Author: thesecularistliberal

Fanfic and religion

What a conservative Christian’s choice to rewrite Harry Potter shows about fandom and religion

This week several newspapers reported that fanfic.net user ‘Grace Ann’, a conservative Christian, is rewriting Harry Potter to remove the magic and bring the story in line with her own values. Grace Ann has posted the first 7 chapters of her fic. All the reporting I’ve seen on this has been pretty disparaging of Hogwarts School of Prayer and Miracles. A bit of digging makes it look like the fic may be Poe but this is by no means clear.

As a liberal, an atheist and a Harry Potter fan, you might think I’d be against seeing one of my favorite pieces of fiction used in this way. But though I probably disagree with her values, I can imagine the appeal Grace sees in writing her own fic.

Even if Grace is a Poe, if she or other fans find the ideas and characters of the Harry Potter story valuable but have problems with other parts, then as a fans they’re welcome to reinterpret the work to reflect that. Just as when I read certain chapters I make mental adjustments to “fix” the original work’s objectively awful Quidditch rules.

Definition: “Fanfiction is when someone takes either the story or characters (or both) of a certain piece of work, whether it be a novel, tv show, movie, etc, and create their own story based on it.”

Fan fiction allows consumers of piece of fiction to take ownership of it. Fan fiction allows people to reinterpret an original work, to explore different themes or ideas and even to reimagine large parts of it to fit with their own values. This can include enhancing elements that the fan feels the original author(s) could have better explored.

What I do find interesting is the purported conversion of a pretty progressive work of fiction to make its values less progressive.

Take for example Hermione Granger; my interpretation of the character is as an important feminist hero in modern popular fiction. Grace Ann has apparently interpreted the character as “so different from the girls in public school who were focused on trying to be like the career women they saw on Sex And The City.”

My interpretation is more in line with the character in the book and my own values. But my interpretation, Grace’s interpretation, a million other fans’ interpretations  and even JK Rowling’s interpretation are all in their own way valid.

As long as we all understand we’re talking about a fictional character then there’s the potential to respect and debate each others interpretation. This possibility would not exist with someone who believed that the character was real, or who was willing to use violent or legal means to pressure me into accepting their interpretation.

This brings me to my central idea, that religion can be interpreted as a form of organised fandom. Most religions have a central conon with large mythical / fictional elements along with a host of other ideas and writings inspired by the central cannon. Appreciation for and interpretation of this cannon is a form of fandom which can heavily influence the lives of fans / followers.

If you were to ask most Christians in the West in 2014 to describe Jesus you’d get a very different interpretation of the character than you’d get in 15th century Europe. This interpretation would to varying degrees be based on some elements of the character as portrayed in the Bible while lacking or minimising other elements.

Over time different interpretations of characters become more or less accepted. For example almost all Christians today would say that Jesus opposed slavery. But Christians a few centuries ago may have been more likely to hold to an interpretation of the Jesus character in the Bible explicitly endorses it.

Some Christians would focus on the elements of the Jesus character which stress love and forgiveness. Others, just as validly, would interpret the Jesus character based on the elements that stress conservatism and obedience.

There are four are characteristics that healthy fandoms tend to have:

  1. Fans recognise when the object of their fandom is a work of fiction. But that works of fiction are valuable ways of exploring questions about reality.
  2. Fans recognise the validity of other fan’s interpretations. Despite disagreements, there’s no such thing as apostasy
  3. Fans recognise flaws in the original work and that the author(s) are not infallible.
  4. Fans’ enjoyment of a work is not reliant on forcing others to think the same.

Unfortunately religion, by in large, lends itself to an unhealthy form of fandom because it generally speaking fails these four characteristics.

The problem does not lie with the falsehood or immorality of large elements of the major religions. The problem lies with the inability of elements of the religion’s fans to honestly recognise this. The little moral worth we find in the Bible (and the larger amount of moral worth we find in other Christian inspired writing) would be more accessible, not diminished, if Christians could accept the fictitious nature of the Bible.

Religions’ fans divide themselves constantly over their different interpretations of Gods and holy books. Many religious parents exercise (and often expect the state to exercise) dogmatic control over their children’s education and experiences to try and ensure that they grow up with the ‘correct’ interpretation.

The process of religious reform would be far smoother and more fruitful if religions’ fans were to be more honest with themselves and others about the flaws in the religion. For example progressive Christians, Muslims and Jews who use religious arguments to support the equality of women and gay rights would be much better off just admitting that their holy books got these questions wrong, but that this doesn’t mean they got everything wrong.

