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Dealing With Offensive Material on the Archives

8/7/2021

3 Comments

 
Being a Fandom that, especially in its early days, is dominated by white men, some foundational Fandom content is ridden with offensive and insensitive themes. Some subgroups of the Funny Animal Fandom, whose tropes carries into the furry fandom, made content specifically to be as outrageous and inappropriate as possible- while other material was made out of ignorance or indifference to various cultures and social issues. Even the first addition to the Archives, Cutey Bunny, contains some tropes like the fetishism of nazis and facist groups, and other early furry work is littered with offensive content. Most often so far I've seen sexualizing and appropriation of Native American, East Asian, and Middle Eastern culture, callous use of nazi imagery, and making light of slavery and sex trafficking- and the list certainly doesn't end there. (And it's worth noting that these are still issues our Fandom has carried to today!)

I'm reminded of when old Warner Brothers content that contained offensive content was released it was unaltered with a notice at the front recognizing it's insensitivity but highlighting it's historical importance. I'm also aware that the content in these early furry books can be much more offensive than what was in those cartoons. And, while I believe everything I put on the archive has historical importance to the furry fandom, nothing would be nearly as influential as those WB cartoons, and the world would miss much less if there was a pin-up of a culturally inaccurate Native American missing from a PDF here XD

So I'm hoping to get some input from the community here; All input is valued, but I especially want input from groups who are targeted by the offensive content. Should I release everything unaltered with a content warning, or should I just not bring that negative content back into the Fandom? (And since some content is far worse than others, a bit of both could be applied.) Or is there another option I'm not seeing? 

Thank you so much for your comments here, and I will update with what my decision will be. On a brighter note, I've gotten lucky finding some old comics at a big garage sale, so incoming is Hit the Beach and more Cutey Bunny as well as Furrlough, Xanadu, Wild Life and more!

(BTW, I have already decided I will not host any pornographic material of characters who are children or feral animals on here if I ever encounter it (luckily haven't yet!))

EDIT: Thank you so much for your input here and on the corresponding Twitter post about this topic. I have decided that offensive content will be posted here unaltered, accompanied by proper content warnings. I'll go through and do those for the few things I have on the Archive so far. Back to the fun stuff!
3 Comments
CL The Raccoon link
8/7/2021 06:22:47 am

I think they should be archived uncensored and as is.
Not as a promotion of the themes involved of course, but to remind those in the fandom today where the fandom itself began.
To remove those footnotes from the fandom's history would be a disservice to the fandom itself I feel.

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it after all.
And we as a fandom today are vastly more matured and better off knowing that hateful symbolism, stereotypes and generalized subjugation of marginalized people(s) should and will not be tolerated.

With all that said though, adding a disclaimer to each piece of archived material about how said themes or subject matters don't reflect us as a fandom today should be the name of the game.

For example: I love and collect the Furrlough comic series, but I myself do not subscribe to n*zism just because there's n*zi themes in some of the comics nor will I ever as a person with Jewish heritage.
I know that said subject matter doesn't directly reflect myself nor the circles I reside within in the fandom.
After all, many of us agree that we can separate immature and or careless use of tropes or thematic elements in media from a reflection of the fandom itself (well most of us can, we shun the one's who for some reason can't)

TL:DR - I'd say archive it all with a disclaimer that would possibly say something like "the themes and subject matter in some material doesn't reflect us as a fandom today and are here for historical purposes."

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S link
8/7/2021 08:38:20 am

When faced with a websites function a question is asked:

What do you do? And how well do you do it?

If you wish to be an archive. Then you must Archive. First, last, and always.

You've already brought up what Warner brothers does for some of their culture offensive materials and to be honest a disclaimer is perfectly relevant and fine. Just like curators in a museum you are allowed to speak your mind about how you disagree with history and place disclaimers upon it.

One could even argue that even in this day and age there's comics being pushed out TODAY that promote some insensitive behavior. Incest just to name one. Just as I can point out insensitivity I also cannot deny them from existing as that's another artists freedom of expression.

In the sci-fi world, politics is a method of predictive writing. We would not have movies like Blade Runner or Dune without it. With the use of Nazi's in furry writing it serves as a cautionary tale of the roads we could be going down. To deny such media does a disservice to just about everyone.

If you archive one segment of the fandom but refuse to archive another. Then you're not really an archive at that point. You're propaganda. You would be manipulating history by denying the unsavory side which is required to happen in order for any culture to evolve.

Anyhow. Just my 2 cents. Your server, your decision.

- S

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Brandy J. Lewis
8/7/2021 12:24:52 pm

It looks like you’ve made the decision to keep and upload content you find with needed disclosures and statements. I echo these decisions, as well; the material just simply out there can’t be ignored, and having it available with comments allow a much more active reading process without silencing obvious white supremacist histories/traces existent. Good on you and your work.

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