thuvia ptarth

Moderated by flummery (Seah and Margie).
A review of the Premieres show.

Usual disclaimer re: memory and reliability. {}=my comments after the fact.

Actually, more than the usual disclaimer: By Vid Review, I was wiped out and not taking notes as thorough as usual, and I'd also found myself absorbing less of Premieres than usual, or at least than I've convinced myself I can as usual. I don't always get a lot on one viewing of a vid, but I usually get something, and sometimes, by Saturday night, I just wasn't. Premieres is a lot of vids at once and I blank out on Not My Fandom vids more than I do in shorter vidshows; some of these vids I don't remember at all.

Not My Fandoms
The Not My Fandoms that were popular this year were Stargate: Atlantis and Dr. Who/Torchwood, and what I'm most surprised about is that I enjoyed and/or was able to follow the vids way more than I usually am with popular Not My Fandoms. It probably helped that neither of them featured monochrome source, a single season of footage, and women being pinned to the ceiling and set on fire, and that the SGA vids either didn't focus so claustrophobically on the Bert/Ernie ship and/or were otherwise visually and stylistically distinctive. SGA is kind of weird for me: so much of SGA vidding that I see seems to be focused inward, on a common intra-fandom dialect and/or fanon and/or set of conventions and in-jokes, and I don't get the joke. I suppose this is true of every fandom, and this just happens to be one of the times it's a relatively large, current fandom that I'm not interested in; if Harry Potter were better represented at Vividcon, I suspect I'd have a similar response to it. (I'm not sure why it isn't, except maybe that in terms of vidding there's a lot less source available than there is for fiction.)

Torchwood/Dr. Who has never left me feeling as blank as SGA, but I don't have really good recall for most of the vids that were shown; I'll need to see them again. What's new for me this year is that I actually want to see most of them again, as opposed to wanting to just skip over them when going through the DVDs. But my notes on them are sketchier than the discussion was.

( Actual Vid Commentary! )

Usual disclaimer re: reliability and reconstruction. Let me know if you have corrections. {} = my comments after the fact

( SweetestDrain, 'Gloria' (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles) )
( Obsessive24, 'Climbing up the Walls' (Firefly/Heroes/Supernatural) )

Moderated by fan_eunice and sisabet.
This panel will address stratgies to overcome overwhelming vidder insecurity, ennui, fandom crises, and general suckitude. But first? We WALLOW!!! Chocolate will be provided.

They did provide chocolate; they provided an entire emergency kit: chocolate llama lollipops (made by vagabondage, I think?), hug cards, render stress balls.

You cannot have mine. I am keeping it.

sisabet made a video of her unfinished videos. It may be my favorite vid of the con. I am sorry she hasn't put it online.

Most characteristic sisabet quote: "It's ironic -- actually, that's not ironic, it's just typical."

fan_eunice and sisabet started off by identifying constructive vs. destructive suckitude. It's important to identify which you're feeling so that you can seek the right kind of help: chocolate and hugs or constructive/practical assistance.

Constructive	Destructive
I didn't write anything down for "Constructive", which would be telling if I needed to be told.	you hate your beta comparing yourself to other vidders you delete all your files

Eating: very important. Also, don't forget to pee.

Sometimes you need to take a break/wallow. please back away from the delete button.

Get a second opinion before you delete anything

If someone says "vidding is hard," that's a code: it means "hug me now."

Know what you can expose yourself to: sometimes you need to stay away from other vidders' work to avoid performance anxiety, comparisons that will make you feel bad, performance anxiety. Sometimes you need to avoid your own previous work, because it's not good to compare yourself to anyone, even your previous self.

Different kinds of hard
celli mentioned the first time anxiety, of having to do something for the first time; others mentioned the feeling of having to surpass a previous success. deejay pointed out that even experienced vidders have first-time anxiety when they have to learn new tools.

jackiekjono: Be wary of the "I hate to impose" feeling; don't hesitate to ask questions.

theodosia: Keep in mind that every single project you undertake is not a vote on your worth as a human being. Don't be afraid to quit or just to put something down and come back to it later.

fan_eunice: Make the worst possible vid you can.

heresluck: I've had to learn that other people's goals for me may not have anything to do with my goals for myself.

Note: I take notes at the con, then clean them up afterwards. The clean-up process involves a lot of memory and reconstruction, so even things that are in the first-person aren't guaranteed to be exact quotes, just my reconstruction. Please let me know of any corrections. Notes in {} are me adding my opinion after the fact.

Moderated by cesperanza and counteragent. Accompanied the Vids That Push the Envelope show veejayed by cesperanza, counteragent, and laurashapiro.
The purpose of this panel is to discuss current motivations and practices of vidding. Do we make vids for the same reasons we've always made them? What are vids doing now that is new, or is there nothing new under the sun? Are there trends in vidding, or are these just evolutions of older forms? How far can we push the envelope and still consider our creations fan vids?