Finally religious fandoms almost always seek privileged status. Not content to draw inspiration for themselves from religious ideas, the fans of religion believe that the laws and values of whole societies should also draw their inspiration from the same source.

Harry Potter and indeed most popular modern fiction is inherently more likely to lend itself to healthy fandoms than religious fiction. Its creator, characters and consumers are products of an enlightened society.

It is unlikely that anyone who has read a Harry Potter book is could possibly be as ignorant of the world as the authors of the Bible. Even if we except that the authors of the Bible made a genuine attempt to explain the world and morality to the best of their knowledge, they had the bad luck to be born when they were. Through no special talent of our own, Harry Potter fans have been born into an enlightened society and gained the skills to understand to various degrees and engage with a work of fiction.

TV tropes vs. skeptics

“You’re a bad person for not supporting my irrational beliefs.”

For a while now I’ve wanted to address some of the common tropes used to represent sceptics and atheists on television. The purpose of this is not to pick on isolated examples, I don’t think using stereotypes is always completely wrong and I don’t expect every representation of a group I identify with to always be positive. But, I want to address some common tropes which send harmful messages and maintain the social privileged position of certain irrational beliefs.

I’ve picked three examples here because they’ve all come up in some of my favourite sitcoms recently and annoyed me, not because of the individual storyline or characters but because of their underlying message.

The basic trope is this: Character A holds some irrational or Woo-based belief, which is not shared / wholly supported by Character B. Character B is represented as the bad-guy or closed-minded and by the end of the episode the audience is expected to feel either angry at Character B for their closed mindedness or sorry for them not having a sense of magic / imagination. Character A is usually female, because you know how those women are irrational, and magic pixie dream-girl’s only exist to teach rational men lessons.

Big Bang Theory S3E10: The Psychic Vortex

Penny reveals that she has cut her hair on the advice of her “psychic” Leonard cannot help but laugh at this objectively stupid idea. This breaks the social taboo on criticising (privileged) irrational beliefs and leads to an argument. Penny accuses Leonard of being closed-minded and belittling her. His desire to prevent someone he cares about being exploited by a charlatan is represented as “obnoxious”. Leonard is pressured to be “open-minded” by visiting the “psychic” but Penny refuses to be open minded enough to read a book sceptical of psychics Leonard suggesting this is again presented as “obnoxious”.

Raising Hope S4E19: Para-Natesville Activity

“Virginia stops believing in magical things” and as a result becomes depressed and loses meaning in her life. Through various antics her husband Burt helps rekindle her belief in ghosts, eventually he also becomes a believer and this is meant to be seen by the audience as a positive outcome. Eventually the low income family decide to resume spending large amounts of money on the lottery. 

How I Met Your Mother S7E13: Tailgate

This at least bend the stereotype by making a male character the irrational one and a female one the sceptic. Basically Marshal has a large number of supernatural and conspiratorial beliefs that have been passed down from his father and he wishes to pass on to his and Lily’s child in order to ensure they have a sense of magic. Lilly confesses that she is jealous of Marshal’s farther teaching him to believe in “a magical universe” while her own absentee father taught her to “only believe in herself”. The audience are meant to feel sorry for Lilly for not believing in the stuff that Marshal does and happy that at the end of the episode the agree to raise their child with his beliefs.

This trope sends three negative messages. Firstly that believing in things without evidence is open minded, while basing your beliefs in evidence is closed minded. This attitude privileges credulity and socially stigmatises the sceptical.

Secondly it reinforces the idea that being disillusioned of false beliefs is always/mostly a negative experience. This can pressure sceptics not to challenge irrational beliefs and paints outspoken sceptics as bad people. This denies the vast range of positive experiences people can have through embracing reality and can leave many people afraid to challenge their own irrational beliefs.

Thirdly it sends the message that having a sense of wonder or magic requires holding irrational beliefs. This can cause people to cling to irrational beliefs rather than embracing the far grander magic of reality. It is also something that many sceptics (and in particular atheists) find insulting and demeaning. We are regularly socially shamed and told that we have something missing from our lives.

Each of these messages have real-world consequences which can range from the trivially annoying to the really quite hurtful and damaging. How patronising is it to be told by friends and strangers that there’s something missing from your life? Is it good for social pressure and not wanting to be stigmatised as closed-minded to protect bad ideas from criticism? Is the world made more magical by relationships breaking down because one partner want’s to protect another from being taken advantage of by charlatans?

I love sit-coms, I think they are a good way to explore life. I like good cooky characters and good surreal or supernatural storylines and making fun out of a sceptical or atheist character can be funny. But I don’t expect it to be lazy and I don’t expect it to be used as an excuse to shame or stigmatise people who base their beliefs on evidence.