[ SECRET POST #2088 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2088 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 021 secrets from Secret Submission Post #298.
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)]

Somewhat of one, but definitely not as much of one as they think. Outside of fantasy, gender is a big deal because it matters and in a vast majority of non-fantasy settings, it would affect how other characters, people, and the world treat the character, or whether they would be in the situation you want to write about in the first place.

So you're writing a story about draftees in WWII. Or about the NBA. Or about a boy band. How would you shoehorn 50% women into there?

It's like saying "if half your characters aren't black, you're not helping represent black people, no matter what the story is about." And you know what? If I'm writing a story set in Japan during the imperialist era, not having 50% black characters in the story isn't being racist, it's being realistic.

[(Anonymous)]

If I'm writing a story set in Japan during the imperialist era, not having 50% black characters in the story isn't being racist, it's being realistic.

This is what I say every time someone whines that there isn't enough gay/POC/women/whatever the fuck in X. You know what? Some creators care about realism. If you're in the US, you aren't going to have a half black cast outside of a few areas. Unless you're writing about a place with an active gay community, one out of every three characters isn't going to be gay. There's a version of The Three Musketeers that gives d'Artagnan a 21st century heroine sister. In context, these things don't make sense. It's not about erasure or whatever- it's about what fits.

[(Anonymous)]

""It's like saying "if half your characters aren't black, you're not helping represent black people, no matter what the story is about." And you know what? If I'm writing a story set in Japan during the imperialist era, not having 50% black characters in the story isn't being racist, it's being realistic.""

This!! So much this!

Thank you!

[(Anonymous)]

at the same time, it's worth considering why most stories are set in the time periods/regions that favor leaving out POC and women and LGBT characters. yes, it would be realistic not to have many POC in a story about medieval scotland, and it would not be realistic to have many white people in a story about tribes in south africa. one gets written and re-written a lot more often than the other. and that's not just "chance."

[(Anonymous)]

Because they find those periods and regions interesting? And aren't really thinking about gender/race/sexuality?

I mean, I'm fascinated by the medieval era. It's definitely a time period that I would NOT want to live in, but I'm still interested in it. I can't exactly deny that this may be due to another interest that it's often paired up with - the fantasy genre. Somehow, knights and dragons just seem to go together.

[(Anonymous)]

I think I see what the other anon is getting at. You find medieval times interesting, but only a very specific subset of the years qualifying that time period (I mean, when you say "medieval era," do you mean that time period for all over the world, or "Europe, medieval era"?). Do you just naturally like that time and fantasy stories with knights and so forth? Or are you partially predisposed towards it due to that being the predominant culture you grew up with, reading fairy tales about princesses and princes and knights and little witch cottages that look very European-peasant-like? You have to make a special effort to expose yourself to an equal proportion of fairy tales and myths based on other cultures. Just being saturated in it can make it seem more 'right' on an emotional level to imagine a princess with a wimple in a stone tower with European flora and fauna all around than a princess in a Japanese setting with different fashion, hair, architecture, etc.

[(Anonymous)]

I naturally like the "Europe, medieval era".

Does that make me a bad person?

[(Anonymous)]

yes, it makes you racist and misogynistic. Are you new here?

[(Anonymous)]

you're missing the point here.

it's not pure "coincidence" that white-based (as long as we're keeping with this particular issue, though it applies to male-based, straight-based, etc) stories are popular, and that lots of people like them. you don't make your decisions in a vacuum. you could have just as easily fallen in love with tales about rural Mongolia, but you didn't. likely because you weren't exposed to many growing up. in all likelihood, the stories you read and the history you were exposed to were white-dominant, so yes of course you like them. if we're talking fantasy, you have any number of disney fairy tales and other media that favor white European stories.

that does not make you a bad person, nor does it make anyone else a bad person for liking that time period. what I was getting at initially, was that people need to start thinking critically about why it is that our culture continues to regurgitate itself like this. it's no coincidence that most people who feel the need to defend themselves against accusations of racism based on the fact that they've set their story in a certain era have picked majority white eras-- they've been told repeatedly by society that those are the only stories worth telling. then -they- publish their own writing about majority white medieval fantasy or whatever, and the next generation is exposed to that same idea too. it's a cycle wherein everyone convinces themselves that it's just purely coincidental that media that's successful is, in this example, white.

