The Bechdel Test

[Penpilot]

We most definitely agree that encouraging more minority writers is important, ...

saellys this isn't necessarily directed at you, but at that type of statement in general. As someone whose last name is Wong, statements like this tend to rankle me just a little. It implies that minorities need that little extra cuddle because they're not brave enough to step out into the big bad world. Speaking only for myself, because I'm sure others feel contrary, I don't want or need to be encouraged because I'm a minority. I'll do fine without specially consideration or treatment. I don't look up to a writer because of their gender or skin color. I look up to them because they write well. It's the same with my heroes. I don't need my heroes to be Chinese like me. I just need them to be heroes worthy to looked up to.

Maybe I'm more accepting of things in the western world because I grew up in it. But when I watch a show like say The Big Bang Theory, I don't wonder to myself why are there no Chinese in the show to represent me. Why? Because I'm already represented by the fact I'm a nerd/geek, and the whole show represents me regardless of race or gender. And I don't need it to pass some arbitrary test.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I tend to have more sympathy for the people who say "I feel underrepresented, and that hurts" than for the people who say "I feel fine with representation as it is." After all, the latter contains no implication that you'd feel different with more representation. (And some of the people who say "I feel underrepresented, and that hurts" do so in such an eloquent fashion that I'd feel like a horrible person if I told them to suck it up and be happy with what they've got.)

 

[saellys]

saellys this isn't necessarily directed at you, but at that type of statement in general. As someone whose last name is Wong, statements like this tend to rankle me just a little. It implies that minorities need that little extra cuddle because they're not brave enough to step out into the big bad world. Speaking only for myself, because I'm sure others feel contrary, I don't want or need to be encouraged because I'm a minority. I'll do fine without specially consideration or treatment. I don't look up to a writer because of their gender or skin color. I look up to them because they write well. It's the same with my heroes. I don't need my heroes to be Chinese like me. I just need them to be heroes worthy to looked up to.

Maybe I'm more accepting of things in the western world because I grew up in it. But when I watch a show like say The Big Bang Theory, I don't wonder to myself why are there no Chinese in the show to represent me. Why? Because I'm already represented by the fact I'm a nerd/geek, and the whole show represents me regardless of race or gender. And I don't need it to pass some arbitrary test.

Thank you for pointing this out. I don't feel great about the term "encourage" either, but what I meant specifically was "assure people of non-status-quo backgrounds that if they write, I'll read it," regardless of whether their particular stories have any message behind them that is connected to their background. (But I believe in many cases this will be a natural result.) I want to tell as many kinds of stories about as many kinds of people as possible, but I'm gonna screw up sometime because I'm not those people and I have certain privileges that inevitably influence what I produce. Case in point: the connotations of the word "encourage".

It rankled the crap out of me when my husband told me I should read a particular fantasy novel "because it has a woman as the protagonist". It's not that I think no one can enjoy a given story just because they're not represented in it; it's that I have found, and read the opinions of others who have also found, that being presented with an endless sea of not-even-close-to-me in the media is very wearying.

To put it a little more generally, I agree with Mindfire's assertion that with more variety among writers, there will be more variety among stories. Getting there requires assuring writers that they'll have an audience, because plenty have been and can be turned off by the very attitudes expressed in this thread--if so many people don't care about representation in their own work, what guarantee is there that readers or publishers will care about diversity among authors? Obviously there are exceptions. I hope that makes sense and is less condescending than my previous sentiment.

 

[Jabrosky]

Under-representation may not affect all groups equally. Here in America, for instance, northern Asian peoples are if anything idealized as "model minorities" who are morally superior to everyone else, sometimes even whites. If white Americans must find any value in an "exotic" non-Western culture, more often than not they pick the Asians, most of all the Japanese. A few hippie types may choose Native Americans as "noble savages", but by and large the darker-skinned races are written off as pathological savages. Furthermore, Asia by and large has withstood the onslaughts of Western imperialism far better than Africa or the Americas, so it has more power in the global hegemony than the rest of the non-Western world. Therefore, I'd argue that any under-representation of Asian people in Western media does them less damage than the equivalent to African and Native American peoples.

