Last week, mlawski at Overthinking It posted a graphic titled The Female Character Flow Chart. I saw it, thought, “Huh, interesting,” and that was that. Then a couple of days later one of my friends posted me towards some criticism of it, leading to discussion and more thinking on my part.

I was surprised to see so much commentary on it because it never occurred to me that the chart was aimed at someone like me, who already spends time thinking about the representation of women in the media. I don’t think good intentions (which I assume mlawski had) or intended audience arguments excuse all flaws (more on those in a second), but I definitely read the chart as intended for readers who hadn’t already thought about women in the media. I could certainly see someone running across this who hadn’t noticed those problematic tropes, the lack of dynamic female characters, or that many, many female characters are defined solely by their relationships to men and children could have an eye-opening, “aha!” moment.

Regardless of who it’s aimed at, I don’t think anyone’s wrong for reading it critically. There are two different braches of criticism that I’ve seen (though I haven’t looked around extensively; I haven’t even read the comments on the original post, since I looked at the post when it first went up, ages before the comment count rose). One is about the privilege and lack of nuance in the chart; the other is about the chart as reductionist when it comes to the characters in question.

The first, I can’t put any better than this post from homasse at deadbrowalking:

A wee bit down on this mess of a flowchart, you will find “Useless Girl” with the example being Uhura from Star Trek.

And why is this fail? Because, once again, feminism shows a woeful lack of awareness of race and the impact race plays.

Uhura was “useless” not because of her gender, but because of race–this chart ignores the political and social situation of when the show was made and the decisions made in regards to her character because she was Black: They couldn’t ever put her in charge of the bridge because people in the south specifically would have flipped out at a black woman being in charge (this was why Ensign Chekov was given the bridge and she never was even though she outranked him).

I’d also like to point out bossymarmalade’s post about Yoko Ono, someone who I consider awesome. It sucks to see people buy into the cultural storyline that she broke up the Beatles, when that is just false, and further, when she’s great.¹

So yes, I think there are some problems with the chart in that regard, and I’m glad people pointed them out. But I don’t entirely agree with the argument about the chart being reductionist, and diminishing the characters who are on it. Or rather — I do, kind of. The best way to put it was something said by my friend Jess: “Basically, if that one box ending in ‘strong female character’ wasn’t there, I’d like the chart a lot better.”

For me, that sums it up. I think the chart actually branches out into a lot more specifics than I’d use if I made something like it — like, there are multiple slots for women whose motivations come entirely from their kids — but the main problem I have is that any one of these slots/archetypes/clichés/whatever you want to call them can indeed be written well. They can be thorough, three dimensional, story-carrying, awesome characters.

My go-to example is Sarah Connor. Sarah is listed the character representing “Mama Bear.” And when I saw that, I went “a-yup.” TV Tropes has her listed as both a Mama Bear and Action Mom. The first Terminator movie is based on this premise: Sarah Connor must live, because her son saves the world. Not “Sarah Connor must live because she saves the world.” While she’s the awesome character, the series is always about her (at that point unborn) son. When we next see her in T2, she’s had John, and devoted herself to preparing him for his fate — and keeping him safe. When he rescues her, an act that explicitly saves her life, she scolds him for putting himself in danger. She’ll do anything, up to and including sacrificing herself, if it saves John. While Sarah is the protagonist of the first two movies, her motivation — the entire premise of the series — is based on protecting John.

The thing is, though, that Sarah is awesome. In the first movie, she grows from damsel-in-need-of-rescue to bandaging injuries and learning to make bombs. She’s the one who finally destroys the Terminator. She has help along the way, but she’s still a character who learns skills and saves herself. In T2, she’s even more complex. She’s in an institution because people believe she’s insane, but we as viewers know she’s right. But being right doesn’t make her entirely mentally able, though — it’s clear she’s got PTSD or something akin to it (and understandably). She’s amazingly kick-ass (her escape is my favorite sequence in the movie) and morally complex. We know she’d kill someone to save John, but she isn’t able to kill Miles Dyson, though she thinks doing so will keep Skynet from existing — and though she expects herself to be able to do it. And that’s without even getting into the sadly too-short lived TV show.²

Sarah Connor is a great character. She’s three dimensional and dynamic. She’s capable of carrying a story. But as much as I’d be all over a the story about how Sarah Connor must live so she can lead humanity in the battle against Skynet, I don’t know that it would necessarily be a better story than Sarah trying to save her son. Different, yes; certainly unusual. But Sarah Connor is both an Action Mama Bear and a great character. (And further, just because Sarah Connor is great doesn’t mean there aren’t other characters who fall into that slot who aren’t poorly written, or that the Mama Bear archetype is never problematic.)

The way I see it, while there are indeed plenty of archetypes and tropes out there that are problematic simply for existing — racist and sexist stereotypes, for example, which come up all too frequently — once you’re beyond those,³ just because a character (female or otherwise) hits an archetype doesn’t mean the character is poorly drawn.

This entry has a theme! And that theme is, “Sometimes, I still read a lot of fantasy.” You may have noticed from the title. But before getting into the recent reading list — remember when this blog used to have entries about other things?¹ — I want to give something a bit of a signal boost.

Last year, I reviewed Cindy Pon’s Silver Phoenix at Active Voice. The cover is the image to the right over there. And among other things, I said:

I picked this book up because I’m making an effort to delve into sf/f novels not set in Ye Olde Fake Europe, since so much of fantasy centers around Western-style (and very white-washed) worlds and myths. But I probably would have picked it up anyway, since it’s a story about a teenage girl discovering a super power and saving the day. That certainly falls into the category of “things I love.” …

The world of Silver Phoenix is great; it’s a high-fantasy take on ancient China. I’m not familiar enough with actual Chinese culture to know how accurate it is, but it’s certainly rich enough that I’m not concerned. Everything from the bizarre creatures Ai Ling runs into to the noodle shops she eats at make it distinct and genuine. It is very refreshing to read a book where the well-worn fantasy tropes are reimagined — and while they presumably aren’t new to readers who grew up with Chinese mythology, I (like, I would guess, most American readers) was raised pretty strictly on high fantasy and Western traditions, so this is all new and fresh to me.

