Musings on fiction

[ladyofastolat]

People often seem to have difficulty accepting a person's taste in fiction doesn't necessarily reflect their real-life opinions. Several examples in the last few weeks have set me a-musing.



A few weeks ago, I read that The X-Files was hugely popular in the mid-1990s because of blah blah blah Millennial anxieties blah blah blah a lost and confused generation hoping against hope that there was something out there blah blah blah. It was taken as read that fans of the X-Files genuinely believed in UFOs, alien abductions and ghosties, and believed that the government was covering such things.

Obviously, I can't speak for all fans - some of whom doubtless did love the show because they believed in its subject matter - but I was a huge X-Files fan in the 90s and have never believed in any of these things. Neither, to my knowledge, did any of the other fans I interacted with online.

I read loads of novels in which magic exists in our world. Contrary to what I have read in the media, this does not automatically mean that I believe that magic exists in our world, and neither does it mean that I desperately wish that it did. I do not wish to return to the comfort of childhood, when fairies lived at the bottom of the garden. I know it's fiction. I just happen to like that fiction.

I am very interested in English folklore and traditions. Again, the assumption seems to be that people who are interested in folklore believe in said folklore. Most Morris dancers are fairly well informed about the traditions associated with the first of May, and many get up at dawn to dance. Some attach some sort of mystical significance to what they do. Most do not. They dance because it's tradition; because it's just what Morris dancers do.

(Personally, I don't believe that everybody in Yore believed in their own folklore, either. Just because a "primitive" person does a Probably Ritual thing it doesn't necessarily mean that they believe that the gods/spirits/fairies will smite them down if they don't do it. They might just do it in the way that we put up a Christmas tree - because it's tradition; because it's fun and an excuse to have a party; because everybody else does it.)

Does fantasy fiction particularly attract this sort of thing, I wonder. Is is part of the general sneering incomprehension that the media expresses when fantasy and science fiction is involved? Or is it just that I tend to notice such statements when fantasy is involved, because that's the genre I usually read. Does the media assume that saga readers hate the modern world and desperately wish that they lived in a Victorian slum in a northern mill town? Do readers of crime novels keep encountering the assumption that they read about crime because they have a huge real-life fascination with it - because they secretly long to be a criminal?

Comments

[leesa_perrie]

It does seem a strange thing to assume a person believes in what they're reading/watching. I love sci-fi, and that includes aliens with psi abilities, but I don't believe psi ability exists in real life - nor do I want it to exist in real life either.

I love detective series, but I don't want to be a detective or commit murder! I love White Collar and adore the main character, Neal, who is a con artist. But would I want to know someone like him in real life? Er, no. Nor would I want to know someone like Rodney McKay from SGA in real life, but I love his character in fiction!

Hmm, but does this mean that someone who only reads Victorian classics want to live in that era? Do Pride and Prejudice fans wish life was like that in reality? What about Shakespeare enthusiasts? What sort of mixed up world do they want to live in?!!

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

A lot of my favourite fictional characters are people who would be distinctly stressful to try to live with in real life!

re. Victorian classics: I do sometimes encounter the belief that if you're interested in a period of history, you actually want to live in it. Just the other day, someone asked me which century I wished I could live in, taking it as read that I'd answer something medieval. When I declared with utter certainty that I had no desire whatsoever to live in a world without central heating and decent healthcare, they were amazed. I like medieval history, so surely I want to live in it!

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

When I watch a movie, I'm caught up in the story and react as if the characters were real people. But the stories often include events - verbal and physical abuse, especially - that appall me to the point of distraction when I read about them really happening, and that I can't bear to watch film of. It's only because another part of my mind knows these are actors and it's just pretend that makes these stories tolerable. The fact that real-life film of such events always has terrible production values helps the unconscious tell them apart. (And may explain why The Blair Witch Project, which imitated the bad production values of real-life film, was so disconcerting to many viewers. I didn't see it.)

I've noticed that fantasy always defines magic, though rarely with conscious awareness that that's the definition, as "that which doesn't exist in our consensus reality." It does make for an interesting edge condition in novels by authors who genuinely believe in it, but even weirder are novels taking place in other universes where magic is everyday and ordinary, yet the world still uses the same definition of it that we do.