 

[saellys]

I don't even want to play a "who does underrepresentation hurt most/least?" game.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Under-representation may not affect all groups equally. Here in America, for instance, northern Asian peoples are if anything idealized as "model minorities" who are morally superior to everyone else, sometimes even whites. If white Americans must find any value in an "exotic" non-Western culture, more often than not they pick the Asians, most of all the Japanese. A few hippie types may choose Native Americans as "noble savages", but by and large the darker-skinned races are written off as pathological savages. Furthermore, Asia by and large has withstood the onslaughts of Western imperialism far better than Africa or the Americas, so it has more power in the global hegemony than the rest of the non-Western world. Therefore, I'd argue that any under-representation of Asian people in Western media does them less damage than the equivalent to African and Native American peoples.

I've heard it said that the portrayal of non-villainous Asians in American popular culture started out with Suzie Wong and wound up with Connie Chung. I guess that's an improvement . . .

 

[BWFoster78]

Just got back from Vegas this afternoon and spent some downtime catching up on this thread.

My opinion has not changed. I have seen no argument that in any way convinces me that a) universal equality is something that I should devote myself to striving toward (or, indeed, even make the smallest steps toward supporting) any more than any other possible cause or that b) meeting this "test" accomplishes anything other than to make a small, vocal group "feel" better.

If people reading books have a need to see their race/religion/gender better represented in order to gain enjoyment from a story, I truly feel sorry for those people. I don't care if the story is about a man or a woman or a rabbit. I don't care if the story supports my worldview or is told from the viewpoint of those who detest my worldview. If a story is well told, I'll enjoy it. I'm sorry some of you apparently can't.

I understand fully that I cannot please everyone, and I have no desire to try. My objective is to tell the best stories that I can. To me, that does not include - and I hope it never does include - artificially inserting scenes or characters to try to please certain groups.

I absolutely detest the concept.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I tend to have more sympathy for the people who say "I feel underrepresented, and that hurts" than for the people who say "I feel fine with representation as it is." After all, the latter contains no implication that you'd feel different with more representation.

That viewpoint makes perfect sense for anyone that considers themselves underrepresented.

...And some of the people who say "I feel underrepresented, and that hurts" do so in such an eloquent fashion that I'd feel like a horrible person if I told them to suck it up and be happy with what they've got.

Who said "suck it up and be happy with what you've got"?

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

Just got back from Vegas this afternoon and spent some downtime catching up on this thread.

My opinion has not changed. I have seen no argument that in any way convinces me that a) universal equality is something that I should devote myself to striving toward (or, indeed, even make the smallest steps toward supporting) any more than any other possible cause or that b) meeting this "test" accomplishes anything other than to make a small, vocal group "feel" better.

If people reading books have a need to see their race/religion/gender better represented in order to gain enjoyment from a story, I truly feel sorry for those people. I don't care if the story is about a man or a woman or a rabbit. I don't care if the story supports my worldview or is told from the viewpoint of those who detest my worldview. If a story is well told, I'll enjoy it. I'm sorry some of you apparently can't.

I understand fully that I cannot please everyone, and I have no desire to try. My objective is to tell the best stories that I can. To me, that does not include - and I hope it never does include - artificially inserting scenes or characters to try to please certain groups.

I absolutely detest the concept.

I think it's more about trying to raise awareness of the fact that a certain viewpoint (white male heteronormative) is severely overrepresented in fiction, in a pure statistical sense when compared to the populace. If you think that's an okay thing and that we shouldn't at least try to encourage writers to expand their horizons, well, that's your view. I would encourage you to maybe consider that it's not a healthy thing for our society to have one viewpoint so dominant.

I'm not asking you to insert things artificially to meet some kind of quota; I'm not asking you to devote your life to achieving universal equality. The only thing I (and most of the people in this thread, I suspect) are asking is that you at least acknowledge that there's a problem, and that it's something that benefits us all if we confront. That's all.

 

[Steerpike]

Just got back from Vegas this afternoon and spent some downtime catching up on this thread.

My opinion has not changed. I have seen no argument that in any way convinces me that a) universal equality is something that I should devote myself to striving toward (or, indeed, even make the smallest steps toward supporting) any more than any other possible cause or that b) meeting this "test" accomplishes anything other than to make a small, vocal group "feel" better.

