Classism and Working-Class Characters in Fandom

[alixtii]

This post by kattahj made me think about the intersection of racism and classism in deciding who gets written in fanfiction. Now, of course I think it is silly to say that "it is really just about class" or "it's really just about race"; the two work intersectionally in complicated ways. But if we agree with kattahj that CoC's are more likely to get written if they aren't coded as working class (and I've come to this conclusion about my own writing already long ago) then it'd be interesting to see if we tend not to write working-class white characters in the same way.

I'm not including the crew of Serenity at all in this analysis, since they exist within a completely constructed fictional socio-economic system created precisely for the purpose of making the main cast's lives seem interesting, but I think we certainly do respond differently to Simon than, say, Jayne (in my part, with identification with the former and almost complete disinterest with the latter). The Weasley family, were I even to know enough Harry Potter canon to speak intelligently about them, would probably be set apart under the same logic. Similarly, I'm not including vampires or other characters that are unable to participate in the normal socioeconomic structures because they are set apart as nonhuman.

I don't tend to watch shows with a lot of working-class characters, since they are less likely to provide me the type of wish-fulfillment I'm looking for in my entertainment (which is precisely the kind of dynamic I'm talking about here), so, um . . . it's a rather short list. Please help me add to it!

Notes
By "class" I mean the sociological something-or-other (I'm much less versed in class theory than I am in gender, queer, or even race theory) which is the cumulative result of economic status and a complex system of social markers (occupation, neighborhood of residence, accent, speech patterns, education, circle of friends, etc.). I'm assuming that fandom could[n't] care less what Rupert Giles' salary as a Watcher was, but that his education and breadth of knowledge make him attractive to write; Buffy's ability to quote Sartre and Arthur Miller seemingly without effort disqualifies her from being working-class. (And yes, this assumption is itself classist in fascinating and disturbing ways, ways which I wish I knew enough class theory to be able to problematize further.)

I'm taking it for granted that our source canons deal horribly with class issues (as they do with racial ones), but that there are objectively interesting working-class characters in our canons (in the way that there are interesting female characters and interesting characters of color).

Nonwhite racial cultures are (almost?) automatically coded as working-class. I feel this is important to mention despite the fact that since all of these characters are white, it doesn't apply to any of them. But this is a reason why even if classism seems a sufficient explanation for why working-class characters of color get written less, that classism would still in all probability be racially-motivated. The way we construct the class structure is itself racist.

Feel free to criticize any of my assumptions in the comments; I'm in over my head here.

Okay, now let's get to the list. . . .

Faith
It certainly cannot be argued that Faith does not get written in Buffy fandom, especially concerning her status as only being a recurring character to has nowhere near the screentime of an Anya or Tara. Now part of this just down to Eliza Dushku being Eliza Dushku. But if we look at her character, what do we see? A character whose working-class coding and Slayerness are so caught up in each other that they interact in interesting ways. While at the beginning of her arc Faith is living her life in a run-down motel, her Slaying provides her an outlet to escape from the very beginning, as she manifests the "want, take, have" mentality (she is effectively able to rely on her Slayer capabilities to produce cultural capital), and the overall structure of her story is ultimately one of upward mobility; by "Chosen" she is still coded as working-class in terms of social markers, but she is relatively free of economic concerns and so those social markers are able to be fetishized without playing any meaningful part in the actual life of the character.

Xander Harris
Like Faith, Xander gets a lot of fic. Not much written by me, but in m/m slash fandom I know he's commonly paired with Spike. Angel, and other men.

Now Xander's family is coded as poor and in some ways working-class (and this is uniformly portrayed as a negative), but I'd argue that while Xander is made to materially feel the effect of his family lower economic status, he is always coded as firmly middle-class in terms of social markers. As a geek figure, he is an easy and deliberate audience identification figure, and speaks a language which is coded in many ways as middle-class white male. Note also that like Faith he is upwardly mobile; by the end of the series he is, however implausible, solidly middle-class in terms of not only social but also economic indices.

