Wiscon: Bechdel panel

[redbird]

desayunoencama just posted that he'd noticed, and been unhappy with, a lack of an organized queer presence at Wiscon, something he had felt and appreciated in previous years. In response, I wrote a bit about one of my panels, and am expanding that a bit here to talk more about the panel itself.

Sunday afternoon, I was on a panel about Alison Bechdel's book Fun Home, which by design and in practice discussed the possible reasons for and effects of the book's unexpected acceptance in mainstream contexts as well as the book as book, in terms of structure, content, stylistic choices, and how we (panelists and audience members) had reacted to it. The discussion went into details like the book as artifact, and what that says about support by the publisher; Bechdel's choice to use limited color; the inclusion of quotes from the Western literary canon; the nonlinear, or maybe spiraling narration; and the ways that Bechdel grounds her personal story in what was going on in the world, and how that connects to what she's done over many years in Dykes to Watch Out For.

It was a very good panel. At the end, the moderator asked each of us what we would like to have happen as a consequence (either causal or sequential) of Fun Home success. I came up with something about more cross-fertilization, I don't remember what the next three people said, and then the last panelist, who came at things from a comics background, actually said that she expected to read more by and about lesbians, which she hadn't previously done because she isn't one. I interrupted and said "We read about straight people."

I shouldn't have to be having that interaction at Wiscon, at a panel about a book by Alison Bechdel.

[footnotes: I'm not naming the person who said that because there were two panelists I didn't know, and I'm not sure which it was. Janet Lafler might, but she's not reachable right now. And yes, I'm bisexual rather than exclusively lesbian.]

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

And isn't that the very same problem where girls are expected to read books about boys but not vice versa that Wiscon was invented to deal with?

Femina sum; humani nihil a me alienum.

[liv]

Speaking from a fairly ignorant perspective, I imagine that part of what happens at Wiscon is that some people go there simply because they're interested in the books and doing general fannish things. Those people may find themselves exposed to feminist ideas, even if they didn't go looking directly for feminism. That's on the whole a good thing, but it has the downside that you may get ignorant comments in an environment where you expect everybody to have the basics covered.

I'm sitting here reading all the panel reports I can get my hands on, and telling myself that if I do a lot of lurking and learning stuff I'll get less ignorant and maybe won't have to lurk so much next year. But someone deliberately avoiding anything written by or about lesbians just because she's straight, that's a bit mind-boggling even for me.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

What you said. One of the cool things about WisCon is that so many of the panels are at the 200 and 300 level (as opposed to, say, Feminism 101). It makes a refreshing change, for me.

I'm not so surprised that these interactions occur even at WisCon; however, I've noticed that they occur far less frequently there. I'll take that, for now.

[redbird]

Yes. It's Wiscon, and it's that someone who was on the panel about the Bechdel book would say that--though I suppose it's evidence of the book's reaching wider audiences that weren't previously thinking about queer issues or non-heterosexual people.

[redbird]

I think it was less deliberately avoiding than thinking of it as the exception: I think, in her world, there are books-unmarked and books-about-lesbians, books-about-women, books-about-blacks, etc. (Books-about-women may be an unmarked state for her.)

[sasha-feather.livejournal.com]

Isn't there a difference between active avoidance of a subject and actively seeking it out?

What I mean is, you might be reading SF/Fantasy for a long time before you even encounter LGBT stuff, if you aren't actively seeking out books by and for the people at WisCon.

Just throwing that out there--I'm not disagreeing at all. Just making a related point.

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

I shouldn't have to be having that interaction at Wiscon, at a panel about a book by Alison Bechdel.

Indeed.

[rachel-edidin.livejournal.com]

I was moderating that panel and was pretty shocked when the panelist sayd that. Good grief.

[redbird]

Do you remember which of the other panelists said it? (I know it was the woman on the far left of the table, but not her name, and I don't want to slander the other panelist I don't know.)

[rachel-edidin.livejournal.com]

Jenni Moody, I believe.

[kightp.livejournal.com]

Good grief. By that reasoning, I suppose I should stop reading books by men.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

I don't read books because or in spite of the author's orientation; I read them because I think I'll like them or be interested by them. I'm pretty sure I've read books by and about most orientations, but I'm too lazy to go back and enumerate them.

[heyfoureyes.livejournal.com]

My hope is that we can Wiscon-ify the community more by this little outreach program to the scared, straight white guys that came to be cool and then clung together. Did you notice the clinging?

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's something I think Wiscon needs to do a bit more of, especially as the con grows and more people come not for the feminist science fiction but because so many cool people DO come there for those reasons.

And this kind of outreach is good not just for the scared straight white guys, but also the straight white guys who think they're sensitive or feminist (or non-straight white guys, or non-white straight guys, or etc. including a number of straight women) but could still use a bit more grounding in sensitivity and exposure to certain fundamental ideas and texts to give everyone a bit more of a shared vocabulary (not to mention respect) and in general fewer preconceived assumptions all around.

exposure to fundamental ideas

[madcapricorn.livejournal.com]

this just in from one of your intrepid WisCon programming co-chairs:

"Wiscon needs to do a bit more . . . grounding in sensitivity and exposure to certain fundamental ideas and texts to give everyone a bit more of a shared vocabulary (not to mention respect) and in general fewer preconceived assumptions all around."

I couldn't agree more. please oh please suggest some really good, chewy, 200 and 300 level program topics. and some ToughLove approaches to the 100 level stuff.

your co-chairs, big ol' queers the both of us, will be thrilled to schedule it. more queer stuff,yes. more clueful and chewier conversation about all things progressive, had by queer and straight folks (and so on), yes.

operators are standing by.

[rachel-edidin.livejournal.com]

It was a pleasure and a priveledge to moderate this panel with you! I had been sort of dreading it, since based on the emails we had exchanged it felt like we were all coming into the discussion from really different and pretty tenuous angles, but the actual panel went far better than I could ever have anticipated. Thank you so much!

[redbird]

We seem to have done a good job of weaving those approaches together: the pre-con discussion got me thinking more about how Bechdel made the book work, and I was looking at that when I reread it on Friday.

[rachel-edidin.livejournal.com]

We're so cool!

Seriously, though, this was one of my favorite panels. What you said above about weaving together our various approaches is spot on: I think we managed to make an initially pretty narrow topic into a much broader--but still directly topically relevant--discussion.

[jiawen]

Mostly because of your report here, I bought the book last time I was at Amazon Books. (No, not the corporate behemoth -- the cool feminist bricks & mortar one here in Minneapolis.)

It was quite a good book. I think I still prefer Stuck Rubber Baby, which is in the same genre. It was more powerful, I think, and Fun Home struck as kind of flattened in its affect. But Fun Home was very good, and I don't want to make a false dichotomy between the two books. I particularly liked how Bechdel showed the tension between gay and lesbian people, and between old/closeted and new/out generations.

(Hope it's okay I'm posting this here. I haven't really had a chance to talk with anyone about the book since reading it.)

[redbird]

It is most definitely okay. I can't pursue the comparison, not having read the Howard Cruse, but I am glad to discuss books in general, and this one in particular.

I think--I'm not certain--that the flattened affect was part of what Bechdel was trying to depict, as an aspect of how her family and upbringing were.