(here via metafandom link to your next post, but this is interesting...)
American-bashing seems to be part of the culture of the HP fandom
[Necessary disclaimer] I'm not a part of HP fandom any longer (back in the mists of time I used to frequent the SugarQuill), so I don't know what it feels like from the inside.
I do wonder, though, if maybe it feels like persecution because you (American HP fans) aren't used to it? At least in part? Most fandoms are set in the US, or in a setting that derives from the US, so American fans are going to 'get' the idiom without having to think about it. It's the non-US fans who've always had to adapt, unless you're in Blake's 7 or Pros or Dr Who fandom from way back.
Harry Potter is so very deeply rooted in its British setting and antecedents (by which I mean the 'School' stories of deeply unrealistic boarding school life, which I am *certain* J K Rowling read as a kid), I think the Britishness does inhabit the canon in a way that, say, American-ness inhabits Buffy canon. Is it really surprising that British fans feel protective of the Britishness inherent in HP? No, of course that's not an excuse for rudeness, but I wonder if sometimes, something that is perceived as American-bashing may not have been meant that way, it just feels that way because it really doesn't happen in other (fannish) contexts. Perhaps some of the British fans like having the chance to be 'authorities' on canon because in so much of fandom, they really aren't.
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Date: 2007-03-29 11:49 am (UTC)American-bashing seems to be part of the culture of the HP fandom
[Necessary disclaimer] I'm not a part of HP fandom any longer (back in the mists of time I used to frequent the SugarQuill), so I don't know what it feels like from the inside.
I do wonder, though, if maybe it feels like persecution because you (American HP fans) aren't used to it? At least in part? Most fandoms are set in the US, or in a setting that derives from the US, so American fans are going to 'get' the idiom without having to think about it. It's the non-US fans who've always had to adapt, unless you're in Blake's 7 or Pros or Dr Who fandom from way back.
Harry Potter is so very deeply rooted in its British setting and antecedents (by which I mean the 'School' stories of deeply unrealistic boarding school life, which I am *certain* J K Rowling read as a kid), I think the Britishness does inhabit the canon in a way that, say, American-ness inhabits Buffy canon. Is it really surprising that British fans feel protective of the Britishness inherent in HP? No, of course that's not an excuse for rudeness, but I wonder if sometimes, something that is perceived as American-bashing may not have been meant that way, it just feels that way because it really doesn't happen in other (fannish) contexts. Perhaps some of the British fans like having the chance to be 'authorities' on canon because in so much of fandom, they really aren't.