[ 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

[maverickz3r0]

There's a point where that becomes tokenism.

If you're saying that half the cast needs to be female, then obviously we need some visible minorities in there, throw in a few black people and Hispanics. Oh, you have no gay/bi/trans people? Better add some! What do you mean you don't have any disabled people? Add some, quick!

Or. People could go the route of decent writing, and only add characters that add something relevant to the story, instead of trying to throw every possible token in there.

[kaileighblue]

Have you ever seen someone do that really? Cause I have and it was kinda creepy. I mean to see someone swap the race of a character and outright say "because I needed a black person." Uuuggghhhh Actually that same person's work could probably be considered Tokenism: The comic.

It's great that characters evolve in the creation process and all but something about announcing it like /that/ gives me the heebies. Like you're asking for asspats.

[maverickz3r0]

I've seen people argue for it in the way where you look at it and go 'okay, you must be strawmanning here...you can't be serious...oh, you are? Fuck.'

I have fortunately never seen anyone actually do it, and I'm glad, because that sounds like all sorts of ew. Just, what.

[kaileighblue]

The same person also told someone else to do it too. Then announced gleefully how they had helped said creator make a black character.

The other creator hadn't introduced the character yet so they could have just done so without incident but this person decided to make an issue out of it.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I have. It's called Glee.

[altumcor]

Or this version of Cinderella.

Don't get me wrong, I actually enjoyed it for its fun cheesefest and Brandy is one of my favourite singers, but I find the thought of a black queen and a white king having an Asian son hilarious.

EDIT; And Paolo Montalbán was pretty dreamy. Swoon!

[truxillogical]

There's something to be said for "blind casting" which is what I always thought that particular Cinderella was. It pops up a lot in the classics, especially Shakespeare and fairy tales.

Honestly, one of my favorite plays that I saw was a version of Cyrano where the protagonist was very much a girl who didn't even bother with a fake silly nose.

[caecilia]

It is hilarious, and that's one of the things I loved about that movie. I actually think it worked.

[(Anonymous)]

But why wouldn't roughly half a cast be female in a non-gender-restricted setting (ie. certain period pieces, boys-only schools, etc.)? I mean. Slightly over half the population of the human race, here. It's kind of disturbing that having a cast that roughly approximates the demographics of our species (instead of presenting a human race where the majority are apparently men) is tokenism.

[maverickz3r0]

They would! Maybe I phrased it badly.

See, I don't see people who add more female characters simply for the sake of adding female characters as doing a good thing. (Insert underrepresented group here in place of female if you like.) It feels like they're ticking off boxes on a checklist instead of putting in actual effort toward making a cast and characters. 'Female characters? Check! Black characters? Check! Gay characters? Check!' A lot of the time, this is what it comes across as in media.

An actual cast with developed characters of all types is great, but people who are doing the checklist thing tend to just throw together tokens and stereotypes in a half-hearted effort to go 'see, we know you exist!' Which is what it feels like with secrets like this; the OP seems to just want female characters without particularly caring if they're developed or not stereotypes, as long as they're female.

[truxillogical]

I think there's this step between under-representation and tokenism (or maybe just to the left, down the block, or something), where's it's not quite as natural as the writer who just happens to write characters that are "fill-in-the-minority-here" but tends to work nicely. It involves a certain awareness on the writer's part, because honestly, if you describe a protagonist using completely gender-neutral terms, the first image in most people's mind is going to be a straight white dude. Society and stories and media have conditioned us to expect that. So it actually does require a conscious effort to change that expectation.

It's not so much about going "better make this character black/female/gay to fill a quota" as it is looking at your cast and thinking, "Hm. Is there a reason that character needs to be male? Why not make that character Hispanic?" etc. It's not quite tokening (especially if the writer just continues to write that character as a person first and not an icon of whatever subgroup the character is "representing."

If that makes any sense.

The secret's a bit silly. It's a bit knee-jerk to say that other writers are neglecting their sacred duty by having a predominantly male cast.

...maybe Christopher Nolan. Maybe.

[kaileighblue]

I do wonder if people ever take into account things like how groups got together in a story. You may never see any member of a certain group show up. Depending on where it is certain demographics may not be represented. That really is Ok.

[truxillogical]

No, yeah, it's fine, it's just that it's also kind of a weird status quo in stories. Especially with gender, because yeah, some groups are more guy-oriented and some are more girl-oriented, but it seems like most folks mix pretty easy.

And certainly you can point out that an area is predominantly one race or another, so then it's not weird to see an all-white group of friends.

But there's also the bit where you don't really need an explanation for someone who isn't white or male being a part of the group. It always kind of bugs me when the only ladies in a story are the characters who absolutely have to be female for the story to work.

Conversely, take, say, Pixar's Up! Russel's Asian. Why? Because...he's Asian. There's really no need for him to be; it neither adds nor detracts from the story. It's never addressed, we don't need to wonder why.

Even in "certain areas" it doesn't mean that showing someone outside of the perceived norm is out of place. I live in a very Southern place, not exactly a small town, but not really a buzzing metropolis either. I still see on average about four or five women in hijabs a week just where I work. If someone were writing a story set in my town, that probably wouldn't even occur to them, but it's not all that out-of-place.

It seems like there's a lot of "sometimes it's like that" going on in the comments. And yeah, sometimes it is like that. And sometimes it's not. It's not really a matter of it not being "ok" or anything. Just that stories often improve when a writer looks at anything--characters, settings, actions, dialogue--anything at all that seems like it's coming from the status quo, and asks themselves "why?" They may decide to keep it as is or change it if they get a better idea, but asking "why" makes them more aware of what they're writing and helps the work to be more original.

