When Gatekeepers Remix Reality

[laceblade]

As those of you who read my Twitter know, there was some excitement last week when a local news station contacted the WisCon 37 co-coordinators to ask about our interest in a TV interview.
I responded enthusiastically.

The first option, for a live segment in-studio on Saturday, 5/18, wasn't possible because I was going to be out of town with my family.
Instead, we were offered a taped segment at the con itself, which would air on Saturday.
I emailed the convention-planning committee to see who else was willing to be filmed.
K. Tempest Bradford responded almost immediately, which pleased me quite a bit.

In email, I emphasized more than once that when filming Tempest &/or I, the reporter needed to ask permission of anyone appearing on camera, to comply with WisCon's photography/filming policy (which requires that the people on film be asked their permission). She agreed.

Tempest was delayed by travel plans. At karaoke on Thursday night, I cast about to find a replacement, and asked Cabell, who was very comfortable being interviewed.

On Friday, I said several things on camera. I was surprised by the question about the WisCon troll incident.
The reporter asked something to the effect of, "You've mentioned those who take pictures of your members, post them online, and make fun of them. What do you say to those people?"
My response was a hesitation, and then, "What I have to say probably isn't suitable for network TV."

I witnessed most of Cabell's comments on-camera, which were great. When asked about the speculative fiction aspect being paired with feminism, Cabell talked about the ability to create different realities in fiction, and I thought that was just awesome.

I spent the weekend trying to find the segment on Channel3000.com's shitty website, and couldn't. I had to ask the reporter directly.


In case the embed doesn't work, here is a link.

My initial reaction was fury, because the reporter did not ask permission from approximately half of those who appear in the background shots of this segment.

The TV segment's title refers to WisCon as the "state's" leading feminist science fiction convention. I am unaware of any OTHER feminist sf/f conventions in the state of Wisconsin. We certainly bill ourselves as the world's leading feminist sf/f. So far as I'm aware, that is accurate.

After interviewing me & Cabell on Friday, the reporter apparently went off to find a convention attendee who refers to himself as Orange Mike. This is due to the exclusivity of his wardrobe, which only contains fluorescent orange garments. I think it's safe to say that the reporter found the most outlandish-looking convention attendee (which is saying something, as Cabell dyes her hair Atomic Pink).

In the segment, Orange Mike refers to the members of WisCon as his "tribe," and thus so does the reporter.
Later in the segment, Orange Mike refers to the convention itself as "our tribal pow-wow," a culturally appropriative reference with which I am uncomfortable.

The reporter says that we discuss today's "most popular" science fiction, which is sometimes true. We also discuss things that are cast aside by popular fandom to focus on things written by women, by people of color, etc., and the latter is way more important to me.

It isn't hard to find people who read George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones.
It isn't hard to find people who like Star Trek.
I wouldn't spend much time or energy running a convention just "for geeks." In fact, I co-founded a con just like that and then almost immediately abandoned it.

It is hard to find people who will critique the things they love - people who will point out that it's fucked up that in a 21st century reimaginging of Star Trek, all but one member of the crew are cis men, or that Game of Thrones incorporates white savior narratives & fails to problemetize its representation of race.

It is also hard to find conventions that proactively provide spaces for wheelchairs in all rooms, that encourages its members not to wear scented products so as to provoke the allergies of some members.

It is hard to find a science fiction convention that provides a separate room as a safer space for people of color.

The reporter in this segment says, "For people like Orange Mike, [WisCon] is home."
I'm not going to bar him at the door & I'm glad he had a great time, but I don't give a fuck about Orange Mike or his ilk.
I don't spend time wondering which aspects of the convention will attract more cis older white men.
There are plenty of science fiction conventions that cater to them.

I wish that, for all of the years he's gone to WisCon, Orange Mike would have better internalized the messages communicated by his fellow attendees.
I wish that when he was asked to speak on camera about WisCon, he could have said, "Well, this is a feminist science fiction convention and maybe you should speak with someone who doesn't identify as male."

I wish that this segment didn't erase the feminism from the statements that Cabell and I made.

I wish that instead of cutting my comment to just say, "We try to be welcoming to everyone," the reporter had included what preceded it, in which I said that many science fiction conventions are very white and very male, and that WisCon tries to make it a safer space for people of color, for women, for people who identify outside the gender binary, for PWD.

I wish that instead of this segment being about "geeks finding other geeks and being happy," it was about people coming together to critique the representations of society that appear in speculative fiction.

I wish that the segment itself didn't privilege the perspective of an aging man over the perspectives of two younger women.

Mostly, I feel angry with myself. I really don't know what I expected.



ETA: A commenter has noted that while I refer to Mike as white in this post & dissect his use of the words "tribe" and "pow-wow," he is in fact a member of the Cherokee nation. Rather than alter what I originally posted, I'm putting this note here.
Mike also commented on a different post to correct me, also.

Comments

[futuransky]

WTF. Orange fucking Mike. I am so sorry!

[j00j]

Wowwww yeah how do you even make this from Wiscon? Oh, right. Kyriarchy.

