Do you worry about Political Correctness ...

Amadan said:

I'm familiar with the "How to be a fan of problematic things" essay, but I'm not sure that chasm is really so wide. There are as many hyperbolic critics as there are defensive fans.

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Yes, the chasm is actually that wide. It's the difference between me critizing, say, Netflix's adaptation of Hemlock Grove with thoughtful crit and someone else being an ass about their crit by also insulting everyone who enjoys the show.

I may say, "I prefered season one to season two, although I like them both. Season one dealt more with Roma issues, though not nearly as much as it could have. Season two had that love triangle arch and threesome, which was nice, but certainly could have been done better."

Someone else might have issues with the show, but say it in a totally out of line way. IE. "Season one was too Roma centric, if they think viewers care about those issues then they're crazy. In fact, anyone who likes how Roma centric the season was is an idiot, and a slave to political correctness."

Another person may be in between us, in that the liked/disliked how Roma centric season one of the show was. But they may not like the love triangle or have an issue with something else in that season. There's nuance to these things, despite what you or other people may think.

I feel like we're miscommunicating, and also possibly derailing the thread, so let me try to bring it back together:

What I am arguing is that, in terms of the American mainstream art criticism scene, there really is not a particularly vibrant or active "PC" scene, and there hasn't been since the 90s; I don't know a single activist who would describe themselves as 'actively into being PC', and I know a lot of social justice activists. What there IS is a very large mainstream movement that critiques and analyzes popular works from a social justice perspective, which often means calling out elements that are sexist, racist, homophobic, etc, but that, as discussed, is very different from calling out the fans of these work or attempting to silence creators; criticism is not censorship. There is also a very large online audience that reacts to any article suggesting a work is problematic by accusing the author of advancing a PC agenda.

Does that make sense? I totally agree there are Internet lunatics and demagogues on every side of every issue, and many on issues I personally agree with (some probably think I'm one!). But what I am saying is that a tremendous amount of the conversation about PC this and PC that is actually a misinterpretation of legitimate art criticism. I'm saying, in response to the OP, that I wouldn't worry about being politically correct, but I also think it's important to consider how your work will be received, and to be open to criticisms, particularly from groups you don't belong to. That doesn't mean you have to *agree* with it. But I do think being willing to listen is important, even when you disagree, and labeling things "PC" is 99% of the time an attempt to shut down and discredit a perspective.

For me, joking between friends in a context of equality is very, very different from imposing such cliches and language on someone who is not in a position of equality, or simply someone we don't know.

I think something similar happens with books. The author has to earn our trust.

One way an author loses my trust (re gender issues, but others too) is if the stereotyped assumptions about what are appropriate and normal for men and women are presented as global facts and go unexamined.

Some women are as bothered, even more bothered, by these things than I am. Some aren't bothered at all by things I consider very sexist. I can't tell other women how they "should" feel based on my own experiences.

People often cry PC when someone points something out or asks that it at least be examined and considered.

To me, it matters whether a writer is coming at something from a place of goodwill. I enjoyed Lynn Flewelling's Tamir triad, but after talking to/reading comments by some people who are transgender, I think she probably got some things wrong about what it feels like to be trapped in body of the wrong gender. She missed an opportunity to explore that in more detail than she did.

I don't think the oversight came from a disdain for the feelings of transgender people or because she had a cisgenderist agenda she was pushing. But I can also understand why someone who is transgender might not enjoy the book. Especially given the lack of accurate and positive portrayals of transgender individuals in fantasy literature (or the media in general), it may scrape against issues that are too raw. I'm certainly not going to lecture other people that they're being too sensitive or "PC" if they can't get around they way this author handled this issue.

Jhaewyrmend said:

This is why I ask my question. I'm not asking for a way to justify making racist characters. I'm asking if when you as a writer create a character, how close to real life (generally speaking) do you make them?

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As close to real life as they need to be for the story I want to tell.

But I'd argue that all character traits can be said to be "real life" in that people fall along a spectrum. Some people fit at least some of the stereotypes associated with their culture, gender, religion, race, orientation or whatever, and of course some don't. One is no more realistic than the other in an individual sense.

When a stereotyped character becomes problematic to me is when he or she is presented as if the stereotypes were the overarching reality, and where no other characters are presented who don't fit those same stereotypes. Frex, in my own novel, one of the antagonists is a temple official who cynically uses religion to further his own ambitions.

Yes, this is a stereotype, but such people also exist. But given the nature of the story, I needed this character to be this way.

