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Why furry fiction is (still) in a ghetto
12 years ago
You know, I've been in the furry fandom for three years and a half and I'm finally beginning to understand why most people refuse to even look at artistic creations labeled as 'furry'.
In case you don't realize why that's a problem, I tried recommending Digger to a friend and he refused to read it on principle. And that's the same Digger that won a Hugo Award last year. Seriously?
Yes, seriously. And that's a tragedy.
What's worse, it is a totally unnecessary tragedy. I wrote several furry short stories last year, and none of my non-furry readers batted an eyelid. When I pointed out the furry-ness, they just said, 'oh well'. Of course, by that time they had already read the stories and liked them. Had they done that if they were pre-warned?
See above for the likely answer.
More recently, I've been playing a talking cat in a non-furry online community, and again people have been merely amused, taking it for a harmless joke or quirk. I'm yet to meet a single one of them who even realized I was a furry, let alone was disturbed by it. Might have something to do with the fact that I don't exactly play it up?
You can probably guess what I think by now.
There's nothing inherently special about furries. As Uncle Kage famously put it, we're just people who like... funny animals (insert goofy face here). And pretty much everybody in the developed world grew up on funny-animal cartoons, not to mention an age-old tradition of fables and fairy tales.
Then why do people have a problem with us?
I've spent a good part of this summer reading through the FreeRIDErs series, at a friend's recommendation. It's some of the best sci-fi I've read in years -- a handful of large, unpolished diamonds. But all too often the stories devolve into self-indulgent wish-fulfillment fantasy that's bound to put off any reader who isn't into the same stuff as we are. Just look at the one illustration on that page. I know a hardcore furry who was instantly put off by it. No, REALLY.
And it doesn't have to be that way. All that fetish stuff -- let's be honest and call it out -- could be downplayed a little and given a purpose beyond turning on the author and whoever else happens to share his taste. Not that I mind being turned on by what I read! Or do you think I don't have fantasies? O-la-la. And FreeRIDErs features one of them front and center. (No, not the transformation stuff, that has the opposite effect on me.) But if it only had that and nothing else, I'd never have read far enough to find it.
Look at it this way: we all know what Little Red Riding Hood is actually about. Yet if you make me look at a picture of the wolf getting it on with the eponymous young lady, that's just bad taste.
See, I think art should first and foremost make a honest attempt at being enjoyable as art. If in the process certain parts of your work manage to strike a chord with particular segments of the audience, great! But don't try to force the issue, or you'll be lucky to get something only as bad as the Star Wars prequel trilogy.
Do quality work first and niche pandering second, and maybe one day furry fiction will break free of the ghetto, like science fiction did all those decades ago.
This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.
In case you don't realize why that's a problem, I tried recommending Digger to a friend and he refused to read it on principle. And that's the same Digger that won a Hugo Award last year. Seriously?
Yes, seriously. And that's a tragedy.
What's worse, it is a totally unnecessary tragedy. I wrote several furry short stories last year, and none of my non-furry readers batted an eyelid. When I pointed out the furry-ness, they just said, 'oh well'. Of course, by that time they had already read the stories and liked them. Had they done that if they were pre-warned?
See above for the likely answer.
More recently, I've been playing a talking cat in a non-furry online community, and again people have been merely amused, taking it for a harmless joke or quirk. I'm yet to meet a single one of them who even realized I was a furry, let alone was disturbed by it. Might have something to do with the fact that I don't exactly play it up?
You can probably guess what I think by now.
There's nothing inherently special about furries. As Uncle Kage famously put it, we're just people who like... funny animals (insert goofy face here). And pretty much everybody in the developed world grew up on funny-animal cartoons, not to mention an age-old tradition of fables and fairy tales.
Then why do people have a problem with us?
I've spent a good part of this summer reading through the FreeRIDErs series, at a friend's recommendation. It's some of the best sci-fi I've read in years -- a handful of large, unpolished diamonds. But all too often the stories devolve into self-indulgent wish-fulfillment fantasy that's bound to put off any reader who isn't into the same stuff as we are. Just look at the one illustration on that page. I know a hardcore furry who was instantly put off by it. No, REALLY.
And it doesn't have to be that way. All that fetish stuff -- let's be honest and call it out -- could be downplayed a little and given a purpose beyond turning on the author and whoever else happens to share his taste. Not that I mind being turned on by what I read! Or do you think I don't have fantasies? O-la-la. And FreeRIDErs features one of them front and center. (No, not the transformation stuff, that has the opposite effect on me.) But if it only had that and nothing else, I'd never have read far enough to find it.
Look at it this way: we all know what Little Red Riding Hood is actually about. Yet if you make me look at a picture of the wolf getting it on with the eponymous young lady, that's just bad taste.
See, I think art should first and foremost make a honest attempt at being enjoyable as art. If in the process certain parts of your work manage to strike a chord with particular segments of the audience, great! But don't try to force the issue, or you'll be lucky to get something only as bad as the Star Wars prequel trilogy.
Do quality work first and niche pandering second, and maybe one day furry fiction will break free of the ghetto, like science fiction did all those decades ago.
This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.
When I tell a publisher I am writing a fairy tale, myth cycle, fantasy, or science fiction story the room for anthropomorphic characters are acceptable. As you would probably agree this what the furry fandom and us old guard carried the banners from. There is a reason for the anthropomorphism in tale; the suspension of belief is there.
Not of course that aren’t modern furry works that don’t do this, or can carry their anthropomorphism like “Black Sand” or “Lackadaisy”. Both of those of course are comics tied to the old notion of the funny animal joy riding the underground comic movement to the online web comic movements into the comic Iron Age, so I suppose they too have their excuse. Works like Albedo and Maus kind of gave them smooth sailing.
I often critique a lot of “furry” writers on their use of anthropomorphism. Why use it? There is usually no good answer with a bucket of Mary Sue, wish fulfillment, and poor world design. Not always true too, there is this active seen furry world wanting to be interacted with Fursonas and the like to create the tale world upon .
Those of the old guard were already established really, or those who pander to this tale world limited within the furry community. Many emergent creators understand simply to not pander, take their work seriously and treat it as the genres that they are, not furry as a genre, really it’s that simple.
Many furries simply have not about or care what we do: Albedo, Hienlen, Norton, Ovid, the Island of Dr. Moreau, Algernon, etc. They did not plug in here the same way. It’s not about genre, but something else that is trying to be genre or becoming its own genre. A fascinating thing in mid process.
What constitutes what is and what is not though is a debate for the ages.
I do agree though on your argument of art with purpose.
Though genres cycle Not sure if you’ve paid attention the publishing blocks and venues, but in concern of rhetorical Darwinism Science Fiction and Fantasy are definitely caught up in a web of our cultural design for better or worse. Again arguing what is and what is not, but there are always processes at work in concern of audience, author, and medium.