If people reading books have a need to see their race/religion/gender better represented in order to gain enjoyment from a story, I truly feel sorry for those people. I don't care if the story is about a man or a woman or a rabbit. I don't care if the story supports my worldview or is told from the viewpoint of those who detest my worldview. If a story is well told, I'll enjoy it. I'm sorry some of you apparently can't.

I understand fully that I cannot please everyone, and I have no desire to try. My objective is to tell the best stories that I can. To me, that does not include - and I hope it never does include - artificially inserting scenes or characters to try to please certain groups.

I absolutely detest the concept.

This strikes me as overly defensive, and also as a failure to understand the argument being made. I wonder if we're even reading the same thread.

Also, it is perhaps easier not to care about representation when your group is the one being favored disproportionately in representation. I don't think it is that hard to understand why others who aren't represented well might have a different viewpoint.

 

[Feo Takahari]

Who said "suck it up and be happy with what you've got"?

If people reading books have a need to see their race/religion/gender better represented in order to gain enjoyment from a story, I truly feel sorry for those people. I don't care if the story is about a man or a woman or a rabbit. I don't care if the story supports my worldview or is told from the viewpoint of those who detest my worldview. If a story is well told, I'll enjoy it. I'm sorry some of you apparently can't.

@BWFoster: that may fit with some of what Saellys is saying (I don't fully understand her point anymore), but I don't have a problem with any individual story not being about a minority. I'm approaching this entirely in the aggregate--when certain groups are grossly underrepresented even relative to their population, that's probably not a good sign as to how those groups are perceived. (My natural tendency would be to treat this as a symptom rather than an illness in and of itself--like I said earlier, I'm mostly irritated on the general grounds of "Why not do something different for once?"--but some people argue that representation itself can help to deal with prejudice, and they usually argue better than I do.)

P.S. Again, while Saellys might be approaching this as a "You ought to do this" thing, I'm approaching this as a "Why not try it once or twice?" thing. I don't think I particularly lost anything by writing a story set on a Polynesian island.*

*Granted, that story pretty much NEEDED some sort of island setting . . .

 

[PaulineMRoss]

I’ve followed this thread with interest (and stamina!). I’m not a writer, so I don’t have an axe to grind, but as a reader and reviewer I have some sympathy with both sides in this discussion.

On the one hand, the Bechdel Test may be simplistic and crude, but it is, nevertheless, an indicator of sorts. I agree with whoever it was who said upthread (way, way upthread) that it’s more applicable to movies, because the much bigger financial investment is bound to result in a product aimed at the widest possible audience. Diverging from the perceived norm is too big a risk. A writer of fiction, however, can take more chances with something seen as edgy and controversial. Even so, the test can still be informative applied to fiction, and if it causes people to evaluate their own work and view it in a different light, that is all to the good.

On the other hand, I totally understand why authors dislike being asked to change their work. Fiction is a creative art, and authors must surely be free to tell the story they want to tell. If that story happens to be about a group of white heterosexual males, an author should (surely) be free to explore the consequences of that. Adding one or several women to the mix would change the whole dynamic of the group (as would adding an elf or a priest or a lizard-man or a shapeshifter or a wizard), and thus would result in a different story, one the author was not planning on telling. Or perhaps I should say, not planning on telling at that time, because every book is a new start; the next one may be about a group of non-white lesbian women.

As a reader, it doesn’t bother me whether the story is about men or women, white or non-white, human or non-human, so long as it’s a good story, with characters I can believe in. I don’t need female characters in there to identify with. I’d far, far rather a book where women are peripheral than one which has a token woman or two as protagonists just so the author can say ‘Look, it’s got women in, that’s good, right?’ But I think a distinction should be made between main characters and minor ones. The main characters are integral to the author’s vision, and can’t change gender or colour or species without changing the story fundamentally, but minor characters are far more generic and interchangeable. There’s no reason why, when our group of heroes enters a tavern, there should be a man behind the bar pulling pints and a woman out front (let’s be really hackneyed, and call her a serving wench, shall we?), not to mention the female cook in the kitchen and the stable boy. Any of those roles can be either gender.

