slip in, and if people think their embarrassment squick is getting pinged NOW, just think how much fun it would have been the instant somebody tried to get Becky kicked out because they thought she was Chuck's uppity girlfriend or if there was an entire con FULL of Beckys. (I love Becky, I do, but one is more than enough.)
Among other things, making the congoers in the episode mostly male makes it easier for Sam and Dean to blend in the way they did. I was at the first Wincon and the one or two guys I can remember being there stuck out like sore thumbs. It was hard NOT to notice them and they were normal-looking guys, not absolute hotasses like those two. They would have been a distraction rather than just two more congoers at one like that. It was also a small LARPing con for a book series featuring two men in the lead and few women in supporting roles. That's how you end up with a majority male con with a few women either crossdressing (like the Bobby LARPer) or there in a hired capacity (like the actress). I imagine they may have snuck in women LARPing Ruby and Bela and whatnot as well, but I can't recall them at the moment.
They do make some sort of impression that there must be some sort of significant female presence in the book fandom anyway just from Becky being a slash writer and the mentions of Sam girls and Dean girls in "The Monster At The End Of This Book". If they had presented that as a regular con, yeah, I imagine there would have been more women present. Instead, they set it up as a role-playing con -- probably intentionally, so that this way there would more likely be a larger male contingent and thus allowing them to wink-wink-nudge-nudge the audience without elbowing them in the eye in the process. (At least, as far as they're concerned. As far as a significant chunk of the fandom seems to feel, simply acknowledging our existence is an insult. Urgh.)
EDIT: I should add right here that I think the majority-male con is another example of the writers trying to execute good intentions ("We can make sly references to our fans without getting close enough to insulting them!"), turning around, tripping over a rock, and falling flat on their face ("We'll make the fans guys instead of girls!"). They seem to do that a lot, where they've got seemingly good intentions -- I don't believe they hate women or hate writing them so much as I get the impression they start writing stuff thinking it'll be cool and don't really imagine the consequences -- aaaaand then they fuck up. It's like they're Dick van Dyke in the beginning of his show, happily saying hi to his family only to trip and tumble over the footrest in the process.
I made a crack earlier today that I'd rather hang with a flist full of Beckys than a flist full of Fritzs. That still hasn't changed.
Is she awkward around guys? Does she just ramble on and on until she sticks her foot in her mouth? Does she have an unnerving attention to detail when it comes to fandom? Does she write slash and have the occasional dreamy ditz moment?
Fuck, you guys, the more I think about it, the more I start to realize that I *am* Becky.
*headdesk*
(... hee.)
A comment I posted elsewhere in regards to whether the majority-male congoers was intentional:
I definitely think the change from fangirl to fanboy was intentional. The writers know who their audience is -- considering the in-jokes they throw around in-show, the Wincest references and just how many cons so many of the people involved with the show have attended, they'd have to be a new and blisteringly impressive level of stupid NOT to notice that their audience -- at least the loyal internet folks who hit the cons regularly -- is predominantly female. How many years do you get your picture taken with fans before you figure out how many of them have boobs?
The thing is, if the congoers in the episode had been majorly female, we'd just be having the same wank from a different angle. The problem with presenting the current SPN fandom as is in the internal canon is that too much of the real-life behaviors of fans at cons would slip in, and if people think their embarrassment squick is getting pinged NOW, just think how much fun it would have been the instant somebody tried to get Becky kicked out because they thought she was Chuck's uppity girlfriend or if there was an entire con FULL of Beckys. (I love Becky, I do, but one is more than enough.)
Among other things, making the congoers in the episode mostly male makes it easier for Sam and Dean to blend in the way they did. I was at the first Wincon and the one or two guys I can remember being there stuck out like sore thumbs. It was hard NOT to notice them and they were normal-looking guys, not absolute hotasses like those two. They would have been a distraction rather than just two more congoers at one like that. It was also a small LARPing con for a book series featuring two men in the lead and few women in supporting roles. That's how you end up with a majority male con with a few women either crossdressing (like the Bobby LARPer) or there in a hired capacity (like the actress). I imagine they may have snuck in women LARPing Ruby and Bela and whatnot as well, but I can't recall them at the moment.
They do make some sort of impression that there must be some sort of significant female presence in the book fandom anyway just from Becky being a slash writer and the mentions of Sam girls and Dean girls in "The Monster At The End Of This Book". If they had presented that as a regular con, yeah, I imagine there would have been more women present. Instead, they set it up as a role-playing con -- probably intentionally, so that this way there would more likely be a larger male contingent and thus allowing them to wink-wink-nudge-nudge the audience without elbowing them in the eye in the process. (At least, as far as they're concerned. As far as a significant chunk of the fandom seems to feel, simply acknowledging our existence is an insult. Urgh.)
