Help me, O Mighty LJ!
Jan. 28th, 2007 11:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ship_go_boomSo I qualify for an exemption from English 102 (Composition II). But I have to write a five-page research paper in order to get it.
Thursday afternoon, I finally came up with an idea (ie, something I actually wanted to research). Problem is, all I have for a starting point is bugger all and a pet theory. So I need help (please?).
My theory is that some of most noteworthy (or at least most common) discriminatory offenses (racism, sexism, etc.) in mass-market media entertainment are strongly correlated with attempts to alleviate accusations of same. Examples:
Sometime last fall (IIRC), there was a![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
metafandom kerfuffle about the lack of characters of color in fanfic. I don't remember how it started, but I remember that there were a lot of people who admitted to not writing characters of color because they were so afraid of Getting them Wrong. I didn't pay much attention to this phenomenon at the time, but I thought of it almost immediately when I started considering the next item.
I've recently encountered a lot of (justified, but sometimes overblown) complaints about sexism in comic books, many of them centering on Robin IV. Otherwise known as the first Girl Robin. It makes sense that a girl would be a Robin eventually, as people have been complaining about the Batman comics' boys-only cast for years. But this puts a girl in the sidekick role, and one must always remember the Golden Rule of Sidekicks: they exist to be abused and to provide angst for the hero. Not a big deal when the sidekick is one of a hundred other male characters, but when it's one of the relatively few female characters? Then it's a problem. Disclaimer: I admit to not having read the books where Stephanie appeared as Robin (I was quite fond of her Spoiler days, though), so I could be missing something, but this my take on the situation. (And keep in mind she lasted more than twice as long as Jason.)
See what I'm getting at here? Good intentions -------> Hell.
I talked very briefly with my Sociology professor (we both had other classes to get to) about this concept, and she seemed to think it was worth looking into a bit further. But like I said, I don't know where to start. I've never noticed any research on this subject (or this variation of it). I ask you, o great and powerful internet-peoples, to please give me recs.
I need citeable sources. Books, articles, any credible source I can present to a professor. Hell, if you are a credible source (ie, professional writer, academic who's noticed this) and wouldn't mind giving a statement/interview, that would be great, too. Email me. (It's probably best to go through my LJ email, so you don't accidentally get junk-filtered.)
Thank you very much!
P.S. If you link to this post, you will make me a very very happy bunny. Thanks!
Thursday afternoon, I finally came up with an idea (ie, something I actually wanted to research). Problem is, all I have for a starting point is bugger all and a pet theory. So I need help (please?).
My theory is that some of most noteworthy (or at least most common) discriminatory offenses (racism, sexism, etc.) in mass-market media entertainment are strongly correlated with attempts to alleviate accusations of same. Examples:
Sometime last fall (IIRC), there was a
metafandom kerfuffle about the lack of characters of color in fanfic. I don't remember how it started, but I remember that there were a lot of people who admitted to not writing characters of color because they were so afraid of Getting them Wrong. I didn't pay much attention to this phenomenon at the time, but I thought of it almost immediately when I started considering the next item.I've recently encountered a lot of (justified, but sometimes overblown) complaints about sexism in comic books, many of them centering on Robin IV. Otherwise known as the first Girl Robin. It makes sense that a girl would be a Robin eventually, as people have been complaining about the Batman comics' boys-only cast for years. But this puts a girl in the sidekick role, and one must always remember the Golden Rule of Sidekicks: they exist to be abused and to provide angst for the hero. Not a big deal when the sidekick is one of a hundred other male characters, but when it's one of the relatively few female characters? Then it's a problem. Disclaimer: I admit to not having read the books where Stephanie appeared as Robin (I was quite fond of her Spoiler days, though), so I could be missing something, but this my take on the situation. (And keep in mind she lasted more than twice as long as Jason.)
See what I'm getting at here? Good intentions -------> Hell.
I talked very briefly with my Sociology professor (we both had other classes to get to) about this concept, and she seemed to think it was worth looking into a bit further. But like I said, I don't know where to start. I've never noticed any research on this subject (or this variation of it). I ask you, o great and powerful internet-peoples, to please give me recs.
I need citeable sources. Books, articles, any credible source I can present to a professor. Hell, if you are a credible source (ie, professional writer, academic who's noticed this) and wouldn't mind giving a statement/interview, that would be great, too. Email me. (It's probably best to go through my LJ email, so you don't accidentally get junk-filtered.)
Thank you very much!
P.S. If you link to this post, you will make me a very very happy bunny. Thanks!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2007-01-30 08:00 pm (UTC)The thing is, when you have even a non-discriminatory TV series like Buffy where all of the show-runners are middle-class white people? You end up with mostly white primary characters... and all the tertiary characters are cast colorblind. Serious points for intent, but this puts characters of color as either victims or minor villains, which are almost by definition subordinate roles.
It's barely noticeable, but if you look too closely you see a rather unfortunate message that I don't think anybody intended. I try not to look too closely. And like I said, serious points for good intentions.
the road to hell ...
on 2007-01-31 05:37 am (UTC)http://ozma914.livejournal.com/tag/robin+lays+an+egg
in your research. It might be a varient of what you're talking about, in that I wrote an entire story from the viewpoint of a black man (I'm white) but, as in the show, there's absolutely no reference to his race.
Maybe the creators were patting themselves on the back at the time for creating a colorblind character, but I suspect the only reason he's black at all is because of the requirements of the plot: It had already been established that his mother was a black slayer. I try to be true to the characters when I write fanfiction, but in this case I had little to be true to: Robin was rather bland and two dimensional in the series, I felt. Now I'm wondering if my attempt to expand on his personality did any good at all.