Straight White Males as default: How it's wrong.

[The Steel Magnolia]

You've got the whole argument backwards.

The point about them being 'default' is that many authors don't consider the possibilities of another gender, race or sexuality for their important characters and 'default' to straight white males far too often.

What something being the "default" means is, in fact, is that it is picked if you do not have a reason to do otherwise. The title of the blog is "PSA: Your Default Narrative Settings Are Not Apolitical."

Sounds to me like the very idea someone might have a default setting of "SWM characters" is under attack; not simply using your default setting too often.

The blog in the OP outlines the position: "It is bad that most major characters in historical-style settings are straight white males, because there were people who were not straight white males who did the same sorts of things as those characters."

This argument runs across the problem that SF&F literature actually overrepresents female heads of state, female soldiers, female political leaders, female scientists, et cetera, compared to the historical settings they are borrowing from / leaning on. It's not at all clear that straights are overrepresented; there are a number of authors who include no non-straight characters, a number of authors who include lots of non-straight characters, and a number of characters whose actual sexuality is not necessarily immediately revealed - Dumbledore, anyone?

The blog author is:

1. Angry that some fans don't think that certain minority characters' minority status is adequately justified, and therefore feel a jarring sense of unrealism. For example, Lancelot being black without an explanation for why Lancelot is black, something that would be relatively unusual in, say, 6th century Briton.

2. Responding to this anger by adopting the other extreme position and lashing out at other authors in the genre, saying that everybody who isn't making characters things other than straight white males without offering a reason for it is doing it wrong and being unrealistic.

3. The reality is that it hasn't been controversial within SF&F to have a protagonist who isn't a straight white male since before the blog author was born, and the degree to which the genre fails to represent a historical ratio of men in male professions or whites in Pseudo-Europe [or actual Europe] historical settings is in fact an error in the "politically correct" direction of higher diversity than historical evidence suggests.

Holy Christ.

Yes, TJ. How dare women run things in fantasy. Clearly, this is attacking straight white men.

Sometimes I swear you knock that chip on your shoulder off yourself.

[Hathradic States]

Funny.

Of course this is part of why I'm weary of writing in homosexual characters. If you introduce sexuality into the story it is for one of two reasons: firstly, a conflict over the the sexuality; or second, a romantic subplot. I've explained that the first is difficult for me. The second falls under my "I am doing this for a reason" point.

I've said this about ten previous times in this thread: straight is a sexuality, just like white is a race and male is a gender. Making a character gay does not "introduce sexuality into the story" any more than making a character straight does. The fact that you view straightness as a default state and homosexuality as a special exception that requires a justification is precisely the problem.

I have a serious question now: should one have to justify the use of a SWM for a main character? Because, well, honestly, I'm too fucking lazy to retconn shit right now.

[Cannot think of a name]

The fact that both of her children went into "artsy" professions that don't pay well pretty clearly drives her absolutely crazy.

Oh yeah, we got that going on. But since my brother bought a house and an AMG with guitar playin' money it lets up some pressure, except for encouraging me to latch on lamprey like to his coattails...(worse, I started off as a musician and have been giving sax lessons to make some scratch during the down time, which then encourages them rubbing salt in the wound that is my realization that I did not work hard enough at the sax to be the professional my brother is)

[Aina Lani]

Funny.

Of course this is part of why I'm weary of writing in homosexual characters. If you introduce sexuality into the story it is for one of two reasons: firstly, a conflict over the the sexuality; or second, a romantic subplot. I've explained that the first is difficult for me. The second falls under my "I am doing this for a reason" point.

I've said this about ten previous times in this thread: straight is a sexuality, just like white is a race and male is a gender. Making a character gay does not "introduce sexuality into the story" any more than making a character straight does. The fact that you view straightness as a default state and homosexuality as a special exception that requires a justification is precisely the problem.

However, if you never mention the sexuality of a character, people tend to assume they're straight until proven otherwise, even if they're not (example: Dumbledore), and if you mention that a character is gay when you had otherwise planned not to mention sexuality at all, it does introduce sexuality into the story.

[Cashewbutter]

I can write characters that aren't me; however, I get this dangerous urge to use a handy generalization about a gender, or a race, or a sexual leaning because I don't personally have experience with it. You want to form a protagonist that is capable of existing in your world, so generalizations are dangerous little buggers. Worse yet, they can totally rip parts of the audience away from the story if it seems like you used one.

