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

[Fascist Worcestershire]

You are deluding yourself if you think they are and I finished reading return of the King again just last week so I have read Tolkien's books even the Silmarillion honestly I don't think you can tell the difference between really good friends and a Gay undertones if you think Sam and Frodo were gay.

So: your argument to deny there's quite a lot of hints at homosexual romance (which was quite commonplace in Britain in that age; just, not DISCUSSED OPENLY, as any other kind of sexuality, actually) was utter bollocks.

"Even" the Silmarillion? As if it were a big deal. Come back when you've read the rest of the stuff.

And the only works of Tolkien I have not read is the book of unfinished tales.

[Risottia]

And the only works of Tolkien I have not read is the book of unfinished tales.

Even the non-Middle-Earth related stuff?

[Dakini]

How are your characters being straight white males any less distracting than your characters being a representative of people you'd expect to see in day-to-day life?

Because most of the times they are not. They are just characters. From all the books mentioned here be they LOTR or HP or any others not mentioned I don't recall the author ever introducing the characters as "white". Skin color usually only comes into play when it's important. We just assume the author was talking about white males. But that's us.

Uh, no, in HP there are characters who are described as having dark skin. When characters are white though, it doesn't always get explicitly mentioned (because white is the default... but also because there aren't a lot of blond people who aren't white).

In LoTR, there are some characters who are described as pale, iirc.

I'm not sure how that's supposed to make me feel better?

Well you tell me.

Link

Maybe later.

[Fascist Worcestershire]

And the only works of Tolkien I have not read is the book of unfinished tales.

Even the non-Middle-Earth related stuff?

I have never read his short Children's books or Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics I should have said "I have read almost all of his Middle Earth Mythology".
But really if you see Frodo and Sam as gay then that's your choice (even though Sam loves Rosie Cottons but whatever) I am of the opinion that Tolkien did not mean for you to see the characters in that way but if that's your interpretation then each to his own I guess.

[Purpelia]

Well you tell me.

Link

Maybe later.

Well be sure to PM me when you do. I want to know what you think.

[Dakini]

Asexual isn't homosexual... but generally the ring was troubling him, of course he didn't have time to stop and think about romance.

I was referring to your not showing any romantic interests at all. Hence the asexual comment.

And I was referring to the claim that he was gay from earlier.

[Risottia]

Where are Your sources for it being quite commonplace are where?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_o ... in_Britain

Just quoting excerpts:
1861 The death penalty for buggery was abolished. A total of 8921 men had been prosecuted since 1806 for sodomy with 404 sentenced to death and 56 executed.[31]
1889 The Cleveland Street scandal occurred, when a homosexual male brothel in Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia, London,
1897 George Cecil Ives organizes the first homosexual rights group in England, the Order of Chaeronea.
1910 London homosexuals began to gather openly in public places such as pubs, coffee houses and tea shops for the first time. Waitresses ensured that a section of Lyons Corner House in Piccadilly Circus was reserved for homosexuals.
1912 London's first gay pub (as we now know the term), Madame Strindgberg's The Cave of the Golden Calf opened in Heddon Street, off Regent Street.

And your argument that they are Gay is?

Read the damn book. Plenty of hints.

[Purpelia]

Uh, no, in HP there are characters who are described as having dark skin. When characters are white though, it doesn't always get explicitly mentioned (because white is the default... but also because there aren't a lot of blond people who aren't white).

That's my point really. People are reading "white is default" into things when the author did not explicitly say so. When a characters skin color is not mentioned that does not automatically make him white unless said otherwise.

If an author mentions the skin color of every character but X that does not mean X is white. Only that the skin color of character X is left up to the reader. Now the fact that centuries of culture, history and western centric views have led the average citizen of the world to write white male into that space is something different.

[Fascist Worcestershire]

Where are Your sources for it being quite commonplace are where?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_o ... in_Britain

Just quoting excerpts:
1861 The death penalty for buggery was abolished. A total of 8921 men had been prosecuted since 1806 for sodomy with 404 sentenced to death and 56 executed.[31]
1889 The Cleveland Street scandal occurred, when a homosexual male brothel in Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia, London,
1897 George Cecil Ives organizes the first homosexual rights group in England, the Order of Chaeronea.
1910 London homosexuals began to gather openly in public places such as pubs, coffee houses and tea shops for the first time. Waitresses ensured that a section of Lyons Corner House in Piccadilly Circus was reserved for homosexuals.
1912 London's first gay pub (as we now know the term), Madame Strindgberg's The Cave of the Golden Calf opened in Heddon Street, off Regent Street.

And your argument that they are Gay is?

Read the damn book. Plenty of hints.

