Mon, Jul. 9th, 2007, 03:34 pm
Conclusions.

 
From yesterday.

 
If you've a group of characters without "natural" identifiers of race/gender/etc, the options are:
 

A) Leave well enough alone, letting the characters be read as whatever currently passes for "default" these days: white/male/straight/cis-gendered/able-bodied....

Implied lesson: If you do not belong to those "defaults", there is no place for you.

OR!

B) Tack on some blatant and awkward signifiers to mark a couple characters as Other than the above.

Implied lesson: If you do not belong to those "defaults", you are exceptional and strange and if you don't fit with the awkward signifiers you're not doing it properly.

 

...Well. This is a nice Kobayashi Maru scenario, isn't it.

I vote we need another option:
 

C) Hack the operating parameters.

Implied lesson: This society is crap. Let's change it already.

 
Current Mood: sad unhappy
 Leave a comment | 19 comments

Tue, Jul. 10th, 2007 12:28 am (UTC)
gileonnen

A little of both--I really default to mixed-race characters when I write, but even when I don't have any cues at all to guide my reading of a character, I tend to go for some form of a multiethnic mental image. (Of course, some factors--the time period and locale in which a work was composed, the national origin of the character, etc. for non-fantasy/sci-fi--are items that I consider 'cues' in my reading. A Victorian novel about Englishmen is just going to default White to me, sorry. ^_^;;)
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Tue, Jul. 10th, 2007 04:58 am (UTC)
odditycollector

Of course, some factors--the time period and locale in which a work was composed, the national origin of the character, etc. for non-fantasy/sci-fi--are items that I consider 'cues' in my reading.
Makes sense! I'm considering here more characters where none of the traditional cues apply.

Say, unicellular alien rocks with superpowers. (Or that Rubik's cube cartoon. Or Transformers.) Assuming that they are recognizably human in their actions, how do we make them read as Not Default without being dumb and offensive about it? Can we make them "Other" in ways that are relevant to them but not to human society, or does that go under overly played cop-out (Or just, you know, Not Relevant)?

Is it possible, given where the world stands right now, to create these characters in a way so that people outside the Default can feel they own them, but without cementing the idea that they are Other and Not Normal in the process. This is what I want to know. (And what I'm still trying to define in my brain, so excuse my rambling!)

And it looks too much like the answer is "no."

A little of both--I really default to mixed-race characters when I write, but even when I don't have any cues at all to guide my reading of a character, I tend to go for some form of a multiethnic mental image.
:) I think that's awesome. My mental assumptions about a character's sexuality (given no relevant info) has shifted more and more to bisexual rather than straight. I'm going to try paying more attention to my racial assumptions as well.

If nothing else, it'll make moments of overwhelming whiteness stand out. Hopefully.
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Tue, Jul. 10th, 2007 01:08 pm (UTC)
gileonnen

I think it's possible--there's a rather interesting book called The Galactic Gourmet, which I'm given to understand is part of a series about a space-hospital, which does a stellar job of presenting its aliens as Others without making them any sort of human Other--they do have genders and subgroups within each species, but even their genders and subgroups are usually differentiated by the species's own norms rather than ours. Sometimes, there is crossover--I believe that a hunter-gatherer culture tended toward a similar gender paradigm to the one we consider historically accurate on Earth--but there's enough variation to indicate that this is a distinct culture which happens to parallel ours a bit rather than the author's attempt to make all alien cultures parallel ours. You should give it a read!

I have also begun defaulting to bisexual or even non-oriented (not culturally defined and/or stigmatized by one's interest in both genders; merely being attracted to whoever happens to be attractive without the cultural element). But I have a better excuse for that. >_>;;
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