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.

#Essay #Characters #TheOther

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

The gay best friend comes up a lot in romance films. It’s the one character that has no life outside of the protagonist, and specifically his or her love life. Oftentimes, especially when the protagonist is female, this is an effeminate male character assumed to be gay. This trope also comes up in other movies with the wise black man, who, once again, has no life outside of the protagonist’s troubles, but is full of helpful advice to overcome those troubles. They amount to the same thing: a minority with an infinite fountain of advice and/or wisdom for the main character.

Why does this happen? Overcompensation. I wrote a few weeks ago about the dangers of carelessly writing “the other”. If one isn’t careful, the only representation of that minority group is further marginalized. To avoid this, many writers will elevate that minority to unreachable standards. They are wise beyond their years and selfless beyond all reason. But that’s not helpful either. Not only is it a bad idea to have a character who doesn’t exist outside of the plot, when writers do this over and over again, it ends up squeezing a minority group into a specific role. It’s bad storytelling, and it’s harmful to people already struggling to show that there’s more to them than a bunch of stereotypes.

An example of this being done poorly is the movie Dear Santa. In it, a wealthy socialite is told she has to get married otherwise her parents will cut her off, so when she finds a girl’s letter to Santa asking for a new mom for Christmas, she decides she’s going to become the girl’s new mom and marry her dad. The role of gay best friend is played by her new friend Pete, a chef who wears a pink uniform and lip gloss and tells her that what she’s doing is fine and that the dad’s devoted fiancé is just an obstacle she has to overcome. That’s all there is to him. He has no life outside of her stalking this man’s family. Even if the intent was making a likable minority character, he ends up as a two-dimensional stereotype.

So how can this be avoided? Give them a life outside of the plot. Give them hopes and dreams. Like I said in last week’s post, don’t think of them as black, gay, or whatever minority they’re supposed to represent. The main character isn’t the only one allowed to make mistakes, so long as the side characters don’t steal the show. A good example of this being done well is Shepherd Book from Firefly. At first, he seems like the wise black man there to give advice to the main characters, but as they frequently point out, he knows an awful lot about crime for a preacher. He becomes one of the most interesting characters because of this intimate knowledge and the mysteries surrounding him. He says, “I wasn’t always a preacher”, making the audience wonder what he was before all this.

The best way to avoid this is to have more than one character representing a specific minority. If that’s not easily done – say you only have a handful of characters and you want more diversity – then at least make them all three-dimensional, with lives outside of the plot. Remember, this is for your writing; it’s worth the effort.

#Essay #Characters #TheOthers

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA

When I started Girl in Red, I already had Rose worked out. It wasn’t a conscious choice to make her a girl, I just decided to. I’ve always liked the idea of Hermione, even if I don’t like how J.K. Rowling wrote her, and Luna and Rose were similar enough that I figured they’d get along great. So those were three of my main characters, all female. It gave me a lot of experience writing women, something somewhat more challenging considering I am male (Edit: No I'm not, but I've lived the life of a male, so bear with me). I didn’t have trouble with this, but I’ve seen characters clearly written by a specific gender of writer, so I know it’s not easy for everyone.

Something I’ve noticed with other writers, men and women, is that they describe the opposite sex as though the author is checking that person out. Every physical detail at which the author would be staring is described. Not only does this make me uncomfortable to read and write, but it makes the character obviously not the sex they’re supposed to be. Maybe it’s a female character doing this with a female author, but if it’s a heterosexual female character checking out another woman like this, she’s lying to herself.

That’s the biggest gotcha of writing the opposite sex that I’ve seen. The best way to avoid this: write them without considering their sex or gender. This is how we got characters like Nausicaä in Nausciaä of the Valley of the Wind, Toph and Katara in Avatar: The Last Airbender, and most of the characters in RWBY, all of which were written primarily by men. They are treated differently than men at times, and occasionally act “girly”, but they’re so busy being awesome the rest of the time that we don’t care. Not only can you get strong female characters like this, but you don’t run the risk of it being obvious that a man wrote it.

I had two advantages that I imagine most male writers don’t have when writing female characters. The first is that my beta reader is female. She could catch anything I did blatantly wrong. The other is that stereotypical gender roles have been turned on their head in my world. My mother is the breadwinner of my house, which is why most of the families that feature in my stories have the mother as the breadwinner.

The quick fix is to not consider gender when writing. The same goes for race as well, although be warned you might still fall into a trap with either. If in doubt, find a woman in your life and ask her to proof-read it for you. It could be a cousin, a sister, your mother (who I’m sure would be happy to talk to you anyway), or a coworker. Remember, this is for your writing; it’s worth the effort.

#Essay #Characters #TheOther

© 2023 Sky Starlight CC BY-NC-SA