![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shamelessly_mkplikearumchocolatesouffle:
I have kind of a weird question. I promise I’m not being passive aggressive or accusing anyone of anything. I’m legitimately wondering. If you’re a feminist and you have issues with movies with an unrealistic lack of female characters, and you also like writing fanfic about queer men, do you ever find yourself accidentally lacking female characters in your fanfic?
It’s one thing if it’s a tiny little scene with only two characters. But if they interact with other people, do you find yourself wondering if there are ways you can insert more women? Maybe there are two guys starting a relationship, and they both have exes who are all men, one has a best friend who is also a man, one has an important and/or troubling relationship with his father who is also a man, etc. So maybe you can switch out the male best friend for a female one, or find ways to have the guy have conversations with his female coworkers, or include his stepmother in the scenes with his father…
But you’ve already got the conversation with the father mostly planned out, and it would probably look obvious that there wasn’t much for the stepmother to do, which might be even worse. And if you switch Elliott for Rachel, you don’t get to include Elliott, who is awesome. And if you add in a bunch of workplace scenes, this whole thing is starting to look like work, and it’s only fanfic, so what does it matter?
Does any of this make sense? Basically how do you balance social responsibility with having a relaxing fun hobby you don’t have to think too much about?
I’m not sure, myself. It’s something I struggle with myself, although in fic I tend to just let myself not worry about it too much, especially since my fics tend to be so very ~focused~, for lack of a better word, on just the main characters and their relationship.
I try harder in my original fiction to deliberately include more diversity than originally occurs to me (which is not quite the same as what you’re talking about here but I think the core ethical question is the same) but also find myself worrying that trying too hard comes across as trying to fulfill some sort of quota or something, and in its own way even worse than not trying at all, since it ends up being more like lip service than anything else.
I think we are lucky in Glee fandom that there are so many female characters, and that there are canonical deep friendships crossing gender lines, but it’s still a difficulty, as you say.
IDK; my feeling is that being aware of it is the most important thing, because you are at least looking for ways to increase female presence in your stories. I don’t think you should make fic work for yourself unless you really want to - fanfic is kind of by definition written for fun, and there’s a limited audience for you to affect.
One thing I might do if I were better at actually finishing fics is to deliberately every so often write a fic focused on a female character or on relationships with a female character, to even things out mentally.
and I mean, as far as Elliot versus Rachel goes, ¿por qué no los dos?
They’re very different friendships, but they’re both very important to Kurt; I think lots of people have more than just the one best friend.
And maybe it’s too contrived to add a female character to already planned scenes, but you could try adding them in spirit by having the POV character thinking of them / referencing them in thoughts and descriptions.
It’s not the same thing at all, to be sure, but it does reinforce the fact that women exist and are important parts of the main characters’ lives.
via:Tumblr http://ift.tt/1pITPk8
I have kind of a weird question. I promise I’m not being passive aggressive or accusing anyone of anything. I’m legitimately wondering. If you’re a feminist and you have issues with movies with an unrealistic lack of female characters, and you also like writing fanfic about queer men, do you ever find yourself accidentally lacking female characters in your fanfic?
It’s one thing if it’s a tiny little scene with only two characters. But if they interact with other people, do you find yourself wondering if there are ways you can insert more women? Maybe there are two guys starting a relationship, and they both have exes who are all men, one has a best friend who is also a man, one has an important and/or troubling relationship with his father who is also a man, etc. So maybe you can switch out the male best friend for a female one, or find ways to have the guy have conversations with his female coworkers, or include his stepmother in the scenes with his father…
But you’ve already got the conversation with the father mostly planned out, and it would probably look obvious that there wasn’t much for the stepmother to do, which might be even worse. And if you switch Elliott for Rachel, you don’t get to include Elliott, who is awesome. And if you add in a bunch of workplace scenes, this whole thing is starting to look like work, and it’s only fanfic, so what does it matter?
Does any of this make sense? Basically how do you balance social responsibility with having a relaxing fun hobby you don’t have to think too much about?
I’m not sure, myself. It’s something I struggle with myself, although in fic I tend to just let myself not worry about it too much, especially since my fics tend to be so very ~focused~, for lack of a better word, on just the main characters and their relationship.
I try harder in my original fiction to deliberately include more diversity than originally occurs to me (which is not quite the same as what you’re talking about here but I think the core ethical question is the same) but also find myself worrying that trying too hard comes across as trying to fulfill some sort of quota or something, and in its own way even worse than not trying at all, since it ends up being more like lip service than anything else.
I think we are lucky in Glee fandom that there are so many female characters, and that there are canonical deep friendships crossing gender lines, but it’s still a difficulty, as you say.
IDK; my feeling is that being aware of it is the most important thing, because you are at least looking for ways to increase female presence in your stories. I don’t think you should make fic work for yourself unless you really want to - fanfic is kind of by definition written for fun, and there’s a limited audience for you to affect.
One thing I might do if I were better at actually finishing fics is to deliberately every so often write a fic focused on a female character or on relationships with a female character, to even things out mentally.
and I mean, as far as Elliot versus Rachel goes, ¿por qué no los dos?
They’re very different friendships, but they’re both very important to Kurt; I think lots of people have more than just the one best friend.
And maybe it’s too contrived to add a female character to already planned scenes, but you could try adding them in spirit by having the POV character thinking of them / referencing them in thoughts and descriptions.
It’s not the same thing at all, to be sure, but it does reinforce the fact that women exist and are important parts of the main characters’ lives.
via:Tumblr http://ift.tt/1pITPk8
