Another teal deer about queer invisibility, writing manuals edition

[bodlon]

Non-confession confession of the day: I actually find books on writing useful. Not in a rote technique sort of way -- writing stories is not like assembling an IKEA wardrobe -- but because they give me additional points of reference.

It's the same reason one might use a map to climb a mountain. The cartographer is sharing useful data, but having that data in hand does not magically get you to the top of the giant rock. That still takes labor. The map just makes it easier to organize that labor and undertake it safely.

This is all to the good, I think. And in fact is not why I am sitting here with a fifteen-year-old copy of 20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias, wondering how hard I can throw it at the wall without waking my roommate. I am, in fact, holding it -- and have owned it since my teens, despite my occasional fits of book rage -- because of that road map factor.

I'm frustrated because this particular road map is infused with a very particular worldview -- specifically, a somewhat old-school heteronormative one -- at odd and inescapable intervals.

For a book that came out in 1993, 20 Master Plots is actually reasonably progressive. The text for the chapter on Quest plots consistently uses feminine pronouns. Race gets somewhat less attention, but at least exists. This doesn't surprise me much; Tobias is an educator, and educators do actually have to engage these things more often than a lot of the general population in order to serve a diverse student body. Queerness of any stripe, though, is conspicuously absent.

This is the part of the conversation where people have rolled their eyes at me before. Or chuckled. Even people I generally know and trust to be good allies have gone, "Oh, Christian. Seriously?"

Go ahead. Pat me on my adorable little liberal noggin for being oversensitive. I'm used to it.

Because here's the thing: it's not that every text in the world should have to overtly contain positive depictions of people like me. In fairness to Tobias, 1993 was the year that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was touted as progress. And really, 20 Master Plots isn't the problem per se.

The problem is that the percentage of texts that do include trans and queer narratives still doesn't seem to round up to even 1% of everything published in a year. Stories that include us air on television with warnings about adult content when equally explicit straight narratives do not. Concepts like faith and virtue are inextricably linked in this country with attitudes of discrimination and cruelty. One of this year's Republican front-runners practically campaigns on the idea that any relationship I'm in is equivalent to incest, pedophilia, and bestiality. Every day there's another article about a murder or a beating that could have happened to somebody I care about. Or me.

It's exhausting.

So when I'm in full work mode and run into a world where any whiff of romance is straight, gender is always binary, and "Girl Meets Boy" is presented as a charming, modern subversion of "Boy Meets Girl", the only response I've got is to visualize a hyperdestructive Dragonball Z-style exploding monster quake with me screaming at the epicenter.

Cathartic as that is, it does sort of distract me from my actual work.

None of this is Mr. Tobias' fault. The problems in 20 Master Plots are symptoms more than they're causes. He is probably a perfectly lovely individual. In fact, I'd be curious to see if later editions of the text have been updated to be more inclusive.

But oh, it's a final straw issue. It's a canary in a coal mine issue. And it would be nice if the response I get when I mention it could be something other than a headpat and a roll of the eyes from friends who are cis, straight, or passing/read as such. I want my friends to be just as angry, just as disoriented, just as exhausted. I want them to notice. Even better, I want the Ronald B. Tobiases of the world to notice what they're doing and make it better.

Then again, I also want the sane people of the world to revolt against racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic nonsense and demand better of their teachers, their elected officials, their books, their movies, etc. instead of voting for Rick Santorum in primaries and trying to pass "don't say gay" bills, and railing against contraception, marriage parity, and so forth.

At least then I'd have enough willpower left over to ignore a couple of pronoun choices.

This post has been mirrored from Christian A. Young's Dimlight Archive. To see it in its original format, visit dimlightarchive.com

Comments

[stasia]

Huh. First of all, thanks for reminding me of that book. I have it about somewhere and could use the road map, yes I could!

Second, I'm cis and I agree with you. There isn't a lot of queerness in books/literature/tv shows, especially queerness presented as (what it should be) normal. All I can do to help, myself, is offer that queerness in my own writing and try to be as inclusive as possible.

As for the voting for Santorum thing, I heard the most terrifying thing on the news last night. According to polls, the breakdown of Republican voters here in California is that Romney is the preferred choice of men and that Santorum is the preferred choice of women. I nearly choked to death sitting her on my couch hearing that. WTFuckingHELL?! How can any woman vote for that Dark Ages fuckhead.

