The Bechdel Test

[BWFoster78]

I think there might be a much larger issue at work here, involving liberal versus conservative or moderate (or apathetic) ideology.

The think that the issue here that most of us writers are considering is:

Why should we alter our stories based on political ideology?

I think a lot of us, T.Allen and I anyway, just want to tell our stories.

 

[Feo Takahari]

The think that the issue here that most of us writers are considering is:

Why should we alter our stories based on political ideology?

I think a lot of us, T.Allen and I anyway, just want to tell our stories.

Like I said, you're apathetic, at least in the sense that the prevalence of certain tropes doesn't actively piss you off. (That, or it matches your own ideology relatively well--it's possible you'd be more rebellious if you had to write for the Japanese market, though since I'm not you, I can't know whether that would be the case.)

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Like I said, you're apathetic, at least in the sense that the prevalence of certain tropes doesn't actively piss you off. (That, or it matches your own ideology relatively well--it's possible you'd be more rebellious if you had to write for the Japanese market, though since I'm not you, I can't know whether that would be the case.)

It's not that I'm apathetic. I'm quite sympathetic with the majority of these opinions. For my own writing, I just don't care to worry myself with them. I'd rather just tell the story with entertainment as its sole purpose.

That's not to say that one can't write with an effort geared towards a changing contemporary thinking. That's a laudable goal if that's what an author wants to do. It's just not for me, at least at this time. Truth is, all stories have messages and meaning. Im just trying to stay out of my own way as much as possible...if that makes sense. I don't wish to preach or educate, only entertain.

 

[saellys]

That's not to say that one can't write with an effort geared towards a changing contemporary thinking. That's a laudable goal if that's what an author wants to do. It's just not for me, at least at this time. Truth is, all stories have messages and meaning. Im just trying to stay out of my own way as much as possible...if that makes sense. I don't wish to preach or educate, only entertain.

All stories have messages and meaning, so you're never just writing for entertainment. Your work represents something whether you want it to or not.

This is the only point of contention between us, near as I can tell.

Where these things greatly concern you, I merely want to entertain through the telling of a story. In my view, all considerations are subservient to the story. I don't really care what some may feel the story represents and perpetuates or what some think the story might normalize. I don't feel any level of societal responsibility for guiding, shaping, or conforming to people's viewpoints.

My only concerns are that I write the story with frank honesty and that people have an emotional reaction to the tale...that they enjoy the reading.

Not caring about what you perpetuate puts you in good company with a lot of writers!

One question, though: if you wrote a story that did not pass the Bechdel Test and I told you that my enjoyment of said story was diminished by the fact that your two female characters only spoke to each other about a male character, would you feel compelled to change anything about that, or would you simply chalk it up to not conforming to my viewpoint?

 

[Mindfire]

I also disagree with a comment above that said if the reason for inclusion is specifically for purposes of 'fairness' or other policy reasons, it is a mistake. That's not always going to be the case. Fiction has long served as a vehicle for commenting on social policy or conditions, and for advocating for change. If your goal in writing a story is to make a political or social point, in addition to entertain, then it makes sense that you would consider these issues and possibly modify the story for reasons specifically related to social equality, fairness, and the like.

Perhaps I overgeneralized. I should have used the disclaimer: "Unless you have the specific intent of social commentary..."

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

Not caring about what you perpetuate puts you in good company with a lot of writers!

That's a bit backhanded. My concern for honest story telling vastly overrides any concern for ideological writing. That's it. Let's not turn it into anything different.

One question, though: if you wrote a story that did not pass the Bechdel Test and I told you that my enjoyment of said story was diminished by the fact that your two female characters only spoke to each other about a male character, would you feel compelled to change anything about that, or would you simply chalk it up to not conforming to my viewpoint?

Great question. The answer is, it depends.

If you're a beta reader, then I selected you for a specific reason. Therefore, I'd definitely take your comments into consideration. Perhaps there'd be changes made based off your opinions, perhaps not. A lot of that would depend on the character's intended purpose in the story.

If you were one of a thousand readers who reviewed the work where your opinion was a minority....probably not. Nothing would appeal to everyone. I accept this. If that opinion was a majority, I might consider alterations. Again though, it would depend on the character's purpose in the story.

That being said, none of my female characters would ever behave that way.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

All stories have messages and meaning, so you're never just writing for entertainment. Your work represents something whether you want it to or not.

