fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2181 ]

[ SECRET POST #2181 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2181 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 100 secrets from Secret Submission Post #312.
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TBH, I kind of agree with you. If a cast is overwhelming male (particularly, white and male) for seemingly no purpose, it screams lazy to me. People often don't write characters outside of their comfort zone, but I think doing something that's not natural to you is an important part of writing and being creative. The default seems to be white male, and people always treat writing other groups as something difficult, but if you try to do it genuinely and with room to grow, it really isn't. I'm not saying that this comic couldn't be good, or that adding women or PoC would automatically make it better, but in the long run, trying new things will improve one's creativity, as well as how one sees the world around them.

but then when they are added, you'd get the same people saying those characters were done wrong or appropriated.

Bad writing will be bad and good writing will be good without any such easy shortcut to creativity as "make some ethnic womens"

This. I get so sick of seeing people bitchbitchbitch about how we need more diverse representation and then rip to shreds almost every character who isn't straight/white/male/insert-minority-status-here for not being ~done right~, and then we get the whole "WHITE MEN CANT WRITE MINORITY CHARACTERS WELL BUT SAYING THAT MINORITIES SHOULD TRY WRITING SOME IS RACIST/SEXIST/WHATEVER -IST WE FEEL LIKE SAYING TODAY" schtick. Feh.

it's annoying as shit because you better believe no one is going "you're not doing straight male right". Nope, nowhere is that a thing. Because straight white males are allowed the privilege of being considered as individual characters, not representative of their demographic. For people so obsessed equality you'd think they'd allow the same for minorities.

I think the problem is that the kind of people who go off like this are so damn invested in "us vs. them" mentality that they can't see people as individuals, only as members of whatever collective demographic they've assigned them.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-12-22 22:56 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-12-23 01:49 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-12-23 02:42 (UTC) - Expand

Receipts? Because the only time I see people bitch about a minority character is when said character is a blatant stereotype or box of cliches. Don't expect a pat on the back for making some more Magical Negroes or Sassy Black Best Friends.

Basically, you can't get it wrong if you treat POC and women like actual people instead of like all the cliches you've ever seen. If you can't write people, then you shouldn't be writing at all.

I agree with a lot of your comment, almost all of it. Actually, no, I agree with everything you're saying, especially the "write them like actual people instead of like all the cliches".

The only caveat I have to add is that I thought the whole racewank thing blew up when a white author had said the key to writing minority characters was that they're all just people, write them as people. And then there was an explosion of 'no no no, they're not the same as you, different experiences, privilege' etc. All of those things are true in pieces, but when it all came down like an avalanche, it did seem to be a catch-22 of "you can't write POC without understanding [blank]" and "you can't even understand [blank] because you're not."

That's my recollection, anyway, as a non-writing bystander who liked reading metafandom.

And, like I said, I really do agree with what you've said here, to simply write people as people.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-12-23 14:18 (UTC) - Expand

clearly you hang out in much smarter areas of fandom than I do then, because I've seen people go crazy over really stupid things.

I agree that shit writing is going to be shit writing and reflect on the characters no matter what. But I think half the problem is that some people seem to think that when a character is not a white dude, that their not white dudeness is ALL that they are. So, instead of just writing a good character who happens to be female, they write FEMALE!characters, and the end result often ends up being pretty shitty and stereotypical.

It would be nice to see a shift in this mindset and see more good writers not afraid to move away from straight, white and male being their automatic go-to. There's nothing wrong with straight, white male characters, but it does get repetitive and unimaginative after awhile.
Writers should just stop and consider why they can't just make a character female or black or hispanic or queer. There are some characters that are going to need to be white, straight dudes, but not all or even most of them. Just look at what they did with the BSG remake - that's how you switch things up in the right way. And yeah, some people will screw it up and there's going to be criticism no matter what, but that shouldn't stop people from trying. The only reason things change is because you have people who are willing to take chances in the first place.

I don't disagree with anything you said, but I tend to find the sort that wrote FEMALE! characters wasn't' doing all that good with the straight white guy characters either. I'll say again... bad writers tend to have bad writing period.