This reached its peak in Elfquest, where the magic-using elves hold a sort of Olympics whose rules forbid from using their magic powers. But after some argument, one character is permitted to use the aid of a lodestone he carries around, because it's not "magic" - despite the fact that it's a unique object so far as the characters know, and they view it and its powers with awe and reverence, which is pretty much how we'd react to something that was magic.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, I found the "realistic" filming style of The Blair Witch project served to distance me from the story. I've become so used to "normal" film-making style, that I happily suspend my disbelief and accept it as "real." But with that film, I was so aware of the camera techniques that I could never even begin to react to it as real.

Interesting point about magic in fiction - even if ordinary - being defined as stuff that doesn't exist in our reality. It would be interesting to turn it upside-down, and have a world in which loads of things that we consider normal and explicable were called "magic," and things that we would call "magic" just were. I expect it's been done.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I think you could go further, so that fans of some SF and fantasy authors pigeonhole readers of other fantasy and SF authors as holding the same beliefs as those authors.

Like Vox Day's books? You must be a racist!

Fan of 'The Mists of Avalon' or 'Babel-17'? Paedophile!

You're a 'Monster Hunter International' fan? Gun nut!

'The City & The City'? You Jew-hating commie!

Et cetera...


That seems to be more common with SF and Fantasy than with other genres.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Is it? Or are you just more aware of it when it comes to the genres that you read yourself?

Although, actually, it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was more common in those genres. SF and fantasy fans have a long tradition of associating with other fans, whether in fan clubs, conventions, fanzines, online forums etc. When a large group of people are brought together by a shared interest, they often end up splitting into factions and rivalries and hatreds.

For all I know, 93 year old Mrs Miggins, sitting there reading her saga set in a Victorian Lancashire mill, is thinking vile things about those awful people who read sagas set in Cornish mines, but I doubt she's filling the internet with her invective.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

There's a furious thread going on in the Facebook John Le Carre group right now, started by someone who thinks Smiley was a monster right from the start. The group is somewhat Outraged, although so far remaining more or less civil.

[purplecat]

I bet detective fiction fans tend to have opinions about fans of "cosies" (if they are a hard-boiled) and "hard-boiled"s if they are a cosy - the mere existence of those terms rather suggests some judgements are being made.

It wouldn't surprise me if the whole Mills & Boon/Harlequin/whatever have similar factions.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Many of our housebound customers have Strong Opinions on crime novels. It has to be British crime. Some insist on cosy British crime, but some are quite happy to be given really gritty, blood-drenched stuff, as long as it's British. They can get quite outraged if they accidentally receive something - gasp! - American.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I can see their point in a way. British crime has a different flavour to American crime somehow. British crime generally tastes a bit like cucumber sandwiches, whereas American crime has a more yellow kind of texture. Maybe more like peanut butter.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

You've got something there, and I think it's this:

That sort of argument seems more common (or at least is more apparent) in genres where fans comment more on social media.

[purplecat]

Although I don't think I've seen people branding fans of Orson Scott Card's work as homophobic (well I'm sure some people do because people but I don't think it's as prevalent as say linking Vox Day's work with his professed beliefs) possibly because Card is more widely read so more people have a fondness for his work and are a bit more aware of the glass house they may be in.

Also do people really accuse fans of Mists of Avalon of paedophilia? I've seen a lot of angst and soul-searching from fans of Zimmer Bradley's work, especially fans who felt that they were hugely comforting and inspirational in their teenage years, but I've not see much mud-slinging at those fans from non-fans - but maybe I'm hanging out in the wrong places.

In both cases of course there are arguments about whether or not the work should be boycotted and what it says about you if you do or do not participate in the boycott, but that's a slightly different issue and relates, I think, to a tension between the way people think capitalism can be used to influence behaviour and the idea that an author and their work should be considered separate or at least valued separately.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I've seen people saying that it's unacceptable to buy Card's books (or to see the Ender's Game film) now that his (not particularly unusual ) views are known.

And more recently I've seen a post (can't remember where) on some forum where one person suggested that MZB and her fans were guilty of all sorts of socially unacceptable views and so it was no surprise when she turned out to be a paedophile, and that they probably were too. (This guy was frothing a bit by this point.)

[purplecat]

Well boycotts are a bit of a different issue to assuming that if you like an author's work you also espouse their personal views as I note above.

