Diversity in Fiction - Question

[Burnswell]

How about you completely remove any mention of race or sex and let the reader imagine them any way they want. See if you can get away with it without it being obvious.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I see X-Men has been brought up. IMHO, that's an example that really needs to be diverse, as it started as a metaphors for the US Civil Rights movement and LGBT rights.

The movies really suffered from this, lack of PoC heroes (especially after the first 3) and total lack of LGBT is rather noticeable when you are preaching about how discrimination is bad.

In Rivers of London, the narrator indicates he is black through a satirical remark about how he's worried about being used as a token by his employer.

And explicitly mentions the race of every single other person they encounter.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

How about you completely remove any mention of race or sex and let the reader imagine them any way they want. See if you can get away with it without it being obvious.

That would be a hell of a writing challenge.

 

[Thaluikhain]

How about you completely remove any mention of race or sex and let the reader imagine them any way they want. See if you can get away with it without it being obvious.

That would be a hell of a writing challenge.

Yes and no, there are a fair few works that don't mention the race or sex of the hero...but only because it's understoof without needing to be pointed out.

 

[Silvanus]

That's funny... I didn't get a notification that you had quoted my post.

Fair enough, but at it's roots it is the same question, as in, "why did you make a character (x)?"

Well, as far as I'm concerned, one is an argument about trends and the other is an argument which focuses on individual instances.

Nobody has an issue with character X being a grizzled, brown-haired white guy specifically. The issue is that he's one of thousands; that the mould is overused.

How about you completely remove any mention of race or sex and let the reader imagine them any way they want. See if you can get away with it without it being obvious.

Two recent instances of characters whose ethnicity was not explicit in the source material are Hermione in Harry Potter and Shadow in American Gods.

When black actors were chosen to depict them, people complained about shoehorning.

 

[BarkBarker]

Identity is not personality, however personality can develop from experience through identity if it is an aspect that can affect the average person.

 

[Vanilla ISIS]

If it doesn't impact the story at all then the race, gender or sexuality of the characters shouldn't even be mentioned.
If you have to mention those things, don't make them the defining traits of the character.
More importantly, don't make the story about those things, especially not in the current political climate because it's the easiest way to divide people and lose audience.
Even more importantly, don't use a particular trait of a character to preach to your audience because EVERYONE hates that.
Most current Marvel comic books do that and they're selling terribly as a result.

 

[kitsunefather]

I'd like to thank everyone so far for keeping it close to on-topic, and for sharing their thoughts and ideas. There's been a lot of good advice, and interesting ideas for me to mull over going forward.

Some quick responses I want to make, however, are:

I play DnD, I usually DM. Many characters I make them independent of their race (and I mean race, human, elf, dragonborn etc) and then might make them something less common to add some variety. Sure, I could have just made them a white human man, but thats boring. Does it really make that much a difference if the Inn Keeper is a Human man, or a half-orc woman?

I'm in a similar boat, though currently I'm planning a Palladium Robotech game. However, I'd say it depends on the type of story you are running; I generally use Race (Elf, dwarf, etc) as ways of showing political or social openness. A cosmopolitan culture of many races tends to be more welcoming and unconcerned with the threat outsiders bring than a majority single race culture; that sort of thing.

Ask yourself why these sort of questions never come up with straight white male characters and you have the answer to whether we need diversity.

Yep, it's totally cool to depict all straight white males as chiselled jawed Marines or bespectacled nerds because straight white males are evil and deserve it you see.

Honestly, the main issue here (in fiction) isn't that people really consider straight white males evil, it's that no one cares if they're flawed, broken, despicable people.

For this argument, you write a story where the main protagonist is an alcoholic failing to recover, estranged from his wife because he used to beat her when he got drunk, and who abandoned a child he had by a mistress during an affair. If you make him black, there's a chance it won't get published for fear from the publisher that it will be called racist. If you make him white, no one will care.