I've haven't quite found myself able to write characters like homosexuals with a truly believable personality. They work quite well as secondary characters, but they don't work well when you dive into the specifics. At the exact same time, throwing these kinds of characters into the story to satisfy some quantitative need for non-SWM works contrary to what writing is about. I add enough of the characters to express that this is a real world with very different people; but you shouldn't add these characters for the sake of adding them. There should be a literary reason to have a homosexual character in the room (or to hang a lantern on this fact in the first place), or perhaps a different colored dwarf in the room. For example, that last one can lead the character off on a mental segue into dwarven culture.

Having them there to be there isn't a good reason. I suppose that's my problem. I shouldn't make my protagonist or my major characters be homosexual or something unless I want to explore that side of human (or elf, or dwarven, or... oh hell lets get on with it) nature. Furthermore, I don't want to write characters like I do now and just reskin them as homosexual or an Asian. This feeds back to the "I want them to have a purpose as a character" mentality. I simply do not know enough about these types of people yet to draw out a complex mental state for the character or some kind of contemporary issue they have to deal with. Anything I do seems hamfisted.

Call me a bad writer for this, but I like to believe I have a semblance of sense going here.

There are a lot of characters in most novel-length works whose demographic details aren't relevant and don't come up. In one of my (self-assessed) better amateur works of original fiction, while the gender and sex of most of the characters was important due to the storyline and the way their world was set up, and sexual orientation was also often relevant, their races didn't matter. They were 9,000 years ahead of us anyway so it's likely that they were mixed and had some new mutations with no current Earth equivalent. In any case I never specified a race or, for most characters, a detailed enough description of their facial features or color for anyone to know.

In general, I just don't say what the character's race, sexual orientation, etc. are unless it's important to the character or plot. If the reader assumes that an unspecified character is white and/or heterosexual with no supporting information, that's his/her own bias at work, not mine. Gender is more difficult to skip over, at least in English-language works, because it affects pronoun usage.

[Greater Amerigo]

I can write characters that aren't me; however, I get this dangerous urge to use a handy generalization about a gender, or a race, or a sexual leaning because I don't personally have experience with it. You want to form a protagonist that is capable of existing in your world, so generalizations are dangerous little buggers. Worse yet, they can totally rip parts of the audience away from the story if it seems like you used one.

I've haven't quite found myself able to write characters like homosexuals with a truly believable personality. They work quite well as secondary characters, but they don't work well when you dive into the specifics. At the exact same time, throwing these kinds of characters into the story to satisfy some quantitative need for non-SWM works contrary to what writing is about. I add enough of the characters to express that this is a real world with very different people; but you shouldn't add these characters for the sake of adding them. There should be a literary reason to have a homosexual character in the room (or to hang a lantern on this fact in the first place), or perhaps a different colored dwarf in the room. For example, that last one can lead the character off on a mental segue into dwarven culture.

Having them there to be there isn't a good reason. I suppose that's my problem. I shouldn't make my protagonist or my major characters be homosexual or something unless I want to explore that side of human (or elf, or dwarven, or... oh hell lets get on with it) nature. Furthermore, I don't want to write characters like I do now and just reskin them as homosexual or an Asian. This feeds back to the "I want them to have a purpose as a character" mentality. I simply do not know enough about these types of people yet to draw out a complex mental state for the character or some kind of contemporary issue they have to deal with. Anything I do seems hamfisted.

Call me a bad writer for this, but I like to believe I have a semblance of sense going here.

There are a lot of characters in most novel-length works whose demographic details aren't relevant and don't come up. In one of my (self-assessed) better amateur works of original fiction, while the gender and sex of most of the characters was important due to the storyline and the way their world was set up, and sexual orientation was also often relevant, their races didn't matter. They were 9,000 years ahead of us anyway so it's likely that they were mixed and had some new mutations with no current Earth equivalent. In any case I never specified a race or, for most characters, a detailed enough description of their facial features or color for anyone to know.

In general, I just don't say what the character's race, sexual orientation, etc. are unless it's important to the character or plot. If the reader assumes that an unspecified character is white and/or heterosexual with no supporting information, that's his/her own bias at work, not mine. Gender is more difficult to skip over, at least in English-language works, because it affects pronoun usage.

I edited a slightly older post saying that my usual staple is avoiding definitions on race and orientation in most of my cases (it tends to be more difficult to avoid in major characters). It can even lead to fun character subplots with main characters. Of course, my problem is that this goes against what this thread is asking for. People will still revert to this "default" view even if we leave it open for interpretation.