But I don't want readers to think I'm assuming that all religious people are like this, so I've tried to sneak in religious characters who are more sincere in their beliefs and to also show the more benign and neutral ways religion influences the lives of some of my characters.

lexxi said:

Speaking as a female reader ...

If I've picked up your book which I know has a male protagonist, and get to the end seeing that the female character needs to be rescued, I may make a mental tickmark that this book represents one more example of how common this trope is that disempowers female characters.

But I wouldn't hold it against your book or you personally, especially if the story in general is interesting, the male protagonist is engaging, and the female character is just as interesting in her own right as all the other not-protagonist characters, and not just a plot device. And is there only one female character in the whole book, or do the background characters represent a variety of sexes and ethnic backgrounds?

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There are a couple other female characters, but they're not core cast members. Given the setting and plot, I had trouble finding opportunities for adding more female characters without forcing them into the story (I did try, though).

The rest of the supporting cast is pretty diverse, since pirate crews themselves were - they'd take anyone no matter where they came from. So did the British Royal Navy, for that matter.

veinglory said:

I am concerned about being a jerk, being a jerk is a bad thing. That is what PC is really about -- not being a jerk.

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Essentially this, and sometimes the writer doesn't even understand they're being a jerk, or just how bad what they've written will actually be received. In my NaNoWriMo group from a couple of years ago, there was a woman extraordinarily passionate about her Romeo and Juliet-esque story of interracial romance bringing together a racially divided poor neighborhood in Baltimore.

Bless her heart, but while every bone in her body was completely well-intentioned, her viewpoint was informed by her life experience as an affluent horse-trainer in northern Virginia. It made her depiction of the inner-city working poor of all races painfully awkward at the best. I don't know how much, 'Save the Pearls' has been gone over on this board, but that's another example where really good intentions did not stop things from going hilariously awry.

Stereotypes are like cliches - they're not automatically bad, but you have to examine why you're using them. You can have a native American character who's in touch with their spirituality and connected to the land, but if that's a default attribute you assign them every time one shows up in your narratives, that starts to be an issue. If you write a modern day story in Omaha, and have someone's full-blooded Sioux grandfather show up in buckskins with an eagle feather in his hair and that's all there is to him, being called out on political called on the political correctness of the character is not someone's attempt at censorship.

So, you're worried about people thinking it is "damsel in distress" territory?

Shall I tell you a story? (I am a writer after all!)

Once upon a midnight, I wrote a book. The same one as I mentioned up thread, with the not-so-enlightened guy. And there is a female secondary character, a quite important one with an arc of her own (though this is only described through the viewpoint of the first person guy, because he IS the only viewpoint)

Anyoldway. We get to the climax. Our emotionally scarred heroine faces her Worst Ever Fucking Nightmare (she comes face to face with the person who fucked her life, and the life of someone she cares very much about)

She has a little wibble* (who wouldn't?), very brief and then pulls herself together and lays the smack down. The POV character specifically says that she saved his life. She also saves another guy.

And I still got "damsel in distress" reviews. Because she had a moment of weakness before her moment of strength. Like, I dunnow, a real person or something.

So, whatever you do, even if you go out of your way for her not to be a damsel in distress, you may get damsel in distress reviews.

And that person who does the review is entitled to feel that way. It's their experience after all, and I can;t control all the other books they recently read, or their worldview or anything else. All I can control is my writing

As long as you are prepared for that and have done your best not to make her a special little delicate flower that needs rescuing because manly man stuff....if, after careful reflection you are sure you have done enough for most readers and ofc yourself, then you're good.

Because otherwise you'll end up writing nothing. Think, discuss, take things into consideration

Then write real people doing real things.

*Tbh the POV guy has a minor panic attack...

Mr Flibble said:

So, you're worried about people thinking it is "damsel in distress" territory?

Shall I tell you a story? (I am a writer after all!)

Once upon a midnight, I wrote a book. The same one as I mentioned up thread, with the not-so-enlightened guy. And there is a female secondary character, a quite important one with an arc of her own (though this is only described through the viewpoint of the first person guy, because he IS the only viewpoint)

Anyoldway. We get to the climax. Our emotionally scarred heroine faces her Worst Ever Fucking Nightmare (she comes face to face with the person who fucked her life, and the life of someone she cares very much about)

She has a little wibble* (who wouldn't?), very brief and then pulls herself together and lays the smack down. The POV character specifically says that she saved his life. She also saves another guy.

