Political Correctness in Fantasy

[Ghost]

The essence of those discussions seemed to be that a fantasy cast has to include all groups relevant in an an US city or it's "discrimnation via exclusion."

I don't write about Mormons, transvestites, 98-year-olds, Vietnamese, or people with Restless Leg Syndrome. That doesn't mean I'm discriminating. It's just not relevant. Even when a city or country has wide demographics, it's not pertinent to mention each group in every book. You have to go with what makes sense for the world you've created and what makes sense to reveal the story. People who tell you to turn your culture into a beautiful human rainbow are probably well-intentioned but very misguided.

Not knowing homosexuals, transsexuals and so on myself, I'm not really interested in putting much time into the research necessary to include one of them as a main character in a realistic and inoffensive fashion even though this isn't relevant to the plot at all. In this case, I think it's better for everyone involved if people with acutal experience describe these feelings and there's no need to demand everyone else to do it as has been done by the NaNos.

I think it's important to write what you know. Writing a black character without understanding what that means is, in my opinion, much more insulting than not writing one at all. Now, if you're writing in a world where no one cares about or notices skin color, that's a different matter entirely, because then there is no difference in that character's perspective. But my guess is that most of us aren't writing in those kinds of worlds.

I feel the same is true for homosexuals, members of the opposite gender, and any other group that defines itself by an unique characteristic.

I'd never let the lack of "membership" into a group stop me from writing characters from those groups. The Black Experience (which is such a bullshit way to describe being black anyway) doesn't mean a damn thing in a fantasy novel set in a made up world. It's not bound to the same set of problems that exist in our world. The ability to see people as people, under all the stigmas and labels, is what's important. That's probably why elves get on my nerves so much. In many stories, elves are basically clones of the same person. If you're not interested in other races or sexualities, fine. If you are interested, you don't need to do the equivalent of donning a fat-suit to go undercover. I think common sense and understanding are good enough. Don't turn people into representatives for their groups. Things like making a lesbian act the way you think lesbians should act or viewing her actions through the lens of her sexuality before considering the effect her personality are annoying. Characters should do more than wear a badge that reads "lesbian" or "the black guy."

I don't understand applying the "write what you know" adage this way. Why write fantasy at all if you can't imagine other experiences?

I'm not a man, a Jew, or a noble, but my characters might be. If the entire book is related to a part of the character's identity, like skin color, take a little more care. Otherwise, a book with black characters doesn't have to revolve around their skin. Mentioning offhand that a character or group are dark skinned doesn't change the whole story unless skin color was important in the first place.

What's your opinion on fantasy cultures who display a certain amount of racism and still aren't being viewed as completely evil? [...] Would you see this as a problem and how are you dealing with it yourselves?

Most of my stories center on one culture and are set in lower tech worlds with less communication and global awareness. So, yeah, there's bound to be prejudices. It's not a big deal. So much of it is a product of ignorance and fear. People are more likely to distrust or fear strangers in isolated communities, and I imagine they're more likely to see themselves as the best kind of people if their society is homogenous. It doesn't make a person evil or even stupid. When everyone in your life thinks that way, it's normal. It's when authors try to prove the culture is inherently better that it becomes a problem. Or when authors try to correct their characters' thinking to a modern Western way. It's okay to let them be. I love my country, but I'm not going to pretend it's perfect. I figure turning a blind eye to prejudices big or small doesn't show how people really behave. I'm not interested in utopian societies, so it's no loss to me.

Just as characters do, societies need their flaws. Worrying about offending people is a big waste of time.

Which is true the cast is "white" but it wouldn't have made sense with, as he wanted, "a black Aragorn and an Oriental* Gandalf" because the story is apart of a fake mythology for Britain.

Yeah, that sort of thinking is going too far (and sounds trollish to boot), however, it'd be nice if Hollywood was more accepting of minorities in major roles where the background isn't important. If a script calls for a person of color, they sometimes cast a white person anyway.

At least Boromir wasn't the black one. I can imagine all the jokes about him trying to steal the ring.

 

[ascanius]

Sorry if this is a bit chaotic, just got back from a News year parry t. I Did not read the entire thread, but saw the thread title and read the first post and wanted to say something.

