What This NEW Coronavirus News REALLY Means, Lil Nas X RANT Response, & American Dirt Controversy
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Date: 2020-01-31
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Comments and reviews: 9
1983simi
Dictating who can write stories about what is absolutely ludicrous. Even more so the claim that one should only be allowed to write stories about things that one experienced yourself. Seriously? So we have to ban basically all crime stories, fantasy stories, science fiction, historical fiction, law stories etc because guess what very few authors are at the same time authors and lawyers, detectives, murderers, a long dead person from a different era a few hundred years into the past or future or an elf. Nobody gets to dictate to another person what they are allowed to throw their creativity at. That's a completely repressive and segragative mindset that is shocking to observe in the 21st century. All you can do if you don't like person XYZ writing about this or the other topic is to not buy the book and to be vocal about its shortcomings due to the authors lack of deeper knowledge and understanding on a topic. And promote yourself stories you find more representative. However, I do think the marketing campaign for this book was bordering on being fraudulent and disgusting. This is were for me the line is crossed. Yes, as a writer you can create characters and stories that don't reflect your own life experience. It's your artistic freedom. If you're then actually good at it or not is another question. What you cannot do, though, is to try to fake a sense of authenticity in your story by claiming for your own non-fictitious person to be representative for the culture you chose to write about. You don't get to claim you have insights into the life of mexican illegal immigrants when you're husband is irish, you don't get to claim latino heritage when just some grandma happened to be from a latin country. Write about what you want, but have the decency to admit, you don't really share that life experience and there may be mistakes in your depiction of the situation due to that reason. Obviously marketing will have been mostly down to the publisher and they knew full well that the book would sell much better if it had some claim of authenticity. But this is the age of the internet and you gonna be called out for such stuff instantly. Thank god.
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Dictating who can write stories about what is absolutely ludicrous. Even more so the claim that one should only be allowed to write stories about things that one experienced yourself. Seriously? So we have to ban basically all crime stories, fantasy stories, science fiction, historical fiction, law stories etc because guess what very few authors are at the same time authors and lawyers, detectives, murderers, a long dead person from a different era a few hundred years into the past or future or an elf. Nobody gets to dictate to another person what they are allowed to throw their creativity at. That's a completely repressive and segragative mindset that is shocking to observe in the 21st century. All you can do if you don't like person XYZ writing about this or the other topic is to not buy the book and to be vocal about its shortcomings due to the authors lack of deeper knowledge and understanding on a topic. And promote yourself stories you find more representative. However, I do think the marketing campaign for this book was bordering on being fraudulent and disgusting. This is were for me the line is crossed. Yes, as a writer you can create characters and stories that don't reflect your own life experience. It's your artistic freedom. If you're then actually good at it or not is another question. What you cannot do, though, is to try to fake a sense of authenticity in your story by claiming for your own non-fictitious person to be representative for the culture you chose to write about. You don't get to claim you have insights into the life of mexican illegal immigrants when you're husband is irish, you don't get to claim latino heritage when just some grandma happened to be from a latin country. Write about what you want, but have the decency to admit, you don't really share that life experience and there may be mistakes in your depiction of the situation due to that reason. Obviously marketing will have been mostly down to the publisher and they knew full well that the book would sell much better if it had some claim of authenticity. But this is the age of the internet and you gonna be called out for such stuff instantly. Thank god.
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seePyou
Re: American Dirt - Not read it yet, will read some more reivews before deciding to buy it or not. There are two matters here: is the book good? Evidence from the video here is that it might not be, if it's filled with inccuracies and stereotypes. On the other hand, we also see in this video a writter who has the appropriate background suggesting that it might reach an audience that she would not be able to, and that might be good enough. Are we to ban books that the author did not live the experiences described? We already have a measure of critique for that, it's called a book review or critique which doesn't specify that the author did not have or share these experiences because that is not part of the evaluation of quality. It changing the narrative though, and a book written by someone who has lived these things is a True Story or Biography or Biographical, while the other is a Fantasy, Fiction. We can have great books of Fiction and bad books of True Stories. Should this book not exist because it's not a True Story? Is that the sole reason we should be judging this book poorly?
