signal boost: racefail in j2 big bang

[seperis]

So guess how I spent my time between careful food choices and actual work (which was not as worky as one might hope:

Signal Boost for RaceFail J2 Fic by amazonziti, for anyone who happened to miss this one hitting their flists this morning. Recommended reading here where bossymarmalade pulls quotes from the J2 Big Bang fic, Caught Between the Earth and the Sky to illustrate why the premise of using Haiti as a setting for J2 romance is--well, in this case, not questionable but faily beyond fail.

Unfunny Business at Journalfen has a full report here, but I recommend amazonziti first for an excellent link round-up of early initial reactions. I also--I feel it's problematic for me to wander at the internet equivalent of three days later (time passes fast on the internet) to give my thoughts on yaoi, and I think amazonziti says pretty much everything I could think to say about it and more. She also has a pretty thorough links list on other posts made on the subject; I've read about two thirds of them, so definitely recommend reading them all.

Comments

[tricksterquinn.livejournal.com]

I've read a large amount of this stuff about half a day ago (which is like eons in internet time, ha technology), so I'm sure to have missed recent developments, but it's an interesting one for me because of the issues of colonialism and racefail as separate from... Hm. How to put this? Previous racefail has, as I've read it, been primarily a discussion of race from a pretty American-centric perspective. This one is different because some of the things people have said in discussion have really made me stop and think about things outside of my cultural paradigm in ways which I am finding personally exceedingly valuable. I am not sure what precisely but something I read somewhere in the whole thing got me mulling about privilege from a slightly different angle than I'd ever approached it from before, though I'm worried that's on me because I've certainly read things which perhaps ought to have done that before.

I think describing it solely as racefail also really... hm. Fails to describe the other aspects of fail at work here, which are some entirely shocking to me in ways that, unfortunately, racefail isn't any more (because frankly, I've been in fandom for half my life; if racefail is still shocking I haven't been paying attention. "no longer shocking" != not BAD, clearly. Just the surprise aspect).

When I very first heard about this (as in, halfway through the first post it showed up in on my flist (http://newredshoes.livejournal.com/1143006.html)*), I had made a set of assumptions about the story which have turned out to be... shall we say premature and unfounded? I really wish we were having a conversation about the sort of fic I'd initially assumed. It would have still been a conversation involving a lot of discussion about colonialism and paternalism and race, but it also would have been a rather different one in some really very crucial ways! Like, the author would certainly still not have gotten a cookie, but my impressions of intent and approach and, you know, understanding of the -- not even of the MAGNITUDE of this, because frankly I think I can't wrap my brain around it, but of the fact that there was an unspeakable depth to the devastation and suffering -- would have been very different.

I really regret having misjudged this (again, initially - I figured out I'd misjudged about three paragraphs in). I would rather have been having the other conversation. This one makes me sadder at the world, frankly.

* for what I'd initially assumed this fic would be, please see my comments over there (http://newredshoes.livejournal.com/1143006.html?thread=9746142#t9746142). Which have some awkward and perhaps unfortunate wording, but I don't think that killed the expression of the thought I actually meant. I hope.