DISCLAIMER: This post's audience is well intentioned creatives, when discussing representation and "good"/"bad" represenation of minorities this post assumes the subject has educated themselves on bigoted caricatures and the like and is asking for further, general advice, as well as approaching this task in good faith. This post does not advocate for the continuation of malicious stereotypes
PS: i say representation a lot. Sorry. PPS. This gets fairly long for no particular reason, so the read more.
I see a lot of authors of all stripes asking all kinds of people how best to represent this disorder, this culture, this race, and oftentimes they are perfectly well meaning and in the midst of research but feeling anxiety about their story or confusion at differing answers. I think there's perhaps a very general 'second step' after internalizing the fact that you should attempt to depict people from their lived experiences and listen to their voices instead of operating off of cultural assumptions.
I think most people could use internalizing the logic of what makes 'good' or 'positive' representation so decisive and situational. When you are aiming to represent an underdiscussed and silenced minority, you are primarily attempting to combat the dehumanization that comes when viewing an entire population as a singular identical image.
The goal of representation is to not sell a more agreeable image, ie to make x minority a heroic, beautiful, loveable force. This firstly can other the group. Secondly it also tends to take the bite out of stories, limiting your scope and capabilities as a writer. Thirdly, it's not accurate! It's simply replacing fiction with another fiction. The result you want is understanding that this minority group is full of individuals, who can have complex, messy lives. They can be rude, can hurt others, can be in the wrong just as much as they can be kind, can heal, and can be fighters for a noble cause.
This can only be combated by variety. Ultimately a single creator can only do so much within their given scope and on a societal level we all have to consider our depicitions of others in fiction and in nonfiction, but that's no excuse for you as an individual to shrug it off. There is something you can do!
The usual first step is defying established stereotypes. This is the most common I see given, and I absolutely agree with it, but it's important to note that this can be wildly different across minorities, and conflicting stereotypes can come into play.
Another good way to help your cast represent a wide variety of people is to show a variety within a minority.
This is vital advice to writers with minority villains, and what can be what distinguishes a bigoted story from a diverse one. I don't think I need to clarify here but I will, you shouldn't have characters that exist in single traits to offset other character's impact on the text. Again, complex humans deserve complex stories about them. A story where a white cast fights against a black villain is a very different story to one where a racially diverse cast including a black character fights against a black villain.
You do not need to exclude minorities from having negative traits entirely. Context absolutely matters and ultimately your cast can always benefit from more diversity.
You may see posts who claim things like "we need more feminine lesbians, all lesbians I see are butch!" Literal accuracy of that statement aside for a moment, the two identities put into conflict here are both reflective of real groups who both require representation. A singular viewpoint of any group is always going to cause harm.
This is the cause of much infighting and struggle, and also why many people can see themselves more in 'bad' representation than 'good' representation. Some autistics do not experience loud and violent meltdowns, while some do. Both of these groups deserve to be treated in stories with respect, and if our communities totally ignore one of these groups to promote a single concept of a respectful depiction of an autistic person, then we are not creating good representation of autism.
While these arguments are usually unproductive, we have to understand these are real frustrations even if they are fighting over a small pond, and until our stories are as diverse as our realities we as a culture will continue to require effort to change this. Stereotypes are not static either, nor a thing of the past, and ideas we can form and create in our spaces every day by close mindedness and narrow representation. This is why we need respectful stories of all shapes and of all sizes. This sort of strife is the most damaging among internet spaces where narratives can quickly become extremely aggressive to some portrayals and become entirely hostile to populations of this minority. It's not a moral failing to see parts of yourself in these depictions, it's only a failing that there hasn't been stories written for you that aren't predicated on cruelty. The only way to genuinely soothe this divide is to provide space for all of us.
Those who are wheelchair bound and those who are semi ambulatory, those who were born without a limb and those who lost theirs due to a medical event, chronic pain sufferers who don't work and chronic pain sufferers who are athletes. Masculine black women and feminine black women, scholarly black men and athletic black men, black people who excel in both and black people who weren't educated. Fat women, fat men, transgender people who pass and transgender people who don't and gender-nonconforming people. Asexuals who have sex and asexuals who are sex repulsed. Psychotics, addicts, domestic abuse survivors, religious minorities, sexual abuse survivors, sufferers of eating disorders, the deafness/blindness spectrum, dissociatives, pwPMOS, the list goes on and on.
All of us exist and all of us deserve to see ourselves in stories across the spectrum, across the genre, as children, as adults, as heroes or villains or troubled protagonists, in movies in television and in our fannish spaces as well, treated with respect. As seen in life.
I have so much respect for all the blogs offering writing advice for specific representation, because more often than not it’s so obvious the person asking hasn’t done even an ounce of research before practically expecting the blog to turn them into an expert in the span of a single post.
Have to routinely stop myself from bashing myself for making characters certain races and genders bc “what if this is insanely offensive to some people?” by asking one very simple question:
Do people like this actively exist?
