Another Example

Last night, I wrote all the stuff about personal identity politics and how it can ruin fandom for people. Today I read a perfect example of this in the comments section of a blog post about Game of Thrones. The article itself wasn't on the merits of the show. It wasn't praising it or saying it was awful. It merely reported that the first four episodes had leaked and then speculated about how HBO might handle this. Some suggested they might just release the whole season at once, the way Netflix does their shows. That way, no one would have to face spoilers. Others said that part of the beauty of GoT is watching it in groups, anticipating what will happen, etc. I may write more about that at a later point.

In the midst of this very pleasant comment discussion, suddenly a random troll appears. Actually, I'm not even sure he was. Most of the time when people troll, they are expecting people to react very badly to what they have to say. I think this guy honestly thought he was making valid points. He said that he hated GoT and most HBO shows because they pander to people. He complained about how they included People of Color just for the sake of adding them, put in elements like homosexuality just to be progressive, and had an unattractive female warrior just to make the feminists happy.

People were kind of baffled by this. HBO didn't do these things. GRRM wrote a lot of this years and years ago and many of the elements he was complaining about were already in the books. He even tried to say the curse words were just there to make the show be edgy.

See, this is where identity politics can really become a problem. This person filtered everything about the show through his perception of shows just pandering to a certain level of political correctness. If a woman had a sword, it HAD to be the show trying to pander to feminists. If there is an inclusion of homosexual characters, it HAS to be because this is just something people do now. People of Color can only show up because it's just something you do. Clearly, every time he saw the shows add an aspect that he saw as politically correct or inclusive, it just made him more angry.

Without this kind of personal identity politics in play, what you see are characters who are part of the story. Yes, different colors, genders, and sexual orientations are represented, but that is just how life is. The story isn't doing this to 'cover all the bases,' it's doing it because that is how the story goes. It's just showing that some stories are about more than cis straight white men. It isn't done to pander (at least, not in this case) and it's certainly not done because the author was just checking off boxes.

So here is this person who, because of how he views the world (via his personal identity politics), will find himself not enjoying a lot of shows because they make choices he assumes just HAVE TO BE because it's the politically correct choice to make. And while that may not be the reality of why it was done, it becomes HIS reality, because he just can't believe it's any other way. That's really sad.