And I still got "damsel in distress" reviews. Because she had a moment of weakness before her moment of strength. Like, I dunnow, a real person or something.

So, whatever you do, even if you go out of your way for her not to be a damsel in distress, you may get damsel in distress reviews.

And that person who does the review is entitled to feel that way. It's their experience after all, and I can;t control all the other books they recently read, or their worldview or anything else. All I can control is my writing

As long as you are prepared for that and have done your best not to make her a special little delicate flower that needs rescuing because manly man stuff....if, after careful reflection you are sure you have done enough for most readers and ofc yourself, then you're good.

Because otherwise you'll end up writing nothing. Think, discuss, take things into consideration

Then write real people doing real things.

*Tbh the POV guy has a minor panic attack...

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Thanks for the perspective. I really do appreciate it.

And the leading lady is anything but a girly girl. The villain knows this - that's why he realizes that keeping her locked away in the same place as the hero (who's also a prisoner) is a bad idea because together, the two of them can (and do) royally screw over his plans.

There is nothing wrong with a girly girl You can be girly and a great character

The thinking that there is a problem with it...may be a problem

Write a person Girly, not girly. surly, sweet, impulsive, staid,whatever

Then make her female.
Do this with all your female characters -- make them as diverse as your male ones

You'll be good

Jhaewyrmend said:

What I am writing right now involves two people (two deeply flawed people with their own deeply held issues), and two people only for a whole third of the book and I'm inquiring about how to make them authentic people without it being unrealistic but at the same time not wanting to seem stereotypical. Yes, these two people are of different ethnicities, they don't like each other, or actually they've each heard office gossip / rumors about each other. They've been thrown into a cataclysmic event and are now dependent on one another. They either work together or die! Work together or die.

This is why I ask my question. I'm not asking for a way to justify making racist characters. I'm asking if when you as a writer create a character, how close to real life (generally speaking) do you make them?

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I don't write fiction so this isn't a problem I have to face, but I do read fiction and how closely to "real life" should fictional characters adhere to? Real enough for me to get lost in their story and buy into their world.

If the characterizations, dialogue and plot is cliched, hackneyed, trite, obvious, and all too pat, I'm not going to finish the book and resent the author for wasting my precious reading time (I haven't touched another Stephen King novel since he burnt me like toast with Cell).

Racist characters that seem real don't bother me. Racist characters that come off like bad cartoons do.

robjvargas said:

All true.

And yet...

I'm hispanic. Some of my friends in school called me spic. I called them honky. They bought me a sombrero. I bought them pliers to pull the rods out of...

Well... we joked and kidded and gave as good as we got. I think it was the adults who "taught" us that there was a hate to it that we'd never felt up to that point.

Sensitivity is fine. Fighting hatred is fine. It's just not *always* hatred.

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I have a group of friends, made up of both whites and POCs, that do similar things. They will say non-PC things in tongue in cheek ways. I don't join in because it's not my thing, but I catch the mockery in it. At times, though, I question whether those words reveal a hidden layer of their beliefs. I sit there listening and feeling conflicted, "Is this harmless, or is it harmful? Maybe I should take it to the internet, where me and my friends are anonymous!" Erm, but yeah.

More on topic. I do think about whether I'm portraying my characters in stereotypical and hackneyed ways. Lots of posts about diversity in writing have caused me to stop and really think, and have even spurred me to make changes that I think have improved the characters and their role in the story. I don't look at PC, as a whole, as limiting, but rather as encouraging originality and deep thought. Yes, some people do take it too far, and seem to rant just to rant, or even to stir up trouble, but those people I just wave off. I still read some of their posts, but often choose not to apply them. It's the rational people whose words I consider longer.

In my own draft, I constantly find myself thinking about things like how much my FMC's life and thoughts revolve around the MMC. Is it too much? Let's make it more reasonable. Let's give her other goals and interests, and other friends. Since the plot's stakes are dire, I should also make sure her downtime doesn't take over the main plot and the huge problems she has. Does she have her own agency, or are other people making all her decisions for her? Do people remind her to stay on track too much (with the stakes involved, she should have enough incentive on her own). And I have to do this while maintaining her personality. Likewise, since my MMC is black, I think about his portrayal, even down to his physical traits. One thing about him I realized could be construed as "problematic," but since he's well rounded and I have a reason for it, I've decided to keep it because it's always been how I conceived of his character. I also don't let his life revolve around the girl.

quicklime said:

to be fair, the bolded has also become a sort of straw-man cause celibre for folks who feel hampered by the fact "nigger an' faggit jokes" are no longer fashionable.

to some the idea you have some rudimentary responsibility not to be hurtful as fuck with your words is an undue and tragically newfangled burden, so the term gets thrown around a lot by folks who really have an issue with the idea that maybe we shouldn't call a girl a slut, or a hispanic guy a spic, or whatever else....


