The other day I posted some brief thoughts on The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, to which I received an interesting (and troubling) response. Catherynne’s take on Kavalier and Clay is perfectly justified and what I find disturbing is that I didn’t notice it as much as I should have. Do I think Chabon intentionally made Rosa a doormat who gets pushed aside at the end? No. Does that make him anti-woman? No. Does that matter? Not really.
What makes this even more disconcerting is the fact that I want to start revising the first draft of my novel soon and I need to make some major changes. I wanted to write a novel that takes a bunch of the old tropes of the hero’s quest and show how such heroes could be viewed as psychopaths, and how everyone who isn’t the white male lead gets shabby treatment. My problem? I’m pretty sure it reinforces these stereotypes rather than exposing them. That’s a tricky thing to solve.
These are not easy problems to deal with. For instance, I wrote I story that was well-received in a grad workshop where the protagonist is quite clearly not a good guy, and is not someone the reader should be rooting for. So that’s challenge number one—getting the reader to be interested in someone they would ordinarily not like very much without necessarily being for or against him or her. The world in which this story’s protag operates is heavily patriarchal, and in one scene a man offers the protagonist a night with his daughter as a peace offering (the twist being that the man is about 80, his daughter about 60). This is supposed to be shocking and revolting, yet the majority of the readers just accepted it without comment. Those that did comment expressed criticism of the author (i.e. me) rather than considering the violence in the context of the fictional world. So that’s challenge number two—getting the reader to critique the social dynamics of the fictional situation rather than thinking the author is a bigot. (Granted, this example is one small episode in the context of a novel-length story in a world I’m still figuring out, but the readers of course don’t know that or have access to anything outside the page—nor should they need it if I’m doing my job right.)
And then there’s hardest challenge of them all—don’t be a bigot, even if you don’t mean to be. After googling around a little I found this bit by Charles Stross on Bechdel’s Law. After reading through things like this (be sure to check out the women in refrigerators link) it always raises a serious question for me: do I really need to be writing stories where violence happens to women? Is there some other, better way to make the same point?
Like with everything in writing, you can do whatever you want as long as you do it well—it’s just that doing it well happens to be very hard. The danger comes in thinking “I’m just telling a story, it’s not about all that other stuff” when in fact it’s always about that other stuff, whether you accept it critically or uncritically. So if I write a novel that tends to define women more by their role (mother, temptress, etc.) rather than by what they do, then not only is that lazy writing but it also goes against my personal politics. What’s scary is how remarkably easy it is to overlook these issues, probably because so many (most?) movies, books, and television shows tend to follow an uncritical “just telling a story” route; as a writer, it’s very easy to follow that same path without thinking through the bigger issues and considering what societal values you’re reflecting or reinforcing.
Thinking this stuff through the last couple days has actually helped me figure out how to open my novel differently. It will also change the overall shape of the story, but that’s okay—it’s quite good, actually, since I think the plot needs to be less formulaic (or archetypal, take your pick) and more messy, more complicated. I wanted to get the main women characters more involved in what’s currently a “guys doing guy things” kind of plot, and now I think I found the thread. Wish me luck, as I’ll most certainly need it…
Current Mood: Thinking Hard | 