Cindy Mackenzie
When Mac was introduced, her class issues dominated her character: she was the perpetrator of an elaborate con in an attempt to get back at the rich kids and to get money for a new car which she desperately needed. Then the show itself went on to seriously drop the ball on these issues, never bringing up money in regard to Mac again, focusing only on her solidly-coded-middle-class computer skills, having her date an 09er, and show up at college without a word as to how she was paying for it. Mac gets a decent amount of fic, being involved in several popular het and femslash pairings.

Veronica Mars
Everything above for Mac goes double for Veronica. Veronica was never meaningfully coded as lower-class, as she spent her childhood as a honorary 02er. As the eponymous character, she features in a large share of VMars fic.

Rose Tyler
Obviously, there is a whole lot of Rose fic, by virtue of her being the female lead of the first two seasons of new Who. Just as obviously, Rose is freed from the constraints of her working-class life when the Doctor rescues her from the shop where she works while retaining several of the relevant social markers (her accent being the most obvious, I believe? British culture is not my specialty).

Jackie Tyler
I don't know how the fic writers respond to Jackie, who unlike Rose maintains her class identification until the very very end (when she and alt!Pete get together). Obviously she is written less than Rose, but exactly how much so I have no clue.

Dean and Sam Winchester
I don't watch this show, and thus don't know anything about them (except that Sam makes a really hot girl--I do read the genderswap). I know, of course, that there's a massive amount of fic written about them.

Kendra, Normal, Sketchy, and Other Dark Angel Characters
Do these even get written at all? I'm not really familiar with the fandom, but my impression that the main white characters to get written were Logan--obviously not working-class--and Jensen's character (who probably falls under the nonhuman exemption). Lydeker's not exactly working-class either (although his coding is rather complicated).

Conclusion (tentative since the preliminary sample size is so small)
There does seem to be some interest in working with characters who still carry the social markers of a working-class identity, as in the cases of Faith and Rose Tyler. (How deep and accurate these social markers are, both in the source text and in fic, is a question I am not qualified to answer, although I think there are meaningful ways that both characters do begin to act in accord with a middle-class ideal as they become upwardly mobile economically.) Re-reading the comments to my March 2007 post linked above, it seems fandom is perfectly willing to play with characters who are coded as working-class in what heyiya calls a UK discourse of class, in which "class is experienced as written and performed in the body," but less eager to do so according to what she calls the American discourse in which class is more closely linked to cultural capacity and thus "is experienced as mobile: you get educated, you become middle class." (I'm condensing a lot of thought here; heyiya, is there something crucial I've missed or misrepresented?)

I do think that fandom is less likely to write working-class characters, in general, than middle-class (and upper-class) characters. My intellectual and emotional responses to how problematic this is are somewhat in contradiction.

Even if the true nature of their working-class status is in dispute, it does seem that enough working-class white characters do get written to be able to say that they get written more often than working-class characters of color, and thus classism in fandom is not a sufficient explanation for why working-class characters of color are not written as much as one would otherwise expect. This conclusion shocks approximately no one.

Comments

part 2

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

I can understand that, too... but honestly, I really wonder if the discussion would come up as much as it does if the *show* questioned Dean's vocabulary, if there were people who flat-out told him that he was speaking like an ass, and to explain himself for doing so. Instead, the show just lets him talk like that, and never questions it, and Dean's not allowed to *grow* as a character. Add that to the fact that he *didn't* talk like that in earlier seasons and you've got a real, *growing* problem.

