The Oppressor as hero

[sqbr]

When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like "Avatar"? does a good job of going through why the "White person helps lead Oppressed Native People to freedom" plot is at it's heart all about white supremacy. (But don't read the comments)

But I've been thinking about how a lot of ostensibly anti-oppression narratives take this form.

• You have the aristocrat who leads the working classes to freedom, as in the stories described in the beginning of "Historical AUs and race" (which inspired this one a bit)
  
• The able-bodied person who saves the poor disabled people eg "Children of a Lesser God".
  
• The man who saves the poor victimised women eg a lot of Dollhouse.
  
• I'm having trouble thinking of any to do with sexuality but I'm sure they exist. EDIT: "I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry"?
  

And not all of these stories are bad individually. After all, history does have a lot of people who did good works helping those they had privilege over, and their stories are as worth telling as anyone else's.

But what's a problem is
a) that this is seen as the only sort of story worth telling
b) The way this story is generally told

If your intention is to fight an oppression, surely you should act contrary to that oppression, not to reinforce it's biases. The Kyriarchy says that white straight able-bodied upper/middle class men are natural leaders and better than everyone at everything. So having a story where such a character joins a group of non-white/GLBT/disabled/lower class etc characters and immediately proves himself better than them all at everything and their natural leader, not to mention having their POV the only one worth seeing the story through..is not so anti-oppressive a message in my book.

See also why Glee only seems anti-racist if you only identify with the white charcaters.

EDIT: Please note that comments to this post are screened, though so far at worst I've delayed unscreening a comment until I can come up with a good explanation of why I think it's problematic.

Comments

[aris_tgd]

Maybe for the sexuality one, yenta fic? Where the self-insert female character gets the two gay guys to understand their love for each other?

[sqbr]

I don't know that anyone sees those fics as particularly progressive in terms of gay rights though. And slash as a genre, whatever it's other flaws, does usually make gay men way more central than any of the straight characters. Also the gender dynamic makes it more complicated.

Is there fic with a straight male POV character who waltzes into the lives of the gay characters and fixes everything? I can see the OMG gay cooties fear stopping that being a popular trope in mainstream fiction.

[jesse_the_k]

You definitely have a handle on the pattern.

Re: disability issues another common plot is: non-disabled person is so well-adjusted, only they can help suffering, insecure, in-denial disabled person to find new outlook and move forward.

[sami]

I was reading this post as I started playing Demon's Souls, and I had one of those weird moments that gaming sometimes gives a person: the twinned thoughts of "This seems really appropriative" with "wait, this was made by the Japanese".

Because it's got this strong monotheistic theme combined with some visual design motifs that are very Western European (including some that's almost-but-not-quite Celtic), and so on, so it pings on the whole "Christian mythology as default" conceptual space that in RPG-type games usually means it's European or American, with a scattering of elements that draw strongly on Eastern religion and tradition, including some quasi-ninja monsters.

And the thing is, it's nearly, but not quite, balanced enough that to be a perfect fusion if it were made by Western game developers.

It's almost a perfect case study of why context matters. Because this game is not disrespectful of the thematic elements borrowed from Western tradition, but the sketch elements of Eastern tradition are completely recontextualised by the fact that the people who made this are being cavalier with their own cultural iconography.

Which leads off to this whole other thing, which may result in a post of my own, about that being the difference some people seem to miss with the "well they do it why can't I" thing. The rules are different when you're playing with your own toys than if you're playing with someone else's.

[sami]

There is, actually - I've read it though I can't think of titles offhand - but I think the OMG gay cooties element keeps people from playing that quite so carelessly. Where I've seen it, it involves a lot of metaphorical headdesking and is strongly based on the dynamics of the individuals concerned.

[sqbr]

On further thought I think "I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry" is this type of film.

[sqbr]

Blarg. Yes.

[sqbr]

Oh yes, context is really important. I had a similar moment watching "Vexille", where the white American comes and saves the poor Japanese people (though in a much more nuanced, interesting and non-racist way than if it had have been an American film)

Not that context is everything, I get a bit annoyed at the "It can't be misogynistic because a woman wrote it" argument, for example.

[lauredhel]

Or, for a tweak, non-well-adjusted non-disabled person helps PWD, thereby undergoing character development and becoming a Better Person in the process.

[jeshyr]

Thanks for this post, I hadn't thought about the particular trope on a conscious level and now I am and this is a Good Thing.

(I also haven't had any access to see Avatar, nor have a read a full plot summary so I'm not really sure what goes on in that. But as a general post it still works totally.)

For the sexuality ones, because we're still mired in "gay/trans/non-standard-sexuality-is-wrong" stuff, would the same niché possibly be filled by "straight person makes non-straight person realise they're "straight" after all" instead? The "lesbians just need to find the right man" type of stereotype seems to be what would fill the niché if you let the majority define "freedom" - in the case of sexuality/gender the majority thinks "freedom" is being straight/cisgendered. I stay away from any fiction that might be like that so I can't quote you any titles, if they even exist.

I also think that in terms of disability, the non-disabled often think death is "freedom" - eg Million Dollar Baby. Ugh.

Thank you for making me think.
r

[eurasian-sensation.blogspot.com]

Because everyone knows that the struggle of the coloured/gay/disabled person is not really worthy or interesting until a "normal" person comes on board to validate it.

[sqbr]

Blaaaaarg. Yes that too.

[sqbr]

"straight person makes non-straight person realise they're "straight" after all" instead?

