Importance of white representation in fiction

[Moriarte]

The fixation on excess whiteness exhibited by a work of art is so US-centric. It barely exists as a point of interest outside the US and few other places engaged in fairly recent questionable business enterprises. In other places we discuss historic authenticity, acting talent, screenplay and skills of a director. Density of femaleness or density of white people per square inch of the film is not a critical metric that define good story and presentation. The amount of blue people in Picasso’s work during his Blue period? Abundant! But it’s the technical skills with a brush and his vision that make his work a blockbuster and material to learn from to countless generations of artists that followed. What he was drawing or where is secondary to his talent.

The processes, which enable people of different genders and appearances be represented more broadly across the spectrum of activities are economical in nature and can only be truly controlled by redistributive means. Gender swapping a key character in a movie adaptation is cool, but what does this action do? Is it supposed to indoctrinate me, the outsider, or you, the American, that there’s economic equality between people of various appearances and genders in New Zealand where the movie was filmed to be later played in America and 56 other countries, where German-born actors were told how to jump by a French director? Or is the Effect achieved by other means, one wonders - economically lifting up people of all appearances, of all genders, so that representation evens itself out over time.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Some fanfic authors really, really don't like Hermione.
...
Hermione is tolerable if written in a balanced way. She has to make mistakes. Nobody is right all the time.

What this comment immediately reminded me of, is when Hermione accidentally turned herself into a cat-girl with polyjuice potion. It was even funnier, when I thought about it, coming from you

*thinks* "Did Valka not remember Hermione turning herself into a cat by mistake? Or did Valka not think turning oneself into a cat could EVER be a mistake? "

 

[Valka D'Ur]

What this comment immediately reminded me of, is when Hermione accidentally turned herself into a cat-girl with polyjuice potion. It was even funnier, when I thought about it, coming from you

*thinks* "Did Valka not remember Hermione turning herself into a cat by mistake? Or did Valka not think turning oneself into a cat could EVER be a mistake? "

How can turning into a cat be a bad thing, when a tabby cat is Professor McGonagall's animagus form?

Actually, it was a learning experience for Hermione, which isn't a bad thing because she LOVES learning stuff!

(and personal fun fact: I don't think I've had a completely cat hair-free wardrobe since October 1977, when I got my first cat - you can vacuum and use sticky tape and rollers forever and you still don't get it all)

 

[Sommerswerd]

How can turning into a cat be a bad thing, when a tabby cat is Professor McGonagall's animagus form?

Actually, it was a learning experience for Hermione, which isn't a bad thing because she LOVES learning stuff!

(and personal fun fact: I don't think I've had a completely cat hair-free wardrobe since October 1977, when I got my first cat - you can vacuum and use sticky tape and rollers forever and you still don't get it all)

I KNEW IT!!! Sommerswerd s Valka

 

[aelf]

The fixation on excess whiteness exhibited by a work of art is so US-centric. It barely exists as a point of interest outside the US and few other places engaged in fairly recent questionable business enterprises. In other places we discuss historic authenticity, acting talent, screenplay and skills of a director. Density of femaleness or density of white people per square inch of the film is not a critical metric that define good story and presentation. The amount of blue people in Picasso’s work during his Blue period? Abundant! But it’s the technical skills with a brush and his vision that make his work a blockbuster and material to learn from to countless generations of artists that followed. What he was drawing or where is secondary to his talent.

The processes, which enable people of different genders and appearances be represented more broadly across the spectrum of activities are economical in nature and can only be truly controlled by redistributive means. Gender swapping a key character in a movie adaptation is cool, but what does this action do? Is it supposed to indoctrinate me, the outsider, or you, the American, that there’s economic equality between people of various appearances and genders in New Zealand where the movie was filmed to be later played in America and 56 other countries, where German-born actors were told how to jump by a French director? Or is the Effect achieved by other means, one wonders - economically lifting up people of all appearances, of all genders, so that representation evens itself out over time.

It's interesting that you mention economic activity and redistribution. One of the arguments I've been advancing in this thread that has been ignored so far is the need to pay attention to diversity in hiring actors. Acting jobs are economic activities, and one important thing about on-screen representation is the hiring of non-white actors in an industry that traditionally favoured white actors in societies that are increasingly diverse.

