On Casting the Net of Imagination

[deepad]

A few disjointed thoughts, since I am tired.

I read this quote from the charming and insightful Junot Diaz a few days ago, and found myself in profound disagreement with him, when he said:

I have not read realistic novels that approach the nightmare of the chattel slavery of the New World, that extreme reality of what it means to have been bred for generation after generation and the people who were “weak” were worked to death and the people who were “strong” survived to create another generation of slaves. I find that horror far more aptly approached in science fiction and fantasy novels than I’ve ever seen it approached in realistic novels.

For myself, I have never been as moved to visceral grief, horror, and empathy towards historical and present humanity than I have while reading fiction set in the world as exists. I find even the most exhaustive mythopoea and world-building to fall short of the nuances which the real world contains, and therefore, can bring, by sheer weight of extra canon, to any work of fiction that evokes it.

Also, I think there is something strange, and disturbing if I were to be able to empathise more viscerally with colonised vampires or massacred aliens than with humans whose stories came from actual experiences suffered by real people, the effects of which are still all around me today.

Possibly, this is because I never find the most extended and well-constructed metaphor to be more effective or brutal than actual fact.

Which is not to say that SFF can't be used to comment on the real world in ways that realistic fiction falls short of. Shaun Tan's work, especially stories like Eric is proof of that. Which is why I am glad I could see his illustrations for the John Marsden story The Rabbits right on the heels of sanguinity making a really trenchant post about it, riffing off of coffeeandink's review. Like Sanguinity, I found Marsden's last line appalling, and there's a whole lot of tiny things in his text that add up to a very patronising appropriated narrative. And also, I find the homogenisation by a white person of the Aboriginal and Native American colonialisation experiences extremely essentialising.

I thought Tan's illustrations were beautiful, as usual, but I am not sure how much his fantastic metaphors mitigated the fact that it wasn't really his story to tell. Images like the children being flown away in white balloons, for instance, seemed much more resonant to me with global economics taking young immigrants to Australia, the UK and US away from their parents and grandparents in Asia and Africa. But of course, the accompanying 'they stole our children' is a very specifically historical phrase.

When willow told me about an upcoming remake of a Hollywood film called Red Dawn (which I have not seen), with a Chinese invasion of the US instead of a Soviet Russian one, I mentioned that there was something rather disturbing about a dominant identity wanting to play and fantasise about being an oppressed minority.

I'm not at all convinced such fantasies help foster any sort of meaningful empathy. I think they:
a) Deflect attention from the dominant identity's present and actual actions as an oppressor.
b) Provide the kind of theatrical catharsis that Boal talks about that will "diminish, placate, satisfy, eliminate all that can break the balance - all, including the revolutionary, transforming impetus".
c) Train a mentality that encourages binaries and thereby encourages dominant majorities to frame themselves, however possible, as positive oppressed victim-survivors.
d) Legitimise fighting the Other in a more palatable framework while ignoring dismantling one's own position in hegemony and hierarchy.
e) Appropriate real life oppressed minority stories of resistance and struggle to construct world focussed on characters the dominant majority can identify with.
f) Perpetuate a false diversity of narratives through minority stories told through the lens, identity and with the resources and wealth of the dominant majority.

Much like my discomfort for the arguments surrounding the defense of texts like To Kill a Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn being used for racial education -- to say such a book can awaken a white reader to the horror of racism (at the cost of the discomfort of her fellow PoC readers) with the implication that any of the PoC-authored books about the same time and place would not -- I do not believe in SFF produced by the dominant majority to be the key that would unlock its wells of empathy and understanding realisation at its own culpability. I think we are far better served by playing with fantasies that help us practise what it is like to recognise ourselves as oppressors and fight ourselves and our systems. After all, it is not that the colonised did not have enough stories of resistance to inspire them to become heroes. The problem was that the colonialists did not have enough stories of repentance and rethinking to prevent them from becoming monsters.

