I wish people would just let authors cook. They shouldn’t have to write a certain amount of male or female characters, Gay or straight, etc. I think Vin is one of my all time favorite female characters written by a male author. And Fitz is one my all time favorite male characters written by a female author. You can criticize them if a certain type of character is badly written. But authors should have the license to write the story and characters they want. No one shout put pressure on them to reach a certain quota.
@Mightyjordy
6 ай бұрын
There were a few scenes where Fitz was being yelled at by his girlfriend and had absolutely no idea what was going on and I just thought, "wow, she gets me"
@Bookborn
6 ай бұрын
Authors (it's especially easy to see with fantasy!) often have to think outside their own experiences; I agree that limiting authors isn't a great way to get the best lit.
@titans1fan93
6 ай бұрын
@@Bookbornagreed! That’s what makes the great ones great. They can write different viewpoints than their own.
@jaginaiaelectrizs6341
6 ай бұрын
Same!!!!! ~Very well said. 🙂💜
@Lurklen
6 ай бұрын
Exactly. Encouraging inclusion should not equate to mandating it. The whole point is to get excited about telling (and Reading!) all kinds of stories, about all kinds of people. Not to cudgel every story into some impossible one size fits all shape that will somehow represent and be meaningful to everyone. Or worse, stratify and segregate authors so they can only write about certain people. Everyone and anyone *should* get to share their story, but not every story *has* to be about everyone or anyone in particular.
@cobba42
6 ай бұрын
Adulting 101: The world isn't black and white. So nice to listen to a sane person.
@john-lenin
6 ай бұрын
A token for the Patriarchy
@thelukesternater
6 ай бұрын
It’s fifty shades of… wait NOOOOOOO!!!
@liljinjar1268
6 ай бұрын
This is especially true when you understand that one of the major influences of LotR is Tolkiens time in WW1 with regard to him and a bunch of men fighting a great battle. That’s his experience in life and he can write a story influenced by it.
@joramsim
6 ай бұрын
Honestly I personally do not see a problem in sometimes getting movies/books that are targeted towards women and others that are targeted towards men:)
@CactusJack60
6 ай бұрын
I know right!?!?! It's like our culture wants to be angry at each other. But it's a super simple thing. Like for example sometimes I'll sit there and I'll watch 90 Day fiance with my girlfriend for like 4 hours. And then after we watch lord of the ring for 4 hours
@Bookborn
6 ай бұрын
Absolutely not! It becomes a problem when we make assumptions about the individual (you are a woman, thus you cannot like this book, etc lmao), but things are targeted for different demographics all the time.
@jaginaiaelectrizs6341
6 ай бұрын
Agreed-Me neither!!!😊💖🤍💖 Stereotyping is bad. Sweeping generalizations are bad. But creating things with specific audience bases in mind or tailoring certains more toward specific audiences than to general audiences is not a bad thing. Just like sometimes aiming certain things more for general audiences is totally fine, too!. Just about all things have their own time(s) and/or place(s). 🙂 The problem is only when anyone starts treating any particular one or the other as somehow more definitive or valid or important or whatever else than the other.^--^
@jefferickson5833
6 ай бұрын
Barbie was mainly oriented to females, there is nothing wrong with that.@@Bookborn
@michaelbodell7740
6 ай бұрын
@@jefferickson5833 That's an interesting example since many would treat Oppenheimer as universal or typical for awards bait bio film and Barbie as for women, but actually Oppenheimer's audience was more single gender than Barbie. They were close to mirrors but Oppenheimer's audience was more than 70% male while Barbie's was only 66% female. Personally I thought they were both great. Also, note Barbie was such a huge box office draw that a third of Barbie still meant that more men saw Barbie than most of the recent super hero films from Marvel or DC.
@Meta_Fungi
6 ай бұрын
How delightful it would be to read a book where everyone is already perfect, treated equally, and asks for pronouns, ensuring no character growth or plot development whatsoever! Such a riveting tale!
@Kie75
6 ай бұрын
Sorry, I dozed off halfway through that blurb :-)
@zeromath20
6 ай бұрын
Based comment
@exaggeratedhistory
5 ай бұрын
😂😂😂😂
@mau_jr
5 ай бұрын
its pretty good if you have any trouble to sleep
@SandroDelNorte
5 ай бұрын
😂😂😂😂😂
@a_gameodyssey
6 ай бұрын
Lord of the Rings was inspired by Tolkien's experience of the trenches in WWI, it would be odd if some of the fellowship were female. Context is very important.
@theimaginarium
6 ай бұрын
"The internet is where subtlety goes to die."
@Bookborn
6 ай бұрын
I don't feel like it's my original thought but I'll absolutely take credit for it 🤣
@theimaginarium
6 ай бұрын
@@Bookborn 😂😂😂Maybe not, but it was well said! And so true. And you're so right about how not every book should be expected to address every social inequity and injustice. Story MUST come first.
@PeterParker-ff7ub
4 ай бұрын
and sanity
@t0dd000
6 ай бұрын
The LotR's storyline is greatly connected to Tolkien's experience as a soldier in WWI and the associated horrors. And yes, in the trenches, it was very male.
@redryan20000
6 ай бұрын
It's weird how we've been conditioned there must be something wrong with expressing a male perspective. I get the historical context of male dominated spaces, but we should have the (equal) rights to have our own perspectives at the same time.
@t0dd000
6 ай бұрын
@@redryan20000 I have never heard anyone ever state that the male perspective is not valued. I don't think that is the question here.
@sakamotosan1887
6 ай бұрын
@@t0dd000it's not as though it's outright stated explicitly (most of the time), but the sentiment is there. Are you blind?
@redryan20000
6 ай бұрын
@@t0dd000 I think it's one question we should think about. When a movie is made for men, it's spoken about with derision and condescension by particular types of people (e.g. people on twitter who think they're doing activism work). This includes many experiences I've had with girls/women who complain about that single fact - that it's a movie men would like. Not to mention the whole push for more female representation in media is born from this idea. So I'm not sure why you haven't heard of this before.
@t0dd000
6 ай бұрын
@@redryan20000 It's not made for men. Where do you get that idea?
@theupperechelon7634
6 ай бұрын
It's fair for readers to leave bad reviews for something they don't like, but in no circumstance - and I do mean in NO CIRCUMSTANCE - can they dictate what the author should or shouldn't write. And that is no matter how triggered or offended they are. We have laws to handle what is within limits.
@alexlaw1892
6 ай бұрын
I have no idea what laws have to do with what authors choose to write but ok.
@bored0886
6 ай бұрын
@@alexlaw1892are there no laws or a governing association that limits certain topics like let's say pedophilia to be published publicly?
@DongusMcBongus
6 ай бұрын
“I’m not on twitter, I’ve never been on twitter.” Ah, so that’s why you seem to be so emotionally healthy and sane. Also, I hate the gender war. It’s the most exhausting thing. I’ve never heard an adversarial conversation about men and women that just didn’t sound like “ewwww boys/girls are icky!” Also also, when I first encountered your channel, it was your GoT review and I initially thought your problems with was going to be your boiler-plate surface level criticism. It wasn’t and I’m glad I stuck it out. Thanks Bookborn. Art is art. And the “all art is political” crowd can fite me. Great art transcends politics.
@levadamusic
6 ай бұрын
Could you send me an example of art that has no politics? Isn't it completely centered on an ideology? What transcends these questions?
@DongusMcBongus
6 ай бұрын
@@levadamusic🙄 It’s not about having “no politics” it’s about the fact that great art morphs itself and provides insights to most people that interact with it. Great art outlasts even original intent of its creator and is up to the beholder to interpret its significance. Dulling its “political message” over time. The reason that it may seem political is because politics is representative of people’s lived conditions. Political messages are the reflection that hacks can read off the reflection of a puddle, not realizing that it’s actually about the human experience and the puddle is really 500ft deep if they could just remove their blinders and dive in.
