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.
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"
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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:)
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
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.
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 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.
@@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.
I once received a negative review, because my secondary antagonist was antagonistic. Essentially, if I’d written “Silence of the Lambs” I would have been criticized for not knowing that cannibalism was wrong. People are so caught up in the theater of self-righteousness that they’re unwilling to differentiate between the author’s opinions and the opinions of his characters. Their addiction to outrage has damaged their brains.
I think some people just don't understand what fiction is. Some people also don't seem to understand that a person can talk or write from view point that they don't hold. Unfortunately there is also people that posses both of the previously mentioned traits.
I’m a huge horror fan and the amount of negative reviews of horror novels because there’s evil people doing evil things in them is ridiculous. Same with grimdark fantasy.
@@commandoepsilon4664 I remember a trend esp. for YA authors a few years back. An Author couldn't write about characters not of their [Check box here], not without a 'person of that race/sexuality/etc. reading the book as a sensitivity consultant'. And the general tone was that authors shouldn't even write it at all. That's the problem with this modern DIE - inclusion "I must be seen" stuff. It has become the death of imagination. When I was young, I was a dinosaur, a lion, a star, a 20M tall robot, a girl protecting her farm, a railway worker. Now whatever book or movie I watch I'm apparently only allowed to be a slightly more than overweight older dude.
@nightmarishcompositions4536 That's what I'm saying and the whole reasoning behind most people's criticisms of horror movies are "they're too violent or distasteful" like nigga isn't that supposed to be the point of a horror film? I swear as each day goes by media literacy jus continues to die slowly but surely 😂
@@Bookborn fully understand, otherwise you might get through your script and wonder at the end did I make my position on this clear? Though you might feel as though you have, the comments on Fonda Lee's green bone are enough to make any one second guess.
I thought that was really smart of her. It forestalls whatever knee-jerk judgment or reaction a viewer might be coming in with, then she’s free to use the rest of the time to articulate.
“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🙄 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 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.
@@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"
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!
I agree with your points here. We do not need authors to go down the checklist of representation to make sure everything is included. I don't think most people in real life care about this stuff so strongly. No one on the internet understands nuance.
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.
I remember watching a video where the person called C.S. Lewis sexist because Father Christmas to Lucy that wars and fighting not for girls/women. Yet this person completely ignored the fact the Lucy played a vital role in healing to wounded after the battle on the book with the very potion that Father Christmas gave her. This may be going against the grain, but as a traditional Christian who believes in gender roles and benefit that each gender brings to the table (ie. complementarianism) I actually find it sexist with the modern fantasy trend of devaluing traditionally feminine roles/traits and suggesting that women have value by taking on masculine roles.
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!
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.
Having a question in the title and answering the question in the first second, roll intro and then getting into it is brilliant! I don't even know if I'm going to watch but I sure as heck will play the video, even if I make some food and not paying attention.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.😊 😁
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.
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.
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
"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.
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.
@@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 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).
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.
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.
See Lord of the rings is an interesting casestudy for pointing out the flaws of the Bechdel test. Because, yes, LotR fails simply by being so male-centric, but both the novels and the movies do contain feminist themes whenever they are relevant to the story being told; namely Eowyn's plotline and Galadriel's whole character.
It’s why I hate when the Bechdel test is used without context or with other judging factors. It can be *a* useful tool to discuss media, but it is not THE tool and can often miss the big picture imo
Eowyn is a character who wants to break the sexiat standards of her society and become a fighter instead of juat staying behind. Then the momwnt she actually gets into battle, although she does well, realises how horrible war can be and decides to stay behind from that moment on and leave the fighting to men. Its a little less feminist as we at first might think
The Bechdel test is really only useful as an aggregate measure. While it is useful to criticize literature as a whole according to how much of it passes the Bechdel test, it is not useful to use the Bechdel test to criticize individual pieces of literature. The former tells us how well society is doing wrt representation. The latter tells us nothing. For example, it would be wrong to criticize The Shawshank Redemption because it fails the Bechdel test but if, say, only a small percentage of all movies that came out during that era pass the Bechdel test, this tells us that movies overall in that time period were not representative.
@callnight1441 Eowyn was just an example, but the lotr is definitely not a sexist book. Eowyn learning that war is horrible and not wanting to take any more part in it is just the same lesson learned at the end of the battle of the five armies in the hobbit. That's not necessarily because of her sex, but because nobody should be subjected to that degree of violence. But putting her aside, no woman is ever objectified of overtly sexualised. They are never demeaned or presented as inferior to men. At the end of the day, Tolkien's experience of war was a bunch of blokes making strong friendships through tough times, so that's what he writes about.
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!
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.
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.
