Breaking some stereotypes

Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Fluer Gestio, Jan 27, 2019.

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  1. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    The difference in hair texture between black women and many white women is, I believe, not a stereotype, but a fact. A black woman with long flowing straight hair is, I think--you'll need to do research--likely to be a woman who puts a great deal of time and effort and money into making her hair behave that way. She may also get that texture with a wig or extensions.

    If I'm wrong, I'd like to know.
     
  2. Fluer Gestio

    Fluer Gestio New Member

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    Thank you. I'm sorry about how I worded it, it's a project for a class. The teacher was like, "expand the boundaries of your knowledge" And my stories are usually stuff that I know, a upper middle class white girl who is not so secretly very gay.
     
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  3. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    How much media are you watching? Because that's not what's really out there. Same with the world. Life experience is often the best research a writer can have.
     
  4. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    And that's exactly what this is about! :D Researching to find out what the arbitrary limits (stereotypes) are to make sure that you're not accidentally confining yourself to them just because you've seen them so many thousands of times that you've taken them for granted :)

    Telling an unpopular truth that contradicts a popular lie is always going to be activism, whether you're intending it to be or not ;)

    It's obviously not as much activism as marching publically in a campaign for freedom and human rights that puts you at risk of the dying under an oppressor's vehicle – like Heather Heyer or the nameless man in China – but that's a matter of degree, not a matter of kind :)

    "Craig"?
     
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  5. Azuresun

    Azuresun Senior Member

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    What I'm saying is that you can't effectively research "is a certain character trait a bad thing?" because the answer will always be "depends", vs historical facts that are mostly objective. I think it's better to ask "is this individual character with these traits unconvincing or portrayed in a harmful way?". Because pretty much any character with a certain trait can be be portrayed well or poorly, and that will largely depend on how much they're shown as a convincing individual, verses being one-note.

    Counter-example: The Wire. Harmful stereotypes on the surface, but which makes them work by making the characters in question more than the "thug" archetype and giving context about why they are that way.
     
  6. Manuforti

    Manuforti Active Member

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    This. A stereotype comes from somewhere. It often isn't entirely a work of fantasy. Many Asian people where I grew up were shop keepers, taxi drivers. Many sold drugs. These are all stereotypes, these people did not vanish in a cloud of progressive attitudes.

    The interesting things is, many of the ones who sold drugs were perfectly nice. They liked drugs and wanted to be able to eat well. They had humour, loved their families and encouraged people around them to get an education, in some cases discouraged them from taking drugs. Many were non violent. The stereotype can be deeper than perceived without being avoided, if someone comes from a minority they are perfectly entitled to be an arse as well, even a clichéd one.

    Thank you. This gives a better idea of what you are trying to say. However, what you are describing is just a person. We are far more similar in our range of possible motivations and reactions than we are different regardless of race. Also, a Dutch black lady may be completely culturally different and recognise different references than a woman from Africa for example. Rather than written research or progressive writing journals. Go hang out with some people. Or if this is insurmountable, why commit to the MC?
     
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  7. Manuforti

    Manuforti Active Member

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    Ooh. Has anyone done an exercise where they deliberately set out to write stereotypes? That could be revealing.

    Start out with the tropes, the really bad ones. Level 5, merchant of Venice, uncle Tom stuff.

    Follow the twentieth century in evolution of progressive thought.

    You would go past pimps and hos in the 70s, redneck truckers. Try to write the characters with human depth.

    Bboys and preppy yuppie types in the 80s, young socialists with badges. Burnt out hippies, Indian taxi drivers. Again add depth and nuance.

    Sassy black / gay friends in the 90's. Overly studious Chinese kids.

    Follow the entire path, see where you end up
     
  8. Bone2pick

    Bone2pick Conspicuously Conventional Contributor

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    (1) The notion that it's impossible or incredibly rare for a black person to be either an innocent bystander or a hero, is not remotely a popularly held belief—in media or otherwise.

    (2) If telling the truth against unpopular "lies" is still activism, then all truths are activism, since there is no shortage of irrational/untrue beliefs held by tiny fractions of people around the globe. For example, including a spherical Earth in one's story would be activism. As would showing human beings—not aliens—constructing the pyramids of Giza. It would also mean depicting a benevolent white male was activism, because a very tiny percentage of people believe that that identity group is inherently evil and oppressive.

