Bits & Bobs

[neadods]

Fic Rec: calapine's brand new Passing the Torch

“Where’s the Doctor?” asked Romana. “This is his TARDIS, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but he copped it a few months back. Epic, it was. Lots of stuff blowing up. Fate of the universe at stake and all that, and he took my hand right at the end and said, Donna, Donna, my love, I want you to carry on my awesome legacy to the universe. Then he gave me this book.” She pulled a book out of her coat pocket and waved it at Romana. The title was untidily scrawled in thick black marker pen (the atrocious handwriting was undoubtedly the Doctor’s). It read: How To Carry On My Legacy by The Doctor.


A TINY RANT ON INTENT:

Paul Cornell has said that a scene of Owen propositioning a woman, being turned down, and then using an alien drug on her to put her into heat for him wasn't "intended" as a rape scene.

Now Amanda of Pandagon has taken another blog off my reading list by saying that peppering her new book with racist imagery was "ironic" and "not intended" to be offensive.

One more time for the slow class, people: Intent doesn't mean jack shit. The Titanic wasn't INTENDED to sink.

Deal with what is, because whether you intended it or not, it's still what IS. Own it. Put on your big kid undies, admit it and apologize, and not one of those "I'm sorry you're offended" weasel deals, either. People are a hell of a lot more willing to forgive when it's phrased "I'm sorry, I meant X and it's come out Y, and Y is a wrong thing that hurts people, period" than any variation of "I meant X and if 5000 of you see Y, what's all y'all's problem?" And even if you finally say the former, you lose a hell of a lot of points if you start with the latter.

The. Titanic. Wasn't. Intended. To. Sink.

Comments

[garpu.livejournal.com]

That's the 2nd reference to the blog so far...what am I missing, being stuck in dissertation hell?

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Oh wait. Found the reference. Um, wow. How could she *not* think that wasn't racist?

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I don't read closely enough to be getting more than an overview, but it seems to have boiled down to this:

Amanda writes a book. The book (and possibly Pandagon postings?) both borrows liberally from the work of bloggers of color without attribution, but also is punctuated with Jungle Girl cartoons from the 50s. Jungle Girl herself is okay, but she's always beating up those dark spear carriers which so is not.

Many of the tapped bloggers call her out. Many of her own blogreaders look at the art and go "...uh..." At least one blogger - BrownFeministPower throws up her hands and stops blogging.

And here's where Amanda shoots herself in the foot - she repeatedly bitches in the comments (presumably in Pandagon - not reading it) and definitely in Feministe about how she would have linked to the other bloggers if they had something really interesting to say, that she would be able to deal with "this issue" if people weren't being so mean to her, that she is being harassed by wannabes jealous of her publishing contract, that the art was ironic due to her liberal credentials, and that she wouldn't read BrownFeministPower now for all the tea in China because it hurts so much. All of those statements make eyes roll like marbles in a world championship contest, and the last one blows out every irony meter in a 100-yard radius, with people pointing out that she couldn't read BFP if she wanted to because BFP has stopped blogging because of this.

I stood up for Amanda during the John Edwards thing, but watching her whine and flop and bitch and only apparently just recently say "Ooops, my bad" (while still, apparently, being a bitch in comments) and... stick a fork in me, I'm done. If I want to read *that,* I've got the Greatest Hits of Doctor Who Racial Wank in my links.

[garpu.livejournal.com]

Oh lord. another iteration of "person says something stupid. people call person on it. Person flounces."

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Yup! Lather, rinse, repeat.

The reason it's running across the blogosphere is most of us thought Amanda had more brain cells than that. Apparently not.

[skywardprodigal.livejournal.com]

This is mostly correct except for a few points: Brown Femi Power never named Marcotte. She wanted to highlight that this was a trend and dynamic with feminists who're white and feminists who are of color/nonwhite.

Other people sussed out it was Marcotte.

Also, Marcotte did state that if she should have referenced anyone, it would have been Nina Perales. But here's the thing: she still has reffed Perales in the piece of which she's stated she did ref Perales!

And at one point Marcotte did compare herself to Malcolm X. I'm just...Bleah.

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

You reached the molten planetary core quite some time ago, Amanda, you really can stop digging any old time.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Remind you of anyone in Who fandom? It's like last summer all over again, innit?

[violetisblue.livejournal.com]

When I read her little rant about the bloggers of color "ganging up" on her like "playground bullies" because they're so threatened by her fame and renown I thought well, damn, someone in Who fandom has a famous sock puppet I never knew about!

[svilleficrecs.livejournal.com]

"Paul Cornell has said that a scene of Owen propositioning a woman, being turned down, and then using an alien drug on her to put her into heat for him wasn't "intended" as a rape scene."

A: The idea that it wasn't intended as one is part of the problem, Paul.
B: The fact that Owen later that ep had to deal with the ghost of a rape victim (IIRC) makes me doubt the veracity of that claim.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

It was the next episode, which was supposed to show us Owen's softer, more protective side, and basically showed us that the showrunners only think it's rape if she cries.

[bentleywg.livejournal.com]

about "Passing the Torch": I love the ending.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

It's hard to pick a favorite, although the scene with the Master is probably tops for me.

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

The. Titanic. Wasn't. Intended. To. Sink.

Heh.