Why do I point this out? Because (sigh) this is the book’s new cover for its paperback run, and this is the newly-revealed cover of the sequel. Now, look. I’m not a very visual person; I don’t really do a lot of book cover critique because that’s just not my area of expertise.² But Silver Phoenix had one of my favorite covers ever: I loved that it was brightly colored (in a sea of dark, Twilight-esque covers, no less); I loved that there was a girl front and center, obviously being active and powerful (and omg, her hair is so pretty); and I loved she was clearly Asian. It spells out just what you’ll get if you read the book, and looks lovely doing so.

So yeah. I’m disappointed that the girl on re-imagined covers is, at best, ethnically ambiguous (and honestly, if I didn’t know the books are about a Chinese girl, I would have assumed she was Caucasian and not seen her as ambiguous at all).³ And I’m disappointed that she’s not active — we don’t even see her whole face. I mean, yes, I think the Fury cover is pretty enough, and would be a great cover… for a book about the girl pictured on it. That girl is not Ai Ling.

Two links for this. First, author Cindy Pon talks about it (in the cover’s official unveiling) with a mostly-positive frame:

fury of the phoenix cover revealed!
Silver Phoenix may be a little different than what’s offered in young adult right now, but at the heart of ai ling’s story is friendship, family, discovering oneself, growing and falling in love. (oh, and food. =) i don’t think my debut is for every reader. of course not. but do i think that it has fully reached its potential reading audience? unfortunately, no.

i’m very well aware of recent discussions about whitewashing young adult covers as well as #racefail debates, especially within the speculative fiction genres. most of you know by now that the author gets very little say in cover design. i was fortunate enough to be consulted on many aspects for the original cover. my debut cover couldn’t have been more fierce or asian! and i’m so grateful to greenwillow books for spending the time, money and effort to repackage my books. with the hopes that it will be carried more widely and perhaps draw a new audience that my original cover didn’t.

Second, Inkstone explains exactly why these covers are so problematic, regardless:

I guess I still have a post in me
I guess we should glad they didn’t slap a blue-eyed, blond-haired white girl on the covers, huh?

But make no mistake; this is insulting. At least with a symbolic motif cover (a la the Twilight covers), you can pretend race is not a factor. Instead, here, we’re given a girl whose face is obscured by shadow. That way, the publisher can say, But she could be Asian. It’s ambiguous!

Except it’s not ambiguous. We know what they’re doing. It’s a flimsy attempt to put a person on the cover while also masking any identifying features that could “scare” away potential buyers. Do you know what message that sends? Not only are we taught that our stories aren’t worth telling, not only are we taught never to expect to see our faces represented, we’re now being told that if we are represented, we should be ashamed of our features. That our eyes, our cheekbones, most of our faces scare away potential readers. That to reach a different and wider audience, we must be sacrificed because no one would want to read one of our stories if they knew ahead of time what they were getting.

Oh, wait, hang on. One more thing. Cindy Pon is being awesome and giving away a set of books featuring protagonists of color. And I’m not just linking it because I want to win. Really.

OKAY! So that’s the fantasy novel cover aspect. Now for the fantasy novels I’ve been reading!

#23: Daggerspell by Katharine Kerr. I first read this in middle school. At that point, I assumed I didn’t get or was misreading a major plot point — turns out, I wasn’t. There’s a section of the book about incest, and as a kid I wasn’t quite able to put together that as something a narrative could use (for the record, it’s sort of The Point Where Everything Went Wrong, not, like, romantic). That said, I hadn’t thought of this series in years when I saw it in a bookstore and picked it up on a whim, and yet I remembered most of it almost perfect: just about all of the characters, most of the plot twists, etc.

It’s also interesting because this is pretty standard Epic High Fanatsy, what with the elfin archers and the dwarves and the epic battles, and at one point there’s a bard, etc. As an adult, I enjoyed it, but as a kid, I remember being blown away. I didn’t know those things were tropes yet. (At one point, there’s a villain who, thanks to a prophecy, can only be killed in battle, but no man will ever kill him. At 12, I was so worried! I didn’t know what was going to happen!⁴

So overall, this was an enjoyable stroll down memory lane and certainly a reminder of why I love some of those tropes. It wasn’t as spellbinding as when I read it in middle school, and I don’t have a desperate need to read the rest of the series right now, but I do want to pick it up at some point. A solid fantasy novel.

#24: A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. My BFF Jess reviewed this series at AV last year and loved them, so it was no surprise that I really enjoyed this. It’s plot-light but worldbuilding-heavy. And thematically, the story really really worked for me. It’s about the relationships between girls, and female power — the ways that power is rare, is important, and is often considered terrifying. (Basically, what Jess said, especially about the relationships between the girls.) I’ll definitely come back and finish this series. Probably by the end of the year, so you know, you all have that to look forward to…

#25: The Last Hunt by Bruce Coville. YOU GUYS, I have been waiting for this book for SIXTEEN YEARS. Coville is, you know, one of my all-time favorite writers, so even though this wasn’t my favorite series of his, I bought it the day I realized it was out (I missed its debut day by about a week somehow) and I read it in 24 hours flat. I had many thoughts about it! And it is a MG/YA-ish fantasy novel! And I have a whole other blog for those! So you can read my full review here, if you are so inclined. But in summary: I liked it! I know that is an enormous surprise.

I keep trying to write an entry here about writing, but then getting too self-conscious about it. Maybe someday. In the mean time, when not able to come up with interesting content of my own, why not link to some other people’s content instead?

When I go through my Google Reader these days, I tend to go through interesting links using Read It Later, a FF add-on that I love. But unfortunately, this means I don’t have a way to tag posts with where they were linked from anymore, and so I don’t have credits for these. Suffice to say, they were all linked by awesome people.

Vague theme: feminism! Mostly but not entirely in sf/f!

And she’s cute, too!

So I opened up the email, and sure enough, it started off with a compliment about the usefulness of a particular article that I’d written. Great. Warm fuzzies abound. Unfortunately, the warm fuzzies vacated the premises in the next paragraph, in which the (male) writer concluded with the sentiment that it was nice to read such good articles written by “a cutie”.

I think I may have said something very rude at that point. It certainly left me feeling uncomfortable and a little creeped-out.