Havingr read some of George Orwell's essays I have the strong belief that Political correctness is something that should be acoided at all times, it is the bane of free though and individuality and a scourge on human intelligence forcing a single opinion based on "group think" and a very basic form of "double talk."

It is strange to note that writing something that challenges the existing norm is considered 'noble, right, just, politically correct, and whatever name one wishes to place on the subject. However when one writes anything that challanges these same opinions that are being pushed one is considered racist, homophobic, sexist, insensitive, evil, or whatever. Often this can be the case but just because these topics are are relevant in a text that do not follow social norms the other is viewed as any number of these derogatory terms. This is way of thinking is intrinsically retarded.


No one should worry about political correctness when writing anything. Quality and substance is sacrificed in any writing where political correctness is involved because the author is restricted to appease social norms. I am sure many would not appreciate any form of government dictating the content one is allowed to include in any text. Then why so is political correctness allowed to dictate how and what we write?

 

[Amanita]

Thank you for responding in so many different but still polite ways.
I'm glad to see that the opinions of most NaNoWriMo-members posting in such threads obviously don't represent the opinions of the majority of Americans. If some of you who've used this forum have taken a look at the thread about homosexual characters (and various others about race) they'll know what I mean and everyone else can, if you want to.
I don't think I'm being racist myself, even though others might think differently, but I strongly believe that immigrants should respect the laws and culture of the country they're going to and learn the language. I'm also put off by legal decisions that give lighter sentences to people from a different cultural background because the crime wouldn't be judged so harshly in their own culture. (So-called honour-killings not being considered murder for example.) This kind of thing is racist towards both sides involved in my opinion.

Besides that I think of freedom of speech and don't think that any opinion should be banned competely as long as it doesn't directly lead to crimes. If someone writes a book stating that people with grey eyes are ugly, they can do so, but if they're demanding that the readers should round up and kill all the grey-eyed people it's not. It's part of a free society that such things are allowed to exist and are being disputed if they're deemed important enough to talk about them at all.

Something I'd always try to stay clear of in an invented world is the use of real-life insults such as the above-mentione N-word. It's not always easy though. I was quite shocked when reading a Newspaper article which stated that the term "Mudblood" is actually used by Palestinians against Jews. In Harry Potter, its use was described as something unambigiously bad, but many fans are throwing it around very lightly. Which isn't something JKR is to be blamed for though, I don't really get why people have to refer to one of the main characters by a term that is established as the worst possible insult in the book itself.
This is a an example of how the author's intention doesn't always match the readers reaction.

 

[Devor]

Honestly, I think a "token" character, especially a token character done badly, is more offensive than leaving out that element of diversity. And nothing screams token to me more than characters who wouldn't even exist in their cultural surroundings, and are forced into the work just for the sake of political correctness.

Political Correctness is one of those things which, in my opinion, has passed the point of diminishing marginal returns and has started to yield negative results, even for its own purposes.

 

[mirrorrorrim]

I'd never let the lack of "membership" into a group stop me from writing characters from those groups. The Black Experience (which is such a bullshit way to describe being black anyway) doesn't mean a damn thing in a fantasy novel set in a made up world. It's not bound to the same set of problems that exist in our world. The ability to see people as people, under all the stigmas and labels, is what's important. That's probably why elves get on my nerves so much. In many stories, elves are basically clones of the same person. If you're not interested in other races or sexualities, fine. If you are interested, you don't need to do the equivalent of donning a fat-suit to go undercover. I think common sense and understanding are good enough. Don't turn people into representatives for their groups. Things like making a lesbian act the way you think lesbians should act or viewing her actions through the lens of her sexuality before considering the effect her personality are annoying. Characters should do more than wear a badge that reads "lesbian" or "the black guy."

I don't understand applying the "write what you know" adage this way. Why write fantasy at all if you can't imagine other experiences?

I'm not a man, a Jew, or a noble, but my characters might be. If the entire book is related to a part of the character's identity, like skin color, take a little more care. Otherwise, a book with black characters doesn't have to revolve around their skin. Mentioning offhand that a character or group are dark skinned doesn't change the whole story unless skin color was important in the first place.

