Representation vs. Appropriation
Mar. 14th, 2016 08:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/1MiWkzm:
I’m seeing a lot of discussion about the appropriation of minority cultures and experiences for the purposes of storytelling, alongside a lot of discussion of how important it is to see the representation of diverse experiences and cultures in media.
And a lot of, let’s be real here, a lot of huffy responses from white people throwing up their hands and saying “FINE THEN I’m staying in my lane and only writing stories about people just like me!”
It’s an understandable conclusion but that’s not actually what anyone’s telling you to do. So all the whiny jackasses who are sneering “you can’t have it both ways!” like that proves something are totally peripheral to the point.
The point is, if you approach storytelling from that angle your shit is going to be boring. If you are huffy from the get-go, you are going to make terrible choices.
And I can’t believe, because there are so many smarter people out there than me, that I haven’t seen a better explanation of it than this. But I haven’t. So I’ll try.
You need to tell your stories in color, and you need to try to do a good job representing how the world really is, because otherwise your shit is going to be claustrophobic and listless. You shouldn’t just leave out characters of marginalized identities, because you’re trying to “stay in your lane”; that’s a terrible excuse.
However. Neither should you attempt to tell The Definitive Great Story Of What It Means To Be [Marginalized Identity You’re Not]. That’s where it crosses the line, a bit. If your story is entirely about the experience of Being [Marginalized], then it’s really not your story to tell.
That’s the difference. Your story can be about anything you want, and it can incorporate all kinds of things that reflect the lives of its various marginalized-identity characters, but you cannot purport to Speak For All [Identity-Havers].
So? Go ahead, and tell a story that includes all kinds of people. You just have to research. How? Just like you’d research anything, just more politely because you’re talking about people’s lives and identities, not obscure physics questions.
Start with a basic Google search. Write down interesting facets to go into more depth about. Pay particular attention to anywhere there’s controversy. Maybe find a book, or a documentary, if a well-reviewed one exists. Familiarize yourself with at least some of the basic facts of the history of this group, find out maybe some statistics on relevant things– and try to find an outlet where these people speak for themselves in their own words. Find out what they say to one another, and what they say to outsiders, and what stories they are telling of themselves, to themselves, about themselves.
Once you’ve done your basic groundwork, try internally to relate it to your own experiences. Like, for me: Nobody’s ever been racist to me, not really, because you can’t be racist against a white person in a white supremacist culture– but you’re a woman, and you remember really vividly how it felt on the phone when that customer demanded to speak to “a man” even though you were the most knowledgeable person in the department. Okay, so it’s probably something like that. Not exactly, but something like that. (Do keep that in mind. Doesn’t matter how good your imagination is; you don’t really know. So, relate it so it’s real to you, but no further than that. Remember that, or you start speaking over people, and that’s the line you’re trying to avoid.)
From that perspective, examine the things you’ve learned about, and then, if you can, find someone (preferably more than one), who is a member of the marginalized group in question. Sometimes you can just ask on Tumblr! Sometimes you can look it up and find a cultural outreach group on the Internet. Sometimes there’s even a government office you can contact. Sometimes there are, like, school special interest groups or support groups or what have you. Specifically set up to answer questions. Jackpot!
Ask them, respectfully, from this perspective where you’ve thought over what it might really be like, about the various controversies you found. Verify details. Find out if there were controversies you didn’t know about. (Find out if the documentary you watched was actually horrible. Hopefully you already knew that.)
Then, try to figure out what aspects of that would actually appeal to your character– who, separately but not really separately, is a person you’re trying to give a full personality to, and keep that in mind! This character is not A Marginalized Everyperson; this person is Character (Who Is Marginalized Identity), who has many facets of identity, and the realities of being a marginalized person are going to affect those facets in a highly individual way.
Guess what! That’s character-building, and you should do that for all your characters on some level anyway.
Likewise the character’s whole arc should be determined by a number of factors, and so, it may turn out that their marginalized identity may barely play a role at all. You can only know that by knowing all the implications, though!
It’s functionally the same as if you chose to set your story on a planet with two suns. You need to do a lot of research to really understand how that works, but even if almost none of it winds up in the final work, your understanding will inform the setting in unforeseen ways, and will make the story so much richer in pretty much every detail.
It’s the same thing– only this is something that has affected the real lives of real people, and about which they have a lot of real feelings. And so you have to be respectful about it, when you’re researching it and as you’re developing the story.
But it is worth it, because your story needs it in order to be in a fully-realized world.
And then– thank your sources. Acknowledge the people who helped you research.
And that’s it. Don’t wait for cookies. You did it for you, because it made your story better. Because it did– your story would’ve been boring as fuck if you hadn’t bothered. That’s the truth of writing: the hard way literally always pays off. You don’t get a cookie, you just get a bigger audience, because your story relates to more people because it’s got more interesting stuff in it.
That’s its own cookie. That’s the secret. It’s its own cookie. Nobody needs to give you one. You don’t even need to congratulate yourself. You wrote a better story than you would have if you’d written a shitty lazy one.
