[ SECRET POST #3422 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3422 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 033 secrets from Secret Submission Post #489.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

01. http://i.imgur.com/B8340Ki.png

[diet_poison]

It's too bad you never saw that character again, anon. I hope you find more.

Representation is definitely important.

[(Anonymous)]

A little like being on tumblr when your fandom isn't part of English speaking mainstream. What are the rest even talking about.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm the opposite. I prefer not to see my group represented onscreen because it's never accurate.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Same. I always get second hand embarrassment about characters who belong to the same groups as I do because it never really represents my experience. Even if it's not technically inaccurate, it usually doesn't ring true for me.

[(Anonymous)]

Write to the places that do it wrong and correct them, tell them to do better in the future. And consume media from the areas of the world where your group makes media.

[(Anonymous)]

"Write to the places that do it wrong and correct them" unfortunately often results in the writers going into a huff and saying "well since I'm doing it wrong I won't write anything with a character from that group anymore".

[(Anonymous)]

I get that, but if people don't have the opportunity to make mistakes, they're never going to improve. That's how progress works. You're not just saying no to all the dumb stereotypes and poorly executed characters, you're saying no to the awesome ones that lie in our future.

[(Anonymous)]

No, that's how immortalizing "stupidity" works. If a director has terrible representation of black characters in his films and he continues to do so until he realizes that what's he's doing is wrong and makes a change, his newer+more positive films won't erase his bad past. It's like how society never forgets the embarrassing crap you've done and thus comes to associate you with what happened. They're not going to look at the director and only say he made progress. They'll still acknowledge his past works were embarrassing while at the same time saying "at least he changed." Progress doesn't just come from making mistakes. It can come from being told not to do something in the first place.

[(Anonymous)]

I went through something similar, anon so I feel you :(

[tcex28]

We're able to decipher stories because, even on the most primal level of "gravity points down" or "entity does thing", they're imitations of aspects of reality. It's because we recognise Entities as able to do Things that "one day an entity did a thing" makes any sense to us. We're always subconsciously cross-referencing with our own understanding (might be knowledge, or feelings) in order to navigate the web of a story.

When you find a story that seems to be imitating aspects of your life, it's a unique feeling, and one I think everyone deserves to experience. It's the feeling of being recognised by someone else as worthy of visibility. It's also the feeling of being connected to that story, in a way someone else might not be, because the understanding that unlocks it for you has come first-hand.

TLDR representation is great.

[crossy_woad]

I'm sorry you've only had it once, anon!

[(Anonymous)]

I've never seen a character of my ethnic group in any form of media. Honestly, I'm glad for that. I'm completely detached from my culture because I've only seen the worst of it.

Does anyone else feel that way?

[(Anonymous)]

No. I'm hardly a Pollyanna, but I can't bring myself to be that defeatist. It just doesn't make any sense if you look at the big picture. Look at the history of black actors in the media. It went from the most horrible racist stereotypes to to Auntie Mame to the Magical Negro, all things that are pretty cringeworthy. But if we hadn't had that, would we now have Shonda Rhimes as one of the most influential creators/showrunners in TV today? Probably not. I understand being impatient or discouraged by how slow the progress looks when you're in the middle of it, anon. But because I KNOW progress can be made and it can be amazing, I'm never going to say that I'd be "glad" not to see anyone from my ethnic group represented in the media.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

I just find it stupid because while my group does get a lot of representation in the media (now) I've literally never felt an inability to identify and connect with characters that don't ~represent me. Still don't, in fact tend not to identify with the characters that supposedly do represent me, only now dumbasses can't seem to shut up about how I totally should identify with and love them more than the characters I actually do identify with.

[(Anonymous)]

How does one feel that a character is "like them" based off of ethnicity or race or similar things? Those are such broad categories that aren't even close to individual. I've never felt that a character was "like me" no matter how many of those general categories they fall into...

[lb_lee]

Enh, I'm going to use my boyfriend as an easy example. He's mixed race and trans, and we've talked before about how he felt left out of everything--too white to be comfortable in black spaces, too black to be comfortable in white spaces. And he knew NO other trans men till he met me... only trans women. (And one nonbinary person, though neither of them had the language for it at the time.)

