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Re: The actualfax $10 bill.
(x-posted to facebook.)
Listen, Hamilton was a great person and all and it should have be Jackson yanked off a bill, this is true.
But if you let every cool guy stay on things instead of taking opportunities to replace them with women, we'll just...never have women on things. There are LOTS of awesome guys in history. There are also lots of women. You simply will never get to the women if you spend all time time talking about how awesome the men were, ok?
Added for LJ/DW: And I GET being in a fandom. I GET being obsessed with a thing. I even get being in problematic fandoms that don't always jive with the politics and aspirations I have for the real world. But...really. If Hamilton fans keep Hamilton on the $10, we are missing a big opportunity that won't come by for years. (Because that's how long it takes the mint do anything, apparently.)
I know this really needs to be posted on tumblr, where the fans are going nuts about this particular issue, but naaaah. I like it here.
Listen, Hamilton was a great person and all and it should have be Jackson yanked off a bill, this is true.
But if you let every cool guy stay on things instead of taking opportunities to replace them with women, we'll just...never have women on things. There are LOTS of awesome guys in history. There are also lots of women. You simply will never get to the women if you spend all time time talking about how awesome the men were, ok?
Added for LJ/DW: And I GET being in a fandom. I GET being obsessed with a thing. I even get being in problematic fandoms that don't always jive with the politics and aspirations I have for the real world. But...really. If Hamilton fans keep Hamilton on the $10, we are missing a big opportunity that won't come by for years. (Because that's how long it takes the mint do anything, apparently.)
I know this really needs to be posted on tumblr, where the fans are going nuts about this particular issue, but naaaah. I like it here.
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(actually, I do wonder why we don't follow various other countries and have the head of state on our currency. Maybe because then we'd be redesigning them every 4-8 years?)
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And the next bill happened to be Alex Hamilton on the 10.
And then Hamilton came out and fans are raising a GIANT FUSS about HOW DARE they change the bill Hamilton is THE BEST.
And it really makes me furious. So many of the people on this push couldn't pick Hamilton out of a lineup a year ago, and they are mostly women, and we get this ONE SHOT to make a lasting change to replace one of the many, many, many White Men on a position of prominence with a woman. The mint is actually hugely embarrassed and pulling back from their commitment.
We can't change anything else right now. This is the ONE BILL up for discussion for, probably, a few years. And the fans are ruining it. UGH.
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Which, just, like, I feel there should be a discussion about how RPF stories about people are fundamentally transformative/wishful works, and are not exact reflections on how the people actually were. AND EVEN IN THAT RPF WORK, hamilton does not come off the best of all possible worlds?
Like, I get really really liking Lin-Manuel Miranda. But no one is discussing putting LMM on the money. Alexander Hamilton was a white dude who did not know how to rap. They are different folks. ;)
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RPF is interesting in that people definitely separate out historical RPF (which is...everything written about historical figures, really) from live-people RPF. And, well, there are people who get way to far off the deep end in RPF, lots of them in fandom. But in order to shove the real complexities of an actual human being into the limits of a fictional work, you lose something of the real person. Which is fine, so long as we keep that critical discussion going. <3
I do think a lot of the fans are getting really passionate about the actualfax historical dude as well, not just the LMM version. And like, he was a pretty good dude for his time! He deserves to be more remembered than Jefferson! But, bigger picture here!
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See, I feel as if RPF fandom has had that talk basically forever, and it's sort of ongoing (there was a great analogy last year(?) on Slash Report about Levels Of Orange In Orange Juice vs. Orange Drink when it comes to RPF, and then, well, Patrick Kane and hockey RPF fandom this summer), but, like, people who are not in RPF fandom, but have found themselves in a fandom that is RPF have never really had to deal with this before? Like, SO MUCH OF HOLLYWOOD is blatant RPF, and some of the stuff they do just gets passed off as "what really happened" and that gives us some very interesting lies sometimes... anyway, I have rants as someone who has been in RPF fandom for a while, and watches the world Judge RPF Fandom As Perverts And Weirdos while conducting its own unacknowledged RPF fandom with much less navel-gazed morals/community standards. (ex: tabloids, and then we even get into "reality" shows).
As for that cumberbitches thing, that seems to be straight up actor fandom, people who are obsessed with the actor and want to see themselves in a relationship with them, or are reenacting tabloid culture. Doesn't seem to necessarily be the folks who ship him with Martin Freeman (although there's likely some overlap. LOTRPS had its share of tinhatters who truly believed in their pairings being HIDDEN BY THE MAN. Which gave us the eternal pastede on yay ;) ).
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The World Judgement sucks though. :(
Although...what's the line between RPF and actor fandom? I sort of always assumed it was just an extreme end of RPF fandom, like people who actually believe in Hogwarts were the extreme end of normal HP fandom. And they would sort of drift into the more mainstream stuff sometimes, or feed off it, because not every corner of fandom is healthy. (Which is fine, not a commentary on RPF fandom, which I will totally defend.)
I DO remember the LOTR fans tinhatting stuff, although, yeah, I saw it in LotR fandom spaces that I was floating around. I guess the lines between these fandoms are more malleable than they feel sometimes. IDK, I'm a total noob to this entire giant side of fandom, so I guess I should start digging around for some good metas before I start acting like I have any idea what I'm talking about!
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Now, it you want to argue for a mass overhaul, I suspect Congress is the place to go. (Hahahahahahaaaaa *wipe tear*) But as an internal mint system to keep money safe from counterfeiting while also replacing the worn-out and torn bills, this system doesn't seem artificial in the sense of building barriers. It's really well made for the priorities of the mint. Who probably care very little who is on the money, all things considered. (It is artificial as in man-made. So is capitalism!)
In conclusion: Congress; probably the only power that can enact widespread change on this one. But considering the fact that the penny is literally wasting American millions of dollars a year to keep in circulation and they have done nothing about it, I doubt it's the best way to go.
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Which, come to think of it, is almost certainly what the real Hamilton would have considered important. Possibly even more important than making sure his face stays on the ten.
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Hamilton!
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Overhaul wishlist includes women, bills of different sizes (preferably with braille indentations), bills made of more durable materials, and get rid of the $1 entirely.
I'm neutral on getting rid of people, I guess? There are a lot of advantages, but if we're going to keep teaching Great Man History, I would like some women all over my stuff. :D
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I don't mind the $1 bill, but, yeah, bills of different sizes! Bills you can put through the wash! This isn't some kind of science fiction futuristic stuff, THIS IS REAL STUFF IN OTHER COUNTRIES RIGHT NOW. We just have currency that's stuck in the 1950s.
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