Tropes and the Marginalised

[sparkindarkness]

Tropes. Those lovely repeated little clichés we see in books, television and media in general over and over again. I won't say all tropes are bad - but when it comes to marginalised people, tropes have a specially unpleasant taste

Comments

[tinimaus]

Something I've been meaning to ask you: have you ever read China Mountain Zhang by Maureen F. McHugh? I could never quite make up my mind about her handling of the main character and his sexuality.

[sparkindarkness]

I haven't yet, I don't know the story. What genre is it?

[tinimaus]

It's a science fiction novel set in a future where America has been taken over by China in something called The Cleansing Wind Campaign. The protagonist after whom the book is named is an outsider for more than one reason - his hidden mixed racial background, his sexuality, his interests...
I just got a bit depressed because his main love-interest commits suicide. I mean, yes it makes sense in the framework of the repressive communist society in which the story is set, but by the end I was wondering if she'd only made Zhang gay to add conflict. Then I started wondering whether I wasn't too paranoid about these things since there were way more things going on with him than just that. Certainly the writing was to my liking, and there were many other good things to say about the book (I seem to remember that she got a ton of awards for this, her first, novel).
Unfortunately I've never had anyone I could discuss the book with to clarify things in my mind. I'll keep looking :-).