beccaelizabeth | Consuming media

You know there's foods where if you don't process them right they're actually pretty poisonous?
But when you're used to them you just routinely throw out the stones or soak them or boil or whatever?
So there's people right next to you going 'poison!!!' but you haven't thought about it for so long because of course you just strip the poison out along the way.

That's what we do with a lot of stories.

We've got these interpretative filters that make it possible to watch or read or listen a story that doesn't centre or respect or acknowledge us, stories that try and shove us in boxes piece by piece, show us ugly where we know it not to be, hide the ugly we're well acquainted with.

And sometimes we swallow a little poison without thinking about it. Cultural studies spends a lot of time showing students where the poison is, and there's always some who think it's just making too much fuss about that bit, that bit's just normal.

But a lot of readers know perfectly well it's not pure goodness and light, they just filter so routinely, even if they're harvesting for scraps, they can get what they need and move on.

Different reading styles get very different things out of the same story.

And to those that heavily reprocess things? It don't much matter what the makers thought they were doing.

So when someone says something that could leave a whole lot of their work open to reinterpretation... yeah, that's probably all there. Or you can go through counting the ways it's not serving the good stuff. Valid criticism is always possible.

But we can still get what we want out of the stuff.

Whatever they spun the story with, we can respin it from fluff if we want.

And we frequently do want.

Hence fic.

Wanting better source text is important, but there ain't no pure product, so throwing it all out along with the stones? Gets boring.

I'd rather keep trying to find the good bits.

... and yelling into the echoing internet that we need more.