FF: Pretty stereotypes (some SHIP too)

[Joanne Collins]

No: HPFGUIDX 20803

Ebony wrote:

>What annoys me are several fanfics that I have read in which the author has 
>decided to make Angelina white on purpose, saying, "I always saw her as 
>being white in my head... I identify with Angelina a lot, so I'm making her 
>white."  

Oh, my lord. What a horrid thing for a fanfic writer to say. I'm sorry, but
if you're not prepared to at least *acknowledge* the ethnicity of a
character, you shouldn't be writing them. Period. I have written a *lot* of
fanfic over the years, and some of the characters I've written about have
been Asian or black. I'm not saying I did any research outside of the
show/movie, aside from what I know from other reading and RL, but I sure as
*hell* did not say that an Asian character had porcelain skin (actually, I
don't think I've said that *any* character has porcelain skin, I tend to go
for creamy). It's unfair to change the canon portrayal of a character. Then
you're not writing fanfic, you're writing original fic and giving the
character a canon character's name.

When I first started writing a fic from Angelina's PoV last 
>Christmas, there was a thread over at HP_FanFiction that was started when a 
>certain writer admitted that they'd never pictured her as being "really 
>black".  

Well...it depends on what they meant by not "really black". If they meant
"I pictured her white," that's blatantly offensive. But if it's "I pictured
her light-skinned like Vanessa Williams," that's not *quite* so offensive.
However, my cynical side says that it's more likely the former. I can
actually picture Angelina or Dean as light-skinned, that's not unlikely to
me, but the other - no.

>Which brings to mind my post from yesterday--what is it about 
>characters of color that makes certain readers and fan writers so darn 
>uncomfortable?

Some of it can actually stem from a lack of confidence to write them.
People might think that they couldn't do it. But me, I just stumble along *g*.

And as John said, there is a societal element to this.

>Maybe I'm weird, but I don't have to *look* like a character in order to 
>identify with them.

*shrug* 90% of my favourite characters are male. I sure as hell don't look
like any of them. Doesn't stop me identifying with some of them.

Joanne.

-- 

Look, you're my best friend, so don't take this the wrong way. In twenty
years, if you're still livin' here, comin' over to my house to watch the
Patriots games, still workin' construction, I'll fuckin' kill you. That's
not a threat. Now, that's a fact. I'll fuckin' kill you. Chuckie (Ben
Affleck) Good Will Hunting