Also I am so sorry this happened. Don't blame yourself. You gave an interview in good faith and they did a really impressive job of ignoring everything we were actually doing.

[sasha_feather]

Well said. <3 The people who make media have a lot of power of skewing the truth.

[zhelana]

Why on earth do people of color need a safer space in 2013? Either that's ridiculous, or geeks/con goers suck, because they don't need or have that space in any other situation.

[starlady]

Gaaah that shit is terrible. My experience with even supposedly sympathetic media coverage has not been much better--they have an angle and they want to work it regardless of what people are actually telling them. You acted in good faith, and it's not on you that they totally ignored what you actually said.

[sinister_sigils]

I would like to note that Orange Mike is a member of the Cherokee Nation, so, when he says "our tribal pow-pow" he is, in fact, complimenting the rest of us. He's also been coming to WisCon since very early days, and I don't think you could ask for a more genuinely feminist man. It's a feminist SF con, and he identifies as feminist, which anyone who really knows him would agree with. He's also very genial, loves to talk, and speaks well on camera, so I wouldn't expect him to not talk to someone. After all, it's s reasonable expectation that the reporter would have talked to other people as well. What message SHOULD Mike have "internalized the messages communicated by his fellow attendees"? That men should STFU? I've been here for every WisCon, and that is not the message.

The one thing you can rely on mundane press to do is screw it up. Years ago, when we still had masquerades, if there was a picture in the local paper it was always of the most grotesque costume, together with the "Sci-Fi Freaks Invade City" leader.

I could also go on about the time, at WisCon Five, that I spent two hours showing a reporter and camera operator from Channel 3 around the con and explaining it in great detail, only to have the segment cut to a meaningless thirty seconds that ran literally the last thing on the 10:30 news, AFTER the sports.

Your issue is with the perennially ignorant shallow press, and probably chiefly with the reporter's producer, who would have been the one who actually edited the segment. Even with the best of intentions, reporters rarely get final say about what goes on the air.

Yes, it's frustrating. We have to keep hoping that one of these days we'll get a news crew that actually gets it. It's the same job of consciousness raising that needs to be ongoing in every field.

You are right to be angry, but a genuinely nurturing male ally is not a proper target for your anger.

[wintercreek]

I agree with j00j - Kyriarchy in action. It's amazing how much unexamined privilege allows people to completely ignore any narrative but the one they've already decided on.

I understand feeling angry. But also: not your fault that the interviews got cut the way they did or that the reporter misrepresented and ignored the need to get permission.

Here, have a DOOM icon.

[emceeaich]

Media. Gah.

[jesse_the_k]

The sad news is Channel3000 / ch 3 is the best of the local news outlets. I was misquoted in an earlier life many times, even by them. It made me understand the utility of PR teams (if not always their morality). We hope to be able to speak from the heart but if we want to get a specific msg out, we may have to shave our ideas to fit in a msg-shaped box. :(

[metaphortunate]

Ugh, another fucking story about scaly llamas.

"We know what science fiction congoers are like! Let's find a congoer who looks like that and talk to him." (Definitely HIM.)

The WISC video

[troublebrewing.livejournal.com]

One reason I never volunteer to go to on camera on any of these interviews: I can't trust myself to get our message across succinctly. But even with people who are well-spoken and on-message, they [we] are not controlling the end product.

Honestly, this piece is fabulous compared to some of the past pieces that were all costume and no content. I saw books, I heard the phrase social justice. I saw people of various colors, genders, and sizes. I count that as a win.

And don't be too hard on Mike: He has internalized the feminist message very well. Who knows what actual question he was responding to? He has never been anything but kind to me, and has been attending WisCon since before you even heard of it. Isn't our tent big enough for him? Do we have to crowd out allies just because they stay male, stay [mostly] white, and get older? Do I have to quit going to WisCon because I am not young enough? Dark enough? Hip enough?

The story may not be everything you had hoped it would be, but you were fine in it, and it was far from the worst thing I have ever read or seen about WisCon.

[littlebutfierce]

Ew. Fucking media distortions, etc. etc.

I also think "internalizing the feminist message" would've, YEAH, meant maybe saying "HEY AS A DUDE MAYBE THERE ARE BETTER PEOPLE WHO COULD SPEAK TO YOU ABOUT THIS."

(Also, TINIEST VIOLIN for people who fear they are "too light" for WisCon, right up there w/those ppl who make noise about how they fear WisCon has "lost its feminist roots" b/c omg we talk about racism & transphobia & classism & etc. so obvs not feminist somehow anymore!)

[jinian]

I was just talking with my best friend over dinner tonight about Wiscon's demographic split between young/intersectional and older/traditional-fannish (though of course that's not absolute). Traditional fandom annoys the hell out of me, and I don't think it's what Wiscon was ever supposed to be about, so it's especially frustrating when that's all the media wants to see.

There is no reason to be angry with yourself. I get to be angry with myself, though: I didn't stop them from filming the clothing swap. I didn't know whether they had asked permission, and I wasn't sure the camera was running, but I should've made damned sure and I didn't. I'm sorry.

[jiawen]

I wrote to the reporter (her email address is given in the clip) and said what lazy reporting I thought it was.