@chrisrubin6445
6 ай бұрын
@@DongusMcBongus that is exactly what I mean when I say, "all art is political"!
@visperad541
6 ай бұрын
@chrisrubin6445 all art can be made political, but it is not inherently political. Politics is the art or activities associated with the governance of a country. Writing Mistborn is not an activity associated with the governance of a country.
@chrisrubin6445
6 ай бұрын
@@visperad541 Yeah youre correct! I agree with all of what you just said! Its not political in every sense of the word. Like you said, and I agree, all art is not inherently political, but all artists are influenced by political forces as they grow up wether they are concious of it or not. What tools they have access to, what art is legally permitted, what art they have seen before, importation laws on certain art supplies, etc. But yeah "All art is Political" does not mean "All art is an activity associated with the governance of a State"
@kelleyceccato7025
6 ай бұрын
"The Hobbit," with its all-male cast, is far less sexist than, say, the work of Piers Anthony and John Norman, in which female characters ARE included but they're written to serve the wish-fulfillment needs of their male audience.
@Morfeusm
6 ай бұрын
I would contra argue that wish fulfillment female characters aren’t the main problem here, they serve the purpose in some genres, if you gender reverse this wish fulfillment male characters are in plenty of books as well.
@kelleyceccato7025
6 ай бұрын
@@Morfeusm I don't care for it when it's flipped, either. If characters of one gender or another seem less like interesting human beings and more like answers to a horny guy's or horny gal's prayer.
@kit888
6 ай бұрын
There's an entire Romance sub genre called reverse harem.
@Morfeusm
6 ай бұрын
@@kelleyceccato7025 ok, makes sense
@Morfeusm
6 ай бұрын
@@kit888 now we found an argument. Females mainly do this as a niche trope or genre fiction, males used to write women like this almost exclusively and it was a norm. So the argument would be that authors generally now should try to write less sexist characters unless is the point (aka readers expectation).
@sierrajane5593
6 ай бұрын
I clicked this so fast 😂 Yes!! I so agree with everything in this! I’ve read books with almost entirely male cast (like LotR) that I felt were great portrayals of women and I’ve read books with a mostly female cast that I felt were horribly sexist and objectifying (which I could list but won’t…) The way that things are written and the overall context of the book as a whole are so much more important!
@Bookborn
6 ай бұрын
yep exactly 👏 the identity of the author may sometimes be correlated with these things, but not always!
@Junior6288
6 ай бұрын
I appreciate your willingness to have cover these topics. It’s all about having options available to the reader and for publishers to publish all type of stories with all types of characters. And for readers to stop making assumptions when they don’t finish a book. I’ve had a couple books I thought about DNFing because something rubbed me the wrong way, but in the end discovered there was a point and a reason, as it was part of the characters/story arc! I personally don’t think you should Star-review a book you DNF’d. The DNF is enough.
@Bookborn
6 ай бұрын
I am ALSO a big fan of not rating DNF's. I have DNF'd two books for personal reasons, and I never rated them. It's why it drives me crazy that Goodreads still doesn't have a DNF option. I remember seeing a 1 star review for Piranesi where the reader got TWENTY FIVE Pages in. They said it was too boring. ONE STAR?? for being boring after 20 pages? Doesn't seem right.
@Maximus0623
6 ай бұрын
No, it isn’t sexist to have an all male cast. Representation is important, but people have gone too far with it. It’s often taken to mean that every story should have a representative from every demographic, even if it doesn’t naturally fit within the context of the story. Sometimes it’s clear that stories are just checking a diversity box with stock characters instead of actually developing interesting ones. It’s okay to have stories focused on a limited segment of the human population, as long as not every story is focused on the same segment.
@syrtycon7299
6 ай бұрын
Representation doesn’t matter at all. People should tell the story they want to tell. Just make it entertaining.
@oso1248
5 ай бұрын
Lord of the rings and its legendary popularity the world over is a monolithic testament to that fact that representation doesn’t matter in the slightest.
@Fedorevsky
5 ай бұрын
Representation is not important. We're all human beings. Representation in fiction writing is therefore not a real thing and needs to be gotten rid of as a concept.
@joshualavender
4 ай бұрын
I think "representation isn't important" and "representation doesn't matter" is easy for highly represented people to say. But to people who are underrepresented in literature, seeing one person like them in a story can make a world of difference in how they see their lives. You know, our lives are our own stories, and part of the experience of reading a story is living vicariously. I agree that demographic check lists are silly and gimmicky PC culture run amok. But that doesn't mean the right thing to do is swing the pendulum all the way back the other way. "We're all human, representation doesn't matter, we should get rid of it" will only default us back to where publishing was - a homogeny of the majority in which only a narrow subset of humanity was ever depicted at all.
@Fedorevsky
4 ай бұрын
@@joshualavender We're all represented all the time. "Someone like themselves" is racist/sexists whatever BS. We're all the same, we're all human beings. We're ll wired the same. The color of ones skin or ones sexuality does not make anyone more or less human. If a white person can't feel represented by a person with darker skin or vice versa in a piece of art then he or she has a personal issue and might even be racist depending on how strongly they feel that way. You don't identify with traits like skin color or sexuality, you identify with the plight of the character. What they feel and what they go through. Those things are universal. A white skinned woman can identify with a gay black male character, a black man can identify with an Asian man and so on because they are all human. Focusing on stuff like skin color or sexuality is superficial and at worst racist or sexist and being in a minority is no excuse to be superficial. Superficiality is a personal issue that needs to be worked on not surrendered to.
@michaelpowers6551
6 ай бұрын
I had no idea that some fans tagged the authors in their 1 star reviews that’s insane lmao! Either way I have never felt (just as a writer) that it’s healthy or okay for authors to engage with their fans all the time. Newsletters sounds fine but twitter and stuff…nah. It just helps you so much mentally to keep a healthy distance.
@Morfeusm
6 ай бұрын
To be fair some people are insane and they are majorly ruining everything for everyone. (2020s so far in the nutshell)
@NonAnonD
6 ай бұрын
Yeah I feel like this would have been a good newsletter discussion. Since Fonda Lee is now private on Twitter I assume she got attacked over this
@jaginaiaelectrizs6341
6 ай бұрын
There shouldn't be anything wrong with authors interacting with their fans, or vice versa. Maybe not all the time. But just because an author is on Twitter doesn't necessarily mean they have all notifications turned on literally all of the time or are always actively viewing or responding to everything there 24/7. And newsletters aren't so much a two-way interaction as a publication, more like one person talking while others listen or whatever, rather than an actual discussion/conversation where others are invited to respond or weigh-in from other perspectives.
@fjuran1
6 ай бұрын
Wow, I really respect the topic you have covered with this video. You have told it like it is. Unfortunately so many of those who comment and criticize on line rarely see things through, such as an entire book. I have very few DNF's always hoping that there is something there for the ending.
@Bookborn
6 ай бұрын
Yeah and DNFing isn't a problem on it's own - not about to police how people want to spend their time, especially if they really aren't enjoying the book - but it's the judging and making grand statements about those books I take issues with
@davidlavin4774
6 ай бұрын
Great viewpoints. On the concepts of representation and diversity in these stories, I think the important thing is that it exists at a macro level, meaning across the whole gambit of stories available. At the micro level, within a single story, there does not need to be a full mix of every viewpoint out there. Each writer is bringing their perspective and views to their stories and they should be allowed to do so in a positive way.
@Bookborn
6 ай бұрын
Love the idea of the macro vs the micro, well said
@MetalGildarts
6 ай бұрын
Based
@StupidAnon-gn8ih
6 ай бұрын
What is diversity?
@davidranderson1
6 ай бұрын
Great video! There seems to be a problem not just bad faith attacks, but really shallow reading of stories as well. An ironic depiction of something an author is actually criticizing seems to produce the most egregious examples. I often think of an exchange from the Steve Martin movie Roxanne: Roxanne: I was being ironic. C.D. Bales: Oh, ho, ho, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here. See, uh, people ski topless here while smoking dope, so irony's not really a, a high priority. We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83, when I was the only practitioner of it. And I stopped because I was tired of being stared at.
