To Portray Without Fetishizing?
Feb. 21st, 2010 10:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
browngirlI was thinking about this off and on lately, and something I read threw it into high relief for me. So, to start this post melodramatically, I almost deleted 'Blue Eyes Shine' last night, as well as the 'Untitled Wheelchair Sex Story'. Someone sensible whose judgement I really respect wrote about how much they hate disability fetish stories, and mentioned the "Pike wheelchair sex" prompts over at the Kink Meme. Since I directly filled one, and what I wrote gave me ideas I used in "Blue Eyes Shine," I realized I might well be contributing to the problem she described.
It was a shock. In both stories I never... I honestly never would have thought, and didn't approach it as, the wheelchair being a fetish. I thought the request was about a location and a particular time period, analogous to 'shower sex during the Academy' or 'sex in the Captain's chair.' I wrote two stories (counting 'Blue Eyes Shine' set when Pike was canonically using a wheelchair, around the time of the Medal Ceremony that's the penultimate scene of Star Trek XI. When I was challenged in comments to the Untitled Wheelchair Sex Story I carefully explained that the 'kink' was just from the term 'kink meme' and I was writing a story set in a particular place and time that attempted to take all the salient features into account.
Now I wonder if I was being hopelessly naiive or worse. I wonder if the commentator went away from our interaction with the same feeling I've had where I've tried to explain to someone why, for example, a SGA AU where Teyla Emmagan is a maid and Ronon a servant and all the White canon characters had jobs comparable in status to their canon status could be problematic, and they carefully told me why there was no racism involved in that casting decision at all, and I sighed and gave up.
And yet... I really want to write about Pike directly after the main events of the movie, including writing slash and het about him then. (One of these days I'm going to write that Pike/Kirk/McCoy set the night before the last scene in the movie.) It would be a worse than inappropriate elision to pretend his persistent injuries don't exist. So how do I accurately depict him in that time period without producing fetish fuel?
I think about this for other issues, too. Frex, I think about skin color in fan productions, both as a reader and a writer. I kind of cringe when I see Star Trek fanart that portrays Uhura with pink skin; it's important to who she is, and to my conception of her, that she's a Black woman. It's important to who David Sinclair is, and to my interest in his character, that he's a Black man. Plus, there is visual drama in tone contrast, and visual drama is useful to evoke when writing. Maybe it's just that... another person who writes wise and useful meta said that people of color don't think about our skin colors, but for me that's not true. The shapes of my life being what they are, I think about my race and how it affects my interactions with people quite a bit, which includes considering my skin color. (It's hard not to think about one's skin color when one lives with a small person who delightedly reminds one that one is brown and he is pink.) And yet, by saying that, have I provided support to the next writer who'll write about Uhura thinking about her 'chocolatey skin' as if it's a weird strange deviation from 'normal', which will result in a cringeworthy and inaccurate tale?
This entry made more sense in my head before I wrote part of it while conversing with a four year old. Anyway. I think about these things a lot -- in the recent discussion over slash fic and its potential to harm gay men I thought and read a lot, though I didn't post publicly -- in part because I absolutely cannot dismiss mentions of these problems as "people choosing to be offended". I hate it when that comment is thrown at me and people like me for, for instance, pointing out problematic depictions of people of color, so I can't throw it at anyone else. I have to think about these issues and figure out how to do my best by everyone I might impact with my stories.
Now, how to do that?
It was a shock. In both stories I never... I honestly never would have thought, and didn't approach it as, the wheelchair being a fetish. I thought the request was about a location and a particular time period, analogous to 'shower sex during the Academy' or 'sex in the Captain's chair.' I wrote two stories (counting 'Blue Eyes Shine' set when Pike was canonically using a wheelchair, around the time of the Medal Ceremony that's the penultimate scene of Star Trek XI. When I was challenged in comments to the Untitled Wheelchair Sex Story I carefully explained that the 'kink' was just from the term 'kink meme' and I was writing a story set in a particular place and time that attempted to take all the salient features into account.
Now I wonder if I was being hopelessly naiive or worse. I wonder if the commentator went away from our interaction with the same feeling I've had where I've tried to explain to someone why, for example, a SGA AU where Teyla Emmagan is a maid and Ronon a servant and all the White canon characters had jobs comparable in status to their canon status could be problematic, and they carefully told me why there was no racism involved in that casting decision at all, and I sighed and gave up.
And yet... I really want to write about Pike directly after the main events of the movie, including writing slash and het about him then. (One of these days I'm going to write that Pike/Kirk/McCoy set the night before the last scene in the movie.) It would be a worse than inappropriate elision to pretend his persistent injuries don't exist. So how do I accurately depict him in that time period without producing fetish fuel?
I think about this for other issues, too. Frex, I think about skin color in fan productions, both as a reader and a writer. I kind of cringe when I see Star Trek fanart that portrays Uhura with pink skin; it's important to who she is, and to my conception of her, that she's a Black woman. It's important to who David Sinclair is, and to my interest in his character, that he's a Black man. Plus, there is visual drama in tone contrast, and visual drama is useful to evoke when writing. Maybe it's just that... another person who writes wise and useful meta said that people of color don't think about our skin colors, but for me that's not true. The shapes of my life being what they are, I think about my race and how it affects my interactions with people quite a bit, which includes considering my skin color. (It's hard not to think about one's skin color when one lives with a small person who delightedly reminds one that one is brown and he is pink.) And yet, by saying that, have I provided support to the next writer who'll write about Uhura thinking about her 'chocolatey skin' as if it's a weird strange deviation from 'normal', which will result in a cringeworthy and inaccurate tale?
This entry made more sense in my head before I wrote part of it while conversing with a four year old. Anyway. I think about these things a lot -- in the recent discussion over slash fic and its potential to harm gay men I thought and read a lot, though I didn't post publicly -- in part because I absolutely cannot dismiss mentions of these problems as "people choosing to be offended". I hate it when that comment is thrown at me and people like me for, for instance, pointing out problematic depictions of people of color, so I can't throw it at anyone else. I have to think about these issues and figure out how to do my best by everyone I might impact with my stories.
Now, how to do that?
*uses fetish icon*
Date: 2010-02-21 04:14 pm (UTC)You know what we keep finding out over and over in all these situations: the first step to getting better about something is finding out there could be a problem.
I am at the stage in my writing where I know I am erring in the direction of not directly pointing out race and skin tone with canon and original characters. It's because I am still trying to sort out in my own headspace how to do so respectfully rather than either fetishizing or effectively shouting "Look! This is different! And thus not normal!" I almost think I ought to add that to my list of warnings at the front of the story: "penned by someone who is still dodgy on writing race without being an ass." *believes in complete warnings*
Re: *uses fetish icon*
Date: 2010-02-21 09:06 pm (UTC)Seriously, though... It's because I am still trying to sort out in my own headspace how to do so respectfully rather than either fetishizing or effectively shouting "Look! This is different! And thus not normal!" Yeah. This is part of why I expanded the question, because, on this specific example I don't even know how to advise you; I know when I see it done well vs badly, thoughtfully vs unthought of, but I don't know how better to articulate that even when the little children aren't screaming.
In conclusion: *hugs you tightly* *runs to check on wee children*