The problem I have with this isn’t just in the assumption that it’s OK for a total stranger (who I’ve never even seen in person) to comment on my appearance. It’s in the implication that the technical merit of my writing isn’t the important part here — that what’s important is how physically attractive I am. (And in particular with the form of words used, not just “cute”, but “a cutie”, which is a very neat way to suggest that everything important about a person can be encapsulated in their appearance.)

Yeah. It’s happened to me, too, and I don’t know what to say. Generally, women are socialized to want to be cute, to be recognized for that; but it’s so, so, so frustrating when that’s absolutely not what you want.

Off With Her Head? Why Fantasy Hates Good Queens

A few weeks ago we had a ball discussing the Top Ten Evil Queens of fantasy. But something occurred to me as I was doing my research: While I had no trouble finding evil queens, the only ones I could find that were depicted as being “good” were physically compromised in some way. (And I’m not talking about princesses here — I mean women in real seats of power.) The question this raises for me is, does power corrupt or are powerful women seen as dangerous in fantasy? Let’s take a look at the way good queens are hobbled to find out.

This makes me want to write a fantasy novel about a kick-ass queen immediately.

Are We Letting Boys Be Book Bigots?

We need to teach them to take an interest in all sorts of stories, not just the ones that feature kids like them. This means exposing them to a lot of different stuff. We should, of course, encourage kids to find themselves in books. That’s a wonderful and powerful thing. But we should help them find people who are different, too, so they learn to value other ways of being in the world. If we don’t support books, movies, TV programs and music that show these other ways of being, then we are contributing to the problem.

This is a debate I keep running in to: Will boys only read books about boys? I love this article for doing a take-down of why that’s an attitude that has got to go. Of course everyone wants kids generally to read more, and it seems like boys read less than girls; but focusing books more on boys and what’s culturally considered boy-themed stories is really not the answer.

Speaking of boys, girls, and characters…

Ladies, Please (Carry On Being Awesome)

I certainly have seen girl characters who were too perfect: who were beloved by all, beautiful (though they always thought their mouth was too wide or possibly their bosom too generous), and eventually elected queen of the universe. (Sometimes literally.)

Let us think of the Question of Harry Potter. I do not mean to bag on the character of Harry Potter: I am very fond of him.

But I think people would be less fond of him if he was Harriet Potter. If he was a girl, and she’d had a sad childhood but risen above it, and she’d found fast friends, and been naturally talented at her school’s only important sport, and saved the day at least seven times. If she’d had most of the boys in the series fancy her, and mention made of boys following her around admiring her. If the only talent she didn’t have was dismissed by her guy friend who did have it. If she was often told by people of her numerous awesome qualities, and was in fact Chosen by Fate to be awesome.

Well, then she’d be just like Harry Potter, but a girl. But I don’t think people would like her as much.

Indeed!

And finally…

now that we’ve got that clear, and you know that i’m not here…

One of the first things I ever did in the course of this dialogue was to reject the knee-jerk judgment of the Spock/Uhura relationship as a sexist reduction of Uhura to The Girlfriend role, some sort of sad step backwards from her empowered position in TOS as a professional woman with no need for a romance. …

However, the Just A Girlfriend nugget and the assertion that she is made less by her romantic involvement with Spock continues unabated, so I figured I’d give full voice to what I hadn’t before.

Simply put: Nyota Uhura is not a white girl.

(Via the previous article)

I really appreciated this. I grew up on TOS, and definitely super enjoyed (but didn’t 100% love) the reboot movie. ¹ But I definitely grew up on the narrative about Uhura as a career woman, and how that was totally progressive and awesome, and it never occurred to me to look at why she was depicted that way (let alone to question its awesomeness).

My eyes: opened. Always a good things.

I’ve run across two interesting discussions about covers — book and magazine covers, that is — in the last week or so. Now, I can’t say I never judge anything by its cover. It’s basically human nature to do so. But I’m an incredibly non-visual person, so I don’t tend to notice much about covers. But that, my ability and willingness to not notice, is tied pretty strongly to privilege. I can walk into a book store and find people who look like me on book covers; I can find covers designed to appeal to people like me. So I’ve never had to notice.

Lately, I’m trying to do so anyway. I’m trying to read more books by and about people of color, and to take more notice of race in what I do read. I was late to catch the snap on this, but I’m trying.

Discussion #1: earlier this week, Tempest wrote about the cover of the new Realms of Fantasy. I’ve seen the magazine around, but have never picked it up; short stories aren’t really my thing. But basically, Tempest points out that Realms’ covers have always skewed towards featuring scantily-clad women; and now the magazine, about to be relaunched under new management, has… continued that trend, with a bare-chested mermaid on the cover.

Doug Cohen, the art director, responded.

You can insert a *facepalm* here.

Like I said, I’m not familiar with the magazine, but I’m also not shocked by the trend. I grew up on cheesy sf/f paperback novels, and there were hundreds more in my house than I ever got around to reading¹; scantily-clad women were sort of a mainstay. The answer is defensive, which I do get; after all, Tempest’s post was a direct calling out, and most people would respond defensively. But that doesn’t mean the post was not facepalm-inducing and soaked in privilege. Like, for example:

But there’s that cover, Doug. You can see her breasts! Hmm. There is that. But last time I checked, mermaids tend to shun clothes. And last time I checked, the chicks in chainmail covers are far more offensive than this. And last time I checked, nudity does occur in artwork.

I worked at a magazine just long enough to know that the art director has something to do with cover selection.² And if you’re the one selecting the art to include, saying that nudity occurs in art is pretty misleading. You’re deciding to use artwork with nudity and claiming “because that’s what art is,” as a reason; but you could just as easily not do that and … not have it be an issue.

And also, claiming “That other thing they used to do is more offensive than the thing that I did!” is basically a tacit acknowledgement that yes, what you did is part of the same problem. Because the problem isn’t that this cover had mer-boobs, or that a previous cover had chain-mail-clad ladies; the problem is that many covers have super-sexualized women on them, and that this cover is illustrative of a larger problem.

