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SIGH. I'm unable to focus on my political science reading because people keep making interesting and awesome posts on race.
(Posts in question: http://witchqueen.livejournal.com/390111.html, http://thete1.livejournal.com/616790.html, and http://moxie-brown.livejournal.com/149834.html)
(Okay, I also can't focus on my reading because I'm watching this clip over and over. I wish that Youtube had a 'repeat' option.)
edit: Okay, actually, I have some ideas about this that I want to write out.
One of the reasons that I see held up to why characters of color get written less than white characters is that, because of the racist nature of TV, movies, comics, etc, the characters of color we get in canon are less fleshed out and simply given less to *do* than their white counterparts--if they're there at all. And this is sadly true, but--come on. Are you telling me that *every* fannish darling that gets tons of porn written about them is an incredibly well-written, fleshed-out character in the canon?Hi, Jim and Blair, how ya doin'? ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
liviapenn pointed out that I shouldn't take potshots when I'm not that familiar with Sentinel, so uh, just ignore that. *g*
But okay, since I really don't know much about The Sentinel beyond the questionable quality of the canon, I'll use an example closer to home. Bright Abbott from Everwood, let's say. I adored Bright, was interested in his character, found him slashy, and wrote some fic about him.
Everwood has its own charm, but it was not a brilliant show and for the most part, the Bright-in-the-show is not the three-dimensional wonderful character he is in my head. In canon, at first he's the stereotypical Dumb Jock, then later the Dumb Jock With A Heart Of Gold and the Best Friend. While the show's script occasionally gives him great moments, for the most part the character's charm comes from Chris Pratt's warmth and charisma and chemistry with Gregory Smith.
When I decided to write Bright, I fleshed his character out far beyond what I saw in the canon. I often wrote him as bisexual, something that definitely wasn't explored in the canon, first of all. I gave him character quirks and details in his life that weren't in the show, and a past that extrapolated and went beyond what canon gave me. I used canon as my basis, but because I was trying to tell interesting stories rather than write an episode of Everwood (zing), I didn't feel compelled to stick *only* to exactly what I saw in the show.
Now, recently I wrote slash about Storm from the X-men movies. I think everyone can agree that neither Halle Berry now the script for the movies bring a great amount of verve to poor Storm. If I just looked at what I saw in the movies, she barely *had* a character.
So when writing her, I used the information I gleaned from the movies as a starting point, but didn't feel restricted to using *only* the information from the movies. I wrote her as bisexual, I gave her a past that wasn't explicitly stated in the movies, I gave her character quirks and details in her life that I also didn't take from the canon. I used essentially the same process that I used to write Bright.
And yeah, writing Bright was a *lot* easier and more intuitive for me. I come from a similar background to his, am comfortable in his culture, and identify with him a lot. I'm not an Egyptian mutant who emigrated to the United States when she was a teenager, so it was more difficult for me to go through this process with Ororo, but it wasn't that hard. I just had to think a little bit more.
If you read this and are now thinking 'well, that's all well and good, but I'm in fandom for *fun* and what's fun for me is writing my OTP, which happens to be white', hey, I totally get that. Fandom *should* be fun. Trying to police everyone who doesn't write characters of color all the time (which, uh, *I* don't write characters of color all the time) would not be fun for *me.* But just, please, do not tell me that you're not writing CoCs because you want to stick to the canon and the canon sucks, because unless you're writing for a canon that is perfect in every way, where very detail you put into your characterization (including a character's sexuality) is backed up by canon, you've probably gotten around that to write characters before.
(Posts in question: http://witchqueen.livejournal.com/390111.html, http://thete1.livejournal.com/616790.html, and http://moxie-brown.livejournal.com/149834.html)
(Okay, I also can't focus on my reading because I'm watching this clip over and over. I wish that Youtube had a 'repeat' option.)
edit: Okay, actually, I have some ideas about this that I want to write out.
One of the reasons that I see held up to why characters of color get written less than white characters is that, because of the racist nature of TV, movies, comics, etc, the characters of color we get in canon are less fleshed out and simply given less to *do* than their white counterparts--if they're there at all. And this is sadly true, but--come on. Are you telling me that *every* fannish darling that gets tons of porn written about them is an incredibly well-written, fleshed-out character in the canon?
liviapenn pointed out that I shouldn't take potshots when I'm not that familiar with Sentinel, so uh, just ignore that. *g*But okay, since I really don't know much about The Sentinel beyond the questionable quality of the canon, I'll use an example closer to home. Bright Abbott from Everwood, let's say. I adored Bright, was interested in his character, found him slashy, and wrote some fic about him.