( Cut for length )

White America (BtVS, Veronica Mars, Supernatural) by anonymous

So my basic take on this vid is that the vidder was so caught up in their own interpretation of the lyrics and the clips they were using that they didn't realize either part was capable of multiple interpretations independently and even more interpretations in conjunction. There are times when being able to argue equally for mutually exclusive interpretations of a work of art is good, but this is not one of them.

Eminem's "White America" is a complicated, compelling, and frustrating response to public, mass media, and even government complaints about violence, homophobia, and misogyny in rap music -- there were even Congressional hearings on it. And this is still an ongoing issue -- Eminem is responding to events from the 1990s, but there was another round of hearings in 2007 or 2008. Eminem argues that the outcry is racist and hypocritical: white America was perfectly happy to ignore rap music when it considered it "black music" and only targeted it for repression once it spread to white middle-class kids ("See the problem is, I speak to suburban kids who otherwise would've never knew these words exist, whose moms probably woulda never gave two squirts of piss, till I created so much motherfuckin' turbulence.... hip hop was never a problem in Harlem, only in Boston.") And I agree with this entirely.

It's when he gets into the white entitlement whine that I have issues: he argues his race wasn't a benefit in hip hop ("When I was underground, no one gave a fuck I was white, no labels wanted to sign me, almost gave up") and that it marks him out for extra critical attention ("so now I'm catchin' the flack from these activists when they raggin', actin' like I'm the first rapper to smack a bitch, or say faggot/shit, just look at me like I'm your closest pal, the posterchild, the mother fuckin' spokesman now for/White America"). He doesn't have white privilege, in other words. He gets it way worse than the black rappers. Which is, you know, total bullshit. [eta: giandujakiss points out that this isn't entirely fair, because at times Eminem *does* explicitly acknowledge white privilege: "let's do the math, if I was black, I would've sold half, I Ain't have to graduate from Lincoln high school to know that."] Eminem got targeted for a lot of reasons, including his race, and also including his popularity and brilliance (he is brilliant, you know, Greg Tate in Everything But the Burden: What White People Take from Black Culture has a frustrated paragraph on Eminem in which he says, basically, Eminem's appropriating black culture but the results are fucking brilliant, goddamnit), but none of this meant he got it worse than black rappers like Public Enemy or Dr. Dre, and the racist structure of US society and the music industry both ensured that he reaped more benefits from it. And his own damn song argues against him: when black kids get into rap, they're treated like dangerous thugs who must be put down; when white kids get into rap, they're treated like precious children who must be saved. In both cases, rap--associated with blackness--is treated like a disease, a danger, an infection; but the white kids are treated like kids with a bad illness and the black kids are treated like the illness the white kids have. (I'm sorry to simplify American race relations into just two races, but I think that's actually the entire simplified stereotype that's at work here.)

So the song itself has this crucial ambiguity in which it's protesting hypocrisy and racism but it's also attempting to deny the benefits of racism that accrue to its writer. As an additional problem, at least if you're planning to use this song to protest racism, sexism, and classism, people who accuse Eminem of being misogynist and homophobic are demonstrably right. There's a level of racism, classism, and power display in the way rap is held accountable for these things and other forms of music aren't, and in the way that the worst offenders and not the best defenders are held up as representative of rap; but, basically, saying, "Lots of other people are sexist and homophobic, too" doesn't actually eliminate Eminem's responsibility for being sexist and homophobic, because personal responsibility does not work that way. (And a lot of this should probably be in the past tense. I get the impression Eminem's actually re-thought the sexism, misogyny, and homophobia in recent years--possibly because he's just tired of fighting, but I personally like to hope that's he's actually thought better of it. Like, you know, maybe as his baby girl grows up he realizes that, hey! it's not really great for her to sing vocals on a song where he's fantasizing about murdering her mother and maybe it really is not that awesome for her to exist in a world where boys call her a bitch and a ho and a piece of ass. Sometimes I'm optimistic like that.)

Anyway, any vidder who wants to use this song to address hypocrisy, racism, misogyny, classism, or political argument--and I think the one thing all viewers have agreed on is that the vidder does want to say *something* about those--has to be aware of the ambiguities in and surrounding the song and has to choose clips that will either exploit or reduce the ambiguity as best helps their argument. And instead the vidder seems to have not exactly noticed the ambiguity, or rather they had a very clear take on how *they* interpreted the lyrics and a very unrealistic expectation of how shared that interpretation would be.