[Nailed to the Perch]

I've said this about ten previous times in this thread: straight is a sexuality, just like white is a race and male is a gender. Making a character gay does not "introduce sexuality into the story" any more than making a character straight does. The fact that you view straightness as a default state and homosexuality as a special exception that requires a justification is precisely the problem.

I have a serious question now: should one have to justify the use of a SWM for a main character? Because, well, honestly, I'm too fucking lazy to retconn shit right now.

I think you should have to justify every decision you make as a writer, but only to yourself. Basically, what I've been saying all along is that I simply want writers to THINK about the choices they make, rather than going the lazy route of letting themselves just default to what's easy or what's obvious. Sometimes, the conclusion is going to be that a character should be straight and white and male, and that's fine. Sometimes, thinking about it will land you on, "Actually, if I made this character Arabic, that would open up some really interesting avenues with the plot involving his mother!" or, "Actually, is there any reason why this whole squadron of soldiers is male? If Private Jones were a woman, that would make the scene with her and Private Smith take on new depth!" or even just, "Actually, why NOT make Bob gay?"

[Orcoa]

After a bit of thinking, I had to rethink of what some of my characters were going to be in my novel set during the Fall in Heaven.

I was going to have Azrael, my main character who would become the future Angel of Death, be a very pale and black haired guy...but now I think I want to rethink this a bit after reading this thread

[Hathradic States]

I have a serious question now: should one have to justify the use of a SWM for a main character? Because, well, honestly, I'm too fucking lazy to retconn shit right now.

I think you should have to justify every decision you make as a writer, but only to yourself. Basically, what I've been saying all along is that I simply want writers to THINK about the choices they make, rather than going the lazy route of letting themselves just default to what's easy or what's obvious. Sometimes, the conclusion is going to be that a character should be straight and white and male, and that's fine. Sometimes, thinking about it will land you on, "Actually, if I made this character Arabic, that would open up some really interesting avenues with the plot involving his mother!" or, "Actually, is there any reason why this whole squadron of soldiers is male? If Private Jones were a woman, that would make the scene with her and Private Smith take on new depth!" or even just, "Actually, why NOT make Bob gay?"

Well, the way I justified it to me was:

Straight? Well, where he grew up isn't what you'd call LGBT-friendly. That makes sense.
White? The Hathradi people are supposed to look like Romans, so that makes sense
Male? I felt like the main character being a guy. It helps later, so that his planned children have his last name.

[Aina Lani]

After a bit of thinking, I had to rethink of what some of my characters were going to be in my novel set during the Fall in Heaven.

I was going to have Azrael, my main character who would become the future Angel of Death, be a very pale and black haired guy...but now I think I want to rethink this a bit after reading this thread

If he was going to be pale as in 'pale as death' or for some other symbolic reason, then you actually have a good reason to make him white (although 'black as death' also works).
The issue being discussed here is when characters are white for no specific reason.

[Cannot think of a name]

I've said this about ten previous times in this thread: straight is a sexuality, just like white is a race and male is a gender. Making a character gay does not "introduce sexuality into the story" any more than making a character straight does. The fact that you view straightness as a default state and homosexuality as a special exception that requires a justification is precisely the problem.

I have a serious question now: should one have to justify the use of a SWM for a main character? Because, well, honestly, I'm too fucking lazy to retconn shit right now.

It's...a little more complex than that. Fuck, I should just find my first post on this question.

It's not about individual representations. An individual representation is largely meaningless (unless you're writing a sambo...and even then the weight of why that character is wrong comes from societal representation and the history of both that portrayal and the history of black people in America...)

Superman is not racist because he's white (despite being an alien), nor is Batman racist for being white. However, the landscape of comics where it's all white characters until you add characters like "Black Lightening," the culmination of those representations becomes a product of a society that normalizes roles for gender/sexuality/etc. The fact that it's a big deal that Northstar or Rawhide are gay (wait, did I make that second one up?), that's the problem.

So, your character exists on two planes so to speak. The first is your story, and it's your story. Your only real obligation is to tell the best story you can. If rationally that story is about a bunch of crackers, well, that's your story. The only real 'obligation' should there actually be one is to examine the assumption that absent some sort of plot point or motivation, the character is automatically white. Did Falcon have to be white? Nope? Does it hurt his character that he's black? Nope? Alright.

