Reading Characters as People
This may sound idealistic, but I often don't notice gender or racial interplay in characters from novels because I read them first as characters. I was taught at a pretty early age that people are pretty much the same deep down, even if they're influenced by gender, race, religion, and culture. This isn't to say that I ignore those parts of people's personalities (or that I'm entirely blind to stereotypes or my own faults in making assumptions about other people's backgrounds based on surface level observations). I'm not perfect, and I don't always live up to my own ideal. (Heck, I probably don't live up to it very often. But I do try.) But I think that being taught that all of those bits that affect who we are are ingredients in the mix rather than defining factors has made me a little dumb about noticing stereotypes in fiction.
For example, in urban fantasy there's apparently this whole "Men with Boobs" movement that happens in the female characters. The idea is that the characters are actually exhibiting entirely male characteristics, but are depicted as female--possibly inaccurately. Maybe I've just missed these books and really would have noticed, but I sort of doubt it. There can be female characters who are very masculine, and that doesn't bother me--any more than a particularly effeminate male character would throw me off. Because I don't think of characteristics as belonging particularly to one gender or another: males can be nurturing (the nurturer role in my novels is fulfilled by a male), and females can be take-charge-and-head-into-danger.
Recently, though, Rob Schmidt of Newspaper Rock and Blue Corn Comics has gotten me thinking more and more about racial stereotyping in fiction. He deals predominantly with Native American stereotypes in pop culture, and he does a great job of pointing out why some things are bad. For example, a character who is Native American who is spiritual is not bad. But if all of the Native Americans are portrayed as spiritual, then that's buying into the New Age idea of the noble environmentalist--denying the characters the right to be people outside of their surface-level definition.
The reason I've been thinking about this in particular tonight is that I just finished Kitty Takes a Holiday by Carrie Vaughn. (I'm in the middle of five other books, many of them associated with needing to be reviewed, but I forgot to take a novel with me when I went into the City yesterday and a friend loaned it to me for the train ride home. What can I say? They're quick reads.) So Kitty is not what I would call a Man with Boobs. She's got attitude, sure, but as a werewolf, she's got a huge fight or flight instinct going on. A lot of the time, flight is wolf's preferred option, and often, Kitty has to remind herself that she's human and doesn't have to do either. That dynamic, to me, makes Kitty seem like a fully fleshed character, a person with great insight and empathy, and a woman who isn't sure who to love or how to do so. (In the last, she's defined more by her sexual preference than her actual gender, I think, but again, I'm not the best at this type of analysis.) There are some very strong men who appear in the series, seemingly one dimensional and mysterious (Cormac the Werewolf Hunter is number one on this list--even with the depth of his past, he reeks of alpha male, which is ironic since he's not a wolf). But there are also some nurturers among the men of the cast (T. J., Kitty's best friend), some men who realize that they have weaknesses and need help (Ben, particularly in Kitty Takes a Holiday), and some men who are there to back Kitty to the hilt, even if they're geeky radio guys (Matt). I think Carrie Vaughn has built a lot of fully fleshed characters who have their own motivations for why they act the way they act--which don't appear to be based on gender.
In Kitty Takes a Holiday, Vaughn introduces the legend of "skinwalkers," using primarily Navajo tales as a basis and depicting most of the "skinwalker" action as Navajo. (She also intermixes the words curandera and bruja, borrowing from traditions originating farther to the south.) And since I've been reading a lot of Newspaper Rock lately, I'm thinking in a more analytical fashion than I normally would. All of the Navajo characters encountered believe in skinwalkers--but so do the majority of the white people in the rural areas near Navajo country. The skinwalkers themselves are viewed as evil by almost everyone, which doesn't seem that far wrong to me, but I'd have to give it further research. For the purposes of the story, it's a pretty necessary conceit, so even if it's not accurate, since she's working in fantasy, she can borrow the myth and use it as makes sense in her cosmology. There's one Navajo character who practices (for lack of a better term) "good magic"--communicating with the dead and helping them along the path to the afterlife, generally using a sand painting and protective charms. The rest, in their short appearances, are generally superstitious--but in this case, that means actually knowing what's going on and knowing better than to talk about it and tempt more curses.
So the short of it, all in all, Vaughn seems to be treating her characters, even her minor ones, as characters rather than stereotypes, by my reading. I'd love to hear from other folks who've read the series on whether or not they felt the same, particularly those who might be pickier about the gender or race roles than I am. And I'd love to talk to Carrie Vaughn on why she decided to use the skinwalker legends in Kitty Takes a Holiday. Maybe I'll get her to do a guest blog.