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 😊💖
Fantastic video. I think a lot of people tagging authors in one-star reviews are just so arrogant that they can't understand that when people see their 1 star review that they won't then change their beliefs to match what this person has written, and that that includes the author. That they feel like the author needs to know from them why their book is bad so they can go work on that. Because obviously now that this person has revealed to the world that this well received book is actually bad, the world can finally know this and move it's view to match. That's my theory anyway. I like how you touched upon the nuance, because I think often a lack of female cast (or just a lack of diversity in point of views) is a criticism that makes sense because having more diverse perspectives could allow the author to examine the world, story, and themes they are writing about in a more complete way. Fonda Lee was spitting facts.
Ok but yes to your second paragraph, such a good point; like there are story reasons that your world will often feel more complete from different perspectives because you'll be able to actually fully realize your world. But it also depends on the purpose of your story and what you're doing with it
Ive enjoyed the comments here and i agree completely with you. As a side note, if you havent already seen the Lord of the Rings Bechdel test, it is comedy gold
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.
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.
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...
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 .
I totally agree with this nuanced take on stories. There’s room for and value in stories that show a variety of characters and perspectives. Even when the story focuses on a particular perspective. Unfortunately the common response on the internet to this opinion (or sometimes any opinion) is baseless name calling and labeling. It’s easier to call someone racist, misogynist, etc. than to try and understand what they are saying, to explain why they disagree, or just say they have a different opinion. People don’t take the time to listen and don’t know how to disagree without making you out to be the worst human being. Like you said, the internet is where nuance goes to die.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
Thanks for making this video. I had the exact same thoughts but as a dude saying this is an easy way to be labeled misogynist or sexist that I have to be checking in with lady friends to make sure I’m not bugging out so its good to hear from your perspective say the same thing. I heard the same argument as you from someone about both Lord of the Rings and Star Wars . She made the same complaint/argument that she didn’t like and could never get into them because they didn’t have female or “good” female characters.
Well you're free to express your opinion. Thing is, we "women" don't all share the same way of thinking and while I fully agree with her, there are still women out there arguing that Eowyn wasn't feminist enough or the lack of female representation should be considered in judging the overall quality of a story. Of course, I strongly disagree with those kind of opinions lol.
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
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
@@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 😊
@@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.
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.
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!
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!
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
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.
Great analysis, loved the take on the subject. I just finished writing my first fantasy novel, one of three main POV characters is a woman and I really struggled to write her as I did my male main characters. Instead of focusing on writing a "woman" POV and just letting the character be shaped by the story, developments and her own personality she ended up becoming the most impactful and endearing pieces of the story without it being intentional just to have a female character.
I believe that often diversity is storytelling is best served by telling as many different stories as possible. Not every story can or should include everybody. But also, what is story telling but an opportunity to share in things that are outside of our own experience? This usually seems to be a pretty non-controversial idea when talking about historical events or fiction that stays relatively true to them. Insisting on having women fighting in the trenches of a WWI story for example is never going to get far. But there is at least a minority who seem to hold that any fantasy world must look like a typical modern western nation, irrespective if if this makes sense from a world building perspective. Unless of course if the story focuses on people who are minorities in that idealised nation or are totally absent from it. That is absolutely fine and to be encouraged. Cos everyone loves a double standard, right? When it comes to sexism, the irony is that insisting on the over representation of one gender to subvert the story in the name of "equality" seems like the more sexist option than just letting people tell their stories and you either read it or you don't.
I think there’s a modern trend of polarisation in many things. The internet/social media encourages the formation of silos that form a ‘you’re either with us or against us’ mentality. And within activism people tend to veer towards the most extreme view. So one thing is perfect and everything else needs to change to suit the needs of that perfect thing. So if it’s women then the idea that a female character could be flawed and need to change and adapt is an anathema to that way of thinking. And similarly if a male character does a nasty thing, they are forever evil and any notion of redemption is deemed as excusing evil behaviour. So all nuance is lost in the type of polarised communities/ideologies. That said, there probably are a lot of people who do take a slightly more centre leaning view but those people are not the people who are likely to leave hateful comments because they are able to see things from a slightly different perspective.
I feel very strongly about this topic and the entire “modern audience” trend. I believe part of the problem comes from the instant gratification of today. If your story (especially series) starts off with perfect characters, there isn’t room for growth, life lessons, or experiences to shape the world and peoples therein. I find this incredibly boring and irrational. Plugging demographics of any type JUST to please some people is just lazy. Ultimately the author is the sole voice for the story. As with any art the artist sets the stage, the audience chooses to enjoy or not. I don’t need someone to tell me if I’m allowed to like or not like art in any form. No thank you. I’m a grandmother and fully understand times change and need to reflect values accordingly. Plugging modern culture into fantasy and yelling “stay within the lines” is belittling to authors and readers intelligence. I’m not looking for life lessons or in your face lectures on the “right” way to be/live in my fantasy books. Isn’t the point to escape or suspend reality for entertainment purposes? Just my opinion.