You're not expected to change the world, just take a moment in your creative process to challenge your assumptions...which, I'll stress, you should be doing anyway.

[Greater Amerigo]

I have a serious question now: should one have to justify the use of a SWM for a main character? Because, well, honestly, I'm too fucking lazy to retconn shit right now.

I think you should have to justify every decision you make as a writer, but only to yourself. Basically, what I've been saying all along is that I simply want writers to THINK about the choices they make, rather than going the lazy route of letting themselves just default to what's easy or what's obvious. Sometimes, the conclusion is going to be that a character should be straight and white and male, and that's fine. Sometimes, thinking about it will land you on, "Actually, if I made this character Arabic, that would open up some really interesting avenues with the plot involving his mother!" or, "Actually, is there any reason why this whole squadron of soldiers is male? If Private Jones were a woman, that would make the scene with her and Private Smith take on new depth!" or even just, "Actually, why NOT make Bob gay?"

I think I agree with this point in most ways. Just going straight in for the low-hanging fruit is also bad writing. Considering all your options for your characters should be a top priority for writing. If you don't think that it needs to be defined, power to you. Otherwise the definition should add to the story in some way. If it can be a richer story because it isn't a straight character, or a white character, or a man you should go for it full throttle. If it sucks, write it again or try a different character.

[Cannot think of a name]

I think you should have to justify every decision you make as a writer, but only to yourself.

Like my old jazz instructor used to say, "It's a sin to wanna." Essentially, you can do whatever, but you have to know why you're doing it or you're wasting the audience's time.

[Zweite Alaje]

So we're going to need to have a black guy as a Viking chief on medieval Europe or a white dude as the king of a pre-contact Subsaharan African kingdom, cuz you know fairness.

[Hathradic States]

I have a serious question now: should one have to justify the use of a SWM for a main character? Because, well, honestly, I'm too fucking lazy to retconn shit right now.

It's...a little more complex than that. Fuck, I should just find my first post on this question.

It's not about individual representations. An individual representation is largely meaningless (unless you're writing a sambo...and even then the weight of why that character is wrong comes from societal representation and the history of both that portrayal and the history of black people in America...)

Superman is not racist because he's white (despite being an alien), nor is Batman racist for being white. However, the landscape of comics where it's all white characters until you add characters like "Black Lightening," the culmination of those representations becomes a product of a society that normalizes roles for gender/sexuality/etc. The fact that it's a big deal that Northstar or Rawhide are gay (wait, did I make that second one up?), that's the problem.

So, your character exists on two planes so to speak. The first is your story, and it's your story. Your only real obligation is to tell the best story you can. If rationally that story is about a bunch of crackers, well, that's your story. The only real 'obligation' should there actually be one is to examine the assumption that absent some sort of plot point or motivation, the character is automatically white. Did Falcon have to be white? Nope? Does it hurt his character that he's black? Nope? Alright.

You're not expected to change the world, just take a moment in your creative process to challenge your assumptions...which, I'll stress, you should be doing anyway.

Alright, thank you for clarifying that. In my writing, I have always endevoured to keep it from being a whitewashed cast, unless it is supposed to be that way (example: elves are almost always white-tan, due to their genetics, etc..). However, I admit, I was slacking on the sexuality of characters (Because normally it isn't important, so why bring it up?).

[Hathradic States]

So we're going to need to have a black guy as a Viking chief on medieval Europe or a white dude as the king of a pre-contact Subsaharan African kingdom, cuz you know fairness.

That much I disagree with. Like in some movies when they have a black dude in a infantry battalion in WWI. That just didn't happen (in the US)

[Cannot think of a name]

So we're going to need to have a black guy as a Viking chief on medieval Europe or a white dude as the king of a pre-contact Subsaharan African kingdom, cuz you know fairness.

I feel like I could watch you dodge the point in 'bullet time' style effects.

[The Steel Magnolia]

So we're going to need to have a black guy as a Viking chief on medieval Europe or a white dude as the king of a pre-contact Subsaharan African kingdom, cuz you know fairness.

That much I disagree with. Like in some movies when they have a black dude in a infantry battalion in WWI. That just didn't happen (in the US)

Well, no, it did actually, even in world war one. THere were lots of black battalions, even black officers.

Who the whites mainly tried to get killed, and the failure of, shit, I can't remember the regiment right now. But anyway, the failure of a black regiment in WWI was used to justify keeping blacks out of combat for decades.