I would accept that as an inherent part of story telling. Few things are absolute in nature. I just don't want to concern myself with the messages people infer. I just want to tell the story for entertainment alone.

 

[Feo Takahari]

This topic's moving pretty quickly, and this will take a while to write, so I'll make this a separate post.

Let me start by explaining the most giant "WAT" I ever gave.

I was reading an anthology of stories by O. Henry. I came upon a discussion between two characters, one of whom had been a match salesman before business dried up. To paraphrase from memory, "Gasoline can have a coon in hell before my matches get him warm enough to discuss religion."

This was, half-literally, a giant flaming WAT--not for the subject matter, but for how casually Henry portrayed it, as just another humorous conversation. I didn't burn the book, or write an angry letter to Henry's estate, or anything silly like that, but it gave me pause.

When I'm looking at a shelf of fantasy books, and almost all of them star white men, that's not a WAT, that's a tiny little hrm. But it's enough of a hrm that I'd like to encourage people to maybe possibly be a little more representative in their fiction. There's nothing wrong with the existence of books about white men. (And truth be told, although I criticized stories about rightful kings, they have a right to exist, too. I'm too much of a fan of Scrooge McDuck to insist that all art be Socialist.) I just want to "hrm" and "er . . ." and "did he just . . ." a little less.

 

[saellys]

I quoted you almost verbatim: " I don't really care what some may feel the story represents and perpetuates or what some think the story might normalize."

Fair enough regarding a beta reader vs. a finished product. Nevertheless, brushing off a minority opinion because "nothing would appeal to everyone" seems unwise where valid criticism is concerned. Obviously no one's goal is to appeal to everyone, as that would be fruitless and frustrating. However, somewhere in the list of goals we want to accomplish as writers, "not thoughtlessly perpetuating some harmful idea" and "acknowledging our mistakes without caveat when we do and trying to do better next time" should be line items.

 

[Mindfire]

I think the wall saellys and feo are bumping into is twofold. First, I think writers resent being told a story is insufficient, not because of a storytelling defect, but because it didn't tick boxes on someone's checklist. And second, nobody here it seems wants to bear the burden of writing "the feminist story", or "addressing the issue". No one wants to shoulder the load of political correctness. We only want to tell our story in peace.

 

[Jabrosky]

About the erasure of minorities from the media mentioned earlier, while part of that is undoubtedly due to racial prejudice or implicit bias, it has also been my experience that certain people will look for offensive content in the odd instance when PoC are portrayed. I've had people accuse me of racist denigration of African women because I draw them so often, even though my intention is the exact opposite (practically all my major black female characters are supposed to be beautiful, and most are sympathetic). If you have all these knee-jerk PC pseudoliberals deliberately over-analyzing your creative productions for the slightest whiff of a stereotype, I can see why you might feel discouraged from portraying PoC at all.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I quoted you almost verbatim: " I don't really care what some may feel the story represents and perpetuates or what some think the story might normalize."

Yes, and I stand by that statement. Let me be clear because I feel my message is getting lost, or at least muddled.

I talk a lot about honesty in writing. In fact, I mentioned it early in this thread. I choose story elements (plots, characters, etc) because I think it will make for a good tale. I don't want to start worrying about how some people might interpret the story. If I select an all male cast, there's a reason. If I mix sexes, races, sexual orientations, there's a reason. In every choice the reason is because it serves the story. If I started to select genders, or races, because I'm concerned about them being underrepresented in the story or altering their role so I don't offend...well that feels dishonest to me. It's not what the story called for, it's what i think society demands.

The only unforgivable sin in writing is dishonesty....That's a quote. I just forget who said it. By not concerning myself with messages, or how people may view story elements, I stay true to the story vision. To me, that's more honest than going over characters to make sure I don't violate sensibilities.

Fair enough regarding a beta reader vs. a finished product. Nevertheless, brushing off a minority opinion because "nothing would appeal to everyone" seems unwise where valid criticism is concerned. Obviously no one's goal is to appeal to everyone, as that would be fruitless and frustrating. However, somewhere in the list of goals we want to accomplish as writers, "not thoughtlessly perpetuating some harmful idea" and "acknowledging our mistakes without caveat when we do and trying to do better next time" should be line items.

I always will want to get better. The others are your goals, not mine.

 

[Steerpike]

Good discussion (and topic). Let's remember to keep ad hominems out of it, as well as criticisms of people personally based on their view of social policy. If you're making arguments that characterize the person rather than the issue, you're headed in the wrong direction.