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.
Ugh, I would love to say I can't believe people dip their toe in a novel, and judge the entire thing.. but, well, people are terrible lately. Thanks for tackling such a massive, touchy topic! This video is great! (Also, love the Yu Yu Hakusho shirt! :)
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. :)
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.
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.
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.
It's crazy how easy it is to throw out so much negativity without realizing those words might make it to actual real life people on the other end. I think people would think a lot more carefully about what they say if it weren't so easy to dehumanize people on the internet. Side note: I went to the interview w/ Fonda Lee and Django Wexler as a big fan of the Greenbone Saga, and had a lot of fun. I wasn't familiar w/ Wexler at the time, but he was so much fun in the interview that I picked up the series he was promoting and ended up enjoying it a bunch!
I love writing my female characters, it reveals to me a hidden side of myself I usually don't feel day to day. They are strong, but not in a "Can do everything better then men" kind of way. BUT: I have become increasingly allergic to online sexism by females (on all topics). I can say: You have a very intelligent, balanced way of seeing things. It's a relief listening to smart feminism for once. Keep it up. Like your smart topics in general. You would be my favorite YTer to review my books.
I have only gone through 1 Andrew Klavan sires Another Kingdom. I know he's written a lot I'm just not someone who likes crime thrillers in general. However, the way he combines that element with fantasy theology and social commentary makes these books very good and reminiscent of CS Lewis for me. Also JK Rowling could have made Hermione her main charter especially since she based the character on herself. She focused on a male charter and yet most of her main characters of both sexs are well rounded and deep. Let authors write what they want. Wether we agree with them or not is the part that's the part that's up to us.
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.
The women in The Green Bone Saga are BY FAR my favorite. Wen's chapters especially in the beginning of Legacy make me so emotional (also the chapter in War when she is at the park with the kids). Shae is amazing and she is without a doubt my favorite POV. I'm a 32 year old man, who works in male dominant blue collar field. By all common knowledge I should be a Hilo or even Bero fan... But nope.
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.
Anne McCaffreys 2 novels Dragonsong and Dragonsinger showed me early on that men can enjoy female centric stories as much as male centric ones. Those 2 books are bangers!
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.
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
Thank you. I remember when a lot of this nonsense started about 20 yrs ago running the gambit of topics pertaining to women , the worst was the hate [ whether you like the series or not] around Twilight and yet Meyer used beloved classics [ also under attack] to inspire much of those books. Authors often use language to let you know this is a toxic environment an example Fredric Backman's Beartown. I have seen people DNF it before they understood why the language was used and so they missed out on a great series. Sad.
Great literature should be a space where flawed characters have a chance to grow and change. It should also be a space to dive into complexity and explore topics to challenge us or highlight these complexities from a variety of vantage points. At least there should be space for writers to engage with readers in that way. Of course not all books need to do that. I also don’t require that of what I read either. Some times I don’t want to slog through heavy themes and would prefer to inhabit a cozy utopian space. Your point that people should recognize that perhaps a book is not currently for them if they are off put by a flawed character when they meet them 40 pages in. In a way it might be similar to hearing about an amazing movie that you don’t research but are willing to check out and then when you start watching it you find out it is a musical and the think. I hate musicals. Or I’m not in the space to watch a musical . It’s not the movies fault that it is a musical. And it’s not your fault that you might not want to watch a musical at that moment. They should not tag an author/director and one star review the whole series without reading the whole book/series to make a proper assessment. Thanks for the video and bringing up so many good topics.
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!
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!
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
I remember years ago i took a girl on a date to see Fellowship of the Ring. We both loved the movie which prompted us to read the books. After she finished the books she was upset that Arwen was hardly mentioned in the books when she was so prominent in Peter Jackson's rendition. I tried to find some reason to comfort her about it. But i could see how after reading LOTOR a woman might feel perturbed about the lack of female characters. It wasnt until years later that i learned more about Tolkien that basically he wasn't an author. He made his bones translating old mythic stories and it wasn't until Tolkien got to Aragorn's inauguration that he realised that he is going to need a Queen. So then he had to go back and try to shoe horn her into the story. Subsequently he then had to back through his legendarium and fit women into the history of Middle Earth. In which does nothing really for people who read LOTOR but shows he was cognisant of the lack of female characters...
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!
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.
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.