It's honestly (and paradoxically) why I think there haven't been more diverse heroes in fiction in the last decade or so. Characters who aren't white are expected to be role models and paragons, to somehow compensate for their scarcity; however, that expectation ensures their continued scarcity.

* Unless you have a narrative reason, don't mention a character's race. Writers have a bad habit of trying to work diversity into their story by describing lots of non-white characters. The problem with this is that they do this selectively, always quick to point out when a character is asian, but never points the white ones. The result is weird "spot the minority" type descriptions which treat racial minorities as exceptional, when the narrator is aiming to do the opposite. If there is no reason to mention a character's race, do not mention a character's race. If you are going to mention a characters race, have a reason to do so. It doesn't have to be a big one, the reason could simply be that you want to tell a joke about it, or to inform the reason for why they do something, or to reflect on the kind of the world the protagonist lives in.

Honestly, this is probably some of the best advice I've seen on the subject.

* Never, ever emulate someone's accent within the dialogue. This still happens, where a character suddenly starts "Talkin' in
a reg-eoon-al accsunt loik?" It's annoying to read, it's patronising, and it implies that anyone who doesn't have their words spelt phonetically must be speaking implausibly perfect received pronunciation. Unless your Irvine Welsh, don't do it. Just describe the character as having the accent - we can imagine the rest.

Here, however, I disagree in certain contexts: if the perspective character is also supposed to be confused by the speaker's dialect. Everything written should be descriptive of the perspective character's experience, and in regards to writing an accent phonetically, it should be to illustrate the character having to suss out what the speaker is saying. This said, you should never do this with the perspective character's accent.

 

[Catnip1024]

I mean, no? They're space nazis, and he spent a huge chunk of the movie trying not to interact with them at all. Hell, he only snuck back on to the star system destroying super weapon to rescue one of his two friends. Every time he fought the FO before that, they were shooting at him, his friends, and/or random civilians, and they were wholly unconcerned with murdering captives they attacked out of the blue.

So I'm sorry he didn't blow his chance of escape by trying to start a popular uprising in the hanger bay when he was leaving with Poe, and I'm sorry he didn't try and hug it out with the traitor dude, and I'm sorry he didn't try to engage Captain Phasma in reasoned debate while they were rescuing Rey from the planet destroying super weapon. Maybe Space Opera isn't for you?

Don't make me laugh. Star wars isn't space opera. It's fairy tales in space.

I am referring to the one particular scene. Sure, you can make the decision to open fire on his former comrades a valid decision, but not the way I personally saw it depicted. The depicting was awful, the character wasn't deep enough. It improved a little after that, but the character was already fubar. imhop. A brainwashed kid should be a little more conflicted about switching sides. That's kind of the point of brainwashing.

 

[kitsunefather]

I mean, no? They're space nazis, and he spent a huge chunk of the movie trying not to interact with them at all. Hell, he only snuck back on to the star system destroying super weapon to rescue one of his two friends. Every time he fought the FO before that, they were shooting at him, his friends, and/or random civilians, and they were wholly unconcerned with murdering captives they attacked out of the blue.

So I'm sorry he didn't blow his chance of escape by trying to start a popular uprising in the hanger bay when he was leaving with Poe, and I'm sorry he didn't try and hug it out with the traitor dude, and I'm sorry he didn't try to engage Captain Phasma in reasoned debate while they were rescuing Rey from the planet destroying super weapon. Maybe Space Opera isn't for you?

Don't make me laugh. Star wars isn't space opera. It's fairy tales in space.

I am referring to the one particular scene. Sure, you can make the decision to open fire on his former comrades a valid decision, but not the way I personally saw it depicted. The depicting was awful, the character wasn't deep enough. It improved a little after that, but the character was already fubar. imhop. A brainwashed kid should be a little more conflicted about switching sides. That's kind of the point of brainwashing.

My feeling on that arc felt more like it was supposed to be a hint that Finn is going to end up being a Force User, and that was his Force ability "awakening" and breaking the brain washing.

My personal hope is that it's revealed that Finn is actually under a more direct control from Snoke (or a different villain), and being used as a sleeper agent to infiltrate the resistance.

