The Heathers and Hollow Minority Characters

Recently classic film, The Heathers has been rebooted and the first trailers for the new version have been released. And the titular Heathers, the mean girls, have been cast as fat, LGBTQ and POC.

 This has not been received well.

Casting these over-powerful Mean Girls as minorities is just plane bizarre. The idea that any of these girls would have “too much power” in high school is simply almost too bemusing to be offensive. Almost. Throw in the cishet white thin girl fighting violently back against these marginalised oppressors and we have something that turns the stomach.

We need to remember exactly how unpleasant and even damaging some of these portrayals can be. The idea of a highschool terrorism by a coalition of marginalised characters is not only completely alien to reality, but it’s outright offensive compared to the lived experience of actual teens. It’s very much a case of Reverse Oppression: which we’ve condemned before and it is most definitely no less damaging here where we have the most prominent victims of highschool bullying, victims who are driven to suicide in vastly disproportionate numbers, now been presented as the villains deserving of attack. While the ones most often responsible for real marginalised people’s torment are recast as the poor, innocent, persecuted victims deserving of vengeance. People are angry and my gods they have good reason to be.

This reality does not exist. Or it does, in one place - the imagination of entitled privileged people who think marginalised people speaking up or taking steps towards equality are “dangerous” and “oppressive” and need to be - often violently - put back in their place. I bet these people are going to love the new Heathers, they’ll be cheering it on as each one of those terrible minorities is taught a lesson for getting above herself. And likely feel inspired or justified in their own attitudes - or even actions.

I think the core of the problem here is that these are not POC, fat or LGBTQ characters. They are cishet, able bodied, white characters with marginalised labels attached. There has been no attempt to actually create a marginalised character, no examination of what the lives of marginalised characters are like, no concept of differing experiences, different histories, how this may reflect on culture, viewpoint, personality or any other aspect of this character. Instead we have produced 3 marginalised characters who are completely alien to actual marginalised people, 3 marginalised characters who interact with the world in a way actual marginalised people find bemusing, and a world setting that is supposed to be like ours but is completely alien because of these changes.

The problem here is in no way limited to The Heathers – we’ve seen plenty of other, but usually less egregious examples, in several of our shows and books. You can tell when a writer has written a book full of straight people and then decided, belatedly, to declare one of them to be gay – so just decided to call them that. Probably once. Without any real examination of how Gay Fred would be a different person from straight Fred. You can tell when a show has written roles for cishet white people (often they will call this role “open” by which they mean, because of the societal default, it is for cishet white, able bodied people) and then decided at the last minute to cast a Black girl in that role without any real thought as to whether her character would in any way differ from the white girl initially imagined.

The truth is that marginalised people do not generally live identical lives to those who lack marginalisations. Some of this is as benign as differing cultures or subcultures which influence language, food, experience, social life, gathering places and so much more. And a lot is far less, the basic issue of being marginalised of facing prejudice of not feeling safe, of being excluded or unsafe in certain places or around certain people. Of major social institutions being menacing, of having a completely different outlook to government, the police, churches, schools, to growing up being taught different things, seeing people like you in radically different contexts or removed entirely from fiction and history

All of these things can and do leave a mark. They change and build a person.

This doesn’t mean you should create a character who is entirely defined by their marginalisation - and ye gods we’re certainly not calling for more Lesbian Sharks who are incapable of doing anything in their lives that does not entirely revolve around their marginalisation. But do research, do recognise ways in which a marginalised character may approach life differently. There are countless minor ways you can incorporate their marginalisation into their daily lives (without rendering them near invisible) and properly flesh out these characters as more than  just labels on cishet white people. You can see good examples with Peter Grant in Rivers of London, the characters in Dyre, and the Astounding Antagonists and the Rise of Io, The Rayne Whitmore Series, Signal to Noise and Bone Street Rumba. Here we have marginalised characters whose marginalisation informs their character, is part of their character, their experiences, they way they see the world without being the sum total of their character.

And if you can’t do that (and it’s not asking much, so you can. It just involves trying. Just a little bit), at least examine the scenes you’re putting them in and ask if this would be different for a marginalised person so you don’t dump them in a collection of cringeworthy tropes.

The people in Vampire Diaries may love gathering around to celebrate their slave owner founders and watching Gone with the Wind, but is it possible, just possible, that Black woman Bonnie may be less invested in this?

