Disagreeing

[beccaelizabeth]

I'm reading a set of fanfic pet peeves, and they say:

Things our guys almost certainly do not do --

With few exceptions, they aren't pagan.
With no exceptions, they aren't media fans. (As Helen sez, they don't have time.)


There were a couple other things, including something about teddy bears, but those two were next to each other at the top of the list.

And the thing is, these strike me as fundamentally different things.

'Not pagan' is an equality issue. 'Not media fans' is probably a characterisation issue, though given the pervasive misrepresentation of media fen in the mainstream media I could make a case for it being a rights thing too.

What they're saying without saying is, don't turn the characters into masks, sockpuppets, or marysues. Don't make them randomly more like you the writer.

And, okay, fair enough.

But where are all the pagans on TV?
Where are all the people like me?
Why do we only get represented in horror films getting our kit off and sacrificing stuff?

Or in Buffy being wanna blessed bes, because obviously only smiting is real magic.
... that's a whole Issue right there. I could go into it but I'd have to go into detail. As it is it's more of a swipe than anything, and can be splatted right back.

But the fundamental point is: How many characters, in any media, are not Christian?

Answer: Increasing many. Thank goodness.

Quite a few of them are in SF or fantasy, so their religion is about setting, not character.
(Though a misplaced 'Jesus' can kind of wreck the setup.)

And while I quite like some pagan worlds, they can be a bit like making everyone oriental just so the scenery gets colorful. Religion as sign of being down the rabbit hole.

Stuff set in the here and now? You can make a list of non-Christian characters, but it can seem to come up a bit short. And sometimes new writers go and forget exactly what kind of monk a character is, and have them pray to god and be white, instead of meditate on Buddha and be mixed race. Just for instance. Randomly.

... anyways ...

The point is... inventing ethnic minority characters in some fandoms means inventing, introducing OCs, or retasking, taking an existing minor character and changing the focus. Because - and I'm overgeneralising massively because it isn't this simple but I'm in a hurry - generally we know what characters look like and their ethnicity is already established.
(Comics are a weird, weird, exception, where characters get retconned because the colorist doesn't have the right data.)

If you think a particular religion is under represented? All you need to do is find a character who hasn't declared one way or another, and hello diversity.

Some characters are pretty clear. For Christmas Willow was being a Jew. Up until she was a wicca. And probably after, because since when is identity cut and dried? Other shows have characters that were nearly catholic priests, or ones that go to confession, or have people attending church on screen. So, those people? Either Christian or in the broom closet.

And right there we have a parallel - because it's a bit like slash, to my mind. There's not enough queer characters. So let's make a few.

Yeah, maybe it stretches them in new directions. But. Some mainstream media limitations? Need to be stretched.



... and sometimes the result is a clunky story, but that's craft, not the point of itself.




PS: reasons the Buffyverse rules: We have pagans (Tara, Ethan) *and* media fans (Gunn, Xander, Andrew, geek trio, just about everyone when the right pop culture reference would help).

... Torchwood clearly needs non-Christian geeks of it's own.
... Is Toshiko likely to be Christian? Cause she's likely got geek covered.
... Of course mostly they've got a whole atheist/humanist thing going on, but.

Comments

[louiex.livejournal.com]

Not to generalize -as its somewhat impossible to know and she wasn't raised entirely in Japan if I remember Mary's prattling correctly- but in Japan it is in the minority to be Christian.

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*
insufficient data

[executrix.livejournal.com]

There are Christians in the Firefly 'verse, but they're not the majority and not culturally dominant.

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

I'd say at least 80% of fannish characters never mention religion or have it mentioned. It just doesn't come up (much like with most people on the job).

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*

[sparklebutch.livejournal.com]

Immies over a certain age, I'm guessing. In fact, I'm almost sure that there's a point in a deleted scene off Highlander where someone mentions Jesus and Kronos says something along the lines of "never heard of him", or similar.

Personally, I disagree with a lot of the list in the link.

[beccaelizabeth]

yeah, bit hard to be Christian before he turned up.

[sparklebutch.livejournal.com]

I took a quiz some time ago, about "the bible". Was mostly new testament, not a lot of the old. Now, I never studied the new one. Never even read it. But still I scored pertty high on the quiz. Tells you how much of it seeps into popular culture.

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*