It doesn't sound like association of fans of MZB's work with pedophilia is that widespread from what you say above, not like LoA's experience of people assuming she would prefer to live in the middle ages because she likes fantasy novels. As I said, I saw a fair bit of discussion and soul-searching when the revelations came out which of course included discussion of the extent to which her private life might have been deducible or endorsed by her fiction. But I think, in general, the conclusions I saw were that while in retrospect there were passages that you would side-eye a bit with the benefit of hindsight, liking her work in no way implied an endorsement of her lifestyle. In fact I think most of the interactions I saw were MZB fans worrying that liking her work meant that they were evil in some way and/or that they should throw out all her books and other people reassuring them that this wasn't the case.

I did see one person try to suggest that a polyamorous lifestyle lead automatically to child neglect, but they got fairly robustly countered and shut up. Of course the ability for that kind of comment to lead to flame wars and frothing - as you presumably saw as opposed to a short back and forth depends a lot on the way moderation works in some environment. The place where I saw that particular interaction would have closed down the discussion very quickly if it had developed into some kind "are polyamorous people pedophiles" flame war so of course the fact that the participants made their points and then moved on without arguing too much was probably a reflection of their awareness of that.

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

Conversely and sadly, my enjoyment of Patrick O'Brian was somewhat lessened by learning more about his life when he died.

[immemor.livejournal.com]

I think people make these assumptions about all fiction. The readers of X are good people while the readers of Y, well, you know how THOSE people are...

In the literature world readers of Normal Mailer are labeled 'misogynists'. While readers of Margarett Atwood are labeled 'angry feminists'. These are all one dimensional assumptions and nothing close to the truth.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I guess it's all just part of the unfortunate human tendency to generalise and make prejudiced judgements about people they don't know, based on the flimsiest of evidence.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I currently hate the modern world and feel a strong urge to commit murder. I am reading Mary Renault about Alexander. Fits.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

er... kind of afraid to reply to this. don't want to say the wrong thing and prompt a killing rage. but don't want not to reply, either, in case that's what will drive you to murder... :-0

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I think you are safe. You are too far away for a cup of poison and the urge to despatch armies of javelin-men has subsided now :-D

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Mind you, I can't imagine Alexander, conqueror of the entire known world, being daunted by the tiny issue of a couple of hundred miles and a stretch of water. A proper heroic murderous rage would not give up when confronted by the Solent. :-D

[bunn.livejournal.com]

This is true, but fortunately, I've got onto the second book in which Alexander himself is dead, and everyone keeps flying dramatically off the handle but then waking up the day after and thinking 'oh gawd, what was I *thinking*'. Only obviously in a more Macedonian kind of way.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

I can provide armies of javelin-men, although they're only 6mm high...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Terry Pratchett has a line about lots of people reading fantasy. For example, what Jilly Cooper writes is fantasy. At least, he hopes for her sake it is.

No, this isn't really relevant.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I remember one time when a library customer was very sneery about fantasy. "I like to read about real life," she boasted. "I'm not a child who wants to bury myself in silly escapism." I can't now remember what book she was borrowing at the time, but I do remember that it was a particularly unrealistic and implausible set-up, ostensibly set in the "real world," but hardly "real life."

[oceanplexian.livejournal.com]

See, I'd disagree, as a SF fan. Sure, the X-Files isn't real, but Star Trek certainly inspired me to pursue a career in technology because I wanted to live in that world. Lots of Astronauts and scientists will cite books or television as inspiration for their careers, actually.

Do readers of crime novels actually fantasize about committing a crime? Sure, maybe. It doesn't mean that they are actually criminals, or going to be criminals, but I think your tastes definitely speak to your personality.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Oh, gosh, yes. I firmly believe that fiction can inspire interests, some of which might lead to a career. Loads of my own interests and enthusiasms - including my choice of degree subject - were originally sparked by fiction. (Although I was utterly obsessed with Star Trek when I was 14 or so, but apart from leading me to join an astronomical society, it didn't have any real impact on my interests and subject choices at school. It didn't even inspire me to read any other SF at the time, either. I remained immersed in history, fantasy and legend; I just happened to love Star Trek while doing so.)

I'd never dispute that some people love The X-Files (for example) because they firmly believe that the alien abduction is real; just because I didn't, it doesn't mean that I can generalise and say that nobody does. But people's reasons for liking something are many and various. I just don't think it's right to make assumptions.

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

Very well said.