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

[Hathradic States]

That is a small problem.

Or you can make it about extinct animals...and make it anachronistic as fuck. -_- (I'm looking at you, Land Before Time)

Oh memories...

I loved it when I was a kid, I do admit...now, my inner paleo-biologist is crying.

[Cannot think of a name]

That's sort of self fulfilling, isn't it? It's a big deal because people don't do it so I can't do it because it would be a big deal.

It's as big a deal as you make it. Respect your own craft. I don't know of many authors who don't like challenging their readers.

First of all, I'm not actually an author (I write poetry, but poetry requires even more conservation of detail than writing, so I tend not to mention race or sexuality at all unless it's relevant).
Secondly, it's up to people as a whole to decide how big a deal it is. Author can treat it however they want, but they can't control how the readers treat it,

They can read some Roland Barthes and let it go.

and they have to keep in mind how any particular book will affect their reputation (e.g. An author who frequently writes about gay characters, even when it doesn't affect the plot, might still end up known as "that guy who writes about gay characters", and end up with people searching his books for what he's saying about homosexuality, missing the message about war or whatever he was actually trying to talk about).

I'm not interested in an artist whose chief creative concern is safety, frankly.

[Conserative Morality]

It's an annoying problem, and one not helped by the preference for Generic Medieval European Fantasy.

[Forster Keys]

I wrote the justification for mine out already, and can do it for all three main storylines I have written.

However, I do not feel the need to justify why the gangster Wolf shot in the back of the head was a SWM. Fucker's dead in one scene, doesn't matter.

I know. Honestly, I'd just say "person was shot in the head", and leave it up to their imaginations. They'll probably think of a SWM, but it's really a throwaway character, not that important to the overall storyline.

Would even non-straight white males think that though?

[Cannot think of a name]

Oh memories...

I loved it when I was a kid, I do admit...now, my inner paleo-biologist is crying.

Every archeology class had at least one complaint about The Flintstones and dinosaurs where I had to hold back blurting out, "You mean that there were no dinosaurs who were known to say "It's a living"?

[Forster Keys]

Oh memories...

I loved it when I was a kid, I do admit...now, my inner paleo-biologist is crying.

Oh well, the lions in the Lion King had eyebrows. And could also talk.

[Genivaria]

Animals make the story timeless.

Until the animals go extinct.

Damnit Forster!

Until the animals go extinct.

That is a small problem.

Or you can make it about extinct animals...and make it anachronistic as fuck. -_- (I'm looking at you, Land Before Time)

TREE STARS!!

[Hathradic States]

I wrote the justification for mine out already, and can do it for all three main storylines I have written.

However, I do not feel the need to justify why the gangster Wolf shot in the back of the head was a SWM. Fucker's dead in one scene, doesn't matter.

I know. Honestly, I'd just say "person was shot in the head", and leave it up to their imaginations. They'll probably think of a SWM, but it's really a throwaway character, not that important to the overall storyline.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I wrote ( well, exactly it was "Rage consumed me as I looked at this man, tears dripping from his eyes as he begged for his life. On the inside, I heard a softer voice in my head, asking me to spare this waste of human life. However, the rest of me was ignoring that voice. I took my .45, and put it to the back of his head. Before I pulled the trigger, I spoke to him. 'Men go to prison. Animals like you get put the fuck down.' I felt the recoil go up my arm as I pulled the trigger, and flame spat from the barrel of my .45.).

But, yeah...one shouldn't go into details over a throwaway character. But, with the main characters, it should be justified. Everything should be justified.

[Forsher]

This is the problem with the forum's average age continually falling. Children are, fundamentally, not capable of truly understanding broad social concepts. It's one of the problems of youth. They lack the intellectual, mental, and emotional maturity to conceptualize things in a broad social context. This is not, and never has been, about A book's characters or A writer's choices. It's about broader social themes, and what it says about our society when the media we consume has, as its principle protagonists, white heterosexuals, often men. And don't take MY word for it, here's the top 20 scripted non animated tv shows for 2012-2013 season:

Yes, and this forum makes a note of not allowing children to be on it... the youngest one can be still makes one a teenager.

Regarding your list.

BIG BANG THEORY - to the extent that Leonard and Penny are the two main characters, white heterosexuals. If we presume an ensemble cast, of a cast of 7 (4 males, 3 females) there's one non white character, Raj

MODERN FAMILY - Actually does a reasonable job. An ensemble cast of basically 10 (11 if you count the baby) there's a Hispanic woman and a mixed race son, so this show does ok. That is, of course, the ENTIRE PREMISE of the show, to portray actual MODERN American families. So good the show does it, unfortunately it takes a show where that's the entire schtick OF the show to get it half way right.

