Mythbusters: Fandom Edition (Morality Bites)
October is the month of scares. Of horror and mayhem. Ghosts and villains. So it seems natural that we take some time this month to talk about morality. After all, the horror genre is rife with questionable morality. Lately, though, it seems like fandom wants to hold creators accountable for presenting amoral and immoral characters and situations and not explicitly telling everyone that those characters and situations are amoral or immoral. And, well, as avid creators and consumers ourselves, we have a problem with that.
We’d like to start by saying that we get where the criticisms are coming from. We understand that people worry that fans will be unable to differentiate fantasy from reality and, therefore, take the presentation of elements such as abusive relationships or serial killers as models of how to live their life. We understand that people don’t want fans to be hurt because they take something they see in fiction at face value. But it should be pointed out that this is not a normal circumstance. Children learn at a very early age to distinguish fantasy from reality, and continue to learn with the guidance of the appropriate adults in their lives until they are adults themselves.
What we don’t understand is when it became a creator’s job to act as the parent and the teacher. To be responsible for preaching morality to those who read their stories. At no point in time did creators make a pact to only write perfectly moral stories, and at no point in time did they ever suggest that anyone should use their stories as guides for how to live.
The truth is that perfectly moral stories are boring. In fact, if everyone behaves this way, there’s nothing to say. There are no villains. No bad things happen. Everyone acts wonderfully and then lives happily ever after. Hit the snooze button, because yeah, it’s a snore. The whole point of stories is to have a safe space to explore the darker themes that we’re all naturally curious about. They’re not supposed to be pretty and perfect. They’re supposed to be messy and chaotic. But that’s okay, because they’re not real. When you read a story, you are pushed to look inside yourself and confront what you’ve just learned, and nobody gets hurt in the process. You certainly can’t say that about real life.
Creators are not responsible for putting a flashing sign on their story that says that the people in it are bad and you shouldn’t emulate them. They aren’t responsible for pointing out that a relationship is unhealthy and you shouldn’t want to be in one like it. They aren’t responsible for telling you what’s right and wrong. As an adult, the only person who is responsible for curating your entertainment is you. If you’re a minor, then it’s the job of your parents and any other appropriate mentors in your life. While we understand that’s not always the case, that everyone doesn’t necessarily exist in a wonderfully supportive family, it is still not entertainment’s job to step in and fill that void.
While it’s entirely okay to be critical of how a creator presents certain elements in their narratives, you can’t expect them to abstain from anything even remotely controversial just because someone might interpret it the wrong way. Inevitably, there are going to be bad examples, but our choices are either to live with a few bad examples or have none at all. It’s a slippery slope, and we don’t want to start sliding down it. So be constructive, but don’t make creators responsible for your entertainment experience. That is entirely up to you.