I'm so glad you're talking about this and i completely agree because I think fan culture in general just like. cannot handle tragedies. like its rare for a tragedy to even build up any kind of fan culture at all which i think is because fandom is viewed as a way to escape from reality rather than engage with it. ik you don't listen to the magnus archives but i think this issue is especially prevalent in how a lot of fans get angry when bad stuff happens in the TRAGEDY PODCAST
i think escapism is fine as long as it doesn’t become the basis for the way you view... All Fiction. as creators and consumers, i think we should engage with the things that make us feel bad and upset and uncomfortable (which doesn’t mean like in the fandom way where engaging with tragedy and dark subjects means.... sexing up tragedy and dark subjects OR in the white writer way where the only way to engage with something as sensitive as racism is to have a black character live through a black person’s worst nightmares for some reason). i think this allows us better media literacy as well as reference points for when you’re trying to figure out why an ending or perhaps an entire work dissatisfies you
for Example, i started hating a lotta superhero race allegory after i watched the australian MASTERWORK cleverman because i realized that these white writers and stories simply Couldn’t Compete and i had more language for why they felt so lacking. so much of that show is unpleasant and downright hard to watch, but that’s what makes it so fucking GOOD, it’s HONEST, hello??? can you imagine cleverman’s effectiveness if the hairies just always made it out unscathed every single time? also you should watch it because rarriwuy hick puts her absolute FOOT into every scene, there is talent dripping from her pores she’s iconic