TWO & A HALF MEN - three white dudes

GREY’S ANATOMY - Does an actual pretty decent job of this, an Asian and two black actors

NCIS - 6 white people (while the actress playing Ziva is Ecuadorian, the character is Israeli). All heterosexual.

2 BROKE GIRLS - two WHITE girls

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER - Five white people. All heterosexual

ONCE UPON A TIME - WHOLE lot of whities. And while they bucked the trend and made "lancelot" black (and Mulan has shown up once or twice), the core cast (and the show has a HUGE ensemble cast) is ALLLL white, and to the extent that we can see, ALLLLLL straight.

NCIS: LA - They have LL Col J, I'll give them that

PERSON OF INTEREST - One possibly mixed race women, two white dudes, all straight

CBS CRIMINAL MINDS - One person of color in a cast of 7.

MIKE & MOLLY - A story about a straight white couple

GLEE - This show actually makes a deliberate POINT of having a very diverse cast

NEW GIRL - 3 white people, one black man.

ELEMENTARY - of the four "main" cast, 2 are people of color, so this isn't too bad.

REVENGE - I'M BLIND!

SCANDAL - wow, a black woman lead, WE FOUND ONE!

CSI - White as the freshly fallen snow

BONES - One black supporting character in a cast of 5

PARENTHOOD - probably the largest cast in an ensemble show. Arguably 13 main cast members. All white.

CASTLE - The two main characters are white, heterosexual, and currently, a couple. Of the supporting characters, there's one Hispanic, and a black female tertiary character

Bones also has Angela.

Ziva is explicitly foreign as well... And Vance is additionally black and is, in many ways, as much a main character as Ducky.

Person of Interest, the possibly mixed race woman I've always considered to be African-American.

CSI has gone from having Warwick and then Ray to none... while CSI: NY (which is not popular enough to make this list) has somehow managed to hold on to its black guy. Interesting, no?

In virtually every show, the only people of color, if there are any, are supporting characters. The only ones where a person of color is the lead character is Scandal. Arguably Modern Family. So that's 1 (maybe 2) out of 20. The only show where this an unambiguous "lead" character, that is a person of color, is Scandal. "Modern Family" is an ensemble cast, but the Hispanic wife can be considered a "lead".

Presumably you take Callen as being the main character in NCIS: LA? Of course, my opinion is distorted by the fact that the last few episodes prior to the Red team thing were primarily character development arcs for Sam... Anyway, either Callen is the main character (under a strict interpretation) or there are four main characters, three major secondary characters and Owen.

The other 18 have main characters be white. In 10 of the 20 shows, the cast is EXCLUSIVELY white. In all of the "police procedural" shows the highest "ranked" of the regular characters is exclusively white, except for one, criminal minds. Castle does have a black chief of police, but she's a tertiary character. Of the three shows that explicitly aim for a diverse cast (Modern Family, Glee, Grey's Anatomy) two of them still have white leads (Glee and Grey's Anatomy). So even shows that EXPLICITLY MAKE IT THEIR POINT to have a diverse cast, two of them still have white people as the leads. The only one that doesn't is a show EXPLICITLY ABOUT modern American relationships, and STILL the bulk of their cast? White.

And you're own list proves you wrong here. I mean, you pointed out LL Cool J and then, here, you're totally ignoring NCIS: LA, and NCIS's shared Black guy in charge trait with Castle (which CSI has done in the past and last time I saw The Mentalist it was the case there too, and the same with The Following, even if it keeps killing/injuring them, and Castle's actually done it twic; the point? this seems to be standard behaviour and isn't a mitigating factor).

So what do we see? In popular media, our protagonists? Almost all white, almost all straight. Shows that do have people of color in them, those characters are traditionally supporting characters, existing to help flesh out, develop, and exist only in relationship to, the story of the white protagonist. In shows that show a hierarchical setting, one with ranks and power structures, the person at the top of that structure (or at least, the highest ranked person in that structure of the regular cast)? Virtually always white. Virtually always straight.

I'll give you straight. They are often older as well (the original guy in Castle, Hetty and Owen in NCIS: LA, Gibbs, to an extent, in NCIS, Bones' black woman is technically Booth's boss.. okay, scratch that she's the prosecutor, Camille Saroyan on the other hand is a major character).

THIS is what we're talking about, THIS is the point we're making. Not ONE show. Not ONE book. About broader societal TRENDS, and what impact this has on society.