That means purists end up advocating going against this trend and for mass-hiring white actors to play roles that they imagine and insist are white. From a redistributive perspective, this is obviously a bad thing. And yet, somehow, socialist arguments that try to center the issue on economics are often employed to dismiss such concerns in the white West. I wonder why.

 

[MaryKB]

If it's a stupid idea, Hollywood will do it at some point.

In the meantime, I might write a fanfic parody, just for the hell of it.

Parodies are fun, and a legitimate "fair use" way to satirize the source material - the difference is that the author is upfront and honest that it is a parody and not to be taken seriously or in any way confused with what it's based on. That's why I can enjoy stuff like Wholly Moses! or the Stone Trek animated fan films (Star Trek done in the style of The Flintstones) or Wayne & Shuster's Shakespearean baseball sketch.

I even wrote a little sketch of a Dune parody... crossing it over with the Peanuts comic strip. It's fun and the people I showed it to liked it... but I'm not going to be arrogant and say it should be considered legitimate, official Dune.

But even parodies should respect the source material. I recommend National Lampoon's DOON, for a parody that works.


Making a character too good, too skilled, too well-liked by older and more experienced characters and not explaining the background of how they got like that indicates that the character just might be a Mary Sue/Marty Stu. J.K. Rowling finally admitted that Hermione is her Mary Sue character... which was actually fairly obvious after awhile. After all, Hermione is just so damn good at magic, everything she tries works almost immediately, and her worst fault people reference is that she talks too much and studies too much.

This is why I'm reworking parts of my own characters and giving them flaws and setbacks. Going by the events of the computer game, the pov character (who is not my main character, but very close to the top tier) comes through multiple sword fights without a scratch. I surmise this is the case because whoever wrote the dialogue/inner thoughts for this character never mentions any injuries. They do reference injuries to another character, though, and one of them is shown happening.

Hermione a mary sue? Come on, you know better.

Hermione is a bookworm and someone who studies hard. She has a good work ethic (as opposed to Ron and Harry especially), and this pays off for her.

She struggles with things that don't go "by the book." She had considerable difficulty with the patronus charm. She was nowhere close to being Harry's equal at Defense Against the Dark Arts.

She also could get overly stuck in the mundane. She couldn't conceptualize things she couldn't explain, and wasn't very good at seeing relationships between things. She couldn't figure out Dumbledore's clues.

And she was never popular. Most kids, especially the Slytherins, absolutely loathed her - even Harry and Ron hated her at first.

I swear, "mary sue" is thrown around for any female character who is competent and better at some things than the male characters.

 

[Zardnaar]

Hermione a mary sue? Come on, you know better.

Hermione is a bookworm and someone who studies hard. She has a good work ethic (as opposed to Ron and Harry especially), and this pays off for her.

She struggles with things that don't go "by the book." She had considerable difficulty with the patronus charm. She was nowhere close to being Harry's equal at Defense Against the Dark Arts.

She also could get overly stuck in the mundane. She couldn't conceptualize things she couldn't explain, and wasn't very good at seeing relationships between things. She couldn't figure out Dumbledore's clues.

And she was never popular. Most kids, especially the Slytherins, absolutely loathed her - even Harry and Ron hated her at first.

I swear, "mary sue" is thrown around for any female character who is competent and better at some things than the male characters.

For me it depends on how they're presented. Eg if they're trained or whatever.

Also depends on genre. Eg if a character is reborn and starts recalling a previous life that's fine.

Also depends on world building. Said world's should be consistent with itself. Luke and Ahsoka are fine Rey is a Mary Sue or borderline Mary Sue. Cara Dunne isn't one either as it makes sense for her background.

Even Rey was salvageable if they followed up on that Force Awakens thing (they didn't).

Male ones also exist eg Wesley Crusher. Mostly they're boring and/or annoying.

Not familiar with the Harry Potter stuff as he never interested me.

 

[EnglishEdward]

That means purists end up advocating going against this trend and for mass-hiring white actors to play roles that they imagine and insist are white.

Let us suppose there is a remake of Zulu in Africa.

The directors suggest hiring black Africans as extras to be the Zulu army because they imagine the Zulus were black.

Are the directors purists, and is that racist?

 

[Sommerswerd]

Hermione a mary sue? Come on, you know better.

