The Uhura Effect
Dec. 4th, 2012 01:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackThese ideas keep coming round, but I still feel like I haven't got it right in my mind.
Principle of Relativity
It seems like a film about an evil Ruritarian serial killer is not problematic or non-problematic, but problematic compared to the prevailing standards in popular media at the time (which may vary depending which subset of the popular media you're familiar with). If all Ruritarians are portrayed as evil serial killers, you have a problem. If many Ruritarians are portrayed in all manner of different ways, that's probably ok.
Principle of Responsibility
It's not enough to say "I didn't know". Making another film to join the already overcrowded ranks of films including Ruritarian serial killers isn't bad only if it reveals your own personal bias against Ruritarians (although it may often do so). It's bad because it hurts Ruritarians whether you were aware of the stereotype or not. You have to specifically try to avoid the problem, not just try to avoid blame.
On the bright side, rethinking the stereotypes can often leave you with more fleshed-out characters.
It also means an individual film isn't "bad". Some Ruritarians are serial killers, and if there are lots of films about Ruritarians, one film about a Ruritarian serial killer can be appreciated on its merits. But if your film is just a long list of "Ruritarians are evil" stereotypes, making it may be bad, and even if the film is well made, don't be surprised if Ruritarians find it impossible to enjoy it.
The Uhura Principle
Most of the time, acceptance into mainstream society isn't achieved all in one go, which means that acceptance varies over time.
It's easy to gloss over now, but fifty years ago, Nichelle Nichols' portrayal of Lt Uhura was an unbelievable step forward[1] in non-white non-male characters.
Now, there's a lot to criticise about it. The three main characters were played by north american white men. The fourth was Scotty. The woman from somewhere in Africa, the man from somewhere in Russia, and the man from somewhere in Asia get distinctly less screen time and development (although it does accumulate over the course of the series, and really takes off in films, novels, fanfiction and other media) and do a lot less on screen.
If someone made Star-Trek again now they could be rightfully criticised. (The Startrek reboot film did a good job at beefing up the roles of Uhura, Checkov and Sulu, but didn't go as far as it might have.) But that doesn't make the original objectively bad, but may or may not make people comfortable watching it now.
What I want is a convenient catch-all term like "an Uhura character" to refer to a character I think is much better than any other portrayal I've seen, but I understand why some people don't actually want to watch any of it because it's still full of stuff that's not good.
Without that, people seem to polarise into "this character is good" and "this character is bad", even when they basically share the same opinion.
Is there a better term for it?
What examples come to mind? (I wasn't sure whether to list some or not, but I felt sure whatever I suggested would likely lead to a lot of disagreement.)
Footnote #1
"You cannot leave this show! Do you not understand what you are doing?! You are the first non-stereotypical role in television! Of intelligence, and of a woman and a woman of color?! That you are playing a role that is not about your color! That this role could be played by anyone? This is not a black role. This is not a female role! A blue eyed blond or a pointed ear green person could take this role!...
"Nichelle, for the first time, not only our little children and people can look on and see themselves, but people who don’t look like us, people who don’t look like us, from all over the world, for the first time, the first time on television, they can see us, as we should be!"
-- Dr Martin Luther King.
Principle of Relativity
It seems like a film about an evil Ruritarian serial killer is not problematic or non-problematic, but problematic compared to the prevailing standards in popular media at the time (which may vary depending which subset of the popular media you're familiar with). If all Ruritarians are portrayed as evil serial killers, you have a problem. If many Ruritarians are portrayed in all manner of different ways, that's probably ok.
Principle of Responsibility
It's not enough to say "I didn't know". Making another film to join the already overcrowded ranks of films including Ruritarian serial killers isn't bad only if it reveals your own personal bias against Ruritarians (although it may often do so). It's bad because it hurts Ruritarians whether you were aware of the stereotype or not. You have to specifically try to avoid the problem, not just try to avoid blame.
On the bright side, rethinking the stereotypes can often leave you with more fleshed-out characters.
It also means an individual film isn't "bad". Some Ruritarians are serial killers, and if there are lots of films about Ruritarians, one film about a Ruritarian serial killer can be appreciated on its merits. But if your film is just a long list of "Ruritarians are evil" stereotypes, making it may be bad, and even if the film is well made, don't be surprised if Ruritarians find it impossible to enjoy it.
The Uhura Principle
Most of the time, acceptance into mainstream society isn't achieved all in one go, which means that acceptance varies over time.
It's easy to gloss over now, but fifty years ago, Nichelle Nichols' portrayal of Lt Uhura was an unbelievable step forward[1] in non-white non-male characters.
Now, there's a lot to criticise about it. The three main characters were played by north american white men. The fourth was Scotty. The woman from somewhere in Africa, the man from somewhere in Russia, and the man from somewhere in Asia get distinctly less screen time and development (although it does accumulate over the course of the series, and really takes off in films, novels, fanfiction and other media) and do a lot less on screen.
If someone made Star-Trek again now they could be rightfully criticised. (The Startrek reboot film did a good job at beefing up the roles of Uhura, Checkov and Sulu, but didn't go as far as it might have.) But that doesn't make the original objectively bad, but may or may not make people comfortable watching it now.
What I want is a convenient catch-all term like "an Uhura character" to refer to a character I think is much better than any other portrayal I've seen, but I understand why some people don't actually want to watch any of it because it's still full of stuff that's not good.
Without that, people seem to polarise into "this character is good" and "this character is bad", even when they basically share the same opinion.
Is there a better term for it?
What examples come to mind? (I wasn't sure whether to list some or not, but I felt sure whatever I suggested would likely lead to a lot of disagreement.)
Footnote #1
"You cannot leave this show! Do you not understand what you are doing?! You are the first non-stereotypical role in television! Of intelligence, and of a woman and a woman of color?! That you are playing a role that is not about your color! That this role could be played by anyone? This is not a black role. This is not a female role! A blue eyed blond or a pointed ear green person could take this role!...
"Nichelle, for the first time, not only our little children and people can look on and see themselves, but people who don’t look like us, people who don’t look like us, from all over the world, for the first time, the first time on television, they can see us, as we should be!"
-- Dr Martin Luther King.
no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 10:25 pm (UTC)and then on the next issue
(By the way, Nichelle's anecdote about her and King has... grown in the telling. First it was her imagining what King would say; then a phone call; now she met him. I can just about believe the first one.)
no subject
Date: 2012-12-06 11:48 pm (UTC)Yeah, that's a very good point. I had to check Uhura's nationality; apparently the character is from a fictional United Africa. (Which does make sense in context, if you imagine a utopian future-earth, but is unfortunate for portraying non-white people in SciFi.)
By the way, Nichelle's anecdote about her and King has... grown in the telling.
Eek! Thank you for pointing that out. I'm embarrassed to have repeated it without checking :(
no subject
Date: 2012-12-07 12:12 am (UTC)At least we find out that Sulu is from San Fran.