Which is why I tend to have a near-instinctive aversion to folks who bash political correctness as censorship and thought control. Run off the rails it can be, but it's rarely as bad as folks like to pretend it is in the quest for pity-points

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I agree.

I have a problem with racist characters, misogynists etc. if it's ideology that comes from the writer. I'll stop reading then and there. If it's the author exploring ideas or portraying characters with such traits among many others, I have no problem.

I don't worry about PC. I write what needs to be written, but I'm highly aware of stereotypes and usual ideas of minorities etc. I avoid them because I don't want to write about characters who are forced into a box (unless I do).

Conte Remo said:

I have a group of friends, made up of both whites and POCs, that do similar things. They will say non-PC things in tongue in cheek ways. I don't join in because it's not my thing, but I catch the mockery in it. At times, though, I question whether those words reveal a hidden layer of their beliefs. I sit there listening and feeling conflicted, "Is this harmless, or is it harmful? Maybe I should take it to the internet, where me and my friends are anonymous!" Erm, but yeah.

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I do this in real life, with my non-white friends, women, etc.

BUT I also test the waters, gently, and see what flies. If they are fine and know I am full of shit, I am fine. If not, I don't expect someone to simply suck it up or endure things they consider hurtful or hateful simply because "ain't nobody gonna make me PC."

That kind of insensitivity to others isn't being enlightened or unfettered by PC, it is just being a dick.

No, I don't worry about it at all. My fantasy characters are who they are. Some are kind, some not so kind, and some intentionally mean. Political correctness doesn't exist in their world.

I do worry. At least one of my characters is always deaf, and too many hearing readers have misconceptions about the deaf and hard-of-hearing.

I was born into a family with a deaf sibling and have been immersed in the deaf culture. After twenty years of progressively worsening hearing, I've been totally deaf 13 years.

Yet beta and other readers presume to tell me what's PC. For instance:

--I must capitalize the word deaf. What? Only those deafies who don't understand English would insist on such a bizarre thing.

--I should use the term "hearing impaired." God, we deafies generally despise the term. We're not impaired.

--sign language is universal, so why write about American Sign Language as if waving a flag? Actually, the A in ASL means the North American continent. Canadian, U.S., and Mexican signers usually use ASL.

--deaf people cannot talk. I'm late deafened, so I can (although I have volume control issues). Most deafies learn to speak in schools for the deaf. We tend to only do so around friends, 'cause we "sound funny."

--lipreading is easy, instantaneous, and 100% accurate. I love the movies where a speechreader eavesdrops across a football stadium with binoculars. The best of us can piece together with some delay what's being said by familiar friends 60 to 80%. That accuracy drops off sharply with strangers.

--any sign will do. When some realize I'm deaf, they instantly begin throwing thumbs-up into the air, as if it's the only thing I might understand. Actually, we do understand it as the number 10.

However, if I tell it like it is, I'm not being properly PC.

PandaMan said:

No, I don't worry about it at all. My fantasy characters are who they are. Some are kind, some not so kind, and some intentionally mean. Political correctness doesn't exist in their world.

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But it does in ours. There are plenty examples out there of people's who fantasy cultures are a rather insultingly serial-numbers-filed-off take of real world people, martial art fighting, mystic philosphy spouting not-Chinese. Just because they're not called that doesn't make the stereotypes that inspired them any less obvious.

I'm not sure how it's treated on this board and if bringing it up carries any sort of baggage, but the long-running Etc. of Gor fantasy series is a good example, with its consistent theme that women only achieve true happiness in total submission and servitude towards men.

Just because you've come up with your own completely fictional, internally justified setting doesn't make it any less problamatic if every female character you create can only be a damsel in distress or sex object. Changing the era of a book to the 1930s or 40s, or the 1850s, or whenever, doesn't allow you to escape being called out if you depict black characters as all being simple-minded, fried-watermelon-loving sneak -thieves, or whatever particular stereotype the narrative has that type of character automatically embody.

One that really gets under my skin is the tendency to depict the mentally handicapped as some sort of especially beatific, angelic archtype, instead of treating them like actual people.

