Problematic

[beccaelizabeth]

You know that story where the white man goes and becomes part of the strange foreign culture and gets better at it than any of the locals? Usually with added mystic?
Asian (probably with mountains) or Native American or... you know I've actually only read it with those two. But I haven't read many stories about Africa at all at all, so probably there's some of those as well.
It's why everyone's annoyed with Strange or Iron Fist. Mighty Whitey to save them all with their own knowledge.

If it's Roy Harper adopted by ... DC can't even be consistent about which native americans, sources google turns up say Navajo or Sioux, I can't remember which is the latest. ANYways, there's been comics that tried to do right by his adopted people, gave Roy a religious and cultural background he's trying to pass on to his daughter. But it's still a bit sketch. Like, it's clearly there in his background because ye ancient comics associated indians with archery, but why make it a little white kid who is best at it? Same usual reasons.

It is not in fact an improvement for fanfic writers to apply the same trope to new characters.



It's also, and separately, really frustrating when someone reads about other cultures and then can't get far enough away from their christian baseline to imagine a system without devils or fallen angels. The idea that the beings that turned up and taught humans everything cool were evil? Not actually universal! Some people actually like knowledge. I have heard.



I don't know if it's ever cool playing with the mythologies of groups you don't belong to. But it can be done really, really clumsily. Like mushing together the myths of an entire continent and then treating it as a power up system for your white fave.

It's actually really awkward too in the fic I just now reading because there's characters of almost every continent-ethnicity except actual native american, all being powered up by native religious figures and fighting about native land. And, like, there's actual first nations that can do that? Really? They're still right there and can talk for themselves and have battles legal and spiritual.

Even if you're sticking with TV show faves there are characters and actors with first nations or mixed race backgrounds, and if you use one of them then it can be a story of learning about your roots and getting stronger for it. Reconnecting to a tradition that they do in fact have connections to.



I don't always (if ever) know the background of the writers, but it seems sort of unusual if the writers are explaining their own culture and use white men to do it.





I guess I see how people writing urban fantasy can be sticking to local stories, local to the land, and it feel appropriate. But, well, a lot of people aren't exactly local.

I don't know many of the issues for other bits of geography.

In Britain I've got more books called like Celtic / Welsh and Irish 'myth' and 'fairy tales' than I do about English stuff. Also we got invaded a lot back in the before so there's layers of Roman and Viking stories alongside what books call Celtic. I don't know, what counts as your own stories when you're part of a world spanning tradition of nicking everything you can get your hands on? England probably gets Robin Hood and certain iterations of King Arthur, more or less. But it seems like most stories are either people who stomped on England or people England stomped on. Or continues to stomp on. Nicking off with all the good bits is not a really dignified tradition worth continuing.





I have a headache and the world is very warm and I'm reasonably certain I should have had more water today than I did. Not my best brain.

But it's really frustrating finding an otehrwise quite good story that just goes crunch into that really awkward issue.

Comments

[the_rck]

I'm not particularly bothered by anyone from a European derived culture using Greek or Roman mythology, philosophy and culture simply because those two cultures have been at the heart of general European education for so very, very long. Even now, even in the US, my daughter's class spent more time on Greek mythology this year (she's twelve) than they did on Islam, and there are several Muslims in her class.

I'm similarly not particularly bothered by people from East Asian cultures using Chinese mythology, philosophy and culture since that was fairly fundamental to a lot of education in those places up to at least the end of the nineteenth century.

With those exceptions, I agree with you that using other people's culture and history is fraught. I don't want to say that it absolutely mustn't be done or that it can't ever be done well, but... The potential for disrespect and, even, simple error is huge.

At the same time, I would be very sorry to lose Barry Hughart's Bridge of Birds.

[jesuswasbatman]

Yeah, I've just been reading Titan Doctor Who comics, which are mostly good except for one Twelfth Doctor story set in India, which tries to have three-dimensional heroic Indian characters but still falls into old Orientalist ideas of Kali as "Hindu Satan" who of course turns out to be an evil alien superbeing who inserted herself into ancient Indian culture.