I had a bunch of other topics I wanted to blog about this week, but I'm still trying to bang out the work that I wanted to be done before I left home to celebrate Christmas with my family. I'll get back to blogging more regularly in the new year.
For example, in urban fantasy there's apparently this whole "Men with Boobs" movement that happens in the female characters. The idea is that the characters are actually exhibiting entirely male characteristics, but are depicted as female--possibly inaccurately. Maybe I've just missed these books and really would have noticed, but I sort of doubt it. There can be female characters who are very masculine, and that doesn't bother me--any more than a particularly effeminate male character would throw me off. Because I don't think of characteristics as belonging particularly to one gender or another: males can be nurturing (the nurturer role in my novels is fulfilled by a male), and females can be take-charge-and-head-into-danger.
Recently, though, Rob Schmidt of Newspaper Rock and Blue Corn Comics has gotten me thinking more and more about racial stereotyping in fiction. He deals predominantly with Native American stereotypes in pop culture, and he does a great job of pointing out why some things are bad. For example, a character who is Native American who is spiritual is not bad. But if all of the Native Americans are portrayed as spiritual, then that's buying into the New Age idea of the noble environmentalist--denying the characters the right to be people outside of their surface-level definition.
The reason I've been thinking about this in particular tonight is that I just finished Kitty Takes a Holiday by Carrie Vaughn. (I'm in the middle of five other books, many of them associated with needing to be reviewed, but I forgot to take a novel with me when I went into the City yesterday and a friend loaned it to me for the train ride home. What can I say? They're quick reads.) So Kitty is not what I would call a Man with Boobs. She's got attitude, sure, but as a werewolf, she's got a huge fight or flight instinct going on. A lot of the time, flight is wolf's preferred option, and often, Kitty has to remind herself that she's human and doesn't have to do either. That dynamic, to me, makes Kitty seem like a fully fleshed character, a person with great insight and empathy, and a woman who isn't sure who to love or how to do so. (In the last, she's defined more by her sexual preference than her actual gender, I think, but again, I'm not the best at this type of analysis.) There are some very strong men who appear in the series, seemingly one dimensional and mysterious (Cormac the Werewolf Hunter is number one on this list--even with the depth of his past, he reeks of alpha male, which is ironic since he's not a wolf). But there are also some nurturers among the men of the cast (T. J., Kitty's best friend), some men who realize that they have weaknesses and need help (Ben, particularly in Kitty Takes a Holiday), and some men who are there to back Kitty to the hilt, even if they're geeky radio guys (Matt). I think Carrie Vaughn has built a lot of fully fleshed characters who have their own motivations for why they act the way they act--which don't appear to be based on gender.
In Kitty Takes a Holiday, Vaughn introduces the legend of "skinwalkers," using primarily Navajo tales as a basis and depicting most of the "skinwalker" action as Navajo. (She also intermixes the words curandera and bruja, borrowing from traditions originating farther to the south.) And since I've been reading a lot of Newspaper Rock lately, I'm thinking in a more analytical fashion than I normally would. All of the Navajo characters encountered believe in skinwalkers--but so do the majority of the white people in the rural areas near Navajo country. The skinwalkers themselves are viewed as evil by almost everyone, which doesn't seem that far wrong to me, but I'd have to give it further research. For the purposes of the story, it's a pretty necessary conceit, so even if it's not accurate, since she's working in fantasy, she can borrow the myth and use it as makes sense in her cosmology. There's one Navajo character who practices (for lack of a better term) "good magic"--communicating with the dead and helping them along the path to the afterlife, generally using a sand painting and protective charms. The rest, in their short appearances, are generally superstitious--but in this case, that means actually knowing what's going on and knowing better than to talk about it and tempt more curses.
So the short of it, all in all, Vaughn seems to be treating her characters, even her minor ones, as characters rather than stereotypes, by my reading. I'd love to hear from other folks who've read the series on whether or not they felt the same, particularly those who might be pickier about the gender or race roles than I am. And I'd love to talk to Carrie Vaughn on why she decided to use the skinwalker legends in Kitty Takes a Holiday. Maybe I'll get her to do a guest blog.
I had a bunch of other topics I wanted to blog about this week, but I'm still trying to bang out the work that I wanted to be done before I left home to celebrate Christmas with my family. I'll get back to blogging more regularly in the new year.