If the answer is yes, then maybe I can stop feeling bad about giving my beautiful, disabled, black, baby boy dnd character a love of the colour pink.
Ya know, bc art is all about translation, and people are gonna people regardless of if some random asshole on the internet decides their existence is problematic.
A Question about how to write a deaf character: How to write grammar when the character is signing?
Hello!
Yet again, I have a question about how to write about a character from a group I am not part of. This time, I have a more specific question.
When characters are signing in ASL, how do I write the grammar in English?
I read a lot about writing about Deaf characters, but not many of them covered the grammar. For example, if the character was talking in English, I would write them saying ‘how old are you’ or ‘what is your age.’ However, I know ASL grammar is very different - it would directly translate as ‘your age what?’
Even though I’ve translated it to English to write, is it okay to translate the grammar as well? Even if the character is signing?
I would really appreciate it if anyone had any advice, or if anyone knew of a link/video where someone did.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but movies or stories that design racial allegories via worlds where the majority / minority groups have some definable differences in physical traits especially ones that isn’t benign feels like it’s missing the point.
Zootopia (“outnumbering 10 to 1”, also doing it all through the veils of a police force; groups that are often known for ensuring the subjugation of minorities), MLP Gen.5 (the alicorn transformation at the end feels really really weird with the allegory), Brand New Animal (don’t have your character be essentially moving from the majority to the minority in order to “get it”, that’s just… yikes), all of them do this wrong.
Minorities are not different out of some inherent, agreeable trait. They’re systematically put in arbitrary “stereotypes and limitations” by those in power, because the people in power wants to keep their power, so they subjugate the ones below.
Predator/prey, Magic and/or Flight versus earth ponies, and humans / animals are not the same as skin color, religion, recreations, or economic status. Please… don’t conflate actual traits with benign traits, especially when trying to do something applicable to irl.
“Why do we have to be so careful writing black/gay/trans/disabled/female characters? We never have to watch ourselves when writing characters who Aren’t That!”
...Yes. We don’t have to watch ourselves because we aren’t constantly digesting oppressive propaganda about straight men. There are no white people stereotypes we should be afraid of perpetuating.
It’s not like ‘being careful when you write a character’ is limiting them; first of all you can write whatever you want because realistically who will stop you, second of all they are fictional so they don’t have desires outside of the ones you give them, third of all it’s actually more respectful to your character if anything to give them more thought, and fourth of all I often find this blanket accusation thrown in response to a call for better stories.
Example: Someone asks for a narrative where a disabled person does not end the story ‘cured’. “Well why can’t they be cured?!” comments an infuriated non-disabled person who cannot name a single book they’ve read about a disabled person to begin with. “Are you saying if this character deeply desires to be Cured then they can’t have that??” When in fact it is the author who decides what the character ‘wants’, and there are already a million stories filled with stereotypes if you really want to read those so badly, and all anyone is trying to do is create an opportunity for better ones. And so these conversations are instantly silenced.
Personally, I think the best thing you can do when writing a character is seriously ask yourself: “So, does she want to wear this skintight latex suit every day... or am I thinking of her through the lens of my experiences with regards to sexist media?” I find that much kinder than wandering blindly into the fray and publishing something you didn’t seriously look at--and isn’t that what writing is all about, anyhow? Editing; thinking hard about what we imply? Let’s be better writers, then. Let’s think as we write.
Honestly, I think most people either forget this trope exists, or don’t know that it’s kinda problematic.
Essentially, the Black Best Friend™️ is a person of color in fiction who only exists to make the white main character look good. More often then not they are the comic relief, but they usually don’t have a staring roll very often.
How to spot a BBF™️
If they have most of the following:
They are black, or are otherwise a person of color
They are not the main character
They are best friends with the white/white passing main character
All their actions and character development is tied to said main character
The rarely get an episode just about them and their problems
They tend to only have a handful of interests outside of their friendship with the mc (like fashion or computers)
Then congratulations, it’s a BBF™️!
A well known example of this would be Tucker from Danny Phantom. He fits most of these categories, and most of the stories have him as a sidekick (of sorts) or focus on his love of meat and tech. He does branch out a bit from this, but by not much.
Another sign of this is that in a romantic situation, they are always in a “Pair the spares” scenario with other side characters, or worse, other minor characters of color. Usually any buildup to this relationship is either rushed as all hell, or happens offscreen.
Why is this a problem?
For the most part, it’s just bad representation. It shows poc as just accessories for white characters, or is just an attempt at diversity brownie points.
As well, most people don’t pick up on the fact that the BBF™️ is even a thing that exists, much less a problem. It’s become so ingrained into pop culture that most people probably never even thought about it.
So, the message of the day is that Black Best Friends™️ are a problem if that’s all the character really amounts to. If they are good characters, then they are more three dimensional and interesting than that.
