Read a pair of interesting articles today, taking opposing positions on the question of whether or not Philippine Speculative Fiction is marginalized: For the affirmative we have Charles Tan of Bibliophile Stalker; for the negative, we have Bhex of the Philippine Speculative Fiction Blog.
My favorite (and only, but shh...) editor over at Philippine Genre Stories then posits that ol' Marvel Civil War question: Whose side are you on? (Well he doesn't really say it that way, but... @_@)
My answer: I got nothin'... Largely because from my (admittedly limited) experience, the issue isn't really framed the right way.
First off though I'd like to say thanks to both Charles and bhex for sharing their thoughts in such clear, succinct ways. Both essays are well written and peppered with illustrative examples, so I'll refrain from summarizing (and probably over-simplifying) the arguments of each, but while the keyword in both is "marginalization" that concept needed to be understood in relation to the word "mainstream."
Yet if "mainstream" refers to the prevailing attitudes/preferences of Philippine readers (as opposed to publishers/critics)... I just don't think that they care about whether a story is spec fic or not.
* I've never known anyone who would turn their nose up at a book because it was Philippine Spec Fic. Frankly, I know few Filipinos readers who would turn their nose up any story just because of fantasy or science fictional elements - the level of realism of the story just doesn't seem to be that big of a factor to Philippine readers.
* I do know that there are people who read Spec Fic but not Philippine Spec Fic. This seems to me to be because: (a) they only visit the SFF part of the bookstore, and never set foot in the Filipiniana/Philippine Publications section (or just can't distinguish the Spec Fic stuff from the rest because the book covers just don't scream "Genre!"); (b) what is available in local Spec Fic is either (i) not in the genre they want; or (ii) not of the length they want - i.e. novels.
* In relation to the above, I know people who simply do not read short fiction - an attitude I am intimately familiar with because I was of that persuasion until, oh, PGS :P It was not because of any inherent dislike of the form, but simply because my readership preferences were honed by not only novels but Big Fantasy Series': I think the sequence of my early reading chronology went like this - Guardians of the Flame Series (5 books at the time) - Belgariad/Mallorean Series (5 + 5 books) - Lord of the Rings/Hobbit (4 books) - Shannarra Series (6 books at the time) - Memory, Sorrow and Thorn Series (4 very loooong books) etc. Heck, I don't think I red a stand-alonee genre novel until I was well into high school, and had been reading voraciously for years.
* Philippine readers also seem to sharply diverge when it comes to language - most of the Philippine Spec Fic I've seen is in English, and a lot of our countrymen just aren't that comfortable with English to be reading stories in the language for fun.
I don't quite agree with bhex's definition of "marginalized" as exclusion to the point of "never having a shot" - with a definition that universal and categorical, it makes it difficult to see any form of literature as being "marginalized." I do agree with Charles that, while the situation has improved, genre fiction doesn't get the respect/encouragement it deserves - but this is a problem for genre in general (not just or even primarily locally), and chiefly in the literary/academe.
I do agree with bhex however that Phillipine Spec Fic doesn't need to be celebrated by the literary elite for it to be widely read - and I think the aim for all of us who read, write and love it should be precisely that: to make it more widely read.
I don't think that the fantastical element of the stories is an obstacle to that however: Putting aside the issue of the vernacular, I think it's just that locally we haven't yet produced the kind of spec fic that readers are accustomed to and look for: the sword and sorcery epics, the serial urban fantasies, the multi-arc space operas.
To use a movie analogy - we've got great animated shorts, insightful documentaries, biting political satires - but no hollywood blockbusters. Not yet.
(I've got some proposals to change that... but for reasons that'll become clear, I can't go into those reasons until Friday or beyond... But I hope you guys can help me brainstorm on those too ^_^)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
i'm afraid you may have taken "never has a shot" to mean the extreme, as in "never has a shot at getting famous/published." in this case, i only meant that a "marginalized" genre never has a shot at the same privileges that the majority genre/s enjoy/s - and at the moment, this is not true for spec fic. english-language spec fic has nearly every opportunity that is open to english-language realist fic. spec fic stories can even win major literary awards if they actually fit the local judges' criteria for good fiction, so what "marginalization" exactly are we talking about?
i'm very uncomfortable with how the word "marginalized" was conveniently used to mean "outside the mainstream" - they are not the same, that is all i am saying. for me, "marginalized" has a universal meaning of "being relegated to an inferior position" and i don't believe it's fair to use it in relation to spec fic, simply for the purpose of making our country's realist traditions look like a big bad wolf.
i don't believe charles makes a strong case by falling back on the taboan organizers' definition of "marginalizing," because there have been previous unrelated discussions in which certain spokespersons of the speculative fiction movement have pushed their case as writers who have, as a whole, been discriminated against. in this case, it just looks like the definition of the word "marginalized" is being spun to their advantage.
i really hope you can see where i'm coming from. i don't intend to further confuse the issue, i just want to keep the issue balanced. mahirap na yung isang side lang ang nagsasalita :)
Hi bhex ^_^
Sorry, that might be the legal training there (i.e. the need to qualify every statement if you mean for it be qualified)... although I think that, in a way what I said still holds true if you define it as "never get a shot at the same privileges." Again, I'm not speaking of this specifically with regard to how Spec Fic is treated locally - not enough interaction with awards or the academe on my part I'm afraid. However, in the US, many genre authors do relate stories of being generally looked down upon by no-genre writers or critics (an old episode of the Dragon Page podcast discussed the experience of Orson Scott Card at a writers conference, and the episode of the Writing Excuses podcast on creative writing classes detailed how certain MFA teachers will try to kill any aspirations to write genre fiction.) So, speaking in general, it seems that people looking down at genre fiction is a problem at some level.
As I said though, I don't really think that's an issue for the general reading population here. They just want good stories (uhm, preferably with a romantic subplot, but I digress...).
Post a Comment