Dean said some things that made me wince in earlier seasons, but Sam (who went to Stanford) always glared at him when he said them. I think we were meant to understand that there was a long-running disagreement there. I also think it's wearying to continually fight over stuff like that with someone you have to live with and if I had to live with my brother (who is a misogynist, racist and everything else-ist, unlike Dean) I would probably get tired of verbally or physically slapping him every time he said something stupid, and let's not even go there with what it would be like to have to do that if we had to cover each other's backs in mortal danger every day of every week. :/

So the criticism is going to have to come from people who realistically would see it as a problem and the problem is, Dean doesn't say most of these things to people who would. I would have a problem with it if he showed his ass in a big way to someone I would expect to slap him down for it and that didn't happen. But I have a hard time thinking of situations where that hasn't happened and sometimes he DOES get called on being an asshat.

A lot of the criticisms about Dean being misogynist in S3, though, have to do with things that he has said to Ruby. And Ruby is a demon. I understand that in SGA, even though Ronon and Teyla are nonhuman aliens, their colour matters to the humans they interact with and the way those people treat them may be evidence of racism, but I don't think Ruby's gender matters to Dean, because Dean sees demons as different from people and is never unaware that whatever body they may be using isn't really theirs.

I don't think things that Dean says to Ruby count as misogynist, because even though we think of her as a woman because she's played by one, Dean does not think of demons as human. Dean treats Ruby the way he's treated other demons--he's still trying to kill her occasionally--and does not treat other women the way he treats her. Only in the last two episodes has Dean been aware that Ruby used to be human.

So while I wish Dean wouldn't say 'skank' unless he's going to use it on both sexes, I do think it matters that he doesn't say it about women who are not Ruby.

A lot of the rage also came up with reference to the "Malleus Maleficarum" episode and I frankly don't get that because in a universe where demons, hell, devils, pacts with the devil, selling your soul, evil pagan gods that demand blood sacrifice, &c are all real, of course witchcraft is bad--the women in that ep were not practising Wicca! (Oddly, hoodoo has been presented as a GOOD thing, and pentagrams are not always bad--it's not totally Christian-centric...) That was also the episode where it was revealed that Ruby used to be human about five hundred years ago and where Dean found out that HE was going to become a demon, and I think they're doing a good job with the mental reorganisation that is following on to that.

I also wonder how much of the poor writing in S3 has to do with the writer's strike and how many of these eps got less editing than they would have done otherwise, but...we'll see next year I guess.

(this is getting teal deerish; I apologise for that)

Re: part 2

[thete1.livejournal.com]

So the criticism is going to have to come from people who realistically would see it as a problem and the problem is, Dean doesn't say most of these things to people who would.

I think it's the show's *responsibility* to put Dean in situations where he is, at the very least, questioned for his language. I agree with you that it can't always be Sam -- that would bog down the narrative at the very least -- but, well, if they want Dean to talk like that, then they need to show the consequences of it -- unless they want to hear words like 'misogynistic' bandied about.

I don't think things that Dean says to Ruby count as misogynist, because even though we think of her as a woman because she's played by one, Dean does not think of demons as human. Dean treats Ruby the way he's treated other demons--he's still trying to kill her occasionally--and does not treat other women the way he treats her. Only in the last two episodes has Dean been aware that Ruby used to be human.

To this, I would argue that there need to be a lot more situations in which Dean interacts with non-demonic women to better highlight the difference you find so easy to see. It's another part of the show's responsibility.

And, well, I'll admit it -- I'm uncomfortable with the idea of 'artistic responsibility.' I write a lot of dark, disturbing things, and the only thing I do to ease that is put vaguely-worded warnings on my stories, and I will fight *hard* against anyone who tells me that I ought to show more care. BUT -- I'm also not spewing out bigoted rhetoric, even when I throw bad guys into the mix. When you have a *television* show aimed, at least in part, at young people, you need to have a bit more of a conscience.

Re: part 2

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

I am really strongly uncomfortable with the idea of 'artistic responsibility' when it comes to modelling good behaviour (especially for the kiddies), apparently more so than you. (I like warnings, though, because I don't want to trigger anyone, and because there are both things I seek out and things I don't want to read, and warnings help me do both.)

I don't personally have different standards for TV writers than I do for myself, because I'd feel, well, hypocritical about that. My problem with SPN lies not with the writers but with the casting department, who refuse to have any female recurring characters who aren't 'hot' and who have caused us to lose both Ellen and Missouri, whom I liked (although Missouri may qualify as a Magical Negro, and G-d, I hate even typing that word).

Here's the thing, though--I am totally fucking irritated about the skanky race, class and gender issues on Heroes (even though I can't stop watching it as long as it is keeping Adrian Pasdar employed). But that's in part because the presentation is not realistic, and while I do not believe in 'artistic responsibility' to model good behaviour for the kiddies even a little bit, I believe in 'artistic responsibility' to write people believably as who and what they are--and there isn't any artistic truth in the way CoC are portrayed on that show, except for Hiro in S1--they are pretty much all reprehensible stereotypes: the Black ex-con who can't keep a job and his white stripper wife, the Latino drug addict who spends all his time strung out and the smart Black woman who puts up with his bullshit anyway until a white guy rescues her from it and then, oh yeah, she gets killed for sleeping with both of them. There are not enough palms in the world for my face after watching some of this. The gender crap is terrible too--the toughest character on the show is female, but she has to be rescued by a guy she could pretty much turn into a pretzel--why? That's the kind of writing that I find upsetting, and yet somehow the actors make me care anyway, and I sure as hell don't know how to handle it in a fic, which is why I write about the Petrellis, because of a) my crush on Adrian and b) my lack of ability to figure out who those other people are. (And S2 was even worse. More CoC, but omg, they're so badly drawn they might as well not have bothered because Maya and Alejandro were just one giant insult to everyone ever born south of Texas.)

I guess that's why I have a problem with Heroes and not with SPN--in SPN I can relate to the characters, even when they do things that make me cringe or are badly drawn, but in Heroes, I so often can't and find myself only following certain characters who...are slightly less badly written than the others, or are played by actors I adore.

Re: part 2

[thete1.livejournal.com]

How to decide what's realistic? I remember quite a few people in SV fandom who didn't feel that Pete Ross was 'realistic,' because he was decidedly middle-class and well-educated. That was -- special. Very, very special. That said, I gave up on Heroes very, very quickly because of the skanky race issues.

The thing about artistic responsibility... well, you know, I don't think I expressed myself well enough. If TPTB over on SPN really want to put out a show with a character who reads as misogynistic in a world that pisses all over female-ness in general... well, they're doing a great job and should keep up the good work. If they want to do a show about heroism in a realistic -- heh, there's that word again -- America that allows a wide range of characters across race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality lines... well, they're frankly fucking up.

In the end, I think the primary responsibility any artist has is to do their absolute best to get their message across, whatever that message might be, and to *own* that message, be clear and upfront about it, and not try to have it both ways. The show is marketing itself as something it's -- currently -- not, and that's a problem.

Re: part 2

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

How to decide what's realistic? I remember quite a few people in SV fandom who didn't feel that Pete Ross was 'realistic,' because he was decidedly middle-class and well-educated.

OK, we have just exceeded my daily requirement of vitamin WTF. I wish I were surprised by this. That's just sad and pathetic and icky and...oh lord.

If anything I tend to go in the other direction. I feel that there is more than enough stuff on TV and in books and...everywhere, really...about Black people being criminals and joining gangs and being uneducated and dangerous and Not Like You (whoever you are) and sexy in a creepy way. I don't like it and I don't want to read/write it. None of the Black people I know are like that, and while I realise that there are in fact Black people who are kind of scary, I don't think anyone is likely to forget that.

In the end, I think the primary responsibility any artist has is to do their absolute best to get their message across, whatever that message might be, and to *own* that message, be clear and upfront about it, and not try to have it both ways.

Do you believe that there is always a message? I'm one of those irritating writers whose worldbuilding happens inside her head, and who has characters that just do what they're going to do--I don't consciously control the stories I write as much as some writers do. I know there are other people who write this way because I read matociquala and truepenny and so on. When I write, I'm really only aware of the characters and the story itself. When I try to write any other way, nothing comes out.