Hermione is a bookworm and someone who studies hard. She has a good work ethic (as opposed to Ron and Harry especially), and this pays off for her.

She struggles with things that don't go "by the book." She had considerable difficulty with the patronus charm. She was nowhere close to being Harry's equal at Defense Against the Dark Arts.

She also could get overly stuck in the mundane. She couldn't conceptualize things she couldn't explain, and wasn't very good at seeing relationships between things. She couldn't figure out Dumbledore's clues.

And she was never popular. Most kids, especially the Slytherins, absolutely loathed her - even Harry and Ron hated her at first.

I swear, "mary sue" is thrown around for any female character who is competent and better at some things than the male characters.

Hermione basically got drummed out of Professor Trelawney's class, because she flat out just had no aptitude for the subject despite her studious nature. And Trelawney was clearly the real deal, given her entering a trance and delivering an accurate prophecy to Harry. Hermione was not perfect. As a separate issue, I agree that "mary sue" is just a BS critique of strong female characters.

 

[Birdjaguar]

It's interesting that you mention economic activity and redistribution. One of the arguments I've been advancing in this thread that has been ignored so far is the need to pay attention to diversity in hiring actors. Acting jobs are economic activities, and one important thing about on-screen representation is the hiring of non-white actors in an industry that traditionally favoured white actors in societies that are increasingly diverse.

That means purists end up advocating going against this trend and for mass-hiring white actors to play roles that they imagine and insist are white. From a redistributive perspective, this is obviously a bad thing. And yet, somehow, socialist arguments that try to center the issue on economics are often employed to dismiss such concerns in the white West. I wonder why.

the Screen Actors Guild has been a mostly, white male club (especially at the high end) for many years. Like many other such "clubs" (CEOs,, Tech, Country (clubs and Music) etc. the walls are coming down as millennials move up and recalcitrant oldsters die. The West has been a walled garden for whites for a long time. Demographics, migrations, social changes are tearing down those walls. It is a slow process, but relentless.

 

[Hygro]

Let us suppose there is a remake of Zulu in Africa.

The directors suggest hiring black Africans as extras to be the Zulu army because they imagine the Zulus were black.

Are the directors purists, and is that racist?

"Imagine and insist" applies to fiction, and you've reversed the "who needs more representation" roles.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

It's interesting that you mention economic activity and redistribution. One of the arguments I've been advancing in this thread that has been ignored so far is the need to pay attention to diversity in hiring actors. Acting jobs are economic activities, and one important thing about on-screen representation is the hiring of non-white actors in an industry that traditionally favoured white actors in societies that are increasingly diverse.

That means purists end up advocating going against this trend and for mass-hiring white actors to play roles that they imagine and insist are white. From a redistributive perspective, this is obviously a bad thing. And yet, somehow, socialist arguments that try to center the issue on economics are often employed to dismiss such concerns in the white West. I wonder why.

You're still associating genderswapping with race. That has never been my issue, though it may be others' issues.

Hermione a mary sue? Come on, you know better.

Hermione is a bookworm and someone who studies hard. She has a good work ethic (as opposed to Ron and Harry especially), and this pays off for her.

She struggles with things that don't go "by the book." She had considerable difficulty with the patronus charm. She was nowhere close to being Harry's equal at Defense Against the Dark Arts.

She also could get overly stuck in the mundane. She couldn't conceptualize things she couldn't explain, and wasn't very good at seeing relationships between things. She couldn't figure out Dumbledore's clues.

And she was never popular. Most kids, especially the Slytherins, absolutely loathed her - even Harry and Ron hated her at first.

I swear, "mary sue" is thrown around for any female character who is competent and better at some things than the male characters.

Don't "come on" at me. Go tell it to Rowling. She's the one who said it.

Please keep in mind that when we meet Hermione, she's only 11 years old. Even Wesley Crusher didn't get to be a Marty Stu until he was 15 (he's basically Gene Roddenberry's alter-ego, though eventually the writers gave him plausible flaws that made sense).

And Hermione eventually gets to be super-competent at damn-near everything, or at least everything she wants to be (she never becomes great at flying because she's afraid of heights, though she doesn't seem to be in danger of falling off either Buckbeak or the dragon). She struggles at first because there are so many things about the wizarding world that are hopelessly out of date with the muggle world, or there's no equivalent. But she learns.