Could not agree more strongly! Representation of things across industry/Hollywood/what gets buzz is a problem, but not every book (or thing) needs to be everything. It isn't a problem if one movie doesn't pass the Bechdel test - especially if it isn't appropriate to the topic/time of that particular story - but it is a problem if about half of the most popular 1,200 movies of the past 40 years don't pass the Bechdel test. The notion that books with male protagonists are universal and books with female protagonists are only for women is super problematic, and from my perspective was much more common 20 years ago, and hopefully becoming less common now (less clear, unfortunately, if that is happening as quickly in the more expensive to produce movie space). As a man, I enjoy lots of books with primary female view points, lots of SF / F books written by women (and non-binary) authors, and - unsurprisingly - some of the books with primary female points of view are written by men and some of the books written by women have primary male points of view. And lots of good books with non-gendered or different gender points of view (say murderbot or Berq) as well as many books with multiple POV that are both women and men (like GRRM). Like reading is about practicing empathy and getting to consider POV and perspectives that you may not have - especially in SF/F that explores ideas through different settings/worlds/magic/technology to explore these ideas - so it makes sense that getting to experience different perspectives and bringing the different perspectives to the story happens best when there are diverse authors (men and women, straight and queer, people of all races, nationalities, etc.) who are able to express their stories in diverse ways.
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.
7:00 Imagine if Frankenstein was regarded the same way, only because it primarily focuses on the eponymous doctor and his creation, rather than a group of women... just because Shelley wrote it. It's ridiculous. Excellent video, and I really appreciate seeing the same attitude I have; representation matters, and it's necessary, but not every creator should be seen as required to provide what representation any given audience expects of them. That's too much of a demand on art anyway.
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.
I loved your Little Women and The Lord of the Rings comparison. I am currently writing a novel which may never see the light of day because I'm constantly overthinking, "Does this scene have too many men in it? Does it have enough female characters? Should this character be a woman? What about this, what about that?" All that is to say, I appreciate you putting it into perspective for me lol.
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. 😅😅🙃 🙂
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
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. 🙂
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.)
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.
“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.
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.
@@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. 🤷🤷🏻♂️🤷♀️ 🙂
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.
So accurate on so many levels. You hit on at least two main issues in today's society. The "sexism" discussion has flared greatly with the new shows and "adaptations" being developed in Hollywood... and I agree with everything you have said here. The second is such a societal issue now. The use of social media has created bravery by anonymity that borders on disgusting now. People would never say those types of things to the authors face, but because they can hide behind a screen name and a computer, they can make outrageous comments. As your other video on your own comment sections shows, the internet has created this subset of ugliness. People seem to think if you don't agree with them they have the right to call you names and "flame" you. We have lost the ability to carry on discourse and discuss things. Maybe if we discussed WHY certain authors chose their characters the way they did, you might learn something... but no one even gets to that point sadly. Keep doing what you do... I love it and look forward to everything you put up!
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.
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"
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.
@@Bookbornagreed! That’s what makes the great ones great. They can write different viewpoints than their own.
Same!!!!! ~Very well said. 🙂💜
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.
Adulting 101: The world isn't black and white.
So nice to listen to a sane person.
A token for the Patriarchy
It’s fifty shades of… wait NOOOOOOO!!!
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.
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.
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.
@@redryan20000 I have never heard anyone ever state that the male perspective is not valued. I don't think that is the question here.
@@t0dd000it's not as though it's outright stated explicitly (most of the time), but the sentiment is there. Are you blind?
@@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.
@@redryan20000 It's not made for men. Where do you get that idea?
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.
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:)
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
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.
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.^--^
Barbie was mainly oriented to females, there is nothing wrong with that.@@Bookborn
@@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.
"The internet is where subtlety goes to die."
I don't feel like it's my original thought but I'll absolutely take credit for it 🤣
@@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.
and sanity
I once received a negative review, because my secondary antagonist was antagonistic. Essentially, if I’d written “Silence of the Lambs” I would have been criticized for not knowing that cannibalism was wrong.
People are so caught up in the theater of self-righteousness that they’re unwilling to differentiate between the author’s opinions and the opinions of his characters. Their addiction to outrage has damaged their brains.
I think some people just don't understand what fiction is. Some people also don't seem to understand that a person can talk or write from view point that they don't hold. Unfortunately there is also people that posses both of the previously mentioned traits.
I’m a huge horror fan and the amount of negative reviews of horror novels because there’s evil people doing evil things in them is ridiculous. Same with grimdark fantasy.
@@commandoepsilon4664 I remember a trend esp. for YA authors a few years back. An Author couldn't write about characters not of their [Check box here], not without a 'person of that race/sexuality/etc. reading the book as a sensitivity consultant'. And the general tone was that authors shouldn't even write it at all.
That's the problem with this modern DIE - inclusion "I must be seen" stuff. It has become the death of imagination. When I was young, I was a dinosaur, a lion, a star, a 20M tall robot, a girl protecting her farm, a railway worker. Now whatever book or movie I watch I'm apparently only allowed to be a slightly more than overweight older dude.