But what really gets me isn’t even that. It’s the bit about mermaids. Because last time I checked, mermaids were fictional. So please tell me what mer-person you found and show me the notes on the conversation about mer-culture and how bare-breastedness is part of that, and so clothes absolutely must be avoided in artwork to avoid an inaccurate portrayal of that culture. Because then I’ll nod along about how it’s totally justified; but right now, it just sounds like when an actual woman calls out a sexist trope, there are plenty of ways to avoid hearing her.

Controversy #2: This one is actually much nearer and dearer to my heart, because it concerns an author I do read, and, in fact, love: Justine Larbalestier. I met Justine at a signing a couple of years ago, and she was super charming.³ I bought her trilogy, and loved it; I particularly liked that of the three main characters, two were non-white (including the primary point-of-view character). Her next offering, How to Ditch Your Fairy, was also quite enjoyable; it’s set in a modern fantasy world, in which non-white was pretty much just the default.⁴

So this fall, her novel Liar will be released. In Australia, the cover looks like this. In the U.S., the cover looks like it does on the left over there. The controversy?

The protagonist of Liar is African-American. And the cover model used by Bloomsbury is really, really obviously not. The book isn’t out yet, so I had no idea; but earlier this week, Editorial Anonymous posted on it, and since then I’ve read a promo excerpt in which the character states, very matter-of-factly, that yes, she is black.

In response, Justine wrote two posts, both of which I loved and appreciated:

Why My Protags Aren’t White
Because a young Hispanic girl I met at a signing thanked me for writing an Hispanic character. Because when I did an appearance in Queens the entirely black and Hispanic teenage audience responded so warmly to my book with two non-white main characters. Because teens, both here and in Australia, have written thanking me for writing characters they could relate to. “Most books are so white,” one girl wrote me.

Because no white teen has ever complained about their lack of representation in those books. Or asked me why Reason and Jay-Tee aren’t white. They read and enjoyed the trilogy anyway. Despite the acres and acres of white books available to them.

Because I don’t live in an all-white world. Why on earth would I write books that are?

And, directly responding to the questions raised by the U.S. cover:

Ain’t That a Shame
Liar is a book about a compulsive (possibly pathological) liar who is determined to stop lying but finds it much harder than she supposed. I worked very hard to make sure that the fundamentals of who Micah is were believable: that she’s a girl, that she’s a teenager, that she’s black, that she’s USian. One of the most upsetting impacts of the cover is that it’s led readers to question everything about Micah: If she doesn’t look anything like the girl on the cover maybe nothing she says is true. At which point the entire book, and all my hard work, crumbles.

No one in Australia has written to ask me if Micah is really black.

No one in Australia has said that they will not be buying Liar because “my teens would find the cover insulting.”

Both responses are heart breaking.

This cover did not happen in isolation.

Needless to say, it’s a heavy post. And it, too, is a calling-out; while remaining respectful to a publisher she says is otherwise great, Justine calls out the self-fulfilling prophecy of claiming “black books don’t sell.”

For me it isn’t a question of whether or not I’ll read the book. I love that Justine writes books about people of color. I love her writing. She’s one of my favorite authors, and one of my favorite bloggers. I’ll buy the book. But at the moment, my plan is to figure out how to get an import of the Australian cover. Because I try to vote with my dollars, and I want my dollars to say that I like Justine Larbalestier and her books, and I don’t support racism.

I’ve got the apartment to myself this weekend. My plans for this lazy Sunday include watching baseball — I am SO GLAD baseball season is back, I can’t even express it — and working on The Novel.

I haven’t written much about what I’m writing, because there are about a million blogs by aspiring authors that are probably much more interesting and informative than mine would be. I only mention it now because I’m finally switching gears on this project: that is to say, after almost a year of writing in fits and starts (and one major computer death that took 15,000 words with it), I’ve finished the rough draft and am now starting the revision process. And since when I write I plow straight through without revising at all as I go (or even, for that matter, rereading to make sure I’m keeping things consistent), that’s quite a daunting process.

But enough about that. Since reading and writing is what’s on my mind, have some related links.

Amazon Follies

On Amazon.com two days ago, mysteriously, the sales rankings disappeared from two newly-released high profile gay romance books: “Transgressions” by Erastes and “False Colors” by Alex Beecroft. Everybody was perplexed. Was it a glitch of some sort? The very next day HUNDREDS of gay and lesbian books simultaneously lost their sales rankings, including my book “The Filly.” There was buzz, What’s going on? Does Amazon have some sort of campaign to suppress the visibility of gay books? Is it just a major glitch in the system?

Of course, it turns out, it is not a glitch. Amazon has decided to exclude “adult” material from appearing in searches and on its best seller list, and automatically considers all books featuring GLBT characters and themes adult. I rarely shop at Amazon anyway; I definitely won’t be at all until this is remedied.

See also: Amazon Rank.

Straight Talk on Race: Challenging the Stereotypes in Kids’ Books

I trudged back and forth between cultures, relying heavily on stories for insight into the secrets and nuances of North American life. But exactly what did those stories communicate about my place as a brown-skinned foreigner? And, in that mostly white suburb where I went to school, why can’t I remember any educators who were bold enough to raise the issue?

The best-case scenario is that my teachers were consciously giving me freedom to experience the pleasure of reading without adult interference. But would it have diminished my enjoyment if an educator had raised questions about race in The Chronicles of Narnia or The Secret Garden, for example? Looking back, I don’t think so. Especially if that educator had appreciated these stories as much as I did.

Interesting and informative stuff about how to discuss race in school reading assignments, ranging from common stereotypes and tropes to cover art and beauty standards. (Via Justine.)

Gender in the Publishing World

I have to say that I have been pleasantly surprised by the number of boys who read Alex and really enjoy it. We are told often that boys will not read a book with a female protagonist, and I actually had a boy the other day look at me in shock when I mentioned Alex was a girl. This boy had already read the book, in which I say often that Alex is a girl, and yet I suppose because it isn’t about the fact that she is a girl, that she isn’t particularly “girly”, whatever that is, he actually forgot he was reading about the opposite gender and saw her more as an “everyman” (everywoman?) kind of character. Something, I must be honest, that was indeed one of my goals with the book, so I am immensely pleased. But at the same time, does this mean that if I write a “girly” protagonist I will lose the boys who so enjoyed my other books simply on that fact alone?

