andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> >If I, as a straight man, were to write about a "gay
> cowboy", wouldn't it be nothing more that my own
> alienated
> picture of what a gay person was? Wouldn't this still be
> feeding into stereotyping?
>
>
> Why? Can't a writer or artist depict something he's not?
> Obviously the idea that I can create only types that
> belong to groups I belong to leads to pomo absurdities --
> if I had the talent, which I don't, could I write only
> about left wing straight male middle-aged Jewish
> midwestern ex-philosopher lawyers orginally from the
> South? Let people depict what they have the range and
> power to depict, whoever their creators may be.
>
Perhaps it could be argued that I overreacted, even though I still think I have a point :) Of course you can write creativly about experiences you never actually experienced, I question its value. My reaction was set off my Stan Lee talking about "stereotypical gay" characters, which let me to ponder what value this character would have--it sounds like the character is going to be something not so nice. I don't think it will help any "gay agenda" that the AFA suggests.
> And even if the picture is an "alienated picture" of what
> an X is, does that mean it's worthless? Tolstoi's picture
> of Natasha in W&P collapses, in the end, into a nightmare
> of antifeminist domesticity, as I see it. But that
> doesn't mean that T couldn't do women -- Natasha for most
> of W_P's 1500+ pages is great, and this is also the
> creator of Anna Karenina. Moreover, even Natasha's
> collapse depicts a certain female type (as well as a male
> image of women) that is worth understanding.
>
I was thinking more along the lines of when Woj was ranting about gangsta rap--where he argues that (and I'm inclinded to agree, even though I do indulge in gangsta rap every so often myself) such a medium puts a force on a negative stereotype which the benefits are questionable. Literary charachers are not necessarilly the same thing (one can argue "what" characters really mean in a book, but I'm not here for literary theory right now). This seems to be pandering, in my opinion.
By the way, there apparently is already a gay comic book character called Northstar (from Todd's neck of the woods):
http://www.geocities.com/mbrown123/greatest_comics/alphaflight106.html
> No one should compare Marvel comics with Tolstoi. Comic
> book characters are typically, well, comic book
> characters, not famous for deapth of subtlety, and should
> be judged by the appropriate standards. In that vein, if
> there's a moderately postive picture of a gay cowboy who
> may be a tad lavender, as long as that's shown to be
> normal and natural, what's yer beef?
>
> jks
>
>
>
>
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