He felt COMPLETELY ALONE for a very long time. If he watched porn, there was NOBODY who looked at all like him, and he felt that nobody could find him desirable. (When I showed him some of my trans porn, he was FLABBERGASTED. And delighted. The IDEA that we were desirable enough to have porn about us was hugely vindicating for him.) There was nobody like him in movies, or TVs shows that he watched. Which led him to believe that people like him were such nonentities, they didn't even deserve to be extras in the movies of other people's lives.

Having a relationship with him has made me realize some of my own feelings about my own identity. I kinda presumed I would never date another trans guy--the odds just seemed too low. Having a partner who has had a similar background to me, similar experiences... it's sad, but it's also somehow gratifying? Just realizing we're not alone.

We're different in many ways--he was blue-collar poor kid, I was upper-middle class white-collar kid, before shit went south anyway--but there's still that core of shared experience there.

[(Anonymous)]

This is basically me. I'm always agog at how people manage to identify with and feel represented by a fictional character simply because they're the same race or have the same cultural background. This has literally never been my experience (and before anyone asks no I'm not white). Maybe it would be different for sexual orientation, because that's a lived experience that actually plays out to some extent in any story it's addressed in, but otherwise...?

[(Anonymous)]

As a woman even if a female character isn't really like me or doesn't share my background, ethnicity, all or even most of my life experience I can still recognize and identify with certain experiences they might go through that feel largely universal to being female. Like periods or sexism or even things like your first bra. 'Teenager' is also a pretty broad category, but there are still tropes and experiences associated in fiction with being a teenager that can still create a sense of the shared experience of being a teenager like first loves, graduating from school etc.

Also I don't think it's just about identification although I do think that can be very important. I can and do frequently identify with characters who aren't anything like me, but I still appreciate seeing women represented on screen or black people presented on screen because their stories have value too and it's very powerful to have that acknowledged.

[(Anonymous)]

Another POC here. I know what you mean, OP. None of my childhood favorites had anything in the way of representation. While I wasn't scarred by it and it didn't hinder my love of books or the characters, but... it would've meant a great deal to me to see someone like me as the protagonist once in a while. As an adult when I read something that does have someone like me as a character (even if it's not the main character!) it feels like a personal epiphany. I wonder if this is how white people feel, or if it's no big deal because it's so normal.

I wish more people understood this instead of dismissing it as more SJW whining.

[(Anonymous)]

Don't wait for someone else to do it again. Be the one who represents yourself. And don't do it in mere fanfic either. Tell the stories of your people.

[(Anonymous)]

This is a nice suggestion, but be fair: not everyone is equipped to create, and not everyone wants to. Telling people that if they want to see diverse media they need to make it themselves is well meant, but it's a little... well... unintentionally callous, IMO. And I say this as a writer who IS creating fiction with an eye to "telling the story of my people".

Let me put it another way. Perhaps you are aware that many clothing retailers in the U.S. don't carry much in the way of plus size clothing, or if they do, it's not very well made and the styles are terrible. Despite the fact that there is a significant demand for size 14+ clothes that aren't ugly circus tent dresses, that change has not really happened. But you surely wouldn't tell every plus size woman out there they need to get a sewing machine and learn to make their own dresses rather than urging manufacturers to recognize their worth as consumers, would you?

[(Anonymous)]

This is such an incredibly stupid thing to say.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm glad you grew up

[(Anonymous)]

There's one show that's on TV in the UK (and maybe some other countries, I'm not sure) that depicts the people from my city with my city's accent. They aren't there as a gimmick, they aren't there to have the piss taken out of them, they're the cast. They are people, in all the variety that people come in. And the first time I heard someone speak on that show, I got a glimmer of what it must be like for people whose ethnicity, sexuality, etc (you know, the actual significant stuff) aren't shown in media. Because I was so, so happy that this show wasn't making people like me out to be invisible or morons. It was maybe 0.1% of what people who are actually discriminated against must get when they get properly represented. And an accent is nothing. An accent can be hidden with lessons.