Don’t misinterpret my comment…I’m talking about how all authors deploy plot devices of some kind. Not accusing every author of intentional racial bias.
If you are worried about your affect on Stephen King why criticize him at all? I don’t think he reads boing boing, especially not the comment. Obviously the criticism and rhetoric involved is not for his benefit.
No one is joining the Klan because they are confused by nuance but plenty of people are voting for the GOP.
1 Like
King (whom I really like) trucks in a ton of cliches. He also writes his Hispanic characters awkwardly.
3 Likes
Okay, but isn’t that off topic? Aside from being quite obvious?
2 Likes
Carlos Castaneda’s don Juan Matus turned out to be a suit wearing businessman in later books. But he wasn’t white and the books were, ahem, non-fiction.
1 Like
Wha??? That’s the opposite of what I was saying.
And none of them are confused about what they’re supporting. They just get to pull the blanket up over their heads when the conversation gets uncomfortable. Give any of them more than a minute to speak freely and you’ll get right to the heart of the matter.
5 Likes
Really? Doesn’t surprise me, somehow. I couldn’t make it past the first book. Such self-important drivel.
3 Likes
It seems rooted in my mind to the same exoticism as the “inscrutable asian”. Less racism and more xeno-fetishm? I dunno. It’s a stereo type obviously as are most characters in a book are apt to be, no?
1 Like
Well yes, I guess “apt to be,” but surely not in better writing.
And again, surely if we want to act as better human beings and purchasing consumers of popular narratives, then we should bear in mind that some stereotypes, such as racist ones, are far worse than others, and should be called out as such.
4 Likes
As pointed out above, the character of Red in King’s novella was actually a white guy and he was subsequently cast as a black man for the movie.
So where does the responsibility lie for making this character a magical negro? With King or the movie screenwriters/producers/directors who made the decision to cast Freeman for the role?
Again, my point being that there seems to be a lot of examples where characters are distorted from the author’s original work into a Hollywood racial trope when adapted for the screen.
1 Like
Agree with most of this, with one addition. The impact on audiences is a large part of the problem, too. The reason that popular authors and movies get more scrutiny is that their work can influence the attitudes of readers and viewers. This jumped out at me from the article @anon81034786 posted about the book and movie, It:
A world where people in the majority form ideas about “others,” not from personal experience, but from how they are depicted - in the news, through TV and movies, or in books - is a scary one for those in marginalized groups. That’s a level of horror Stephen King did capture in his book It, but sadly that didn’t make it to the big screen.
6 Likes
As someone who grew up in the south, in a racist community and a racist household, I assure you that this “socially innate racism” is far more evil and insidious than the KKK can be. The KKK is visible, seen , active. It’s a blot that can be pointed out and systematicly deplatformed and removed.
Innate societal racism isn’t even recognizable to some people, when it gets called and pointed out has thousands of otherwise well meaning people come in and defend it as they’re offended by the thought of being wrong, and rarely has solutions presented to remove it . In fact, in most cases, the innate societal racism comes out the otherside even MORE powerful than it entered.
9 Likes
I know. What I’m trying to get across is that my point about not persecuting, or trying to persecute Stephen King, for his biases has nothing to do with it’s effect on Stephen King himself. The point of criticizing his work is bigger than him. It still matters how you do it, at least if your intent is something other than simply being angry on the internet.
How many of them have you talked to? That is true for a good portion of them but people have lots of reasons for pushing the button they press when they walk into a voting booth. It’s not 100% ideological agreement and loyalty.
1 Like
The racism seems to be in my mind the lack of diversity in the story (particularly protagonists) and resorting to trying to fix it by relying on lazy tropes as opposed to the trope itself. The “magical negro” itself is really just a sub trope of the fairy godmother/kindly old wizard etc that acts a deus ex machina to help the hero along.
3 Likes
Agreed. I think of it as a form of “liberal racism,” which IRL often takes the form of a white person embracing POC largely so they can be seen as a white person who embraces POC.
Indeed, though again, the many versions of that trope are not all equally worthy of being called out. Racist versions have more pernicious real-world effects.
4 Likes
Sure, but if he can serve a useful function in moving that conversation along as either an object lesson or contributor to the discourse, what’s the downside for him or any of us? Discomfort?
Respectfully… bullshit. If someone marches under a Nazi flag, they are a Nazi. If someone votes for trump, they are 100% supporting his most heinous doctrines. Whether the care more about abortion or whatever is immaterial. Whether they “disagree” with his stance on race or immigration is immaterial. They are either willfully ignoring or directly supporting his fascism.
That’s the whole point of this conversation, isn’t it? Stephen King doesn’t have to actively “feel” racist to contribute to racist tropes and the marginalization of those communities. Unlike some others, though, he seems to be at least willing to acknowledge and work on his biases.
Other than my entire family, everyone I grew up with and half the people I see on a daily basis… none. You got me.
ETA: Again, let them speak freely for a few minutes… you’ll get there every time.
8 Likes
“The Body” takes place in rural Maine in the 1950’s. There just weren’t a lot of non-whites in Maine. I grew up in rural Maine in the 1970s and 80s and there were very few non-whites then. In my MS/HS, which pulled six to seven hundred kids from four towns grades 6-12, there was one black kid and one asian and they were adopted (and two full-blood Penobscots). Except Jr. year there was a new black girl a year ahead of me whose dad was the President of the local Univ of Maine campus. That story reflects a statistical probability of the type of characters one would encounter in that time and place. That being said, there’s nothing in the story as written that says any of the characters isn’t black (or asian or hispanic, although name/surname might indicate that. - ie. Fan Wong is not likely to be causasian kid). We are assuming all the kids in the story were white. Maybe the bias is ours?
1 Like
What are some of the pernicious real-world effects? I mean the helpless damsel in distress trope can prime people to believe women in general are helpless and need to be saved. The “magical negro” trope have a negative implication in and of itself? Assuming that there was plenty of representation of African Americans? or does the trope itself vanish in those cases? Or are we worried that all those white people out there with no African American friends are secretly worried that African Americans are harboring sinister/magical powers? Kind of like some of the anti-semitic tropes?
1 Like
A plot device, rather than a character with his own motivations?
2 Likes
We are not discussing whether or not we should criticize Stephen King. We are discussing how to criticize Stephen King. He is not ideologically committed to racism so we should not treat him as if he is. This is true whether or not our criticisms of him are directed at him or a general audience. I’m saying this because a lot of people on the internet treat criticism as a bludgeon to attack peoples character. If you are going to criticize someone for something like that it should be with the understanding that you are not better than them. Everyone has biases, if you don’t think you do you are deluding yourself. I also understand people who treat all criticism as an attack on their character. They are also mudding the watering but that means it’s more important to make what you actually mean clear.
If you are certain these people in your life are as bad as you say they are treat them like it. In my experience people have a lot of reasons for voting for the GOP. They are all stupid, but it’s not because they are committed to everything the GOP is doing.
From my perspective you are acting like everyone is is acting from a place of perfect knowledge and wisdom. From that perspective the only difference are moral judgements. I don’t think that is true. Everyone is acting from very little knowledge and wisdom. As long as they haven’t tied their identity to a bad ideology they can be reasoned with, with the understanding that you are working from almost as little knowledge and wisdom as them.
2 Likes