Adrienne Kress (whose first book, Alex and the Ironic Gentleman, got five cupcakes over at Active Voice) writes not just about her book, but also about the question of women writing in general, women working in publishing, and — of somewhat personal interest to me — about being a funny female writer. Good stuff, good discussion.

Fantasy in Asia

Fantasy in Asia is as natural as mermaids swimming and fairies flying. That is to say, the mythology of Asia lends itself organically to the world of fantasy. Long before Tolkien invented a hobbit, a monkey king jumped its way through the pages of one of the four classic novels of China, Journey to the West, while Scheherazade wove her thousand and one tales to her Persian king in the Arabian Nights. Classic Asian tales have spawned a vast array of stories, books and movies that weave in fantastic elements that are quintessentially eastern. To hear of Aladdin and his magic lamp, is to be swept away into a world of djinns and sorcerers that somehow has been garbled up and translated to a western audience as a frenetic blue genie voiced by Robin Williams in a Disney movie, or immortalized by Barbara Eden in the classic TV hit I Dream of Jeanie. Meanwhile the Monkey King is a superstar in China who has never successfully made the transition outside of Asia.

In my last post, I linked to a couple of essays on non-Western-centric fantasy, and this is another great one. Ellen Oh looks at some of the Asian myths that haven’t ever caught on outside Asia, and the invisibility of fantasy novels that do use them — unless they’re suitably westernized, of course.

First, an excuse. For a change, it’s not that I’ve been too busy or too lazy to blog. It’s that I’ve been unable to use the computer for non-necessary… anything. For a few years, I had occasional wrist pain. For a year and a half, I had moderate wrist pain, and protected against it by wearing wrist braces at work. Problem dealt with.

Then, about six weeks ago, moderate wrist pain became, “Oh holy shit I can’t use my hands,” wrist pain, and I am now in physical therapy twice a week. I’m lucky, as these things go, though; I’ve got insurance, and it isn’t carpal tunnel and it isn’t nerve damage, just a combination of muscle weakness and strain, brought on by overuse and bad posture. Anyway, it’s getting better. Huzzah!

So here’s some reading for you.

I Was Followed, Harassed, And Ambushed By Bill O’Reilly’s Producer

Amanda Terkel at Think Progress made some critical comments about Bill O’Reilly and his comments on rape victims. She was then stalked and harassed by his producer. Here’s her account of the story (the “interview” is expected to air at some point soon), and the very important conclusion:

The main issue remains: O’Reilly should offer an apology/explanation of why, when a woman is raped and murdered, it’s relevant what she was wearing or how much she was drinking. O’Reilly never asked me for a statement nor invited me on his show before sending Watters to harass me. Since I’m a 5 ft, 100 pound woman with an opinion that he doesn’t like, perhaps O’Reilly believes I deserve to be treated this way.

Racefail ’09

Okay. This one is… massive. Much more so than a few paragraphs and a couple of links can explain, but basically, a discussion started in January, about writing the other in science fiction and fantasy. Writer Elizabeth Bear made a post about writing the other; Avalon’s Willow made a post critical of Bear’s actual writing of people of color, and what started as a smart exchange quickly spun into several other conversations, some productive and some racist, and many still going on. Aside from writing the other, discussions covered cultural appropriation, racism and the (lack of) representation of people of color (as writers, characters, and recognized as readers) in sf/f, and anonymity on the internet, among others. And all this comes on the heels of the casting of the racist casting of the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie.

You can get a basic summary, and links to more detailed explanations, here.

It’s been vast and overwhelming to follow. I’ve done a lot of thinking but no writing on it because, aside from my wrist problems, I don’t think that I have anything to add. One thing the conversation has made clear to me is that some voices are valued over others, and it’s the voices of people of color that too often aren’t heard. As a white person who’s trying to find a way to be an ally despite my privilege, I don’t think there’s anything I can say that wouldn’t be about me and my experiences. There may be value in them in some ways, but those are more personal and less related to the general conversation. So they’re not useful here, as far as I can tell.

So a few posts that really stuck out to me:

I Didn’t Dream of Dragons

When I was around thirteen years old, I tried to write a fantasy novel. It was going to be an epic adventure with a cross-dressing princess on the run, a snarky hero, and dragons. I got stuck when I had to figure out what they would do after they left the city. Logically, there would be a tavern.

But there were no taverns in India. Write what you know is a rule that didn’t really need to be told to me; after having spent my entire life reading books in English about people named Peter and Sally, I wanted to write about the place I lived in, even if I didn’t have a whole bookcase of Indian fantasy world-building to steal from. And I couldn’t get past the lack of taverns. Even now, I have spent a number of years trying to figure out how cross-dressing disguise would work in a pre-Islamic India where the women went bare-breasted. When I considered including a dragon at the end of a story, I had to map out their route to the Himalayas, because dragons can be a part of a Tibetan Buddhist tradition—they do not figure in Hindu mythology.

A conversation I WANT to have

The world of fantasy should not be all White People + Various European Architecture + Magic (possibly dragons). The world of fantasy also shouldn’t be White People + Various Asian/South Asian Architecture + Magic. It’s not White People Gaining Power From Kachina Dolls. It’s not White People + Dark Savages + Magic. It’s not White People + Voudoo (Hoodo, Obeah, Santeria). It’s definitely not White People + All 4 of the previous mentioned practices, mixed up and rolled into one.

… So the conversation I want to have now is – what next? How do we start? Do we use the internet and go small press the way various erotica writing female writers have utilized it – making a space for themselves? How do we make space for ourselves? Do we embrace the labeling? Do we embrace the separate little bookshelves in the bookstore? The African American Lit. The Asian Experiences. The Jewish Commentaries? With their little signs? Do we accept those labels? Do we try to burst out? Where do we move next?

One possible “what now?” solution might be found in Verb Noire.

Ryda Wong has collected many, many, many more links about RaceFail here.

