Stereotypes (Schmereotypes)

Stereotypes (Schmereotypes)

Stereotypes are bad, right? I've spoken about Labels on this blog before (search for it, the bar is right there at the side and I've can't be bothered to link to it just this once) but this is whole different kettle of fish. Less fish and more piranhas.

No, stereotypes aren't bad, necessarily. The use of them is. People that don't conform to the stereotypes of a large group get upset (with reason, too) when they get used. The majority of people accept that this is wrong, and they do try to stay clear from overusing the stereotypes. The problem lies in the fact that people that conform to those stereotypes do exist, and we cannot say that what they do is wrong because it's been overused by other people.

One nasty stereotype is that people who listen to punk/grunge/post-hardcore/et cetera music cut themselves. Emotive punks, dubbed "emo"s have a massive stereotype that assumes that the culture is built out of self-harm and suicidal thoughts. And that's upsetting for people that appreciate the music, and don't want to be seen as self-harming, or self-hating, or depressed, or suicidal. But it's also upsetting to those who that stereotype does apply to.

I have in the past cut myself, self-harmed in other ways and have felt suicidal for large chunks of my life. But to assume that this is because of the music I listen to completely dismisses these feelings, which were/are difficult enough as it is! The music I listen to has almost no bearing, or a positive bearing on my emotional health, and for people to assume that these problems would go away if I just got into bubblegum pop is highly offensive to me.

I'm bi/pan and a feminist. Am I one because of the other? No. I'm bi/pan because I was born that way and I am a feminist because I believe in the social, economic and political equality of the sexes and genders. And no, that doesn't give you the right to assume I hate men, either. Conforming to part of a stereotype does not mean I necessarily conform to all of it.

Am I on my period? Maybe. Either way, you have no right to completely dismiss anything I say because of that.

Stereotypes have been too far taken away from. The idea of moving away from potentially hurtful stereotypes is hugely beneficial, but not to the extent that we are not at. Women may feel like they cannot be stay-at-home mothers and find themselves under pressure to be some kind of superhuman strong independent business worker to make something of herself. Gay men may feel like being camp and flamboyant is not an option because they are just conforming to a stereotype.

Just because someone is a stereotype does not mean that they are not a fully rounded human being. But never is someone only that stereotype, or only one stereotype. There is always more.

Just my tuppence worth, Bella Fern

There are now quite a lot of people reading this blog (blushes and hides under duvet) and I would kind of like to be slightly more interactive. Feel free to tweet me: @ThatBellaFern

10 Influential Books

10 Influential Books

This tag went around Facebook, then around the Youtube booktuber community, and I really liked it. And because my feminist post from last week is proving difficult for me to write when I am so stressed with school work, I figured that an easy post my make it easier for me to write something before the weekend. So here we go.

If you do not know this tag, then basically you choose ten books that influenced you greatly and you do not think much about them and you do not over explain. I am going to explain a little, as this is a blog post and so I feel like going into a little detail would be beneficial, but I will not verse lyrical about each one.

So *mario voice* Heeere we go!

Peter Pan and Wendy is the first book I became obsessive over. Like, obsessive. I had to have stitches on my jaw, from the time that I threw myself down the stairs aged about five, sure I could fly. My mother used to read it to me, but I used to turn on my bedside light and read on a little. I came down the stairs crying one night, when I got to the end. It still makes me cry (and there is definitely a small part of me that still believes, to be honest).
I actually had the edition depicted on the right, a beautiful hardback with elaborate illustrations by Robert Ingpen, and when I see how tattered it now is I feel like crying.

Mortal Engines comes next. I know that it is the first of a quartet, and I know that now there is a prequel series, but I only learnt this around two years ago. This remains my favourite book, and has been since I was around seven or eight, when I barely understood it as it was read to me. It is science fiction in the truest sense of the word - not dystopian - but also revolves around cities that hunt each other down and feed off the remains. It's incredibly character lead though, which makes it a nice entrance point into the genre, and it's heartbreaking until the end. It really got me into, not only recreational reading but reading a book over and over with a firm passion for it.

Unlike the first two, these three books were never my favourite, but were always and remain to be books that I relate to and really enjoy to read. Utterly Me, Clarice Bean, Clarice Bean Spells Trouble and Clarice Bean, Don't Look Now are some of the most relatable and lovable books I have ever read. They are very easy reading, and as a child I agreed with her moaning about her brother - but she has grown up with me and the older I get and the more I understand, the more she understands with me. What is incredibly exciting is that Clarice Bean is a massive fangirl over the Ruby Redfort novels, and the author Lauren Child began writing those as a series a while ago, and again these are lovely, feel-good novels.

I got into Harry Potter (or so I thought) later than my friends - turns out they had seen all of the films and were pretending they had read the books. I was adamant that I did not want to read them until Year Three or Four, when I buckled and gave in - and promptly stormed through them all in the space of about two or three weeks. They really made me believe in magic and they remain on of my favourite series, and I really did wait for my Hogwart letter, I really did believe in it all. It was a clever series and whilst now I understand and respect the political undertones, at the time it was just a fabulous adventure story about Harry and his friends Ron and Herajnfeaajdna. I say that because I never watched the films until long after I had read the books and I had no idea how Hermione was pronounced until I finally watched The Philosopher's Stone and had a small moment of realisation.

I never really loved the series to this book, but the first, Swallows and Amazons I loved. I felt included, because at the time I was a reasonably proficient sailor, and I understood all of the jargon they used, but I also really bought into the world of adventure that John, Susan, Titty and Roger sailed into. I also loved the way that, until Harry Potter, unlike Peter Pan, it was a world that existed, a world that I could just about touch. The stories weren't annoyingly written like I always found Enid Blyton, but had the same kind of edge - of "the good old days" that I didn't remember, somewhere around the Magician's Nephew and the Darling family. It's such as shame that I still have no idea what ginger beer or "grog" tastes like. And what the hell is pemmican?

Watchmen, like Alan Moore, was my first graphic novel. I had read comics before, Batman and Spiderman mostly, but this was different - as dark as Batman but more so. It really got me into the genre and convinced me that my comics could be every bit as literary as my copy of Anne of Green Gables. Yes, it freaked me out and Rorschach still gives me the heebie jeebies, but it is honestly the most well crafted novel of any kind that I think I have read, although it is definitely close. It inspired me to read more and is the reason that I discovered what I now consider to be one of my very favourite books, The Umbrella Academy, but is also opened a window into the world of manga which I had previously thought was only really chibi characters with oversized eyes.

Speaking of manga, here comes my first ever manga novel. It is slightly trashy, but is also a really good read. It does essentially centre around a love triangle and vampires (Twilight, anyone) but has a lot of angst and depression and anger and fighting which Twilight lacked. This book not only inspired me to move on and read more manga such as Death Note, but it also in a roundabout way got me into drawing comic book style characters, because for a while I dabbled in drawing manga before remembering the books such as Watchmen that I loved to read and draw from. They are very nicely done, and the filler gags are just light enough to keep the intensity throughout the book. The only problem is trying to find the next one in the series - they NEVER have it in Waterstones!

Around three years ago, I stopped reading nearly so avidly, and this is undoubtedly the book that brought me back. I loved the characters, the worlds, the other two books were beautiful also. Aside from Harry Potter, I didn't really think that the fantasy genre was for me - I hated The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings - but this convinced me otherwise and really got me back into reading new books instead of the ones I already owned and could practically recite. I finished this and sat glum for days until I had the weekend to go and buy the next one in the series...and the next...(and the spin off books, a little later on). It is so beautiful and the characters are so believable. To be honest, I have a crush on pretty much the entire cast - with the exceptions of the evil people and old men and old women and...you get the idea.

If you think that anything you ever read is intense, then you are wrong compared to this. This Orwellian inspired book will gouge out your soul and rip it into tiny pieces and then make you eat those pieces. I finished this on holiday, and immediately had to read something mind numbingly without real trouble (Stop In the Name of Pants!, if you are interested) because it was just so much to fucking comprehend. I loved the Orwell novels 1984 and Animal Farm but this was just a new level of Big Brother. This book really did convince me to start heading down the road of darker books, books with deeper meaning, books that would really make me question things and lead me more into books written by journalists, such as The Pyschopath Test by Jon Ronson, which I now adore.

It was certainly not my first Young Adult novel (cough Twilight cough) but it did convince me that I was where I should be. I have to be honest, I had read The Fault in Our Stars and I had read Twilight and I had read the entire Princess Diaries series, but this book convinced me that I was in the right place. I had already read Battle Royale and I did end up drawing a lot of parallels, but the style was entirely different and it influenced me greatly, both in terms of writing and of books I would then go on to read - for example, Divergent (which I was meh about) and also Gone (also meh) but it is because of this book that I refuse to give up on this genre. There must be another, as good, right?

The Ending of Nice Things

The Ending of Nice Things

Is it just me that thought that the title was majorly melodramatic? Like "ALL of the nice things will end?" Never mind.

I woke up on Monday morning to discover that a small band I really liked and had an agreement to do street art for and had spoken to a bit, had split up. (They released an EP though, look them up, they were called "Uptown Mayhem".) Over that same weekend, a couple at the heart of my friendship group split up and split the friendship group up with it. Neither of these things I had expected to end, especially at that time. I guess I'm not one of those pessimists that constantly thinks about the good things going away. I tend to become complacent.

A cool guy and generally fabulous person you have to have heard of, called Dr Seuss (or technically Theodor Seuss Geisel - I thought that I would be disappointed with his real name, but apparently not) once said a thing. And that things was "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." Sometimes, he is right. For example, with bands and books. When My Chemical Romance split and pulled my heart apart with them it wasn't the nicest of things. It was really quite majorly sucky.

But the fact that they had existed in the first place was good and we still have access to old music that they produced, old videos they made, et cetera. All of the good things that they did, for me at least, made the sadness that I felt over their split lessen.