    More importantly, if all truths in fiction are considered activism, the concept of activism becomes meaningless. Because at that point, we would all be prolific activists against every conceivable irrational belief.
     
    Last edited: Jan 29, 2019
  9. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Which is exactly what Writing With Color have said, many many times, in their articles that I found in my research.
    I haven't seen the show, but if one or more of the most important characters are heroic Black police officers working to get violent criminals off the street, and if some of the most important violent criminals are white, then that's not exactly a counter-argument so much as it is 100% precisely my argument :)
    Yes, it comes from people in power making decisions about what we want to think the people under us are like.
    Would you be interested in reading Writing With Color's articles about how to make "A character with a stereotypical trait" without making them "A Stereotypical Character™"?

    Because I've found a lot of those articles in my research :)
    And a good way to learn about this range of human experience is to research it :)
    I don't see how those are mutually exclusive ;)
    What do you mean?
    Once again, "Does racism against Black people exist in white-dominated countries?" seems more like a Debate Room question than a writing theory question.

    Would you like to start a Debate Room thread about whether or not racism exists?
    Activism is when you do something that either supports or opposes the social systems that have power over people's lives.

    DW Griffith's film "The Birth of a Nation" was activism that supported the institutional racism in America that you argue doesn't exist. 63 years earlier, Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was activism that opposed the institutional racism in America that you argue doesn't exist.

    (Side note: are you sure that "Does racism against Black people exist in white-dominated countries?" is a writing theory question and not a Debate Room question?)

    Not all activism is "publically disagreeing with the people in power," but all "publically disagreeing with the people in power" is activism.
     
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  10. Bone2pick

    Bone2pick Conspicuously Conventional Contributor

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    That's the most egregious goalpost shift I've ever seen. Good grief, who are you even trying to fool here? :confused:
    Showing innocent bystanders (or heroes, for that matter) of any race opposes zero powerful "social systems" in our modern world, because there are no widely subscribed to "social systems" today whose position is that race [x] can never be an innocent bystander or hero.
    That's not what I've argued. You certainly can't quote where I've said anything to that effect. The fact that you're trying to claim I've argued something that I haven't is evidence of your dishonesty, or your irrationality, or both.
    Another demonstrable lie.
    For the record, you've smuggled the qualifier "power" into your definition of activism, as if I wouldn't notice. I noticed. Before you said:
    No mention of "power" here. What a surprise. It appears you've tried to sneak it in to clean up your mess. You have revealed yourself to be an egregious goalpost mover (which means your arguments are weak), and dishonest. It should be clear to anyone following along that you are unworthy of debate. I'm disappointed by this, but not surprised.
     
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  11. Manuforti

    Manuforti Active Member

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    Hmmm. No one at any point has said racism doesn't exist in this thread.

    Sure actually. Have you got a link? Interesting if nothing else.

    Horseshit. Excuse me. You know who loves a stereotype, powerless people. Anyone who wants to use a shorthand unzipped low Res way of understanding the world, which is too complex to look into in depth. Just how the brain works.

    For eg. Where does the 80's Wall Street yuppie stereotype come from? A little bit of truth as a baseline, typical behaviour then built by whichever group least likes the straw man. Unlikely from a more powerful group.

    I for example am a lacking formal education raised on benefits working class white person. I smoke, I swear and I wear tracksuits. I used to steal beer and burn furniture in my mates garden. I am much better now.

    In my lifetime university education was free and there were jobs a plenty.

    I was not pigeonholed by a powerful interest group. As far as I can tell that powerful interest group would have preferred nothing more than for me to educate myself and become productive. To the extent they used tax receipts to subsidise my lifestyle. They funded various attempts to get me to write a CV.
     
  12. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    That's real debating acumen there. So, so persuasive.
     
  13. Manuforti

    Manuforti Active Member

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    Fair point. Language was blunt and toneless. Simpson I apologise. I have been around people it is ok to swear at in conversation today and meant nothing by it.

    I would still disagree with the point stereotypes only come from people in power however.