But, since this is a forum dominated by children, instead of intelligent discussion about social trends in a broader sociological construct we get "gee, just don't buy it then, STUPID!"

Your post isn't that great either.

Oh, the average age is pretty stagnant, you're just getting older.

Call me old fashioned/an idealist/out of touch with reality but having the ability to argue (create, develop, support one's own arguments as well as respond to and attack counter-argument and/or rebuttal) seems to be a much better ability to learn.

What, and you think insulting people in the right way - by using a combination of various techniques to put what they've said in an argument against them in order to ridicule them - isn't part of arguing?

It's not attacking the poster, it's very strictly attacking the post - but you can attack the post in a way that makes the poster look like a fool.

And it's a fundamental part of arguing properly.

And I don't think that seeking to do that is actually useful.

[Hathradic States]

I loved it when I was a kid, I do admit...now, my inner paleo-biologist is crying.

Oh well, the lions in the Lion King had eyebrows. And could also talk.

Yes, but at least all of those animals exist in the same time period...

Stegosaurus went extinct several million years before the first Triceratops every poked it's way out of an egg.

[Aina Lani]

First of all, I'm not actually an author (I write poetry, but poetry requires even more conservation of detail than writing, so I tend not to mention race or sexuality at all unless it's relevant).
Secondly, it's up to people as a whole to decide how big a deal it is. Author can treat it however they want, but they can't control how the readers treat it,

They can read some Roland Barthes and let it go.

and they have to keep in mind how any particular book will affect their reputation (e.g. An author who frequently writes about gay characters, even when it doesn't affect the plot, might still end up known as "that guy who writes about gay characters", and end up with people searching his books for what he's saying about homosexuality, missing the message about war or whatever he was actually trying to talk about).

I'm not interested in an artist whose chief creative concern is safety, frankly.

What I meant is that I really hate it when people interpret my work wrong, because they come away with an idea of my views that don't actually match my views, which then affects how they think about me or interact with me in the future.
I have this problem a lot because I sometimes write satire, which is occasionally interpreted very strangely.

[Orcoa]

Until the animals go extinct.

Damnit Forster!

That is a small problem.

Or you can make it about extinct animals...and make it anachronistic as fuck. -_- (I'm looking at you, Land Before Time)

TREE STARS!!

Tree Star?!

[Cannot think of a name]

I loved it when I was a kid, I do admit...now, my inner paleo-biologist is crying.

Oh well, the lions in the Lion King had eyebrows. And could also talk.

And sing Tim Rice lyrics...




...I really like Tim Rice lyrics. It's my only 'musical theater' thing.

[Individuality-ness]

I know. Honestly, I'd just say "person was shot in the head", and leave it up to their imaginations. They'll probably think of a SWM, but it's really a throwaway character, not that important to the overall storyline.

Would even non-straight white males think that though?

I'm a non-straight Asian female and even I fall into the same trap of going SWMs as the default. So yes. It happens.

[Hathradic States]

Damnit Forster!

TREE STARS!!

Tree Star?!

So many memories...*tear*

Which I can relive, since I have the first eight on VHS.

Given, I cried when Littlefoot's mum died.

[Orcoa]

Tree Star?!

So many memories...*tear*

Which I can relive, since I have the first eight on VHS.

Given, I cried when Littlefoot's mum died.

I cried too at that part.....

I still get a bit teary eyed from something like that...plus its not helping that I'm listening to Remember everything from FFPD

[Hathradic States]

So many memories...*tear*

Which I can relive, since I have the first eight on VHS.

Given, I cried when Littlefoot's mum died.

I cried too at that part.....

I still get a bit teary eyed from something like that...plus its not helping that I'm listening to Remember everything from FFPD

As am I, now.

Also, how long did it take you to realize Littlefoot was male? I thought he was a girl for the longest time.

[Cannot think of a name]

They can read some Roland Barthes and let it go.

I'm not interested in an artist whose chief creative concern is safety, frankly.

What I meant is that I really hate it when people interpret my work wrong, because they come away with an idea of my views that don't actually match my views, which then affects how they think about me or interact with me in the future.
I have this problem a lot because I sometimes write satire, which is occasionally interpreted very strangely.

Yeah, you're gonna have to get a helmet on that one. Once you give your work to an audience it's out of your hands. You're going to be 'misinterpreted,' that shit's just gonna happen. Actually, it was an off hand remark but really, look up Roland Barthes' Death of the Author.

[Forsher]

Would even non-straight white males think that though?

I'm a non-straight Asian female and even I fall into the same trap of going SWMs as the default. So yes. It happens.

