three things

[harborshore]

Regarding the recent SPN Big Bang racist fail:

1. People who speak a language you don't understand do not gibber or jabber, they talk. You just don't understand them. ETA: This post is more detailed concerning this point.


2. If your story has a major tragedy whose victims are portrayed as somehow less than your protagonists, if said victims have no agency (as in, they don't do anything, they get things done to them), and if they (and their deaths) are there only to provide angst for your heroes, then you are doing it WRONG.


3. If you're considering writing a fic about a tragedy that is still going on, then tread carefully. Very carefully.

Note: the link above goes to an extensive collection of the offending quotes from the story; there's a full roundup at Unfunny Business.

Comments

[torakowalski.livejournal.com]

Ugh. I know that there are other racist and faily things happening in that story not just the language one but that's the one I keep getting stuck on. Pro-Colonialism, pro-Imperialism fiction from the 1950s described non-European languages as gibberish. We should be so far beyond that by now. /o\

[harborshore.livejournal.com]

Well, the implications of that one are so icky, I cannot even--it implies "those people" don't really talk. Or not like "civilized people" at any rate. For fuck's sake, two seconds on wikipedia told me eight million people speak this language. Eight million people. Yes, let's reduce their language to gibberish. I just, what?