I intended that sentence to be read the way I had originally wrote it there was no need for change and the source you gave me doesn't scream widespread or common to me.
See my edited post above.

[Dakini]

Uh, no, in HP there are characters who are described as having dark skin. When characters are white though, it doesn't always get explicitly mentioned (because white is the default... but also because there aren't a lot of blond people who aren't white).

That's my point really. People are reading "white is default" into things when the author did not explicitly say so. When a characters skin color is not mentioned that does not automatically make him white unless said otherwise.

If an author mentions the skin color of every character but X that does not mean X is white. Only that the skin color of character X is left up to the reader.

...right...

[Purpelia]

...right...

That is a fact thou. If a writer does not say something you have no right saying that he did. Now there is a heavy cultural bias, especially in the west to assume that every character is a white male unless stated otherwise. That is a fact. I could write a whole book without a single gender specific pronoun or visual description of any character at all. And I bet you that when someone ends up casting for a movie based on it the whole cast would be white males. But that is his doing not mine.

[Cannot think of a name]

SFF and fantasy

FYI, if someone puts two Fs there and writes "SFF," the second "F" usually refers to fantasy. That's like saying "ATM machine."

You will sometimes see the entire genre labeled SF as well by some - not for "science fiction," but for "speculative fiction." The term never really caught on much in the wider audience, though.

Yes, I know, you can see from every other time I used the abbreviation. I got carried away and never corrected it. Thanks for belaboring the point.

I don't think you understand. "Write what you know" is only a way to get someone started. Is this dude a knight? Does he live in a realm populated by magic and elves? Does he run a kingdom? For that matter, do any of us run a kingdom? Because we seem to be perfectly willing to fill that role on this sight despite not even being in charge of the local Dairy Queen.

We're willing to make jumps to imagine what it would be like to be a knight or a king or a voyager in a realm with elves and dragons and unicorn, but holy shit...have a protagonist that isn't a pale dude...fuck, you're asking too much.

SFF and fantasy, by its very definition, is not anyone's 'experience.' And seriously, having your main character be a darker shade of pale isn't going to get someone calling you out saying "You don't know what it's like to be black in America" because the character isn't black in America, they're dark skinned in "Doesn'texistia" (fuck...now I think of a name...).

Mark Twain never traveled to King Arthur's court, Edgar Rice Burroughs was never raised by apes, Rudyard Kipling had never even been to India. When you write, you make shit up. Yeah, when you're learning your way, you write a lot of stories that seem a lot like your own life (or what you wish your own life was like). I did it, my first few plays had middle class slacker white kids in the lead because I was learning story and pacing. But if I was still hindered by that restriction now, I should be looking into a trade that doesn't require as much imagination.

I feel like this is another one of those kinds of things where people come in to 'defend men' and end up saying we're all rapists at heart and I want to scream "STOP HELPING!" I've written about alchoholics, scientists, architects, even knights and demons (I actually forgot that one, totally wrote a fantasy short screenplay for someone...I guess I do write SFF), spies, all kinds of shit I'm not because I'm not Ernest fucking Hemingway and I'm not out fighting WWI and running with the bulls. Fiction writers write fiction. Made up shit. That line doesn't stop at "Oh no, a character that has a different skin ton or sexual preference is just too far"...that's fucking ridiculous.

Rudyard Kipling was born in india.

Yes, yes he was. Left when he was five. Not sure if I was just misinformed or thinking about someone else. Ah, fuck, I was thinking of Edgar Rice Burroughs...there's still a point to Kipling, though...

No, what I said is that "we can we can apply our personalities to the whacky situations." My example was also about age. "Ah, look, I'm 15 (except now I'm not), I know how 15 year olds think, therefore make the characters 15." I kind of departed from the white bit and went back to the basic statement.

Except this isn't about how much of the author's personalities leak into characters but rather normative assumptions made about lead characters in SFF.

I'm not sure I can do justice to people too different from what I am, because I don't know how their mind works or have been their particular experiences.

If you're making up the world, you're making up their experiences to. Quit pussing out.

Not the cleverest thing to do on my part but I got distracted by chased by a giant cat story.

So, let's look at our knight running the Kingdom in the service of the Dairy Queen. We put our personality into the knight and then move on from there. He's got our personality so what happens if he's attacked by a dragon? I know, run away because I'm a wimp. Or, perhaps run away with a sarcastic remark and maybe some comment about a strawman because our personality has put us on NSG. In fact, it's probably the Radfem Paulbot Abortion Jesus Legalise Drugs Dragon, from the Malvinas with a bach in a Scotland and a taste for foreign black economy wrecking Presidents, to boot.