Maybe someone needs to watch Bellamy asking an all white room “DO I LOOK DIFFERENT TO YOU!” without wearing the special Colour-blind-glasses.

Maybe ask whether you need to kill that LGBTQ character and that LGBTQ character and this LGBTQ character and this LGBTQ character and this LGBTQ character, and these LGBTQ characters, and these LGBTQ characters and these LGBTQ characters, and these LGBTQ characters and these LGBTQ characters and for fuck’s sake I’m not drunk enough to continue this list. And I’m not even half done.

Maybe ask yourself if running POC through the grinder to be quickly replaced by equally characterless clones is the choice here?

And before you run to me saying “hey my fictional world has no prejudice” - yeah, this is not a an excuse. You still have to do the work.

 In all, this is another classic example of half-assing diversity. As more and more writers are realising marginalised people have money and really want to see themselves portrayed, and more and more of us are willing to speak up about erasure, we’re seeing a wide range of token tactics to try and get the most praise for doing the very least. Throwing in someone with the appropriate skin tone or who mentions they like the same-sex once every 11 episodes is not sufficient for producing believable, fully developed marginalised characters, It’s not even sufficient to prevent your characters blundering through grossly offensive tropes like a concussed alcoholic rhino. You need to look at marginalised characters as characters, as people, as elements of books and shows that need to be developed and worked on and researched. It takes a bare modicum of effort, not just throwing in some labels.

Which Characters Matter?

When talking about inclusion and diversity and media, we have repeatedly discussed erasure, tokenism and which characters get to be protagonists or major characters. Ultimately these discussions all rest on a simple question: Which characters matter? And from what it follows, since media shapes culture: which people matter?

“Which Characters Matter?” Cuts very much to the core of a lot of representation of minority characters. When we see briefly appearing tokens who show up to tick some inclusion box so the writers/etc can meet their diversity quota, we know these characters don’t matter. A character who appears once every few episodes or for a few brief passages in the book clearly doesn’t matter: maybe they’ll get a Very Special Episode but never really exist outside of that. The T-Dogs from Walking Dead, a good handful of pathologists or similar CSI experts on many shows, Dr Deaton on Teen Wolf, any POC in the Anita Blake Series. We’ve seen a lot of these characters who regularly disappear into plot boxes, hang around in the backs of crowds and generally exist because the writers don’t want to be seen as prejudiced but don’t actually want to put in even a modicum of real effort not to be. We know they don’t matter.

But just because a character appears more regularly hardly means they matter - and just because a character is commonly on screen or even is otherwise very prominent doesn’t mean that they’re not a token - or tokenised. A character can appear regularly in a story yet still be utterly meaningless to it or basically exist as a placeholder with no real storyline, development or presence

Jeremy on Wynonna Earp regularly appears in the show, has almost become part of the core crew since his addition: but can we say he is more than a token just because he is in more episodes than not? He’s there, but does he matter? Do we know anything about him and, tellingly, can we replace him with basically ANYONE? Can we completely rebuild his character from the ground up and not really change the story? Can we even remove his character and not really change the story? We can, ultimately, Jeremy doesn’t happen and if he is removed there will be no Jeremy shaped hole in Wynonna Earp

Or we can look at Luke on The Vampire Diaries: he was necessary to the plot in that his magic was useful and he needed to die. But any sacrificial lamb could have sufficed, it didn’t need to be Luke with his personality or characterisation. All that was needed was for Liv, the character who actually did matter, to have a twin. For live to have a twin to die for her. Luke didn’t matter - his corpse did.

This can apply even to characters who are regularly involved in the plot line, like Felix on Orphan Black. He is a constant source of support for Sarah, Allison and the rest of the clone club. They rely on him, they use him and he appears constantly… And yes, if we removed Felix I think the whole storyline would radically change - but only because so many characters rely on him as a servant. If we radically changed Felix and made him, say, a straight female accountant who loves Apple products and is still slavishly devoted to the rest of the cast? The story doesn’t change. If he was replaced by a 60 year old man called Bob who is being blackmailed by Sarah and secretly hates her? The story doesn’t change. Felix has no storylines, he has no relevant characterisation, every single aspect of his personality could be cut away and replaced and so long as he still serves, the plot doesn’t change. His removal would cause a hole on Orphan Black but it would be a generic hole - not a Felix shaped one. Ultimately, Felix, as Felix, doesn’t matter.

