Allegory VS Interpretation

[Umbran]

Really not my thing but not up to me to judge.

I don't honestly know the racial history of New Zealand particularly well. But... imagine an Australian piece that had imagery of white folks subjugating aboriginals? You think that'd be acceptable?

For me the litmus test is this. Is the character this way because if what they are or who they are?

We are RPG players, to let me try a different analogy:

The guy who comes into the game, and does a ton of jerkish things at the table, and defends it saying, "But that's what my character would do!"

Alot of romance novels let's face it are soft core porn for bored housewives yes?

The piece under discussion wasn't pornography. It was having a woman on a leash supposedly because she had dementia.

You realize that's not how you handle someone with dementia, right?

 

[MarkB]

But yeah there's a lot less nuance online. Warhammer 40k is copping flak because it's got no female space marines and it's essentially race wars in space.

Despite the fact its deliberately be an over the top dystopian future using a lot of satire.

If it was up to the raving Twitter mob you couldn't have that either. And people think D&D has problems lol.

Note I don't play Warhammer but there's no amount of changes they can make to it to appeal to the Twitter mob and still have something recognizably warhammer. Do you stick R18 labels in it, don't make it or ignore the Twitter mob?

This isn't just stuff for the Twitter mob, though. If you're organising a Space Marines campaign for a group and you stipulate "oh yeah, and all of you have to play male characters", that's a pretty major constraint on the players' options, and it's going to make it harder to get player buy-in at many tables, regardless of how satirical it is.

 

[Mercurius]

I haven't read the book and don't even know the name of the author, but my guess is that they were neither practicing nor advocating for leashing people with dementia, whether black or not. So the question is, why is there a backlash against this as depicted in fiction? Fiction has depicted, and will continue to depict, all kinds of atrocious things. Where is the line drawn between what things can and cannot be expressed, and who makes such decisions?

And more so, what do people want to come from their outrage? It is one thing to say, "Man, Dances with Wolves was such a white person's view on Native Americans," quite another to act for its removal, or that all future films be vetted through some kind of filtering process that disallows people from making the films they want to make. I personally would prefer to allow such films to be made, if only so that we can have the conversations.

Furthermore, there is a place for art that makes us feel uncomfortable. Taking offense generally involves personalizing it, thinking it is about oneself, when in the end it can only ever be about the artist themselves. Or as the quote goes, in paraphrase, "non-fiction is about the world/others, fiction is about ourselves" (can't remember who said it). Meaning, a work of fiction is entirely about the author - every character is an aspect of the author, every idea the author's version of it. It is a peak into the mind of the author, and we read it through our own minds, our own experience.

As for writing from the perspective of the "other," this is at the core of the matter and what Yossman discusses. Everyone is other, regardless of ethnicity, gender, or other intersectional categories. And of course, orcs and other fantasy creatures are especially other to us all - as are fantasy creations inspired by real world cultures and ideas. So while at the same time, everyone is other, everyone in a work of fiction is not--it is ourselves.

It is one thing to consult someone about depicting Jews (if non-Jewish), LGBTs (if non-LGBT), blacks (if not black), etc. It is quite another to consult someone about one's fantasy world. Even in the case of a "fantasy Africa," it is still a fantasy setting...a fantasy Africa could and almost certainly would have real and perhaps even massive differences from our own world. For instance, maybe it never experienced European colonization. That would change just about everything. Maybe its people have entirely different cultural assumptions than the Africa of our world, yet only share the trait of higher melanin.

 

[Janx]

You may have missed the point here. The complaint is that we shouldn't allow certain behaviors online. Fine. But, the behaviors in question are already illegal. They are already not allowed!

What more protection do you expect than that?

Exactly, and thank you for getting my point.

For the guy who didn't....
Illegal stuff is illegal. Death threats, burning down a house, etc. Heck, hurting somebody's ability to work is slander/libel and worth a crap-ton in court. maybe the system doesn't work on enforcing that stuff, but it is covered.

The basic example is people being angry because an author's work has offensive stuff in it. not the nutjob level of rioting and killing people over it.

A sensitivity reader might catch that. I can clutch my pearls and say it hurts my artistic vision and publish anyway. Or I can decide that maybe that bit wasn't needed and I could do something else.

Should the worst happen and you publish something that has a bit in it that is interpreted as offensive when you truly didn't mean it, what should you do? How about apologize. Say you didn't see it that way when you wrote it, but you're learning and will try to do better. And then do so. people will still be mad, but if you actually do better, it's on them for clinging to anger, not you for clinging to ignorance after that.

 

[MarkB]

It is one thing to consult someone about depicting Jews (if non-Jewish), LGBTs (if non-LGBT), blacks (if not black), etc. It is quite another to consult someone about one's fantasy world. Even in the case of a "fantasy Africa," it is still a fantasy setting...a fantasy Africa could and almost certainly would have real and perhaps even massive differences from our own world. For instance, maybe it never experienced European colonization. That would change just about everything. Maybe its people have entirely different cultural assumptions than the Africa of our world, yet only share the trait of higher melanin.

If you're making a fantasy Africa that has nothing to do with the real Africa, then what's the point of setting it in Africa? You're more likely to disappoint people than interest them if you market something as fantasy Africa, and when they look into it there's nothing to do with Africa in there aside from the geography and the inhabitants' skin colour.