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Re: American Dirt - Not read it yet, will read some more reivews before deciding to buy it or not. There are two matters here: is the book good? Evidence from the video here is that it might not be, if it's filled with inccuracies and stereotypes. On the other hand, we also see in this video a writter who has the appropriate background suggesting that it might reach an audience that she would not be able to, and that might be good enough. Are we to ban books that the author did not live the experiences described? We already have a measure of critique for that, it's called a book review or critique which doesn't specify that the author did not have or share these experiences because that is not part of the evaluation of quality. It changing the narrative though, and a book written by someone who has lived these things is a True Story or Biography or Biographical, while the other is a Fantasy, Fiction. We can have great books of Fiction and bad books of True Stories. Should this book not exist because it's not a True Story? Is that the sole reason we should be judging this book poorly?
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seePyou
Re: American Dirt - Not read it yet, will read some more reivews before deciding to buy it or not. There are two matters here: is the book good? Evidence from the video here is that it might not be, if it's filled with inccuracies and stereotypes. On the other hand, we also see in this video a writter who has the appropriate background suggesting that it might reach an audience that she would not be able to, and that might be good enough. Are we to ban books that the author did not live the experiences described? We already have a measure of critique for that, it's called a book review or critique which doesn't specify that the author did not have or share these experiences because that is not part of the evaluation of quality. It changing the narrative though, and a book written by someone who has lived these things is a True Story or Biography or Biographical, while the other is a Fantasy, Fiction. We can have great books of Fiction and bad books of True Stories. Should this book not exist because it's not a True Story? Is that the sole reason we should be judging this book poorly?
reply
Re: American Dirt - Not read it yet, will read some more reivews before deciding to buy it or not. There are two matters here: is the book good? Evidence from the video here is that it might not be, if it's filled with inccuracies and stereotypes. On the other hand, we also see in this video a writter who has the appropriate background suggesting that it might reach an audience that she would not be able to, and that might be good enough. Are we to ban books that the author did not live the experiences described? We already have a measure of critique for that, it's called a book review or critique which doesn't specify that the author did not have or share these experiences because that is not part of the evaluation of quality. It changing the narrative though, and a book written by someone who has lived these things is a True Story or Biography or Biographical, while the other is a Fantasy, Fiction. We can have great books of Fiction and bad books of True Stories. Should this book not exist because it's not a True Story? Is that the sole reason we should be judging this book poorly?
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LittleKroh
About american dirt: I get that people want stories to represent their struggles and their journey, I get that people don't want to be misrepresented in a far reaching way, but here's the thing. IT'S FICTION. She didn't claim to be from Mexico, she didn't claim to come to the US in duress and fear for her life, it was a story she wanted to tell, and skin tone should not even be considered If people want to be accurately represented, if they want their experiences to reach the public, they can write their own story. They can make it non-fiction, they can make it a space odyssey for all I care, but we are treading into dangerous territory when we try to police who can tell what types of stories. If you don't like it, don't read it.
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About american dirt: I get that people want stories to represent their struggles and their journey, I get that people don't want to be misrepresented in a far reaching way, but here's the thing. IT'S FICTION. She didn't claim to be from Mexico, she didn't claim to come to the US in duress and fear for her life, it was a story she wanted to tell, and skin tone should not even be considered If people want to be accurately represented, if they want their experiences to reach the public, they can write their own story. They can make it non-fiction, they can make it a space odyssey for all I care, but we are treading into dangerous territory when we try to police who can tell what types of stories. If you don't like it, don't read it.