This is not directed at a specific individual, so don't read anything into it. Just a reminder from your friendly neighborhood feline. Look into my eyes!

 

[Feo Takahari]

About the erasure of minorities from the media mentioned earlier, while part of that is undoubtedly due to racial prejudice or implicit bias, it has also been my experience that certain people will look for offensive content in the odd instance when PoC are portrayed. I've had people accuse me of racist denigration of African women because I draw them so often, even though my intention is the exact opposite (practically all my major black female characters are supposed to be beautiful, and most are sympathetic). If you have all these knee-jerk PC pseudoliberals deliberately over-analyzing your creative productions for the slightest whiff of a stereotype, I can see why you might feel discouraged from portraying PoC at all.

Speaking generally, I haven't seen many people criticize a work for racism who weren't picking up on a problem. Often, they weren't picking up on a racial problem, but they were (mis)identifying something the author could have fixed. (To give a personal example, a beta reader thought the orcs in one of my stories were a thinly veiled copy of the "magical Native American" stereotype. Looking over her criticism, I realized I hadn't properly set up my planned criticism of the orcs' way of life--that criticism was intended to make them less idealized and bring them down to Earth.)

 

[Feo Takahari]

Separate post for a separate issue.

I'm having a bit of trouble understanding the whole "honesty" thing, and ironically, it might be because I don't really care about categories very much--I just find it off-putting that the same categories keep showing up.

In Worms (a story I keep coming back to for examples), I built the plot around one character's betrayal of another, and that other character's response. I wrote a long and impassioned post here about my uncertainty as to how to end it--whether with vengeance or mercy--because that was the crux of the story, and I didn't want to make a mistake.

As part of the story's twist, I impulsively decided to give the victim a name having to do with the word "white", and settled on Zurie. This being a French name, I gave her the randomly chosen French surname Laprisse. This symbolism was minor--there was no reason she couldn't have been Zuri (a Swahili name), or Zuriel (Hebrew), or, for that matter, Shannon. I just chose at random, on the principle of "why not?", because this wasn't a story about race. (On the other hand, I wanted to specifically draw a parallel to male-on-female rape, which is why I didn't write about Zurishaddai--maybe next story?)

I guess you could call this "organic" writing--I certainly never thought "Oh, I need to write a French character to keep French people from being pissed off." But I did think "Hey, I've never written someone French before. I guess I might as well." I think a bit more "might as well" would go a long way towards having more diversity.

P.S. To be clear, I'm aware that culture significantly impacts how a character behaves. Were my Zurie from Saudi Arabia, that might have had a significant effect on how she handled the events of the story. But I was writing about a situation that was a bit outside the scope of current events (we certainly won't have interstellar travel anytime soon), so I had a bit of leeway in writing characters instead of culture. (And in any event, to quote J.K. Rowling, "There are weirdos in every breed.")

P.P.S. Come to think of it, nationality is probably a much bigger obstacle than race. I don't think I could convincingly write a character who'd spent his or her entire life in Japan, at least not as easily as I could write a Japanese-American, or even a spacefaring Japan-descendant. (Then again, we're fantasy writers--we mostly write about fictional societies anyway.)

 

[saellys]

I think the wall saellys and feo are bumping into is twofold. First, I think writers resent being told a story is insufficient, not because of a storytelling defect, but because it didn't tick boxes on someone's checklist. And second, nobody here it seems wants to bear the burden of writing "the feminist story", or "addressing the issue". No one wants to shoulder the load of political correctness. We only want to tell our story in peace.

I'm not asking anyone to address any issues. I'm not asking anyone to be politically correct, because that's a term that doesn't mean anything and is only ever used as an excuse for saying something offensive. I'm not telling anyone that any one story is insufficient. I'm just asking people to run their work through the Bechdel test. It's not hard; it won't hurt; and as you can surely attest, it's even kind of fun to see how many different ways you pass it.

I guess you could call this "organic" writing--I certainly never thought "Oh, I need to write a French character to keep French people from being pissed off." But I did think "Hey, I've never written someone French before. I guess I might as well." I think a bit more "might as well" would go a long way towards having more diversity.

This.

By not concerning myself with messages, or how people may view story elements, I stay true to the story vision. To me, that's more honest than going over characters to make sure I don't violate sensibilities.