Everwood has its own charm, but it was not a brilliant show and for the most part, the Bright-in-the-show is not the three-dimensional wonderful character he is in my head. In canon, at first he's the stereotypical Dumb Jock, then later the Dumb Jock With A Heart Of Gold and the Best Friend. While the show's script occasionally gives him great moments, for the most part the character's charm comes from Chris Pratt's warmth and charisma and chemistry with Gregory Smith.
When I decided to write Bright, I fleshed his character out far beyond what I saw in the canon. I often wrote him as bisexual, something that definitely wasn't explored in the canon, first of all. I gave him character quirks and details in his life that weren't in the show, and a past that extrapolated and went beyond what canon gave me. I used canon as my basis, but because I was trying to tell interesting stories rather than write an episode of Everwood (zing), I didn't feel compelled to stick *only* to exactly what I saw in the show.
Now, recently I wrote slash about Storm from the X-men movies. I think everyone can agree that neither Halle Berry now the script for the movies bring a great amount of verve to poor Storm. If I just looked at what I saw in the movies, she barely *had* a character.
So when writing her, I used the information I gleaned from the movies as a starting point, but didn't feel restricted to using *only* the information from the movies. I wrote her as bisexual, I gave her a past that wasn't explicitly stated in the movies, I gave her character quirks and details in her life that I also didn't take from the canon. I used essentially the same process that I used to write Bright.
And yeah, writing Bright was a *lot* easier and more intuitive for me. I come from a similar background to his, am comfortable in his culture, and identify with him a lot. I'm not an Egyptian mutant who emigrated to the United States when she was a teenager, so it was more difficult for me to go through this process with Ororo, but it wasn't that hard. I just had to think a little bit more.
If you read this and are now thinking 'well, that's all well and good, but I'm in fandom for *fun* and what's fun for me is writing my OTP, which happens to be white', hey, I totally get that. Fandom *should* be fun. Trying to police everyone who doesn't write characters of color all the time (which, uh, *I* don't write characters of color all the time) would not be fun for *me.* But just, please, do not tell me that you're not writing CoCs because you want to stick to the canon and the canon sucks, because unless you're writing for a canon that is perfect in every way, where very detail you put into your characterization (including a character's sexuality) is backed up by canon, you've probably gotten around that to write characters before.
geeky
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You played a White Dumb American Jock With a Heart of Gold really well ;)
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That actually happened twice in canon. First there was Stackhouse and Markham, who had LITERALLY no characterization at all-- they were just two cute guys who played Marines, who appeared in the background of various scenes, and flew the puddlejumper, etc. I don't think either one of them ever had a line that was less 100% generic than "Yes, sir." They didn't even have first names. But people gave them these epic backgrounds where they met before they went to Atlantis and fell in love, and then what if one of them got sent to Atlantis and one of them didn't (angst) and then what if they had to hide their relationship and got kicked out, and then at the end of the season one of them got blew up and there were tons more angsty stories about how hard it was for the one guy to mourn the other guy secretly, and the one guy going home to meet the other guy's family, and... (I'm saying "the one guy" because I honestly don't remember which one died. ^_^)
Then the other time it happened, there was this already-established, popular character, Lorne, who I didn't think was all that interesting at the time (but has since been fleshed out more.) There was a teaser to an episode, probably two minutes long at most, in which he had some cute chemistry with a male botanist, Parrish, with an adorable accent who was then never mentioned again. Ever. This spawned, again, like 5000000 stories, which of course involves making up a lot of backstory and/or characterization for Parrish.
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See, I actually *like* when that happens, in most cases-- I really do. I actually asked, in my journal a while back, if anyone would be interested in participating in a ficathon about characters who'd only appeared in one episode, ever, of SGA. Because I think that sometimes in the focus on one's favorite character, or one's OTP, a lot of interesting stories don't get told. I would love more stories from the POV of outsiders / minor characters, etc.
The only time that it gets frustrating is, as Zee said, when people clearly have *no* problem "rounding out" certain types of underdeveloped characters-- but will then turn around and tell you "well, the reason X has no fic is because she's underdeveloped! And there's nothing I can do about THAT!"
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Also, I remember fandom clashes over Blaise's gender. *g*
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I've seen a fair number of recent fics where the author says in her notes that she's basing her Blaise on .
