POLL TIME!

[bewize]

There are a lot of interesting discussions going around the Internets right now about narrative and character choices and what, if anything, it reveals about the author. Many of them have made me think (always a good, if dangerous, thing) and now I have questions for you, oh Internets.

Is it possible to write a narrative that contains characters who are *ist (racist, sexist, misogynist, homophic, transphobic, fat-phobic), and wherein the fic structure isn't designed to provide either cosmic retribution of an after-school special teaching moment, and not have the fic be inherently *ist itself?

If the fic is *ist, to what extent is the author perpetuating the *ism on the world?

To use an example from my own work (which is the only way I can think to explain what I mean, without putting anyone else on the carpet), I wrote a Merchant of Venice fic (yes, Shakespearean even!), wherein Antonio and Bassanio basically have sex in front of a mirror. The fic contains this conversation:

"Dear Bassanio, do you have no trust for me? My heart, my home, my life… all yours for the taking."

Bassanio's voice hitched. "What we do is a violation of God's law."

"Aye."

"We damn our souls."

"Aye," Antonio breathed.

At no point afterward did I have the characters address the homophobic nature of that conversation. At no point did I ever bring religion into the story again. At no point did I include any hint that I - as the author - have a knee-jerk reaction when Christians (which is the faith embraced by these two characters) start preaching about how homosexual acts are sins.

So, tell me Internets, was that homophobic? Does the fic perpetuate homophobia? Does it therefore exist as proof of perhaps my own unexamined homophobia?

Or does the fact that I told this story, about two white men fucking each other, to the exclusion of exploration of the themes of the play involving anti-semitism, classism, sexism, and racism - of which the source material is rank - mean that I somehow embraced those *isms in my own story, and therefore perpetuated them by virtue of ignoring them?

To what degree am I, as the author, guilty of the sins of the characters?

(I am aware that this question may seem extremely combative and I honestly do not mean it that way. I am simply asking for opinions. I do not promise to agree with any of you, however! But, the thought-process is provoking introspection and I would like to engage in a dialogue. I will do my best to keep my ego out of it, I promise.)

Comments

[haruka]

Maybe I'm missing something (kind of reading this in a hurry as I'm still working), but it looked to me like it made sense. If you go strictly by the bible (as I'm told), then what the character said is true in that context and not homophobic, just something that is apparently in the bible.

[crossedwires]

Is it possible to write a narrative that contains characters who are *ist (racist, sexist, misogynist, homophic, transphobic, fat-phobic), and wherein the fic structure isn't designed to provide either cosmic retribution of an after-school special teaching moment, and not have the fic be inherently *ist itself?

Yes, and one way to do that is - as you've done in your example - to have the principle characters be part of the minority/disprivileged group your *ism is about. I think your fic would probably take on a different meaning if a straight character told either Bassanio or Antonio that they were going to hell, and the whole thing were about [straight character]'s justification for thinking that way. By having Bassanio and Antonio in a romantic/sexual relationship, even with the acknowledgement of homophobia, I think you're subverting their words with their actions.

As for the other *isms... I don't know. Not one story can be or cover everything, and that's okay -- possibly to an extent, and maybe depending on how blatantly other themes/tropes/stereotypes pop up. To use an original fic example, I LOVE Girl Overboard, but it doesn't have any queer characters or characters with a disability; it doesn't denigrate them, but they don't show up in the canon, which adds to their overall invisibility. It's also very good about race and feminism (and class?), and matches up in areas where I'm not privileged as well as where I am, so I'm okay with it.

I also thought this fic did a great job showing the POV of some ordinary, bigoted guy without it being a reflection on the author. But it's not really something I need to read a lot of or would ask for -- I don't think it's a bad thing to specify one does not want that. It's not much different from not wanting dark or unhappy fics, I think.

[crossedwires]

Also, I was thinking about putting no privilege porn, please in my do not like list, but I thought it might be too mean. :/

But I tend to read the need to show a privileged POV/a character expressing *isms as a way to write about privileged characters without getting called on it. 'Historically accurate' can be used as an excuse because it's only telling one aspect of history. Shift the angle towards another group of people or a disprivileged person and the way certain issues and *isms are portrayed have to change.

[sid]

I think the dialogue you showed is entirely appropriate for those characters at that point in history. They would be expected to take religion seriously.

As to an After-School teaching moment, let me give you an example of something I hate, hate, hated: in the 1994 movie of Little Women Marmee says a line about not confining her daughters in corsets: "Feminine weaknesses and fainting spells are the direct result of our confining young girls to the house, bent over their needlework, and restrictive corsets."

No. Just... no. It's just put in there to somehow make things seem more 'modern'. You'd be doing the same thing if you inserted a lecture about homophobia into a Merchant of Venice story.

And since you were doing a remix of the original, in a manner of speaking, you're entitled and expected to narrow your focus and not try to cover everything that was contained in the original.

[leanwellback]

I think in the historical context, it's not homophobic of you to include those sentiments. Especially because, as crossedwires says, it's coming from characters in a homosexual relationship. It only really becomes homophobic when the narrative as a whole supports that opinion, which, I'm guessing, it doesn't.