 

[visiblenoise]

Like a lot of others here, if I'm told what race a character is, I expect that to matter in the story. Otherwise, I'm assuming the character is like all the other characters in the story. And without such a context, I'm going to assume that it's white because it's the closest you can get to a blank slate, which again happens to be in service of not giving out irrelevant details. The fact that the blank slate happens to be whiteness more often that not is a phenomenon that has the inertia of history behind it, and shouldn't be thought of as inherently good or bad.

Same thing applies to gay/straight, or anything else like that.

 

[Cicada 5]

Make them characters, duh. If you go for cheap stereotypes you wind up with an American comedy. And no-one wants that.

Why were people boycotting or saying we all should boycott The Force Awakens because of Finn [https://www.thedailybeast.com/racists-urge-boycott-of-star-wars-episode-vii-over-black-lead-and-most-of-them-love-trump]?

Because he was a terribly written character - so bad that he stood out as especially badly written even for that film. Also, I am going to question in the integrity of that link based purely on the address.

People were crying to boycott before[\i] the movie's release. The mere fact that a black guy was going to be of importance had them in knots.

 

[Cicada 5]

I'd say the easiest way to create "diverse" characters (which really depends on where you're coming from) is to just do the complete opposite of what Marvel has been doing recently. Don't make token characters for the sake of looking good and if you can't help that, then at least know who to write compelling stories rather than just propagandizing to your audience.

Marvel's been "propagandising" their audience since their inception.

 

[Catnip1024]

Make them characters, duh. If you go for cheap stereotypes you wind up with an American comedy. And no-one wants that.

Why were people boycotting or saying we all should boycott The Force Awakens because of Finn [https://www.thedailybeast.com/racists-urge-boycott-of-star-wars-episode-vii-over-black-lead-and-most-of-them-love-trump]?

Because he was a terribly written character - so bad that he stood out as especially badly written even for that film. Also, I am going to question in the integrity of that link based purely on the address.

People were crying to boycott before[\i] the movie's release. The mere fact that a black guy was going to be of importance had them in knots.

I'm not going to deny that there may have been some of that. I generally don't pay any attention to movie talk prior to watching a movie, beyond the trailers. So I dunno.

But as mentioned above, there was also a lot of "why is the clone of Boba Fett suddenly a black guy"? Which isn't racist, just a lack of full understanding of the back story / lore.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

::Opening Preamble Bits::
Going to begin by apologizing if the title is a bit too "click-bait"; it's the most succinct one I could think of for the topic at hand.

My last couple of questions have been in the Wild West Forums, but it was suggested on the last one that it would have gotten more traffic/discussion if it were in a more general/public location. As such, I will continue to say that I don't care what you have to say, how you say it, as long as it contributes in some way to the topic at hand.

I don't believe anyone here knows me, as I'm not a frequent poster. I typically try to only chime in when I feel I can contribute to the conversation, rather than to perpetuate an argument (though I've occasionally posted snarky comments). I'm a would-be writer, with an interest in science fiction, mystery, and horror. My personal inspirations come from the late Victorian to late Pulp writers mostly, including Spillane, Doyle, Wells, and others.

I'm currently coming here to get a feel of how people outside of my immediate circle think. What I come here for is diversity, in the end. The only diversity that matters, in my opinion: diversity of perspective and experience.

::The Actual Point::
There's a lot of talk about representation in fiction, from comic books to movies to games. Has been for a while, really. I don't disagree with any of the points generally made, but I've seen a troubling trend for some time now, and I want to talk about how it applies in fiction, and what the mind you all are on it.

Should diverse characters be showcased, and given special notice and fanfare, or should they be treated as any other character inhabiting the world?

To explain myself further: what are "gay", "african", "white", "woman", or "pansexual" as character traits? Should they define a character, or develop them? And I'm talking in general; I know that a story can be written that the point of the story is to explore a character's sexuality or race, and therefore become defining. But in media where that's not the case, should it be?

