I talked about representation in my keynote at Pikes Peak Writers Conference, and also participated on a panel about diversity with Chuck Wendig, Gail Carriger, and Carol Berg. One of the questions that came up during the panel and afterward was about the line between writing diverse stories and cultural appropriation, and whether there were stories and characters it’s just not okay for someone to write about?

My first response is that I hope I’m not the first person you asked. I’ve thought and read and talked about these issues a fair amount, but coming to the straight white guy for any sort of authoritative answer about appropriation is all kinds of problematic. I strongly suggest starting with resources like:

• Should White People Write About People of Color? by Malinda Lo
• Appropriate Cultural Appropriation, by Nisi Shawl
• Writing the Other, by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward
• Cultural Appropriation, by Aliette de Bodard
• On the topic of cultural appropriation in fantasy, what IS the line…? from the MedievalPOC Tumblr
• Diversity in Fantasy  Mine, by Cindy Pon
• And in a shameless plug for my authors, I’d encourage folks to check out Invisible

ETA: I’d also recommend Ada Hoffmann’s response to this post: Autism and Appropriation

I do believe stories should reflect the diversity of our world. To do otherwise suggests a lack of imagination, a barren and narrow vision. It’s lazy storytelling.

It’s important to write about characters and cultures that are different from our own. It’s even more important to do so respectfully and well, to write fully-realized characters instead of caricatures and stereotypes and tokens. That means paying attention and listening. It also means taking the risk that someone will tell you that you got it wrong. Sure, that can be hard to hear, but welcome to writing. I’ve been on the receiving end of such criticism more than once. It’s not fun, but most of the time — if I don’t let my ego and defensiveness get in the way — I come away with a better understanding than before. I come away a better writer. And shouldn’t we always be working to improve?

When I was speaking about diversity and appropriation at the conference, one of the things that came to mind was Kevin Smith’s movie Chasing Amy. I remember years ago talking to a bisexual friend who was upset by the movie. Among other things, she said, “He’s trying to tell our stories.”

In Chasing Amy, our protagonist Holden falls for a woman named Alyssa, who is identified as a lesbian. She ends up falling for him, and the movie tells the story of their relationship, including Alyssa’s conflicts over Holden, and backlash from other lesbians. When I first watched the movie, I saw it as entertainment. My friend saw her life and experiences and identity being misunderstood and  misrepresented by a man who wasn’t a part of that community.

It’s the difference between “I want to include you in my stories” and “I want to tell your stories.”

Another facet of the conversation: when talking about autism in fiction, the titles I see people recommending again and again are often written by neurotypical authors. I wouldn’t say that automatically means these authors are appropriating the stories of people with autism. Some of those stories are very thoughtful and well-researched. But it troubles me to see whose voices are being promoted, and whose are being ignored. And while some of those stories may be well-researched, others are not. They portray a shallow understanding of autism, reinforcing myths and cliches for the entertainment and consumption of neurotypical readers.

That’s another piece of what appropriation means to me. Appropriation is when I take a part of your identity, your culture, your history, and I use it to create a story that isn’t for you.

In Boy Scouts, we had a service group called the Order of the Arrow, which was supposed to be based on Native American ceremonies and cultures. We dressed in headdresses and regalia, we donned face paint, we performed our own ceremonies… Not once can I recall seeing a Native American at an Order of the Arrow event. Not once did we really stop to talk about the cultures whose trappings we were playing with, or the meaning of those trappings.

I think most of us took OA seriously, and the group did a lot of good service work. But we also appropriated aspects of Native American cultures and wore them like costumes from a Halloween store.

We’ve all read stories that do the same thing. They play with the “shiny bits” of a culture without respect or understanding. They perpetuate the exoticization and fetishization of the other.

I don’t have any easy answers, but I think it’s on all of us to continually work to do better. For authors, that means writing honestly and respectfully about the world. It means doing our research. It also means listening, and not just to me. If you’ve read this entire post, thank you, but please don’t stop here.

And if you have additional resources or thoughts, please feel free to share them in the comments. Thank you.

Dani Colman has an article called The Problem with False Feminism, in which she talks about the movie Frozen and why 1) she hated it and 2) it isn’t a “feminist” movie. It’s a long, well-researched article, and Colman makes some valid points. While I don’t agree with all of what she says — particularly when it comes to her description of Anna and Elsa, which feels like victim-blaming to me — I think some of the things she points out are worth thinking about.

There’s one particular point I want to talk about, though. Colman discusses the praise being heaped on Frozen, and responds to it point by point. Toward the end, she gets to the following:

We get to hear the words, “You can’t marry a man you just met!”

Oh, and do we ever. It’s actually one of the few moments in the film I enjoyed: when Anna falls over herself with enthusiasm for her whirlwind engagement to Hans, and Elsa reacts with unfettered horror. We’ve established that Anna is an idiot, but at least the voice of reason is somewhere in the room. We later hear the same words echoed by Kristoff — a lot — and, in a different form, by Hans himself when he reveals his true colours.

It’s a lambasting of the Disney princess tradition, and theoretically a fairly incisive one. You shouldn’t marry a man you just met. It’s unquestionably stupid, and poking fun at the fact that Disney has been not-so-subtly encouraging that approach for decades is a smart move. I mean, come on: how many Disney princesses or leading ladies have fallen in love at first sight with a man they barely know?

Four. That’s how many. Rather than boring you with more tables, I’ll just name them: Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora and Ariel. Disney ladies actually tend towards quite extended courtships, and the men are more likely to fall in love at first sight than the women are…

Fair enough. But there’s another message here, and it isn’t just about falling for a man you just met. It’s about the fact that the charming fellow you just met — the man who flatters you, says all the right things, and makes you feel so amazing — turns out to be flat-out evil.

Welcome to the reality of domestic violence. Unlike most Disney villains, batterers don’t come with their own foreboding soundtrack. They don’t sneer like Scar and Gaston, or twirl their mustaches like Jafar. They’re not openly slimy like Clayton.

They’re charming. They’ve learned how to don that mask, how to flatter and manipulate and say just the right thing. They look completely normal. They deliberately seek out victims they think they can control … and what better target than socially awkward, isolated, hopeful Anna?

It’s no coincidence that “Quick Involvement” is one of the potential characteristics of an abusive relationship. This does not mean everyone who had a whirlwind romance is in an abusive relationship, by the way. Only that this tends to be one aspect of such relationships. It’s one of many tactics and strategies batterers use.

I’ve been talking lately about the power and importance of story. Story is how we relate to and understand the world. Whatever else Disney did or didn’t do in Frozen, they provided a story to help understand how what starts out as a perfect relationship can turn into a nightmare. How someone like Hans can be so cruel behind closed doors, but play the perfect gentleman as soon as he sets foot in public.

Whatever else the movie did or didn’t get right, I’m grateful for that story.