For me, it's been a process of turning off defaults I never thought much about and making the choice of which characters are speaking and whose story is being told an active decision. Yes, that. Because it IS a decision. Most of the time we don't make it consciously, because the world defaults to white (ostensibly straight) dudes and their manly angst, and so it's easy to fall into the same patterns. But I think it's important to be aware of what we're doing here--and honestly, also, it's getting boring to read the same stories over and over and it's not an accurate representation of the world. Seriously.
I always think of Ocean's 11 when I start thinking about representation. Because seriously, I love that movie (I'm very fond of charming conmen plots)--except that it makes me sad. How easy would it have been to make the crew more diverse (and have even ONE WOMAN)? SO EASY.
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Date: 2010-05-28 08:50 am (UTC)I always think of Ocean's 11 when I start thinking about representation. Because seriously, I love that movie (I'm very fond of charming conmen plots)--except that it makes me sad. How easy would it have been to make the crew more diverse (and have even ONE WOMAN)? SO EASY.