[ 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)]

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.