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CookiesTriedToEatMe
I feel like the most important thing about a book like that is the conversations behind it, and I seen nothing but positive conversation behind it. Positive as in I mean theres a legit conversation going on, people are beginning to talk about real issues because of the book. And the writer of Mango Street has a good point, her books might not going to reach the same people as Cummings book will. The audience is there. And unfortunately not every story told by those who have experienced the same/actual situation get as much coverage as a book written by a white person about minority.
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I feel like the most important thing about a book like that is the conversations behind it, and I seen nothing but positive conversation behind it. Positive as in I mean theres a legit conversation going on, people are beginning to talk about real issues because of the book. And the writer of Mango Street has a good point, her books might not going to reach the same people as Cummings book will. The audience is there. And unfortunately not every story told by those who have experienced the same/actual situation get as much coverage as a book written by a white person about minority.
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Kijone
We need to stop telling artist and author they can't about things outside their race. As long as they take the material seriously then its fine. If it opens the eyes of someone unaware of another ethnicity's plight then its a success and it doesn't matter who the writer is. Here's a deep dive idea; Fir a long while, criticism towards books that have any focus on ethnicity, regardless if the author is of that ethnicity or not, is far harsher than other books in any other genre. The harsh criticism discourages authors to write about topics involving race at all.
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We need to stop telling artist and author they can't about things outside their race. As long as they take the material seriously then its fine. If it opens the eyes of someone unaware of another ethnicity's plight then its a success and it doesn't matter who the writer is. Here's a deep dive idea; Fir a long while, criticism towards books that have any focus on ethnicity, regardless if the author is of that ethnicity or not, is far harsher than other books in any other genre. The harsh criticism discourages authors to write about topics involving race at all.
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Helena
Homophobia and whitewashing again? Really? You can say a book is poorly written, but why is it a race thing again? People forget that the civil rights movement, the resolution of the asian ban, etc were only possible and helped along by white people supporting the movements. Yes inaccurate stereotypes are bad, but jeesch, again, what should my friends from Germany think about being represented as hollywood badguys/nazis 70 years later being a generation who had nothing to do with ww2? No outcry against steroetyping that.
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Homophobia and whitewashing again? Really? You can say a book is poorly written, but why is it a race thing again? People forget that the civil rights movement, the resolution of the asian ban, etc were only possible and helped along by white people supporting the movements. Yes inaccurate stereotypes are bad, but jeesch, again, what should my friends from Germany think about being represented as hollywood badguys/nazis 70 years later being a generation who had nothing to do with ww2? No outcry against steroetyping that.
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Guest
We are going down a slippery slope where we will get to the point that africans can only write african characters, Latinas can only write latina characters, whites only whites, asians only asians, african americans only african americans and there will be no representation of any 'others' because the writer must be from a pure bloodline. race first, human second because we're just all so different aren't we. and if you even simply appreciate something that came from another land mass it's theft. the woke's own ourosboros.
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We are going down a slippery slope where we will get to the point that africans can only write african characters, Latinas can only write latina characters, whites only whites, asians only asians, african americans only african americans and there will be no representation of any 'others' because the writer must be from a pure bloodline. race first, human second because we're just all so different aren't we. and if you even simply appreciate something that came from another land mass it's theft. the woke's own ourosboros.
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Luz
As a Mexican woman I'm not upset that a white author wrote about a fictional story. That's what authors do. What's the difference when a white director makes a movie or writes a screenplay. The only thing that was unfortunate was that she conviniently forgot to specify what country her husband came from. I haven't read the book so I guess I should shut up but I'm assuming the book was written with good intent. She meant to help break racial barriers and instead is getting her book tour cancelled because of safety concerns.
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As a Mexican woman I'm not upset that a white author wrote about a fictional story. That's what authors do. What's the difference when a white director makes a movie or writes a screenplay. The only thing that was unfortunate was that she conviniently forgot to specify what country her husband came from. I haven't read the book so I guess I should shut up but I'm assuming the book was written with good intent. She meant to help break racial barriers and instead is getting her book tour cancelled because of safety concerns.
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