For those worried about the current imbalance, I’d say, firstly, that’s a reflection of current society; when society changes, so will fiction. Secondly, look how far we’ve already come. The defining work of fantasy for a generation or more was The Lord of the Rings, which had precisely three significant female roles, two of them almost entirely passive, the third (Eowyn) an awesome warrior babe, sure, but who nevertheless chose death in battle largely because she’d been rejected by a man, and whose recovery from sickness coincided with her accepting her true place in society as wife and mother. Not exactly a feminist treatise.

But things have changed. It’s being discussed, for a start, not just here but all over the internet. People are thinking about it, questioning themselves and others, and that can only be good. And there are numerous authors out there now, male and female, who write wonderful women who are every bit as capable as the men, and I firmly believe that trend will continue. [Although I quail a little when I think of Twilight and Fifty Shades. Or Harry Potter, come to that: http://globalcomment.com/in-praise-of-hermione-granger-series/.]

If anyone’s interested, I wrote an essay on this subject on my blog: Pauline's Fantasy Reviews: Essay: On Women In Fantasy

 

[saellys]

Just got back from Vegas this afternoon and spent some downtime catching up on this thread.

Welcome back! I hope it was a good trip and the slots treated you well.

My opinion has not changed. I have seen no argument that in any way convinces me that a) universal equality is something that I should devote myself to striving toward (or, indeed, even make the smallest steps toward supporting) any more than any other possible cause or that b) meeting this "test" accomplishes anything other than to make a small, vocal group "feel" better.

I and others have made several rational arguments about why it benefits you directly to represent more in your work. I haven't seen any direct response to any of them; just a continued refrain of "I shouldn't have to care". If you don't know which arguments I'm referring to, go back and read them. I'm through with repeating myself.

If people reading books have a need to see their race/religion/gender better represented in order to gain enjoyment from a story, I truly feel sorry for those people. I don't care if the story is about a man or a woman or a rabbit. I don't care if the story supports my worldview or is told from the viewpoint of those who detest my worldview. If a story is well told, I'll enjoy it. I'm sorry some of you apparently can't.

Already addressed this.

I understand fully that I cannot please everyone, and I have no desire to try. My objective is to tell the best stories that I can. To me, that does not include - and I hope it never does include - artificially inserting scenes or characters to try to please certain groups.

I absolutely detest the concept.

Already addressed this.

That viewpoint makes perfect sense for anyone that considers themselves underrepresented.

So anyone who doesn't consider themselves underrepresented can't hold this viewpoint? Sorry, I don't buy it.

Who said "suck it up and be happy with what you've got"?

That's the end result of the "I shouldn't have to care" logic.

@BWFoster: that may fit with some of what Saellys is saying (I don't fully understand her point anymore), but I don't have a problem with any individual story not being about a minority.

Sorry for being all over the map here. I'm trying to respond to as many posts as possible, at least where they don't just repeat what that poster and others have already said verbatim, which means I often make more than one point, or restate it lots of different ways to better express my ideas. My supreme point is that greater representation in the fantasy genre can only help us as writers, our work, our fellow human beings as readers and lovers of fantasy, and the genre as a whole, and that this is the case whether or not individuals place any priority on equality in the world or greater diversity in their own work. I feel like I've been pretty consistent, but I've definitely gone down some rabbit trails too. If anything is hazy, perhaps I can elaborate?

I'm approaching this entirely in the aggregate--when certain groups are grossly underrepresented even relative to their population, that's probably not a good sign as to how those groups are perceived. (My natural tendency would be to treat this as a symptom rather than an illness in and of itself--like I said earlier, I'm mostly irritated on the general grounds of "Why not do something different for once?"--but some people argue that representation itself can help to deal with prejudice, and they usually argue better than I do.)

Bingo. As for representation helping to deal with prejudice, I would conservatively say that it can, in that the inverse--seeing only one viewpoint presented--definitely won't help deal with prejudice. More generally, I think it's every bit a important for people to read stories about people who aren't like them as it is for people to read stories about people who are like them. A healthy, balanced selection of both would be ideal, but that's not what's available right now.