Other Links

Crossing Lines: Deconstructing Black Superheroes

I know a lot of people out there wonder why it matters. These are, after all, only imaginary superheroes. Why does the way they are created and portrayed matter so much? The answer is because they perpetuate the stereotypes as they play on them, they reinforce these ideas within the minds of fans. We are meant to look upon most superheroes as just that — heroes. We are meant to look up at them as people to emulate and aspire to be. This makes it especially unfortunate that black superheroes and specifically the ones chosen for this list are part of a pattern that continues to portray black people on the basis of opinions and stereotypes formed decades and even centuries ago, a pattern that continues to erase black women from any kind of discourse or agency. For a medium that endeavors to look into other worlds and possibilities, it seems reluctant to release the preconceptions of this one and that’s a true shame. This list doesn’t help dispel any of that at all.

Via The Angry Black Woman.

Carrie’s Analysis of Urban Fantasy Part I: The Formula

Apart from the presence of the supernatural and a kick-ass heroine (often wearing leather pants and wielding a semi-automatic), which are big parts of the urban fantasy formula and traits readers look for in these books, I’d argue that the framework boils down to two things: character and world-building. This genre is primarily character-driven: the main characters are at the hearts of these series, and readers keep coming back because of the connection they feel with them. And world building: readers want a world they can fall into, that they can believe in, often similar to ours but the fun comes in seeing the differences, in imagining what it would really be like if these things really happened. When these two things come together, along with the tropes that cause readers to seek out these books in the first place (vampires, kicking ass, etc), you have a successful urban fantasy novel and series. I believe this is what readers are looking for, and what writers in the genre are striving for.

(Also check out Part II: When Things Go Wrong and Part III: Deconstructing Urban Fantasy. Via The Swivet.)

Phtoshop Adbusting

A photoessay of an adbusted subway poster, that started with perfected pictures of singers — the original ads — and added the menus from Photoshop that make such perfection possible. Powerful stuff. (Recommended reading: No Logo, which I’m currently 3/4 of the way through.)

And finally, a “this is so stupid I can’t even get properly annoyed” link: Sci Fi Channel Aims to Shed Geeky Image With New Name. Right. Because “SyFy” rebranding will make science fiction non-geeky, and attract women. Yeah, good luck with that. Meanwhile, as a woman who already likes science fiction and geekery, all I can think is, you know, I prefer not to associate with the ludicrously misspelled.

That’s it. More… Someday.

So my blogging roll was killed by non-blogging-related stress, unfortunately. (Though hey, two posts in a month is better than I’ve managed at points in the past.) I don’t have anything real for tonight, but here’s some smart stuff other people have written:

The Dark Knight, Part 2: Yes, I’m Still Mad About This, another excellent post on The Dark Knight by Poison Ivory. (Psst: spoilers included.) I point this one out not only because it’s smart and interesting, but because there’s been a little discussion in comments here about the question of if and when feminism enhances or detracts from storytelling. I think Poison Ivory makes a good case for how, if TDK had been less sexist, it would have been a better movie.

Second, via Seeking Avalon, an International Blog Against Racism Week post: Smilla’s Not all cats are grey: 25 years of cover whitewashing in Joan Vinge’s “Cat” series. This post had my jaw pretty much on the floor because, here’s the thing: I’ve read Vinge’s “Cat” series. Twice, in fact; I was really excited when I found they were reprinted and bought copies (which I promptly lost somehow). I really enjoyed the series.

And I’d never noticed Cat was a character of color.

Yeah. The descriptions of Cat, while rare in the books, are pretty clear on that. And I’m a reader who skims for dialogue and action, a bad habit which I now realize is even worse than I’d thought. This post was a huge privilege check for me, because while I generally try to be conscious, I clearly have blind spots. It never would have occurred to me that being able to skim books and just plain not notice the characters’ ethnicities was one of them. I think — hope — I notice more than I used to, but it’s always good to have a reminder that I can do better and pay more attention. I will push myself to do so.

Mike Myers’ new vehicle, The Love Guru, comes out this weekend. I know this, though I’m not flocking to the theater, as it looks so incredibly, incredibly bad. But every subway platform and bus in the city is covered in posters for it, so I’ve been accidentally staring at them a lot. Staring in befuddlement, really, wondering when brown face became acceptable.*

But eventually I found something specific to fixate on. The movie’s tagline: “His karma is huge.”

Huh?

See, I know what double entendre is. It’s a phrase with a double meaning; something that can be read in two ways with distinct meanings (and specifically, one of the two meanings is sexual). “His karma is huge,” is not double entendre, because it doesn’t make sense in any way, let alone two. That’s not how karma — or a sentence — works. You wouldn’t say, “His karma is huge,” you’d say, “He has good karma.” Maybe even, “He has a lot of good karma.”

But no: Mike Myers, in his rush to tell us he has a big penis, forgot about the part where a double meaning requires having a primary meaning first. That must be so embarrassing for him! But I guess the movie’s PR machine must have rejected, “The Love Guru: his dick is huge,” for some reason.

Possible other rejected taglines:

The Love Guru: Foreigners sure are wacky!
The Love Guru: Cultural appropri-what now?
The Love Guru: Admit it, you like “My Name Is Earl”
The Love Guru: Justin Timberlake, it’s hard to love you when you do shit like this
The Love Guru: Some of my best friends are Indian, and they think it’s funny!

And my favorite…

The Love Guru: It’s cool, we live in a post-racism society.

* Yeah, okay, I’ve seen the preview and it looks like technically Myers isn’t playing an Indian character, he’s playing a white guy who embodies Indian stereotypes. Which really isn’t much better.

Summer blockbuster season is upon us. And here’s my confession: I love ridiculous action movies. I love movies where the premise is “stuff blows up” and plot and character are entirely secondary. I don’t watch them without criticism; there’s a reason big-budget action movies have a terrible reputation when it comes to race and gender. So while I love the genre, I still watch it critically, and would be exceptionally pleased if filmmakers would shape up and start making ridiculous action movies about stuff blowing up, without resorting to alternately ignoring and stereotyping anyone who isn’t a straight, white, male character.

With that said, I’ve been to see Iron Man twice. I obviously enjoyed it; there were a bunch of aspects about it that made me decide it was worth spending money to see again. But it isn’t without its problems, and I’ve found the critiques of the movie to be fascinating. (Spoilers follow through the rest of the article.) By far the most on-the-nose critical review of the movie I’ve found is this one, by WOC PhD. She writes with far more eloquence than I could about a lot of the movie’s issues, particularly with regards to race and jingoism.

