Injustice Bingo Cards

[alixtii]

dirty_diana has a metafandomed post here, thinking about Injustice Bingo Cards (my term). From what I can tell, she's particularly looking for fandom-specific ones, the Girl-Wonder.org has a comics-specific one. That one comes with detailed explanations of why each argument

dirty_diana's post reminded me of something that occurred to me and I had been planning on posting about: the way the Bingo Card meme seems to be, in my experience, morphing into something which is missing the point as I understand it. (What she's looking for would bring it back in line with the point.)

The idea behind an Injustice Bingo Card isn't to log all the stupid arguments people make. On the contrary, it's supposed to respond to all to the incredibly plausible-sounding arguments which are actually, at the end of the day, sort of right. Most of the statements on the Comics Bingo Card are true. For each female character with a provocative outfit (read: all of them), there are valid characterological reasons why they dress that way. For every event which is demeaning to women, there are real narrative forces at work setting it up.

This is why the game is Bingo and not, I don't know, dodgeball; one's argument isn't problematic until one ends up arguing a bunch of the squares at once. When one thinks that Supergirl, Powergirl, Black Canary, Huntress, Emma Frost, and every one else are just dressing in line with their organically developed character, and the death of Stephanie Brown was a reasonable event in continuity, and . . .

At the point, if one's interlocutor doesn't recognize that no matter how reasonable each fact seems in isolation, there is a pervasive pattern of misogyny and sexism at work, then yes, they need to be thwapped upside the head.

The entire point of Injustice Bingo Cards is to help the interlocutor to see beyond the reasonable-seeming circumstances of the individual situation and see the patterns of oppression which exist, not to list 25 arguments one is sick of hearing. (Note: According to blog at Girl-Wonder, the latter reason is actually closer to their original intentions than the former. This is why i don't privilege biographical information or authorial intent.)

And  . . . I feel this maybe gets lost sometimes in some appropriations of the Bingo Card meme?

(God/ess, I have no clue who my audience is right now.)

Comments

[rushin-doll.livejournal.com]

I hadn't actually considered their use in this light, and it certainly makes more sense the way you're talking about it. They suddenly seem useful as a tool for education and awareness instead of being a sort of tool for mockery and feeling superior.

That said, I'm pretty sure that the concept evolved from anti-buzzword bingo in its various forms, and that clearly was intended to be a tool for mockery so I wouldn't be surprised if your own reading is not that originally intended. Then again, I could care less. If this isn't what the author meant, it's probably what the author should have meant.

One of those early things I learned in analytic philosophy: you don't always fight the author's arguments, you fight the best arguments that could be made for their side. Always assume that people are smarter and better than they are.

Anyway, thanks,
Ana