[ 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

[(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)]

Same anon. But how would that lead him to that conclusion rather than that it was the fault of the casting directors?

[lb_lee]

Um. I'm not really sure how to respond to this, except as a sort of, if it happens once or twice, maybe you blame the casting directors. When it's a blanket thing in all media you consume--billboards, magazines, books--then people tend to come to the conclusion the problem is them.

Especially when there's huge forces like racism and transphobia in the world associated with that.

Seriously, I'm not even sure how to respond to this question, because it seems so... tangential to my experience of reality. It's weird.

[arcadiaego]

I think also you can know stuff on a logical level but still feel differently on an emotional level. Plus seeing that society doesn't care about you on that scale still sucks even if you know they're wrong.

[lb_lee]

Yes, that, exactly. I was having trouble articulating my feelings. Especially since... I dunno, it was one of those things nobody ever talked about, so it was something we weren't even aware of, so we never thought, "Stupid casting directors," because... well, it wasn't even a conscious thing! (Just like I doubt it was a conscious thing on the casting directors' part either.)

[(Anonymous)]

Same anon. That's why I have to ask these questions, because seeing people be so impacted by these things is so tangential to my experience of reality. And I say that as someone who fits several what would be considered minority groups, so it isn't a matter of not seeing something because I'm in the majority (which nobody is for everything).

[lb_lee]

Yeah, I get that. It's just obvious you and us are different people, which you know, is to be expected.

I mean, I very rarely read trans stories that ring with me, but I STILL remember with intense clarity the first time I saw a trans guy in a comic and realized that I might be trans too. Different strokes, different folks.

[(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)]

Same anon. I can't identify with any of those things despite being in those categories. Obviously we need diversity, but as a person it puzzles me how people "see themselves" in characters just for having an unspecific, impersonal thing in common with them.

[(Anonymous)]

Well not everybody experiences fiction in the same way and there's no reason why they really need to, but a lot of people do develop a kind of empathy with characters precisely because that character exhibits certain traits or characteristics and that's also a very valid and understandable response too. I mean if you're a young girl who dreams of being in the military or playing football or even being a superhero, but that's not something that's encouraged because you're female or all the superheroes, people in the military or playing football that are ever shown in fiction are male it can be a very potent symbol to see a female character joining the military or a football team and succeeding or a female superhero and think and think "She did it so maybe I can be that too". Those things wouldn't necessary have the same emotional weight for them if the character was male because men (white men in particular) have always had access to those kinds of roles both on and off screen and the point is it's about a woman, someone who shares their gender, getting a chance to be those things too. The same can be true for race or ethnicity regardless of how broad and varied those categories seem.

[(Anonymous)]

Same anon. As a kid I never felt that the character had to have something physical in common with me. Thus I wouldn't understand if a friend came to me saying she couldn't find any character who fit what she wanted just because none of them were girls. With me, it would be the character traits, not what they were physically. That's always been unimportant to me.

And if people don't think that x group can do y activity just because they don't see it on tv, they're not thinking very hard about doing y themselves because chances are group x is already doing it. That's the sort of thing that baffles me, because at that point it comes off like confusing fantasy and reality.