In my historical comedy WIP one of the main characters is a Black slave. I definitely worry about the political correctness issue. I can't say it has influenced my decisions, but I do worry that some things could be taken the wrong way by a reader.

Thomas Vail said:

I'm not sure how it's treated on this board and if bringing it up carries any sort of baggage, but the long-running Etc. of Gor fantasy series

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We* treat it with much eyerolling, and as an example of how not to write fantasy if you want female readers.



*The Royal We -- though I've seen others have the same disdain for it as I do.

Have you seen the parody?

PC to me and most people I know has little or nothing to do with offensive words like the N-word. Even racists know that is wrong though they may still use it. PC is more about word taboos like the one Chase mentioned. Fat, for instance is out. Overweight is the preferred and even that is a bit gauche. Even gauche itself is frowned on, because it insinuates that left-handed people are awkward. And it goes on and on to the point where you're hesitant to say anything because someone will take offense. That's PC. Words like the N-word, etc are just a matter of common decency and most would agree that it makes good sense to discourage that sort of lingo. Definitely not a PC issue from what I have observed. So I don't believe convos about PC can be so easily dismissed. It's a valid topic for discussion. There are good sides to PC and bad. At times I wish it would go away; at others it seems like an okay thing.

Oh, the Gor series is way, way beyond the PC Event Horizon.

I'm pretty sure John Norman isn't too worried about attracting female readers.

msza45 said:

In my historical comedy WIP one of the main characters is a Black slave. I definitely worry about the political correctness issue. I can't say it has influenced my decisions, but I do worry that some things could be taken the wrong way by a reader.

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You're never going to write something that doesn't offend someone's sensibilities, or ticks someone off for someone reason, but the edge cases are never really going to matter anyways. It's when a lot of people start pointing out something that you might want to stop and take a second look at what you wrote.

Always be willing to question your assumptions is a good rule to follow. That's what was wrong with the story I mentioned up-thread, is that at no point in the writing process did the writer ever seem to stop and consider that maybe her assumptions about these people so unlike herself may have been misinformed, and then when brought to the writer's attention, she was still resistant to taking a second look.

So long as you're self-aware and willing to question your assumptions, having problems with 'political correctness' is not something that should trouble you all that much.

I really never worry about being PC, but I do focus on writing characters who feel real. Your subconscious biases are going to come up in your writing, especially in the first draft. I create cliché, characters all the time, and I catch myself doing it and that's when I try to dig a bit deeper and move past the stereotypes. But I don't do it because I want to be progressive or avoid offending anyone. I do it because it's really important to me that my characters are not two dimensional cut-outs, no matter what their race, sex, or orientation.

But trying to be deliberately PC? No, never. I'm not going to be able to write anything worthwhile if I'm trying to dance around what I think other people's expectations are.

Mr Flibble said:

We* treat it with much eyerolling, and as an example of how not to write fantasy if you want female readers.

*The Royal We -- though I've seen others have the same disdain for it as I do.

Have you seen the parody?

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This about sums up our (as in my) opinion on it too.

The Houseplants of Gor, on the other hand. That's a classic.

Ken said:

PC to me and most people I know has little or nothing to do with offensive words like the N-word. Even racists know that is wrong though they may still use it. PC is more about word taboos like the one Chase mentioned. Fat, for instance is out.

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Anyway, in spite of the notion that the "PC movement" has made a vast number of innocently meant words (besides overt racial slurs) off limits, I haven't noticed an absence of words like "fat" from any of the novels I've read recently. Nor have I seen a bevy of negative publicity levied against these novels for this reason. I'm sure some people don't like it, and some may even be critical or say they liked said book but wished the author had examined their views on body size more carefully or something. But that doesn't mean there's an organized movement to prevent the use of the word or to blacklist authors who use them.

Anyway, no word is taboo in fiction in all contexts. You can certainly have a character (or the narrative for that matter) uses a word in a questionable or insulting way because that's how the person talks or thinks, or how people in that time or place speak or think. But that's not the same as writing it so it seems like you're endorsing the underlying attitude or embrace the rancor behind it yourself.

I can write a story that takes place in a sexist society where women struggle, for instance, and often have to deal with sexism and misogyny, and insulting "politically incorrect" words and attitudes. I can even have many of my characters take such attitudes for granted to varying degrees. That doesn't mean I or my novel are sexist. When it becomes problematic is when this goes unexamined, or if the female characters are all portrayed as if they really were all the negative things people in their society thought about them, or if the sexism in this world is presented as if it were completely devoid of any negative consequences.