on erasure
Like many of you reading this, I have been saddened & pissed off by the cluelessness at the heart of Patricia Wrede's The Thirteenth Child (described in many places as "Little House on the Prairie, only with mammoths, and magic!").
"The *plan* is for it to be a 'settling the frontier' book, only without Indians (because I really hate both the older Indians-as-savages viewpoint that was common in that sort of book, *and* the modern Indians-as-gentle-ecologists viewpoint that seems to be so popular lately, and this seems the best way of eliminating the problem, plus it'll let me play with all sorts of cool megafauna). I'm not looking for wildly divergent history, because if it goes too far afield I won't get the right feel".
Great! And while you're at it, why not write a book about an alternate 20th century "Germandy", full of happy, blonde, magical "Xhristians", and sidestep the whole issue of how to integrate Jews into your story by just pretending they never existed! Who could object to that?
Which sort of brings me to Hetalia: Axis Powers. For any of you lucky enough not to have to sit through my capslocks and exclamations about it a few weeks ago, it's a manga in which various countries of the 20th century (mostly from Europe, but also some from Asia and the Americas and a few from Africa) are represented by adorable young characters (mostly male, but it turns out there are a few girls as well), who frolic their way through some cute political satire.
I am simultaneously appalled and delighted by this manga. Why delighted? Because for once, my people are not erased. It is true that my skin crawls and I can hear my grandparents rolling over in their graves every time I read someone gushing about how cute a Russia/Latvia romance would be. But still, Latvia's there! We're canon, for the very first time in pop culture history! (Okay, the first time in pop culture history that actually had some visibility, albeit underground, in the U.S. Eurovision doesn't count... although if Eurovision suddenly becomes trendy, someone will tell me, right?) We have a voice in the story, and if I wanted, I could write awesome, elaborate fanfic revenge fantasies against Prussia and Russia. I could give them chibi payback for centuries of feudal servitude and decades of slaughter and cultural destruction.
But you know who can't do that? The Jews of Europe. They have no voice in this manga, despite the fact that it should be impossible for any sane person to think about the political history of mid-20th century Europe without thinking about Jews. But they've been erased here. Would the inclusion of a character representing European Jewry cause the specter of the Holocaust to hang over the whole manga to such an extent that no one could have any more happy fun times? If so, then no one should be having any fun NOW. (Personally, I've satisfied my craving for cute Latvia fanart and won't be exploring Hetalia further, unless Jews are de-erased in canon. Obviously this dilemma could be handled in other ways, including creating fanworks that fix the source, but this is the decision that feels right for me right now.)
Hey, you know what else should be impossible for sane people to do? Think about the American Frontier, without thinking about Native Americans. And if the inclusion of Native Americans in your work of art causes the specter of genocide to hang over your story to such an extent that no one can have any more happy fun times? then maybe there's something wrong with the kind of fun you're having now.
And for everyone who's saying things like "But all of *humanity* was erased in Story X, and I didn't take it personally!" please don't tell me that you can't understand the difference between a fictional erasure that has no parallel in reality, and a fictional erasure that comes on the heels of centuries of attempted physical and cultural erasure IN REAL LIFE.
This entry was originally posted at http://loligo.dreamwidth.org/368830.html.
comments on that entry. Please comment there using OpenID.
"The *plan* is for it to be a 'settling the frontier' book, only without Indians (because I really hate both the older Indians-as-savages viewpoint that was common in that sort of book, *and* the modern Indians-as-gentle-ecologists viewpoint that seems to be so popular lately, and this seems the best way of eliminating the problem, plus it'll let me play with all sorts of cool megafauna). I'm not looking for wildly divergent history, because if it goes too far afield I won't get the right feel".
Great! And while you're at it, why not write a book about an alternate 20th century "Germandy", full of happy, blonde, magical "Xhristians", and sidestep the whole issue of how to integrate Jews into your story by just pretending they never existed! Who could object to that?
Which sort of brings me to Hetalia: Axis Powers. For any of you lucky enough not to have to sit through my capslocks and exclamations about it a few weeks ago, it's a manga in which various countries of the 20th century (mostly from Europe, but also some from Asia and the Americas and a few from Africa) are represented by adorable young characters (mostly male, but it turns out there are a few girls as well), who frolic their way through some cute political satire.
I am simultaneously appalled and delighted by this manga. Why delighted? Because for once, my people are not erased. It is true that my skin crawls and I can hear my grandparents rolling over in their graves every time I read someone gushing about how cute a Russia/Latvia romance would be. But still, Latvia's there! We're canon, for the very first time in pop culture history! (Okay, the first time in pop culture history that actually had some visibility, albeit underground, in the U.S. Eurovision doesn't count... although if Eurovision suddenly becomes trendy, someone will tell me, right?) We have a voice in the story, and if I wanted, I could write awesome, elaborate fanfic revenge fantasies against Prussia and Russia. I could give them chibi payback for centuries of feudal servitude and decades of slaughter and cultural destruction.
But you know who can't do that? The Jews of Europe. They have no voice in this manga, despite the fact that it should be impossible for any sane person to think about the political history of mid-20th century Europe without thinking about Jews. But they've been erased here. Would the inclusion of a character representing European Jewry cause the specter of the Holocaust to hang over the whole manga to such an extent that no one could have any more happy fun times? If so, then no one should be having any fun NOW. (Personally, I've satisfied my craving for cute Latvia fanart and won't be exploring Hetalia further, unless Jews are de-erased in canon. Obviously this dilemma could be handled in other ways, including creating fanworks that fix the source, but this is the decision that feels right for me right now.)
Hey, you know what else should be impossible for sane people to do? Think about the American Frontier, without thinking about Native Americans. And if the inclusion of Native Americans in your work of art causes the specter of genocide to hang over your story to such an extent that no one can have any more happy fun times? then maybe there's something wrong with the kind of fun you're having now.
And for everyone who's saying things like "But all of *humanity* was erased in Story X, and I didn't take it personally!" please don't tell me that you can't understand the difference between a fictional erasure that has no parallel in reality, and a fictional erasure that comes on the heels of centuries of attempted physical and cultural erasure IN REAL LIFE.
This entry was originally posted at http://loligo.dreamwidth.org/368830.html.
comments on that entry. Please comment there using OpenID.