We see this as well in the House of Night series where Zoey is followed around by her sycophantic circle. They’re in every book. But if Damian and Shaunee were replaced - or removed entirely and the authors decided you only needed 3 elements to complete a circle (or everyone got two elements each) the plot wouldn’t change - except to become marginally less offensive. They have no storylines, they have no relevance, they exist to creep after Zoey like abused cult leaders following their supreme leader. They do not matter

While a common thread with these characters is a lack of their own storyline or development, it is also possible for these characters to have their own plotlines (albeit usually brief) but for them to still not overly matter to the main plot. They’re a side-plot, their own storyline is not deemed important, certainly not a plot line that the main characters are involved in

A good example of this is True Blood where Tara, Lafayette and Jesus all technically had their own storylines. Even long, involved storylines that spread over several arcs. And did Sookie give even the slightest shit about these storylines? Did any of the main characters? Except when these characters were useful in the main plot were they ever remotely relevant to the main characters or core plot line? Even when their plots involved rape, kidnap, imprisonment, near death and actual death very little actually rippled to the central cast. There were separated, quarantined even, from the main plot line - they could have been removed and other than the show being shorter, the actual plot would not have changed. You could edit all three of these characters out of True Blood and barely notice because none of their plot lines - their presences - were foundations to the show.

Another really good example of this is Penny Dreadful. We have a painfully clear, more obvious token in Sembene. He’s completely undeveloped, has no back story, no real motive and no purpose and less screen time. A classic, pointless, rather insulting token. But also look at Dorian. No-one can argue he wasn’t prominent, nor can we say he didn’t have sweeping, involved plot lines. But how involved were any of the other characters in those plot lines? How important was he or his activities to Vanessa & co? If he - and all his plotlines - were removed from the show, would anything about that show have to change? Would the ending be fundamentally different? Dorian managed to live in his own little island, almost a second show pasted onto the main plot. And I liked Dorian’s character and I really liked the plot they told - by saying these storylines were quarantined doesn’t mean they were bad; it just means they were separated. They were there, they were even interesting and powerful, but they didn’t MATTER

Stop Celebrating Crumbs

As reviewers and commenters on diversity, inclusion, equality and representation in Urban Fantasy specifically and speculative fiction in general, we often have a lot of negative things to say. So many negative things to say. There are simply not enough bullets to hit all the fish packed in these barrels. Just repeatedly saying, over and over again “there are no LGBTQ characters in this book” which I am thinking of turning into a macro to save time, is a constant negative refrain I find myself chanting like a very depressing mantra.

Which means when we find something with excellent representation, with meaningful  presence in the story, that matters to the plot, which avoids tropes and stereotypes it’s a blessed relief to break out the confetti and start singing it to every corner of the internet. It’s a joy to applaud the starkly powerful dystopia of Handmaid’s Tale, the epic storyline and racial commentary in American Gods, the incredible acting and plethora of differently-strong women on Orphan Black. The diversity of Class, the widely present racial inclusion of the Psy/Changeling, Bone Street Rumba, Rayne Whitmore,the Habitat Series, and Kate Daniels series all all worthy of praise and it’s a pleasure to lavish praise on them.

But sometimes it seems that we see that praise being doled out… a little over-eagerly - which seems to be an increasing recurring theme in LGBTQ portrayal now that we’re actually getting some.

Often this is an utterly cynical ploy by show creators (aided and abetted by actors, writers and all too often the media) who realise that throwing in some token diversity will get them access to a potentially loyal audience. Ultimately, as we’ve said time and time again on Fangs for the Fantasy erasure is incredibly common, most media has little minority representation or only very limited or deeply troped marginalised representation. Marginalised people want representation - anyone following social media and diversity blogosphere knows how much hype can be gathered by marginalised people desperately wanting to see themselves in a meaningful manner on television or in books. The enthusiasm is matched only by much cishet white people will lose their ever loving shit over said representation.