@Bookborn
6 ай бұрын
A LOT of shallow reading of stories, or an unwillingness to engage and step back a moment and look at the story as a whole.
@katsucurry8357
6 ай бұрын
I found your channel through your ASoIaF stuff, got hooked by your fantastic commentary on the series and Im so glad I stayed to see some of the other stuff youve made! Im not a person who watches booktube really, but the analysis you bring to online discourse and conversations about fiction is almost always fascinating and incisive. Honestly, congrats for the recent attention. Youre such an eloquent person and make fantastic videos!
@jacrsherb
6 ай бұрын
You clickbaited me, I got sucked in, well done. I actually agree with your points here. I personally decided to read more female writers this year after realising that the majority of my bookshelf is made up of white men. As a result I’ve now come across great stories from Fonda Lee, Hannah Kaner and Octavia E Butler. They all have pretty good representations, I wouldn’t say they felt like girly books. I think sometimes the perception of books written by women are for women is a perception issue rather than a content issue. As a man who reads I’m conscious of this perception and am trying my best to not let it character my decisions too much (ie, don’t pick that up in a bookshop because it’s for girls). That being said there is nothing wrong with someone writing a booked aimed at a more female audience, likewise I do enjoy me some swords stories with 99% male casts (as many women may enjoy them too). Overall I’d say let people write the stories they’re inspired to write. If you don’t get on with a story because you wanted a different female/ male viewpoint ratio then pop the book down and start a different one! There’s definitely enough of them out there for everyone to read something they like
@Bookborn
6 ай бұрын
Absolutely!! It's why I tried really hard to give my son a wide range of protagonists and stories - whether marketed for girls or boys - and it's been interesting to see how it's stuck with him. I find as he's gotten older, he naturally gravitates towards stories with male protagonists, but that he doesn't have any qualms with reading books that seem more "girly". Ultimately, stories are stories, and it's a hobby, and we should read what interests us without limitations on labels.
@jaginaiaelectrizs6341
6 ай бұрын
Yes.! 💖 (And even if they WERE books that felt as if they are more "girly" somehow, that shouldn't make them automatically a "'bad' thing" or lesser in anyone's eyes-even if they maybe wouldn't always appeal equally as much to every individual's personal tastes or preferences or whatever.) But what exactly _is_ a "girly" book, specifically, anyhow?😅 🤔🤔🤭😁😂 Some books are written by gals for gals, that's true. While some books are just simply written by gals, in general; that is also true. It's really not a bad thing, either way. And, regardless, people really aren't only allowed to read or care exclusively about the things that are specifically "for" or relevant just to themselves?. It's okay if sometimes people don't only care about just what matters to them and also sometimes care, too, about certain things specifically because those things matter instead to somebody else other than themselves as well.😊 😁
@jacrsherb
6 ай бұрын
@@jaginaiaelectrizs6341 couldn’t agree more!
@jaredkrol3739
6 ай бұрын
You are so well spoken. I always like your videos because you are able to get your point across in a concise and effective way. Listening to you talk about this topic made me realize just how I appreciate this and what you have to say. Thank you for that.
@davidsmithy123
6 ай бұрын
In all honesty - reading/forcing/analyzing social justice themes into every single book ever - is just exhausting and boring at this point. I have never met a person in real life that actually cared - that the LoTR is male-centered. Or that George R. R. Martin is 'sexist' in his language. And no a book isn't "fantastic" just because it is woke. For god's sakes. These are books that reflect people and society as we are. Flawed, imperfect and impacted by the times we live in.
@chalonhutson
6 ай бұрын
Thank you!
@kartik3719
6 ай бұрын
I’m curious, how would define a book that is ‘woke’?
@watcherofwatchers
6 ай бұрын
@@kartik3719I feel like this is a disingenuous comment designed to try and provoke arguments that be attacked on grounds of perceived discrimination, because we all know what OP meant.
@kartik3719
6 ай бұрын
@@watcherofwatchers lol so I'm literally not allowed to ask someone to more clearly explain what they're saying because it's 'disingenuous'? No, as a matter of fact, I do not know what the op meant, which is why I asked him the question. Hope that helps 😊
@reidypeidy
6 ай бұрын
@@watcherofwatchers What is "woke" seems to change depending on the person or the time of day. Asking for someone to define what "woke" means to them is a valid and important question to understand why something upsets them.
@TheAnimalstrength
6 ай бұрын
In LOTR, Galadriel is one of the most important characters in the book and saves Frodo/Sams butt on several occasions
@desi_no_aka
6 ай бұрын
I appreciate your candor and deep care for the fantasy genre but more so for reading in general. I fear every day the public en masse cares less about absorbing stories for their own growth and benefit but rather everything is lending itself towards just being informed. Context is lost when you can read Wikipedia entries and I feel like the macro we care less about narrative and more about results. I get sad about it sometimes but I want to thank you for your respect and continued work you do on your channel. It's not easy, but know it is necessary to balance out all the icky parts of engaging art and its subsequent discourse on the internet.
@sillyweebanimeisforkids3413
6 ай бұрын
The issue is people apply the environment, society, and other opinions to works of art instead of evaluating the art itself. A man writing a story catered to a mainly male audience with mainly male characters isn't sexist. Just like a woman creating a movie about a pink obsessed doll catered to a female audience with mainly female characters isn't sexist. It's just art and expression. But people feel it is because they apply the outside world to art. They look around and say "there's not a lot of fantasy that cater to women (which is true) therefore fantasy that don't do so are sexist" (Which isn't true.) And as these topics come more and more in light...I've noticed people policing the art others create and policing the way people interact socially more and more. Which is a very troubling trend...
@nuxxy_
6 ай бұрын
personally im very suprised at the amount of gendered things in fantasy especially fae litterature and romance fantasy. like i would have originally thought that with the overwelming amount of magic and body modification or bodily change in things involving vampires and witches that we'd have more characters that feel totaly separated from the concept of themselves as men and women, or just as people almost like we do in the cyberpunk genre. i would have thought we would have more characters that feel towards their bodies in very alternative ways. i also am suprised by the amount of characters that dont feel lost in a society dominated by magic in the way that characters in cyberpunk often feel lost in a society dominated by tech. like often times characters in fantasy seem to just fit right in when they are brought into a world with a centries old conflict all of a sudden, and we often dont get to see characters go through an ego death or a dissociation with who they thought they were and have to totally question what they think life is.
@jaginaiaelectrizs6341
6 ай бұрын
I think some of that is because typically worlds with magic are depicted as always having been that way while cyberpunk is typically depicted as things having experienced some kinda shift or change over time from how things formerly used to be. Also because fantasy is so often set in worlds designed to mirror how things were historically rather than how things are currently or how we hope and/fear that things might/could become in the future. But who knows, really.