*ahem*

I will now stop ranting in your journal.

Stasia

[bodlon]

Hey, my journal is a rant-friendly zone! I mean, I rant here all the time. Might as well let others in on the fun, right?

It really is a fantastic book. Tobias really digs in on each basic plot, gives great examples of how the ideas are used in real media, etc. On good days, it's a book that energizes me because it gives me lots of ideas. I really do recommend it to people a fair bit.

As for queer lit, that's kind of a minefield. On the one hand, as someone who's a part of the LGBTQ community, I know that these things will always be a numbers game because statistically speaking we'll always be a minority. We just don't happen en masse, so straight and cis support and interest is a good thing. On the other hand, there's the m/m by-and-for women thing, which I know some gay men find really problematic, and quite fairly, because it sucks to be fetishized. It's a complex sort of balancing act. I'm not always sure how to do it properly.

And yes, the whole political scene right now just has me facepalming with great vigor. Eeh.

[pocketmouse]

I've stopped watching a lot of media because I'm sick of having to rely on fanfic for the queer reading. I think part of the reason I love the Ponds so much is that they really do read as genderqueer to me -- they definitely have the gender roles swapped in that story. And it's not enough, of course, but it has kept me from vomiting into my hat every time they're adorable onscreen. So many of the shows that people squee over because it's got a great pairing I don't even want to watch because it's not actually canon. I actually stopped watching White Collar because I knew I was never going to get canonical threesome, and I didn't want to see what het pairing they were going to come up with instead.

I've still got that murder/theft mystery thing on the back back burner of my writing program, but it's on the back burner because I don't know what I'm doing with the background for the main character, who's trans, but she's totally hiding it, but I don't like that narrative but that's the only narrative the character's giving me. So I keep ignoring it so I don't have to feel like a bad person for writing it.

[bodlon]

See, I love White Collar, and I don't necessarily need Neal/Peter/Elizabeth to be canonical to appreciate it.

I mean, it would be hotter than fucking hot. Don't get me wrong. But wow, I really love the Peter/Elizabeth relationship. I haven't seen a straight relationship that functional and amazing on television since Firefly. And they have a dog.

I know. I'm ridiculous.

But you're right how frustrating it is to have to live on subtext, or in a world with not enough text in the right places, etc. You are absolutely allowed to go where you want to go to get what you want. OTOH, there are a lot of content producers out there making queer media who could use your love if the straight stuff's not doing it for you. Ping me with wants, I'll see what I can find for you. :)

Also. Go write all the things. And read Diana Comet.

[contrarywise]

It is wearying to rarely see People Like Us in media, for whatever value of Us you might identify with, and it's arguably worse to see us portrayed badly/unrealistically than to not be seen at all. You'd think that after all these years I'd be used to the invisibility and denial of fundamental aspects of my identity and lived experience in media, but I can't help wishing for the occasional realistic (or even realistic-ish) representation in my reading and viewing material. It's refreshing to get explicit acknowledgement of QUILTBAG people's existence in popular media, and not in some shiny, pink, magical ghetto or dark, x-rated virtual alleyway, but in the same world that everyone inhabits. Ditto for people of color, people with disabilities, and others. It's a remarkably diverse world, with so many stories. When media producers and distributors ignore and erase that diversity out of fear that they won't be able to sell it to white, cisgendered, straight men, they impoverish us all. This is a major reason why I still love fandom and its creativity in re-envisioning corporate-owned media properties and its generosity in freely sharing those visions (despite the problematic aspects of some manifestations of fannish culture), and why I dance a li'l fanboy jig when I come across stuff like Wonder City Stories that features a much more diverse cast of characters than corporate-controlled media provide. So yeah, this is me joining you (and your other commenters) in both cheer-leading awesome stuff that depicts the diversity of humanity more completely and realistically, and shaking my fist at the frustrating monolith of normativity in media. Grawr!

[bodlon]

I agree that fandom can be an awesome place for exploration, experimentation, and diversifying the field, though I do have some persistent reservations about some of what goes down (e.g. queer appropriation and objectification in slash subculture). Still a community that at least makes an effort to encourage subversion is at least a friendlier one than an entity that doesn't.

So yeah! Stuff!