@nightmarishcompositions4536 That's what I'm saying and the whole reasoning behind most people's criticisms of horror movies are "they're too violent or distasteful" like nigga isn't that supposed to be the point of a horror film? I swear as each day goes by media literacy jus continues to die slowly but surely 😂
So well said
Well that was a rapid conclusion
Wanted to get out in front of it before it got away from me lmao
@@Bookborn fully understand, otherwise you might get through your script and wonder at the end did I make my position on this clear? Though you might feel as though you have, the comments on Fonda Lee's green bone are enough to make any one second guess.
I thought that was really smart of her. It forestalls whatever knee-jerk judgment or reaction a viewer might be coming in with, then she’s free to use the rest of the time to articulate.
“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.
Could you send me an example of art that has no politics? Isn't it completely centered on an ideology? What transcends these questions?
@@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.
@@DongusMcBongus that is exactly what I mean when I say, "all art is political"!
@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.
@@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"
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!
yep exactly 👏 the identity of the author may sometimes be correlated with these things, but not always!
I agree with your points here. We do not need authors to go down the checklist of representation to make sure everything is included. I don't think most people in real life care about this stuff so strongly. No one on the internet understands nuance.
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.
I have no idea what laws have to do with what authors choose to write but ok.
@@alexlaw1892are there no laws or a governing association that limits certain topics like let's say pedophilia to be published publicly?
I remember watching a video where the person called C.S. Lewis sexist because Father Christmas to Lucy that wars and fighting not for girls/women. Yet this person completely ignored the fact the Lucy played a vital role in healing to wounded after the battle on the book with the very potion that Father Christmas gave her. This may be going against the grain, but as a traditional Christian who believes in gender roles and benefit that each gender brings to the table (ie. complementarianism) I actually find it sexist with the modern fantasy trend of devaluing traditionally feminine roles/traits and suggesting that women have value by taking on masculine roles.
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!
Sorry, I dozed off halfway through that blurb :-)
Based comment
😂😂😂😂
its pretty good if you have any trouble to sleep
😂😂😂😂😂
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.
Love the idea of the macro vs the micro, well said
Based
What is diversity?
Having a question in the title and answering the question in the first second, roll intro and then getting into it is brilliant! I don't even know if I'm going to watch but I sure as heck will play the video, even if I make some food and not paying attention.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.😊 😁
@@jaginaiaelectrizs6341 couldn’t agree more!
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.
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.
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.
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
"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.
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.
@@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.
There's an entire Romance sub genre called reverse harem.
@@kelleyceccato7025 ok, makes sense
@@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).
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.
To be fair some people are insane and they are majorly ruining everything for everyone.
(2020s so far in the nutshell)
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
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.
See Lord of the rings is an interesting casestudy for pointing out the flaws of the Bechdel test. Because, yes, LotR fails simply by being so male-centric, but both the novels and the movies do contain feminist themes whenever they are relevant to the story being told; namely Eowyn's plotline and Galadriel's whole character.
It’s why I hate when the Bechdel test is used without context or with other judging factors. It can be *a* useful tool to discuss media, but it is not THE tool and can often miss the big picture imo
Eowyn is a character who wants to break the sexiat standards of her society and become a fighter instead of juat staying behind. Then the momwnt she actually gets into battle, although she does well, realises how horrible war can be and decides to stay behind from that moment on and leave the fighting to men. Its a little less feminist as we at first might think
@@callnight1441
Tell me then. What's a proper "feminist" ending for her looks like? What should be done to her character to be considered "feminist"?
The Bechdel test is really only useful as an aggregate measure. While it is useful to criticize literature as a whole according to how much of it passes the Bechdel test, it is not useful to use the Bechdel test to criticize individual pieces of literature. The former tells us how well society is doing wrt representation. The latter tells us nothing. For example, it would be wrong to criticize The Shawshank Redemption because it fails the Bechdel test but if, say, only a small percentage of all movies that came out during that era pass the Bechdel test, this tells us that movies overall in that time period were not representative.
@callnight1441 Eowyn was just an example, but the lotr is definitely not a sexist book. Eowyn learning that war is horrible and not wanting to take any more part in it is just the same lesson learned at the end of the battle of the five armies in the hobbit. That's not necessarily because of her sex, but because nobody should be subjected to that degree of violence. But putting her aside, no woman is ever objectified of overtly sexualised. They are never demeaned or presented as inferior to men. At the end of the day, Tolkien's experience of war was a bunch of blokes making strong friendships through tough times, so that's what he writes about.
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!
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.
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.