Comments

[unusualmusic]

I think we are far better served by playing with fantasies that help us practise what it is like to recognise ourselves as oppressors and fight ourselves and our systems. After all, it is not that the colonised did not have enough stories of resistance to inspire them to become heroes. The problem was that the colonialists did not have enough stories of repentance and rethinking to prevent them from becoming monsters.


*blink*

Now thats something to think about.

[spiralsheep]

This.

[glass_icarus]

+1.

[naraht]

I think we are far better served by playing with fantasies that help us practise what it is like to recognise ourselves as oppressors and fight ourselves and our systems. After all, it is not that the colonised did not have enough stories of resistance to inspire them to become heroes. The problem was that the colonialists did not have enough stories of repentance and rethinking to prevent them from becoming monsters.

Really thought-provoking. This is such a rare genre/trope that I'm having trouble thinking of any stories that would provide what you're looking for. Do you think stories like this have been written at all and, if so, what are they?

[deepad]

I haven't read widely enough in the SFF field to say how many exist, but I think on a personal level, stories of people discovering they fucked up, and then trying to change, do exist. Peter S. Beagle's The Last Unicorn comes to mind, in terms of the Prince's character. Although that's not a particularly good example, and I know there are a couple of better ones I am blanking on at the moment.

Middle grade fiction actually does this really well, sometimes, when it deals with school politics. Judy Blume's Blubber, and Katherine Paterson's The Great Gilly Hopkins come to mind as realistic protagonists who fuck up and to an extent, realise this.

[naraht]

I agree that there are tons of stories that are about the protagonist realizing that they've fucked up on an individual level. Given the context of this post I was thinking more of stories along the lines of "protagonist realizes that they're complicit in a wider system of oppression," which is more directly a parallel to what you're talking about. And I think there aren't so many of those. Possibly stories like Wilberforce fighting the slave trade, though that could devolve really easily into a sort of white saviour narrative.

Off the top of my head the only show I can think of that really does deal with being caught up in systemic oppression is The Wire, though obviously it has its problems to do with who has the right to tell whose stories.

[deepad]

Yeah, that was what I meant, and no, I can't think of many or any which do that, except the ones that turn into What These People Need is a Honky.

[veejane]

Sometimes I read your essays and am reminded, to my surprise, that you're an optimist.

Red Dawn (which I have not seen)

It's hilarious. By which I mean, it is absolutely seriously the very earnest story of the desperate defense of Texas from the oppressive armies of Cuba. (Cuba!! With some Soviet blah-blah in there, but mostly: Cuba.) I watched it on television at some point in my adolescence and laughed and laughed, and that's where its value lies today (if any): it's such a bald and needy fantasy of white Reaganite righteousness. It's like if OH JOHN RINGO NO were made into a movie.

I have no idea why they're remaking it, except that they're remaking everything and presumably the rights were cheap. I haven't seen the remake discussed seriously, but I really can't come up with a context in which China as a belligerent invader has any serious impact on the American imagination, you know? With Cuba/USSR, at least we'd threatened war with one another, so the original was an unrealistic extension of the (more or less) existing fear. But unless the new Red Dawn is about the complex systematics of finance and manufacturing, where it's an All American form of protest to make your own plastic lawn chairs and SIT IN THEM! HDU TAKE AWAY MY BUTT'S FREEDOM!! I... don't get it.

Anyway. Yeah. The remake was filmed a year or two ago, now, and I haven't heard a peep of press about it, so I suspect it will go direct to video and never be heard from again.

[deepad]

I stand corrected about Red Dawn's antagonists.

I am not sure how you got me being an optimist from this post, but I support the non privileging of authorial readings!

[geeksdoitbetter]

"complex systematics of finance and manufacturing"

i would so watch *that* movie

[trinker]

O.O !

There's over a hundred years of Yellow Peril menace-machine.

[spiralsheep]

Images like the children being flown away in white balloons, for instance, seemed much more resonant to me with global economics taking young immigrants to Australia, the UK and US away from their parents and grandparents in Asia and Africa. But of course, the accompanying 'they stole our children' is a very specifically historical phrase.

