Thanks for the Chris Braak link; what an excellent critique of both the content and tone of Doyle's post. He really hits it, with his comments about how GRRM is, in fact, attempting to write a realistic medieval fantasy setting rather than the standard airbrushed one, even though he doesn't always succeed.
The thing is, for all I've criticized her piece and her responses, I do feel Sady Doyle here. Speaking very, very, generally: Nerds -- particularly the stereotypical middle-class white male nerd we tend to think of as the classic sci-fi/fantasy fan -- do tend to feel oppressed for their nerdom, and they do tend to be very bad at acknowledging and examining their own privilege. Which can be an explosive combination when they try to engage with criticism. Fans can get ugly, and they've gotten ugly at her more than once lately. I don't blame her for lashing back.
But that doesn't change the fact that, in many times and places, nerd culture really *is* marginalized. No, nerds aren't going to be winning the Oppression Olympics; they probably shouldn't even enter the race. But that doesn't make their marginalization less real. It seems disingenuous not to acknowledge that. And lately, I've been getting the feeling that Doyle is poking at the nerdrage hornets' nest on purpose, starting at least with the Harry Potter piece (another one that I found somehow reductionist and unsatisfying, even as I was hard-pressed to argue with many of the details). That's been bothering me, too.
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The thing is, for all I've criticized her piece and her responses, I do feel Sady Doyle here. Speaking very, very, generally: Nerds -- particularly the stereotypical middle-class white male nerd we tend to think of as the classic sci-fi/fantasy fan -- do tend to feel oppressed for their nerdom, and they do tend to be very bad at acknowledging and examining their own privilege. Which can be an explosive combination when they try to engage with criticism. Fans can get ugly, and they've gotten ugly at her more than once lately. I don't blame her for lashing back.
But that doesn't change the fact that, in many times and places, nerd culture really *is* marginalized. No, nerds aren't going to be winning the Oppression Olympics; they probably shouldn't even enter the race. But that doesn't make their marginalization less real. It seems disingenuous not to acknowledge that. And lately, I've been getting the feeling that Doyle is poking at the nerdrage hornets' nest on purpose, starting at least with the Harry Potter piece (another one that I found somehow reductionist and unsatisfying, even as I was hard-pressed to argue with many of the details). That's been bothering me, too.