[Orcoa]

After a bit of thinking, I had to rethink of what some of my characters were going to be in my novel set during the Fall in Heaven.

I was going to have Azrael, my main character who would become the future Angel of Death, be a very pale and black haired guy...but now I think I want to rethink this a bit after reading this thread

If he was going to be pale as in 'pale as death' or for some other symbolic reason, then you actually have a good reason to make him white (although 'black as death' also works).
The issue being discussed here is when characters are white for no specific reason.

That is true since each Archangel that is in the book (Azrael included) would each be different from normal angels.

Like Lucifer is a very tall male with shoulder length golden hair and is beautiful beyond mortal imaginations or Micheal would be black and have his face covered in battle scars as he is the Angel of War.

I think this thread has taught me a few things and has helped me become a better writer

[Individuality-ness]

That much I disagree with. Like in some movies when they have a black dude in a infantry battalion in WWI. That just didn't happen (in the US)

Well, no, it did actually, even in world war one. THere were lots of black battalions, even black officers.

Who the whites mainly tried to get killed, and the failure of, shit, I can't remember the regiment right now. But anyway, the failure of a black regiment in WWI was used to justify keeping blacks out of combat for decades.

They were segregated though, to be fair.

[The Steel Magnolia]

Well, no, it did actually, even in world war one. THere were lots of black battalions, even black officers.

Who the whites mainly tried to get killed, and the failure of, shit, I can't remember the regiment right now. But anyway, the failure of a black regiment in WWI was used to justify keeping blacks out of combat for decades.

They were segregated though, to be fair.

Oh yeah, no, they weren't in white battalions. But they certainly fought and died.

[Zweite Alaje]

So we're going to need to have a black guy as a Viking chief on medieval Europe or a white dude as the king of a pre-contact Subsaharan African kingdom, cuz you know fairness.

I feel like I could watch you dodge the point in 'bullet time' style effects.

The point still is people crying about a non-issue. If people feel the need for not white or non-hetero characters so freaking bad, they can write up their own media. If not, they should just deal with it.

[Individuality-ness]

They were segregated though, to be fair.

Oh yeah, no, they weren't in white battalions. But they certainly fought and died.

I know, I think what was meant was "I saw a black officer in a white battalion" or something like that.

[Nailed to the Perch]

I've said this about ten previous times in this thread: straight is a sexuality, just like white is a race and male is a gender. Making a character gay does not "introduce sexuality into the story" any more than making a character straight does. The fact that you view straightness as a default state and homosexuality as a special exception that requires a justification is precisely the problem.

However, if you never mention the sexuality of a character, people tend to assume they're straight until proven otherwise, even if they're not (example: Dumbledore), and if you mention that a character is gay when you had otherwise planned not to mention sexuality at all, it does introduce sexuality into the story.

First: the fact that people assume this is the problem.

Second, there is no reason mentioning sexuality has to be any more than what it is. Let me give you an example that's fresh in my mind. I recently read a book in which one of the major supporting characters is a fully fleshed-out, interesting woman. Maybe three-quarters of the way into the book, another character makes a passing reference to "Sarah's girlfriend." That's it. Just a passing reference to the fact that this female character happens to be dating a woman. It's not a plot point, it's not an issue, it's just a throwaway line that serves as background detail in the same way that mentioning that Sarah was wearing a yellow skirt does. The idea that this somehow makes sexuality an ISSUE in the story where a passing reference to "Sarah's boyfriend" would not is fundamentally nonsensical. It might be an ISSUE in Sarah's life, or it might not be - we don't know, because this particular story doesn't happen to be about that. She's not Sarah THE LESBO LESBIAN WHO LESBOS ALL THE LADIES BECAUSE SHE'S A LESBIAN any more than mentioning "Sarah's boyfriend" would have made her SARAH THE STRAIGHT STRAIGHTIE-LADY, LET HER TELL YOU ABOUT HER LOVE OF PENIS. She's Sarah the type-A, short, long-haired, somewhat secretive, small-business-owner, Wiccan, kinda nerdy, best-friends-with-the-protagonist, woman who happens to be dating a woman. It can really just be that simple.

[Cannot think of a name]

I feel like I could watch you dodge the point in 'bullet time' style effects.

The point still is people crying about a non-issue. If people feel the need for not white or non-hetero characters so freaking bad, they can write up their own media. If not, they should just deal with it.

Go, Neo...