Well, again I don't think anyone would classify that as pro gay rights. I think? *ponders*

I also think that in terms of disability, the non-disabled often think death is "freedom" - eg Million Dollar Baby. Ugh.

The problem with making posts like this is people remind me of all the angry-making examples I forgot :/

[sqbr]

Exactly!

[jeshyr]

You're right, it's not pro gay rights in any way but in terms of the majority's perception of "we're doing the best thing for the gay person" I was thinking it may qualify. Ditto with the disability version. Might not - probably depends on which bit of the majority we're discussing and how widely you define "good thing" etc. It just struck me as tropically similar.

r

[lady_ganesh]

Here from Metafandom:

Another variant is the 'friendship with an X person leads white person to become a leader/realize or speak out against oppression,' like Cry Freedom and The Killing Fields. While I think the story of someone who remains oblivious until a human relationship makes the crisis 'real' is a good one, it's still problematic in these contexts-- the problem doesn't exist unless the white person notices/witnesses.

[catecumen]

Is it generally thought that the only reason "Avatar" could get away with having the female lead save the male lead's rear, twice, is because the male lead character is a person with a disability?

here from metafandom

[valentinite]

They're also seen as "educational" because they're a white/male/hetero/able-bodied/[insert-privileged-class-here] telling another such that they are a Better Person TM for helping the less fortunate.

Which, on its own, is not a bad narrative for explaining to your similarly-privileged four year old why they shouldn't whine when you drag them along with you on a feed-the-homeless charity walk or something. But it being the only narrative, and assuming that the only audience is privileged folks, is a problem.

[(Anonymous)]

(over from LJ - don't mean to anon. search vasever if you're looking to respond.)

just a question: what does non-racist media look like? would it be the reverse of this kind of story - if a person of color infiltrated a white group and became their leader?

[sqbr]

Well, there's as many forms of non-racist media as there are racist ones(*). But one example is a story with no white people in it all in any major capacity (or at least not as leaders), with the POC fighting their own battles.

I'm white, so I'm not the best judge of this sort of thing, and post-christmas blah is messing with my ability to think of examples, but this is my attempt to counteract the "Yay the white Americans saving the poor Egyptian peasants plot of Stargate.

*makes a mental note to come back to this question, because it's interesting*

(*)EDIT: thinking about it some more, most media is a mix of racist and anti-racist and not-related-to-race aspects. But there are non-racist plots :)

[(Anonymous)]

hmmm. so, as allies of PoC, we should stand back and let them fight their own battles, rather than actively helping them?

sorry. i'm kind of at that point of "well meaning but badly informed," and i'm trying to get to, "well meaning and well informed."

Here from Metafandom

[rotaryphones.livejournal.com]

Very well and succinctly put.

As far as sexuality, maybe the "gay culture as seen through the eyes of the straight female best friend" trope? A la Will and Grace?

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with you on many of your points, and you raise an interesting problem with Avatar: however, there is something to be said for socially created power constructs. As frustrating as it is, audiences are trained to identify with the white male protagonist, so the trope of the white male protagonist learning about something he was previously extremely ignorant of (and therefore by association, the audience) and experiencing empathy for them acts as a kindergarden vehicle for the audiences; before directly identifying with them. Yeah, we should be over this by now, I agree, but I'm not surprised that the character used to establish empathy with the audience and then through which the audience encounters the new idea then develops into the actualizing character (rather than switching to one of the members of the new idea, be that culture/nation/philosophy/whatever) since all that work narratively on the other character would have gone to waste, so the actualizing character (our white male intro connection character) has to be the most active character narratively, which usually means him being the best at everything. That format is problematic.

However, it does work on the level of grabbing the empathy/projection of the straight white cis ablebodied male more effectively because of that training, and therefore can introduce people to concepts that are foreign to them. I think this format for dealing with the Other is extremely elementary, but on one level it is useful as a tool. No easily-marketable alternatives that would have the same swoop of the demographic are coming to mind at the moment, though I am very tired of movies starring white dudes.

I disagree with your stance on Dollhouse; in individual episodes, it seemed more thematically about the main character (Echo) finding strength/memories/actualization in herself and then having that attempted to be removed by The Man (with less success every time). In the most recent episodes, she is carrying all of her personalities ever all at once, all with different skill sets, experiences, and thought processes, which with time would have given the writers the Superhero with All Powers problem. I'm not arguing that the show is not problematic, but while the "men who save women" is a theme for some (one) of the characters, I disagree that it is the show's main focus.

[(Anonymous)]

hmmm. so, as allies of PoC, we should stand back and let them fight their own battles, rather than actively helping them?

How about

"Have the white character lend aid, but don't make them the hero that is better than all POC, gets women shoved at him because he's so great, fights better, and is at the end their natural leader because they're too dumb to lead themselves"?

Seriously. If you ask me to help you out on something, you won't expect me to stay, and become your overlord, do you?

Just look at the gazillion movies where it's a white culture needing saving. The saviour comes from WITHIN the society, and often doesn't end up with every female fawning over him (Avatar: "Oh, and you can marry any of these women, just pick one!") while turning into the one true ruler without whom everyone else is utterly helpless.

[noracharles]

I think the same thing goes for a white person helping people of color as goes for anyone helping anyone: You ask "How can I help?" and people will tell you if and how they could use your help. Basic respect and courtesy, like your parents taught you.

What you shouldn't do is decide for yourself what's best for other people and try to impose your interference on them or start ordering them around "for their own good".