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 😊💖
Fantastic video. I think a lot of people tagging authors in one-star reviews are just so arrogant that they can't understand that when people see their 1 star review that they won't then change their beliefs to match what this person has written, and that that includes the author. That they feel like the author needs to know from them why their book is bad so they can go work on that. Because obviously now that this person has revealed to the world that this well received book is actually bad, the world can finally know this and move it's view to match.
That's my theory anyway.
I like how you touched upon the nuance, because I think often a lack of female cast (or just a lack of diversity in point of views) is a criticism that makes sense because having more diverse perspectives could allow the author to examine the world, story, and themes they are writing about in a more complete way.
Fonda Lee was spitting facts.
Ok but yes to your second paragraph, such a good point; like there are story reasons that your world will often feel more complete from different perspectives because you'll be able to actually fully realize your world. But it also depends on the purpose of your story and what you're doing with it
Ive enjoyed the comments here and i agree completely with you. As a side note, if you havent already seen the Lord of the Rings Bechdel test, it is comedy gold
Ok I haven’t but looking up immediatly lol
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.
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.
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...
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
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.
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.
I just feel bad for Bookborn trying to educate the internet, its just not gonna happen but i appreciate the effort. 🙂🙃
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 .
I totally agree with this nuanced take on stories. There’s room for and value in stories that show a variety of characters and perspectives. Even when the story focuses on a particular perspective.
Unfortunately the common response on the internet to this opinion (or sometimes any opinion) is baseless name calling and labeling. It’s easier to call someone racist, misogynist, etc. than to try and understand what they are saying, to explain why they disagree, or just say they have a different opinion. People don’t take the time to listen and don’t know how to disagree without making you out to be the worst human being. Like you said, the internet is where nuance goes to die.
People who use terms like racist and misogynist always have extremely low IQs.
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.
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.
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.
Representation doesn’t matter at all. People should tell the story they want to tell. Just make it entertaining.
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
Thanks for making this video. I had the exact same thoughts but as a dude saying this is an easy way to be labeled misogynist or sexist that I have to be checking in with lady friends to make sure I’m not bugging out so its good to hear from your perspective say the same thing. I heard the same argument as you from someone about both Lord of the Rings and Star Wars . She made the same complaint/argument that she didn’t like and could never get into them because they didn’t have female or “good” female characters.
Well you're free to express your opinion. Thing is, we "women" don't all share the same way of thinking and while I fully agree with her, there are still women out there arguing that Eowyn wasn't feminist enough or the lack of female representation should be considered in judging the overall quality of a story. Of course, I strongly disagree with those kind of opinions lol.
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
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.
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.
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.
Thank you!
I’m curious, how would define a book that is ‘woke’?
@@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.
@@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 😊
@@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.
That cold opening “Nope” just made me actually laugh out loud 😂 Excited to watch the rest!
Thanks for approaching the subject like you do! The barrage of black and white opinions on topics that require parsing is enraging.
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.
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!
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!
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
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.
@@Bookborn @Bookborn Agreed!
Great analysis, loved the take on the subject. I just finished writing my first fantasy novel, one of three main POV characters is a woman and I really struggled to write her as I did my male main characters. Instead of focusing on writing a "woman" POV and just letting the character be shaped by the story, developments and her own personality she ended up becoming the most impactful and endearing pieces of the story without it being intentional just to have a female character.
ROFL! i am so tired of the conversation, so the fact that you started with saying "nope." made me laugh so hard. thank you.
I believe that often diversity is storytelling is best served by telling as many different stories as possible. Not every story can or should include everybody. But also, what is story telling but an opportunity to share in things that are outside of our own experience? This usually seems to be a pretty non-controversial idea when talking about historical events or fiction that stays relatively true to them. Insisting on having women fighting in the trenches of a WWI story for example is never going to get far. But there is at least a minority who seem to hold that any fantasy world must look like a typical modern western nation, irrespective if if this makes sense from a world building perspective. Unless of course if the story focuses on people who are minorities in that idealised nation or are totally absent from it. That is absolutely fine and to be encouraged. Cos everyone loves a double standard, right?
When it comes to sexism, the irony is that insisting on the over representation of one gender to subvert the story in the name of "equality" seems like the more sexist option than just letting people tell their stories and you either read it or you don't.
I think there’s a modern trend of polarisation in many things. The internet/social media encourages the formation of silos that form a ‘you’re either with us or against us’ mentality. And within activism people tend to veer towards the most extreme view. So one thing is perfect and everything else needs to change to suit the needs of that perfect thing. So if it’s women then the idea that a female character could be flawed and need to change and adapt is an anathema to that way of thinking. And similarly if a male character does a nasty thing, they are forever evil and any notion of redemption is deemed as excusing evil behaviour. So all nuance is lost in the type of polarised communities/ideologies. That said, there probably are a lot of people who do take a slightly more centre leaning view but those people are not the people who are likely to leave hateful comments because they are able to see things from a slightly different perspective.