@DmGray
6 ай бұрын
I've always adored your nuanced takes. I'm a HEAVY critic of modern identity politics (both the "woke" idiocy I see pushed by ostensibly liberal people AND the obsessive reactionary pushback by conservatives) but OPINIONS about these issues are genuinely important to discuss and share. Agree with the immediate conclusion. All male, all female, all white, all black all any particular demographic... it doesn't so much matter IF it suits the purposes of the production. Diversity and inclusion are both POWERFULL tools to make good art, and they're BOTH been misused to make shitty art. The best way to immediately see what impact a choice is having on a production is whether the diversification ADDS depth and nuance... or removes it. It if does the latter, it's not accomplishing what it CAN and therefore could be done better (even if sometimes it's still a perfectly acceptable compromise) I don't want LESS representation. I don't want LESS diversity. I just want it to ACTUALLY contribute something. I do not accept tokenism as the best we should expect, nor as a virtue on its own. On a side note I ABSOLUTELY despise the "reverse sexism" idiocy. That would just be sexism. Sexism isn't exclusive to one gender. I know she's trying to clarify... but that one ALWAYS bothers me, bc it's unironically sexist to suggest that sexism can ONLY rightly apply to one gender. I do concede your point about "default perspective" SEEMING to be male, but I'd ALSO argue that this is pretty much a confirmation bias thing. Add in that "male fiction" has quite literally pushed broad appeal as its foundation, but "female fiction" has been quite vocal and strident in it's LACK of broad appeal ("this is not for men!" is said FAR more often and FAR more seriously than anyone has ever said the opposite. Even when women experience "gatekeeping" it tends to be rather mild and less about gender and more about insecurity within fandoms. Really nerdy guys often had VERY bad experiences around women growing up. When they see women enjoying their passion... I think it's reasonable for them to feel insecure. Women are OFTEN motivated by those same insecurities, but it is almost universally deemed appropriate. Just watch what happens when any male attempts to join female dominated sub cultures) When female authors BOTHER to simply write compelling stories without explicitly pandering to their audience they want... they do fine. My first favourite books were about an all girl boarding school for witches. I never even suspected that might be a strange choice for a boy (the worst witch) I then went on to read and enjoy many female authors and female protagonists to the point I genuinely believe it's a strong preference for me.... and yet I have NOT been happy with all of the offerings we've had lately. They quite literally ruined my jam.
@spectreharlequin
6 ай бұрын
Very much agree with this and Bookborn's video. Progressive values and conservative values in a Platonic sense are meant to be virtuous guidelines for humans, but humans have the ability to twist beautiful values into corrupted anti-values(isn't this is the theme of many scifi/fantasy novels?). I respect Fonda Lee so much based on what I've seen. I hope she can find a better place to discuss and promote her work.
@jaginaiaelectrizs6341
6 ай бұрын
I pretty much agree with you all completely here. Except that "[x] is NOT for women/girls" is literally not an actually less common phenomena, and is not restricted exclusively to fiction; and I feel it is important to understand or sympathize-with the fact that the whole entire phenomenon of women and girls fiercely defending their fictional spaces that are 'not for men' [I believe ]very much stems directly in result from that real-world and completely nonfictional prejudice and discrimination, because girls/women do not want their fictional spaces to be policed or regulated in accordance to standards or requisites or preferences or expectations or whatever else that have been foisted upon them by men or by other outside genres/fields that have historically ostracized or failed to welcome them and/or that have historically disregarded their actual genuine preferences and perspectives or opinions almost completely. It's not usually about trying to make males lesser, so much as it's typically much more about simply not wanting to allow females to remain or regress into lesser. If it were more historically common for female perspectives and preferences to be included equally on a macro-scale all across the board even outside of just female-specific circles or spaces or spheres or whatever I think it would be much less of an imperative for more gals to quite so staunchly or rigorously/rigidly defend their female-specific/female-centric things or places or fiction. (Although, perhaps that's just my own misperception and I am actually wrong, who knows.) *_AND_* I also don't personally believe that specifically suiting the purpose of a fictional piece or adding anything particular to anything within that particular fictional work is actually the only acceptable or allowable reason to include any particular type of character or other diversity in works of fiction-while I agree that tokenism is not enough, I don't agree that say a male or female or cis/straight or non-cis/non-het character should only appear in a storyline that specifically focuses on or is somehow enhanced specifically by their either being or not being that specific gender or whatever else, I believe it's perfectly okay to have characters of any type in stories literally just for the heck of it or even in stories that aren't specifically about them being that type of person at all. If that makes sense? Like, a female character doesn't only have to exist specifically in stories about standing strong in the face of gendered discrimination or specifically about menstruation or uterine cancer or whatever-or so on. A female character can absolutely literally just exist in a story for no other reason than that they happen to be in that particular story and are also female. And the same applies to all characters of any gender, or ethnicity, or anything else. Lol 😊💖
@agnishom
6 ай бұрын
This is like asking "Is the number 4 random?". We can't answer that question because randomness is a property of the procedure used to pick the number, not the number itself. Similarly, being sexist is not a property of a specific cast, but a property of the policy used to pick the cast
@christopherb501
6 ай бұрын
Now, a publisher having nothing _but_ all-male casts in all the work they release, that might be a genuine issue.
@lucasezequielporrazzodisen5064
6 ай бұрын
First, i just love you. Second, if you want to be specific with, for example, tolkiens world, in the silmarillion there is a lot of female power. Just as you said, sometimes the work of art needs a deeper look to take away the full meaning
@greblaksnew
6 ай бұрын
Great vid. thanks! I'm a writer, indie, and I'm very very close to releasing my book, but I've already had people reach out to me and say in no uncertain terms, "You can't write that." Or "You can't represent that." My first instinct is to tell them about the muse, but they wouldn't understand if they've never written--I mean truly written. (The muses are nine, and their mother, they are women are the not?) As a writer, the choice is to follow the muse or become a hack. Following the writing path in the age of social media makes it all the worse, because it only takes a spark and we writers who are mostly made of paper are aflame, and we become ashes so quickly.
@nino9552
6 ай бұрын
I just feel bad for Bookborn trying to educate the internet, its just not gonna happen but i appreciate the effort. 🙂🙃
@jordendarrett1725
6 ай бұрын
Social media makes or breaks a man (or woman). Not for the faint of heart! Yet it’s so beneficial to writers that to not be on it is potentially a missed opportunity. Tough times we are living in
@jarltrippin
6 ай бұрын
There does really need to be more push back on this idea. I'm an amateur writer who let this stuff affect him in the past, and I can honestly say that all it does is stops you from writing what you want to write. It's creatively debilitating. There's nothing wrong with a diverse work, but not everything needs to be that, and it's very rarely a valid criticism when something isn't.
@itachi975x
6 ай бұрын
When the representation is not forced and serves a purposed to the story its well received thats how it should be, but in this days it seems that everyone in the entertainment industry has a check list where whatever they’re making has to have all kinds of ethnicities, sexes, colors, shapes etc etc, and after they fill all that in second comes the story or writing .
@samm8190
6 ай бұрын
Hey Bookborn I’ve historically has some really huge issues with what is done and said under the banner of “feminism”. So much of it seemed about saying women must be like ‘x’ and men must be like ‘y’ and if you disagree you’re sexist, and that’s just really turned me off from much of the conversation. What you get is a very plastic way of telling the stories and looking at the world. There is a VERY famous fantasy author (who I love) who has made it a point to talk about Tolkien’s sexism kept women out of fantasy for 50 years because there’s no women in The Hobbit. But that’s never made sense to me. That story isn’t made better by having a girl elf tag along for half the adventure. I really appreciated the video and your takes on feminism have helped me see it from a different side more than LITERALLY anyone else.
@christopherb501
6 ай бұрын
This is exactly the same trap that's resulted in so much Second-Wave feminism devolve into just yet more conservatism, especially where queer gender is concerned. Never be bioessentialist. It doesn't lead to good places.
@Ldunlop83
6 ай бұрын
This is such an interesting topic, and I appreciate your nuanced take. It is complicated, because I don't think it's at all fair to expect authors to "stay in their lane," but I can also understand how some readers might be disappointed to read a work from an author they identify with (particularly marginalized folks), only to discover upon reading that the work doesn't include many or any of such people.
@jamesmansfield67
6 ай бұрын
Thank you for being a voice of reason amidst voices of unreason. Back when I was an author, I wrote a lineage of women rulers who possessed a magical blessing within my fantasy series. Never once was I like, “Ooh! This is my chance to put women characters in the limelight.” It was an interesting world building point that fit my story for multiple reasons. For me, this is the kicker: a ratio of sexes and the situations characters are put in matter far less than interesting/great writing.
@spilchsaysstuff1427
6 ай бұрын
One of the most annoying things is that if an author published a fantasy novel with predominately female protagonists, people would label it a political move. Like the mysoginistic twoddle some youtubers level at the Marvel universe because women are centre stage, branding it the "M-she-U" in an attempt to belittle it.
