Strawman Characters
A strawman is a character meant to represent an entire group of people in a simplified way that is easy to criticize. Different ethnicities, religions, and sexual orientations all get hit with this. Not only in fiction, but in the real world too. This is the other extreme from The Gay Best Friend, the one that’s not supposed to be good at all. People do this when they want to make a point or to spread propaganda, or when they didn’t do a lot of research because they didn’t care.
Take the movie God’s Not Dead. Like most other movies from Pure Flix, it’s Christian propaganda. Christianity is the best thing ever, and all other religions, or lack thereof, will get you killed, beaten, or cancer. The movie makes no attempt to show the merits of the other side (being not Christianity), because it’s propaganda. The lesson here is to avoid being propaganda.
But what if you’re honestly trying to represent the other side of an argument or other group different from yourself and you want to get it right? Do your research. I’ve said it with every post this month. If you’re trying to make an argument in favor of something, it’s only going to hurt you when you misrepresent the other side. It might help if all you care about is readership, but if you honestly want to make a point, it’s not going to work.
Oddly enough, God’s Not Dead: A Light in Darkness, the third movie in that series (because of course it’s a series) did this very well. It represented non-Christians as real people with real problems, and even went as far as to admit that Christians might not be the only ones persecuted (something you never see in these types of films). There’s a scene of which I’m particularly fond during which the main character has just had a brick thrown through his window and his talking to a friend of his. Main character says, “I guess it’s different when it’s your window,” feeling that his friend doesn’t understand the persecution he’s going through. His friend replies, “I’m a black preacher in the deep south. I could build you a house all the bricks been thrown through my window.” It’s a good scene, it’s a good line, it’s good writing, and it made me care more about the message the movie was trying to send.
In the end, that’s the benefit of doing your research. If you want to make a good point, if you want to send a message, be fair to all sides. Do your research, bring it to friends or people in your community. Don’t make them into strawmen because it’s easier. It’s not right. Remember, this is for your writing; it’s worth the effort.
© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA