[ SECRET POST #573 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #573 ⌋

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

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Notes:

FS Layout Contest. Contest entries close August 10th!

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 76 secrets from Secret Submission Post #082.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 1 2 3 4 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 2 - too big ], [ 1 2 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: 122

[littlewings04.livejournal.com]

I agree, it was a pretty natural reaction for Sylar to use her to his advantage. I think for Sylar, you have to prove you're a person to him; he doesn't see humans as people, they're tools or obstacles in his universe, and you have to be Special in the ways that he constructs it to have any real meaning. But fucking hell, Maya annoyed the crap out of me a lot of the time. Most of the time. She needs to be thrown back into the waters of telenovella-esque stereotypes, never to be seen or heard from again.

*waits to be called racist and/or misogynistic again*

Re: 122

[weaselistic.livejournal.com]

I think for Sylar, you have to prove you're a person to him; he doesn't see humans as people, they're tools or obstacles in his universe, and you have to be Special in the ways that he constructs it to have any real meaning.

I wonder how exactly Sylar sees people, but it's probably something to that effect, yes...

But fucking hell, Maya annoyed the crap out of me a lot of the time. Most of the time. She needs to be thrown back into the waters of telenovella-esque stereotypes, never to be seen or heard from again.

Nah, I still think I prefer to have her get character development, get thrown in more different situations, interact with more people, to show more layers of her personality and all.
The interviews etc. I've seen promise exactly that, so I'm rather optimistic.

A lot of characters began as relatively stereotypical and slow/boring, but they eventually got to grow and change. Hiro started out the stereotypical geek (a Japanese otaku office worker isn't exactly a brilliantly unusual character type either). I'm happy they're giving Maya the same chance.

Re: 122

[littlewings04.livejournal.com]

Maya, and her brother, just sums up all the really awful attitudes Anglos have about Latinos in this country, and it's not just that she's a stereotype, it's that she's a pretty offensive one. She's naive, hyper-religious, and she comes bearing this plague from south of the border (which, hell, it makes total sense for a Dominican to come through Venuzela and Mexico, I mean, all Latin American countries are interchangeable, right?). She falls under the spell of this evil white guy who is going to exploit her and use her for his evil ways, including corrupting her sexually and bringing her under his thrall... I mean, man, I grew up a Latina in Texas. I know what the whole Minutemen propeganda looks like. And to be honest? A lot of it looks like this. We don't really know Maya outside of her sterotype, and I don't want to know what other trash they're going to tack on to her. I'm not willing to give her a chance. She's a pretty appalling character type for me, this dependant, mystical, dangerous Latina who is fleeing to America to find the cure for her mysterious ability/illness/whatever. I get that people want that, and that's fine, but I'm seriously afraid of what other baggage Kring is going to load on her. And I really wish he wouldn't. I really wish he would give her up, because her plot creeps the fuck out of me, and seriously, that is not the representation of my race I want to see every week.

The difference between Maya and Hiro is that while Hiro was a model minority to begin with, embued with Japanese/Asian stereotypes, he was never presented as a danger, he was put in the spotlight to be fleshed out, and he is there to take charge of his own destiny, he has a function. He had more character traits than otaku geek, and they were presented rather quickly. Hiro became more than a stereotype within a few episodes. Maya isn't presented as a main character, she has problematic and offensive elements to her character type, her whole function revolves around her interaction with Sylar and her dependence on him, and she's presented as this mysterious threat that, after a while, begins to feel like that's what's being said about all the Latinos in Heroes. Isaac was interesting, but he was a freakin' heroin addict with a penchant for accidentally killing people, which Maya seems to be perfecting, she's good at accidentally killing folk. And that's just presented as this thing she does, that's just how she is. She doesn't get developed, she's just this dangerous thing week after week. And that seems like all she's going to be. Dangerous, sexy thing that is good to hook up with Sylar and probably Mohinder (who also suffers from stereotyping and stupid writing a lot) and she doesn't have to make coherent sense because they have the stereotype of the Latina to fall back on in order to communicate what they want to communicate to the audience about her.

