Can a stereotypical character ever be made non-stereotypical?

@Morwen

I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying. When I'm talking about firsthand experience I'm not talking about your setting, I'm talking about the peoples making up the USA, specifically the ethnic groups you're worried about stereotyping. How can you genuinely know, not from affirmation by other people, but in your own mind, whether you are not unfairly stereotyping a group you have no firsthand experience of? I don't think this is a practical expectation.

Imagine an American who heard about the Redfern Riots and decided to write about Indigenous Australian street hooligans. How could they do this reasonably or non-stereotypically or realistically if they had not been to Australia? Maybe this is possible, but I can't see how.

edited 25th Aug '13 8:37:32 PM by editerguy

Hey, Smydro here.

Just be careful when utilizing stereotypes. Centering a character around a stereotype is a surefire way to offend someone.

David Bowie 1947-2016

Worse than that it's lazy.

hashtagsarestupid

@editerguy: I don't know and I think it's impossible to know, depending on what kind of group you're talking about (ethnic/religious or social). I highly doubt most Americans have firsthand experience of street gangs unless they were in one, grew up or worked in or near a housing project, worked in a rehabilitation program or jail, or are or were a police officer.

The road goes ever on. -Tolkien

One advice I've heard is to write the character first and then add the class/race/gender whatever. For example, if you are male, write the character as a male and then switch the pronouns/a few descriptions.

Personally I find this advice appealing, but I suspect that some might say that it ignores the social issue.

Another thing to keep in mind is that trying to defy each and every stereotype might lead to a case of Real Women Never Wear Dresses , which has a bit of Unfortunate Implications in it's own right. So I think is is understandable if the characters have some stereotypical traits. The problems arise, I think, when either

• Only certain types of characters have those traits (only black people in the story are criminals, only women are hysterical or submissive and so on
• When the narrative links stereotypic qualities with ethnicity/gender/whatever and pretty much says that the characters behave that way because they are of the certain demographic (of course she sacrificed her career for the guy - after all, she is only a woman). This can be somewhat tricky as there might be perfectly legitimate reasons for the narrative to link behaviours with demographic if it is concerned with the effect racism, sexism, class differences and other sort of inequalities have upon a person. But it can be managed, I think, if the attention is drawn to the circumstances that make people behave in a certain way and not to the "inherent qualities" of the demographic.
• When stereotype sums up the character

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

It is pretty good advice but like everything it needs to be taken with moderation

If I was female, I would probably retain the same interests and personality as I do now but I would still be treated differently and have an inherently different outlook of my life from my experiences.

The main criticism of so called strong female characters in action movies is they act and behave like male characters for all intents and purposes. They are not defined by their gender but they don't reflect it either.

'Men with tits' if you will.

edited 25th Aug '13 11:31:47 PM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

The interesting thing about these stereotypes is that "Jewish gangsters" are fairly rare as fictional characters.

The road goes ever on. -Tolkien

If you DEFINE a character by a stereotype, yeah that ain't good.

David Bowie 1947-2016

Hmm, I don't remember this sort of criticism, though I do remember an opposite. That their goals and attitudes as still defined in relationship to traditional female roles, especially "hero's girlfriend" or "mother".

However, I do remember that type of criticism being made against the non-white characters for not indicating their race in any way. For example, against Anderson from Mass Effect series - some people were upset that a likeable and plot-important non-white person is behaving as a "white" person would, and so is not "real" enough. Hence why I've included that objection.

If we disagree, that much, at least, we have in common

So "stereotypical Jewish gangster" is bad.

"Jewish gangster who wants a roof over his head" is relatively good if said character has a personality.

edited 27th Aug '13 11:10:37 PM by morwenedhelwen

The road goes ever on. -Tolkien

Right. :)

David Bowie 1947-2016

Thanks everyone.

edited 28th Aug '13 2:00:58 AM by morwenedhelwen

The road goes ever on. -Tolkien

I don't know Jewish gangster is even a stereotype to be honest.

It's definitely a step up from living set piece I'll give you that.

