itsnotmymind | (no subject)

When I was lurking in comic book fandom—this was several years ago now—the most bashed character was not female, as often seems to be the case in the fandoms I've been involved with, but was instead Iron Man (this was shortly before his first movie, when Iron Man was unpopular from his role in the Civil War storyline, where he supported the registration of superheroes and had a secret prison in the Negative Zone that was a blatant Guantanamo Bay analogue). But here’s the weird thing, even though Iron Man was one of my favorites, bashing of him didn’t bother me much. Maybe because the worst was passed by the time I became a hard-core fan of the character? Maybe I was sympathetic towards people’s reasons for disliking the character. Maybe I’m sexist; maybe female character bashing bothers me more.

But, you see, Cable bashing bothered me a bit. Cable (son of Cyclops and Jean Grey’s clone, raised by Cyclops and Jean in the future) was another character I liked who wasn’t very popular. He was at that time in the book Cable & Deadpool, co-starring with the far more popular Deadpool (brain damaged mercenary who breaks fourth wall). People who said they only read Cable & Deadpool for Deadpool and wanted Cable gone. So maybe it’s not character bashing that bothers me. Maybe it’s *relationship* bashing. So what bothers me about Torchwood fandom is not that they bash Gwen, but that they bash her relationship with Jack. And Buffy fandom, when fans bashed Buffy *because* they like Spike, they are bashing Buffy and Spike’s relationship. The same with Yoko Ono among Beatles fans, since I am invested in both her relationship with John Lennon and her non-relationship with Paul McCartney. In complaining that Cable & Deadpool has too much Cable, they were bashing Cable and Deadpool’s relationship.

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In a fandom I used to be in, Moulin Rouge, I didn't get the sense that fans hated the female lead, Satine, so much as were disinterested in her. So they focused on Christian's relationships with the other male character; there were very few fics I saw that bashed Satine outright.

That's interesting. I haven't seen Moulin Rouge, but it's always interesting to me how different fandoms deal with different characters.

Likewise, Weren't John and Cynthia told to keep their marriage a secret at first so as to not upset the Beatles' fanbase?

Yes, they were, and all the wives and girlfriends received hate from the fans. Ringo's girlfriend, and later wife, Maureen got scratched in the face by a fan. These days most of the Beatlemania-era wives are not bashed (I guess people compare them to what followed!), although they do tend to be viewed as boring (And I did once see someone criticize Cynthia for not appreciating John enough, because she wrote in her memoir that if she did her life over, she wouldn't be with him. Yes, how dare a woman not appreciate a man who abused her!)

And this is where I'm back to shaking my head - you say you're the fan of someone and you LOVE him, love his work, etc but you publicly diss his wife? How would he feel if he saw the stuff his "fans" say about her? (I personally think that souled Spike would be horrified by the things that are said of Buffy. Fuck that, soulless Spike would be horrified (mostly.)

Fans can be really appalling sometimes, and yes, I think Spike would be horrified both souled and not by that. In fact, I think those fans better hope Spike was souled, because soulless Spike might want to hurt them.