I'm probably not articulating this well. I've had this argument multiple times with a lot of people, and it basically comes down to the pornography definition the Supreme Court runs with: I know offensive when I see it. I've spent my whole live getting stereotypes about my race shoved down my throat. I know more of them when I'm forced to chew on them, and I'd really like to spit them out now. Heroes is full of race problems, and when they bring on new characters that are again, racially charged, stereotyped, and problematic, it begins to feel like Kring spun the wheel of diversity, picked a few highlights and just threw them in so he could get everyone to do a rendition of "We Are the World." The staff is good at writing men, and with time, they manage to break out of the stereotypes they start out in. The Petrellis are fascinating, Sylar's fascinating, I adore Mohinder despite his problems because he had a chance to at least become a person, not just the Indian PhD, Parkman is awesome, Hiro's great...it's just that most of the second season characters of color didn't get treated well by the writers, they phoned it in, and I don't really want to give any more screen time to something that's really offensive in the hopes that Maya might become less so with time.

Sorry for the tl;dr, but I've got Opinions on this one.

Re: 122

[weaselistic.livejournal.com]

I was told by a friend that the original plan for Maya, in the scrapped virus storyline, was that she would be the one to stop the virus and save humanity. Sounds like a nice subversion of the streotype you mentioned.

Hiro was a positive stereotype/archetype to begin with, agreed. But there were negative ones, too. Like Nathan as the corrupt and selfish politician. Heck, DL was introduced as the dangerous African-American murderer escaped from prison, and look how that got turned on its head once we got to know him more. Niki also developed into more than "stripper"...

Yeah, that's all. Thanks for your life story, it does not change that I'm optimistic when it comes to Maya.

Re: 122

[aratama.livejournal.com]

And my point is, again and again: Heroes characters all start out in stereotype, in the gutter where they hate being, and their character developments all deal with them growing out of it. Regardless of race or sex.

:(

Oh well.

Re: 122

[weaselistic.livejournal.com]

It's nice to see it summed up short like that. I seem completely incapable of brevity these days. Thanks. <3

Re: 122 - think the topic is important...

[weaselistic.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure you are still going to read this, but I think this topic deserves to be discussed, and the only way to discuss it is calmly. It'd be cool if you could read this, at least.

We do come from different backgrounds, obviously. People all over the world watch the show, and they necessarily have different backgrounds, and different feelings about the way that certain groups are portrayed.
Tim Kring is essentially a white, male American. Middle-aged, if I may hazard a guess. I am grateful that he has the sense to realize that the story he's decided to tell cannot be limited to one nation. But by trying to incorporate people from different cultures and nations, he is bound to write about things he is not that familiar with.

This is a problem we all have. We are familiar mostly with our own issues. For the sake of making things clear: I am white, German, female. So, no, I do not have first-hand experience with how you grew up as a Latina in Texas. I don't have the same sensitivities you have towards the stereotypes and archetypes that have to do with your background.

But the same is true for you. You belong to one minority, but there are still a lot of minorities that you do not belong to and are unfamiliar with. People who belong to these other minorities might disagree with you on whether or not one character is offensive or inoffensive.

Hiro was not exactly a "model minority to begin with". To Asians, it is probably annoying as hell to be represented by a complete and utter geek who surrounded his work place with action figures and couldn't refrain from mentoning Star Trek even when questioned by the police about a murder. The otaku image is not a nice one to have.

And while his character got developed, the show still does a bad job at getting his culture right. As a person, Hiro is awesome. As a Japanese, it's a different matter. Since you and I aren't Japanese, we can ignore this more easily and focus on Hiro as a person.

I agree Maya was underdeveloped. There is really no sense in repeating again and again that Season 2 moved too slowly, everybody agrees on that, including the writers. Her storyline was not the only one that suffered under it. (It ended just at its main turning point, thanks to the strike.) I found that Peter's and Hiro's storylines dragged just as much. They were also just as ignorant of the cultures and countries they portrayed, according to people who know more about these places than I do. Claire's storyline was even more boring and annoying to me.

Still, out of all these storylines, I enjoyed Maya's most, and that has little to do with her race, nationality, language. It comes down to the fact that I think that in her situation, I wouldn't do much better. That's why I want to see her succeed.

Maybe it's also because there's something I admire about refugees, essentially, the willingness to give up everything you had, and to even risk their lives. It's a scary situation where you don't really know what's ahead and there's often no turning back either. I probably feel this way because my father was a refugee and I've been amazed all my life that he had managed to do something this courageous. Not saying it's entirely the same (there are countless differences), but it's just at the back of my mind when I see such stories.