Her not understanding the clues Dumbledore left are because The Tales of Beedle the Bard are wizarding bedtime stories, not muggle bedtime stories. She had no cultural reference, so that's not her fault. Once it was explained, she understood.

And the Slytherins (mostly; I read that Andromeda Black was Slytherin, yet she married Ted Tonks) hate everyone who isn't pureblood, rich, and keeps aloof from Muggles.

Not familiar with the Harry Potter stuff as he never interested me.

I actually don't find most of the kid characters that interesting. If they really had to make spinoff movies, I wish they'd done one featuring the Marauders.

Hermione basically got drummed out of Professor Trelawney's class, because she flat out just had no aptitude for the subject despite her studious nature. And Trelawney was clearly the real deal, given her entering a trance and delivering an accurate prophecy to Harry. Hermione was not perfect. As a separate issue, I agree that "mary sue" is just a BS critique of strong female characters.

Hermione quit Trelawney's class because she considered divination to be unscientific BS and was fed up with Trelawney's insulting, condescending attitude.

"Mary Sue" is a character who is a stand-in for the creator of whatever work it is, and such characters tend to be a wish-fulfillment of the creator to be super-competent and beloved (or at least respected) by at least one of the main romantic interests. A classic Star Trek "Mary Sue" is the character Piper, in Diane Carey's novels Dreadnought! and Battlestations!. Piper is soooo much better at getting the job done than Kirk is, and she doesn't hold back from letting him know how much better she thinks she is. The author herself has the same attitude, to the point of actually being fired after inserting her own snide opinions of Star Trek: Voyager into Janeway's inner thoughts and dialogue in one of the novels she wrote. The only reason that book wasn't canceled was because the publishing company had a deadline to meet and didn't have any other authors who could write a substitute fast enough.

 

[Gorbles]

Other people here, and on other sites, have no problem understanding my points. You keep professing not to, and then you conflated my issues re nuBSG with Dune, and I would prefer people not do that. As I said, there are MANY more issues wrong with nuBSG than I've taken the trouble to list here.

I'll say it again: I'm not trying to conflate your issues with two different settings. I'm trying to understand the shared point of view that links them both. Nothing more than that.

In general I do understand the points you make, I just like to emphasise clarification when I need it. Maybe it's a consequence of how I've interacted with folks on the Internet over the years, I dunno. But I prefer explicit clarification rather than me guessing for you. I understand that it can be a pain at times though.

Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert see a cash cow. A certain segment of Original Dune fandom would have welcomed their books IF they had demonstrated respect for the source material, but they didn't. Blatant and pointless retcons, outright stating in Paul of Dune (marketed as the "direct" sequel to Dune, which it is not) that everything in Dune - the entire damn story that Frank Herbert wrote - is nothing more than false propaganda that Paul ordered Princess Irulan to write and the "real" story is the stuff in the House trilogy, and calling the more traditional Dune fans who didn't like this "Talifans"... these things, plus the constantly-changing story about The Notes That Frank Left... yeah, these are all reason why I don't like the nuDune books, and I don't like the people who wrote them. KJA has a habit of confusing sales with quality, much like people who quote the Rotten Tomatoes stats at me as "objective proof" that a movie is good. He never seems to mention what I heard about his "contribution" to the Star Wars expanded universe - apparently he did such a crappy job of it that it took other authors a great deal of time and effort to fix his garbage. And then there's that bizarre rant about Ursula K. LeGuin and "critical darlings"... he's jealous that she's more highly regarded as a literary SF writer and he isn't.

People seeing a cash cow is definitely a large part of what can go wrong with any adaptation (or brand-new setting, film, book, whatever).

But the problem we have is there are two separate axes of success. One is popularity, and one is critical analysis. Something can be popular, and yet poorly-written (by any standards which we can measure something). You raise the Star Wars EU - there's a ton of rubbish in there. So, so, so much rubbish. Plenty of good stuff too. But folks kept buying them. So we're stuck with this combination of writing to sell (or making an adaptation to sell) and writing / making something good. The two can correlate for sure, but they don't have to. That's probably why there's a lot of friction on how to make a "good" adaptation.

It's why stuff like fanfiction is great, in my opinion (though I barely have the time to read it). It's prose unfettered by the need to turn a profit. Doesn't make it automatically good, but it releases it from the constraints of money.