 

[saellys]

On the one hand, the Bechdel Test may be simplistic and crude, but it is, nevertheless, an indicator of sorts. I agree with whoever it was who said upthread (way, way upthread) that it’s more applicable to movies, because the much bigger financial investment is bound to result in a product aimed at the widest possible audience. Diverging from the perceived norm is too big a risk. A writer of fiction, however, can take more chances with something seen as edgy and controversial. Even so, the test can still be informative applied to fiction, and if it causes people to evaluate their own work and view it in a different light, that is all to the good.

Absolutely.

On the other hand, I totally understand why authors dislike being asked to change their work. Fiction is a creative art, and authors must surely be free to tell the story they want to tell. If that story happens to be about a group of white heterosexual males, an author should (surely) be free to explore the consequences of that. Adding one or several women to the mix would change the whole dynamic of the group (as would adding an elf or a priest or a lizard-man or a shapeshifter or a wizard), and thus would result in a different story, one the author was not planning on telling. Or perhaps I should say, not planning on telling at that time, because every book is a new start; the next one may be about a group of non-white lesbian women.

I love that you used the term consequences. In sitting down to write about a group of white heterosexual males (that being all I know of your example), I would immediately ask myself what will make this a story anyone wants to read. The consequence of writing exclusively about white heterosexual males is that the story needs to be set apart in a big way from every other surface-level-same-looking story that came before, lest it be lost in a veritable sea of fantasy stories about white heterosexual males.

As a reader, it doesn’t bother me whether the story is about men or women, white or non-white, human or non-human, so long as it’s a good story, with characters I can believe in. I don’t need female characters in there to identify with. I’d far, far rather a book where women are peripheral than one which has a token woman or two as protagonists just so the author can say ‘Look, it’s got women in, that’s good, right?’ But I think a distinction should be made between main characters and minor ones. The main characters are integral to the author’s vision, and can’t change gender or colour or species without changing the story fundamentally, but minor characters are far more generic and interchangeable. There’s no reason why, when our group of heroes enters a tavern, there should be a man behind the bar pulling pints and a woman out front (let’s be really hackneyed, and call her a serving wench, shall we?), not to mention the female cook in the kitchen and the stable boy. Any of those roles can be either gender.

While populating the broader world with diversity is vital too, I disagree with the distinction that major characters can't change from draft to draft, because my co-writers and I did exactly this on The Stone Front. A character that was white (like nearly everyone in the province where most of the story is set) in the first draft is mixed-race and significantly darker-skinned than the rest of the populace in the second. This character appears in nearly half the book and influences the plot in major ways. The change was prompted by noticing how whitewashed our first draft was (and also because we thought it would be fun); we've backed it up with a little extra worldbuilding that makes the character's heritage internally consistent. Almost none of that will make it into the book, and we don't feel compelled to shoehorn it in beyond a description of the character's physical traits and maybe at some point a line of dialogue about said heritage. We just really like making family trees and cultural histories and migration maps.

Believe me, I wouldn't be telling anyone that this is a thing they can do in their own writing if I wasn't already doing it in mine.

For those worried about the current imbalance, I’d say, firstly, that’s a reflection of current society; when society changes, so will fiction.

And I would supplement that and turn it on its head by saying that where fiction changes, society can too. It's part of a cycle, and if we rely on one part of the cycle to change before anything else happens, the wheel will just keep on spinning the same direction it always has.

Secondly, look how far we’ve already come. The defining work of fantasy for a generation or more was The Lord of the Rings, which had precisely three significant female roles, two of them almost entirely passive, the third (Eowyn) an awesome warrior babe, sure, but who nevertheless chose death in battle largely because she’d been rejected by a man, and whose recovery from sickness coincided with her accepting her true place in society as wife and mother. Not exactly a feminist treatise.

But things have changed. It’s being discussed, for a start, not just here but all over the internet. People are thinking about it, questioning themselves and others, and that can only be good. And there are numerous authors out there now, male and female, who write wonderful women who are every bit as capable as the men, and I firmly believe that trend will continue. [Although I quail a little when I think of Twilight and Fifty Shades. Or Harry Potter, come to that: http://globalcomment.com/in-praise-of-hermione-granger-series/.]

If anyone’s interested, I wrote an essay on this subject on my blog: Pauline's Fantasy Reviews: Essay: On Women In Fantasy

I definitely celebrate all the progress we've made (just like I cheered with the rest of my theater audience during Eowyn's spotlight moment in Return of the King, problematic elements of her story aside), but I'm not interested in coasting when there's still so much work to do.

