It’s a truism among writers: when you try to sell something that features black, Hispanic, or Asian characters, editors and publishers will push back, asking you to make the characters a bit paler, a bit pinker, a bit more “mainstream”, a code-word for making your characters white. When you fight, you get told that diverse audiences don’t read SFF.The problem isn't that whites won't read diversity fiction, it is that the diverse populations won't read it either.
There’s the story Tony Puryear and Erika Alexander tell about trying to sell Concrete Park, when a publisher told them that “black people don’t like science fiction – they don’t see themselves in the future”. Agents and publishers advised me to set my book in the suburbs, presumably where the children would be a bit paler and speak a more standard variety of English, without any of that pesky Spanish those Puerto Ricans and Dominicans speak.
On the other hand, it’s hard to say that those publishers are 100% wrong. Erika and Tony will happily tell you about the difficulties they have faced getting sales once they get distribution. My experiences trying to get whites to click on my ads have been anything but encouraging, and, while I get rave reviews and support from people that champion diversity in literature, I’ve yet to break even on my publishing venture.
Not only does the mere fact of being not-white and not-male not make a character interesting, due to the strictures of SJWism and PC, it reliably makes them boring because they are not permitted to be anything less than wonderful.
25 comments:
Seems like East Asian men are doing ok thru the CH channel, but then again a story about Chinese leaders tiring of the evolutionary dead ends of Africa might not make it past the thought police.
The problem with diversity in literature and media is it is fraught with ethnic stereotypes that no one wants to see. Asians portrayed as smarter or as doctors or tech nerds, but minions. Hispanics as gang bangers. Blacks as rappers. The ethnic cultural wars actually made Whites a neutral ground to explore such subjects. Whites are also the innovators for now.
This not only applies to science fiction, it applies to real science as well. Blacks, Latinos, Muslims, etc, with rare exceptions, do not care about say, space exploration. That is why there will never be a manned mission to Mars. The populations who will be displacing white Christian males have zero interest in such things. It is telling that the US manned space program was gutted under the first Black President.
I read just yesterday where they are making a Road House remake, and the lead role held by Patrick Swayze in the original will be given to Ronda Rousey in the new one. I actually was hoping it was satire, but IMDB confirmed it. This may be old news, but I admittedly had my attention on family the past couple months.
NASA = Muslim outreach, dontcha know? The turban-headed goat herders are no more interested in science than they are transgendered sympathy! The Muzzies claim to have invented "zero" and advanced math and science, but it was the conquered Seleucids among the Muzzies that accomplished anything of note, for which the Muzzies then appropriated claims of invention. Indeed, the Koran forbids scientific inquiry since science would obviously contradict the word of Allah set forth in the Koran, something the SJWs forget.
There is one famous case of a SF novel being "diverse" with a non-white main character that sold very well: Starship Troopers. Juan "Johnnie" Rico is Filipino and the rest of Federation was pretty diverse as well.
Of course one big difference is Starship Troopers was written by a competent author.
In The Strain, both the book and TV series one of the characters Gus, is a Hispanic and he's actually interesting. But in his case he starts out as a scumbag gangbanger who becomes an anti-hero. Not the boring Mary sue that diversity normally means.
The pandering to blacks makes zero sense. They're such a small portion of the population but look how many shows and movies throw in a black lead.
And it's never a low-IQ, low-time preference savage.
So "real".
I no longer watch TV or go to the movies with all its minorities, homos, and strong women, so I really don't want to read stories about them.
“black people don’t like science fiction – they don’t see themselves in the future”
They don't see themselves in the future, for values of future defined as "the time that lies beyond the fulfillment of my immediate physical urges" (maybe 5 to 10 minutes).
It would be hard to read a story about a future without blacks in it, because I personally have very little faith that I will ever live in such a blissful, idyllic utopia.
Diversity Fiction is a good phrase, as Diversity is a fiction. An enforced fiction.
In the Eighties if my protag was WM, the story would be criticized because it wasn't Diverse enough. If my protag was other than WM, he/she had to fit the guidelines of the Political Politburo. I was expected to re-write my stories so that non-WMs were superior, pristine, etc. Once I wrote a short-story with a FP female narrator; it was much praised by the Bay Area's best writing guru, but rejected by the Literary Lickspittle . . . who wanted stories written by homos, transgender feminists, etc. Because it was Their Turn. So I published it in a lit-mag that thought they'd won the lotto.
All elements of American literature should establish a Diversity Fiction category so there's a Happy Dumpster available for the empowered punkettes who have run the show the past thirty years. Then their inferior attempts will have somewhere appropriate to rot and die. Team Diversity and their University Uddergangs should be tossed-in on top of their crappy works. And the lead lid sealed forever.
I'm beyond tired of being told that I'm an asshole because I prefer to read stories that feature "people like me" (Middle Class WASP).
In fact, no one who values his pain-free existence should get in my physical space with that message, so intolerant of it do I find myself. I might be tempted to see what 211 lbs can do when it's used to drive someone in a direction they didn't anticipate moving.
If bookbub is any measure, most of fiction today is aimed at lonely incel divorcees. It's pa.thet.ic.
Lastly, a universal attribute of SJW a-holes is utter contempt for the market. People should buy whatever their betters dictate (in their tiny minds.)
Lastly, a universal attribute of SJW a-holes is utter contempt for the market. People should buy whatever their betters dictate (in their tiny minds.)
Hey, the President of the USA was black in Idiocracy.
And let's not forget Upgrayyed (or however spelled).
When I was in South America I noted that their book shops, even in well off areas, didn't have many SFF books.
I was told by a local that nobody reads them. "Why would you want to read about a guy riding around on dragons killing monsters?"
It's a different mindset. In their case not in a bad way, just reality.
Yep, they can't make anything on their own so they have to colonize not only particular white-man achievements like Star Wars or Mad Max, but the patriarchal constructs that undergird those achievements, like the archetypal "hero's quest." At the same time they talk about destroying "the Patriarchy." Imbeciles. But since they couldn't have done what they've done without white men's help, that also means a lot of white men are willingly propping up imbeciles who hate white men. That doesn't reflect well on a lot of white men. Maybe that's why one of the most gratifying moments I've seen in film is when Kylo Ren steels himself and pushes the button.
Echo RalphRetort: Why don't the female protagonists look like Randi Harper or Zoe Quinn.
Every heroine is thin, has long hair, and is attractive. They never look like Jabba the Hutt with a blue wig. They never look like Greedo (unknown sexual morphism).
Somehow I doubt the movie would sell with a protagonist who appears (in human terms) to be morbidly obese, has some neon hair color between red and blue, and is otherwise aesthetically horrid (drooling, mottled, etc.).
What was Watt's line - A black, two jews, a woman and a cripple?
has some neon hair color between red and blue
...Violet? Or are you trying to describe the pukish mottled mess that feminists strive for?
One of the problems with women is that they are simultaneously calculating and bad at math.
http://truckyeah.jalopnik.com/23-year-old-trucker-destroys-historic-bridge-because-sh-1749930189?rev=1451328651253
1337kestrel, I'm not quite sure what they are striving for. I remember eating lunch and a woman that appeared to have a huge orange spider with rigor mortis on her head. I'm not sure about the mottling, but the coiffure seems to be a cosplay based on a description of something out of HP Lovecraft. Every day is a bad hair day.
I wonder if in the 7th century, Mohammed had viewed something similar and insisted on head scarves as a response.
@One Fat Oz Guy,
What about their attitude to futuristic science fiction? Was in the same as for fantasy?
Anybody watching "The Expanse"? Full of diversity. Except the first peak at the bad guys, pale white guy...
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