However, I am not going to second-guess everything.
And I was never arguing that you should.
Oh, good. I'm afraid I tend to overreact in discussions of this type, since I've heard it argued to death and it often winds up in the extremes. It's nice to see that there are people like you out there, who can discuss this rationally.
There's one absolute that I am arguing here: that context is unavoidable and undeniable. One can't say it doesn't exist, and one can't say it doesn't ever matter.
True. Generalizations are, at the least, dangerous to make, and context can change everything.
This was in response to other posters who were suggesting that portraying Susan as shallow and silly was no different than portraying, say, Uncle Andrew, as shallow and silly. I personally feel there's very essential difference between those two authorial choices, given that shallowness and silliness are two very familiar misogynistic female stereotypes in a literary tradition that has a long legacy of misogyny.
I don't think there's that much of a difference, honestly. I do understand what you're saying about literary tradition, and it's true, but in this particular case Susan's fall-through-shallowness made me pity her (hey, I know enough about myself to know that could have been me)--while Uncle Andrew's shallowness never got any reaction from me but scorn.
Maybe I'm too accomodating or something. But I do not appreciate the idea that I have to give place to someone else's bigotry (males, in this case) in the way I read or write. I was always playing devil's advocate to my fellow English Lit. students who liked to do feminist criticism, because it made some of them totally lose the focus of the work, and that made me either annoyed or sad.
One shouldn't second-guess everything (what I call in that post the "corrective" strategy), but it's probably an equally bad idea to second-guess nothing (what I call the "defiant" strategy).
I agree. That's a good way to put it.
I have never suggested writers always have to "surrender something about a character simply because one is afraid that it may seem stereotypical."
Good for you; too many people I've talked to have, in essence, suggested exactly that. My apologies for reading some of those past arguments into what you were trying to say. That wasn't very objective of me. :-)
Anyway, there's a big jump between arguing that authors must recognize the cultural context in which they write and arguing that authors must second-guess every decision they make--right down to the heroine's eye color.
Absolutely. Recognize it, by all means (though I'm not necessarily going to go out of my way to look it up, unless it's germane to the story, of course); but don't let it rule the story. Ideology, one's own or particularly anyone else's, usually makes for a poor way to shape a tale. [yes, Ursula LeGuin, I'm looking at you.]
no subject
And I was never arguing that you should.
Oh, good. I'm afraid I tend to overreact in discussions of this type, since I've heard it argued to death and it often winds up in the extremes. It's nice to see that there are people like you out there, who can discuss this rationally.
There's one absolute that I am arguing here: that context is unavoidable and undeniable. One can't say it doesn't exist, and one can't say it doesn't ever matter.
True. Generalizations are, at the least, dangerous to make, and context can change everything.
This was in response to other posters who were suggesting that portraying Susan as shallow and silly was no different than portraying, say, Uncle Andrew, as shallow and silly. I personally feel there's very essential difference between those two authorial choices, given that shallowness and silliness are two very familiar misogynistic female stereotypes in a literary tradition that has a long legacy of misogyny.
I don't think there's that much of a difference, honestly. I do understand what you're saying about literary tradition, and it's true, but in this particular case Susan's fall-through-shallowness made me pity her (hey, I know enough about myself to know that could have been me)--while Uncle Andrew's shallowness never got any reaction from me but scorn.
Maybe I'm too accomodating or something. But I do not appreciate the idea that I have to give place to someone else's bigotry (males, in this case) in the way I read or write. I was always playing devil's advocate to my fellow English Lit. students who liked to do feminist criticism, because it made some of them totally lose the focus of the work, and that made me either annoyed or sad.
One shouldn't second-guess everything (what I call in that post the "corrective" strategy), but it's probably an equally bad idea to second-guess nothing (what I call the "defiant" strategy).
I agree. That's a good way to put it.
I have never suggested writers always have to "surrender something about a character simply because one is afraid that it may seem stereotypical."
Good for you; too many people I've talked to have, in essence, suggested exactly that. My apologies for reading some of those past arguments into what you were trying to say. That wasn't very objective of me. :-)
Anyway, there's a big jump between arguing that authors must recognize the cultural context in which they write and arguing that authors must second-guess every decision they make--right down to the heroine's eye color.
Absolutely. Recognize it, by all means (though I'm not necessarily going to go out of my way to look it up, unless it's germane to the story, of course); but don't let it rule the story. Ideology, one's own or particularly anyone else's, usually makes for a poor way to shape a tale. [yes, Ursula LeGuin, I'm looking at you.]