I'm definitely going to read both those links ASAP. Thanks for sharing them.

 

[Steerpike]

The idea that literature as social commentary has to be fake or forced is truly bizarre. That's what literature was for most of its history, and it is what a lot of literature remains. If you* don't think many writers make a conscious decision on characters and characterization in order to support some broader social theme, you would do well to enlarge the scope of your reading.

You think Octavia Butler didn't think about it before making the protagonist vampire-child in Fledgling a black girl? You can take the easy out and say the girl is black because Butler is black, but that does a disservice to the author and the work. Look, also, at a science fiction writer like Robert Heinlein. You think it is an accident that Friday is a bisexual, uninhibited female? There are scenes in that book that serve no other purpose but to reinforce that fact. Was Ellen being disowned by her family for marrying a Tongan not put in that book specifically as a means to draw in racial commentary? (And no I don't want to get into Heinlein, and what he thought he was portraying versus what others think he portrayed; the point is, he did this stuff intentionally).

I can understand if someone considers these issues and says "OK, that's not the story I'm writing." Fine. Write the story you want. But something is seriously amiss, in my view, if you get to the point of despising the very idea of it. A lot of writers use these techniques in important ways, and the written story as a vehicle for social commentary and teaching has a long history indeed. Do we really want to relegate all of fiction to mindless action stories that are read and immediately forgotten?

*this is the generic "you" and not a specific person.

 

[BWFoster78]

I think it's more about trying to raise awareness of the fact that a certain viewpoint (white male heteronormative) is severely overrepresented in fiction, in a pure statistical sense when compared to the populace. If you think that's an okay thing and that we shouldn't at least try to encourage writers to expand their horizons, well, that's your view. I would encourage you to maybe consider that it's not a healthy thing for our society to have one viewpoint so dominant.

I'm not asking you to insert things artificially to meet some kind of quota; I'm not asking you to devote your life to achieving universal equality. The only thing I (and most of the people in this thread, I suspect) are asking is that you at least acknowledge that there's a problem, and that it's something that benefits us all if we confront. That's all.

But that's not what I'm getting out of this thread. I've stated a bunch of times that I have no problems considering what I'm writing and why I'm writing it.

What I'm getting is that some participants of this thread have a cause that they feel is so important that it's self evident that we all must pay attention to their cause and bow to it. All this without any justification other than "it will make certain people feel better."

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

So anyone who doesn't consider themselves underrepresented can't hold this viewpoint? Sorry, I don't buy it.

That's not what that statement says at all. Rather, I understand why one would feel that way. It's natural to have empathy for groups you identify with, while empathy from groups that don't identify are the what you desire.

That's the end result of the "I shouldn't have to care" logic.

There is a lot of distance between saying, "That's not my fight" & "Deal with it & be happy with what you've got."

 

[saellys]

All this without any justification other than "it will make certain people feel better."

Already addressed this. You seem to have missed a large chunk of my posts.

 

[BWFoster78]

This strikes me as overly defensive, and also as a failure to understand the argument being made. I wonder if we're even reading the same thread.

Also, it is perhaps easier not to care about representation when your group is the one being favored disproportionately in representation. I don't think it is that hard to understand why others who aren't represented well might have a different viewpoint.

Sorry, but I refuse to do anything to encourage the victim mentality that pervades our society. Each group sees themselves as a member of a group and can only be happy when everyone acknowledges the "specialness" of that group. The argument then is, "You don't understand; you haven't suffered the oppression that we've suffered."

Again, this whole thing disgusts me.

 

[saellys]

That's not what that statement says at all. Rather, I understand why one would feel that way. It's natural to have empathy for groups you identify with, while empathy from groups that don't identify are the what you desire.

And those groups would find it harder to empathize (understand and share the feelings of others) why, exactly?

There is a lot of distance between saying, "That's not my fight" & "Deal with it & be happy with what you've got."

Not much at all, by your own logic. "Don't care; can't be arsed" leaves it up to someone else, and if people who don't identify this way are resistent to empathize, the choice for those who feel underrepresented is "deal with it yourself," or "be happy with what you've got," or both. Please feel free to fill in any options I missed.