So when you’ve got a desperate, eager population of viewers who will definitely tune in if they think you have meaningful representation, of course they’re going to reach out to minorities to try and sell their minorities. The sad thing is that repeatedly sell the least, using articles and marketing ploys to convince us that tiny, brief, minor characters and tokens are amazing inclusion we’re all going to love. Only for more disappointment every single time as we find that hyped, amazing inclusion is another non-existent, brief token with no real presence in the show or book.

And while we certainly should not give a pass to the showrunners, producers (and writers and actors who are ridiculously complicit in this marketing and are constantly allowed to repeat this nonsense) who prey on this hunger for representation to try and sell their product; we also have to cast an eye on the media that is buying into this. Especially media which is expressly supposed to cater for and advocate for minorities. Really, Pink News I get that everyone needs hits, but when Jordan Woods-Robinson, the actor who played Eric on The Walking Dead said:

“It always brought us such pride knowing that we were able to bring a relationship to life that resonated with so many people, that echoed at a core level.”

Then maybe someone might have wanted to reel back on that? The man had less than 20 minutes total screen time over 3 seasons. People had to look up his name. He didn’t just star in a zombie, dystopian version of Rent. The fact that anyone is “resonating” with this relationship just shows how much we need more meaningful inclusion on these shows.

This is a problem other LGBT media has indulged in - The Advocate got some hefty pushback from their fawning interview with the Teen Wolf actors saying how amazingly progressive their show was. But we equally see other websites that pride themselves on their social justice or minority focus from the Mary Sue to the Backlot/NewNowNext to many others have all lept to lavish the most praise on the very least - or even just teases of the very least. Seriously, people, how many times can Star Wars and Marvel say “sorry no LGBT characters in this film, maybe next one” before you STOP jumping all over the rumours of the next one maybe, possibly having an LGBTQ character? Do you need those post clicks to pay for all the bridges you keep buying?

And that fan reaction to the Teen Wolf interview was sadly an anomaly. On social media you can happily find legions of fans gasping over how hot the sex scene was between Billy Eichner and Colton Hanes on American Horror Story (a 3 seconds scene of two torsos in moderate proximity…). We had people in rhapsodies of joy because Star Trek Discovery showed a gay couple declaring their love and movingly expressing said emotion after one had nearly died to save the other - by brushing their teeth together. Colgate isn’t this enthusiastic about oral hygiene. My dentist isn’t and I’m pretty sure flossing is a religion to her.

Even when shows do certainly have positive portrayals - like American Gods truly hot sex scene between the djinn and Salim was definitely worthy of praise: but to praise this one scene while ignoring the sad fact that Salim was a bit character at best.

When you’re hungry for representation, crumbs can feel like a feast. And when you’ve had nothing, even a small amount can feel like a lot. But disproportionate fawning over relatively small - or less - characterisations can be damaging. There’s all those cynical show producers (and writers and actors and so many more) who know they can get massive amounts of buzz, attention and revenue by waving a small token or rumour in front of us. While at the same time keeping it “low key” enough to not unduly outrage all those precious cishet white folks who always get so utterly outraged at the presence of anyone not just like them. The writers et al have no incentive to do more, provide more or treat their LGBTQ characters - or any minority characters - remotely respectfully or meaningfully.

This isn’t even about active bigotry - from a sheer economic and marketing perspective: if you have a segment of the population who will boycott, scream and generally lose their shit if you include minorities in anything and the opposite side will treat you as an utter saviour for doing the least - or less - then you have a powerful incentive for doing as little as possible to get that buzz while still flying as far under the radar of the screaming masses as you positively can. Every time we throw a parade because an LGBTQ person indulged in some loving flossing or appeared on screen for five minutes or was just rumoured to be about to appear we continue to encourage these show creators to do no more than the least

It can also be destructive on a personal level for minorities. We know what a main character looks like. We know what a meaningful character looks like. We know what important characters look like. We know when a scene is important, when a scene is moving, when a scene is exciting or epic or even hot or explicit. We’ve already said time and again how damaging it is for minorities to only see themselves as supporting cast, a minor elements - or not present at all - the pervasive message is that we deserve to be no more than minor, quiet reflections in some privileged person’s life. That we don’t matter, that we’re less important and less valuable.

