Okay, but I feel as though some of these stereotypes that people are bringing up and getting upset about are things that I have literally never encountered before? Yes, it's important to try to avoid falling into racial stereotypes, but when it gets to this pedantic level all it seems to do is limit the roles and personality that POC characters are allowed to have in fic. (AKA "you can't write Finn as a medic" example above, "you can't write a sassy or flippant Jessika", etc.) At that point it just seems like reducing character exploration opportunities for the sake of getting brownie points.
Maybe it's because I'm not American, but I've really genuinely never encountered the stereotype you're describing before.
It's a pretty common racial stereotype in American media, which is probably why people are annoyed by it because they do seem it as a harmful racial stereotype they're tired of seeing.
Oh, I'm not at all saying anyone can't do anything. I'm just responding specifically to that stereotype. The fact is that none of these stereotypes would matter if Finn weren't the ONLY black person and Jessika weren't the ONLY Asian person--if there were five of each, then writing one particular character as whatever stereotype would not have much weight, because there would be theory characters who are other things. So at the end of the day, you have to understand that when people are upset, the root of the problem is really because they're tired of having extremely marginal representation and being very protective of what little they have--it's not really about X fic writer specifically.
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Re: WHO THE HECK IS JESSICA?
(Anonymous) 2016-02-20 12:43 am (UTC)(link)Okay, but I feel as though some of these stereotypes that people are bringing up and getting upset about are things that I have literally never encountered before? Yes, it's important to try to avoid falling into racial stereotypes, but when it gets to this pedantic level all it seems to do is limit the roles and personality that POC characters are allowed to have in fic. (AKA "you can't write Finn as a medic" example above, "you can't write a sassy or flippant Jessika", etc.) At that point it just seems like reducing character exploration opportunities for the sake of getting brownie points.
Maybe it's because I'm not American, but I've really genuinely never encountered the stereotype you're describing before.
Re: WHO THE HECK IS JESSICA?
(Anonymous) 2016-02-20 01:19 am (UTC)(link)It's a pretty common racial stereotype in American media, which is probably why people are annoyed by it because they do seem it as a harmful racial stereotype they're tired of seeing.
Re: WHO THE HECK IS JESSICA?
(Anonymous) 2016-02-20 06:49 am (UTC)(link)Oh, I'm not at all saying anyone can't do anything. I'm just responding specifically to that stereotype. The fact is that none of these stereotypes would matter if Finn weren't the ONLY black person and Jessika weren't the ONLY Asian person--if there were five of each, then writing one particular character as whatever stereotype would not have much weight, because there would be theory characters who are other things. So at the end of the day, you have to understand that when people are upset, the root of the problem is really because they're tired of having extremely marginal representation and being very protective of what little they have--it's not really about X fic writer specifically.