@Bookborn
6 ай бұрын
Yesssss There is literally nothing worse than this. Because the other fallout is that then *criticizing* that work can be seen as anti-feminist, and it’s like - look, we have to also be able to critique these movies. I didn’t think Captain marvel was that great. And it’s not because it was a female superhero movie! I want that! I love that! Wonder Woman was fantastic! But I don’t want to get lumped in with the people melting down over a female character? Ugh
@Serryy
6 ай бұрын
Ive never seen someone call stories like "Little Women" sexist which are, well, primarily about women. Feel like certain fringe online communities have gone into the extreme (fringe online spaces? extreme? shocking, i know) and they went from trying to empower and support women to just hating men.
@jrpotter9659
6 ай бұрын
For the point around 7:30 I think a lot of the idea that we(men) are surprised to relate to female centered stories is that the women around us act like we can't possibly understand women. Men and women are different but that doesn't mean we can't understand or respect each other. Even though a lot of the time we don't, it doesn't mean we CAN'T
@jimbrown5387
6 ай бұрын
I am in TOTAL agreement with you and love that you, as always, not only grasp but strive to amplify a reasoned approach to finding the MIDDLE GROUND of any debate. Thank you for your efforts and all your continued good work, videos and reviews.
@Beard_Hood
6 ай бұрын
ROFL! i am so tired of the conversation, so the fact that you started with saying "nope." made me laugh so hard. thank you.
@jaredmcdaris7370
6 ай бұрын
“Christmas Carol is such a terrible book. Scrooge is so greedy, so mean, and we’re supposed to like this guy? Put it down after CH2; total garbage.” A lack of political literacy means an inability to parse systemic from individual issues, and those motivated by profit (which, by necessity, is everyone) can take advantage of this. The art you consume is a moral statement when it allows you to accumulate social capital (and/or monetary capital), but conversely a single book cannot be expected to adhere to any particular social standards if doing so would impede your ability to accumulate social capital. Everyone knows that “at some point” both of these things matter… but nobody ever seems to understand when, or why, or how. More marginalized characters/voices is an unalloyed good, but we seem to only be capable of understanding this in the context of whether an individual Product is Moral or Immoral.
@Morfeusm
6 ай бұрын
You are what you eat they say…. I wonder if this isn’t a bit like a Theseus ship problem. It’s very hard to tell when things and people change. Sometimes only thing that can make you a villain is one sentence or one action. Or one book.
@jaginaiaelectrizs6341
6 ай бұрын
@@Morfeusm It's a problem, I think, of people not being able to recognize the distinction between a villain[ or a hero] versus the antagonist[ or the protagonist] a story-and so on. It's a lack of literacy and critical thinking and analysis in general. Or maybe that's me, going off on my tangent of thought, here.😅 IDK. 🤷🤷🏻♂️🤷♀️ 🙂
@christopherb501
6 ай бұрын
I don't know which is worse: the morons that would interpret the book that way, or those _other_ morons that would keep reading specifically because of that, DO like early-stage Scrooge as a person, and hate the ghosts for convincing him to change his ways. Yes, there are people that think Scrooge is an unfairly maligned "job-creator" as it were.
@jaginaiaelectrizs6341
6 ай бұрын
I really do think people forget that reviews were originally meant to critique an author's craft, created by experts or peers within their same field, and thus actually were created specifically for both authors to have their works measured fairly and also for readers to judge the merits of potentially reading said works. It can honestly be either, or both. It does not have to always be just one thing or the other thing completely and totally indiscriminately. And trying to force literally everyone or everything to always conform only ever to just one thing or the other thing is, I think, a huge problem. Although authors should definitely know how to try and discern which reviews are or aren't for which purposes-and, ultimately, should also be capable of realizing that no matter what purpose a review was or wasn't for and no matter if written by an actual "expert" of some kind within that particular field or not, it's still always just one individual person's own subjective/personal perspective or take on it and should always only ever be weighed with a certain grain of salt. Not every little thing always necessitates a response, and certainly not always a direct one if even at all. 🙂
@TheMaryweather
6 ай бұрын
Yes I agree.
@mechanarwhal7830
6 ай бұрын
Nuance is so important in everything. I love the amount of reason and thought you give to these things - yours is an important voice in the community reminding us to think a little more before we speak. Keep up the amazing content!
@kadenburkhardt1660
6 ай бұрын
Oh man, I could not agree more. I'm not cis or straight by any means, and I would rather read or watch a less diverse cast that felt authentic over a diverse cast that feels like it's trying to check every box just for the sake of doing so. You're absolutely correct: not every story has to have everything in it. I have read plenty of books, watched plenty of movies and shows, that didn't check every single possible diversity box and were still absolutely excellent. Conversely, I've also consumed stories that were very diverse and very poorly done. I want quality stories, and so long as they're not being *truly* gross (because having a morally corrupt character doesn't mean the writer is agreeing with that sort of behavior or way of thinking), I don't need every story to try and cater to everyone. I also can't stand seeing people leave 1☆ reviews after DNFing (or, even worse, not even reading in the first place) books for the reasons you listed. I recently read one (the title of which I now forget) that wasn't particularly good due to just mediocre writing. However, when I went to read the reviews I was stunned to see so many people (many of whom hadn't even read the book) leaving 1☆ reviews because they believed the book contained a couple diffetent "problematic" elements. The book did not, in fact, have either of the things it was being accused of. It was just another case of atrocious media literacy and people entitely misunderstanding what they were reading, and then others still just taking those misleading claims at face value without even bothering to read it themselves trying to discredit the author. It's one thing to DNF a book and then critique what you've read based on the actual writing quality itself, but to do so for the reasons you gave here is an entirely different matter. I think this sort of behavior stems from those who are, shall we say, chronically online (and have been so from a young age). This tends to lead to a decline in critical thinking skills, a low tolerance for disagreement, black & white thinking, and a strong need to virtue signal to your online in-group that you're "on the right side". And that's what I think a lot of these ill-informed reviews and complaints are: virtue signalling. And I really don't think this behavior is reflective of the population at large. As I said, it's the chronically online, so of course it's going to seem like a much larger percentage of people are like this *online*, because that's where they're active. We aren't going to see a good balance because those who aren't online beyond extremely casual use aren't going to be participating in online discourse. Unfortunately, because the internet is where people can make themeselves heard to the largest possible audience, the toxic people are the ones getting heard.
@6ixpoint5ive
6 ай бұрын
One of the things I love most about living in 2024 is that there's something for everyone! I think this all means that not everything needs to be for everyone and not liking something I think in today's world means more about the reader/viewer than it does about the artist. Some books/films/shows just don't grab me despite being beloved by others and I think thats okay! There are works of art I adore that others just do not like at all, and thats also okay. I think even only wanting to read books that pertain to a specific demographic is okay (queer, bipoc, male, female, etc). However, like religion, I don't appreciate when others force the things they want onto others, or tell others they should feel bad (or worse, that they ARE bad), bc they liked a film/book/series that the other person didn't like. This doesn't bring us together, all it does it push us a part. I heard something recently that said in a secular society humans tend to put more focus on their books/films/tv to give them moral standing (actually, I think it was from that chat you did with Merphy and Johanna recently) I'm not saying religion is the answer, bc I don't think it is, but I do think humans desire a moral compass and we get anxious about interacting with things that question that compass or have a more ambiguous one or require time to understand what that compass is (ie. I personally like morally grey or hateful characters bc it helps me understand the world and how these kinds of people think; my wife does not bc she can't sympathize with them and thus makes her engagement with the story tougher, and I think we're both valid in our tastes.) I met someone once that only watches movies/series that are queer/gay. I though that I was interesting and asked him more about it and he said its bc he felt there were too many cis/straight stories and felt it was his moral obligation to not engage with those and only the queer ones. Fair enough! At the time I didn't think that was something I did, but upon reflection I realized that, well, I do tend to gravitate towards movies that have a focus on artistic filmmaking prowess and filmmaker individuality bc I prefer films that are made by artists not by studio oversight and if there's a film that looks like it's made by someone with a creative vision I'll support it, even if it might be bad. And I think we all, to some degree, have some kind of a guideline we put on the stories we engage with whether we're conscious of it or not. Lots more to think about and say on this topic, but then this'll be a giant essay, so I'll leave it here. Great video as always; lots to think about! Thanks
@Bookborn
6 ай бұрын
I've been thinking a lot about something you mention here, which is the fear that many of us have that if we don't like a story that has a particular representation in it, that we will be labeled as something - whether bigoted, racist, sexist etc etc etc. and in the end I think it's both hurting our discussions and hurting our media. But it's a complicated topic because a) like you stated, it comes with a lot of moralizing, b) they are sensitive issues that DO matter, and c) how do we really judge it? IDK, lots to think about.
