Id say representation needs more emphasis than diversity. moonlight is more important, progressive, etc than, say, a movie that has mainly white people plus a couple black people plus an asian person. technically, the latter is more diverse, even if it is white dominated and focuses on white narratives, whereas moonlight is extremely undiverse. everyone in moonlight is black, everyone in moonlight is working class - but the fact that its representing a community, and a narrative, that needs and deserves their story told makes it more progressive than a film with 1 black character, no matter how well rounded.
the focus in diversity can also lead into the manner of stereotype that chimamanda ngozi adiche talked abt; if, to keep things balanced and diverse, theres only one asian person, one jewish person, etc, that means that only one narrative of that people is being told. even if that narrative is a true one, its not the whole story. its why the erasure of kitty pryde's jewishness in the xmen movies is such a problem - she was the counterbalance to magneto, they showed that jewish people could be vastly different in opinion, background, actions...
with my first webcomic, which i made when i was 14/15 and cancelled fairly early, i had two or three black characters, each from different places, and a white character, and an indian character, and a chinese character, two jewish characters from different backgrounds, a muslim character, a rroma character... it was Diverse. and on one hand, it meant as a writer i could explore lots of different narratives and backstories, and go through a lot of intersectional dialogue that werent really my place to go through - it was interesting. but i was also desperately aware that, say, peter was The Asian. there were no other south asian characters. so it was like - am i creating a stereotype? what am i saying by making the only indian character x? whats the significance of him having an english first name? why is he punjabi? why not tamil? or gujarati? why is he hindu, not sikh, or muslim? is this problem in his family going to ostracise indian readers? he had to speak for an entire subcontinent of peoples.
that representation would be a lot more fulfilling if i had multiple characters from the same or similar ethnic backgrounds, who could vary in experience and opinion and religion etc, to show a breadth of narratives. if i could show a breadth of narratives, each character can breathe because theyre not stuck being the poster child for their people.
these days, when i approach writing a story, i know i want it to be diverse. or, at least, to represent. anything but all white. but i try to narrow it down more to what i know - i grew up in east london in a largely nigerian, ghanaian, christian community, ive had a lot of proximity with the east end diaspora and irish communities. so i wanna write nigerian christians from london, cockneys and irish characters. thats my priority, because its what i wouldnt feel like a fraud writing. i want to write the regions i know; east london, and south essex, and south london. this means writing about communities present in those places im not as familiar with, to be realistic - which is important - so i know id have to be more careful again with letting my characters breathe. (id focus a lot on south asian and black communities bc i write london stories, and theyre the predominant narratives, alongside various white narratives but im focusing on racial representation)
i worry, sometimes, as a white person, of creating a comic thats too diverse. or, maybe, not diverse enough; i worry about focusing too closely on the narratives of people of colour, that arent my narratives. aside from getting it wrong, i also worry about overstepping my place. i want to tell stories that show the people i love - working class people, largely people of colour - from the places i love, and those stories may not have a place for white narratives. if they dont - do they have a place for me to write them? or should i leave that to someone else?
my current comic, There was a War, is technically very un-diverse. its set in ancient ireland, so everyone is, well, irish. because its set so long ago, i take a lot of liberties with the look of the people, showing a variation in skintone and features that relate to the history of the people in ways i might not actually look at in the comic. im very aware, though, that my main human character - Cath - is coded as black. shes based on a friend of mine, who was black. meanwhile Balor - who is non-human - is basically white coded. this effects how i tell the story, because i remain aware of the fact that this is a relationship - in a way - between a black woman and a white woman, whose communities have conflict. so im conscious of the racist tropes that can be born from those romances - maybe too aware? i probably overthink everything - and work to avoid them.
id say the diversity / representation in twaw is lacking. ill admit that. im not telling the stories of people of colour, or showing a culture, or a history. its just a look. there is consideration to the coding of the characters, but generally i want people to ignore race in twaw because it can quickly begin to look like a racism analogy which could get... really awkward. because its not. theres something, i guess, about seeing a black/coded girl adored, and soft, and all that - stuff ive thought about - but id never hail it as amazing representation of a black woman. (well, i wouldnt regardless because thatd be pompous as shit but ygm)
this got Long, sorry, im on a nerd-high after a university visit