I feel like our fundamental disagreement involves two things. First is which stage of the writing process is appropriate for taking these considerations. You seem to think I'm asking people to do it from the start--to say to themselves "I'm writing about nine people on an epic quest--how many of them can I make female, POCs, or non-heterosexual?" That's not at all what I'm saying (though it could certainly be very interesting to build a world and story around how such a diverse group interacts with each other and the world around them). Every stage of the writing process is an opportunity to examine our choices as writers. If you* get your nine characters figured out, and then realize there's no reason why several of them can't be women or varying ethnicities or asexual, and then you make that change and write them as real human beings (or lizardmen/women or orcs or some such), you have just drastically increased the breadth of your audience. Your story hasn't suffered because you're a great writer, and the non-straight-white-male reading your story has that much more to enjoy about it because they see some aspect of themselves represented. Again, everyone wins!

The second thing involves the reduction of these concepts to "sensibilities" (or "feminist brownie points" or "political correctness" or everything else they've been called in this thread so far). Representation in the media is a problem, not just a quirk of a minority slice of your audience whose opinion ultimately doesn't really matter. These things are actually important, and belittling them with such word choices implies that a) there is no problem, and b) if there is, there's no point challenging the status quo, or at the very least, it's Someone Else's Job.

*All instances of "you" and "your" are purely hypothetical and not intended as ad hominem statements.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

It's not that I'm apathetic. I'm quite sympathetic with the majority of these opinions. For my own writing, I just don't care to worry myself with them. I'd rather just tell the story with entertainment as its sole purpose.

That's entirely up to you, but I think a writer whose only purpose is to entertain is selling themselves short. Art can have many purposes. Entertainment might be the most important purpose (to you) but there's no reason it has to be the only one.

EDIT: More specifically, I would encourage all writers to do more than simply try to entertain. I believe that your art serves both you and the world best when you try to say something with it, rather than just entertain.

 

[Mindfire]

Actually, the way Feo put it ("might as well" or "why not?") appeals to me more than the vibe I've been getting from that side of the conversation up until now, which has come off as more "you ought to do this, or else [you're an evil, evil person]. Shame on you!"

Yes, that's hyperbole. No reason this discussion has to be humorless.

And yes, I get the representation thing. I'm a minority and while I know what it's like when people who resemble you are absent from media, the fact that Batman is white does not cause me to writhe in existential agony. But it does annoy me when people add characters inorganically for diversity's sake, and not because they were interesting or necessary.

Which of these things is not like the others? Could it be the TEEN TITANS MEMBER?

 

[Mindfire]

And now, for an example of diversity done right...

 

[Jabrosky]

You seem to think I'm asking people to do it from the start--to say to themselves "I'm writing about nine people on an epic quest--how many of them can I make female, POCs, or non-heterosexual?" That's not at all what I'm saying (though it could certainly be very interesting to build a world and story around how such a diverse group interacts with each other and the world around them). Every stage of the writing process is an opportunity to examine our choices as writers. If you* get your nine characters figured out, and then realize there's no reason why several of them can't be women or varying ethnicities or asexual, and then you make that change and write them as real human beings (or lizardmen/women or orcs or some such), you have just drastically increased the breadth of your audience. Your story hasn't suffered because you're a great writer, and the non-straight-white-male reading your story has that much more to enjoy about it because they see some aspect of themselves represented. Again, everyone wins!

I realize we are talking fantasy here, but assuming a certain degree of realism how often is that actually going to be the case? Such a scenario would require getting together a mixed-sex assortment of people with varying sexual orientations and from various parts of the world, which is improbable if the world in question isn't like the modern United States. For instance, if a story were set in the fantasy equivalent of Africa, odds are that any Asian and European types would be outnumber by natives. Homosexuality is a statistically rare sexual orientation, and asexuality or pansexuality or whatever are even rarer, so unless the organizers of the band went out of their way to incorporate diverse sexualities, the statistical odds are that most nine-people bands in most settings will be predominantly heterosexual. I will admit the mixed-sex situation would be a lot easier to pull off as long as the society in question wasn't patriarchal like most historical civilizations.

Furthermore, while I write both male and female PoC all the time, I must admit that homosexuality and asexuality aren't my personal cup of tea. I'm all for marriage equality and gay rights, but I am still a straight guy and therefore don't find homosexual relationships particularly, uh, attractive. Whenever I write romance or sexuality into a story, I write whatever I personally find most appealing, not what someone else might find politically correct. That said, I have no problem with gay people writing their own gay romances, because everyone has different tastes.