While I understand and absolutely agree with your point about not eliding different experiences of colonisation, working class children from the UK actually were "stolen" from their parents/families and sent, against their wills, to be unpaid labourers in Canada and Australia until the mid 20th century. It's not the same as the deliberate genocide inflicted on many/most indigenous people in Australia and/or Canada, but it did happen and the people it happened to were in no way responsible.

Note: this history/comment is not and should not be abused as an excuse for anyone to do this...

e) Appropriate real life oppressed minority stories of resistance and struggle to construct world focussed on characters the dominant majority can identify with.

[deepad]

That's a really good data point, thank you. I had thought of mentioning that the context of 'stealing children' covers a range of specific historicities, including, for instance (some) transnational and transracial adoptee experiences. But that seemed too complex a statement to get into.

And it ties in with how while I feel that Shaun Tan can use his own history as an immigrant to create fantasies that empathise with other narratives of traumatic change, the dangers of speaking for others remain.

[spiralsheep]

while I feel that Shaun Tan can use his own history as an immigrant to create fantasies that empathise with other narratives of traumatic change, the dangers of speaking for others remain

::nods agreement::

We need the global media to distribute a wider variety of voices telling their own stories, not merely a wider variety of (appropriated) stories told by the same old voices (from the same old pov).

[bravecows]

Perpetuate a false diversity of narratives through minority stories told through the lens, identity and with the resources and wealth of the dominant majority.

Hah! Yes.

I think we are far better served by playing with fantasies that help us practise what it is like to recognise ourselves as oppressors and fight ourselves and our systems.

I think this is true of most people ... I mean speaking for myself as someone with privilege along many axes, this is something I would find profoundly difficult but which also seems necessary. Something to think about. Thanks for this post.

[(Anonymous)]

I have to confess, though, that this posting feels to me like it itself is setting up a false dichotomy.

[deepad]

Hmm. I am talking about proportions more than binaries though.

[al_zorra]

That's a funny thing for him to say, when he said this to us back last fall when among the many things we complimented him accomplishing with Wao was making so clear that no matter how evil the dark ruler of fantasy might be, they are all still pikers when comes to real life evil rulers, like the DR's Trujillo, or a Stalin. He professed him pleased and grateful that we had this take away from the novel as that was his intention.

But it was also clear from the time we spent with him on this visit that he's having a rosy tinted honeymoon with sf/f pro-dom: he insists that the field's writers are all one big happy, supportive family, sans jealousies, rivalries, back-stabbing, racial prejudice, etc. -- unlike the professional 'literary' fiction world of PEN, etc. We could only roll our eyes, having extensive experience with the pro-dom of both, and academia also ....

Love, C.

[deepad]

Hmm. Other quotes from his interview seem to indict Western Anglo publishing as a whole as being racially segregated and discriminatory, so I can't say I have picked up on any indication of him finding SFF to be better about that than the realistic genre. I just happen to disagree with his assessment of the impact of SFF analogies vs realistic depictions.

[nightowl]

Thank you for this post, and for linking to sanguinity's review. Your final line was very powerful; I keep wondering if this is perhaps why I find stories of "repentance and rethinking" after screwing up so appealing. I'll be mulling over all this for a while.

Also, I realized you responded to one of my comments on your DW ages ago (re: Amy Chua's book) and I never answered back - sorry about that! I am just so busy and sometimes I can't think of anything appropriate to say.

[deepad]

Sanguinity's post is excellent, I hope many people read it. My very favourite stories are about fucked up characters trying to be good, though it is strange that I can think of no examples of it extending to a socio-political level.

And dude! No worries about comment responses! You might have observed that I myself don't even attempt to keep up; apart from the occasional sporadic burst of guilt-induced industry.

[nightowl]

...apart from the occasional sporadic burst of guilt-induced industry.

Oh man, I know how that feels! @_@

And I believe today is Holi? I remember you blogging about the festival and serendipitously discovered the day it fell this year, so... I hope I am not taking liberties when I wish you a Happy Holi!