So what did you say? The words "art" and "censorship" were there.

I'll answer this below!

I don't like this Dune adaptation BECAUSE (list of reasons) and IF they're going to change too much of it, it's not actually Dune anymore and is just piggybacking on the name.

Which I didn't actually say about this movie, btw. I said that about nuBSG. As I said: conflating the two. My positions on them are not identical.

I appreciate you didn't say this about the latest Dune movie. As I said at the start of this post: I'm trying to explore the general sentiment behind the examples you've given. So nevermind Dune specifically, or even new BSG.

When you say something is just piggybacking on the name, I understand that completely. It happens. But I was originally trying to understand you saying the adaptation shouldn't be named after the source material (generally-speaking. Your example I think was Dune, but I'm talking in general). Because to me that's semantically-different from something piggybacking on the name of something else. I know you said you have no power to make these things happen, I'm just interested in the speculation. For example, I'm the opposite to you in this regard. I believe an adaptation, however frivolous, should be allowed to be named after what it's based on. Nomatter how terrible it is. This freedom of expression when it comes to creativity in art (or a lack thereof) is important to me personally.

I still have what I like - the existence of the bad stuff doesn't negate the good, for me. I don't care about the junky Star Wars novels. I probably even like a few of them (there are some Lando Calrissian-centric books that in hindsight were probably terrible, but I enjoyed them nonetheless). I appreciate that you might have a different opinion here for sure - I'm just explaining where I'm coming from.

 

[EnglishEdward]

"Imagine and insist" applies to fiction, and you've reversed the "who needs more representation" roles.

Well while many people may be disquieted encountering inconsistencies in fiction,
I am not sure that the term purists actually has any real meaning in fiction.

I cannot help feeling that many posters here are Don Quixote jousting with windmills.
Inventing a category of closet racist spectators merely so they can enjoy being outraged.

And yes, I deliberately reversed the representation issue. My logic being that if a black
actor can play MacBeth, a white actor can play Chaka etc and similarly for their armies.

If a performer can perform any role irrespective of whether the assumed race/sex of
the character differs from that of the actor, then it was wrong for people to criticise
whites blacking up in the Black and White Minstrels television show.

 

[Hygro]

You’re saying the whole problem with minstrel shows is that the actors weren’t black?

 

[Gorbles]

And yes, I deliberately reversed the representation issue. My logic being that if a black
actor can play MacBeth, a white actor can play Chaka etc and similarly for their armies.

That's some logic, alright.

 

[aelf]

You're still associating genderswapping with race. That has never been my issue, though it may be others' issues.

Nobody cares about your specific gripe about genderswapping anymore. And not every post is about you. Get a grip and move on.

That's some logic, alright.

Boomer logic.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Hermione quit Trelawney's class because she considered divination to be unscientific BS and was fed up with Trelawney's insulting, condescending attitude.

Tomayto, tomahto. She couldn't hack it. Trelawney called her out. She ran out of the class in a huff. That's what happened in the movie. Did you see the movie?

"Mary Sue" is a character who is a stand-in for the creator of whatever work it is, and such characters tend to be a wish-fulfillment of the creator to be super-competent and beloved (or at least respected) by at least one of the main romantic interests. A classic Star Trek "Mary Sue" is the character Piper, in Diane Carey's novels Dreadnought! and Battlestations!. Piper is soooo much better at getting the job done than Kirk is, and she doesn't hold back from letting him know how much better she thinks she is. The author herself has the same attitude, to the point of actually being fired after inserting her own snide opinions of Star Trek: Voyager into Janeway's inner thoughts and dialogue in one of the novels she wrote. The only reason that book wasn't canceled was because the publishing company had a deadline to meet and didn't have any other authors who could write a substitute fast enough.

Are you mansplaining "Mary Sue" to me? You think I'm not aware of the origins/meaning of the term? How condescending

 

[PhroX]

To be fair, regardless of the origin, the term Mary Sue tends to be used pretty interchangeably for men and women in my experience. There is supposedly a male specific term "Gary Stu", but I can ever remember seeing it used.

 

[EnglishEdward]

You’re saying the whole problem with minstrel shows is that the actors weren’t black?

That is what people were saying at the time.

I find it a bit more nuanced. Was it cultural appropriation or cultural appreciation, there are arguments both ways.