Historical fiction is fantasy when it doesn't deal with bigotry? You're moving the goalposts so much that I'm not even sure they're still in the same city they started in. Honestly, with your comments on this thread, I'm getting a feeling - and, you know, I could be wrong, but I'm going to say this just in case I'm not - that you've been told by a... very specific part of queer fandom that consuming fiction is a form of social justice. That you should only read/watch stuff that's "pure" enough and that if you don't like something you need a social justice reason for it. And I want to say - that's a horrible belief, and the people who say this are pretty messed up. You can enjoy fiction that's problematic, and you can not enjoy fiction without picking it apart for racism and sexism. (I personally have never been able to get more than twenty pages into The Name of the Wind - not because of any bigotry, because I haven't found any in the first chapter, but because the writing is the literary equivalent of nails on chalkboard for me.)
Guess what: I knew more than half of those (and the other half I didn't because I haven't heard of those characters). And this despite the fact that I have read about three volumes of print comics in my life. I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at, honestly. I never said that I don't want stories that focus on a character's marginalized identities. But - and please do correct me if I'm wrong - the impression I'm getting is that you are saying that you want fewer "oh BTW I'm X, let's go back to our regularly scheduled plot" and more in-depth examination.
And the crux of the matter, that I want you to understand - and why Zeno wrote this post in the first place - is that what you're doing, saying "you must put in this much research and effort into writing marginalized characters" is cutting off the nose to spite the face. It will NOT lead to more or better representation. It will lead to people who want to be good allies making less representation in general. They'll look at the research required - and it's a lot - and say no. They'll stick to straight white men, who are safe. They'll try to do the research and publish and get torn apart: on the one hand by conservative bigots screaming about "PC culture" and on the other by progressives screaming that they did things wrong. And here's the thing: you cannot write any marginalized character without people of that marginalized group saying you did something wrong, because no group is a monoloth. The example that comes to mind is Disney's Princess and the Frog: Tiana was bashed for simultaneously being "too much of a Black stereotype" and "not Black enough". Now, Disney's big and rich, they don't care. But an independent writer who self-publishes? That's the sort of shit that makes people give up writing. I've been participating in various writing groups for a decade and a half. I lost count years ago on the number of people I've seen drop out because they got torn apart for being "problematic".
And the sort of person who doesn't care about making the representation good, like the writers of Split? They. Don't. Care. They will continue writing bigoted stuff and laughing at "snowflake SJWs" who get upset. Your insistence that everyone who wants to write marginalized characters do research will lead to worse representation further saturating the market.
Oh, and you haven't mentioned it so far, but I want to head it off at the pass just in case: "but of course people can write about their own marginalization without putting in so much effort" might seem like a good idea... but it doesn't work. When I write about transness, I get called a cishet by people who don't like the way I go about it. This despite me being very public about my gender (and orientation) everywhere. This despite the fact that many of my avatars have a trans symbol on them.
...you know that, for basically everyone except my spouse, kids, and followers of my various abuse recovery blogs, hearing me say "I'm bipolar" a couple of times and then not knowing any more about it is... exactly what happens? I've had partners and roommates whose entire experience with my various disabilities was zilch beyond a quick heads up. Because I wanted it that way. So if one of them goes out and writes a book with a bipolar character based on me and that quick coming out is all there is in there... I can't exactly blame them.
Okay, I read your essay. Again: I have not watched LoK or SU (I struggle with TV-based media for reasons that aren't relevant here). I want to point out, though, that you're specifically pointing at children's media. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a major network to greenlight children's media that includes explicit queerness or disability? (I'm getting flashbacks to Tinky Winky here - sure, times have supposedly changed since the 90's, but the media is extremely resistant to progress.)
Because here's the thing: the people who ultimately make the decisions about what gets made and what doesn't, in the mainstream? The network execs? They care about one thing: PROFIT. A show of entirely straight white people is a safe bet when it comes to profit. A show in which a few characters are queer/of Color/non-Christian/disabled? Riskier, but they can mitigate that risk by not making a big deal out of it. And here's the funny thing: the more people like you complain "ugh, Legend of Korra was so bad because the queerness was shown all wrong"? The more the execs look at that and think, hmmm, guess queerness is riskier than we thought, better make it more straight.