[(Anonymous)]

""It's not so much about going "better make this character black/female/gay to fill a quota" as it is looking at your cast and thinking, "Hm. Is there a reason that character needs to be male? Why not make that character Hispanic?" etc. It's not quite tokening (especially if the writer just continues to write that character as a person first and not an icon of whatever subgroup the character is "representing."""

That, to me, is where the big issue lies. Writers will sometimes get so much flack for 'not' making a character an icon, or gleaming paragon, of their race/sexuality. The flak is even thicker if the writer is white, and they 'get something wrong', (no mater how minute the error), when writing a character of a different race or ethnicity.

Sadly it can quickly become a no-win situation for the author.

[truxillogical]

Self-defeating prophecy, though. Writers get flack for whatever they do, race/gender-related or not. Might as well try. And if there is criticism about how the writer handles it, then why not listen to that criticism, see if any of it sounds valid, and learn from it for a future book.

Heck, it's not much different than, say, in the current Captain Marvel series. The writer got something wrong about how a plane worked in the first issue (the character is a pilot). A reader pointed it out. The writer thanked them and took that into consideration if the plane comes up again. Archers frequently point out when an artist gets Green Arrow or Hawkeye's basic form wrong. If they have a good point and aren't just being pedantic, the artist usually learns from it.

I realize race or gender is way more touchy a subject than prop planes and archery, but my point (I think I had one) is that hanging back and not taking a risk because it might turn out wrong is just shoddy writing. Creativity always involves risk. If we didn't have creators willing to work outside their comfort zone, we'd never have had Rucka's Batwoman, or Gail Simone's Secret Six. We wouldn't have adorable guys like Jaime Reyes and Miles Morales hanging around being awesome.

If you're gonna get flack whatever you do, it's always a risk. Might as well make it worth it.

[(Anonymous)]

Ahh but you see unlike planes, and archery, the flack is less "Let us help you to correct that." and more "Your ignorant/raciest/scumbag!" and could potentially damage a writers whole career, and life.

Sometimes the risk is a bit to high, and I think thats why so many 'play it safe'.

[truxillogical]

But any kind of writing with impact runs that risk. No, archery and planes are small potatoes, technicalities at best, but if you're writing with no risk, you're turning out...well, Grisham fiction. Something mass-produced and simple.

The idea that an honest mistake will result in permanent damage to a writer's career and life takes a hyperbolic situation to such a paranoid extreme that anyone that worried about it probably doesn't have the stomach to be a writer. A mistake of that caliber could really only come from true ignorance on the writer's part--a steadfast refusal to do research or branch out from what the writer themselves knows from personal experience. But the idea that it would damage their career...unlikely.

Grisham and Danielle Steele and Nora Roberts play it safe. That goes well for them, I'm sure, but I really hope no one sets out in the writing game with the actual intention of being another Nora Roberts, writing the same thing more or less over and over again, with slight tweaks, for the same people who don't want anything scary or new.

Good writing upsets people. Mistakes are made, and those upset people. Harlan Ellison upsets people. Mark Twain upset people. Neil Gaiman upsets people. Gail Simone upsets people. Jim Butcher upsets people. Octavia Butler upsets people. Sometimes a work is upsetting on purpose and sometimes it's by mistake, but if a writer is genuinely so terrified of upsetting people by taking an educated risk in a story that they can't venture outside of their comfort zone, they're probably only writing the blandest of milquetoast anyway.


(Unless we're talking about fanfic. I mean, hell, it's fanfic, write whatever the heck you want. But if we're talking professional writing--which I'm assuming, given the "career damaging" comment above--then no. The craven worry that "someone will take this the wrong way" has no place, and is nothing but an excuse to not push yourself to grow as a writer. A writer should always be taking chances because a writer should never be anything but honest, and honesty is always risky. There can be legitimate reasons for a work not featuring any or many characters outside your comfort zone, but fear should never be one of them.)

[(Anonymous)]

This was wonderful! Thank you for typing all of that out. It is a clear diamond amid all of the unpleasantly sobering mess earlier in the thread. SHEESH, finally someone that gets it.

The same is to be said for ANY creative process. If you aren't stepping on somebodies toes somewhere along the line, what is your work really worth?

There is only one thing worse than being hated. And that's being forgettable.

[(Anonymous)]

My god, all of this. All of it forever.

I just wish other people understood this as well. it seems like so many would rather read dull, numbing complacent stories, than something that challenges their mind, not to mention 'being offended', for a group that is not their own.

Some of us just want a good story.

[(Anonymous)]

Um, I really don't know almost anyone at all who wants black characters portrayed as gleaming paragons of blackness, or the same for women. Most of the complaints I see are about this very thing - black people, for example, written as either "magical" tokens or negative stereotypes. if you just write them as people, or write the characters first and assign race later (assuming racism is not an integral part of your theme/plot) you honestly shouldn't have a problem

[maverickz3r0]

There is, but...let's just say I've lost a lot of faith in the mainstream media's ability to be able to handle it properly. (It was probably shot to hell a while ago, but the latest TV season has basically just sort of solidified it.)

I explained it to anon above, but I really do think a lot of TV/movie writers just tick off character types on some kind of checklist, and that never ends well.

I would rather they just write people first. One of my favourite fantasy writers makes this point nicely. But that doesn't seem to be a widely practiced art, at all. It does make a lot of sense to me, I just don't have faith that it's going to be widely practiced any time soon.

Heh, I haven't really seen any of his movies, so I wouldn't know.

[(Anonymous)]

Or. People could go the route of decent writing, and only add characters that add something relevant to the story, instead of trying to throw every possible token in there.

Pretty much this.