AYRT - I totally agree about the FEMALE!characters. Shitty writers are going to screw up most of their characters, really. I think they usually just get less criticism of their white dude characters since there are more of them around, so people aren't stuck in that weird mindset that all characters that are white and male represent all white males everywhere.

(no subject)

insanenoodlyguy - 2012-12-22 23:59 (UTC) - Expand

This is why the Social Justice Warrior fringe, is so dangerous to real diversity, and change.

They scream at white writers for more diversity, then scream when they get it because it 'isn't done right', then scream with white writers and people ask them how to improve and get better.

...and the people doing the screaming, are also white.

It's insanity.

which is why we should all either stop caring about them or mock them for the idiots they are.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-12-22 22:59 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

insanenoodlyguy - 2012-12-22 23:25 (UTC) - Expand

Well, as I said...

I'm not saying that this comic couldn't be good, or that adding women or PoC would automatically make it better, but in the long run, trying new things will improve one's creativity, as well as how one sees the world around them.

Of course there are terrible stories that have a lot of diversity (lol hi Glee), and great ones that have mostly white dudes (way too much to count). However, if someone genuinely tried to make a good character who happens to be female and/or PoC, in the long run it will benefit because they'll be able to know about more perspectives. Tokens are a bad thing, and they are not what I am talking about.

People might get critique if they write a character in a problematic way, but making mistakes and learning from them is part of the process. A creative person can't be afraid of failure if they want to put their work out into the open.

This is a good comment.

Thank you :)

Agreeing with anon: this

I'd rather even negative representations exist, because I simply want there to be a range of them. Dudes are typically allowed to be flawed, dull, weak, and generally fail as characters/leads all the time, so why is it seen like a writer only has ONE shot to get everyone else right.

I admit I'm a little confused by your comment. Do you mean like a writer fails to portray a certain group correctly, or characters with intentional flaws?

(no subject)

cloud_riven - 2012-12-23 03:36 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-12-23 03:39 (UTC) - Expand

It's because a lot of the time, that one minority character is the only person of their particular group, which makes it a lot more loaded. If you have six white male characters on a show, it really doesn't mean much if one of the characters is an absolutely evil asshole. If you only have one black female character on the show (for example) it IS a lot worse to make her be an absolutely evil asshole because she's essentially the "token."

I don't really hear a lot of people complaining about the sexism in making Jenna an ~evil bitch~ on Pretty Little Liars, and I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that her character is more than balanced out by the many strong female protagonists on the show. Her character would take on a different flavor if instead of Aria, Hanna, Emily, and Spencer, we had Adam, Hansel, Emmitt, and...okay, Spencer.

then write good characters who aren't white and don't fall into stereotypes.

this isn't hard.

orly?

then why aren't more doing it? I can't believe with the number of creative people out there that if 'it isn't that hard' that so few are getting it right.

perhaps it isn't the 'this isn't hard' that's the problem but that there seem to be so many differing opinions on how to do it that is the problem.

+1

Women aren't even a minority. Come on, aspiring webcomic artist, you're not working on a goddamn 80's saturday morning cartoon. If you can't imagine a female/poc character doing similar stuff as your precious white males, you've got some self-reflecting to do.

Most characters you can just write first and then flip a coin on which gender/race they end up being, anyway. It's that easy really.

Most characters you can just write first and then flip a coin on which gender/race they end up being, anyway.

That's similar to what I do. Gender I usually choose at the beginning of creating the character, but I don't think about race until I'm doing character designs, and by that point I've already got their role in the story and few basic personality traits down. Obviously, after I've given them a race I think about how that will affect them, but by that point they are well-developed enough that they most likely won't turn into a bunch of offensive clichés.

maybe i'm strange, then, because i always doodle character concepts first until i come up with a design i like and then write their character based on the design.

You see, I thought I was strange because I feel like most people do it your way. But maybe neither of us are. Whatever works best is the best method for that person :)

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