The person who posted the vid (who may or may not be the vidder; how would any of us know?) says, "[I]f racial issues are the only thing that Eminem conjure up in your brain, then, well, then you listen to him differently than I do." And that right there is part of the problem. Of course other people listen to Eminem differently than the vidder does. Everyone listens to every artist differently, but that's even more the case with controversial and political artists. Additionally, the refrain of the song--and the place where the vidder cut the song to start--is Eminem shouting, "WHITE AMERICA!" [eta 2: Rewatched and I was wrong about this: the song has the original intro, and the first phrase is "AMERICA!" not "WHITE AMERICA!" But given that "WHITE AMERICA" is the refrain, I don't think associating "AMERICA" with "WHITE AMERICA" is a stretch.] That's not exactly redirecting the audience to a nonracial reading of the phrase, especially when the vid stars three white protagonist, and the second two sections of the vid (after the opening that establishes it's a multi-fandom vid) both seem to deal with race: Spike's violence against people of color and Veronica Mar's friendship and (the vid suggests) betrayal of Wallace. If the vid was meant not to deal with race, or not entirely with race, then the Spike section shouldn't have been first and/or should have focused on non-racialized violence.

These are the interpretations of the vid I can come up with so far:

1. Fuck you, fandom, for forgiving pretty white boys and girls anything, for cherishing every bruise on their skin and every drop of blood they shed, while never giving a fuck for all the people of color or white women or poor people they hurt on the way, let alone all the people of color and white women and poor people who aren't represented.
   
   
2. Fuck you, fandom, for bitching about the poor politics of my woobies or the shows my woobies are on, because they're in pain and I'm in pain because you're harshing my squee.
   
   
3. Fuck you, demons and monsters and rich rapists, for ruining the lives of Spike, Veronica, and Dean.
   

So the fact that I can get the COMPLETELY OPPOSITE readings of 1 vs. 2, and the completely different intra-textual as opposed to extra-textual readings of 1 and 2 vs. 3, are because, as an argument, the vid's a mess. It's possible to tell the vidder is angry; it's impossible to tell what they're angry about. The vid seems to switch haphazardly between treating "white America" as something inside the text and something outside the text--which it actually is, it's both a social population and a media construct--but fails to acknowledge that arguing about the text and arguing about its audience are not always identical, and/or that if "white America" is sometimes literal and sometimes a metaphor, you need to be clearer about when it's which. It is really hard for me to tell whether Spike, Veronica, and Dean are supposed to be villains or victims or both simultaneously, or who's being condemned for what. veredus, I know, argues that the three are "punished" for their various violations and betrayals, but this doesn't work well as an intratextual argument: when Spike burns alive, he's saving the world, textually redeemed by heroism; Veronica is raped before her friendship with Wallace, the second rape attempt isn't related to a breakdown in their friendship, and indeed she actually sacrifices her own goals at significant times at Wallace's request; Dean's violence towards women (or the demons possessing women's bodies) is not a textual cause of his death or suffering.

So as a political vid, this could be arguing something I agree with, something I disagree with, or something which I think is an indefensible analysis of the text. And it's a failure, not because I don't agree with it, but because it isn't clear enough about what it's saying for me to tell what I'm supposed to be agreeing or disagreeing with.

Initially, I'd counted this as one of the two vids dealing with race, but now I'm just not sure.

Title: Black Black Heart
Vidders: astolat and thuviaptarth
Fandom: The Revengers Tragedy
Music: David Usher
Summary: A man who were for evil only good.

Premiered at Vividcon 2008.

Streaming or download

( Embedded )

Entirely Optional Notes
eta note on source: The Revengers Tragedy is a Jacobean revenge tragedy adapted into a grungy, sumptuous dystopian science fiction movie starring Christopher Eccleston, and featuring Eddie Izzard, Derek Jacobi, and many other people vaguely familiar to me from other British TV and movies.

Since it's called The Revengers Tragedy, I do not feel it constitutes a spoiler to warn you that ( this thing I am going to spoiler-cut anyway happens ).

The original play was once attributed to Cyril Tourneur, who produced nothing else but a truly awful play called The Atheist's Tragedy, and is now commonly believed to have been written by Thomas Middleton, although I have my doubts, since The Changlelings and Women Beware Women are just as misogynistic as The Revenger's Tragedy but have much rounder characterization. My favorite speech from The Revenger's Tragedy is pretty characteristic, both in language and attitude:

VINDICI to THE SKULL OF HIS MURDERED WIFE:
Thou sallow picture of my poisoned love,
My study's ornament, thou shell of death,
Once the bright face of my betrothed lady,
When life and beauty naturally fill'd out
These ragged imperfections,
When two heaven-pointed diamonds were set
In those unsightly rings: then 'twas a face
So far beyond the artificial shine
Of any woman's bought complexion
That the uprightest man, if such there be,
That sin but seven times a day, broke custom
And made up eight with looking after her.