I feel very strongly about this topic and the entire “modern audience” trend. I believe part of the problem comes from the instant gratification of today. If your story (especially series) starts off with perfect characters, there isn’t room for growth, life lessons, or experiences to shape the world and peoples therein. I find this incredibly boring and irrational. Plugging demographics of any type JUST to please some people is just lazy. Ultimately the author is the sole voice for the story. As with any art the artist sets the stage, the audience chooses to enjoy or not. I don’t need someone to tell me if I’m allowed to like or not like art in any form. No thank you. I’m a grandmother and fully understand times change and need to reflect values accordingly. Plugging modern culture into fantasy and yelling “stay within the lines” is belittling to authors and readers intelligence. I’m not looking for life lessons or in your face lectures on the “right” way to be/live in my fantasy books. Isn’t the point to escape or suspend reality for entertainment purposes? Just my opinion.
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.
Ugh, I would love to say I can't believe people dip their toe in a novel, and judge the entire thing.. but, well, people are terrible lately. Thanks for tackling such a massive, touchy topic! This video is great! (Also, love the Yu Yu Hakusho shirt! :)
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. :)
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.
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.
Wait wait wait, I haven't seen the Medium post... I think I need to go look that up...
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.
It's crazy how easy it is to throw out so much negativity without realizing those words might make it to actual real life people on the other end. I think people would think a lot more carefully about what they say if it weren't so easy to dehumanize people on the internet.
Side note: I went to the interview w/ Fonda Lee and Django Wexler as a big fan of the Greenbone Saga, and had a lot of fun. I wasn't familiar w/ Wexler at the time, but he was so much fun in the interview that I picked up the series he was promoting and ended up enjoying it a bunch!
You were there?! That’s so fun! It was suuuch a good interview, I liked them more after even tho I was already a fan haha
In LOTR, Galadriel is one of the most important characters in the book and saves Frodo/Sams butt on several occasions
I love writing my female characters, it reveals to me a hidden side of myself I usually don't feel day to day. They are strong, but not in a "Can do everything better then men" kind of way. BUT: I have become increasingly allergic to online sexism by females (on all topics). I can say: You have a very intelligent, balanced way of seeing things. It's a relief listening to smart feminism for once. Keep it up. Like your smart topics in general. You would be my favorite YTer to review my books.
I have only gone through 1 Andrew Klavan sires Another Kingdom. I know he's written a lot I'm just not someone who likes crime thrillers in general. However, the way he combines that element with fantasy theology and social commentary makes these books very good and reminiscent of CS Lewis for me. Also JK Rowling could have made Hermione her main charter especially since she based the character on herself. She focused on a male charter and yet most of her main characters of both sexs are well rounded and deep. Let authors write what they want. Wether we agree with them or not is the part that's the part that's up to us.
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.
The women in The Green Bone Saga are BY FAR my favorite. Wen's chapters especially in the beginning of Legacy make me so emotional (also the chapter in War when she is at the park with the kids). Shae is amazing and she is without a doubt my favorite POV. I'm a 32 year old man, who works in male dominant blue collar field. By all common knowledge I should be a Hilo or even Bero fan... But nope.
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.
Anne McCaffreys 2 novels Dragonsong and Dragonsinger showed me early on that men can enjoy female centric stories as much as male centric ones. Those 2 books are bangers!
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.
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
Thank you. I remember when a lot of this nonsense started about 20 yrs ago running the gambit of topics pertaining to women , the worst was the hate [ whether you like the series or not] around Twilight and yet Meyer used beloved classics [ also under attack] to inspire much of those books. Authors often use language to let you know this is a toxic environment an example Fredric Backman's Beartown. I have seen people DNF it before they understood why the language was used and so they missed out on a great series. Sad.
Great literature should be a space where flawed characters have a chance to grow and change. It should also be a space to dive into complexity and explore topics to challenge us or highlight these complexities from a variety of vantage points. At least there should be space for writers to engage with readers in that way. Of course not all books need to do that. I also don’t require that of what I read either. Some times I don’t want to slog through heavy themes and would prefer to inhabit a cozy utopian space. Your point that people should recognize that perhaps a book is not currently for them if they are off put by a flawed character when they meet them 40 pages in. In a way it might be similar to hearing about an amazing movie that you don’t research but are willing to check out and then when you start watching it you find out it is a musical and the think. I hate musicals. Or I’m not in the space to watch a musical . It’s not the movies fault that it is a musical. And it’s not your fault that you might not want to watch a musical at that moment. They should not tag an author/director and one star review the whole series without reading the whole book/series to make a proper assessment. Thanks for the video and bringing up so many good topics.