I’d like to expand on some thoughts I had while watching the movie, and again when reading her article. WOC PhD* addresses the wasted opportunities the movie had with Yinsen, the doctor who is held hostage along with the movie’s protagonist Tony Stark. He saves Tony’s life and then sacrifices himself so Tony can escape their captors. WOC PhD points out not only that the movie could have used Yinsen as a way of showing the actual effects of the war on people in Afghanistan, but also the potential problems if he returns from the dead as a villain for the sequel, which has been hinted at.

I had two further problems with his portrayal. First, I was not sold at all on his decision to sacrifice himself for Tony. As he dies, he tells Tony it’s what he wants, and that his family is dead — but that seems odd in and of itself, since when he discussed his family with Tony earlier, he did not mention that they were dead. It’s implied he’s decided Tony’s life is more important than his own because Tony has a much larger influence and can right some of the wrongs of the world in a way that Yinsen can not — but Yinsen tells him that, “this was always his plan.” Yet Tony had designed the suit with the goal of getting them both out, so why Yinsen had always planned to die when it wasn’t necessary is unclear. His death actually resembles a typical comic book fridging in some ways, except that instead of a girlfriend being murdered to give the hero motivation (or angst), a character of color is murdered to give the hero motivation (and angst — implied angst, anyway, since Tony never actually mentions him again, though I think we’re supposed to realize he was moved by the death). I’ve been told by Iron Man comics-knowledgeable friends that in every version of the origin story, Yinsen dies, so the movie writers probably never felt the freedom to have him survive”… but as a movie watcher, I wasn’t convinced. I was disappointed.

Second, Yinsen never got to be a character in his own right. The other two major supporting characters, Pepper and Rhodey, are shown to have lives outside of Tony Stark’s existence. While they both center around Tony, they do at least do things on their own. In her introduction, Pepper alludes to evening plans outside of work, and she also attends a fancy event not only without Tony, but without a date at all. Rhodey, meanwhile, we see at work. He’s kept busy there even when Tony is not watching him, which we know from scenes where Tony walks in and Rhodey doesn’t expect to see him. Now, we see them both from Tony’s POV so we only get hints about these lives, but they do exist.

Yinsen, on the other hand, does not. We meet him when Tony is captured, and he dies when Tony escapes. He references having a family, but not that they’re dead until he himself is dying; and he doesn’t do it in the context of letting us know him better, but rather as a way to show that Tony is isolated and sad without having a family of his own.** We know he speaks many languages, but we don’t know if he learned them in school, or as a traveler, or what. We don’t know if he’s a surgeon, an engineer, a professor, or something else entirely. (He does save Tony’s life medically; but he also assists him as an engineer or builder, and he’s been to see Tony give a lecture — where? When? Who knows?) We don’t know how he was captured or how long he’s been held there. Yinsen exists only while Tony is with him; when Tony is gone, he vanishes. That was hugely disappointing to me.

One place where I disagree with WOC PhD is with regards to Pepper Potts. I do agree with just about everything else she writes with regards to gender in the film, particularly about the female reporter and Pepper’s “take out the trash” line. Ught. But about Pepper and Tony’s relationship, she writes:

“Granted, Stark does make some attempt to express feelings for her in the later half of the film, but she quickly shuts him down. While the scene is meant to show Potts’ ever critical eye toward her role as super hero hag, it reads as the masochism of a woman who does not think she deserves love. Hence she falls in love with a man who won’t give her any and yet demands so much of her time that she “has no one else.” – yes that is a real quote. Or the intelligence of a woman who knows she is not, ultimately, going to get love but hangs on.”

This is in reference to the end of the film, where Tony lets Pepper know he is romantically interested in her, after she has hinted that she feels the same towards him through the whole film. However, she rejects him, referencing an earlier scene in which they had danced awkwardly and started to have a discussion of how they feel — only for him to run off in the middle to deal with a major plot revelation. Now, as a watcher of the movie, I hadn’t even thought about Pepper being left without explanation at that point, because it is a major plot revelation and Tony reacts quite understandably. The narrative follows him and not Pepper, and no further thought was really given towards what she thought or felt at that moment, until she brings it up in her rejection of him.

I did not see that as her a woman who feels she does not deserve love, or that rejection as masochism on her part. On the contrary, I thought it was a great move on the filmmaker’s parts to further her character. Pepper actually had an emotional reaction to being left there, even though we didn’t see it, since the movie wasn’t about Pepper. She was a fully-realized character, who reacted understandably. Being left without explanation or apology was enough to make her realize that, while she may have feelings for Tony, he is selfish and even if he reciprocates those feelings, that selfishness will leave him unable to give her what she wants and deserves from a relationship. Rather than settling for that, even though she cares for Tony, she rejects him. I was impressed and pleased by that choice.

One further gender-based criticism of the film. We know a lot about Tony Stark’s father: he was one of the developers of the atomic bomb; he founded a major arms company that Tony inherited; he died when Tony was relatively young; there’s a lot of controversy about whether he was a patriot or simply war profiteering; people generally feel Tony has a lot to live up to with regards to his dad. How would his dad feel about the direction Tony took the company in? How would he feel about the weapons Tony has helped create? Or the under-the-table deals to give those weapons to bad people? Tony struggles with those ideas throughout the film.

Tony’s mother is never mentioned verbally. The only actual reference to her at all is in a montage of newspaper headlines about the Stark family, which provides us with Tony’s history. The headline reads, “Husband and Wife Perish,” or something very similar. She has no name, and she has no impact on Tony or his story, whatsoever. I am realize this is a fairly common problem, but it still annoys me greatly, since you’d think that even if he had no relationship with his mother, that would still affect his character. Grumble.

Okay. All that said? I really enjoyed the movie. It was fun, it didn’t take itself super-seriously. It was phenomenally well acted, and in many respects well written. Though never confirmed by Tony himself, it’s clear he suffers from PTSD after his time as a prisoner. It’s referenced by other characters, one a gossip show host and one the villain trying to cut him out of his own company. Tony himself is not written as a character who would acknowledge that he needs to attend to his mental health, but it was also clear to me as a watcher that his decision to build a new version of the Iron Man suit and use it as a hero was all driven by PTSD, in large part. His decision to try and do the right thing may have been driven by having seen the consequences of his actions first-hand, but the obsessive way he goes about it is indicative of greater problems. I loved the way the movie illustrated that without beating the viewer over the head with it.