To elucidate, I've become more obsessed with pulp era detective stories as of late, and been devouring them with what time I have available to read. As such, I have an example of what I mean. Two novels of that era I read recently I finished and began talking with my wife about how hard it would be to get someone to publish them in this day and age.

As such, I'd like to discuss some plot details from two novels: Max Allan Collins' Quarry and Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep.

In Quarry, the main (and titular) character is a hitman who ends up on a job in a small town with Boyd, his lookout and recon guy. Boyd is gay, and this is mentioned as off-handedly as possible as a book written in 1976 about a combat vet turned hitman can likely do. It's mentioned at the time to describe the character, but also used as a way to let you know how close the two have become in the years they've worked together off and on, that Boyd has shared that with him. They're as much friends as Quarry gets, and when his friend is murdered (and the money from the job stolen), he works over the town trying to find the answers.

Spoiler

The answers come in the fact that Boyd was having sex with a local man, who killed him and stole the money. Something Quarry doesn't figure out until very near the end because he (and the reader) are expecting a larger conspiracy at work, and ultimately it comes down to human fallibility and problems of the heart.

In the Big Sleep, Philip Marlowe gets involved in no small amount of intrigue as he unravels a series of mysteries that deal with infidelity, city corruption, a pornography ring, and mental illness. One character central to the story early on is a pornographer, who invites young women to his home and gets them drugged up before posing them for a hidden camera, and its heavily implied having sex with them. While searching his home, Marlowe finds a hidden room that's obviously been lived in. This turns out to be the male lover of the pornographer, who ends up being one of the people implicated in another death in the story.

Spoiler

Fun passage that a modern editor would cringe at:
"I still had the automatic more or less pointed at him, but he swung on me just the same. It caught me flush on the chin. I backstepped fast enough to keep from falling, but I took plenty of the punch. It was meant to be a hard one, but a pansy has no iron in his bones, whatever he looks like."

In both of these stories, the characters being gay had an impact on the story, but neither character was treated simply as a "gay" character. They also had flaws, and made missteps, much like the protagonists in both stories. They were written as characters first, and gay was simply a detail of them.

On the contrast of this, I have an anecdote that fits.

My friend is a film student, and an actor. Through his school, he's worked or auditioned for several projects, and got one that was kind of an LGBT take on the X-Files; they shot a pilot movie with an intention to get backers to turn it into a long run show. This is last year, but as of right now its only been shown in a few film festivals.

My friend got a bare bones synopsis of his character, and the script (same as anyone else). His character was in a relationship with another man, who was abducted in the opening; the main bulk of the story would take place 4 years later. In the main story, he's with a new man, as well as being part of the X-Files like organization. Both he and the actor portraying his new love interest felt their characters seemed thin, so they worked together to dot the i's and cross the t's of the backgrounds to make the characters feel more real. When they approached the director with their notes, they were told to play it as written and not meddle with it (the director was also the writer and producer).

In several scenes, my friend's only direction was "act more gay". Now, my friend is gay, so this irritated him a bit. Chiefly in the relationship scenes, the director would only call it a good shot if both actors acted as campy as possible.

This is an example of what I mean when I say "gay" as a defining character trait. The story is about aliens and a conspiracy about what's really going on, but the characters being gay (comically so, having seen the finished cut) is more important than being characters with realistic motivations.

::The TL;DR Part::
If you can't be fucked to climb the text mountain above (and honestly, I can't blame you), here's what I want to know in a nutshell:

* Is it more important that diverse characters be characters, or representative?

* Should diverse characters be treated specially, and made more important, or should they be treated like any other character?

::Extra Bit::
Mainly started thinking about this recently as I've been looking at doing a kind of pulp story myself, in a different setting. However, the themes of the novels that hook me are decadence and degeneracy among the wealthy, and corruption among the powerful. I'm going to be doing another thread looking at exploitation because of this, but mainly it got me thinking again about what kinds of characters can be good, or bad, or victims in the long run of the story.

