When a slur becomes casual, exclusion can also slowly become casual.
There's been talk of the latest season of Euphoria and the r-slur being thrown around. Especially in tandem with how the r-slur has been renormized.
On an April episode of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” the host used a slur within the first 45 seconds of the show.
And Trump's normalization of the word.
A joint study from Montclair State University faculty in the Joetta Di Bella and Fred C. Sautter III Center for Strategic Communication in
And I think the euphoria commentary goes by what I call the "Joffery Principle". I haven't seen Euphoria, so I can't talk about the context in which it was used, but there's always that "But what if this character is just a bigot? I can't just write characters I agree with all the time."
Which gets me into my Joffery Principle.
Aside from "I should be allowed to write a character I disagree with" is practically saying "let's play devil's advocate" and the devil doesn't need an advocate.
If you're writing an asshole JUST BECAUSE they're an asshole. I think that's bad writing. That's WHY I hated GOT. Because, your characters have no depth. You're not evaluating WHY your character is like this. You don't have contrasting viewpoints to challenge them.
Your character is just an asshole because... they're an asshole. And I think that's really shitty lazy writing.
If you want to write a good story with good characters, you have to evaluate WHY is your character like this? What happened to make them like this? What problem does it solve or worldview does it fit into? You need to have people with opposing opinions to push against that worldview.
Because every action is a choice. It's not a deliberate one but a small subconscious one that says something about the character. "No. He bought a green mug because he bought a green mug." No. Maybe it was the right size. It felt right in his hand. It was cheap. He needed a mug, and it was convenient. Not every full thought out explanation needs to be in your story, sure. But you, as the writer, need to have well developed understandings of these small throw away decisions to build real emotional character conflict.
Even the use of the r-slur is a choice. Maybe not one they think about every time they say it, but a small one. Subconscious.
I dunno. That's just my thought. Thinking about small things like word choices and green cups give a lot more depth to your characters that make it feel more real, and having people challenge these small, subconscious choices can really dig into your character's world view. Who they are as a person. It makes your characters FEEL real.
