like clockwork.
So, a SPN Big Bang author, gatorgrrrl, thought it would be "the best idea ever" to write a RPS story that takes place in present-day Haiti, in the aftermath of the earthquake. From the summary and the excerpts I've read, it fits into a long history of such fiction, especially in film, as gabby_silang points out.
[ETA 6/16/10: The author has locked her story and removed her original apology. I've removed those links since they don't work. Her new apology is here. I'm not sure it improves on the original.The unfunnybusiness post is here, perhaps there will be screencaps.]
What I'm writing has probably already been said many times over by people much more knowledgeable. I am a little unsure about adding to the list of posts, but... I feel like fandom needs to keep talking about this every damn time, as widely as possible, because after the discussions of similar issues that took place during and since RaceFail09, it's depressing that this stuff keeps happening. Like clockwork. From novella-length Big Bang fics to commentfics. And maybe the more people who talk about it, the more new people will read and think about it, and maybe someday we'll get to the point where this kind of thing is unacceptable to the majority of fandom. One can hope.
Every time it happens, and every time it's called out, there's a chorus of strawman arguments as to why it shouldn't be discussed, or why it's not so bad because the author didn't intend to do any harm, or why it's worse or more hurtful to call out a story's racism than it is to, you know, post a story that's mired in racist tropes, or why since it's just fiction we shouldn't take it so seriously. Etc.
But it's important to tease out why these fics need to be called out.
In this case the author has apologized, but it appears that while she grasped that her premise was a problem, she has not grasped that the content was equally (if not more) problematic. And the premise and the content are problematic in slightly different but related ways. Because if you're ignorant enough to watch the news coming out of Haiti as it's happening and find the devastation inspiring for your slash fic, chances are even if you do a little research you're going to be approaching the subject matter in an equally ignorant way when you sit down to write. It's not necessarily a rule that this will happen; but it seems pretty damn likely. Because if you're giving so little consideration to the actual people who have lived and died in the Haitian earthquake as to use their stories as a mere backdrop for a love story between two white dudes, the chances that you will then craft nuanced, non-stereotyped Haitian characters are pretty damn slim.
And judging from excerpts , the author might as well have filled out a bingo card of shallow racist tropes when writing her secondary characters. The one that stood out for me was describing the Haitians speaking their own language as "gibbering" and "jabbering," because of the utter lack of respect it shows the culture -- those words are usually used in a derogatory manner. Someone you don't want to listen to "jabbers on." And to say that someone is "gibbering" is to say that what they are speaking is gibberish -- meaningless, without intelligence.
I attempted to read the story in order to not just depend on the excerpts posted and frankly, after I got to the part detailed in this comment, I couldn't face reading much more.
Little details of description and word choice like this can quickly add up to an ugly picture. These are not random poor choices of phrasing, but patterns of ignorance and stereotyping.
Deciding to use this premise depends a great deal on the author seeing what happened (is happening) in Haiti as not real. Especially in this example, the ongoing struggle of real people in Haiti becomes interchangeable with a Martian AU, or Middle Earth, or some other place the author (and many of the readers) feel distant from. That distance is necessary in order to think the events are available to be co-opted for fiction. And therefore, the fictional Haitian people she writes about become just as distant, become unreal, become footnotes to their own story. And when that happens, its all too easy to fall back on ignorant stereotypes. To not think of them as individual people, but as archetypes seen over and over through the filter of the media we consume (at least in the US).
Which is why I can't take seriously the arguments that "it's just fiction, what's the big deal."
The way we write, what we choose to write about, the words we choose, have impact. What we choose to read has impact too. It's insidious. It can plant and reinforce these unquestioned stereotypes in our minds about the way the world is. There's an entire orchestra's worth of fiction (and non-fiction, for that matter) forwarding these racist ideas, ideas that if you're white and privileged, like I am, it's easier to accept than question. And boy howdy, how I just accepted this shit for years and years. And probably still do in ways I don't catch.
It might not seem like it right now to the author of the story, or to the fandom even, but comparatively, out in the wider world, the voices calling these ideas out are like a whisper in the back of the auditorium. One that's all too easy to tune out or never hear at all if one is privileged enough, one that gets drowned out every day by that orchestra of media.
