Posts on Current Forum | Archived Posts
|
|
|
||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
| Frequently Asked Forum Questions | |
|||
|
||||
|
|
|||
| ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| Search Older Posts on This Forum: Posts on Current Forum | Archived Posts | ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| Re: Purple and pink are long time Bungie game colo | |
| Posted By: Leisandir <joecooperstein@hotmail.com> | Date: 7/4/12 10:48 a.m. |
In Response To: Re: Purple and pink are long time Bungie game colo (thebruce0) : Well that's where it splits apart, IMO. On one hand, yes it allows you to : regard the piece itself as containing racist content, but to claim that : the author IS racist is presuming their intent (conscious or not) was : racist. But there is such a thing is mistake, error, unintentional : coincidences and connections and whatnot. If the author had absolutely no : racist intent, but it happened that people inferred racist undertones, : there are two branches that can happen from there... : The readers can presume intentional offense and blame the author, labeling : them as something they claim they are not, or : The readers can excuse the author for unintentional undertones, and hope the : author addresses the issue respectfully in some manner, whether it be : altering the piece or sufficiently explaining the content. : My beef is forcefully labeling someone something socially negative that
: Raise the issue as an interpretation of the piece based on the removal of
: Secondly, I think that if art (in this case, the example of The Matrix) is
Racism is rarely intentional. By that, I mean that you will find very few people these days who will admit - openly or internally - that they have a racist worldview. Ask someone who writes literature for . . . let's say, just as an example, the Klu Kux Klan. That person will likely not self-identify as a racist (my understanding of the philosophy is that they do not officially consider non-whites inferior, they just feel that the races should not be mixed). I don't know anyone who would see an individual connected with that organization and have the conscious thought, "oh, that guy's probably not racist." In most people, though, you'll still find patterns of behavior that fit the definition for racism. The same goes for sexism. Often, the only way to identify this condition - and, hopefully, rectify it - is to examine your own creative works. If you're an author, and in nine novels you've had exactly zero female characters who were empowered, there's a good chance you'd benefit from some introspection. The example cited earlier of the fan fiction in which all of the main characters were assumed Caucasian, and all of the "bad guys" were of darker skin tones - I sincerely doubt that was intentional, but it raises an interesting discussion point in that our descriptions in literature often involve the use of darkness to imply evil (I've seen that one used to imply unintentional racism dozens of times, though I don't give it any credit - we consider dark evil because human beings are not very effective at night time, not because we have a deep rooted hatred of skin times). The intent of the artist is one factor by which the work can be judged. As in all aspects of life, there is no single criterion. Intent and interpretation are both important, and the degree of importance is situational. If I pick up a book at the used bookstore and read it without knowing anything about the author - the time that the author lived, his history and experiences, the public sentiment of his character - then I am consuming that work with no influence other than my interpretation. If it's an author with whom I'm familiar, whose work I've read before and whose comments and opionions I've read, then both interpretation and intent can be considered. I think the argument here, as perpetuated by Mister Miller - as his arguments often are - is seated in the idea that those who support "the author is dead" will use it all the time. As with any tool, it has its uses. It is not to be used to the exclusion of all other forms of consideration, but it should not be discounted.
| |
|
| Replies: |
The HBO Forum Archive is maintained with WebBBS 4.33. |