The movie was clever. The action sequences engaging. The special effects managed to be brilliant and not cheesy. Tony’s character and Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of him were fantastic. I can’t say I recommend this as an action movie with no faults — they’re there and disappointing. But what it gets right, it gets right much better than other movies in its genre, and it is certainly a cut above standard action movie fare.

* I’m not quite sure how to address her or what name she generally goes by — the blog is on hiatus so it seems that a lot of the usual informational pages are missing, and I’ve only started reading recently. If anyone knows of a more accurate name/handle, please don’t hesitate to let me know!

** I do think it’s interesting to have that trope, that while a character appears to have everything, the character actually has nothing without a family, applied to a man instead of a career woman as a way of showing that she should get back in the kitchen, but that’s neither here nor there.

I have a love/hate relationship with Disney’s Hannah Montana. For those who haven’t run across it (though it’s becoming ever-more ubiquitous as its popularity grows), it’s a TV show/music franchise about a girl named Miley Stewart (played by Miley Cyrus) who has a normal life with her father, Robby Ray (Billy Ray Cyrus) and her brother, Jackson (Jason Earles). But Miley has a secret: she’s actually the most famous pop star in the country, Hannah Montana. She keeps that a secret by way of a blond wig, and keeps the lives separate so that she can still go to high school like a normal person. So she deals with friends, with bullies, and with boys just like everyone else, even though she’s famous! The show itself is mildly charming, though often completely nonsensical; the music of Miley/Hannah is pure bubblegum pop, which I happen to love. (The music is actually sung by the real Miley, who performs concerts be-wigged as Hannah, but has recently released her first “real” album as herself, the B-side of a Hannah album. It’s kind of confusing, but the upshot is that she does some writing, much of it is written for her, and all of it is her surprisingly excellent singing voice.)

I do have real fondness for the show. It’s a lot of fun, it fulfils a lot of childhood fantasies that I’ve lived out as Mary Sues in my head a hundred times, and I really, really love pop music. It’s a cut above most of Disney’s mediocre programming on a lot of levels. On the other hand, though, while on its surface it’s nothing but wacky hijinks, the show has some seriously deep flaws when it comes to race and gender. I don’t think there’s a mustache-twirling villain trying to indoctrinate tween viewers with stereotypes, but the show is rampant with them, and the fact that it probably isn’t intentional is almost more problematic. It means the show is regurgitating the disturbing stereotypes from the writers’ and producers’ subconsciouses, and transmitting them to a new generation. So while I enjoy this show, I am decidedly not pleased with it at the same time.

Race is probably the biggest problem on the show. As I get started talking about this, though, I want to offer up a general note; I grew up very much as a clueless white girl, and while I’m doing my best to become less clueless about race issues, I still often back away from them out of fear of screwing up. I’m trying not to do that any more, but the fear of saying the wrong thing is still there, so if I do screw up, feel free to wield a cluebat as necessary.

Okay. So. There are only a handful of characters of color in the otherwise totally white cast. This is, sadly, not too surprising, given that a lot of shows have that problem. But things are worse when you actually look at the roles the non-white characters play.

The most minor of them is Cooper, Jackson’s best friend in the first season. Though occasionally a jerk, Cooper was no more or less so than the rest of the cast; he was just a bit player who showed up sometimes when Jackson needed a friend to converse with. The problem? Between seasons, the character abruptly disappeared, and the role of Jackson’s best friend was filled by a new guy — a blond, white character. I don’t think Cooper appeared in more than one or two episodes this season, and never with more than one or two lines, and his friendship with Jackson is all but forgotten about while Jackson has hijinks with Thor instead. (Thor, for the record, is a terrible character in his own right, but that’s a different essay.) So there’s that.

Next we come to Amber and Ashley, African- and Asian-American respectively. These two are Miley’s classmates and nemeses; they’re rich, spoiled, snobby, and stupid. They are the closest thing the show has to villains, and they’re often the only characters of color to appear in an episode. Gosh.

Next there’s Rico. There are actually a lot of problems with his character, which I’ll get to in a later essay, but they certainly tie into his race. Rico is Latino, and despite the fact that he’s the youngest regular character — he’s eleven, everyone else is in the 14-16 age range — he’s also extremely oversexed. (I believe at one point he refers to himself as, “a sexy Latin lover.”) And on top of that, he’s another antagonist. Virtually all he does on the show is sexually harass Miley and find ways to taunt and torment Jackson.

So far, that gives us one character of color who was replaced with a white guy, and three who are nothing but antagonists. But, you may be wondering, is there any recurring, non-antagonist character of color? Why, yes! Her name is Roxy, and she’s Miley/Hannah’s bodyguard. And…oy. Where to start? For one thing, in one of her appearances she mixes up what amounts to a voodoo potion she calls “the funk” for her white employer. Which definitely raised my eyebrows.

But that’s nothing compared to the episode which seems to have been designed to let Roxy chase after a teenager, screaming, “Come back here, you cracker!” But it’s wacky and hilarious! Because she’s chasing off a bully! A bully who happens to be nicknamed the Cracker because she’s constantly cracking her knuckles and can crack nuts open with her bare hands. So when Roxy comes to Miley’s rescue, when Miley fears being beaten up, she aggressively chases after the bully, calling her by the nickname in question.

I…I just…whaaaaa? That isn’t something that happens by accident. It’s not an, “Oops, we didn’t realize there were possibly problematic racial undertones to this!” punchline. It’s something that was carefully set up for. I really just can’t imagine what the writers were thinking or trying to accomplish.

So Cooper, Amber, and Ashley, I can assume were probably not intentionally written in a problematic way. They may even have been backfired attempts to up the diversity in the cast. But oversexing the only Latino character? Having the black woman yell potentially offensive, certainly charged terms? And playing it off as comedy?

And how’s this for another one-off gag the show offers: At the end of a recent episode, to bring the physical comedy, two white characters get tangled in an African-American woman’s braided hair in the middle of a fight.

Disney, what the fuck?

(Next time, or whenever I get around to it, the show’s issues with gender and sexuality.)