But how much more damaging is it when members of that minority and publications supposedly advocating for that minority buy into this? When the producers throw a token, tiny character and expect us to be happy, they’re reinforced when we flock round to praise and hail them for this minimal inclusion. The producers tell us we should be grateful for being these minor inclusions in a cishet white man’s life - and then we flock round to agree with that, to express that very gratitude and fawning. The producers tell us we don’t deserve better than this… and we agree with them. That’s a combined message which is the very opposite of empowering.

I get it, I have been more than tempted to wave the flag and cheer every time I see someone like me on television - I’ve read literally thousands of books and am represented in less than 5% of them, we’ve reviewed over 120 shows and meaningful representation is not the norm. As I said before, when you’re starving, a crumb can seem like a feast. And of course we should enjoy our crumbs - but we shouldn’t forget that they’re still crumbs and we shouldn’t be sending the message that crumbs are what we deserve and should be happy for.

Friday Discussion: Isolated Tokens: Being the Only One

In our not-nearly-as-aware-as-we-wish times, more and more media creators are looking at their books, television shows, comics and games and realising “oh shit, everyone’s a cis, straight, white guy!” and realise they’re going to face the ultimate, horrendous scourge to ever befall an author: angry tweets

It’s amazing how they survive such cruel attacks

To avoid this terrible fate, they quickly drop in a marginalised character to wave that minorityness at the screen and call it done. Behold a token. One single, solitary, lonely token that, despite so much mocking, they still seem to think will earn them brownie points

But let’s examine this isolated token more closely and see just how bad it is.

So the author has decided to take the not so original step and dropped an isolated token into your story. Yes they are the one POC character in a sea of white folks. The one woman surrounded by men, the one LGBTQ person overwhelmed by an amazingly huge number of cishet people. The one woman to act as healer (or be “one of the guys”) in an all-male team. We have the one or two isolated, token characters giving a spot of “diversity” in a sea of homogenous privilege

And right away we will call “token” because “there can only be one” is such a classic indicatory of tokenism and a clear indication that the author is not actually invested in including the said marginalised groups so much as earning diversity cookies.

Why does this stand out so? Because marginalised people do tend to try and find themselves. From parades to churches, to barber shops to cafes to festivals to community centres to activist groups to shelters to co-ops to bars to clubs to hotels to resorts to craft clubs to sports teams  to dating apps, to community websites to ANYTHING - even the briefest of briefest google searches will find an enormous number of entities expressly created so marginalised people can find each other, socialise with each other and live in/create communities for themselves.

Honestly, it shouldn’t be surprising that real marginalinsed people not living in token world often build and seek out their own communities and aren’t always content being the odd one out in every single room they occupy. We, as fans of media, can completely understand the desire for fans to look for communities of their fellow fans just to discuss our hobbies, to cross entire continents to attend conventions and events - it should not be a bemusing idea that marginalised people would seek each other out for safe spaces, commonality of experience, understanding and community, it really shouldn’t.

But, ok, your token IS the only POC/LGBTQ/Woman/Disabled person in the village. That happens, we don’t all have communities and, for various reasons, we don’t all seek it.

Marginalised Characters: Banished to the Plot Box

© 2015 Pikawil, Flickr | CC-BY-SA | via Wylio

One phrase you will see repeated a lot on Fangs for the Fantasy is “the plot box”.

The Plot Box is a mysterious, unknown place where characters (usually minorities) are banished to when the writers decide they no longer know what to do with (or want to deal with) them. These characters disappear, often with little explanation, and are absent from the screen/page until the writers decide to use them again and they just reappear as if nothing happened.

We talk a lot about the Plot Box on Fangs because this is a storytelling tool that is very commonly used, can appear in many different ways and very often serves as another means by which marginalised characters are erased or tokenised.

The most common form of Plot Box Banishment is the simple disappearance. Usually with no explanation - a character will just not be present for several episodes. I’d like to think that they’re having wonderful wild times with the Doctor and he just got the timing wrong - but Doctor Who isn’t that diverse either.