    I may be wrong, I believe they are a function of bias. I think stereotypes will always be with us, that whatever we replace them with will just be a new stereotype we may not recognise as such.

    I do think our stupid monkey brains just have that limit built in.

    There's a journalist who has 2 documentaries on Netflix. One on the American far right and another on mainly British Islamic extremism. Not so much the modern stuff but the people who were active in the 80's in Serbia etc.
    (they are very funny and very sad)

    After meeting her and realising she is nice, one Nazi renounces Nazism. I just thought he has taken his stupid little thumbnail sketch of an individual and race which was negative, and most likely replaced it with one which was patronising. One small step at at time ...

    Genuinely if you have the link please post it. I'll read it. My initial point was I can't see how you can write around gaps (stereotypical traits) without creating a stereotype
     
  14. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Sure! The core article on the larger subject is "Stereotyped vs Nuanced Characters and Audience Perception" :)

    Are there any specific stereotypes you want me to check for articles about working around?
     
  15. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    But if you step away from a fairly broadly-held stereotype to create something else, it's not all that likely that you will create the same something else as the next author, and the next author, and the next author. So even if no single author creates perfection, you've broadened the number of different ways that a potentially stereotyped demographic will be portrayed.
     
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  16. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Exactly :) There are 1000 ways to write a marginalized character "right" and only 10 ways of writing them "wrong;" we've just gotten so used to only seeing the 10 "wrong" ways portrayed 100,000 times each that we can't easily imagine doing anything else :)
     
  17. Just a cookiemunster

    Just a cookiemunster Active Member

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    I think many people just confuse race and culture. When I write my characters (All types from black/white/green/blue and fantasy races) I never think about their race except in terms of what they might look like. I think about their culture, where they are from and how they were raised and they behave accordingly.
    When I meet other South Asians they expect me to have a deep accent, eat spicy food, wobble my head and other sterotypical things I'm sure I would do if I was raised in South Asian but I was born here. Even though my parents are very traditional I grew up in a very isolated environment and I think/act/behave according to what my parents taught me, what I experienced, what I saw ect. those kind of things. And that's exactly how I think of my characters when I create them. As long as I am not outwardly putting offenseive things about a race into my story I don't think twice about it.
     
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  18. LoaDyron

    LoaDyron Contributor Contributor

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    Just focus the character you want to write. For now, think her backstory and personality. The skin colour is the last thing you should touch. :supersmile:
     
  19. BBQPorkbelly

    BBQPorkbelly Banned

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    1. If you are a Black woman, write about yourself.
    2. If you are not a Black woman, write about a real Black woman. You may meet a real Black woman in a public place. Talk to her. Befriend her. Know her. Let her be your inspiration. Write the story. Share the story to your Black woman buddy.
    Need I say more?
     
  20. BBQPorkbelly

    BBQPorkbelly Banned

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    I currently have a South Asian co-worker. She has no accent (at least from my POV, she doesn't sound like it), eats yellow rice with a white yogurt thingy (?), and wobbles her head (might have been a nod).
     
  21. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    Why are you capitalizing black? Also, I do not recommend befriending anyone for the sake of this. Sure, make friends, but to go seeking a black female friend so you can write a character that might be like them just rubs me the wrong way. And if we are talking about fiction, why would someone want to write about themselves? Of course, we can draw from our experiences, but that's not what I think the OP is trying to do here.
     
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  22. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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  23. BBQPorkbelly

    BBQPorkbelly Banned

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    1. I am capitalizing "black", because . . . I have no idea.
    2. I wasn't really suggesting making a friend for the sake of writing a story. That wasn't my intention at all. My main point was, it would be much easier if the OP actually knew real black people. Nothing beats personal experience.
     
  24. deadrats

    deadrats Contributor Contributor

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    That's interesting, but it's not something I can say I often see. And if the publishing world mostly uses a lowercase b... well, we are writing for publication. Are we not? I can see how the argument could be made, but I'm not sure how much you would want to push the envelope with this, especially if the author is not a black woman.
     
  25. cosmic lights

    cosmic lights Contributor Contributor

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    To me this could come across as forced and a bit preachy. Writing something to deliberately break stero's is something I tend to avoid and since you don't know what's typical in a black woman I advise against it more strongly/
     

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