morgan_dhu | On throwing books at the wall and standing on people's feet

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On throwing books at the wall and standing on people's feet

Does it really need to be said that one valid response to reading something that you find profoundly angering in exactly the same way as the last fifty, or a hundred, or a thousand times you read it somewhere else, is throwing the book against the wall and writing about why that thing you read, in the book you threw against the wall, and in all the other books that you didn't throw against the wall because you hadn't reached your limit yet, made you so profoundly angry?

And even if someone comes to you and says, "that book you threw against the wall, it's written by someone who wanted to explore those issues that make you angry and try to expose them as what they are," it's perfectly reasonable to say "Just seeing it makes me angry and I don't want to see it, even in the context of trying to expose it for what it is, BECAUSE I ALREADY KNOW WHAT IT IS."

And I say this even though this particular book is one that I enjoyed, and that made me think about some of these things, because I am one of the people who doesn't know enough about those issues and hasn't been hurt by them and I wanted to see how they were dealt with and I had the privilege of knowing that anything that writer wrote about that issue could not hurt me. Plus, it had a lot of other stuff in it that was really interesting to me. So thanks to my privilege on this issue, I could read this book and not want to throw it against the wall.

But, you know, there was once this TV show that I loved. It said some wonderful things about female power, and it was lots of fun to watch. And then this TV show did something that made me profoundly angry in exactly the same way as the last fifty, or a hundred, or a thousand times I read/saw it in other places, and I didn't want to watch that show anymore. Because a lot of people seem to think that rape is such a wonderful dramatic vehicle, and getting raped by a god is even more dramatic, and they can give me all sorts of reasons why this rape was exactly the right thing to have in this TV show. But just because everyone and his metaphorical dog has used rape as a dramatic device, and sometimes they do it to show how nasty rape is and how surviving it can make a woman so strong, that doesn't mean that as a woman who has been raped, I'm not entitled to be profoundly angry and just say no to rape as a character development McGuffin.

And then there was this other TV show that I loved. It said some wonderful things about female power, and it was lots of fun to watch. And then this TV show also did something that made me profoundly angry in exactly the same way as the last fifty, or a hundred, or a thousand times I read/saw it in other places, and I didn't want to watch that show anymore either. Because there's only so many times a queer girl can read/watch things that written by people who think that it's the height of great drama to kill off the lesbians or turn them into insane and evil murderers, until she just doesn't want to see that anymore. Even if some people assure her that it's just because that writer never lets anyone be happy in a relationship, it's not like he's picking on the lesbians. Because lots of stories let straight people have happy endings, but they always kill the lesbians, or drive them mad.

So, yeah, I know something about lacking some kinds of privilege and getting so angry when privileged people use me and people like me in hurtful ways in books and movies and TV shows and cultural stuff in general. And I know that it's the right of anyone in that situation to throw the book against the wall, and write about why it hurt, and be as loud and angry as they want to be, because it is valid to get hurt and angry when someone is standing on your foot and not only won't get off, but tells you that they're standing on your foot so that people will see how bad it is to stand on someone's foot.

And it's the right of anyone in that situation to get even more profoundly angry when people tell you that you can't see that there's a good reason for that person to stand on your foot so people can see what it's like and learn from it because you're too emotional and not a good reader and haven't the critical tools to properly analyse what's happening in this brilliant piece of performance art in which someone is STANDING ON YOUR FOOT AND WON'T GET OFF. Or that you're being manipulative and abusive when you use strong and angry language to tell people that you're tired of people STANDING ON YOUR FOOT AND NOT GETTING OFF and you aren't going to smile, and take it, or maybe ask them politely if they wouldn't mind moving a little further away any more.

And I say this knowing that I may well be standing on someone's foot all unknowing myself, and can only ask that please, if I am, and am so stupid that I don't see it, then I would be grateful if you would tell me so I can try to do better at not standing on people's feet, because I know I don't like having my foot stood on, and I so don't want to stand on anyone else's foot either.

(If you need it, you can find context for this post here.)

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I have been reading some of the discussion you refer to and feeling kind of overwhelmed. Your post cuts through much wrangling to get at something very basic, and that helps me to put some of the new information into a context I can get a handle on.

Thank you.

I only discovered this internet explosion last night (I've been at a convention all weekend) and skimmed through some of it, including your post on Mac's blog. It's so very strange to see people I know (Mac, Patrick, Elizabeth) in such hot seats. It makes it difficult for me to see the issues clearly. But I thought your post on Mac's blog was excellent and really got to an important issue that I think she needed to hear. Having said that, I don't think it's a problem that she posted what she did to her blog -- I think it's a problem that she didn't friends-lock it. It's clearly something that she needed to discuss and explore, but doing so publicly didn't look good.