EDIT: I should add right here that I think the majority-male con is another example of the writers trying to execute good intentions ("We can make sly references to our fans without getting close enough to insulting them!"), turning around, tripping over a rock, and falling flat on their face ("We'll make the fans guys instead of girls!"). They seem to do that a lot, where they've got seemingly good intentions -- I don't believe they hate women or hate writing them so much as I get the impression they start writing stuff thinking it'll be cool and don't really imagine the consequences -- aaaaand then they fuck up. It's like they're Dick van Dyke in the beginning of his show, happily saying hi to his family only to trip and tumble over the footrest in the process.
I made a crack earlier today that I'd rather hang with a flist full of Beckys than a flist full of Fritzs. That still hasn't changed.
Is she awkward around guys? Does she just ramble on and on until she sticks her foot in her mouth? Does she have an unnerving attention to detail when it comes to fandom? Does she write slash and have the occasional dreamy ditz moment?
Fuck, you guys, the more I think about it, the more I start to realize that I *am* Becky.
*headdesk*
(... hee.)
no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 06:19 am (UTC)people are so literal. and generally stupid.
Becky represents us - creative, Wincest writing, obsessing over triva fandom. The very things that are often trivialised about us, make her the hero. Fangirl obsessiveness gives the boy a vital clue.
And guess what - the creator falls in love with her.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 06:22 am (UTC)YES. For all her fumbling and general difficulty differentiating reality from fantasy (admittedly, they're one and the same in this case), Chuck -- the obvious Kripke Stu -- has got an obvious crush on her. He keeps shooting her these fond looks even when she's at her craziest.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 11:14 am (UTC)Anyway, hi! Long term lurker, first time commenter :P
no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 12:11 pm (UTC)(Also, with having Demian and Barnes step up at the end, they get to make the point that heroism isn't just something for "fictional" characters and prophets of the Lord, we all have that capacity.)
no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 12:17 pm (UTC)... which to be honest has been a thread in the show all along, but now they've explicitly applied that to the in-show fans. Kripke totally loves us, dude.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 02:18 pm (UTC)Some people think about this way too much.
They were probably just mostly male, so people could be dressed up as Sam and Dean.
Although a room full of Rubies and Bellas and Jos would've been funny.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 02:25 pm (UTC)Funny as in ha-ha, or funny as in "Holy fuck, if you thought THIS wank was bad ..."?
Although now that I put it that way, I almost kinda wish that episode on this fandom.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 02:27 pm (UTC)This season has been weird, man. Like I said above, I do think that they're trying. On the verge of 2010 and three years after people started pointing these issues out to them with a vengeance, there's a strong argument to be made that they really ought to be trying better, but I believe their intentions are good. The problem is that they can only seem to focus on one issue at a time (with the notable exception of the Jo, Ellen, Sarge episode), so that we have Risa in one episode, Raphael, a black sheriff, and the poor, doomed mechanic in another, and this episode, which, leaving the gender issues at the door, did deserve the positive nod it got from After Elton in that regard. Then we're back to business as usual the next week. You planned a five-year mytharc, guys, I know that you have a longer attention span than that!
no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 02:31 pm (UTC)Fill a fictional hotel with female fans dressed as their character of choice. Marvel in the rants about which one's the biggest whore! Amaze yourself with the inappropriate questions and bitchy behavior taken from actual incidents!
no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 02:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 02:39 pm (UTC)Yeah, that would be a change I'd totally approve of myself. Or at least given them something else more active to do, since grave-digging was hard enough for two out-of-shape men. I'm not sure Becky the fanfic writer and a Hooters waitress would really have the upper body strength to make sending them out to go grave-digging not look like a sad attempt at political correctness. "Right, it'd go faster with two guys, but we need one girl to make this look legit."
That said, both women get the chance to be heroes with the weapons they have at their disposal -- the waitress with her Letitia costume, and Becky with her vast and detailed knowledge of the books. Just because they're not grave-digging or gun-wielding doesn't keep them out of the hero category.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 03:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 05:08 pm (UTC)Becky sets off my embarrassment squick just by appearing, possibly because of the way she was introduced. A majority female con would have felt way, way, way too close to home. With guys, I can shrug and ignore, or laugh about, most of the references to fandom. With girls, I'd have to go hide under a couch cushion of something.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 05:26 pm (UTC)That said, I'm glad that the show does know enough about con culture to make a mostly-male con a LARP con, even if they only did it so Sam and Dean would blend in better.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-11-14 10:52 pm (UTC)I don't mean to sound snarky, I'm actually just bewildered by that comment.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-15 01:33 am (UTC)But while crossplay isn't unheard of, it's not THAT common either. So I don't think the idea that it's guys dressing up as guys is that out there. I'd certainly have loved seeing more females in Sam & Dean costumes there, but I'm not surprised they mostly stuck to the gender lines.
no subject
Date: 2009-11-15 01:44 am (UTC)