I don't suppose fem!shep should get a mention. Seeing as she's literally a female version of default male character.

hashtagsarestupid

Lot of good points made so far, but a few other thoughts:

I think one big factor is not so much whether the character displays stereotypical behavior, but also the connotations of how the work presents it.

Like with a lot of the Victorian works, there's a very clear subtext (or sometimes text) that these "stereotypical" features mark the Jewish characters as foreigners who don't really belong in England/are sinister traits.

Or similarly, with the fried chicken and watermelon association with African Americans, the foods themselves are "innocent"- its problematic because they are associated with works using them to call African Americans lazy and stupid.

One other thought- having an ethnic/regional accent doesn't mean you are stupid, and it might not even mean a lack of book smarts either (just because you don't necessarily speak the King's English doesn't mean you can't read it).

As a corollary, if the work was from the POV of such a character, they'd probably sound "normally" in their own head and perceive the accents of other people.

Edit, edit, edit, edit the wiki

@Hodor: On the subject of accents, how does this quote from Street Thieves and Artful Dodgers (the story in question), with a quote written in African American dialect, read to you? For background, Hannah's Black and "everyone" calls her by her first name, even her son, Dodger. My technique is to represent the characters' speech phonetically when they are speaking in dialect, but normally when they're speaking Standard English. It's quite common to find posts written in different dialects of English on messageboards.

edited 28th Aug '13 5:25:15 PM by morwenedhelwen

The road goes ever on. -Tolkien

I thought you weren't going to use the Funetik Aksent. Yaw an Ostrayan an' ya talkin' abowt Standed Inglish? Mate, ev'rywun haz a fuckin' aksent.

edited 28th Aug '13 8:25:51 PM by editerguy

I forget, is Fagin in the U.S. for your story? Otherwise, shouldn't Hannah have more of a "Cockney" accent, since she's been living in the East End?

You know, I think one thing that's kind of "problematic", is that she's being described from the perspective of someone who is using (or at least thinking in) standard English- it kind of "Otherizes" her.

Also, maybe you are going for period detail, but I wonder at the description of her skin tone- my sense is that the use of the term blue to describe "black" skin is both outdated and sort of racist.

Edit, edit, edit, edit the wiki

@Hodor: 1. Yeah, it's set in around the same area that Gangs Of New York was set in, only in the future. Five Points, also called the "Bloody Sixth" in the actual 19th century.

2.The kid/teenager in question is also Black. The full extract is actually written as a diary entry, and it'd sound a bit ridiculous to write the whole thing in dialect. Plus, this kid's supposed to have been to school, although not regularly.

3.Really? I've never heard that before. I really only know the term "bluemen", a Norse term referring to clothes, not skin colour, and to North Africans, not West or Central Africans. AFAIK there are different shades of "black" skin. There's the "brown" skin, which is what would come into my mind if someone said "Describe what think of when you think of a Black person," and then there are slightly lighter/darker than that and much lighter than that, and then there's the sort of skin Hannah and Dodger have, which is very dark, is actually black, and definitely has a bluish undertone. If that's not a good way to describe that kind of skin, than have you got any better suggestions?

edited 29th Aug '13 12:57:30 AM by morwenedhelwen

The road goes ever on. -Tolkien

IIRC Neil Gaiman described that skin tone as something along the lines of 'very, very dark, as close as skin tone can get to black' in Anansi Boys. Or one of his books.

edited 29th Aug '13 1:08:42 AM by editerguy

@editer: Thanks.

edited 29th Aug '13 3:34:24 AM by morwenedhelwen

The road goes ever on. -Tolkien

With the racism thing, I was recalling this entry (think its somewhere under Values Dissonance under Literature) wherein some book euphemistically described a mixed-race character as "blue in her moons".

I also know Blueskin is an older slang term for someone with dark skin (e.g. one of the criminals involved with Jonathan Wild was known as "Blueskin" Blake). I also came across the term recently in this novel Sharps, where a dark skinned group are called Blueskins by people from an enemy country.

Edit, edit, edit, edit the wiki