The Originals has one gay character and he spends the majority of his time in the plot box.  Josh is besties with Davina. When he lost his boyfriend Aidan, Josh went away to lick his wounds and everybody including Davina who supposedly cares so much about him promptly forgot that he exists. Josh is allowed out of the plot box only when Davina is in some kind of danger or her fee fees are hurt. He has no real story of his own and the epitome of the GBFF, there to provide service and comfort for his straight “friend” (so often our shows seem to confuse “servitude” with “friendship”)

ABC made a big deal about adding Mulan to the cast of Once Upon a Time. And a while Once Upon A Time was teasing the idea that Mulan would confess her love to Aurora giving the series its first (and only) LGBT character. When Aurora announces her pregnancy, Mulan congratulates her and never reveals her feelings. Mulan then deals with her disappointment by joining the Merry Men and disappearing into the Plot Box - when the Merry Men return, Mulan is conspicuous by her absence. Though I say conspicuous, absolutely no-one noticed: her being lost in the Plot Box was not worthy of comment. Just when,. as an audience we were thinking of starting a missing person’s report Mulan shows up to help Merida to deal with a problem, before promptly leaping back into the Plot Box again.  

Morgan on The Walking Dead is perhaps my personal favorite example of this particular form of banishment. We first meet Morgan and his son Duane in season one, when Rick stumbles upon them after waking up in the hospital alone.  Morgan explains to Rick how society fell apart and gives him rudimentary instructions of how to survive in a zombie apocalypse.

Quiet Portrayals of Minorities

We, along with many others, have said time and again how important it is for us to have marginalised people depicted. Erasure is extremely damaging, and tokenism is little better improvement.

Many authors and writers are catching on to that - either due to a genuine hope to make things better or because they’ve caught on that diversity may be a useful marketing ploy in some circles (yes, I tend to be that cynical - indeed anyone looking at the conquest of the Shondaverse should have realised there’s money in diversity).

One of the things that feeds my cynicism are the “Quiet Portrayals.”

“Quiet Portrayals” can come in many forms: the Blink-and-you-miss-it-bisexual, the ambiguously-olive-skin-tone, the absent POC ancestor, the careful avoidance of labels and identities, relying on vague descriptors or relying on brief one off mentions in long series.

Ultimately, they are portrayals of marginalised characters - but kept as low key as possible. It very closely resembles the idea of having to Google The Minorities, but while there you can only tell that a character is marginalised by looking for extra-textual clues and statements by the author (the infamous Word of Gay which renders Dumbledore gay, honest), in this case you have to carefully study every book and every episode and pick out the one or two references that indicate that a character is a minority. The information is in the book, it’s definitely there - it is just very brief and easily missed to people who aren’t taking careful notes.

The marginalised person is portrayed as marginalised in the book or on the show - but

but carefully masked, subtly presented to not be too overt or too present or too offputting for the privileged mainstream. That’s not saying that the writers here are expressly thinking in those terms - in many cases I would say certainly not. However the pressures of “maketability”, the societal default and our overwhelming sense of what a protagonist should look like, as well as the ongoing insistence that a book with marginalised characters must be entirely about marginalised issues make the Quiet Portrayal a very easy trap to fall into.

For marginalised readers this may be a portrayal of themselves - but it comes with a subtext: yes you can be in these stories so long as you are quiet. So long as you aren’t TOO Black/gay/Asian/trans. So long as you don’t “flaunt” or “stuff it down people’s throats.” Again, this may not be the intended message of the author - and they may even have more overt marginalised characters (but who are probably not more prominent, not as major a character or not the protagonist), but it does carry this message. The main characters, the protagonist can be marginalised so long as they are sufficiently “low key” while marginalised characters who cannot hide, cannot pass or whose marginalisation is not easily overlooked are pushed to supporting roles.

There are many ways this Quiet Portrayal can be achieved. One of them is to make references to the character’s marginalised nature to be brief and one off in a more overarching story. Take Sanctuary, Dr. Helen Magnus, who despite being a co-protagonist and appearing in 58 episodes over 4 seasons there is one, one single episode, where her bisexuality was referenced. If you missed that episode, you would think this series completely lacked LGBT characters, it certainly didn’t help that this belated revelation only crept onto the scene in the second-to-last episode of the show. Doctor Who also lept on that trope with River Song giving us a last minute spoiler that she is bisexual. Witches of East End lasted only two seasons - but it was two seasons full of overwhelming amounts of graphic sexuality and sexual relationships between opposite sex couples; except two episodes. Two episodes in which it was revealed Joanna is bisexual and has had a female lover who we briefly meet. Her bisexuality is not mentioned before this and never mentioned again - in a show that is wall-to-wall naked skin and humping.