And if you're making a fantasy Africa that does have cultural elements of the real Africa, then it will have the potential to cause problems if those elements do anything to perpetuate the more offensive portrayals of those cultures that have occurred historically.

 

[Janx]

Sensitivity readers are there for a reason: the constant background hum of systemic racism and privilege. Most of us do not have a diversity of experience, even if we have long-term friends who are black, gay, trans, etc etc, but we think we do, which can lead to making some pretty awful gaffs regarding race, culture, etc.

A more woke culture isn't a straitjacket - your white suburban writer can absolutely produce novels about Native Americans or Harlem musicians of the 1920's - but it does mean you can no longer be lazy and not do your research when producing content. For example, you absolutely cannot rely on your memory or TV or what Aunt Judy said about the practices of her Jewish neighbors when writing about a Jewish family.

Exactly. Though there are some boundaries I see forming in my own research.

Quite some time ago, an Australian author wrote an excellent book about aboriginal's experience. Won awards, got respect from aboriginal communities. He did a good job, back in the day when aboriginals were not gonna get published. Today, he says he wouldn't write such a book, as there's aboriginals who CAN write that themselves.

So my rule of thumb is, I am not going to write a book about growing up as a poor black girl in Harlem (classic example). It's not my experience, and frankly, almost any poor black girl growing up in a city is far closer to the experience than I am. it's that boundary of literary fiction that could be someone's memoir.

But I will have a diverse cast. And that may include a woman who grew up poor in Harlem. And some moment in the story may be reflecting or influenced by her experience. But that's not the same as me spending a whole book telling you what I think it was like for somebody who can tell you themselves.

 

[Mercurius]

If you're making a fantasy Africa that has nothing to do with the real Africa, then what's the point of setting it in Africa? You're more likely to disappoint people than interest them if you market something as fantasy Africa, and when they look into it there's nothing to do with Africa in there aside from the geography and the inhabitants' skin colour.

And if you're making a fantasy Africa that does have cultural elements of the real Africa, then it will have the potential to cause problems if those elements do anything to perpetuate the more offensive portrayals of those cultures that have occurred historically.

I don't mean Africa, but an equatorial continent that is obviously inspired by Africa, in a similar way that, say, Midgard is not "fantasy Europe" but inspired by Europe. When you call it "Africa" with regions like "Khemet" etc, then it changes things. A bit.

But again, what is your solution? People shouldn't create anything that has "the potential to cause problems?" And what is "causing problems?" Offending a few people on twitter or in certain segments of academia?

 

[MarkB]

And what is "causing problems?" Offending a few people on twitter or in certain segments of academia?

How about offending someone who turns up to play a game and finds that it contains a painfully stereotypical portrayal of their culture than nobody else at the table seems to have noticed is implicitly racist?

 

[Ryujin]

I don't honestly know the racial history of New Zealand particularly well. But... imagine an Australian piece that had imagery of white folks subjugating aboriginals? You think that'd be acceptable?

We are RPG players, to let me try a different analogy:

The guy who comes into the game, and does a ton of jerkish things at the table, and defends it saying, "But that's what my character would do!"

The piece under discussion wasn't pornography. It was having a woman on a leash supposedly because she had dementia.

You realize that's not how you handle someone with dementia, right?

The RPG Players part reminded me of something; the people I meet who think that the character of Glorion, in the web series "JourneyQuest", is supposed to be a hero.

Who beats a fellow party member as a means of "encouragement."

Who bursts into a room and declares, "Die evil races!" before killing all the creatures who are discussing why evil for evil sake is meaningless.

Who kills entire villages of Orcs. "The women.... The children....?" asks the Cleric.

 

[Zardnaar]

I don't honestly know the racial history of New Zealand particularly well. But... imagine an Australian piece that had imagery of white folks subjugating aboriginals? You think that'd be acceptable?



We are RPG players, to let me try a different analogy:

The guy who comes into the game, and does a ton of jerkish things at the table, and defends it saying, "But that's what my character would do!"



The piece under discussion wasn't pornography. It was having a woman on a leash supposedly because she had dementia.

You realize that's not how you handle someone with dementia, right?

As I said on context. I hadn't read the piece in question.

Generally I would look on it as bad taste but it would depend on context/genre. If you wrote a historical novel with slavers then yeah leash is fine because that's what happened.

If the novel was glorifying it yes that's a problem.

In Australia the last mass shooting of the aboriginals happened in the 1930's. On a casual level they're worse than the USA in terms of how they speak.

In NZ the Maori weren't enslaved or socially excluded but they're on the wrong side of things socio economic things due to Colonization etc.

They made a movie here called Once Were Warriors where the main character beats the crap out of his wife, daughter gerlts raped by her uncle and he beats the crap out if him as well.

Wasn't glorifying things though but it was based on a book written by a Maori writer.

Stars Tenures Morrison (Jango Fett in Star Wars, Aquamans dad in Aquaman).

It's hard hitting film (literally) but yeah unpleasant things happen and get made.

NSFW worse than I remembered. Warning etc.

Clip. Context daughter has committed suicide and they find her journal. Not for faint hearted. Saw mainstream release here in 1993.