misc

[illuvium]

been actual ages because i've been really, really busy with my emt course among Other Things but anyway, something i've been thinking about recently (without much conclusion since, well, not my field of expertise and not my place to speak on something so general, anyway) is the way books get advertised for their diversity. and i mean i've been generally subscribing to the belief that it's ridiculous to include diversity just to have something to sell to people, as in, look at my main character of color, or my queer protagonist, or something like that. queerness is admittedly something a lot more consequential to what stories focus around (relationships between you and others, for instance), so i'll focus less on that and more on the race aspect. of course this is not to say that there should only ever exist portrayals in fiction of white people, but i think it's a little more complicated than just saying "oh look at the representation in this book!" because there's two issues here that make it a kind of catch-22 (which coincidentally i finished reading some time ago; excellent book). the first is that if you have representation without interrogating the aspect of the identity, it feels a little bit hollow to market it as "representation" if the storyline follows the same plot it otherwise would have. on the other hand, making every single book a copy-paste story centering around "representation" in the same way a lot of contemporary diaspora fiction centers around pomegranates (or other fruit) as a demonstration of care and how filial piety hurts, obviously is reductive as well and so there should be variation in what actually gets done with these characters that isn't linked to their identity (so obviously, anyway).

but for me, personally, i think the solution here is kind of easy. i think the search for representation within books is kind of a dumb thing to happen in the way it does. and what i mean is that of course people will try to look out for aspects that resonate with them within fiction, but i think that the overarching thing is that this shouldn't be "full" recognition. or at least, that it's odd to relate to a main character or feel as if you can only relate to them because they have x of your identity. this also spills over into my thoughts on the idea of kinning, which is that it's kind of a dumb label, anyway, since i could interpret any number of my favorite characters in a way that would of course make them seem preternaturally similar to me. but that's getting side-tracked; i think the main thing really is that the obsession with representation rings as very odd and hollow to me because i can't understand centering your recognition of yourself in fiction purely based on these factors and nothing else. it doesn't matter if a character isn't the same race as me; if i relate to them, that's that. i do think the appeal is grounded in the want to see people Like You in media, but then again, i circle back to the point regarding making a caricature or stereotype of things. because i mean, sure, skin color is there in the character. but just having them exist like that, to me, wouldn't cut it if my search for representation was solely to see someone like me; cultural aspects would have to be included, but then wouldn't that just repeat stereotyping? i think it's an odd situation, anyway