Meta: It Doesn't Feel Like That's a Story

[chasingtides]

I have no idea how well or poorly this is going to go over, but I've not got another place to put this. I also have no idea if I'm making sense.

I like stories with explosions and action and I most definitely want stories that are giving me something to sink my teeth into. I think it might be obvious where I lean if you look at what fandom I am in - Supernatural, Torchwood, Dr Who, Harry Potter, The Dark Is Rising, Good Omens, Sherlock Holmes. I like the flash and the bang and the feel of action in the very modern genre sense.

This is counterbalanced by my desire to see issues hashed out in stories. I enjoy stories that aren't - for lack of a better way to put it - about happy, straight, white, able-bodied, Christian men. I like stories that try to take a look at the real world. I want stories I can relate to, as a queer, disabled, female bodied reader. I want stories that can teach me, as well. Stories, as much as anything else, can teach you how to live in the world - even fantasy stories. Even fairy tales, after all, have core lessons (although I hope none of us are running around riding talking blue bulls).

Finding a happy medium for these desires in storytelling - both as storyteller and listener - is hard for me. I first came up against this as a storyteller when I joined lgbtfest this year. I wanted to tell a story about not fitting into the monosexual box, but I didn't want to preach or pull out of character or sound like an after school special that reassures us that "different people are okay too" but only reinforces the idea that there is a "normal" that "good" people adhere to.

When I was younger, I encountered this in a lot of books. In memory, the YA section was full of preachy after school special books. Sometimes it was the poor girl learning to live life with a disability - and it only served to remind me that the disabled are separate and need coddling. Many "women are people too!" books seemed, to my mind, to only reinforce the concept of a sexual dichotomy, that women are inherently different from men somehow. For the most part, I didn't read queer books and perhaps there aren't as many, but I can easily imagine what they could be like.

A key to these stories is that the crux of the story is that a character is disabled or female or a person of color. That would be the entire point. The whole movement of the plot is that, for example, Izzy was in an accident and now she can't walk. It's her inspirational story of how she learns to live with herself when she can't do anything she loves and an able-bodied person teaches her that she's still worthy of love*.

I've seen that done horribly a lot. I've seen it done well a couple of times, notably in the film Murderball. Of course, Murderball is about sports and a sports team, not an inspirational story of learning to overcome "difference" to function in the world.

I find it's a line I can often, disappointingly, draw between published fiction and pieces I read online. In fully published storytelling, I find that - with some exceptions, obviously - that if you have a main character of any kind of minority, dealing with the issues of that minority, the majority of the plot will be focused on that. The entire story - novel, movie, television episode, short story - is about this problem. In the above example, Izzy's entire life, as far as the reader can tell, is about her missing leg. There is nothing else. It's not that she's a concert violinist with an amputated leg who is trying to navigate Prague while being chased by Nazis and stairs are posing quite the issue; it's that she can't be able-bodied (and able-bodied = happiness or wholeness) and she needs to be taught to by happy by the "normal people*.

In unpublished, self-published, etc. storytelling, often a character may encounter discrimination of some kind, but they're also doing other things with their lives. Norrington is trying to hide his relationship with Jack Sparrow so they aren't tried for sodomy, but, even as they're trying to trick the governor, they need to find the long lost map to the Fountain of Youth before it falls into the hands of the plague-ridden undead and they unleash endless undeath on the whole of the Caribbean.

Am I just reading the wrong books? Is there a way to get people to talk about better stories, when they exist, or a place where we can talk about the problems of stories that treat minorities in this manner?

*I'm using Cynthia Voigt's Izzy Willy-Nilly as an example because I've been cleaning out bookcases to donate books to the local library book sale and found it. Some well meaning person gave it to me when I was 9 and dealing with living with my own disability. I do not advise giving this book to any young person living with a disability. Ever.

Comments

[chasingtides.livejournal.com]

I think you've hit the nail on the head - it's in these stories that the character's minority status provides their only obstacles in life. For my Izzy Willy-Nilly example, she's not moody and unhappy because she's in high school and because the senior was "using" her on a date and because she's a teenager and by definition, most teenagers are moody and unhappy, at least part of the time. Instead, she's moody and unhappy because she's lost her leg - when she had both legs, she was happy as a clam.

And it's this - the only difficulty in a character's life is their minority status - that might be getting to me. It smacks of, "If you were just normal, you wouldn't have any problems." It's a patently false statement - life is hard, regardless - but it also carries the subtle undercurrent that the discrimination/oppression/etc is the fault of the minority - if they just knew enough to be male, straight, white, etc, then they wouldn't be having these problems.