You know, I so seldom have the opportunity to press random Jacobean quotes on people! Have another, to Vindici from his mother:

I'll give you this, that one I never knew
Plead better for and 'gainst the devil than you.

Hey. I'm having a pretty bad post-con crash and dealing with some personal stuff that started coming down over the weekend, so I'll probably be even slower about responding to comments than usual.

I locked the Townhall on Vidding and Visibility notes after posting them because of some concerns about (ha) too much visibility. I'd like to make them public again, but only if the people cited are comfortable with the level of anonymity and the way I've represented them, and it's going to take me a while to check with everybody. In the meantime, kassrachel has a public post here.

I'm going to try to get down panel reports first, because they'll suffer the most from delay and dimming of memory. I wanted to comment on the premieres of non-attending vidders, because they didn't get to judge by applause, "aw"s, or laughter, but my first several comments came out backhanded and/or zombie-like, so that will have to wait. But I recommend people check out aycheb's "Scarlet Ribbons," charmax's "Tanglewood Tree", keewick's "32" and "Sorry", halcyon_shift's "Natural Blues", and cherryice's "Ghosts (4)", all non-Premieres-Show premiering vids by nonattending vidders that are just as strong as the best of Premieres.

harriet_spy has an interesting take on the Vids That Push The Envelope panel, which ... hmm. Her perceptions of the panel don't exactly match mine, and I disagree with several things in the comments. But it's worth reading. I'm not sure it will come out right because of my current zombie-like state, but I don't feel like I'm anxious about changes in vidding as an artform (whereas I am definitely anxious about changes in visibility). I'm excited! I think the potential for new and different vids is awesome. I'm excited by the new kinds of vids I'm seeing, I'm excited by the new vidders I've discovered, I'm excited by having needs met that haven't been fulfilled before, I'm excited by seeing things I hadn't even thought to want before. Some people at the panel spoke of how what they wanted to see as viewers or achieve as vidders had expanded over time, but for me, honestly, I feel less like what I want has changed (that was probably the first two Vividcons I went to) than that what I want is finally happening. cesperanza spoke (at this panel? some other time at the con?) about how, looking at vids, she felt like she was watching TV "as we would make it--and it's better than the way the mainstream makes it," but this was the first year I had a glimpse of that. And that relates, obviously, to the different ways that people define "we," as well as our different wants, and relates to some of the issues I have with cesperanza's own premiere, "Supersmart."

Vidding is so intertwined with slash fandom, and that means different things to hardcore slashers, people who have slash as a sexual identity, people for whom the presence of slash indicates us, and people who enjoy slash sometimes but who don't see it as inextricable with their personal or fannish identity. Maybe I am simplifying? I don't want to misrepresent people. But I think there are a lot of people who see slash on the screen and that makes them basically happy, that makes them feel represented, that fulfills their desires, and I don't just mean their sexual desires. Whereas for me it's not enough for me to see women's art on the screen: I need to see actual women. I need women to be present in the text, as well as reshaping it. I need new stories, or old stories brought out, I need marginalized stories centered, I need the world re-centered on women (white women and women of color) and people of color (women of color and men of color) and queer people and slash stories (which are not the same thing. I think? Maybe? Sometimes?) I need more.

And I'm getting more. This excites me and satisfies me and makes me happy in ways I can't even say.

And some of the more isn't for me, doesn't do what I am interested in doing, but I'm glad that it exists for other people and also I think that it enables some of what I want or don't yet know to want. Creative ferment is exciting, it's the sign of a living, changing artform, it makes me so happy that it's going on.

Usually I post panel reports here and then link to them in the comms, but it seemed like a better idea to reverse the practice for the Town Hall on Vidding and Visibility. Also cross-posted to vividcon.

Man, it took forever to clean my notes up. I think I will watch vids now.

Favorite premiering vid
aycheb's "Scarlet Ribbons" - If you are a BtVS fan, download NOW.

Themes and changes
I felt like this year's theme was women and relationships between women (we easily doubled or tripled the vid possibilities for another relationships between women show) and that made me really happy.

AAARGH. Had much longer comment on this, but erased it in edits. Anyway: improvement in number of vids featuring POC more incremental, but still noticeable. I counted 6 or 7 vids focused on an actor of color or on an ensemble prominantly featuring multiple actors of color plus 2 vids explicitly critiquing the absence of POC from media or fandom, and that's not counting ensemble or single-character or romance vids in which there was a significant presence of actors of color (i.e., there's an SGA vid which is John/Rodney but a really significant emphasis on team as family with real face time for Ronon and Teyla, a bunch of Torchwood vids focused on Jack with a team emphasis, etc.).

Also, my hotel room keycard spontaneously deactivated.

Con itself SUPERAWESOME, though.  Will eventually write about that.