I don't think I represented my ideas as well as I was trying to in my previous post. I agree entirely that you don't have to be a member of a certain group to write as one–you just have to be able to empathize with them. For you, simply considering their situation might be enough. For others, it may help to know several people from the group they're writing. For others, they may never be able to empathize, no matter how much they study or get to know the group they're looking into. Personally, I fall somewhere in between the extremes. I've never experienced persecution because of the groups I belong to (individually is another matter, but that's a different issue), so for me it's been necessary to find people who have–or those who believe they have (I believe I've known both)–to be able to write that perspective, and I'm still not great at it. It's also helped me to know people who do discriminate, in order to write their perspective better, as well. Racism, sexism, and other forms of prejudice can definitely still be found.

I also agree that giving someone brown skin is something completely different than writing a "black" character, and doing one doesn't have to relate in any way to the other. Black culture in the United States is tied directly to their cultural heritage of first slavery, and later inequality, and has nothing to do with anything so superficial as skin tone, except in how it related to those two issues. I feel, given the right fantasy culture, a "black" character could have any skin color or ethnicity, so long as their group heritage and history followed the same pattern. There are many historical groups with strong parallels, and in many ways a Qing-era woman in China is not so different than a Reconstruction black man in the southern United States. If you can empathize with one, I don't feel it requires much more effort (if any) to empathize with the other.

I also agree that that a person's membership in a group should only be as important as the character himself makes it. For some homosexuals I know, their sexual orientation is the biggest thing they use to define themselves as a person, so if I were to write a character like them, it would need to be for that character, as well. That doesn't mean they act stereotypically–quite the opposite, in fact. They'll often consciously try to diminish traits about themselves that would be identified as "gay," especially around people who aren't aware of their sexual orientation. For other homosexuals, meanwhile, that's just a small part of who they are, and if I were to write a character like them, it would play a much smaller role.

Applying this to fantasy, in many stories, for elves, being "elven" is a big part of the culture they live in, so even if not elves are exactly the same, they may have societal pressure to be. Part of what will define an elven character is how she reacts to those pressures. Does she rebel against them? Does she privately disagree, but does she still live her life in the manner she's expected to, at least openly? Has she even thought that there might be another way of viewing herself, or are her society's views so much a part of her that she doesn't even realize they exist? When she's finally confronted with things that are more true, can she accept them, or does she decide to blind herself to everything but what she knows?

I know many disagree, but, especially in fantasy, I feel if your different races aren't going to have unique cultures and identities, then there's little point in calling any attention to them in the first place, or, for mystical races like elves, for having them at all.

I hope this post was able to make my position a little more clear than the previous one.

 

[Ziggy]

There is no such thing as "politically incorrect" in fiction, and especially not in fantasy. Just write a good story.

 

[OrionDarkwood]

Amanita,

IMHO I would not change my story for political correctness. If the humans hate dark elves and call them pointed ear darkies then let them. If a society keeps slaves from its defeated foes so what. Story is paramount, your always going to have people hate what you write or hate that its not what I call happy elf land. I for one prefer my reading to be gritty to have heroes with personality flaws, skeletons in the closet and doing evil for the greater good.

In the end we can all give advice but its your choice what path to follow.

 

[Ice Spider]

One of the joys of world building to me is creating societies with morality quite alien to my own. Sometimes that can include more intense racism than I usually see in my own society. It fascinates me that despite the "immoral" traits we see in our own and other societies, we all ultimately have the same basic feelings and fears deep down. A racist, warmongering oppressor from a corrupt aristocratic class will still probably love his children. That's a theme that comes up in my writing, and it's a theme I feel people need to hear. It's like the ultra-conservative Westerner who believes Islam is a violent and evil religion, and responds by saying we should forcefully deport all Muslims who won't leave their religion (I think Ann Coulter said something like this?). Condemning the "other" in the same way you feel they condemned you makes you just as bad as they are (or worse, if your prejudices against them are not as accurate as you think).

So sure, put political incorrectness in your writing. It's realistic, and so long as the reader recognizes this isn't a good opinion to hold (as most will) it won't be harming anyone. I'd be more careful when writing for children, though.