So. If you'll forgive the terrible metaphor, in an attempt to add a little volume, please check out the post by amazonziti, who has been collecting links about this topic as it unfolds.
[ETA 6/16/10: The author has locked her story and removed her original apology. I've removed those links since they don't work. Her new apology is here. I'm not sure it improves on the original.The unfunnybusiness post is here, perhaps there will be screencaps.]
What I'm writing has probably already been said many times over by people much more knowledgeable. I am a little unsure about adding to the list of posts, but... I feel like fandom needs to keep talking about this every damn time, as widely as possible, because after the discussions of similar issues that took place during and since RaceFail09, it's depressing that this stuff keeps happening. Like clockwork. From novella-length Big Bang fics to commentfics. And maybe the more people who talk about it, the more new people will read and think about it, and maybe someday we'll get to the point where this kind of thing is unacceptable to the majority of fandom. One can hope.
Every time it happens, and every time it's called out, there's a chorus of strawman arguments as to why it shouldn't be discussed, or why it's not so bad because the author didn't intend to do any harm, or why it's worse or more hurtful to call out a story's racism than it is to, you know, post a story that's mired in racist tropes, or why since it's just fiction we shouldn't take it so seriously. Etc.
But it's important to tease out why these fics need to be called out.
In this case the author has apologized, but it appears that while she grasped that her premise was a problem, she has not grasped that the content was equally (if not more) problematic. And the premise and the content are problematic in slightly different but related ways. Because if you're ignorant enough to watch the news coming out of Haiti as it's happening and find the devastation inspiring for your slash fic, chances are even if you do a little research you're going to be approaching the subject matter in an equally ignorant way when you sit down to write. It's not necessarily a rule that this will happen; but it seems pretty damn likely. Because if you're giving so little consideration to the actual people who have lived and died in the Haitian earthquake as to use their stories as a mere backdrop for a love story between two white dudes, the chances that you will then craft nuanced, non-stereotyped Haitian characters are pretty damn slim.
And judging from excerpts , the author might as well have filled out a bingo card of shallow racist tropes when writing her secondary characters. The one that stood out for me was describing the Haitians speaking their own language as "gibbering" and "jabbering," because of the utter lack of respect it shows the culture -- those words are usually used in a derogatory manner. Someone you don't want to listen to "jabbers on." And to say that someone is "gibbering" is to say that what they are speaking is gibberish -- meaningless, without intelligence.
I attempted to read the story in order to not just depend on the excerpts posted and frankly, after I got to the part detailed in this comment, I couldn't face reading much more.
Little details of description and word choice like this can quickly add up to an ugly picture. These are not random poor choices of phrasing, but patterns of ignorance and stereotyping.
Deciding to use this premise depends a great deal on the author seeing what happened (is happening) in Haiti as not real. Especially in this example, the ongoing struggle of real people in Haiti becomes interchangeable with a Martian AU, or Middle Earth, or some other place the author (and many of the readers) feel distant from. That distance is necessary in order to think the events are available to be co-opted for fiction. And therefore, the fictional Haitian people she writes about become just as distant, become unreal, become footnotes to their own story. And when that happens, its all too easy to fall back on ignorant stereotypes. To not think of them as individual people, but as archetypes seen over and over through the filter of the media we consume (at least in the US).
Which is why I can't take seriously the arguments that "it's just fiction, what's the big deal."
The way we write, what we choose to write about, the words we choose, have impact. What we choose to read has impact too. It's insidious. It can plant and reinforce these unquestioned stereotypes in our minds about the way the world is. There's an entire orchestra's worth of fiction (and non-fiction, for that matter) forwarding these racist ideas, ideas that if you're white and privileged, like I am, it's easier to accept than question. And boy howdy, how I just accepted this shit for years and years. And probably still do in ways I don't catch.
It might not seem like it right now to the author of the story, or to the fandom even, but comparatively, out in the wider world, the voices calling these ideas out are like a whisper in the back of the auditorium. One that's all too easy to tune out or never hear at all if one is privileged enough, one that gets drowned out every day by that orchestra of media.
So. If you'll forgive the terrible metaphor, in an attempt to add a little volume, please check out the post by amazonziti, who has been collecting links about this topic as it unfolds.