incredifishface:

philosopherking1887:

I have made it no secret that I am greatly dissatisfied with many aspects of Thor: Ragnarok, most especially the characterizations of Thor and Loki and the discontinuity with their characterization in earlier movies. Among more extreme Loki fans, including those who (reportedly) used to call themselves “Loki’s Resistance” and are widely known as “Loki-apologists” (I prefer “unconditional Loki-justifiers,” for reasons of precision), people have no trouble saying that they disliked the movie because of the way it thinned out Loki’s character. Loki fans who are in networks with the Loki-justifiers but do not hate Thor (as so many of the justifiers do) also have no trouble pointing out that Ragnarok messed up Thor’s character, virtually disregarding the process of maturation he had gone through in previous MCU movies.

However, it seems that more moderate Loki fans (who do acknowledge his flaws and misdeeds), including but not limited to Thor/Loki shippers, have been feeling pressured into silence about their dissatisfaction with the movie. Four such people have communicated with me about it under their own names, two relatively openly in replies to my posts, two in private messages; a few more have expressed similar sentiments in anonymous asks. I’m kind of concerned that smart, thoughtful people feel like they can’t express their views for fear of being shunned or bombarded with hate. (About a movie, FFS; this isn’t a matter of life and death!)

Maybe this is just a function of the overall climate of Tumblr, which a friend of mine has characterized as just a bunch of young people all agreeing with each other (in my more bitter moments, I’ve used the terms “groupthink” and “circle-jerk”). It seems that around here group identities revolve around people all sharing the same views. Arguments (or firefights, really) can only be had on a hostile footing across group lines; there’s not much of a chance for productive or friendly disagreement within a community. As a philosopher (and a Jew), this strikes me as extremely bizarre and more than a little creepy. I disagree with other philosophers about a lot of things, and we argue, and raise objections to each other’s papers, but we’re still friends, still enjoy many of the same things, still share (largely) the same basic values. There are subcommunities, to be sure, of those who agree about certain issues, but we are still a community, engaged in a common enterprise, in spite of (indeed, driven by!) our disagreements.

What can we do to make the fandom such that people feel comfortable expressing their actual views even if they disagree with the majority of the community, or just (as it may be) with the loudest voices? If the fandom is already open to such disagreement, how can we reassure people that they won’t be ostracized for holding minority/unpopular views?

I hope that some people with more standing in the fandom than I have will take an active part in opening it up to productive disagreement. All these “I thought it was just me” and “everyone’s been telling me I’m crazy” and “I was so relieved to see your post” and “I feel like I should just stfu if my interpretation is different from the main one” messages are making me kind of alarmed and kind of sad.

(climbs on the Rostra) SO I have massive issues with Rangarök.

I haven’t voiced many of those issues out loud not because I am afraid, but because I prefer to only express positive things in public, in general. 

And mostly, because I know how this place works.

When you make a post on Tumblr, it’s like climbing on a podium and voicing criticism to an invisible, indistinct crowd, and inviting that mass of people to reply to you. Now, some will do this moderately and respectfully and in a civilized manner, and many others will throw things at you from their own podiums, tag you with reductionist tags you yourself would not identify with, and then use those, and every word you’ve said, to try and destroy whatever it is they’ve understood about what you were saying, which won’t be much, tbh, and also destroy you, in the process. In other words, when it comes to rational, civilized debate, Tumblr as a platform fucking sucks.

This is why I have talked about my issues in private, because I don’t want to spread negativity, and because I feel it’s inviting a kind of interaction I really don’t feel will add to my enjoyment of the fandom at all.

However, that is just me. I have indeed felt a lot of people expressing this kind of fear you say, Phil. 

I get the feeling some people are positively intimidated by BFN who regularly and boldly contribute their opinions to the fandom, and will reply to posts they disagree with. 

So I get how this might feel. You, a “normal fan”, put out an opinion to your blog, with a few followers, likeminded individuals who will reblog your stuff. And everything is going great and you’re getting positive comments and additions that make you feel understood and supported, until suddenly, there from Up On High, one of these Elders falls upon your humble opinion and strongly disagrees with you. Yikes. I was just talking to my mates here, how did this happen?

And it gets worse, because that Elder has other Elder friends who now also enter the conversation and Fucking Hell I am Under Attack By Powers Beyond my Ken. And here I was only in my corner doing my things. I am being Cornered. And some of those Elders have even blocked me! (some people block people often bc it’s a way of curating their experience of this place. The more followers you have, the wiser that strategy gets, I think.) shit this is scary! I better shut up next time!

