WETMATTOS'S PROFILE

author=Kylaila
Just to add to you, Neversilent.
Aside from your portrayel and the fact that issues are interesting, I for one especially enjoy stories not only portraying problems, but also focusing on coping and dealing with them. I find stories about recovery and growing stronger (not all problems have to be experienced grimly) much more uplifting than any wish fulfillment.
Wish fulfillment is a nice distraction, no question there. But variety is the spice of life, as they say.

I'd argue that, in itself, is also wish fulfillment, for people who live it. Which, in turn, plays in what i've said before: it's not enough to make us 'normal' in the common narrative. You must also address the narrative - in this example, how recovering from trauma and dealing with it isn't seen as an interesting narrative, even though its one we've been aching for.

author=Liberty
Ah, that's what you meant. I thought you meant in general, as in "we have nothing on common!!! We shall never see eye to eye!!! ALAS, WE ARE DOOMED TO BATTLE TO THE DEATH FOREVER!!" XD

And don't worry, it's not a serious infraction, just something to watch out for in the future.

The only people i antagonize are people who have done so to me, be it in content or in discourse. If i thought that we wouldn't get anywhere, i wouldn't be here anymore. Like, i did offer to make a glossary of terms right at my first answer to my thread, i'm still baffled some people feel like i'm not trying to make myself understood.

@sooz, yeah and no? I had a bit of an expectation on how much vocabulary we'd been sharing here, so yeah, probably next time i can start with less complex approaches. But i'm not that into explaining anything to people that disagree without trying to understand? I can't interpret that as anything other than plain antagonism and entitlement, and i don't play that game, period. I mean, i actually had someone invalidating an entire field that they admitely had no real, internal knowledge off in an effort to disprove my point. I've had people talking about the 'reality' in a discussion of social sciences. If this is the approach people are going to take, i'll be going full academic.

EDIT: Also, pardon my language, what in frozen hell is tumblrspeak? As in, you suggesting that that gigantic and heterogeneous collection of people actually have a common dialect? In my dash only, which is a quite small part of the whole, i tend to see at least a dozen of different codes, some of them pretty academic, by the way.

author=Red_Nova

Also, capitalization is an stylistic choice, and one i'm entitled to accept and reject-...

Nope.

ifcapitalizationisastylisticchoicethensoisleavingspaces.butweallknowthat'snotokay.notonlydoesitmakeyoulooklessintelligentbutitalso
makesitveryhardtoreadwhatyou'retryingtosay.ifyouwantustoreadeverythingyoupostthentaketheeffortthepresstheshiftkeysowecanreadyourwallsoftexteasier.

If you had a hard time reading the above sentence, then that's my point proven. I want to read your stuff, Mattos, and I'm trying to, so I'm glad you're capitalizing.

EDIT: Oh geez, I found a bug. I guess I'll have to leave some spaces in that sentence, but you still get my point, yes?

Yes, i do, and yes, it is.

I can capitalize to make it easier to read. If my train of thought is confusing, i can even bold the parts i'd normally emphatize when speaking - i've found that it helps both me and people who read me. But, that doesn't mean that capitalizing isn't, linguistically speaking, a stylistic choice, and that there aren't spaces where i can avoid it. Here, unfortunately for me, i can't. But i can deal with that.

author=Yellow Magic
I may be missing something incredibly obvious here, but if we agree that the media has the power to shape consumers' thought processes, why don't we represent minority characters as not being treated differently to the majorities? That way, surely the majorities would learn to appreciate minorities as equals?

Because some of us have thought about that, tried that, and reached the conclusion than the common narratives are problematic in themselves. That, and given the present social context, they do not account for our differences, and tend to create biased perspectives on our experiences.

author=Liberty
And that is where my issue with you lies - because you're saying that to be a good representation you need to show the sad, horrible journey but for a lot of people, seeing a journey like that is... not great. Why write about that when you can give hope by showing that there is nothing wrong with them, that they are capable of wonderful things and being happy and doing great stuff - that they are not a genital. That they are more than their gender and that it gets better.

Gonna quote three things here which i think are relevant.

Representation is not only showing a trans character happy for being trans. Is showing a character who is conflicted, who is unhappy, who's suffering for being trans, and give value to that. Is to avoid co-opting narratives of struggle and giving them to different groups - dragon age has received some very harsh criticisms for making elven suffer like black people without allow black struggle to be properly confronted, as has the x-men along the years.

Two things here. First, that only there is relevant. I feel that you're framing that the way for representating people is by making them normal. I'm saying that, based in our colective practice, this is not enough. More than that, it some times is actually bad, specially for those of us who are more at the margins. Did you know that lack of validation is one of the greatest causes of psychological distress? It's not enough to say it gets better, we must recognize the present, and validate those experiences. Not as despair tourism, or inspiration porn - which seems to be the media you are talking about - but as valid human experiences.

I talked about speculative fiction and afrofuturism earlier. These are trends, which shows that, more than being a part of the common narrative, we must create new narratives that confront realtity, and offer possibilities.

Hopeful narratives, peaceful narratives, caring narratives. Those exist, and those are good. But no narrative is ever apolitical. By using hegemonic narratives with different protagonists, you're still subscribing to them.

Representation is, above else, about subverting expectations. And unless you know which are those expectations, you'll end up with something that presents us, but not represents us.

Which is why i make the distinction of presenting marginalized characters, and representing marginalized characters. Yes, it is revolutionary, in a way, to present us, but representing us implies in adressing our reality. That's my point.

author=Liberty
With sad-sack stories like you put forward as good representation it's no wonder the suicide rate for trans-teens is so high - they don't see the hope in a future. If all they're fed is stories of the tragedy of their own being how can they grow to think of themselves as a normal person, as someone who is equal to everyone else and who deserves just as much as everyone else? How can they hope that in 30 years they'll be happy and doing kick-ass things?

They can't, because all that kind of representation feeds them is pitying their sad fate instead of actually giving them an aim. I'd rather never write stories like that, thanks very. You're free to read them - that's your right - but you don't have the right to demand that everyone write them because that's 'what representation is'.

I'm trying very hard no to snap at this, but please show me trans made content that is despair tourism. Show me black content that is despair tourism. Show me any piece of media made by marginalized people which attempts to reduce our lifes to meaningless suffering and pain. These kind of content? Nah, this is not on us.