@6ixpoint5ive
6 ай бұрын
@@Bookborn @Bookborn Agreed!
@higurashikai09
6 ай бұрын
Sometimes I wish a story didn't have any female characters because they were executed so poorly.
@awsome182
6 ай бұрын
My conclusion to all of this is... Not everything is made for everyone to enjoy or participate. And that's okay. People nowadays feel so entitled that every friction of media (books, movies, etc) has to be catered to them and their needs, likes, wishes, preferences, etc. That's not how the world works. I don't enjoy horror. So I avoid horror movies, they are simply not my cup of tea. Are other people to enjoy horror movies? Absolutely! Do horror movies have to change so I can enjoy them? Absolutely not.
@jaginaiaelectrizs6341
6 ай бұрын
I think, to a certain point, it's not really always that people are trying to hold female authors to a different standard than they would hold a male author-and it's not always that they don't understand character growth or context or whatever-it's just that they honestly would rather prefer not to see female characters always put in certain situations quite so often if ever even at all anymore, especially because it has to often been the only situations female characters are ever put in, and they have this expectation that this is what they would prefer specifically because they are a female themself or whatever and/or that any or every other female person should also prefer that for this same reason too, pretty much regardless of whether it is realistic or true to real life or actual lived-experiences or not. But, yeah, that's not always the same issue as whether or not the book was sexist or those particular female characters were actually 2-dimensional or whatever as a whole. They're two separate circle in a venn diagram or something, and sometimes people do seem to have trouble distinguishing or separating the whole of the circles from the areas of some occasional overlap. 😅😅🙃 🙂
@chelsbells27
6 ай бұрын
I love your channel! Please keep putting out all the hot takes on sexism and fantasy. Also, I'm a latecomer to ASOIAF as well, and really enjoy watching your Westeros reactions/reviews - I finished A Clash of Kings the other day and remembered I could watch your review finally!
@dougsundseth6904
6 ай бұрын
I think part of the issue with authors responding to critics is that there is a perception that it's somehow "punching down". That it's unfair to use that position of power to say mean things about some ordinary joe who is just giving an opinion. The problem I see with that is that some of those "joes" rely upon that to cross lines that should not be crossed, expecting some sort of immunity. But at some point, it becomes reasonable to respond to criticism ... robustly. Is it possible to take this too far? Absolutely. Some authors take any criticism as a personal attack and respond inappropriately. This often works out poorly for the author. And it can certainly be the case that even justified responses bring more attention to a critique than the critique deserves, to the detriment of the author (an instance of the Streisand Effect). To the primary point of this video, any attempt to set up "lanes" for authors to write within is both futile and bigoted. Do you have to be more careful when writing about characters with a different life experience than your own? Of course; cliches are easy to fall into. And there are certainly lots of main characters who are authors, apparently in an attempt to avoid this problem. But I'd like to get more than just writer characters as protagonists in my fiction. Finally, have I written reviews after a DNF? Yes, but only for hard DNFs (situations where I made an active decision never to read any more of a book), not for situations where I just drifted away. I don't feel the need to finish a book that I actively dislike; life is too short for that and nobody is paying me to be a reviewer. In such cases, I disclose that and provide details, including the reasons why I felt it necessary to DNF. But then I think bad reviews require more details than good reviews to be fair to both authors and other potential readers. "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." - Tolstoy. Reviews of good books tend to be some form of "Good characters, engaging plot, interesting world building, great twists." Reviews of bad books (or books that fail badly for me) are more nuanced. Interesting subject for this video, and well handled. Thank you.
@resir9807
6 ай бұрын
I find it interesting how people spend a lot of time trying to profile the author based on their writing, to the point that the actual message of their books becomes secondary
@neondemon5137
6 ай бұрын
Twitter thinks media set in medieval Europe should feature 50% black characters and strong feminists yelling at men at all times.
@johnnyritenbaugh1214
6 ай бұрын
Thanks for approaching the subject like you do! The barrage of black and white opinions on topics that require parsing is enraging.
@Robb_in_Oz
5 ай бұрын
don't forget the all male cast was in awe and fear of Galadriel
@eqs1782
6 ай бұрын
I think American Fiction kind of touches on this topic about writers being placed in a box or prescribed to a certain ideal and if they don't how we make their dreams painful and their sense of self eroded.
@cybersekkin
6 ай бұрын
It's starting to feel like representation, patriarchy and like phrases are used to tell authors write stories the way I want them written. It's just become a bullying tactic.
@percybhere
6 ай бұрын
From a writers perspective, obviously no because that’s the freedom of creation but let us explore this idea because nothing exists in a vacuum.. I have heard WAY MORE boys/men be dismissive or outright disrespectful of an all female cast show/movie and just not watch it all than I have heard girls/women be towards all-male male cast media. So no, it’s not sexist but we live in a sexist world where male led movies are the norm and accepted and female led movies are considered a risk or questionable Bring this debate to the racial components of cast members and the discussion becomes even more problematic.
@the_dragon_reread
6 ай бұрын
As always, amazing deep dive into an important topic! I appreciate the nuance you give the subject. In a time where everyone is trying to be extra conscientious of inclusivity, I think it's extremely important to remember that (in my opinion) an author's freedom to use her/his imagination however they would like and however they think will move their story along is so important. It's crippling to storytelling to impose rigid guidelines to authors that they're expected to remain within. I also strongly agree with denouncing snap judgements. We cannot allow snippets and piecemeal exposure to sour us on entire books/series, especially if we're then sharing those opinions to others. Thanks for your videos--always look forward to seeing them drop!
@Hellsing7747
6 ай бұрын
Now I feel like getting a Yuyu Hakusho T-shirts...I'm wondering why 😂
@Bookborn
6 ай бұрын
I got it at target in the men’s section! Go buy it! Lol
@Hellsing7747
6 ай бұрын
@Bookborn I wiil! Thanks.
@noahjohnson8975
6 ай бұрын
Regarding Wen, I think you hit the nail on the head when you point out that many of the readers who discount the story do so once "they see her in a single scene and they've already prejudged the whole novel on it." That is kind of the epitome of sexism and misogyny: to make a snap judgement about a woman's worth by her behavior in one instance without greater context and then refuse to even give the time for her to display other dimensions.
@Bookborn
6 ай бұрын
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
@hsgame4088
6 ай бұрын
Was gonna come here to say no but you already did in the first second 😂
@kaas347
6 ай бұрын
Thanks for always putting the answer to your posed question at the very beginning of your vids. SO refreshing, confident... love it
@Deafturtle911
6 ай бұрын
I got my wife to read Jade City and I said Wen is one of my favorite female characters of all time. When shes introduced my wife gives the the biggest raised brows look and I had to say, "You can't judge me! The story hasn't even started yet!"
