I'm not sure what this means, or whether it means the same thing in the context of cesperanza's post and of hth_the_first's. I read cesperanza's post as defining identification in opposition to objectification, so that "distance" in the quoted passage is the distance which objectifies. So I read 'identifying with character X' as understanding him/her as a subject as opposed to (or as well as?) an object. If that's right, then Hth's Option C doesn't stand in opposition it, I think - it just asks how far we should/could/do extend it to encompass characters who - in some respect - are Not Like Us.
Which. I find the framing of the question confusing - maybe because I'm not clear on what "not like me" means. To some extent, to write a character's point of view I have to deny that they are absolutely Other or Not Like Me - writing Ronon Dex's point of view means asking "what if I were Ronon Dex?" I have to refuse the idea that all Ronon's differences from me make him incomprehensibly different, deny that his otherness makes him genuinely Other. I have to identify with him. The problem, I guess, is taking the opposite approach - "what if Ronon Dex were me?" And then deciding - precisely because I believe that his differences make him alien, other - that that's too hard and I'm going to write from Rodney's point-of-view instead. If Hth is calling people out for doing the second of those, that makes perfect sense to me; but I'm not sure there's a way around the first. Is there a way of writing a fictional person as a subject without asking "what if I were you"?
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Re: Correction to deleted post above
Date: 2007-06-22 12:07 pm (UTC)From:I'm not sure what this means, or whether it means the same thing in the context of
Which. I find the framing of the question confusing - maybe because I'm not clear on what "not like me" means. To some extent, to write a character's point of view I have to deny that they are absolutely Other or Not Like Me - writing Ronon Dex's point of view means asking "what if I were Ronon Dex?" I have to refuse the idea that all Ronon's differences from me make him incomprehensibly different, deny that his otherness makes him genuinely Other. I have to identify with him. The problem, I guess, is taking the opposite approach - "what if Ronon Dex were me?" And then deciding - precisely because I believe that his differences
make him alien, other - that that's too hard and I'm going to write from Rodney's point-of-view instead. If Hth is calling people out for doing the second of those, that makes perfect sense to me; but I'm not sure there's a way around the first. Is there a way of writing a fictional person as a subject without asking "what if I were you"?