 

[arbiter117]

Political incorrectness adds character to a book. People will get upset about anything and everything.

Do what you will with your world, it does not make you intolerant or racist.

 

[W.k. Trail]

I think that if you think about it that much, you're screwed. I don't write to please demographics, and neither should you - I write to tell a story in an interesting world, and if someone hypothetically got angry because there were no japanese-style people in my story I doubt I'd bother replying to them.

 

[Aegrus]

One of the joys of world building to me is creating societies with morality quite alien to my own. Sometimes that can include more intense racism than I usually see in my own society. It fascinates me that despite the "immoral" traits we see in our own and other societies, we all ultimately have the same basic feelings and fears deep down. A racist, warmongering oppressor from a corrupt aristocratic class will still probably love his children. That's a theme that comes up in my writing, and it's a theme I feel people need to hear. It's like the ultra-conservative Westerner who believes Islam is a violent and evil religion, and responds by saying we should forcefully deport all Muslims who won't leave their religion (I think Ann Coulter said something like this?). Condemning the "other" in the same way you feel they condemned you makes you just as bad as they are (or worse, if your prejudices against them are not as accurate as you think).

So sure, put political incorrectness in your writing. It's realistic, and so long as the reader recognizes this isn't a good opinion to hold (as most will) it won't be harming anyone. I'd be more careful when writing for children, though.

Well said. I especially agree when you say that immoral people would still possess values (such as love for their children) which most of us share. Too often, in my opinion, people make antagonists who reject every single ideal of their host society. That just isn't realistic for a human character. "Evil" people are far more often motivated by a need (justified or not) to protect what they fear to lose rather than by simple hatred of the world.

And yes, Ann Coulter has said a lot of things like that.

 

[grahamguitarman]

My world has a hermaphroditic race of beings (male and female at the same time, ie posessing both sets of organs) I'm hetero myself, but I'm not afraid to write about alternative sexualities, or in this case alternative races. I kinda like the idea that with this race there is no concept of male or female gay or straight, anyone can give birth, and there are no gender roles.

Yet even though my best friend in the whole world is black I don't as yet have any blacks in my stories (though there is a race of brown skinned people with wings - sort of winged amazon natives). Not because of any concsious decision on my part, I just havn't come up with any ideas for a black race yet and will not go out of my way to create one unless it seems right for the story

I don't care what the PC Brigade think, I don't write for them any more than I write for people who are racist or homophobic. I create worlds that are completely separate from ours and make no attempt to link what I write with our planet - so why should I make my cultures follow the rules and moralities of this world! At the end of the day, this is MY imagination so who are the PC brigade to tell me what to imagine?

Oh and as for the idea that a novel should contain a typical New York mix of people, I find that in itself a bit insulting. I live in Yorkshire, England, why the hell should I model anything I write on a foreign city I've never visited and have no interest in visiting! Sounds to me like the typical American imperialism that thinks Americans are the most important people in the world! (you can count on me to find a way of turning the PC brigade arguments against themselves he he)

 

[Anders Ämting]

I'm not terribly interested in political correctness, nor am I interested in political opinions period.

I'm interested in people, and cultures, and what makes sense for a person to think and feel in a certain context. I'm interested in questions like: "Can I construct a social order that is really into slavery, without necessarily making them out to be bad guys?" or "How religious can I make these characters and still portray them as having common sense?" or "Do these people actually care about skin color or sexual orientation at all? And if so, why? And to exactly what degree?"

See, if should decide to include a racist or a homophobe in my story, for whatever reason, I'm probably not going to portray that person to be correct in his or her opinion. But I will portray that person as an actual person, not some sort of inhuman scarecrow.

 

[Kit]

The race of my MC's never occurred to me until this thread. I hadn't given much thought to what they look like, because both I and they are much more interested in character/personality than physical traits. Now- just to be contrary- I will probably end up making them non-caucasian.

Interesting follow-up thought: to present that early on, or toss it in casually three books into the series? I wonder if the latter would annoy people; if they would have already built (white) visuals of the characters in their heads and would be rattled by having their assumptions turned on end.