The thing is they just end up being white because we've unconsciously put ourselves into them because, what I'm about to quote below is what happens.

That's why Mogli is a little white guy, right? Or Rikki Tikki Tavi for that matter. You're twisting yourself in pretzels in order to say that while we can imagine all kinds of different shit, imagining a protagonist that isn't the author is the step too far. That would make for a shitty role-player, never mind author.

[Ostroeuropa]

It is an example of men liking something that wasn't targeted at them.

Which is perfectly fine, but uh, they're not the target audience.

and given how precious few shows there are that have good role models for young girls, I don't believe that target audience shouldn't change.

...
You really couldn't hide your misandry for long could you.
Women are allowed to enjoy tv shows targetted at men but not visa versa.
Males should not watch tv shows aimed at women. They are supposed to keep to THEIR side of the water fountain.

[Gravlen]

I would just like to throw out there that I've imagined several Game of Thrones characters to be of a darker skin color than what the author (and TV series) apparently imagined them to have.

Thoros of Myr was a black man, damnit!

[Nimilia]

Even the non-Middle-Earth related stuff?

I have never read his short Children's books or Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics I should have said "I have read almost all of his Middle Earth Mythology".
But really if you see Frodo and Sam as gay then that's your choice (even though Sam loves Rosie Cottons but whatever) I am of the opinion that Tolkien did not mean for you to see the characters in that way but if that's your interpretation then each to his own I guess.

There's a healthy amount of debate about it around the internet. People have pointed out the greek epics were a large source of inspiration for Tolkien, and they often included male couples (ex. the Iliad with Achilles and Patrocles)..

I'm personally not sure what Tolkien intended.. There's very little open romance in LOTR, but there does appear to be a lot of pairing of two guys, and most of the actual described hugging and kissing is actually done by them, rather than the guy/girl pairings!
There's Merry and Pippin, Frodo and Sam, Legolas and Gimli as main character couplings, with Boromir and Gandalf alone and Aragorn with Arwen who only shows up like twice.. Gimli and Legolas first fight, then become best friends and after the war they travel the world together (and meet eachother's parents), have romantic trips into caves and finally go on a ship to Valinor together..
Now I'm not saying they're gay, but that's pretty gay!

Seriously though, if someone wrote that story now, we'd assume they were hinting at those characters being a couple.. But back then I really don't know. People were aware of sexuality existing, for sure.

[Cannot think of a name]

I would just like to throw out there that I've imagined several Game of Thrones characters to be of a darker skin color than what the author (and TV series) apparently imagined them to have.

Thoros of Myr was a black man, damnit!

Does imagining the entire cast as penguins really count, though?

[Nadkor]

Which is perfectly fine, but uh, they're not the target audience.

and given how precious few shows there are that have good role models for young girls, I don't believe that target audience shouldn't change.

...
You really couldn't hide your misandry for long could you.
Women are allowed to enjoy tv shows targetted at men but not visa versa.
Males should not watch tv shows aimed at women. They are supposed to keep to THEIR side of the water fountain.

"It's a show targeted at girls"
"Yeah, but men like it"
"That's perfectly fine, but the target audience shouldn't change"

=

OMG MISANDRY MEN SHOULDN'T WATCH SHOWS AIMED AT WOMEN

?

I mean, it's not even close. TSM explicitly states that she thinks that men watching and enjoying is "perfectly fine".

Are you really this comically bad at reading in real life or is something you do just for us?

[Ostroeuropa]

...
You really couldn't hide your misandry for long could you.
Women are allowed to enjoy tv shows targetted at men but not visa versa.
Males should not watch tv shows aimed at women. They are supposed to keep to THEIR side of the water fountain.

"It's a show targeted at girls"
"Yeah, but men like it"
"That's perfectly fine, but the target audience shouldn't change"

=

OMG MISANDRY MEN SHOULDN'T WATCH SHOWS AIMED AT WOMEN

?

I mean, it's not even close. TSM explicitly states that she thinks that men watching and enjoying is "perfectly fine".

Are you really this comically bad at reading in real life or is something you do just for us?

If you read her previous post on the subject it's pretty clear she doesn't think it's perfectly fine.
I can say it's perfectly fine to have niggers living next door to me, but I don't think the neighborhood should change.
It wouldn't negate what i'd just said to have the words perfectly fine in there.

Are you so comically bad at finding racism that you fall for "I'm not racist but?"

There is a somewhat callous reason for this trend continuing, or two reasons.

1. It's just how it's always been done

and

2. White males are the people with money.
You need to appeal to people with money to get them to buy/watch/read your stuff and the best way to do this is cast their demographic in the main role.



The second is being shown to be preposterous more and more. (Eg, bronies.)

