KissingSunlight said:
Bobular said:
I don't think anything should be off the table for fiction, but I do think somethings should be off the table for certain writers. If you're not going to handle a sensitive topic with the care it deserves (not including things like parody) then It should be took off you and you should sit in the corner.
I think this comment is floating into censorship territory. I have been reading reviews about the movie Bad Moms. A few critics were complaining that the movie was written by two men. Last month, I got into a debate with someone who said white people who express opinions that he disagrees with about the legal system are invalid. Because, black people are affected by the legal system. Disqualifying people different than you, because of their race and gender. Worse yet, when people of different race and gender expressing opinions or telling stories that you disagree with. I believe that is censorship. How would you feel if you express a thought about a different gender or race, and have people trying to shut you up for expressing it?
I meant it more like someone adding in a rape scene into a movie just to be edgy or having ethnic characters that talk in nothing but stereotypes. Yeah those things could add value to some works, but if handled poorly then it could end up just being offensive or out of place or make you look like you don't know what your on about. I don't think men can't write women or that whites can't write blacks, though you'll find examples where that is true (for example Frank Miller is renowned for not writing women well).
I remember reading one story where when one character was kidnapped she was raped by the bad guy, this never came up again and when that character is rescued she seems perfectly fine and the only point of it that I could see was to show that the bad guy was evil, which by this point he had already shown himself to be, or to make the story more
"mature" or just for the authors fetishes. I've since read some other stories by the same author and whilst most don't have sex scenes in at all, the ones that did were really bad compared to the rest of the story so I just don't think this author can write that kind of stuff, I just didn't think he had the skill for it, he was awesome at showing the reactions characters had when they found a dead body, and the reaction when the main character caught the villain in the act of murder though so he had skills to cover other issues.
So whilst I don't think this particular author should handle rape topics I don't think that no one should, another author may have handled the same scene well but may have wrote the murder scene in a way that made me laugh instead of making me sympathise with the victim and also to the main character seeing it.
I'm no writer, I've rambled on and I still don't think I've got my point across well. Maybe I shouldn't write about this topic.