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!
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!
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
Now, a publisher having nothing _but_ all-male casts in all the work they release, that might be a genuine issue.
I remember years ago i took a girl on a date to see Fellowship of the Ring. We both loved the movie which prompted us to read the books. After she finished the books she was upset that Arwen was hardly mentioned in the books when she was so prominent in Peter Jackson's rendition. I tried to find some reason to comfort her about it. But i could see how after reading LOTOR a woman might feel perturbed about the lack of female characters. It wasnt until years later that i learned more about Tolkien that basically he wasn't an author. He made his bones translating old mythic stories and it wasn't until Tolkien got to Aragorn's inauguration that he realised that he is going to need a Queen. So then he had to go back and try to shoe horn her into the story. Subsequently he then had to back through his legendarium and fit women into the history of Middle Earth. In which does nothing really for people who read LOTOR but shows he was cognisant of the lack of female characters...
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!
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.
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.
Could not agree more strongly!
Representation of things across industry/Hollywood/what gets buzz is a problem, but not every book (or thing) needs to be everything. It isn't a problem if one movie doesn't pass the Bechdel test - especially if it isn't appropriate to the topic/time of that particular story - but it is a problem if about half of the most popular 1,200 movies of the past 40 years don't pass the Bechdel test.
The notion that books with male protagonists are universal and books with female protagonists are only for women is super problematic, and from my perspective was much more common 20 years ago, and hopefully becoming less common now (less clear, unfortunately, if that is happening as quickly in the more expensive to produce movie space).
As a man, I enjoy lots of books with primary female view points, lots of SF / F books written by women (and non-binary) authors, and - unsurprisingly - some of the books with primary female points of view are written by men and some of the books written by women have primary male points of view. And lots of good books with non-gendered or different gender points of view (say murderbot or Berq) as well as many books with multiple POV that are both women and men (like GRRM).
Like reading is about practicing empathy and getting to consider POV and perspectives that you may not have - especially in SF/F that explores ideas through different settings/worlds/magic/technology to explore these ideas - so it makes sense that getting to experience different perspectives and bringing the different perspectives to the story happens best when there are diverse authors (men and women, straight and queer, people of all races, nationalities, etc.) who are able to express their stories in diverse ways.
Thanks for always putting the answer to your posed question at the very beginning of your vids. SO refreshing, confident... love it
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.
7:00 Imagine if Frankenstein was regarded the same way, only because it primarily focuses on the eponymous doctor and his creation, rather than a group of women... just because Shelley wrote it. It's ridiculous.
Excellent video, and I really appreciate seeing the same attitude I have; representation matters, and it's necessary, but not every creator should be seen as required to provide what representation any given audience expects of them. That's too much of a demand on art anyway.
I’m cackling at the idea that Shelley shouldn’t have written Frankenstein, somehow that’s just the perfect example 🤣😭😭
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.
I loved your Little Women and The Lord of the Rings comparison. I am currently writing a novel which may never see the light of day because I'm constantly overthinking, "Does this scene have too many men in it? Does it have enough female characters? Should this character be a woman? What about this, what about that?" All that is to say, I appreciate you putting it into perspective for me lol.
Now I feel like getting a Yuyu Hakusho T-shirts...I'm wondering why 😂
I got it at target in the men’s section! Go buy it! Lol
@Bookborn I wiil! Thanks.
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. 😅😅🙃 🙂
Love the discussion of nuance, and how you can like some aspects of a character but not the language the author chooses to describe them. Good stuff!
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
Im not familiar with Jade City, so I got it on Audible. I'm excited after reading the brief description of the story.
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. 🙂
Yes I agree.
White male avid reader here. Those were some amazing recommendations you read on screen! never heard of the author I bought a copy to give her a try.
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.)
I'm dropping a like because of that immediate nope at the beginning! Took me by surprise XoX
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.
“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.
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.
@@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. 🤷🤷🏻♂️🤷♀️ 🙂
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.
So accurate on so many levels. You hit on at least two main issues in today's society. The "sexism" discussion has flared greatly with the new shows and "adaptations" being developed in Hollywood... and I agree with everything you have said here. The second is such a societal issue now. The use of social media has created bravery by anonymity that borders on disgusting now. People would never say those types of things to the authors face, but because they can hide behind a screen name and a computer, they can make outrageous comments. As your other video on your own comment sections shows, the internet has created this subset of ugliness. People seem to think if you don't agree with them they have the right to call you names and "flame" you. We have lost the ability to carry on discourse and discuss things. Maybe if we discussed WHY certain authors chose their characters the way they did, you might learn something... but no one even gets to that point sadly. Keep doing what you do... I love it and look forward to everything you put up!