::You're still here?::
Thanks for taking the time to read and/or respond, and for keeping any personal attacks aimed at me. I'd prefer if people kept their politics out of the discussion, by which I mean please debate the topic, and not each other.

The director your mate was working for sounds like a fucking wanker. He's set the scene of an obviously romantic intimate moment between two men, that is sufficiently gay AND human enough - camping it up is just dumb at that stage unless one of them is already camp.

 

[maninahat]

Like a lot of others here, if I'm told what race a character is, I expect that to matter in the story. Otherwise, I'm assuming the character is like all the other characters in the story. And without such a context, I'm going to assume that it's white because it's the closest you can get to a blank slate, which again happens to be in service of not giving out irrelevant details. The fact that the blank slate happens to be whiteness more often that not is a phenomenon that has the inertia of history behind it, and shouldn't be thought of as inherently good or bad.

Same thing applies to gay/straight, or anything else like that.

I do the opposite. I have a test I use, in that that if the protagonist's race is not mentioned, I will automatically assume they are a POC and wait to see how long it is before the narrative contradicts it.

How about you completely remove any mention of race or sex and let the reader imagine them any way they want. See if you can get away with it without it being obvious.

That would be a hell of a writing challenge.

It's easy if you just show the story from a first person perspective, and especially easy if the protagonist plays a fairly passive observer role in the story. It happens a lot in HG Wells books by accident, in that the nameless protagonists are presumed white male (judging by the setting), its just never pointed out. The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler spends the whole book allowing the reader to assume Tyke is a boy and you don't hear her real name, Theodora, until the end.

 

[SoliterDan]

* Is it more important that diverse characters be characters, or representative?

It really depends on a lot of factors, some of them are outside of our influence, so I would say a bit of both.

* Should diverse characters be treated specially, and made more important, or should they be treated like any other character?

If the point of the story is empowerment, it is only natural to see characters treated specially. There's nothing wrong with that, different media exists for different people.
I personally prefer the second, though, unless MC is diverse

 

[ObsidianJones_v1legacy]

But as mentioned above, there was also a lot of "why is the clone of Boba Fett suddenly a black guy"? Which isn't racist, just a lack of full understanding of the back story / lore.

While not racist, is it not a bit ethnocentric? In a fantasy universe where other colors of human exist (Lando Calrissian [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lando_Calrissian]), why is Boba Fett suddenly Māori is a question asked by people I think who are somewhat biased. We never see him without his armor. Hell, he could have been an alien for all it matters.

Because of the original actor's voice? James Earl Jones [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Earl_Jones] will forever be the literal voice of Darth Vader. No one batted an eye when Vader's mask came off and it was a white man.

... well, I did. But we're talking about the general public.

Incidentally, I think certain people would have been happier that he was an alien than a real life human of color. And that speaks a lot about these people who yell "whites are being discriminated against!" five times per one real life, non-white human in a movie.

 

[Catnip1024]

While not racist, is it not a bit ethnocentric? In a fantasy universe where other colors of human exist (Lando Calrissian [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lando_Calrissian]), why is Boba Fett suddenly Māori is a question asked by people I think who are somewhat biased. We never see him without his armor. Hell, he could have been an alien for all it matters.

Because of the original actor's voice? James Earl Jones [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Earl_Jones] will forever be the literal voice of Darth Vader. No one batted an eye when Vader's mask came off and it was a white man.

... well, I did. But we're talking about the general public.

Incidentally, I think certain people would have been happier that he was an alien than a real life human of color. And that speaks a lot about these people who yell "whites are being discriminated against!" five times per one real life, non-white human in a movie.

As I recall, we see him plenty in the prequel trilogy. Most notably when he chases Obi-Wan (?) to the clone planet and gets chopped into pieces in front of his son. We see the clones, all of whom are Hispanic like he is. That would be enough to allow people to ask questions, if it wasn't for that pointless bit of Star Wars trivia I picked up somewhere that let me know they had widened the recruitment from purely clones.