(I do know that this is not usually how TV is written and that this does not get TV writers off the hook. Although Ron Moore once told me at a party that he got the end of the last season of BSG more or less in a dream, lol.)

I have other friends who write who are very conscious writers and they puppet their characters as though they could literally pull strings on them. Most of these people write in a didactic style and are very concerned with "message".

I can't do that and don't try. I don't really know what message, if any, is in something I've written until years after I've written it; when I write, I'm pretty much writing down what the little voices in my head say, and I don't know where they come from, and I'm a little worried that if I look too hard I'll break something up in there.

Fortunately most of my work has been well-received so far (knock wood) with regard to portrayals of PoCs and characters of all genders and orientations. People have commented on the fact that I tend not to write good mothers or good parents, but it's something I'm learning to do from shared universe co-writing, as it's beyond my personal experience. I have to address these issues in the world-building or co-write to do it consciously; once the characters come to life in my mind, I feel like I'm taking dictation sometimes.

So the criticisms I find easiest to make, and to respond to, are things like: "This seems hollow and not human and like a stereotype and not filled in." "This is not real to me." "I could not suspend my disbelief that real people would act this way." And those are the things that bother me.

Re: part 2

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I'm one of those irritating writers whose worldbuilding happens inside her head, and who has characters that just do what they're going to do--I don't consciously control the stories I write as much as some writers do.

I don't think there is always a message, or at least that there is always just one message; but I do think that one can often judge in advance how one's audience is going to interpret the text one produces. And if one knows in advance that one's audience is going to take, say, a racist message away from the text, even if that's not how one intends it, maybe one should re-think exactly how one should go about presenting onself.

Re: part 2

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

I certainly think that if you can see it coming you should do what you can to fix the problem.

I haven't had this particular problem show up in my own writing, so I don't know what I'd do if it did; what's happened to me is that I've written particular characters (two Christians, one of them Catholic and also anti-choice; numerous Slytherins for whom I had varying amounts of sympathy in canon prior to the time I lost interest in writing to that canon, though in no case did I believe that their point of view was worth murdering for; a few insane people) so well that people have mistaken their viewpoints for mine.

I have also, with specifically erotic stories, had people tell me that they thought I was sending the wrong message (you're glorifying incest/you shouldn't write rape fantasies, why are you not writing about the omg trauma here/why are there no consequences for this horrible uneven power relationship). My reaction to that kind of feedback is generally something along the lines of "go pound sand, there was a warning, it was very clear."

I have a history with 'artistic responsibility' and 'misogyny' because dubious consent turns me on so I like to write it a lot and uneven power relationships turn me on in fiction (in RL I tend to run from them)--particularly when the less socially powerful partner has tremendous amounts of emotional power over the more socially powerful partner, and has to learn what to do with it. I've been accused of writing misogynist fiction and it irritates the shit out of me because I think all my characters have a lot of agency, but people who are looking for hurt/comfort or trauma emotional porn find my stuff and get mad because I don't go there. (This icon was made for me; it's a quote from a hate meme where people were discussing my porn and how morally terrible some of it was and what an awful person I was for telling them to fuck off and read something else if they didn't like it.)

Sometimes I feel I need to put "WARNING: Not intended to be role models; not a comment on the way I think the world should be; probably not my politics either." above the cut tag of every damn thing I write.

Re: part 2

[thete1.livejournal.com]

I don't really have much more to say to this than what alixtii says above, but...

Well. I used the word 'message,' but I might as well have used the word 'theme,' or maybe something like 'the point.' If I'm writing a story, the original idea has *something* in it that I'm trying to express/describe/exhibit. It may be something like "and this is a question that canon never answered, and I'm going to try," or it could be something like "this, right here, is what I believe about the characters," or it could be something else entirely. *Whatever* it is, I'm going to back it up as best as I can, and I'm going to do my best to get it *out* there, and I think that a lot of writers feel the same. It's not about making the characters dance to the tune I'm playing, it's about knowing what that tune *is*, and setting it up to let the characters do what they want to do to the music in question.

