But why does all historical or modern fiction have to be realistic in the first place? It's important for stories with researched, nuanced depictions of oppression to exist, but like... sometimes I want to read a Regency Era novel about a dashing mixed genderqueer person doing crimes and seducing the king's mistress without also dealing with the fact that life was generally not great for real people in that real time. Suspension of disbelief is a thing you need for fiction, after all.
And the thing is, fans generally expect the heroes of their fiction to be... well... heroic. "He fights crime but he also really, really hates anyone who isn't a straight white Christian" makes it harder to make your (presumably diverse) audience see your protagonist as the good guy. Not impossible, but harder. (And I mean... there WERE white Christians who were friends across racial and religious lines in pre-war Europe and America.)
Personally, I haven't watched Voltron, so I can't say how things were handled. The "don't have fantasy-mixed characters talk to realistically-mixed characters about it" seems like an oversight, but without the context I can't really make the call. What I'm getting that is that you want stories in which the characters' marginalizations are examined and shown to affect them. That's a reasonable thing to want! I like those sorts of stories too. But I don't think they should be ALL the stories, and my experience with fiction - especially with the modern and historical fiction you specifically brought up - is that it's very much a parade of marginalized characters being repeatedly marginalized.
The fact is, we need stories in which queer/disabled/non-white/etc characters are shown as regular people doing interesting things. Again - they shouldn't be ALL the stories. But if every piece of fiction involving trans people involved said trans people being misgendered (which is the reality for us in this world at this time)... I'd never read a damn book or watch a fucking movie ever again. Marginalized people need to see world where they're no longer marginalized for race/gender/etc to relax, and privileged people *also* need to see those world so that they know what to strive for.
And in the end, given a choice between "no mainstream stories about people like me" and "mainstream stories about people like me in which my oppression isn't documented", I'd prefer the latter. I've been alive nearly three decades and have a case of bipolar that's old enough to legally drink in the US - and I have yet to see a character with the same in any piece of media that I did not create myself. By your logic, I will continue not seeing myself in fiction unless someone decides to write a story in which the protagonist deals with both the awfulness of the bipolar itself and the horrible, horrible treatment people like me get from society. Because it sounds like you think that someone taking mood stabilizers twice a day in between saving the world and going on wacky adventures is not good enough.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2019-11-03 08:07 pm (UTC)And the thing is, fans generally expect the heroes of their fiction to be... well... heroic. "He fights crime but he also really, really hates anyone who isn't a straight white Christian" makes it harder to make your (presumably diverse) audience see your protagonist as the good guy. Not impossible, but harder. (And I mean... there WERE white Christians who were friends across racial and religious lines in pre-war Europe and America.)
Personally, I haven't watched Voltron, so I can't say how things were handled. The "don't have fantasy-mixed characters talk to realistically-mixed characters about it" seems like an oversight, but without the context I can't really make the call. What I'm getting that is that you want stories in which the characters' marginalizations are examined and shown to affect them. That's a reasonable thing to want! I like those sorts of stories too. But I don't think they should be ALL the stories, and my experience with fiction - especially with the modern and historical fiction you specifically brought up - is that it's very much a parade of marginalized characters being repeatedly marginalized.
The fact is, we need stories in which queer/disabled/non-white/etc characters are shown as regular people doing interesting things. Again - they shouldn't be ALL the stories. But if every piece of fiction involving trans people involved said trans people being misgendered (which is the reality for us in this world at this time)... I'd never read a damn book or watch a fucking movie ever again. Marginalized people need to see world where they're no longer marginalized for race/gender/etc to relax, and privileged people *also* need to see those world so that they know what to strive for.
And in the end, given a choice between "no mainstream stories about people like me" and "mainstream stories about people like me in which my oppression isn't documented", I'd prefer the latter. I've been alive nearly three decades and have a case of bipolar that's old enough to legally drink in the US - and I have yet to see a character with the same in any piece of media that I did not create myself. By your logic, I will continue not seeing myself in fiction unless someone decides to write a story in which the protagonist deals with both the awfulness of the bipolar itself and the horrible, horrible treatment people like me get from society. Because it sounds like you think that someone taking mood stabilizers twice a day in between saving the world and going on wacky adventures is not good enough.