Ah yes, men taking a children's TV show meant for girls and making it all about them.

Great example.

[The Blaatschapen]

http://maxbarry.com/2011/07/08/news.html

Sometimes I wonder if Max Barry is psychic.

[Ostroeuropa]

Inevitably it comes down to marketting.
Because of attitudes like TSM's, marketers think
"It's got a woman in it. We should market it to women."
Which means the shows get less potential watchers and such.

Whereas anything with a male lead is marketted broadly to everyone.
Which is, you know, the way it should be for both genders. That way the characters could be judged on their actual merits.

So you have a choice for what to air on your network.
Something with a female lead that marketers 50% of the population will potentially watch
Or a male lead, which 100% will potentially watch.

[Dakini]

Which is perfectly fine, but uh, they're not the target audience.

and given how precious few shows there are that have good role models for young girls, I don't believe that target audience shouldn't change.

...
You really couldn't hide your misandry for long could you.
Women are allowed to enjoy tv shows targetted at men but not visa versa.
Males should not watch tv shows aimed at women. They are supposed to keep to THEIR side of the water fountain.

Dude, if women weren't "allowed" to enjoy television shows targeted at men, then we'd never be allowed to watch television outside of soap operas, some reality shows and whatever the local network for women is called.

Also, TSM explicitly said that it's "perfectly fine" for bronies to appreciate my little pony. I'm not sure what you're on about here because to me that doesn't translate to "keep to your side of the water fountain".

[Ostroeuropa]

...
You really couldn't hide your misandry for long could you.
Women are allowed to enjoy tv shows targetted at men but not visa versa.
Males should not watch tv shows aimed at women. They are supposed to keep to THEIR side of the water fountain.

Dude, if women weren't "allowed" to enjoy television shows targeted at men, then we'd never be allowed to watch television outside of soap operas, some reality shows and whatever the local network for women is called.

So you mean you don't like the shows targetted at your demographic and watch other ones?
Why do you have to make those shows all about you?! /whine

[Nadkor]

"It's a show targeted at girls"
"Yeah, but men like it"
"That's perfectly fine, but the target audience shouldn't change"

=

OMG MISANDRY MEN SHOULDN'T WATCH SHOWS AIMED AT WOMEN

?

I mean, it's not even close. TSM explicitly states that she thinks that men watching and enjoying is "perfectly fine".

Are you really this comically bad at reading in real life or is something you do just for us?

If you read her previous post on the subject it's pretty clear she doesn't think it's perfectly fine.

It's pretty clear that she thinks that a show changing from targeting one demographic to suit another demographic that's watching it would be a bad thing (which is the consistent point she makes), it's not even implied that she doesn't think men should be watching MLP and she states outright that men and boys watching it is perfectly fine.

She's not saying that men and boys shouldn't watch MLP if that's what they want to watch - she's saying that she doesn't want to see MLP change to cater to that demographic because it's already providing an important function for the demographic it was originally targeted at.

This is really very easy to see if you can actually read.

I can say it's perfectly fine to have niggers living next door to me, but I don't think the neighborhood should change.
It wouldn't negate what i'd just said to have the words perfectly fine in there.

Are you so comically bad at finding racism that you fall for "I'm not racist but?"

What the fuck even is this? I know that you're the the king of really shit analogies, but you've managed to outdo yourself with this one.

[Southern Patriots]

I came across this blog post which

Seems like a lot of asspain over nothing.

Writers are appealing to a market and they have a freedom of expression. Instead of reading blogs about nit-picked situations and historical peoples and events no one is denying, vote with your creativity and your wallet.

If the evil CIS scum SWM fantasy patriarchy is ruining your fantasy experience, don't buy anything in regards to it or peruse its novels.

Write your own books and let us know how they sell. I wouldn't mind reading about female pirates or Muslim elves or white Shaka Zulu or whatever, just as long as people stop making asspained blogs about problems-that-aren't-really-problems.

Not that it'll happen.

[Dakini]

Dude, if women weren't "allowed" to enjoy television shows targeted at men, then we'd never be allowed to watch television outside of soap operas, some reality shows and whatever the local network for women is called.

So you mean you don't like the shows targetted at your demographic and watch other ones?
Why do you have to make those shows all about you?! /whine

What the fuck?

Nevermind that this is in no way analogous and that you're arguing some bullshit strawman, there's a huge fucking difference from me saying that most of television is not targeted at my demographic when most of them aren't and you (who is part of the target audience for 90% of what's on television) complaining that some show that you enjoy is not targeted at your demographic like almost everything else on television.

Clearly, having 90% of all the stuff isn't enough. You must be the target for absolutely all media because you are a middle class white male!