Result: The Fandom Is Afraid to Go Against the Elders’s Opinions.

Now. Those Elders? Normal people, I swear. Their Elder friends? Also normal people. They’ve been here longer, they have more followers, they are respected by their output to the fandom in whichever form, but when they replied to your post they did it as a normal fan entering the debate. Which you invited when you put your post out there. Because this is how Tumblr works. It’s not just your friendly trusty followers who will see it, and sometimes that’s good, and sometimes that’s awful. For civilized fandom debate, let’s face it, this system is not great. 

And this is why I will probably continue to keep trying to express mainly positivity in my blog, because I prefer to restrict more nuanced, trickier debate to people I know, trust, and respect, in a contained environment, which is the opposite of Tumblr.

Nonetheless, I hate to hear that some people are afraid of voicing their critical opinions in public. I don’ t think there are real grounds to that fear (the Thor fandom is quite a welcoming place, compared to others I know of. No major wars, no hate campaigns from within, moderate ship wars, def no mobs sent against dissenters, not that I know of, even if it feels like this to some of you.)

NOW, if by expressing my opinions out loud I can help people feel more comfortable voicing theirs, here goes: (i was going to put them under the cut bc this post is too long already, but I would hate for people to think I am actually afraid, so no cut)

I hated Thor’s characterization in Ragnarök, dialogue wise. I don’t think Hemsworth is funny. I found so many of the jokes jarring. I really, really wasn’t crazy about the slapstick. I mean, My Thor can trip up, sure, but he is still a prince of Asgard. I compare it to Loki. He also tripped up a lot, but he didn’t break character when he got up. Just saying it can be done. So yeah, sure, lighten Thor up, make it funny. Just make sure he sounds and acts more like Thor while you’re at it. Just my opinion.

ON THE OTHER HAND, this film had some of the best moments in the entire trilogy. With all its misgivings, far be it from me to tear it all down. I LOVED lots of things about it. The Grandmaster, Thor God of Thunder, Hela, the dragon, Valky, more Odin (I’m a sucker for family feels), “I’m here”… NO NECK GRAB DAMMIT but yeah ok fade to black and I’ll take it from there in my dreams.

WHILE I AM AT IT, I had issues just as big with the previous films, if of a different nature. Just as I didn’t like Hemsworth’s shenanigans in Ragnarök, i feel it’s equally jarring and painful to watch Thor making jokes half a second after his brother’s death, and not shortly after his mother’s death, which he was allowed to mourn for like ½ second. That film was a godawful mess, and boring AF. The only bits I enjoy (but I enjoy them a lot) are the interactions between the brothers, and the Sad Poncho of Sad. Thor has never looked prettier.

And while we’re at it, the jokes in Thor 1 in general were pretty awful too. And don’t get me started about Thor’s arc. Yes he talks High Speech, but his character goes from Spoilt Prince to Worthy Noble Man by the power of Natalie Portman’s Big Brown Eyes in 3 days and I’m just as pissed off as Loki about it. BUT, that film has those Shakespearean insights into the family dynamics I will feed on for the rest of my life, and it established Loki as the most compelling villain in the history of ever, and that’s what I take from it.

and as always, I ramble too much.

Anyway, there. Opinions. 

If you take one thing from this post, let it be this: no BFN here is out to get anyone. there is no witch hunt in this fandom for those who did not like Ragnarök. Don’t be afraid of voicing your opinions. 

But know also that this platform is a shitty place for nuanced debate, and your opinions will invite replies, and you won’t always like them. That’s how this place works. So take that into account, if nothing else.

You’re mischaracterizing the problem based on false assumptions. The people who have talked to me aren’t entry-level peons; they’re well-established in the fandom, and a couple of them have been around as long as, if not longer than, the B-est of BNFs (Big Name Fans, for the uninitiated). So they certainly don’t regard BNFs as mystical Elders descending on them from on high, if that’s who they’re worried about. Based on the feedback I’ve gotten, there seem to be two sources of concern: (1) hate from anonymous askers and randos in the crowd (which is, as you say, a danger of the podium-like format); and (2) the sense that they’re not allowed to express opinions that differ from those of their fandom circle of friends/acquaintances.

