This is such an interesting post, and such an interesting question. I'm not a fiction writer myself, so most of my responses are centered around reading practices -- one thing I love about gabs's feminist filter is that it can show me the cool things that are going on with gender and a character like Oz, who I just don't get into in the show itself. It helps me separate my personal apathy from something cool that might be going on -- specifically, someone who rarely resorts to being Xandery with the slut-shaming and the masculinity issues.
It's funny because I think it's good to make all your characters, even and maybe especially the villains, sympathetic, because I don't think that authors should let their readers feel completely superior to anyone. It's good to feel "oh, that was wrong," but I think it's usually, you know, problematic to think, "ugh! I would never say something that would hurt someone!" when of course the reality is that we all do, sometimes. (I mean, it is probably okay to think, "I would never kill someone so brutally," but it doesn't really help you explore new territories of human consciousness to say so.)
I think it is good to have characters call out behavior, but sometimes it can be unrealistic -- I get frustrated when characters always have the perfect zinger, and I don't know if it's because I'm just jealous of their wit, or because it stops sounding like human communication, or what. It can be really helpful to have an outside character call out an inner circle, revealing the ways in which they've remained insulated from social realities. But it has to be somewhat organic -- there has to be an emotional reason for them to state the painful truth, not just someone brilliant walks into the room, sets everyone straight, and then leaves. Zadie Smith is good at this, I think :).
In prose fiction, it's easier, because you can more easily incorporate the way people deal with their own isms -- I'm thinking about your awesome Buffy-gets-attracted-to-Spike fic :).
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It's funny because I think it's good to make all your characters, even and maybe especially the villains, sympathetic, because I don't think that authors should let their readers feel completely superior to anyone. It's good to feel "oh, that was wrong," but I think it's usually, you know, problematic to think, "ugh! I would never say something that would hurt someone!" when of course the reality is that we all do, sometimes. (I mean, it is probably okay to think, "I would never kill someone so brutally," but it doesn't really help you explore new territories of human consciousness to say so.)
I think it is good to have characters call out behavior, but sometimes it can be unrealistic -- I get frustrated when characters always have the perfect zinger, and I don't know if it's because I'm just jealous of their wit, or because it stops sounding like human communication, or what. It can be really helpful to have an outside character call out an inner circle, revealing the ways in which they've remained insulated from social realities. But it has to be somewhat organic -- there has to be an emotional reason for them to state the painful truth, not just someone brilliant walks into the room, sets everyone straight, and then leaves. Zadie Smith is good at this, I think :).
In prose fiction, it's easier, because you can more easily incorporate the way people deal with their own isms -- I'm thinking about your awesome Buffy-gets-attracted-to-Spike fic :).
Whew, what am I talking about?