But what is the social context of your upbringing?

[Orcoa]

I cried too at that part.....

I still get a bit teary eyed from something like that...plus its not helping that I'm listening to Remember everything from FFPD

As am I, now.

Also, how long did it take you to realize Littlefoot was male? I thought he was a girl for the longest time.

Me too...and not till I was much older

[Tahar Joblis]

Yes, TJ. How dare women run things in fantasy.

More like "how dare you make a really shitty argument about novelists, editors, and publishers that doesn't hold water out of an emotional over-reaction to fans you disagree with?"

Clearly, this is attacking straight white men.

The blog post linked to in question is attacking writing stories in which the major characters are straight white males, even in settings such as writing about eighteenth century pirates, 6th century Briton, or Middle Earth, the last of which is essentially a fantasy recasting of Europe as viewed through the lens of Germanic mythology.

Germanic mythology. Old Anglo-Saxon stuff.

As far as the blog author is concerned, any complaints about realism in plopping down a black Lancelot or the like are ungrounded, and therefore, people making those complaints must be up in a dander about defending their privilege.

Given the way the blog author rants about the SF&F industry and some figures in it, I think it's safe to say that she's projecting when it comes to bigotry and defense of privilege as a motivation; either that, or she just wants publicity, any publicity at this point in her writing career, and writing angry-sounding blog posts is her way of getting at that.

Mind, for those assuming the blog author is a black lesbian, she is, from what I can tell a white woman in the UK, married to a man, with a kid. Her career as an author is so far limited to two books, published mainly on Kindle.

Which, from what I can tell, are paranormal romance YA vampire novels. And if I'm not mistaken, by the complete absence of any mention of the protagonist's racial identity or sexuality in the reviews, and the way the protagonist goes all a-flutter over a strange visiting man in the excerpt I read, paranormal romance YA vampire novels about a straight white female.

[Individuality-ness]

I'm a non-straight Asian female and even I fall into the same trap of going SWMs as the default. So yes. It happens.

But what is the social context of your upbringing?

Living in the US, reading books like Harry Potter that had white people protagonists, watching TV where it's mostly a white cast and with one token minority thrown in, picture books mostly depicting white people if they're not animals, etc. That's the context.

[Hathradic States]

As am I, now.

Also, how long did it take you to realize Littlefoot was male? I thought he was a girl for the longest time.

Me too...and not till I was much older

It wasn't 'til the fourth movie with me, when they had that other group of kid dinos.

Given, I think that made the story so much better when they hid it from the watcher. It really helped make you think of yourself as Littlefoot.

[Aina Lani]

What I meant is that I really hate it when people interpret my work wrong, because they come away with an idea of my views that don't actually match my views, which then affects how they think about me or interact with me in the future.
I have this problem a lot because I sometimes write satire, which is occasionally interpreted very strangely.

Yeah, you're gonna have to get a helmet on that one. Once you give your work to an audience it's out of your hands. You're going to be 'misinterpreted,' that shit's just gonna happen. Actually, it was an off hand remark but really, look up Roland Barthes' Death of the Author.

I'm familiar with the concept of "death of the author", although I've never actually read the paper. My problem with it is that, like I've said, the way people interpret a work also affects how they interpret the author, and I really don't like people have misconceptions about me, as a person. Its fine to say, for example, that Fahrenheit 451 is about censorship, even though the author has stated on many occasions that he didn't intend it that way (EDIT: He meant it to be a warning about tv/technology ending literature, or something like that - look up some interviews if you have time), but it's not fine to assume that the author feels strongly about censorship based on that.

[Cannot think of a name]

Yeah, you're gonna have to get a helmet on that one. Once you give your work to an audience it's out of your hands. You're going to be 'misinterpreted,' that shit's just gonna happen. Actually, it was an off hand remark but really, look up Roland Barthes' Death of the Author.

I'm familiar with the concept of "death of the author", although I've never actually read the paper. My problem with it is that, like I've said, the way people interpret a work also affects how they interpret the author, and I really don't like people have misconceptions about me, as a person. Its fine to say, for example, that Fahrenheit 451 is about censorship, even though the author has stated on many occasions that he didn't intend it that way, but it's not fine to assume that the author feels strongly about censorship based on that.

You are not prepared to be a public persona then. You could always go the Thomas Pynchon route, I guess. But like you already noted, you can make a pretty clear piece and explicitly go on about how people should interpret it and it's still not going to happen. If you can't handle people thinking different things about you, you are not prepared to be in the public eye. Unless your work is only read by people you meet, in which case it matters far, far less.