some character stats from FSCMM

[such_heights]

I made some tallies on the characters over at f_march_madness the other day, looking at the gender and race of the characters chosen to represent the 64 fandoms present in the original polls.

A note before I start - I'm not attempting to draw anything particularly conclusive from any of this for a number of reasons, not least of which that I don't think these polls are necessarily that representative of general fandom behaviour patterns. However, it is interesting.

The list of original 64 characters can be found here. These were selected after preliminaries between characters of the same fandoms.

Of those 64 characters, 34 are women, and 30 are men.
And of those 64 characters, 58 are white, and 6 are characters of colour.

That first statistic is cheering! The second ... less so.

Those six characters of colour, incidentally, are Troy Barnes (Community), Kelly Kapoor (The Office US), Burton Guster (Psych), Kalinda Sharma (The Good Wife), Kono Kalakaua (Hawaii 5-0), Annie Sawyer (Being Human).

That's three from the comedy bracket, two from the drama bracket, one from the SFF bracket, and none from the teen bracket.

We are now down to the last sixteen, which breaks down as 15/1 white/character of colour, and 10/6 male/female.

Talking about race in fandom and which characters become fan favourites is naturally complicated, and this poll skews particularly towards US shows with very white-dominant casts - the Teen bracket, for instance - that don't necessarily reflect LJ/DW fandom's interests even just looking at Western media fandoms.

Naturally, there's a number of factors here - both in characters of colour being written and decently-portrayed in the first place, and then the way that fandom reacts to those characters. But although white women are doing pretty well this year, it seems that chromatic characters are still lagging behind in these kinds of polls. Food for thought.

*waves Troy flag*

Comments

[timeasmymeasure]

I really wish I could say I was surprised.
I do hope Troy takes it. The fans seem to be coming out in his favor...or at least until he comes up against Sherlock or The Doctor or something.

ETA: Though I suppose it's worth noting that the amount of women winning their brackets seems to be increasing? Still, when it comes down to it Scully could apparently lose to The Doctor. Progress gets nullified in the endgame.

Child of ETA: Also the mod picks the shows (this is valid because I would have loved to see ATLA there).

[such_heights]

I won't lie, I voted for the Doctor over Scully in the last round. I'm sure Scully's all things fantastic, but then, I've never watched the X-Files. Whereas although I was initially hoping one of the companions would represent Doctor Who, it's still My Show, you know? If a white guy's going to win, Eleven would be my pick. (I'm still holding out for Olivia even though it looks like she's losing to Buffy, alas.)

I'm also not sure I'd necessarily say that things get nullified in the endgame - a bunch of shows have moved well up my to-watch list on account of this, and certainly lots of these characters having been bringing out their fans in droves. The amount of cheerleading I've seen for female characters has been quite cheering. I just hope that maybe by next year the shortlist will be less overwhelmingly white!

[timeasmymeasure]

On one hand, I get that it's FMM and you vote on what you love but it's...I don't know. There's something inherently iconic about certain characters like Dana and Buffy, and what they mean for fandom- the thought of them losing out to a male character, even ones I love, doesn't sit well with me. I feel like if at the end of it all, a white male character wins, the progress hasn't progressed enough, if that makes sense. Yeah we've seen a lot of fans for the female characters, and they are making it into more rounds than before, but the result is still the same. Plus I'm coming from my own recent frustrations with different fandoms and the proportion of fannishness over the lead white male(s) vs a character(s) of color/female character(s).

So yeah, I'm happy about the increase in the presence of female characters, and on some level the increase in characters of color, but the voting trend is still a bit depressing for me.

[such_heights]

Yeah, I hear that. And I also think it's part of the problem of having this cross-fandom thing, because inevitably a lot of people voting are familiar with one show and not the other, which means it isn't particularly a reflection of much more than which show is more popular right now.

(Probably my corollary to your Eleven vs. Scully thing is my own bitterness that CJ lost out to Sherlock. Whyyyy. ;_; In any case, I totally concede I have Doctor Who-related bias.)

So I agree that it hasn't progressed enough, absolutely, but I suppose from at least the gender angle I ended up being pleasantly surprised by the amount of women making appearances, especially from fandoms where I was expecting the sketchy guy with manpain to take the front in the preliminaries - Vampire Diaries, Being Human, etc. But, er, fandom being less actively misogynistic than I was expecting isn't necessarily much of a compliment, so.

I don't know, maybe Buffy will win it again this year, that would be amazing.

[magnetic_pole]

Wow, I didn't know anything about this. Interesting!

It surprises me to see Troy representing Community rather than Abed, who strikes me as a more memorable character, played by a more charismatic actor. (Er, sorry, Troy fans! He *is* a sweetie!) But I suppose that has something to with the way the preliminary rounds were set up? Some shows seem to have a central character representing them, some don't.

It would be interesting* to see some campaigning and some kind of tangible reward for the character and/or fandom at the end, which might activate block voting, once folks know what issues and outcomes are at stake. Right now, I suspect, long-running shows and iconic main characters have a big advantage in that the only thing voters consulting is a vague sense of loyalty or affection. I think the vagueness of its tends to reproduce the social order ("I've been watching Doctor Who since I was a kid!") where a more specific goal might bring out targeted, issue voting ("I'd like a woman and/or a character of color to represent fandom this year").

Anyways, my vote's with Troy--love the character and the show and would like to see it get more exposure. M.

* Interesting or distressing, given that it might quickly turn into wank

[miarrow]

Troy and Abed were neck and neck during the prelims though.

[mercredigirl]

I voted fiercely for the chromatic women in those polls; this saddens but does not surprise me.

[zahrawithaz.livejournal.com]

This does not surprise me at all, given how many, many conversations I have seen on LJ/DW that begin by discussing characters of color and how they are being used or misused within a given series, but which quickly evolve through the comments to be All About the White Women.

(I feel like I particularly tend to see this with Merlin and Doctor Who, but suspect that's more of an indication of where I hang out than of those particular fandoms; the corners I frequent aren't necessarily representative of the fandom at large, either.)

It seems especially common when someone starts talking about racism in a particular piece of media, and then comments begin along the lines of "enough with the racism and sexism from X show" and then bam presto! suddenly everyone is chiming in talking about the treatment of the white women on the show, and the conversation gains speed, and whatever the original point gets left in the dust. Speaking as a white women, it makes me cringe.

I don't think we're going to improve the incredibly depressing second statistic until we have a conversation in fandom at large about the fact that people of color are not accessories for white women to wear when they match the outfit.

In other words, we need to work on the strength of our coalition work.

(Thank you for doing the work of compiling and publicizing this, btw--I had the same sense as I was scrolling through, but it's wonderful to see someone bringing attention to it.)