@Jackolantirn
6 ай бұрын
Diversity is a great thing, and I appreciate how modern media has become more diverse in representation as I interpret this to mean that the entertainment industry isn't exclusively ran by old white men anymore. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with being an old white man, but they have certain life experiences that differ from the life experiences of other peoples and cultures in the world. And I value hearing stories from many different cultures instead of just one group of people (The Poppy War trilogy by R. F. Kuang had clear Asian influence. "The Rage of Dragons," by Evan Winters, is an African-inspired fantasy. etc. All of fantasy isn't just continental Europe). However, it certainly feels like there is a problem where writers force diversity unnecessarily, and sometimes inappropriately, in their creative works. The main cast of the movie "Everything Everywhere All At Once" needs to be Asian because the backdrop of the story is very much about Asian-American immigrants. Forcing that cast to be ethnically inclusive would detract from communicating the Asian immigrant experience. The characters of "Lord of the Flies," by William Golding, was intentionally written to only involve adolescent boys because, for one, the author was once a boy himself and is familiar with the male experience. Two, he did not believe that the an all-girl cast would have reflected a scaled-down version of the society he lived in. And three, a mix of little boys and little girls would have introduced an additional variable that would detract from the story he wanted to tell, which was about the problem of evil and the problem of how people are to live together in society. Honestly, sometimes it just feels like modern story writers will sometimes artificially inject diversity into their works in effort to compensate for a shitty story.
@idastokbaek
6 ай бұрын
But the Entwives! Where are the Entwives? I love LotR, but the lack of a reasonable explanation for the deliberate and unnecessary exclusion of the Entwives makes me sad.
@andrewteichroeb8886
6 ай бұрын
As a man, writing male characters is too easy. That's why I write female characters. It's a fun challenge for me to try and put myself in their shoes. That's all.
@artlesscalamity
6 ай бұрын
I appreciate that you answered the topic question within the first three seconds of the video, then used the rest of the time to expound on it. I have a lot of thoughts, not as much about the gender expectations of art but more so about how internet psychology has turned every question into a nasty ideological battle. This was inevitable - these platforms thrive on detachment, anonymity, reductivism, tribalism, and lack of social consequences. Algorithms are literally designed to reward conflict (also why the most terrible people gather the largest audience). Anyway I’m happy to discover this video and your nuanced, multi-faceted take. You touch on the problem of readers making snap judgments, which I think is a product not just of impatience but also our (America’s) diminishing educational standards. It seems like we are doing a poor job teaching critical thinking and media literacy, at the same time that these new digital psycho-social channels and dynamics are taking over. Bad mix.
@pointlessreplay
6 ай бұрын
Awesome video, thanks for making it! My personal issue with a lot of opinions is the white hot rage that individuals or groups get when someone doesnt share their exact viewpoint and decide to spew assumptions on those with different opinions. It boggles my mind. Thanks for putting it into words and I feel for you that you likely have to go through that as well with making your content. Keep up the great work!
@NonAnonD
6 ай бұрын
Finally had time during work to actually watch the entire video, glad Fonda Lee left Twitter because she actually chose to (again, surprised she didn't make this decision back in 2021 after that Medium post she wrote that made ME want to quit). Twitter's cool for some things but I could have easily seen this sort of discussion going left. Newsletter's are where it's at, hanging out on social media seems like it can hurt the author's mental health long term. Updates only accounts seems to be the best way to do this if they have to BE on social media.
@Bookborn
6 ай бұрын
Wait wait wait, I haven't seen the Medium post... I think I need to go look that up...
@DongusMcBongus
6 ай бұрын
One of the BEST examples of good representation done right is The Expanse series. I’m usually not into SciFi but the whole series is EXCELLENT. The show is awesome at it too. Of course all sexualities and race are out in space. Humanity colonized space not just one group of people. Characters have identities that may be applicable to today but it never compromises the STORY and makes total sense in universe. But when authors/show-runners create social commentary that’s hollow and a thinly veiled criticism of current affairs it’s just bad story telling. Tl;dr Read The Expanse, y’all. It’s fantastic. Okay. Done brigading the comments. :)
@JohnSmith-tl8pq
6 ай бұрын
I have still read many attacks on that series by wokeists, as the main character is a straight white man. They all wanted it to be a woman, lesbian, POC ect.
@chloemarlowe3817
6 ай бұрын
Definitely agree with this. Ironically, I remember having a similar conversation almost a decade ago (2016 actually) in regards to a video game that came out that got a bit of controversy for having an all-male cast (or more accurately it was mostly male.) In 2016, a video game came out called Final Fantasy 15. It's about a prince of a kingdom who, as part of an agreement to end a war with an Empire, is to married off to a princess to a nation absorbed by said Empire. The prince sets off to go to where he needs to with his caretaker, his bodyguard and his best friend. A few days after leaving, the Empire launches an attack on the kingdom with a new weapon. The prince gets word of this, and obviously plans change and the story goes from there. The big "criticism" was that all 4 of the main party members were men. Of course those who played the game knows that the story explores brotherhood and comraderie between these men. Plus, something I love is that these characters banter in a way that only men do and it's hilarious. This banter point also works especially well because there are points where a 5th guest party member temporarily joins and sometimes this 5th member is a woman. When that happens, the tone is changed because they're minding what they say. Plus a bonus defense of the mostly male cast is that we already have a different Final Fantasy entry that is mostly female. Some don't like it, I do. Basically, I find it amazing this conversation is still happening because sometimes you just need to let the writer cook.
@dimanarinull9122
6 ай бұрын
0:00 - 0:02 - perfect video, all I needed to know.
@AdLockhorst-bf8pz
6 ай бұрын
Data is data. The biggest book buying demographic is middle aged women. So that goes some way to explaining why some books become bestsellers. 🤷 It also suggests what authors should do in order to be (more) succesful; find out what middle aged women want (to read sbout.)
@jimihendrix23456
6 ай бұрын
Excellent bait! Got me laughing right off the bat with that blunt opener. I rarely think about diversity (or lack thereof) when I'm in a story. If the characters entice me, the range of demographics or opinions isn't that important. I do tend to gravitate more towards "diverse" stories anyway, though. Probably because I'm a fan of long, epic stories, which necessarily have many different parts.
@moviefiendz
6 ай бұрын
John Carpenter's The Thing: (sweats)
@sanjithechef
6 ай бұрын
Fonda Lee is my favourite author And I enjoyed the Witcher books, came to your channel, heard many valid comments about the series and immediately was hooked on your analysis on novels and discussing topics like sexism. Thank you. One of my favourite voices in fantasy fiction
@edenmckinley3472
6 ай бұрын
Loved this video! I agree with a lot of the points you made; it’s so nice to see someone with a level head! I think in this age of culture wars and gender politics, a lot of people either forget that women and men are different, or emphasize their differences to the point where they talk about the opposite sex as if they’re an alien species. Little Women is a book about the relationship between sisters, and most men would instinctually see that book as representing the “otherness” of womanhood. They’re right. But understanding the otherness of the opposite sex is important. On the opposite side of the spectrum, over-sexualizing women is when that otherness is exaggerated to the point where the female characters no longer have personhood, and the similarities between men and women are forgotten.
@kaelannaidoo7816
4 ай бұрын
The intro is the funniest thing I've seen all day
@ergocinema
6 ай бұрын
My suspicion is that people don't read books anymore. That's why the cover is more important than the content of the book. Nowadays every book has to be everything, because people don't want to read, don't want to concern themselves with a subject and certainly don't want to start thinking on their own. Maybe it has always been this way and this is not a new development, but what has definitely changed is that there are less people involved in the proces of creating books that are actually interested in them.
@doc_adams8506
6 ай бұрын
A nice well-balanced approach. To those who demand character quotas in their books, take the bull by the horns and write your own book rather than attacking someone else's genius and industry. Embrace bravery over cowardice and expose yourself to the slings and arrows of social media.
@mattkean1128
6 ай бұрын
Can I nominate this video for some award? Nuance! It's my guiding light in everything. Taking everything at face value and demanding clear boxes to check are so polarizing. Throw race into the mix, and people can get even more insular. Gasp, the woke agenda! 😮 I'll be over here reading my elderly woman books and drinking some tea.
