CoC in demand

[kattahj]

So, I started thinking about just how many CoCs are underrepresented in fandom, sometimes vastly so (*cough* Gus on Psych * cough*), and it became rather depressing - and then I started wondering about the ones that aren't underrepresented, and why that is.

At which point thelana made a very interesting post about that, among other things. Her example of

Comments

[thelana]

I'm not really an expert on many of these fandoms. My theory on race and popularity in fandom is that in a way it's a numbers game.

For example, having a lot of screentime gives you 10 points, being a main character gives you 10 points, being nerdy gives you 10 points, having slashy interaction gives you 20 points, being a nerd gives you 10 points, being hot gives you 10 points, being played by a good actor gives you 10 points, being black gives you -10 points, not being an smart gives you -5 points etc... plus of course factor X which can give you 100 points at random.

And once you cross a certain threshold of points then you are popular and get written for. And the question of racism comes in the form of arguing whether non-white gives you a malus of 5 points or 10 points or 50 points that the character has to overcome to be popular. Or that characters of color are less likely to receive the "factor X" bonus.

After all, Gus gets screentime, is smart, is nerdy, acts slashy, has important relationships, yet could still be written for more. Sisko was the lead character, got screentime aplenty, had important relationships with a variety of characters, was a strategist and not a brute, yet still wasn't written for.

[kattahj]

Yeah, that sounds reasonable - of course, working out the exact pointage of anything would be a headache. :-)

I think in a lot of cases, CoCs are given less gratifying roles to begin with, but there are also cases that baffle me a LOT because surely race couldn't be THAT big a hurdle?

[thelana]

I agree on all counts.

And yes, figuring out the exact numbers would be impossible because they are highly subjective and likely to be different for each person. I just bring them up to express in how I think race issues do exist in fandom. I think they might exist in the form of a certain malus when it comes to character popularity. The big question is how big is that malus.

And then there are issues that aren't race, but might be/are correlated with race (like: cocs being more likely to be written as physical or lower class; pocs being a minority hence it's less likely that cocs will get pivotal roles; or white people have certain issues writing cocs and since the writers who write the shows are white the cocs of have these flaws which are then again repeated and built on in the fandom etc) and that also have a negative influence.

[tiferet]

Do you think some of this is due to the fact that most fic is either slash or het, not gen, and there's a reluctance to write interracial pairings? Do you think CoC--especially black CoC--get written more when they can be paired together instead of with white people? Just wondering.

Relationships between black people and white people seem to be much more common in shows from the UK (Mickey/Rose, Ianto/Lisa, Martha/Doctor) than they are in shows from the US, where it used to be a huge taboo.

And I've always suspected racism to be behind the extreme hatred for the Dean/Cassie ship in SPN fandom. Always. She's the most hated female character in SPN and frankly she was only in one episode and while she did blow Dean off, so have other people. Bela (who is a huge bitch) gets less hate than Cassie.

[thelana]

Do you mean fic writers or show writers? I never got the impression that fic writers have any issues with writing interracial relationships. In fact, I would assume that other/other relationships would be harder to relate to by the average fan (if we assume that there is some sort of "It's slightly harder for me to relate to somebody who is/looks different" boundary or a "It's harder for me to write about somebody who is not like me" boundary).

Not to mention there are usually more white than that non-white characters (and white characters are more likely to get good roles), so usually picking a white partner seems like the more logical choice.

It seems that the COCs that are popular are usually paired up in interracial pairings in fandom (again, likely out of statistical reasons, or maybe really partly also of other/other being even harder for people to grasp).

Now on shows themselves, I think there is a bigger push for black characters to get paired with black characters from the black community itself, but I think that there's still plenty of mixed pairings if a character of color has a pairing at all (top of my head, New Adventures of Old Christine, white woman/black man, Weeds white woman/black man, LAX white woman/black man, Firefly black woman/white man, Bones white man/half-native American woman, Angel black man/white woman, Buffy black man/white woman and white girl/latina girl, Six Feet Under white man/black man).

[tiferet]

I mean fic writers, mostly because of the Dean/Cassie thing (I actually liked them together, even though I generally prefer Wincest to everything in SPN) and I've been stared at because I have said I wish anyone other than me saw John/Missouri (John/Ellen is preferred, but he seems to have been much closer to Missouri, I think.) Of course Missouri's also fat, and Ellen isn't. I keep meaning to write John/Missouri because I so totally believe in it but I never have the time!

I really also am thinking of more white/black as being what people are reluctant to do--but I have to admit of the fandoms you just named, the only ones I am into personally are Firefly and Weeds. (Omg I wish more people watched Weeds. Are there any good Weeds comms? So far I have mostly found comms where people I've never heard of who sound like they came from OuterMySpace talk about the show, no fic.)

[thelana]

I can't speak for Supernatural because I don't really watch the show or deeply follow the fandom. (just like Weeds I really mostly know the fandom via the squee on my flist)

I do however think/know that I can think of a lot more white/non-white pairings that get written than non-white/non-white pairings that get written. Again which might have a lot to do with the lack of available non-white characters, but it seems to me that there really is a feeling of "one non-white is hard to write/get interested in, two would be even harder".

For example, SGA has Teyla and Ronon, they have a relationship where they interact, they could easily be based together (age-wise, power-wise), but even though many people claim to like their interaction both seem to be more frequently get written with other people, such as Rodney and John (the two main characters).

So here you would have the option of pairing to COCs with each other, but people seem to prefere COC/white popular white character.

Again, I'm no expert. I can't speak of the numbers of Hiro/Ando that gets written as opposed to Hiro/Others (and considering that they have the oldest interaction with each other and most of their interaction with each other I would expect them to have more from a purely technical level). The only other one I think of is Blade/Shen from Blade The Series but (a) there generally wasn't much fic in the first place and (b) neither of them interacted much with the other characters on a personal level.