 

[Anders Ämting]

My MC's are usually white - most likely because I am white, and it never occurs to me to envision them otherwise. I don't think it's a big thing: It's not like I'm going to expect black authors use caucasian MCs. Our first resort is usually what we are familiar with.

On the other hand, I'm fussy about nationalities. In my current story, I specifically wanted to keep the MC's nationality as vague as possible, as if he could be from virtually any country in the western hemisphere. That made it very tricky to name him, because his name had to sound sufficiently international.

 

[sashamerideth]

I haven't thought about relative ethnicity of my charaters. They are descendants of a multi generational colony space ship. They won't have preserved old ethnicity, but would have new divisions based on new nationality and other factors.

Sent from my Blade using Forum Runner

 

[Evilyn]

I think if you try too hard to please everyone you will end up with a story that sounds bland, in my opinion clashes of cultures, religion and social classes are good bases for some fantasy books. My own fantasy story is quite controversial, for a start it evolves around a religious military order that are trying to eradicate the tribes that will not convert to their religion. I have not written any part of it with the intention to offend or preach, I just sit and write.

 

[ascanius]

I'm interested in people, and cultures, and what makes sense for a person to think and feel in a certain context. I'm interested in questions like: "Can I construct a social order that is really into slavery, without necessarily making them out to be bad guys?" or "How religious can I make these characters and still portray them as having common sense?" or "Do these people actually care about skin color or sexual orientation at all? And if so, why? And to exactly what degree?"

You know that slavery never became what we see it as now until around the time of the revolutionary war, or there about, I don't remember exactly. Prior to that slavery was never based on the color of skin and the belief that they were subhuman. The Romans and Greeks had slaves, to name a few, and the thing is those slaves could become free and even hold office if they were citizens. Slaves in that time period retained their identity as a human, unlike what happened with the African slave trade, and the lasting effects we see today. The difference between these two structures was the viewpoint of the masters. One viewed slaves as less than human, a dog an animal, based on skin color, the other did not share a similar opinion on slaves and slaves came from any color skin and any location, status, whatever. so the idea of having a culture that has strong ties to slavery is not at all that far fetched. What you should really look into though is what happened with the Romans leading to the Marius reforms. Slaves were used so extensively that the free citizens of Rome were unable to work, this lead to a lot of conflict and how we see the Roman Legions today.
As to the common sense where it involves religion. I have never understood why people think they are exclusive. I have heard people say the pope is stupid, an idiot, fool, and I walk away not willing to waste my time with an actual idiot. The man can speak more than one language, seven is the conservative number i found online. The point being that the "common sense" you speak of is taken from the point of view of someone who has no understanding of what they are talking about. I don't think woman have common sense, but i know that they have their own reasons for doing things that are simply beyond the capacity of my mind.

If you want to play with these ideas you need to understand the idea from both sides of the spectrum. How does slavery impact those of that culture, how does it impact the slaves, how do the slaves feel, etc. In the end though it depends on how these ideas are portrayed that will determine if they are made out to be bad guys.

 

[Amanita]

I don't think woman have common sense but i know that they have their own reasons for doing things that are simply beyond the capacity of my mind

Would you mind explaining what exactly this is supposed to mean?

 

[Jabrosky]

My current WIP is set in ancient Northeast Africa (i.e Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia) and features both good and evil Black characters. There is a White man who's the love interest for the Black female MC, but he's probably the only White character I'll have in the story. Most of my other stories have predominantly "people of color" characters because I've always been interested in non-European cultures and believe that they need more exposure in fantasy.

One of my favorite settings for stories is ancient Egypt, but that's largely due to my dissatisfaction with most pop-culture portrayals of the Egyptian people. My research has convinced me that most ancient Egyptians were darker-skinned and related to the Africans we call Black than commonly believed, but that's a subject for another thread.

This may sound politically incorrect, but even though I am a White guy, I'm mainly attracted to Black women, so I'm very fond of Black leading ladies who are paired up with White or other non-Black men. In fact my desire to get such a couple out there in the fantasy genre is one of the reasons I'm writing my story to begin with.