...and it might not even be precisely to the issue you stated here, but these are my impressions. Bear with me.

I think intent in anything we write has a lot to do with it, at least for me. I'm not one of those people who believe in writing only what you know...but rather, know what you write and if it's a sensitive subject to do it with respect, conscientiousness, and for the right reasons. After that, you can't control how other people react to things, you are just left with if your own conscience is clear.

I've had people claim they threw my books against the wall because they found how I handled things to be profoundly disgusting. That's fine. I didn't write my books to please everybody, surprise surprise, and I took what I wrote very seriously and gave it much, much thought...likely more thought than most people in this genre give to those issues, if I can go out on a limb. And considering the people who have responded to me in a positive manner are/were people with experience in some of the issues I wrote about (I have never gotten a negative response from anyone who has even a passing experience with violent trauma), I'm more willing to accept their criticism than that of someone who is going at it from a different (purely academic) angle.

Then there are the other issues, like that of sexuality in my work. I've had one, maybe two, negative responses about it, and an overwhelming positive. I'm not one that thinks the majority rules all the time either, but I looked to the reasons people said they liked or didn't like what I did. I can be pretty detached from my work, so the reasons people stated were always interesting... because the ones who tended to be offended were people who took a rather narrow view of the issue and it came down to people's individual experiences and it was less about my work and more about their lives. Which isn't to say they didn't have valid emotions or reactions...they were just reactions that actually had very little to do with the work itself.

Over time I have found that some readers believe that if they were in my character's situation, they would react differently and therefore their reaction would be more realistic (and my characters are not). This, of course, isn't reality...as people are different and respond to things differently depending on their psychological makeup. But we do identify or not identify with characters (whether in books or dramatic works) and the great test as an audience is to put yourself in someone else's shoes and try to understand someone who may or may not be vastly different from you. That's where a lot of controversy comes in when those issues involve sensitive subject matter.

I've experienced pretty blatant racism in my life, from a very young age. Naturally if I was reading about a character experiencing racism I would have a strong gut reaction to it, but the test for me, as the reader/audience, would be to set aside my personal experience as much as possible and read the book in the context of the character. This is the great gift and communication of books and films, I think. It's how I approach my work, at any rate. They are supposed to test our points of view and allow us to question them in a safe environment, and hopefully give us something new and worthwhile to consider.

*friends you immediately on the strength of this rant, because yes, yes, yes, yes!*

(Although I am pretty sure I've seen some very good comments from you in various threads the last week!).

And I don't think intent matters (and to keep repeating, I'm sorry but it needs to be repeated, but Bear knew that, and she acknowledged Avalon Willow was right, and her dipthong friends'n'fans just kept waving their white asses around....)

Thank you for posting this.

This is excellent.

I love the foot-standing metaphor. Great!

This. Is a PoV that I think gets missed too often in discussions of this type. Because it's just so true - just because someone thinks they treated a given issue in a respectful manner, doesn't mean people aren't entitled to be sick of seeing it. And quite aside from the incredible condescension of dismissing someone's point of view because they're "too angry" - who says someone is obliged to be all calm and unruffled when they've just been offended?

Thanks for this post!

Wow. This post just helped clue-by-four me on an issue I was stuck on in previous fandom race/sex discussions. Something I *just* *didn't* *get* until now. Thank you.

Way behind on the linkspam. Thanks for this, I thought it made its point clearly, and hopefully you are not Angry! Enough! that some clueless white people can't get a bit of clue this way.

Absolutely agreed that somebody who reads something that pisses them off enough to throw the book against the wall and posts about it has every right to their reaction, and to their voice.

Agreed as well that those who try to defend the author against accusations of racism (which weren't really made, and which the author felt no need to 'defend' against herself) are doing neither the author nor themselves any favors. Every reader is entitled to their own interpretation of the text, whatever the author's intent (unless perhaps they actually saw something that is completely contradicted by a plain reading of the text - had an interesting discussion once with somebody who interpreted Ged as an example of white privilege and had to be shown the passages where his skin and hair are actually described).

However, I don't think this is quite the right metaphor for the situation. Unless Elizabeth Bear is coming to your house to pick that book up and shove it back in front of your face, she IS NOT IN FACT STANDING ON YOUR FOOT AND REFUSING TO GET OFF.

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I am only responding from my limited experience...

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