Actors Are Not Your Posable Dolls: A Rant.

[rionaleonhart]

Hello! First, a call for help: are you from the East Midlands? Are you aged between eighteen and twenty-five? If so, and if you have the time, please consider popping over here to help sparklenight, my fellow English Language student, with her dissertation on accent features of the East Midlands. It would be extremely kind of you.


And now, alas, although I generally try to keep this journal a place of happiness, I have to take a moment to express how appalled I am by the way in which certain parts of the Supernatural fandom are reacting to the news that Jared Padalecki and Genevieve Cortese are engaged.



DEAR SUPERNATURAL FANDOM: PLEASE STOP BEING INSANE. I cannot believe some of the comments I have seen on the announcement that Jared Padalecki and Genevieve Cortese are engaged. One person across whose comments I have unfortunately stumbled has essentially said 'I CAN'T BELIEVE JARED IS GOING TO PAY FOR A WEDDING TO SOMEONE HIS FANS HATE WITH OUR MONEY'.

Firstly: Jared has not committed a crime against his fanbase by choosing to marry someone he wants to marry, rather than someone of whom his fans (speak for yourself, by the way) approve. All Jared owes us is his acting. We have absolutely no influence over his personal life. We have no right to influence his personal life.

Secondly: as we as fans don't actually know much about Cortese as a person, I can only assume that the dislike of her is based on a dislike of the way she played Ruby. I personally liked her Ruby, but that's beside the point. If you don't think someone is a good actor, that does not mean she is not a good person. I can't act at all, but I hope that doesn't mean I deserve to have scorn and derision poured on non-acting-related areas of my life.

I have seen absolutely no solid reasons to hate Cortese. All I have on which to base my judgement of her as a person is our very brief exchange whilst she gave me her autograph at Asylum, and she was lovely then. That's not solid evidence that she's lovely in her day-to-day life, no, but I am happy to assume, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that she is not a horrible person (would Jared be marrying her if she were?). Hatred is a dangerous judgement; surely it should be based on something.

Another argument I've seen is 'he can't marry her, she's not pretty enough'. This is evidently complete nonsense, because she is adorable, but even if she weren't: attractiveness is not a requirement. Even if Cortese were the ugliest person on the planet, that would not mean she didn't 'deserve' Jared.

In conclusion: please stop saying that Jared 'deserves better'. You do not know his fiancée, and his personal life is really none of your business. I love the Supernatural fandom; please stop making me feel embarrassed to be a part of it. I really, really hope nobody attacks the poor woman in the street.



Er, sorry about the rant. Congratulations to Jared and Genevieve, and I hope they're very happy! Have some adorable dancing Pikachu videos to make up for this entry: one, two.

Comments

[amy-wolf.livejournal.com]

For me, being around fanfic more makes a difference. Not just desensitization, but also finding that for pretty much any type of fic that freaks me out, I'll end up being friends with one perfectly lovely and rational person who writes that for reasons that actually make sense, which may even be the same reason that I write stuff that freaks other people out. So it's hard for me to be creeped out in the way you're describing, even when it's nasty stuff written to get off. Because I expect what I usually run into - very nice people going "This is a completely freaky kink that would be profoundly wrong to put into practice in real life, and I have no idea why I like writing fic about it, but I really do, and apparently some of you actually want to read it!"

[darkest-alchemy.livejournal.com]

I don't have many LJ friends (and don't go on many communities - I just don't have time), and I guess probably, hmm, less than a third of those friends are ones from any fandoms. So my experience of fanfic writers, especially up to a couple of months ago, was mainly limited to total strangers writing stuff. So I didn't get the... I can't think of the word... but no discovering them as a person, no disclaimer about whether it's something they think is really wrong but acceptable in fiction or suchlike and nothing about their reasons for writing whatever. Just people posting all weird contextless stuff and other people posting about how hot that was. Which sort of seems to be more of a Wincest thing than the SPN pairing I'm interested in (Dean/Cas - or for that matter the other couple of fandoms I'd say I was involved in) so is something really I can ignore mostly (well not always but more) now having figured out LJ communities and that but, it *seriously* put me off the whole SPN fandom for several months (I only started watching SPN last year) when all I seemed to find was people with bizarre and sometimes completely sick kinks and fans of those same kinks (well that and Sam/Dean domestic fluff which I also hate, heh, though that's not creepy as such). It probably is different when you know the people more or at least have some idea about them rather than just seeing individual pieces of fiction, but I still don't really have that; the few fandom friends I have now don't seem to write any of the stuff that would really creep me out or if they do then I don't know that they do.