@gator7082
6 ай бұрын
Nuance and discernment are qualities lost on most American adults these days.
@watcherofwatchers
6 ай бұрын
Sad, but true.
@MetalGildarts
6 ай бұрын
Sadly.
@jaginaiaelectrizs6341
6 ай бұрын
I don't think it's really an issue exclusively specific to Americans, nor adults. (Unfortunately.)
@kaladongstormguy
6 ай бұрын
I wish it were a problem exclusive to Americans, but sadly it's not.
@tithannisk7470
6 ай бұрын
It is indeed a complex topic that evokes all kinds of thoughts. It’s also touches on societal subjects that currently affect our societies. Bit I think that one of the problems is that many people judge books (and other things) not for what it is, but for what they want it to be which is always wrong. As I often say, I feel that some people criticise RomComs because there are not enough horror elements in them.
@dramaticwords
6 ай бұрын
Diversity in fiction should mean stories about all kinds of people, written by all kinds of people. So you can have stories about men, stories about women, stories about every other group. It does not mean every story has to have a completely diversified cast written by a diversified team of writers. That would be homogeneity, not diversity. Another kind of diversity is diversity of taste. Not everyone "should" like the same type of story or character. There should be stories for people of all tastes. But when politics becomes more important than art, some people try to bully authors into making stories ideologically pure. They don't want anyone reading stories that aren't.
@ScottBatson
6 ай бұрын
Great video! I left twitter a while ago because of toxicity--I can't imagine how bad it is for someone famous. I don't tend to read reviews for books outside of reviewers I trust (like you, Petrik Leo, and more), so I had no idea this was criticism Green Bone Saga received. If you had asked me "who's your favorite testosterone-filled, macho character in a series" I would absolutely say "Hilo" because Lee captures so much than just the persona he puts out into the world. It is not diminished because Fonda Lee is a woman
@MireiaMira
6 ай бұрын
"Not all stories have to be all things" is a headline that we should have in mind when we find a book that doesn't reach our expectations. Cancel culture is making a lot of damage by not allowing space to nuance and also by giving a sense of moral superiority to those who cancel. We all should make the effort to express our grievances with arguments and in a civilized way. The world would improve substantially
@ochoahighs98
6 ай бұрын
The bechdel test and their consequences have been awful...there is just not a simple formula that you can use to assess these things
@MinionofNobody
6 ай бұрын
I spent some time thinking about this issue decades ago when I discovered in my early teens that Andre Norton was a woman. I ultimately reached the conclusion that I should take each book on its own terms. I have rarely spent time thinking about the sex of the author since then unless it is clear from the way characters are portrayed that the author has issues with one of the sexes. In such cases, I tend to treat it the same way I do books that have problems with racism. I consider the time and place in which the book was written and the common values in that time and place. If the issues bother me too much, I won’t read other books by the author. On a few rare occasions, it bothered me enough that I stopped reading a book.
@kennyd8632
6 ай бұрын
I'm dropping a like because of that immediate nope at the beginning! Took me by surprise XoX
@LittleSillyGoose613
6 ай бұрын
I once read a children's book review that gave a bad rating because the plot was too juvenile. And it was clear from the voice and vocabulary that the reviewer wasnt a child (I'm excluding teens in this category). Like, maybe you weren't the intended audience?
@msclrhd
6 ай бұрын
There are some stories that have all/predominantly male characters and some that have all/predominantly female characters (e.g. The Descent, French & Saunders). This is fine. As is having shows around specific ethnicities (The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, etc.) or sexual orientations (Queer as Folk). Requiring everything to always have a balance of characters prevents telling specific stories, or ends up forcing those characters into the story such as with the "token black character"/"token gay character" tropes.
@ar47yrr4p
6 ай бұрын
LOVE IT! All I saw was the title "Is an all-male cast sexist?" and I was curious what you would say...and lo and behold you didn't make me wait even a single second! And I agree!
@jeremyvanneman8112
6 ай бұрын
Absolutely to all of this! Novels are about sharing perspective, and understanding the human condition. That translates to people living more intentionally, with more regard to impacts they may have that they may have not considered before. But nowadays a vocal minority of people want to be spoonfed a "message" that includes identity politics where marginalized groups are the heroes, and white men are the villains. They're less interested in understanding the human experience, and more interested in the fan fiction punishing a group they see as the enemy. And there's also a vocal minority that is so wholeheartedly fixated on fighting "the message" that anything that has more than extremely limited diversity, or focuses on women is automatically "bad" (unless they enjoy it). They're less interested in understanding the human condition than they are in seeing all men being set up as heroes - nearly godlike beings whose purpose is to protect (and also objectify?) women. The internet is definitely a place for those hedonistic attitudes to thrive - where the facelessness of social media gives people the courage to push the worst of their tendencies, and the globalization of ideas brings together all of those weak minded people to encourage each other and justify those approaches. I honestly don't think most people fall into one of those two categories, but it's far more visible online than it is in the real world, and people with nuanced perspectives (and kindness) tend to avoid online communities because of the likely toxicity.
@jaginaiaelectrizs6341
6 ай бұрын
I would like to suggest, perhaps, it is actually the mindset that fiction must always be about the human experience and/or sharing perspective(s) - and/or about living more intentionally with regard for potential impacts - itself that is actually inadvertently responsible for those vocal-minorities you've highlighted here existing so fervently. Because people so often want to see fiction that reflects THEIR OWN personal experience or perspective and like to push back against it when it doesn't. But, honestly, while it's great if fiction does focus on human experience(s) or sharing perspective(s) and/or encourage living more intentionally and/or giving more regard to the potential impacts of things or whatever I think it's also perfectly fine if it isn't always that deep a message or whatever.
@jeremyvanneman8112
6 ай бұрын
@@jaginaiaelectrizs6341 I could see that - entitled cry babies who just want everything to be explicitly for them. I agree that there doesn't always have to be a deep message or layered understanding with every novel, but the ones that do tend to be the ones that are worth remembering and discussing. The casually fun stories with predictable twist endings that lack depth (the first mistborn trilogy is a good example for me) are the ones I find particularly boring, even though I understand why others may enjoy them.
@jaginaiaelectrizs6341
6 ай бұрын
@@jeremyvanneman8112 Yeah, it all depends on how you measure "worth", or specifically what kind of worth in what kinds of ways / for what kinds of reasons or purposes you mean-and it's okay if different people have different interests or find different things to be the most memorable and/or inciting of the greatest discussion. 🙂
@TheCivildecay
5 ай бұрын
The problem isn't writing diverse characters, the problem is that that diverse character is not allowed to have flaws or weaknesses, which makes them very bland. For example if they added a female hobbit to the fellowship, it would be mandatory that that character would be more brave than Sam and Frodo and made all decisions for the fellowship (and none of the decisions would be a mistake)
@gloriathomas3245
6 ай бұрын
Speaking as a man(don't mind the username) I couldn't care less about what the characters has between their legs. If you can deliver an out of this world story with memorable characters I'm going to support it regardless.
@YukiA816
6 ай бұрын
Sadly this isn’t even just happening to writers but all mediums now. It seems narcissism has taken over with their views. Unable to relate to characters for various reasons and want more representation to “fix” it. It used to be you would relate to the character through their story, but now it’s they don’t see the character relates to them so they demand a change or for representation. I’ve seen complaints on “badly” written characters and what they need to change only to see the problems aren’t the character but the complainant expecting the character to be like them. It’s so backwards. That’s where many issues come from now. It’s people expecting everyone to change for them and unwillingness to change or view things differently.
@SupremeVerdict
6 ай бұрын
An all male cast is not sexist An all white cast isn't racist An all animal cast isn't speciesist A movie can have any cast. The content/ message is what is important.
@Onityn
6 ай бұрын
To me representation and diversity is about the range of works that we have assess to, not about representation and diversity inside a single work. Look at the last decade of fantasy, we've got some many culturally inspired works from all across the world, this is what diversity is. Putting the same archetypes in everything is not diversity
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