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Setting this up in March, so I don’t know how messy Monday went. Hopefully I’m not reopening barely healed wounds or subjecting myself to more fighting. After all, hatred, racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, transphobia, and all of the other words for hating people for existing is a sensitive subject. Everyone has different levels of acceptance and perspectives too. This is seen a lot in humor where some people will be okay with certain jokes and others will not. It makes these topics a risk to bring up and a challenge to discuss, especially on the Internet. So, let’s see how it goes:
- What is one of the worst depictions of a maligned group that you’ve seen in fiction?
- What is one of the best depictions of a maligned group that you’ve seen in fiction?
- Should an author avoid writing maligned groups that they are not a part of?
Legends of Windemere 
That’s a pretty profound meme, Charles 😃
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Thought people would like it.
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Not much to offer here. I don’t think we should hide from including a variety of peoples. Someone has to be the bad guy, so we have to be careful to make that come across properly. They aren’t bad because they’re X, but some more personal reason. I posted recently about the Indian Wars, but you could apply that to any warfare kind of tale. Pick a side, the other has to be the bad guys.
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True. Though I was talking more about the depictions of minorities, neurodivergents, and other groups that society has a history of treating poorly.
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1. Hmm. Hard to really say. I can only think of the adaptation of Wizard of Earthsea. The casting director completely ignored the author’s descriptions of her characters and hired generic actors who didn’t fit the people group in the least. I remember the author had a disclaimer on her website stating that she was not in favor of that adaptation?
2. I have classmates who told their own stories via novels. Those are the most authentic.
3. I’m not in favor of telling people what stories they can’t write. However, I would advise anyone who wants to do so to get someone from that group to do a sensitivity read of your manuscript. I heard a talk by one of the librarians at the Smithsonian who vowed only to seek books by authors within that people group because he was tired of reading books by people who didn’t really understand the culture.
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1. I remember liking that movie, but I hadn’t read the books. Did they really mess up minority characters in that? Also, I’m getting the sense that I shouldn’t have used the word ‘maligned’ like I saw on various websites.
2. Real life stories do tend to work best in this arena.
3. I just started hearing about sensitivity readings. They seem useful, but I’ve noticed that it can still backfire. Usually with someone outside the group being offended on their behalf and triggering something. Not sure I agree with the Smithsonian person though. An aspect will always be lacking even with research and sensitivity readings. So that comes very close to saying only those in a group can write about them. At least for me.
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In regard to Earthsea, yes. The author had a specific race in mind and the producers totally ignored the character descriptions and pretty much the plot of that book and the other book they shoehorned into the plot. I read the series and could only take about 40 minutes of the adaptation.
Publishers call for sensitivity readers just to cover themselves. I say that because I have been a sensitivity reader. But I agree that having one is no guarantee that someone won’t get offended by a book.
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I think I do remember people complaining about them combining books. That seems to be a common mistake for adaptations. Maybe they don’t think it’ll go behind the first one.
Do publishers have sensitivity readers on staff?
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These are thought-provoking questions, and I seriously have to think about them. I think there are too many examples for #1, whether they are humans or if they are monsters, aliens, or animals playing up ethnic stereotypes. You can probably guess one of my answers on the last option that no one is willing to admit to and get triggered when people bring it up.
Most examples of question #2 involve stories from these oppressed groups.
#3: If they are going to talk about oppressed groups, they better get lots of consultation from those in that group, so they don’t do any racist garbage.
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Had to go back and remind myself of the questions here. I’m going to guess that one of your answers would be to avoid writing about a maligned group if you’re not a part of one?
Going to play a little devil’s advocate here. I’ve noticed there are times when a person from a maligned group writes a story and then uses stereotypes of other groups. Not always the one that oppresses them, but there’s this mentality that they can take shots at everyone else while they remain untouched. This always strikes me as hypocritical.
I’ve come to believe that no level of consultation will protect an author from writing about an oppressed group. There will always be someone either from that group or a ‘champion’ who comes out offended by something. I think this connects to the growing belief that you can only write about a group if you’re a part of it, which would only result in homogenous, unrealistic stories.
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