Welp, despite saying I wasn't going to see Fursonas for a while, I just saw it. Great documentary, although I don't really have much to say about the fandom politics that hasn't already been said. But there are a couple of interesting things that jumped out at me:
1) As someone who doesn't fursuit, I found the early explanations about why other furries fursuit very interesting. I read an unrelated article last year that suggested some people are better able to create new identities for themselves than others and that this ability can bring numerous other benefits, including the ability to learn languages more easily. I personally don't have this ability, or at least not very strongly. Mine is a very singular cohesive identity and that would explain my own reluctance to name or identify my fursona as different from my own real-life name and identity. But maybe if I did have that ability, I'd be more compelled to fursuit myself.
I bring this up because I think it could be a great example of how aspects of a person's psychology that are unrelated to furry can still cause them to express furry differently from other people.
2) Watching Boomer the Dog has made me realise that there is still a problem with how society perceives unusual self-expression that hasn't really been challenged at all but needs to be if we furries are to preserve our dignity. To quickly go on a tangent, there is an episode of South Park back in 2005 (Season 9, Episode 1) in which some of the main characters undergo surgery in order to "become who they feel like on the inside", such as Kyle becoming a tall black man and his father becoming a man-dolphin hybrid. The episode was aimed at the subject of gender-correction surgery and was, as you may have guessed, incredibly transphobic (the writers have since made a more transgender-positive episode in recent years, so I'm hoping they've learned their lesson since then).
The reason I bring this episode up is because it is very revealing of how the mainstream perceive people who express a desire for another physical form; as sad and desperate people who use smiles to cover up a lack of self-confidence. I admit that, watching Boomer, this was something that crept into my mind, as I'm willing to bet has crept into Uncle Kage's mind. But thankfully I have my own experiences to tell me that, no, desiring another form does not make you secretly unhappy or desperate; it's simply a thing that adds more colour to your life. It's like upgrading from a small CRT television to a big HDTV.
I don't know whether we tend to associate unusual expression with desperation because of human nature or because of cultural conditioning but it's something that I think needs to be challenged more often in conversation. If we just assume that people's expressions are signs of unhappiness then they become subjects of pity, stripped of their dignity by the people judging them. And then that reflects badly on other people expressing themselves in different ways. It's a slippery slope; if we assume that one kind of furry must be sad and desperate, then where do we draw the line?
Welp, despite saying I wasn't going to see Fursonas for a while, I just saw it. Great documentary, although I don't really have much to say about the fandom politics that hasn't already been said. But there are a couple of interesting things that jumped out at me:
1) As someone who doesn't fursuit, I found the early explanations about why other furries fursuit very interesting. I read an unrelated article last year that suggested some people are better able to create new identities for themselves than others and that this ability can bring numerous other benefits, including the ability to learn languages more easily. I personally don't have this ability, or at least not very strongly. Mine is a very singular cohesive identity and that would explain my own reluctance to name or identify my fursona as different from my own real-life name and identity. But maybe if I did have that ability, I'd be more compelled to fursuit myself.
I bring this up because I think it could be a great example of how aspects of a person's psychology that are unrelated to furry can still cause them to express furry differently from other people.
2) Watching Boomer the Dog has made me realise that there is still a problem with how society perceives unusual self-expression that hasn't really been challenged at all but needs to be if we furries are to preserve our dignity. To quickly go on a tangent, there is an episode of South Park back in 2005 (Season 9, Episode 1) in which some of the main characters undergo surgery in order to "become who they feel like on the inside", such as Kyle becoming a tall black man and his father becoming a man-dolphin hybrid. The episode was aimed at the subject of gender-correction surgery and was, as you may have guessed, incredibly transphobic (the writers have since made a more transgender-positive episode in recent years, so I'm hoping they've learned their lesson since then).
The reason I bring this episode up is because it is very revealing of how the mainstream perceive people who express a desire for another physical form; as sad and desperate people who use smiles to cover up a lack of self-confidence. I admit that, watching Boomer, this was something that crept into my mind, as I'm willing to bet has crept into Uncle Kage's mind. But thankfully I have my own experiences to tell me that, no, desiring another form does not make you secretly unhappy or desperate; it's simply a thing that adds more colour to your life. It's like upgrading from a small CRT television to a big HDTV.
I don't know whether we tend to associate unusual expression with desperation because of human nature or because of cultural conditioning but it's something that I think needs to be challenged more often in conversation. If we just assume that people's expressions are signs of unhappiness then they become subjects of pity, stripped of their dignity by the people judging them. And then that reflects badly on other people expressing themselves in different ways. It's a slippery slope; if we assume that one kind of furry must be sad and desperate, then where do we draw the line?