The end.
I’m seeing a lot of discussion about the appropriation of minority cultures and experiences for the purposes of storytelling, alongside a lot of discussion of how important it is to see the representation of diverse experiences and cultures in media.
And a lot of, let’s be real here, a lot of huffy responses from white people throwing up their hands and saying “FINE THEN I’m staying in my lane and only writing stories about people just like me!”
It’s an understandable conclusion but that’s not actually what anyone’s telling you to do. So all the whiny jackasses who are sneering “you can’t have it both ways!” like that proves something are totally peripheral to the point.
The point is, if you approach storytelling from that angle your shit is going to be boring. If you are huffy from the get-go, you are going to make terrible choices.
And I can’t believe, because there are so many smarter people out there than me, that I haven’t seen a better explanation of it than this. But I haven’t. So I’ll try.
You need to tell your stories in color, and you need to try to do a good job representing how the world really is, because otherwise your shit is going to be claustrophobic and listless. You shouldn’t just leave out characters of marginalized identities, because you’re trying to “stay in your lane”; that’s a terrible excuse.
However. Neither should you attempt to tell The Definitive Great Story Of What It Means To Be [Marginalized Identity You’re Not]. That’s where it crosses the line, a bit. If your story is entirely about the experience of Being [Marginalized], then it’s really not your story to tell.
That’s the difference. Your story can be about anything you want, and it can incorporate all kinds of things that reflect the lives of its various marginalized-identity characters, but you cannot purport to Speak For All [Identity-Havers].
So? Go ahead, and tell a story that includes all kinds of people. You just have to research. How? Just like you’d research anything, just more politely because you’re talking about people’s lives and identities, not obscure physics questions.
Start with a basic Google search. Write down interesting facets to go into more depth about. Pay particular attention to anywhere there’s controversy. Maybe find a book, or a documentary, if a well-reviewed one exists. Familiarize yourself with at least some of the basic facts of the history of this group, find out maybe some statistics on relevant things– and try to find an outlet where these people speak for themselves in their own words. Find out what they say to one another, and what they say to outsiders, and what stories they are telling of themselves, to themselves, about themselves.
Once you’ve done your basic groundwork, try internally to relate it to your own experiences. Like, for me: Nobody’s ever been racist to me, not really, because you can’t be racist against a white person in a white supremacist culture– but you’re a woman, and you remember really vividly how it felt on the phone when that customer demanded to speak to “a man” even though you were the most knowledgeable person in the department. Okay, so it’s probably something like that. Not exactly, but something like that. (Do keep that in mind. Doesn’t matter how good your imagination is; you don’t really know. So, relate it so it’s real to you, but no further than that. Remember that, or you start speaking over people, and that’s the line you’re trying to avoid.)
From that perspective, examine the things you’ve learned about, and then, if you can, find someone (preferably more than one), who is a member of the marginalized group in question. Sometimes you can just ask on Tumblr! Sometimes you can look it up and find a cultural outreach group on the Internet. Sometimes there’s even a government office you can contact. Sometimes there are, like, school special interest groups or support groups or what have you. Specifically set up to answer questions. Jackpot!
Ask them, respectfully, from this perspective where you’ve thought over what it might really be like, about the various controversies you found. Verify details. Find out if there were controversies you didn’t know about. (Find out if the documentary you watched was actually horrible. Hopefully you already knew that.)
Then, try to figure out what aspects of that would actually appeal to your character– who, separately but not really separately, is a person you’re trying to give a full personality to, and keep that in mind! This character is not A Marginalized Everyperson; this person is Character (Who Is Marginalized Identity), who has many facets of identity, and the realities of being a marginalized person are going to affect those facets in a highly individual way.
Guess what! That’s character-building, and you should do that for all your characters on some level anyway.
Likewise the character’s whole arc should be determined by a number of factors, and so, it may turn out that their marginalized identity may barely play a role at all. You can only know that by knowing all the implications, though!
It’s functionally the same as if you chose to set your story on a planet with two suns. You need to do a lot of research to really understand how that works, but even if almost none of it winds up in the final work, your understanding will inform the setting in unforeseen ways, and will make the story so much richer in pretty much every detail.
It’s the same thing– only this is something that has affected the real lives of real people, and about which they have a lot of real feelings. And so you have to be respectful about it, when you’re researching it and as you’re developing the story.
But it is worth it, because your story needs it in order to be in a fully-realized world.
And then– thank your sources. Acknowledge the people who helped you research.
And that’s it. Don’t wait for cookies. You did it for you, because it made your story better. Because it did– your story would’ve been boring as fuck if you hadn’t bothered. That’s the truth of writing: the hard way literally always pays off. You don’t get a cookie, you just get a bigger audience, because your story relates to more people because it’s got more interesting stuff in it.
That’s its own cookie. That’s the secret. It’s its own cookie. Nobody needs to give you one. You don’t even need to congratulate yourself. You wrote a better story than you would have if you’d written a shitty lazy one.
The end.