no, you shouldn't feel guilty about the time period you like. i, for example, like westerns. i also realize that i probably favor westerns because a white dominant society made those popular and exposed them to me as positive. i also realize this is a bad thing, that i should make an effort on my own to expose myself to many different cultures and stories that are not considered mainstream, or this cycle of endless favoritism for certain stories will never cease.

write what you want, read what you want, but please don't act so ignorant as to believe everything you do and everything you've grown to like are not a product of societal influence.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not ignorant, I actually do read fairy tales, from all over the world, in my spare time, and expose myself to as many different folktales as I can get my hands on.

However, I won't, for one second, feel any kind of huge cultural guilt trip for liking the stories, and settings of Medieval (and Victorianism) England.

...and I'm not white.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

no, you shouldn't feel guilty about the time period you like. i, for example, like westerns. i also realize that i probably favor westerns because a white dominant society made those popular and exposed them to me as positive. i also realize this is a bad thing, that i should make an effort on my own to expose myself to many different cultures and stories that are not considered mainstream, or this cycle of endless favoritism for certain stories will never cease.

You make it sound like you're interested in other cultures not because they truly interest you, but because you feel guilty. I mean, I was always interested in Egyptian stories (although the only good Egyptian-influenced novel I have ever read was Terry Pratchett's Pyramids), but I'm not interested in, I don't know, Vietnamese culture, so why would I bother to read stories which are based on their culture? Broadening one's interests is nice, but doing it out of some social guilt you feel is incredibly disrespectful to other cultures, and honestly, it makes you sound like a hipster.

And btw 1. - if you write a novel about an entirely different culture than yours and you are not an author whom I've already liked before, there is an 80% chance that even if I'm interested in the culture you are writing about, I won't read it. A few weeks ago I wanted to read some Chinese crime stories, and all the recs I've found directed me to books written by American people and that killed my interest in those books instantly, I haven't even bothered to read the summaries. I'm not saying that it is impossible for an American to write a good story about the Chinese crime world, or that a European cannot write a phenomenal Western story (hey, Sergio Leone directed my favourite Westerns, after all!), and in some cases incredible works were created by blending two different worlds, unfortunately, in most cases, the final product is incredibly disillusioning.

And btw 2. - this cultural (and social, and political, etc.) favoritism happens in every country, in every culture. I don't say it's a good thing (I would kill to have more stories which are set in Egypt, the Before-Conquests Latin America, Siberia, Medieval/18-19th century Fantasy which are set in Fantasy Spain/Eastern European countries/Russia/Nordic countries, etc.), but it is not a new or unique phenomenon, or something that will ever change in the future, or something that one should be ashamed of.

[(Anonymous)]

But if you have dragons, it's not the traditional mideval setting. You already have dragons. Unless you're committed to writing 'truly realistic everything BUT with dragons' there's no reason the gender norms need to reflect historical ones or there to only be white people.

[(Anonymous)]

SA

I'm not saying "you must write this way" just that there's options for people who want to write historical fantasy without historical mysogyny and racism.

[(Anonymous)]

This is true, but it swings both ways. Often "erasure" is unrealistic.

Take like ... well, a lot of cop dramas on BBC that have basically all white people. It's weird, when the show takes place in modern England. Because it's not realistic to have it all white people. And I think a lot of that results from plain old lazy writing - the creators of the new shows are in some ways, copying or paying homage to the classic mystery shows and movies, most of which were all white people. In some of the old movies, it made sense... in the new movies, no. I think this happens a lot in film. We recycle old archetypes even if they've changed since then. It's laziness more than racism imo but it's not great.

[(Anonymous)]

This. God knows how many series in NYC have mostly White casts and White people only make 30% of NYers.

LBR, a lot of series usually take places in metropolises or major cities that would have a very profound populations of POC. Yet they usually only have one POC secondary character that is very, very rarely the main unless it is a comedy in a cable channel.