[deepad]

Thank you! It was indeed Holi, and though once again I am not in Delhi to celebrate it, I am happy to be given greetings for it. :)

[hey_legousa]

I've been thinking about different discussions around works directly engaged with racism by people white and of color and how they've affected - and, in some cases, distorted - my reading experience, and I don't know that there are any good remedies for your last paragraph.

Like how to create a work that is able to reveal to ourselves (for different values of "ourselves") our own privileges without giving us the easy escape of false absolvence, or privileging that story of self-discovery over those who are oppressed.

I had to read both Huck Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird for classes in high school. And while I had things that I wanted to address to Harper Lee even then, and even moreso now, they weren't soul destroying experiences. In fact my most bitter memory concerning discussions of race masquerading as litcrit came from an article written by Brent Staples,he himself being a black journalist for the nytimes. I still have a lot to disagree with within the article in question, but my feelings about the article and the author went much further than that when I was 16, and it had a lot to do with the frankly terrible discussion I had to sit through about it.*

I do think there is a place fro discussion of flawed works like the above in classrooms, along with Toni Morrison, and Langston Hughes, et al.** though I sometimes wished the lessons could be handed out without me having to be present... and I've lost the point in there somewhere. The point is it's complicated, and I'm more interested in getting a better approach to how we treat these works to a wider audience, because a bad book discussion can be scarring, yo.

*The discussion went something like... everyone: 'Isn't it sad how the gangsta rap leads these poor black children astray? Not that I can say much about this gangsta rap itself. I, myself, can proudly state that I have never heard a 50 cent song.' Me: 'Um, it actually doesn't work like that...' everyone else: 'Silly, of course it does, why should we take your for it.' me: 'Well considering I'm the only black person in the room, and as a member of the poor afflicted black youth of which you speak.' everyone else: *ignores me* *goes back to their circle jerk*

**Actually I have a terrible/amazing story about how a Frederick Douglass story from, I think, 'Up from Slavery' was misused by my school wrestling team. You'd think that FD would be too righteous to be warped, and you'd sadly be wrong. God, that whole year was a clusterfuck.

[deepad]

Yeah, see I agree that how a book is taught and critiqued is vital in how it affects your raced experience of it. (Your examples, sadly similar to other stories I have heard. Also, I hate your entire class.)

I think my problem with syllabi as they are now though is that they smoosh up the 'lets talk about race' and 'lets talk about how to be a good person' with To Kill and Mockingbird. And the thing is - no. If you want to have an educative experience about an oppression, then you dominate your reading list with books by the oppressed group, with a token oppressor-written book to examine how to critique and deconstruct.

If you want good people making books that are able to reveal to ourselves (for different values of "ourselves") our own privileges without giving us the easy escape of false absolvence, or privileging that story of self-discovery over those who are oppressed then... that's a different discussion for which not enough books have been written yet that I can think of to make a list.

[hey_legousa]

I like to think of 16 as the year a reached the point of no return on my road to radicalization, because, seriously, the whole entire year was like that on every axis of oppression. So, I guess it served some purpose? But, really ridiculousness, thy name was the 11th grade.

that's a different discussion for which not enough books have been written yet that I can think of to make a list.

Is it bad that I don't even know what that story would look like? It's hard to stay off the Dances wit Wolves/Jake Sully/Last Samurai path o' BS and near inevitable critical acclaim.

[deepad]

Yeah, the tendency for it to veer into What These People Need Is a Honky is scary.

[aquaeri]

I liked this post so much I recommended it in my own journal, but I forgot to thank you for it "in person". You've got some really nice provocation for thought for me (not that that's why you wrote it).

[deepad]

No need for thanks, though you're quite welcome. :)

[aquaeri]

Well, it seemed polite :-).

small point

[naad]

the colonialists did not have enough stories of repentance and rethinking to prevent them from becoming monsters.

arguably, Avatar (the James Cameron movie) is such a story.

Re: small point

[deepad]

Well, no, what it is is yet another What These People Need is a Honky fantasy, so I don't think its helpful.
For more specific critiques of the movie, here's a link round up.

[deepad]

I am banning you from my journal. I have recorded your IP address, so don't try to comment here anonymously or from a different user name, or contact me in any way.