Aang aint white.

[secondlina]

Oh, one of my rare drawing-lacking posts.

I just feel like typing this down, maybe because it somewhat concerns me. As a creator, I wonder about things like ethnicity in my stories. I am currently working on another comic book and wondering 'Gee, maybe I should make the heroin black or latino? Because ethnic represention is good?'

Yes, ethnic representation is good, and if your gay/ethnic/minority representative character(s) fit in the story, you should throw them in. But I strongly believe minority characters should not be inserted in a story for the sake of just being there. There is a big difference between a Token characters and a character. A character moves with the story and his/her ethnicity should move with the story. Not stick out like a tree in a plain. The black buddy should not be identified as the black buddy. He should just be the friend.

Everybody knows I admire Avatar: that last Airbender for it's treatment of cultures and handicaps. Most chracters come from different ethnic groups and two influencial characters are handicaped (one blind - Toph - who became a talented earthbender in part thanks to her blindness and a kid in a wheelchair fascinated by flight who is described to have true airbending spirit). Now these characters are not token characters. They flow with the story. Their ethnicity seems natural and after a while, you don't even notice all the details present (The way Toph moves, very caracteristic of blind people, or the details in all the costumes...) because it works so well. But then you watch things like the Fantastic Four movie where the originally (white) token blind character Alicia Masters as also been turned black. She plays the role of two token positions? She really feels like she's been thrown in there to satisfy the public. It's the same with those lipstick lesbian characters thrown in a story.

A lipstick lesbian is a lesbian who is basically a straight girl who is into girls (and often times bisexual). Because a real lesbian is too scary for cinema? I realise that some lesbians in real life are lipstick lesbians in real life, but man. Most lesbians I see in the media seem really unrealistic. There is no relationship between them and their girlfriends. Just empty space for the viewer to go 'Oh, hot!'

So far, I created about 3 characters of a distinctive sexual orientation / ethnicity (one that most of you might know is Renge) and in the case of those characters, they flowed. Their difference worked with the story. They did not feel like Token characters. They were just characters.

I might be accused in the future of making stories with mostly white characters. But in all honesty, I'm a white suburban middle-class woman and most the people I know are white, suburban, middle-class people. I use what I know (or research the crap out of what I wish to use) because I don't want to risk creating Token characters. Because in all honesty, to me, throwing in a Token character seems like more of a flip-off then not including an ethnic character at all. I am from an ethnic group myself (french-canadian) and rude representation of French canadians in the media does irk me (though I realise stereotypes exist because someone somewhere fits it). I would hate for someone to feel that way when reading one of my works.

So, as a white female, I believe I should take a special care on wheter my character is a token character, or just a character. No matter what we say, we write what we know, and write what we don't know badly-to-good because all the research in the world doesn't beat experience. I find works like Avatar and Strangers in Paradise to be great miniroty representations, but I look at them with white girl eyes. So thay might actually be crazy offensive underneath and I would never know.

I guess that point i'm getting at is that characters have a part of ourselves in them so we have to be careful what part of us is there (hopefully not the really racist or misogynic part of us). We need more black authors, latino directors, Indian cartoon artist, working here in america, creating things that hold that true soul of what being what they are is. Not just a pale token shadow.

-Isa

p.s. I was really impressed by Avatar: the last Airbender, Strangers in Paradise (even if it is written by a guy and is a story about women), the webcomic Yu+Me dream, the webcomic Dreamless, the webcomic Something Positive and the comic Blankets for their treatments of religions and minorities.

Comments

[earthstar-moon.livejournal.com]

When thinking about stories, I have thought about trying to create more diversity, however, than I run into the same fear you do. I worry about accidentally writing stereotype characters or misrepresenting a minority group. (I recall that being one of the main complaints with the new Transformers movie.) I would want to do a lot of research before I would attempt it.