With some things, it is even more true. For example, when I watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and I realised that there would never be another Harry Potter film or book, I was sad, definitely. But when I heard that they were making more, I was annoyed, angry even. Whilst it probably won't stop me buying a ticket and watching the damn film, I appreciated that it had ended in the right place. I wasn't only smiling because it had happened, but I was smiling because it ended. It wasn't going to become another franchise endlessly exploited for money (or so I thought).

But does this apply to everything? In my opinion, no, it doesn't.

Last year one of my closest friends stopped being in the after school club we were both in. We didn't go to the same school, but we became very good friends, and basically shared everything. When I look back on our email threads, I realise that we were probably quite annoying about it, but neither of us really cared. And when they stopped being in the ski team, we stopped talking. I have no idea why, I tried emailing them and they didn't respond.

And things like that, that didn't help me in the long run, but that did cause upset in the long run - are they really worth it?

I am not doubting the original friendship, in this example, and I am certainly not endorsing closing yourself off because of past experiences.

But in my opinion, some things, you can't be expected to smile over. Life flings shit at you and asks to take it, and you do, but there is no need to preen and smarm about it, acting like everything is okay. Sometimes, it isn't. And regretting things is fine too.

Being Afraid and the Girl in My Head

Being Afraid and the Girl in My Head

An acquaintance of mine, a fabulous person - Poppy, from poppiesarepunk, posted a very interesting video Am I a "Fake Youtuber"?, about how she fakes confidence on YouTube, and how it is actually helping her become more confident in real life. I touched ever so slightly on the subject in a post on this blog a few weeks ago, called Behind the Camera. In this post, I identified as an "attention whore", and also as "incredibly shy." I think it was the least coherent and most contradictory post that I have ever written, but I don't take it down became it was also one of the most difficult to write.

This post, I hope will clarify some things, and possibly be interesting for you to read.

In real life, I am quite shy. Whilst among a group of people, I can come across as confident, self-centred or ballshy even, I spent a ridiculous amount of time thinking about what I say and worrying about saying it. Afterwards, after pretty much every conversation I have, I begin to analyse everything, from what I said, to how much I said to how I said it. And invariably, I will determine that I messed up, that they are probably at home now thinking about how much of an asshole I was. A part of me tries to say that that isn't true, but I have never been able to quell these thoughts.

People also assume that I am confident, because I act on stage quite a lot. I get nervous beforehand, but once I am on I don't identify as me at all. I'm a bit of a method actor in that I completely forget who I am until I am safe and back in the wings (where the secret analysing of my acting begins). But that is a character, it isn't me. If I do not have a scripted part, so if it is improvisation, and especially if I have not had a lot of time to get under the skin of the person I am playing - so the parts that are "me" still poke through - I get incredibly nervous.

For instance, today in a three minute improvisation piece, halfway through the piece my character became a hyperventilating, quivering wreck. People thought it was very believable, and it probably was, because it wasn't the character at all. I couldn't convey any emotions except for the ones of fear that I was feeling. In "Behind the Camera", I mentioned a lesson in which I had been made to stand in front of the class, just why a song played and how I had begun to shake. A lot. There was no reason for this - I wasn't opening any thing up about myself, and there was no chance of me failing, unless Youtube crashed and the song had stopped playing, in which case it was hardly my fault. It was just a case of being me, in front of an audience.

This wasn't a one off though. My friends don't let me forget the time that during a geography presentation, in which I just had to read off a script for five minutes, I shook so badly that I dropped by pieces of paper all over the floor. It was completely scripted and not particularly about anything I cared about (I mean, much as I love the peninsulas in Antarctica) and so again, there was literally nothing personal about the speech at all.

I'm pretty sure by now we've established how shy I can be in person, and so moving swiftly on without further examples...

There is another girl, decidedly less self doubting than me, decidedly less annoying, dorky, chubby, spotty...

She is the girl who lives in my head, the ultimate version of me who I would like to begun. She has a lip ring to the right side of her lower lip, and somehow this matters a lot to me. It's become an instinct, almost a comfort blanket when I feel really terrible that sometime I'm going to get my lip pierced. I would have by now, but stupid school uniform rules exist. She is skinnier than I am, and she looks a lot more punk than I do. I mean, I may have the music taste, but I come across as far from the musicians I wish I could emulate. She's probably in a band, despite the fact that I am literally friends with no one who shares the music taste that is mine or who would want to form a band of any sort. She sings, but by now she can play the electric guitar. Her hair is probably dyed a brighter colour, maybe a Hayley Williams-esque red...She can dance. She rants about feminism coherently. She can public speak.

She is the version of me I want to become.

But I feel like, like Poppy, online I emulate her more. In real life, my thoughts about orcas and feminism stay largely inside my head, but on this blog, I talk about them, I share them and I hope that someone out there will notice.

Poppy says "fake it until you make it," but I'm not sure if it is so much faking it, or just speeding up the process of becoming the person who you want to be until you get there. Either way, I think it works. What say you?