quarter_to_five | (no subject)

I see - and sympathize - with all complaining that no one is writing fic for your favourite rare pairing or obscure old fandom, but I will raise you all the sublime frustration that no one is writing serious meta for your critically unregarded comedy loves.

WHY can I not find a good analysis of the political subtext of Brooklyn Nine Nine? WHERE is the critical deconstruction of the narrative tools in How I Met Your Mother? HOW is no one jumping around on a barricade about class issues in Community? Why dost thou betray me and leave out to dry and with no one to talk to, oh fandom?

I'm going to sit here and stare at the wall, y'all.

Well, at the books, because I'm in a library.

Ooh, that one looks interesting.

Apropos, do you know how incredibly boring, obvious and unimaginative most serious books about tv are? All that "Philosophy of Mad Men" (we have no less than 3 books about Mad Men, and the series isn't even done!) or Women on TV: from Lucy to Friends type stuff. I sort through them a lot because that section tends to be a perennial mess, and SO OBVIOUS.

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Yeah, you definitely win on the obscurity and lack-of-discussion front. No arguments there

Although I suppose someone could argue that watching 1960s/1970s non-genre UK shows and then complaining at the lack of a fandom is probably cheating, if wilful obscurity is a competition. (I regret nothing, except maybe attempting to watch Gerry Anderson's UFO. But on the other hand they all wore eyeliner and drove purple cars and it was in 60s technicolor and they killed David Collings again, so after all, I regret nothing.)

And that's true - time probably will make a difference. And I can see that it's frustrating - it's always frustrating when you can't have a conversation about the random things that are burning in your head, whatever they may be. And, yes, fandom can be so good at providing that outlet, and even though logic comprehends why x is not a fannish thing, the heart and bits of the brain don't at all and want people to join in just the same.

Academic writing tends to just...summarize, like they're enlightening their audience about a strange phenomenon which needs merely to be catalogued for it's significance to be understood.

:lol: I can imagine that all too easily. I wanted to write about series fiction for children when I was at uni, but there was absolutely no literature and I ended up writing about Enid Blyton. And when I was at a library conference and found a book about series fiction, it was about stuff like Arthur Ransome, and not Rainbow Magic and Goosebumps - I wanted some writing about how that kind of new-but-familiar encourages literary and how children read and, blah.

So, anyway, I am not much use because I don't watch any of those shows, but I'll sympathise with the frustration. I know the feeling, even if in my case, it's because I went off the edge of the map on purpose and deserve everything I get.

Lol, yeah. I'm thinking of taking a class on Arthurian literature, and I just came back from the first lecture, and he did show a bunch of movie clips and things and talked about how the Arthurian myth has evolved and how much presence it has in the modern world and I was totally onboard - yay, lets compare Monty Python and Marion Zimmer Bradley and BBC Merlin...and then the reading list was firmly 12th-19th centuries. Up to Tennyson is worthy of critical discussion - and no further.

Yes, so true. I suppose there's a certain amount of sense in waiting to see which things actually have staying power and long-term influence, but it can be so very limited sometimes!

Actually, with Arthurian things, I once read a book series once by Fay Sampson (I think it was a quartet, but it may possibly have been five) retelling Morgan Le Fay's story from various points of view, but the interesting thing was the last book, Herself, which was from Morgan's POV. But it didn't just retell this version yet again, it interspersed that with chapters that were Morgan's commentary on her legend and how it's changed through the ages and through different people making points. It was published too many years ago for Merlin, and I don't think it covered Monty Python, but it did go from early Welsh writings right up to The Sword in the Stone, Marion Zimmer Bradley and Stephen Lawhead, and I found that by far the most fascinating aspect of it. I can't really remember much about the rest of it, but you might like Herself if you can get hold of it anywhere via library magics.