Musings about Who fandom and haters

[gogmagog]

This comment on doctorwho pretty much sums up my feeling about Who fandom:

I think half the fandom doesn't actually like the show. I guess it's the "Star Wars fans hate Star Wars" phenomenon.

I'm not a good Doctor Who fan. I like it too much.

...SO MUCH WORD. But then, most of the fandoms I've ever been in have been like that; as bad and wanky as Who fandom gets, it will never be as self-destructive as Buffy or even the smaller Veronica Mars fandom (in which there was actually talk of a campaign on LJ to get the show CANCELLED during its final season, because canon wasn't going the way some shipper fans wanted it to).

Honestly, the only Doctor Who episode I've actively disliked was "Fear Her," and that's only because the script was ridiculous (though even it had its moments) and the guest actors were just REALLY BAD (and unfortunately really prominent). I haven't seen any stories from Old Who that I really disliked (though of course quite a few stories had some bits that dragged, overall I've enjoyed every story I've seen; though I do have yet to see some of the infamously bad stories like "Time-Flight" or "The Twin Dilemma").

I guess I just feel that if, for example, I'd disliked every episode of a season of a show, I'd stop watching, y'know? (And I do know a couple of Who fans who got quite tired of the show's direction in season 2 of New Who, and instead of getting wanky about it on the Internet just stopped watching it until it improved in their eyes with season 3.) I mean, it's one thing to stick with a show you used to like a lot for a bit because you hope it'll get better, but seriously, I've seen people who have disliked pretty much every episode of New Who because it's not Old Who, and yet KEEP WATCHING (and then bitching). And that completely puzzles me, because life is too short to spend that much time on something you don't enjoy (but maybe that's just my philosophy).

And the obvious response is that I should take my own advice and just ignore the bitching; and I try to, but frequently it's on public communities/sites and not clearly labeled, so I end up stumbling on it. And honestly, it's not so much that it bothers me (I'm not a "HOW DARE YOU HARSH MY SQUEE" kind of person, really!), it just puzzles me.

Comments

[yoshitsune.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly! I read an interesting article about that not too long ago (I think it may have been linked on doctorwho, actually), about how people are watching different shows: so one person may be watching The Doctor Loves Rose Show, one person may be watching The Donna Noble Show, and another may be watching The Doctor as Mythic Figure Show. And I understand and sympathize with that! But it just gets silly when you're watching a show that is long-gone - like the people who post to fandomsecrets about how they can't forgive Naruto for killing a pair of gay ninja villains in like the fifth episode, but are still watching it at episode 15 gazillion or whatever it's at now and disliking it because OMG I LOVE MY DEAD GAY EVIL NINJAS. It just seems counterproductive at that point.

And I should probably clarify here, since I didn't do it before, that I'm not advocating just avoiding all criticism, because I think it's frequently valuable and leads to a more nuanced understanding of the show; it's when it turns to nothing BUT criticism that it becomes "well, what are you still doing here?"

And yeah, I've done the same thing with fandoms too...I used to love the early Anita Blake books by Laurell K. Hamilton, which were fun, mildly cheesy paranormal urban fantasies, but around book 10 or so the heroine suddenly started essentially going into heat every twelve hours and having sex with random men (seemingly because the author got a way kinkier sex life with her new hubby), and I got out of that series so fast my head is still spinning.