Well, I'm an atheist, and I still think you're an asshole.

[apocalypsos]

Via a number of people on ye olde friends list:

Are you Jewish? That may be why you're angry.

... so that happened.

(What IS it with Big Bangs this year? Is every one going to feature somebody posting a tone-deaf wank-heavy story? 'Cause, yeah, maybe we could pass on that from now on.)

*

-- Are they going to give Alex a verbal tongue bath every week? Because that'll get really tired really fast.

-- I like Robert, but he really needs to rein in the OMG SHOCKED faces.

-- Have I mentioned lately how much I love Kent? Big dorky flaily love. LOOK AT THAT IDIOT SWINGING HER AROUND THE STAGE. I DIG HIM. You know what he reminds me of? Remember when Dermot O'Leary was on NMTB, and he and Noel were talking about Jedward, and he said he'd say to them after being harshly judged, "Are you guys okay?" and they'd be all, "WE JUST MET THE SUGABABES!!! :D :D :D" and Dermot was like, "... yeah, they're fine." That is Kent in a nutshell.

-- I'm unsurprised Melinda has to dance, but I'll be sad if she has to go if only because I think she's the hottest girl. Yes, that is me being shallow.

-- I think Billy's personality is starting to bug me.

-- Ashley over Alexie? Really?

-- As someone said on the TWoP forums, it takes a lot to dance with Kathryn and have absolutely no chemistry whatsoever. Kathryn could have chemistry with a mailbox.

-- I am completely unsurprised that the bottom three are all girls. The girls this season kinda blow in comparison to the boys. They seem nondescript when you put them up against a group where the one with the least personality (Adechike, as far as I'm concerned) still has more personality than most of them.

-- Alexie? ALEXIE?! *headdesk*

*

This is the trailer for the CGI Smurfs movie.

NO. STOP THAT. BAD HOLLYWOOD.

*hits everyone involved on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper*

Comments

[awittyfool.livejournal.com]

OK, the comparison I see you making seems similar to the one people sometimes make trying to accuse people of colour of racism against white people, which ... DUDE. It doesn’t work like that. When heterosexual, cisgendered MEN are discriminated against by majority society ANYWHERE ON THIS PLANET, then yes that sort of storyline would be entirely problematic. I’ve seen people attempting to take canonically lesbian characters straight and it is fucking offensive.

Also, to quote you: “Would people have been equally offended if it'd been about a fictional Jewish character turned Catholic?” I would hope so, because it is still offensive, for all the reasons smarter people than I have laid out, but the fact that we are talking about a REAL LIVE PERSON with a REAL JEWISH IDENTITY makes it even more so. How do you not understand that erasing a person’s MINORITY STATUS, when society is constantly telling us all to do exactly that - to the detriment of EVERYBODY, btw – is in any way alright?

[writerrising.livejournal.com]

OK, the comparison I see you making seems similar to the one people sometimes make trying to accuse people of colour of racism against white people, which ... DUDE. It doesn’t work like that. If I were to get beat up for being a "white girl" how is that any different than somebody getting beat up for being a "black girl"? It's not right either way.

I understand that a story line that erases a persons minority status(although in this case it was a religion with a history of persecution) or uses cliched, racist terminology isn't okay, but racism can exist among any group, including minorities. We don't live in a world where things are cut and dry.

[awittyfool.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I don’t think that anyone here is going to be arguing that violence in any form is ever right, and I acknowledge that any issue has about a million shades of grey, but it still ain’t racism. That requires an entire system of oppression that simply doesn’t exist (and I’m going to be totally exclusionary here and specify that I mean in Canada/America since that is the only context I can speak to with any authority) When the (white/male/het/cis/Christian, etc) majority uses its power to systemically oppress (POC/Female/LGBTQ/every non-Christian religion, etc) minority groups THAT is your ism of choice.

I don’t know if you want to continue this discussion, but I’d be happy to go back and forth again when it isn’t 2.30 in the am.

[awittyfool.livejournal.com]

Oh, one more thing (and then I'm really going to bed before I collapse). Minorities are definitely capable of racism. EVERYONE is guilty of it in some way or another, because we're all seeped in this toxic environment. We don't have to jump on the band-wagon, we were all born on it (it's HUGE ... ok I realize this metaphor got away from me) It is now everyone's personal responsibility to jump OFF.

[deepbluemermaid.livejournal.com]

Thank you for writing this comment - it really made me think.

[awittyfool.livejournal.com]

That's actually really awesome to hear :) Similar comments by others have struck me the same way, I'm happy to pass it along.

[xianghua.livejournal.com]

I guess the point that I wonder about is if RPS is inherently disrespectful on some level. You are taking fundamental characteristics about a person and changing them for fictional fun timez. I think it is very likely that there are homophobic actors or individuals out there who would be immensely offended and disturbed to find out they'd been written into slash fanfiction- not roles they'd played but themselves. Because they are the majority, does that make their feeling of offense less important? I guess what I am trying to say is, is a person's identity being changed for fiction only offensive if it changes minority charcteristics? Only if the changes would offend them? Where does the line come down?

I *do* think the lines are fuzzier when you're talking about a fictional character. Religion- and I think it's arguable that Judaism is not simply religion but CULTURE, which is a point that occured to me last night while listening to the news about a protest in Israel about school segregation, in a way that most protestant Christian denominations *aren't*. There's also sort oa an AU clause. Okay, you're writing a Jewish character in a world where he's a police officer instead of a pop singer. Fine. You're righting an AU band-in-space fic. Okay. You're writing a fic where all the band members are GOLDFISH! (Okay, I've never seen goldfish, substitute cats, if you want, or wolves, or whatever.) At what point are you at risk of having the character be stereotyped for being Jewish rather than using something native to the AU setting? (And ending up with 'the blonde one, the rebellious one, the black/asian/otherrace one, the gay one, and the jewish one' tokenism?)

And I think that in general, to stay true to the character, you're going to need to write a serious justification to change any of those things. (And writing someone's crisis of faith and subsequent conversion could be an interesting fic, but it'd take a really masterful writer to do it sensitively and they'd have to have a really, really thick skin because there would be so much kneejerk "OMG YOU TOOK AWAY PART OF THEIR IDENTITY" right now.)