Let people be imperfect, for fuck's sake. Let people try things out. Someone who tentatively puts a mixed race character into their work and hears "oh, neat, I love that X is mixed" is more likely to put more mixed characters in. And if they get more encouragement, they are more likely to explore that mixedness in later installments, or make a different mixed character in a different work and examine that one's experience with race. But someone who puts a mixed character into their work and gets "ugh, you did the mixed experience all wrong"? Like I said: many of them will just GIVE UP. And I, a mixed person with a complicated relationship to race? Feel more alienated.
no subject
Guess what: I knew more than half of those (and the other half I didn't because I haven't heard of those characters). And this despite the fact that I have read about three volumes of print comics in my life. I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at, honestly. I never said that I don't want stories that focus on a character's marginalized identities. But - and please do correct me if I'm wrong - the impression I'm getting is that you are saying that you want fewer "oh BTW I'm X, let's go back to our regularly scheduled plot" and more in-depth examination.
And the crux of the matter, that I want you to understand - and why Zeno wrote this post in the first place - is that what you're doing, saying "you must put in this much research and effort into writing marginalized characters" is cutting off the nose to spite the face. It will NOT lead to more or better representation. It will lead to people who want to be good allies making less representation in general. They'll look at the research required - and it's a lot - and say no. They'll stick to straight white men, who are safe. They'll try to do the research and publish and get torn apart: on the one hand by conservative bigots screaming about "PC culture" and on the other by progressives screaming that they did things wrong. And here's the thing: you cannot write any marginalized character without people of that marginalized group saying you did something wrong, because no group is a monoloth. The example that comes to mind is Disney's Princess and the Frog: Tiana was bashed for simultaneously being "too much of a Black stereotype" and "not Black enough". Now, Disney's big and rich, they don't care. But an independent writer who self-publishes? That's the sort of shit that makes people give up writing. I've been participating in various writing groups for a decade and a half. I lost count years ago on the number of people I've seen drop out because they got torn apart for being "problematic".
And the sort of person who doesn't care about making the representation good, like the writers of Split? They. Don't. Care. They will continue writing bigoted stuff and laughing at "snowflake SJWs" who get upset. Your insistence that everyone who wants to write marginalized characters do research will lead to worse representation further saturating the market.
Oh, and you haven't mentioned it so far, but I want to head it off at the pass just in case: "but of course people can write about their own marginalization without putting in so much effort" might seem like a good idea... but it doesn't work. When I write about transness, I get called a cishet by people who don't like the way I go about it. This despite me being very public about my gender (and orientation) everywhere. This despite the fact that many of my avatars have a trans symbol on them.
...you know that, for basically everyone except my spouse, kids, and followers of my various abuse recovery blogs, hearing me say "I'm bipolar" a couple of times and then not knowing any more about it is... exactly what happens? I've had partners and roommates whose entire experience with my various disabilities was zilch beyond a quick heads up. Because I wanted it that way. So if one of them goes out and writes a book with a bipolar character based on me and that quick coming out is all there is in there... I can't exactly blame them.
Okay, I read your essay. Again: I have not watched LoK or SU (I struggle with TV-based media for reasons that aren't relevant here). I want to point out, though, that you're specifically pointing at children's media. Do you have any idea how hard it is to get a major network to greenlight children's media that includes explicit queerness or disability? (I'm getting flashbacks to Tinky Winky here - sure, times have supposedly changed since the 90's, but the media is extremely resistant to progress.)
Because here's the thing: the people who ultimately make the decisions about what gets made and what doesn't, in the mainstream? The network execs? They care about one thing: PROFIT. A show of entirely straight white people is a safe bet when it comes to profit. A show in which a few characters are queer/of Color/non-Christian/disabled? Riskier, but they can mitigate that risk by not making a big deal out of it. And here's the funny thing: the more people like you complain "ugh, Legend of Korra was so bad because the queerness was shown all wrong"? The more the execs look at that and think, hmmm, guess queerness is riskier than we thought, better make it more straight.
Let people be imperfect, for fuck's sake. Let people try things out. Someone who tentatively puts a mixed race character into their work and hears "oh, neat, I love that X is mixed" is more likely to put more mixed characters in. And if they get more encouragement, they are more likely to explore that mixedness in later installments, or make a different mixed character in a different work and examine that one's experience with race. But someone who puts a mixed character into their work and gets "ugh, you did the mixed experience all wrong"? Like I said: many of them will just GIVE UP. And I, a mixed person with a complicated relationship to race? Feel more alienated.