lizbee | (Reply)

From:

I think maybe the issue here is specifically the conflation of hopepunk (which I would think would be the struggle between cynicism and optimism?), and the dumbass, cloying Tumblr conception of "wholesomeness". What exactly about Parks and Rec speaks to the defiant fight to cling to hope in the face of despair? Nothing? Then why the fuck is it on her list?

The aesthetic of hopepunk can be seen as part of a broader cultural embrace of “softness,” wholesomeness, and gentleness.

Ah right, because it's ~wholesome~ and ~soft~. Because it's a warm comedy with lovable characters. Except there's nothing punk about that. There's this weirdly mashed-together feel to the article; it seems like Aja's thinking of two separate things, one of which is Sam's speech in LotR, and the other of which is something more along the lines of my "for bad days" tag: sweet, fun or uplifting things to be consumed unironically to help get me through bad times. I could give you plenty of examples of both (though I prefer the former), but they're two very different things.

It's funny, because what I think hopepunk is "supposed" to mean is actually a huge story kink of mine. If you asked me instead of Aja, "hopepunk" would be stories where hope is deliberately contrasted against harsh challenges to that hope. "Punk" isn't punk unless there's some larger power or trend that you're asserting yourself against--in this case, the pressures of cynicism and despair. Hopepunk wouldn't be the opposite of grimdark at all--just grimdark with a different conclusion, which is a thin, thin line. It's "hope" because hope is its ultimate destination; it's "punk" because in order to get there, in order for hope to have any meaning, you have to take a long swallow from the grimdark keg.

I don't know what "comfort", "coziness" or "kawaii culture" have to do with that.

And honestly, her attempts to make rom-coms and hygge fit into the same slot as eternal resistance against oppressive forces come off... weird, shallow, tacky. Which I suspect is the real issue: "hopepunk" is frankly a pretty straightforward, emotion-based trope (character feels trapped and hopeless, character decides to embrace hope despite still being trapped: hopepunk!), but by giving it a name, it's become conflated with the particular subculture that named it, with all its value judgments and weird-ass purity culture baggage.

Or maybe what I've described is too broad, or maybe not broad enough (is Aja describing a genre, or a trend, or a new subculture?), and at this point, "hopepunk" as a term is so specific as to be hopelessly entwined with the Tumblr culture that spawned it, permanently tainted with Tumblr's pastel-colored infantilism and simplistic black-and-white views of the world. Hands up for ~uwu pure hopepunk~ I guess. I'll be over here in my corner with The Black Parade.

* I think I agree with @syncytio that this is really more of a trope than a genre, anyway. Especially if we're going to be comparing and contrasting it to grimdark, which also is not a genre--and which, like hopepunk and all other tropes, is pretty subjective.