Honestly, I don’t think that the 5% estimate can be considered accurate. You have to take into consideration that, until this century (and still, in some parts of the world), being queer is a crime. Same gender relationships weren’t legalized through the U.S. until 2003. That’s, what? Barely over a decade ago. Hell, even now, queer people are being rounded up and put in concentration camps in Russia. Of course it seems like we’re such a minority. Because for a great deal of us, we can’t be out and proud. It is dangerous for people to think we’re anything but straight.
Also, in the same vein, queer people tend to group together. It’s not strange to find many gay or bi transgender people as a friend group. We can be out around each other, and so we seek out each other’s company.
My main aim really is to make my characters well developed and (preferably) likeable in some way, not so much ‘believable’ since that may be somewhat subjective and also because at least half of them have magic powers. So yeah, I do intend to have more to them than their gender/sexuality/race, but I’m also aware that there are people who will dismiss it for just ‘typical SJW propaganda’
This is just a personal project done for fun, but I feel like personal projects like this, especially when shared on a public space like this, require a lot of emotional labor especially as a queer person of color. It seems like there’s a bit of an expectation that if a creative project involves lgbt characters or characters of color it MUST involve themes of oppression, if not revolve around it entirely, or it must have some sort of moral or something to it. Both make it feel like queer people and POC need some sort of special purpose to even exist and, frankly, its pretty exhausting
While it’s important narratives about struggles such as those, this current project won’t really involve them. I feel like that’s just a bit too personal for me to be comfortable with including it in this type of medium. I dunno, I just want lgbt characters and characters of color to be able to exist without being treated like they’re just there to filll some sort of quota?
Also, I highly doubt the “only 5% of the population is lgbt” because there’s a million factors to it likely being wrong, like internalized homophobia, compulsory heterosexuality, simple lack of information, etc
Exactly this! Minorities off all kind exist in the real world, so why can’t we exist in fiction, as well? There doesn’t have to be a reason. We can just be. Unless you approach real world minorities and ask them, “Why are you black? What’s the reason?” there’s no need to question it in fiction.
Interesting; I don’t sense that expectation within this community or the IF market in general. Character development means they are individuals with qualities of individuals, good and bad. Maybe I am blind but the characters I develop for stories are always individuals first and labels second or not at all (if I successfully develop them).
In any case, I feel a bit of sadness that you feel this expectation.
@anon86661845, thanks for the explanation I think that’s a great way to write too, and I wish you all the success with it.
That’s why I’m inclined to think the higher percentages on polls of millenials are likely to be more accurate… though even those could be underreported. It’s so hard to tell…
And a lot of people could just be in denial… I was, until the end of high school… so even if someone’s telling what they think is the truth, it might not be accurate reporting.
Especially given that people don’t generally question the existence of heterosexual cisgender white characters. If stories about those people don’t need to revolve around their white hetero “lifestyle” then LGBTQ people should be extended the same opportunity.
In my experience, not speaking for anyone else, I’d say it mostly seems an expectation in terms of what stories are being portrayed in mainstream media The fact that most LGBTQ stories I see are about being LGBTQ creates an expectation that that’s how they should be even if it’s not explicitly stated (though I have heard people explicitly say that any minority identity must be justified specifically.)
I’m newer to IF so I don’t see it so much here, though there has been an appearance here and there (luckily more in the app store reviews and less so on the actual forum) but I feel like it’s pretty prevalent in creative work on general, both fanmade content and original content and recently people have started to become a lot more vocal about it
I feel like there’s a lot of entitlement to not only not one creators’ work but also their personal lives as well? I follow a lot of mainly artists who are lgbt and/or poc and they get a lot of questions like ‘why do you draw so much gay stuff’, ‘why did you make that character that race’, ‘why don’t you talk more about (subject that artist has personal trauma with)’, etc etc and it’s really frustrating since it’s not like they owe anyone their entire life stories or anything
I see. I come from a gaming background more then anything. Struggle to represent and have representation beyond the angst-filled teenage white guy has been a part of my whole life since junior high school; often to participate in gaming, I had to hide who I was.
I guess that is why I approach things differently then many who I interact with in settings as diverse as the big conventions to local tournaments they used to have for various games. Even when talking to representatives over and over about the same issues, I’ve just dealt with “it” - whatever “it” is.
I keep saying I guess but all that above has led me to write the way I do; it is through my writing I show a better way of both representation and being represented.
You know why IF is great? Because it allows a person to be who they are, without having to hide anything. And that’s why acceptance of the existence of LGBT is important in these stories. It doesn’t mean that one must provide an unrealistic portrayal of things, but rather, that in the game, it should be possible to change the preconceptions of NPCs through your decisions. And their idea isn’t restricted to that is alone, but rather to a lot of issues where minorities of all types are marginalized.
I apologize if I offend. It is however the polite, politically correct term to use where I come from. Yes, it is about as sinister as it sounds that LGBT gets its own euphemism.
On your point that more works from the perspective of LGBT would be great, I concur. I was working under the notion that the OP meant to commercialize the work so I went with the safest option I could think of in that regard.
Well it is illegal to have gay sex in my country too so I can relate. That is why I said “commonly reported” as it is the best statistic anyone has. I agree that it is likely underreported but as of yet, nobody has any solid idea to what extent.
