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Two cents on cultural appropriation
Jun. 16th, 2006 07:35 amI first heard about "cultural appropriation" from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rivka's post on it. That referred me to yhlee's round-up post on the topic. I haven't read more than that, I admit, but something about the whole thing was bothering me.
It sounds a lot like I remember discussions about "the lack of Strong Female Characters in SF/F" sounding. That male authors weren't getting SFCs right, and even women were casting their gender as damsels in distress or else Red Sonja/Atalanta-esque Amazons just waiting to get conquered by the virile hero. And in the earlier days, that was mostly true, from what I've read.
But the answer wasn't to bar male authors from writing female characters, or else get permission from some kind of Female League. The answer was to demand better writing. People are people and, while there sure are differences of gender and culture and race and all that, I can't shake the suspicion that if you treat your characters like people first and men/women, Euro/non-Euro, this/that second, you're going to be okay.
I mean... I will take any of Terry Prachett's female protagonists, or even some of his supporting characters, as better examples of SFCs than anything I read in "Mists of Avalon." SFCs of all different stripes and types, too, not just the plucky young woman standing up to authority. Prachett's a good writer and clearly a good observer of people. His plumbing doesn't detract from that. I'm also fond of Lois McMaster Bujold's work, even though I haven't read enough of it. Her characters - male and female - are believable to me. They're grounded in their world and related to one another - they're not just cardboard cutouts for the hero or heroine to look good for.
So... no lame shortcuts. No exotica for its own sake. If you're going to use an alien culture, whether it's based on a historical one from Earth or not, get it right. People have to live in this culture. How? What's it like? What's the spectrum of behavior that's permitted within cultural norms? Who's "normal," who's a little odd, and who's beyond the pale? What's that mean? What's that mean for your story? No cheating when the taboo that was cool in Chapter 1 is inconvenient in Chapter 10. The character does not suddenly realize that the taboo is "pointless." That's not people. Either take it out in Chapter 1 or work around it in Chapter 10.
If you don't know what it's like or how people live in that culture, you shouldn't be writing in it. Because your setting will ring false and hollow to your readers - it's not a place, it's a stage for your characters. And if you're using a real Earth culture as a baseline, you're turning someone's heritage into a bad set piece. That's not cool, okay?
They say to "write what you know." If you know another culture and can convey it well, I don't think who your parents were really matters much. If you don't or you can't, please spare the world the bad writing.
rivka's post on it. That referred me to yhlee's round-up post on the topic. I haven't read more than that, I admit, but something about the whole thing was bothering me.It sounds a lot like I remember discussions about "the lack of Strong Female Characters in SF/F" sounding. That male authors weren't getting SFCs right, and even women were casting their gender as damsels in distress or else Red Sonja/Atalanta-esque Amazons just waiting to get conquered by the virile hero. And in the earlier days, that was mostly true, from what I've read.
But the answer wasn't to bar male authors from writing female characters, or else get permission from some kind of Female League. The answer was to demand better writing. People are people and, while there sure are differences of gender and culture and race and all that, I can't shake the suspicion that if you treat your characters like people first and men/women, Euro/non-Euro, this/that second, you're going to be okay.
I mean... I will take any of Terry Prachett's female protagonists, or even some of his supporting characters, as better examples of SFCs than anything I read in "Mists of Avalon." SFCs of all different stripes and types, too, not just the plucky young woman standing up to authority. Prachett's a good writer and clearly a good observer of people. His plumbing doesn't detract from that. I'm also fond of Lois McMaster Bujold's work, even though I haven't read enough of it. Her characters - male and female - are believable to me. They're grounded in their world and related to one another - they're not just cardboard cutouts for the hero or heroine to look good for.
So... no lame shortcuts. No exotica for its own sake. If you're going to use an alien culture, whether it's based on a historical one from Earth or not, get it right. People have to live in this culture. How? What's it like? What's the spectrum of behavior that's permitted within cultural norms? Who's "normal," who's a little odd, and who's beyond the pale? What's that mean? What's that mean for your story? No cheating when the taboo that was cool in Chapter 1 is inconvenient in Chapter 10. The character does not suddenly realize that the taboo is "pointless." That's not people. Either take it out in Chapter 1 or work around it in Chapter 10.
If you don't know what it's like or how people live in that culture, you shouldn't be writing in it. Because your setting will ring false and hollow to your readers - it's not a place, it's a stage for your characters. And if you're using a real Earth culture as a baseline, you're turning someone's heritage into a bad set piece. That's not cool, okay?
They say to "write what you know." If you know another culture and can convey it well, I don't think who your parents were really matters much. If you don't or you can't, please spare the world the bad writing.