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Are you telling me that *every* fannish darling that gets tons of porn written about them is an incredibly well-written, fleshed-out character in the canon? Hi, Jim and Blair, how ya doin'?
I'll just get this out of the way so nobody else has to: OH NO YOU DIDN'T!!!!!!!!
Also, with the way The Sentinel worked, there were quite a few flashback episodes to Jim's early days as a cop, his time when he was in the Army, his childhood-- there was an ep. with his dad, and one with his estranged brother, etc. And Blair was a pretty well-rounded character as sidekicks go. So, although I think your point *definitely* has merit, I'm not sure Jim/Blair is the exact best example.
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<ignoring Okay, one thing I'd like to say in response to this post is: there are some characters, more often pairings, that while I love them to death...I just can't seem to wrap my head around writing them. I love Virgil/Ritchie (yay for character of color) from the DCAU toon Static Shock. I've written one fic about them because...for some reason, they just can't click my writing side. I I love Storm, too, and I wrote her in something, it was movieverse, gen. I like Teal'c from Stargate, but trying to get inside the guy's head is...urgh. I mean, he's 80? Acts like Spock except when he's pulling one over on Jack? I like Anita from YJ, and I feel I've written her reasonably well when I have. Same with Cass. But mostly, it's that I like to write humorous romnce or romantic humor for a pairing, if and a character in question doesn't come with an already built in, either canon or fanon, OTPartner, then I have to make one, and *handwavey* it's just easier to stick to other stuff. I feel I should also mention that while I feel Steph/Cass, mostly it's based on fic, so I would probably need to read more canon to write them more.
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Also! *Bookmarks video* I love Patrick's icky face a while after. I need an icon of that. Srsly. *searches*
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I heart you rather a lot.
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Oh good--it's not just me! For most of first season, Ford acts like John's the best thing to come along since the Stargate, and "Lost Boys" and "The Hive" are totally about him trying to get John's attention.
It pisses me off no end that Gero, Cooper et. al. couldn't seem to figure out what to do with a black guy who wasn't a thug, so they made him into a junkie.
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There are only a few shows I can think of that have more than one CoC. The major one that comes to mind is Scrubs, which has a black doctor, a Latina nurse, and a black nurse as major characters, plus assorted other characters (Hook-Handed Security Guard, Snoop Dogg Intern...there are probably others that I am forgetting.)
Now I want Hook-Handed Security Guard/Snoop Dogg Intern slash, but I bet no one has written me some. Dammit.
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What I have been interested in for the past few years is getting fandom to write the CoCs who exist in the sourcetext fandom is interested and posess characteristics fandom often gloms onto.
I don't want fandom to do something unnatural. In The Sentinel, for instance, there were two background male characters, Rafe and Henry. Rafe is traditionally attractive and white, Henry is rounder, not as pretty, and black.
I do not think the fact that there are more Rafe stories than Henry stories in TS is because of race. It's because of a pretty differential.
On the other hand, in Buffy fandom, Riley had two friends in his secret military cabal, Forrest and Graham. Forrest was a pretty black man (played by the actor who plays DL on Heroes) who explicitly objected to Riley's relationship with Buffy because it interfered in Riley's relationship with Forrest (i.e., he was pre-slashed for fandom's convenience.) Graham was a pretty white guy who didn't talk much.
When fandom chooses to write more stories about Graham than about Forrest, I think that's about race.
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So most HHG slash is white-looking alien/white British guy, not black-looking alien/white British guy--and Ford is first and foremost an alien. He doesn't identify as human at all, much less racially anything.
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Anyway, generally agreed, but most TV shows don't have sufficient major CoCs (that sounds kind of dirty, eep) to slash them with each other--or they're in the wrong relationships to each other (Grey's Anatomy is full of CoCs, but not in terribly slashable relationships--two of the minor het couples are black, and one of the major couples is black & Korean, but these couples would not mix up well). Which is bad, but not directly the fault of fandom.
You hardly ever see black people or men in popular media ever really being vulnerable about anything else except their race.
Romance and class also, which I'd argue isn't terribly different from white male characters, who are usually vulnerable only about romance or possibly Family Issues.
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Now for some plotbunnies.
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Reminds me of some comments made by
"...fandom has always been about a level of escapism, and a good deal of white escapism involves a world without POC, or POC who go along with the program with a smile."
And, have you a link to your Storm stories? There's not enough Storm fic. And movie Storm is tough to do as she has so little character, amen.