This topic has gotten me thinking about representation and the sometimes cancerous ways left leaning individuals and groups go about it. Mainly about the right ways and wrong ways it can be done. For examples of the former, I like to point to shows like Steven Universe and Static Shock. These two are fairly popular shows aimed at kids that are nonetheless enjoyed by adults and they both feature casts with a plethora of minorities. Why they work is rather simple. They make their characters people, with flaws that make them more human, quirks that make them enjoyable to watch, and minor habits that make them feel more real. Another thing, however, that I feel many other shows trying to be “diverse” miss is that they don’t constantly try to point out how “diverse” they are. This doesn’t mean they completely ignore racial issues and the like. Static Shock dealt with this on occasion and yet it still worked. That’s because they created scenarios where it made narrative sense and it not come across as preachy.
An example of a wrong way to handle representation would be Marvel’s comics. Where to start with Marvel. Marvel’s problem lies in the fact that it is the exact opposite of the examples I listed above. It wears it’s ideology on it’s sleeves and oft does it in the most cringey way it can. It’s “diverse” characters tend to be bland and utterly devoid of any real character beyond just being so gosh darn good at being a hero! Which is a shame because minority heroes have been in comics for a while and can be really, really good. But what Marvel forgets is that your material can’t be Social Issues with characters and plot in the background. That’s just propaganda.
Since I still like to think Kinsey was (mostly) right when it comes to the true nature of human sexuality, millennials are likely to be merely less under-reported when it comes to their sexuality then to be reported entirely accurate.
Even a lot of people here aren’t quite (entirely) “out” and open in the real-world either.
I think the term you’re looking for is “tokenism”, and it tends to happen when creators want to be “diverse” by adding a token member of a marginalised group to their cast. However, since they want to avoid any sort of unfortunate implications in their portrayal of that group (by playing into negative stereotypes), they end up creating unrealistic characters in an attempt to avoid all the potholes.
The obvious solution is simply to add more characters from that group. Have them vary in their personalities, mindsets, and flaws. Have one black character who’s a petty criminal, and you’re playing into a negative stereotype because that’s the only example of a black person in your world. Add a black person who owns a pizza restaurant, and another who’s a judge, and you avoid that pothole by showing you understand that groups of people are not defined by their stereotypes, but that individuals are defined by their flaws and personalities.
Or just have the pizza restaurant owner gradually turn (petty) criminal once his pizza business starts failing.It further depends on how big your main cast is if it’s a start of darkness story then the most successful example in recent history: Breaking Bad really had only two main characters who featured consistently throughout the entire show. Making even one of them black or Asian would have given a 50% minority ratio on the main cast. Just have them interact with a realistically diverse world. Featuring both black cops who may be a little too trigger-happy too as well as the more “stereotypical” black victims of mass incarceration and police brutality could already go a long way if done well.
Still cringworthy as minority tokenism can be in Hollywood white gay guys are handled just as badly, or worse.
I don’t like the idea of segregating a cast into “main” and “background” characters, so for me, a “realistically diverse world” and “multiple characters of a certain group” are one and the same.
Hollywood does and for once does so by necessity I think, it’s just a fact that not every character is as critically important to the plot or as detailed. The store clerk might be no more detailed than that he’s balding, middle-aged and has the bad habit of picking his nose.
It’s probably a testament to how bad Hollywood (and TV) is at this that even “realistically diverse worlds” are pretty rare. Major cities which are pretty cosmopolitan in real life tend to show up as rather monochrome (unless you need an ethnic stereotype inserted, of course).
God I know for working in New York for two years you constantly running into people from all over the world it’s natural as the air we breathe. Least in Manhattan. It’s funny how a lot of the different restaurants at work that in the last few years I was always there “token” white guy. Between bartending at a lot of banquet serving jobs as well. In the first restaurant ever really worked at was Thai Malaysian Fusion place. Even in the military with my unit it was a pretty even spread between South Pacific Asians particular it a lot of people from the Philippines in my unit, will healthy amount of Latin Americans. The final quarter with white guys the majority of them were Italian for some reason. There were three fellows of African American descent and two Jews. Mind you my company was small and not counting the admin we probably had 150-190 between the line platoons and the weapons platoon.
I just found this article on twitter that kind of really spells out how I feel about being a person of color who does any type of creative work, though my gender affects it differently since I’m a trans man and not a woman. I’ve seen a lot of really talented women of color work really hard on what they do only to get a lot less attention and more (often not very constructive) criticism than white and/or male creators
Thank you for the article, it’s a really telling piece and it’s put together incredibly well. I’ll have to look and find a more diverse range of authors, because it’s a real shame that a terribly written blase piece of anything gets more credit because it’s written by whites.
I wasn’t offended I could see that you didn’t have any hurtful intentions in what you were saying. But, because of the problems with the phrase, I felt it’d be important to bring it to attention. I’m glad to see you responding as you did… it’s a good point about it being used as a euphemism as well.
Sadly, it’s probably true that that’s the most commercial option. So that’s a bit of a dilemma for an author… myself, I’m all for trying to write more LGBT perspectives in such a way that it’ll become more mainstream in the media, and I do think it is becoming more normal, but there’s still a lot to do…[quote=“Ryuu, post:112, topic:27535”]
“diverse” characters tend to be bland and utterly devoid of any real character beyond just being so gosh darn good at being a hero!
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This is something I’ve generally seen criticized from the left… at least, from people advocating diversity and inclusion. It’s not really inclusive if minority characters aren’t treated with the same quality of characterization and the same level of interesting personalities as the majority characters are. (Same applies to women, whom a lot of authors seem to think are a numerical minority )
I think that’s a great way to write too, and I wish you all the success with it.
The fact that most LGBTQ stories I see are about being LGBTQ creates an expectation that that’s how they should be even if it’s not explicitly stated (though I have heard people explicitly say that any minority identity must be justified specifically.)
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