In any event, I'm *aware* of what I'm doing and what I'm saying, and if, by chance, in order to be true to the characters I have to let the story speak in problematic language, I'm going to be *damned* sure that I do my best to be clear that it's the story/characters -- and *not* me.

*This* is how SPN has failed.

Re: part 2

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

When I write, personally, it's usually because there is something in my head that I can practically see and hear happening that I can't stop thinking about until I write it all down... (or it's part of the ongoing multifannish soap opera that is my RPG, where the little voices in my head and the little voices in some other people's heads get together and play).

If I write it down and it seems OOC once it's all written down I don't post it; if it seems problematic in some way and I don't like the feel of it and can't change it so that I do like it, once I'm able to read it consciously, I don't post it. If it's for the RPG and it will fuck things up I don't post it. But a lot of the time there either isn't a point (my most infamous story in the HP fandom was literally a dream I had--it actually did have a point but it took me ages to figure out what) or I don't know what it is until at least the first draft is done.

If this seems weird to you I'm sorry. I have two betas, one of whose process is exactly like mine; the other one tears her hair out sometimes. I have one friend who has identified recurring themes in my stuff. Her worth is above rubies. I love my editors madly. Because it's probably in there, but fuck if I know where it comes from.

That said, I own every word of what I post. If it's fucked up, it's fucked up (I'm fucked up after all), and I try to make it better--unless the criticism is "this story is immoral because of X thing (that I warned about)" to which my response is generally "okay so don't read it".

Re: part 2

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

This all seems perfectly sensible to me.

Sometimes I write like you, sometimes I write with a point in mind. It all depends on a huge number of factors, but I like to think I understand both points of view.

Re: part 2

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I think people should create the art that speaks to them, and that understanding shouldn't be a prerequisite--can't be a prerequisite, because things speak with different meanings and no one can guess all the possible meanings in all the possible contexts. The most one can do is guess how much harm it will do to its intended audience and cross one's fingers about everything else, as I argue here and here.

But we absolutely should have ongoing critical conversations so that we can identify racism and sexism and heterosexism where they lie. And except under very specific circumstances, no one is under any obligation to watch or distribute or pay for media which one believes to be damaging to its audience. So if Kripke (SPN is Kripke, right?) wants to tell a story that's ---ist, whether intentionally or unintentionally, either way that's fine, but it's incumbent upon people to complain or not watch or whatever their values require from them, and there's no reason the network should give a pulpet to media which is damaging.

But part of making such media less damaging is creating a critical audience which can detect the issues at work in the text and not be blindly influenced by them.

And that's my $.02 on artistic responsibility.

Re: part 2

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

The most one can do is guess how much harm it will do to its intended audience and cross one's fingers about everything else, as I argue here and here.

Yeah, I don't really worry about that kind of thing, and I'm probably never going to. I am of the "if we're going to censor material because it might inspire people with a predisposition to whackjobbery to do something unfortunate, we'll have to start with the Bible" school myself.

Re: part 2

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Well, since the Bible is main example I use in the second post I linked, I don't think anyone should be held accountable for those predisposes to whackjobbery (assuming one doesn't have a very low opinion of people in general and think everyone is predisposed to whackjobbery, just that we should be careful if we seem to be producing the next Birth of a Nation. I think I'm come down on the laissez-faire side myself, especially within fandom--I'm much stricter on mainstream texts but even then I tend to think the solution is more (counterbalancing) speech, especially critical discussion, rather than censorship as such.

Re: part 2

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

I don't think about my writing in terms of whether or not it will "do harm" at all, though. I think about my writing in terms of "are these people believable?" "Are these people recognisably people?" "Can I believe this world could exist?"

You would be surprised how many things that are published or posted or on TV fail that test.