Kinks and squicks and all the spaces in between

This is partly informed by nestra's recent post on kinks and squicks, but it's also informed by the SGA AU fic race debate (scroll through), by the SPN incest debate that happened around the same time, by a very interesting dilemma in rachelmanija's LJ, by Strikethrough 2007 and Boldthrough 2007, and by lots of other things floating around.

It's also inspired by many conversations with vom_marlowe largely concerning manga tropes and Cool Bits, especially since I have been promising her to post on this for months and months.

I've been thinking a lot about kinks and squicks and personal politics in the past few months: the (sometimes) uncontrollable nature of what turns me on and squicks me out, the way institutions of oppression can play into these personal turn-ons and turn-offs, how my own squicks and kinks have changed over the years, and the responsibilities (if there are any) of the reader/viewer/consumer of texts.

As such, this isn't specifically a commentary on racialized fantasies or SPN or manga or any one thing, though it'll probably touch on a lot of them.

( Cut for length )

VVC 2007: Gender and race!

Because I am insane, I decided to try and do a tally of race and gender in this year's VVC Premieres, as seen from my DVDs. Even though I generally try to pay attention to these things, I don't think I really noticed gender or race things while watching the VVC 2006 DVDs. This time round, I paid more attention because a) laurashapiro has been showing some older vids so I have a better sense of the vidding world outside of Random Things I Download, b) the discussion afterward about "Women's Work" and "300," and c) laurashapiro talking about her Sekrit Feminist Vidding Agenda.

It was rather odd watching the 2007 premieres because they're different from most of the vids on my hard drive -- a lot more male-centric shows, for one. I didn't quite realize till now just how much I self-selected when it came to vids and TV shows. I tend to like things better when there are female protagonists or several women in the ensemble, and I tend to focus on the women more, which means I seek out vids on women more.

I am too lazy to link individual vids so I point you to: VVC 2007 Premieres first half | second half

I tallied 32 vids on the DVDs. For the male/female divide, I was a little strict. Things counted as "F" if there was a female POV and there wasn't too much about men. I counted "F/M" for vids that seemed to have fairly equal weight between the men and the women, though in some of the ensembles, the weight skewed more toward the men. I also separated out ensemble vids from romance vids. I counted "M" for vids that were from a male POV and was mostly about men.

For the POC count, I basically counted any vid in which a POC appeared on screen, so it's divided between "blink of an eye" POC appearances (just a few clips, even if it's a fairly main character of the show) and "main-ish" POC appearances, in which the POC seemed to have a fairly significant number of clips (aka, anything more than 3).

( The Tally )

( Analysis! )

In conclusion, I should probably do this with my VVC 2006 DVDs for comparative purposes, but I am too lazy to. Also, hopefully I will get around to posting vid impressions sometime...