Ah yes you hit on so much of what I feel! Like, ultimately I think it's hard to call the fandom wave of social consciousness a bad thing: it's made so many people (myself included!) more aware of the complexities of racism and sexism and sociology in general, even if only in passing, and that is important! It's fantastic that a lot of people are less quick to dismiss someone as whiny or annoying (those really are such big ones with the stereotypically female character).
I also definitely relate to your second paragraph and I think my Good Wife thing is a really good example of that: show talk on my flist specifically really was so Cary-focused this year (although I think that's shifting: so many new people are watching this summer! So I think I can look forward to being less of a grouchbucket) And while on some level it was frustrating to see discussion of a show with two fantastic, prominent female characters center around the cute white dude... there is nothing actually wrong with loving Cary the most! It's not like my friendslist is full of misogynists who never love girls, and it's not like people don't love Alicia and Kalinda, Cary just happened to be their favorite. You can't predict the way your brain is going to react to something, sometimes we just like what we like, and it doesn't tie back to race or gender. But it really is hard to be less aware now: man I felt SO WEIRD with myself when I came out of Parks & Rec and realized my favorite was dude, even though there's ultimately nothing wrong or bad about that. It's just hard to jump outside the mindset sometimes.
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Date: 2011-07-02 10:14 pm (UTC)I also definitely relate to your second paragraph and I think my Good Wife thing is a really good example of that: show talk on my flist specifically really was so Cary-focused this year (although I think that's shifting: so many new people are watching this summer! So I think I can look forward to being less of a grouchbucket) And while on some level it was frustrating to see discussion of a show with two fantastic, prominent female characters center around the cute white dude... there is nothing actually wrong with loving Cary the most! It's not like my friendslist is full of misogynists who never love girls, and it's not like people don't love Alicia and Kalinda, Cary just happened to be their favorite. You can't predict the way your brain is going to react to something, sometimes we just like what we like, and it doesn't tie back to race or gender. But it really is hard to be less aware now: man I felt SO WEIRD with myself when I came out of Parks & Rec and realized my favorite was dude, even though there's ultimately nothing wrong or bad about that. It's just hard to jump outside the mindset sometimes.