I beg to differ with your suggestion that it has anything to do with expressing negativity vs. positive attitudes. People are perfectly happy to share negative views, provided they think everyone in their audience will share them: on Trump (of course), Taylor Swift, heteronormative media, patriarchal culture, white people… But those are larger societal issues, you may say; what about the content of the fandom we’re primarily here for? People in MCU fandom have no problem being negative about, e.g., Joss Whedon’s contributions to canon, especially Age of Ultron, precisely because they assume that everyone agrees with them. They say something brief and dismissive, or offer some flimsy reasons, and everyone nods along; it’s the ritual Two Minutes of Hate. Anyone who disagrees – and I know from private conversations that I’m not the only one – keeps their mouth shut for reasons (1) and (2) described above. Of course, as noted before, this seems to be a general problem with Tumblr culture, not with the MCU or Thor fandom as such. I guess I was hoping that in our little corner we might be able to overcome the tendency toward enforced unanimity, but if it is a necessary consequence of the format… (Why am I here again?)

Regarding (1), anonymous/random hate, I think there’s perfectly good reason to be worried about that, especially if you have a decent number of followers and your posts are likely to get a fair amount of uptake. I did get an obnoxious reply from some rando to a post detailing my concerns about Taika Waititi’s approach to Loki’s character. My approach – which I realize is not everyone’s – was to try to engage the person in a discussion about the issues I raised (search “wafflediaries” on my blog for the blow-by-blow). Fairly predictably, it devolved into the person calling me a racist for not liking TW’s characterization (because apparently now every schmuck on the internet is an authority on Maori culture). I was a little rattled, a little worked up, but I was able to laugh it off and move on – which I know not everyone can do. However unproductive the conversation was with respect to the standard goal of convincing one’s opponent, it was nonetheless productive for the person who was counting down the days until someone said that not liking Ragnarok makes one a racist (you’re welcome), and for communicating to people who had similar concerns about the movie that they were not the only one.

What can we do about that fear? Maybe nothing; anonymous hate seems to be endemic to Tumblr and/or fandom. Nonetheless, crowds are made up of people, and maybe people can be convinced that the correct way to respond to opinions they disagree with is through civil presentation of reasons, not hit-and-run insults. I will admit to not always being as polite as I could be when expressing disagreement (though regarding the exchange described above, you can’t really expect me to be polite to someone who starts off with gratuitous nastiness); that’s something we could all stand to work on. And maybe, if you want to avoid direct engagement, the correct approach is to start a new thread, maybe with a link to the post you disagreed with, explaining why you disagree. But the important thing is to have a plurality of views in the ether so that people won’t think they’re alone and/or crazy.

What’s going on with (2)? I don’t know, and that might be a personal problem you and I simply don’t suffer from, though it is apparently pretty widespread around here. (A consequence of the high rate of social anxiety? I dunno, I have a fair amount of social anxiety, but somehow it dissipates when someone is saying something that’s wrong.) But what’s so sad and ironic about it is that if no one expresses views contrary to the ones they’ve been hearing because they haven’t heard anyone who shares them, there are going to be a bunch of people silently disagreeing with the apparent consensus and not being able to identify each other. Someone has to talk first. I guess that’s me? If people are agreeing with me in confidence but afraid or reluctant to speak up themselves, should I put them in touch with each other?

Finally: you risk very little by saying you think Ragnarok had some problems, but no more than either of the other Thor movies. The view people seem reluctant to express is that the problems with Ragnarok are different in both kind and magnitude from the problems with the previous films: that it fails to do its job, as the close to a trilogy, to follow up on and provide satisfying pay-off for what came before – not just as a matter of tone or aesthetic, but of doing justice to the characters we’ve come to care about. And from private conversations, personal experience, and feedback in the reblog tags on this post, it seems people hesitate to voice these views for fear of either being called a racist (I feel so proud), or of being dismissed as one of those obnoxious, irrational Loki-justifiers and thus excluded from the fandom subcommunity they considered themselves to be part of (this one actually bothers me). If it comes from anons and/or randos who aren’t really in your network, it may not change anything, but it still hurts. If newcomers are so dismissed by people with more clout, yeah, that can pose a bigger problem for their experience. If people are worried about getting that from people they considered friends – and I don’t know if that’s precisely what they’re concerned about, so much as not rocking the boat – I think they need to be reassured that they won’t be cast into the outer darkness for disagreeing. Maybe some people will find your reply reassuring, though the tone is pretty dismissive.