Responsibility and Entertainment - How far is too far?

[domisotto]

Form a writer’s POV, what you write is a litmus test of your skill. That 0.1% with true skill to entertain could find audience for pretty much anything. Some people can sell a blank sheet of paper.

The 99.9% struggles to find what they can write to maximize their audience, working in that space between copyism of popular tropes, sensationalist value and riding the new trend ASAP. Or trying to find the correct proportion of old vs new.

Add luck on top of it, and each 99.9% writer writes each story and prays.

One thing I would suggest avoiding is listening to the threads on the writing forums that go like: “I am so tired of the Popular Trope X, why can’t we have more books like Y. I would totally read that!”

Because, if you do write Y, they are not going to be there to read it, and since it is pretty different from Popular Trope X, almost nobody else would either.

[therosesword]

Creators create whatever they want... audiences experience whatever they want. If they don't like it they can move on.

Anything else is censorship.

[thecrystalrook]

Writers should write what they want, readers should read what they want. Disturbing writing is often grounded in real-world scenarios and we can't simply push history to the side. It's the job of the arts to make sure these issues are brought to light and remain seen.

[NickRowler]

1. I think it depends on the motivation of the author. If someone was writing about a problematic character, like say Joker, is the motivation to tell a story about an unusual troubled person or is it to encourage people to be like them. If an author creates a "call to action" type story, then how an audience reacts is the responsibility of the author.

2. Mostly no. If the media someone consumes is taking a toll on their emotional or mental health, then they are responsible to avoiding said media. If shows about serial killers makes someone paranoid, then they should probably avoid that type of content. It's not really the show's fault for making that person paranoid, because other people can watch the same show and not feel that way. With the internet, it's easier than ever to look up info about media to know if there is content in it that might be upsetting and people can make their own personal choice to avoid it.

3. People's tolerance for controversial topics can greatly vary from person to person. And where to draw the line is something everyone needs to decide for themselves. If you don't want to read or watch something, don't. If you want to read or watch something that other people may avoid, go for it. As long as you understand that everyone may not feel the same as you.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Is it the responsibility of the author to avoid writing these harmful cliches/stereotypes/plotlines even in the instance there's a large audience for them?

I actually think yes.

I get that 'harmful' is subjective, and authors should have the freedom to write whatever they want, but on the other hand...no one creates in a vacuum. Reality informs art, and art informs reality.

There's a reason that the push for diversity/representation is so important: 'harmful' content is never going to go away, but we can at least try to balance it out/contextualize it with stories based in decency and truth.

The 'damsel in distress' trope means less when it has to compete with stories starring female characters with agency and strength. The 'magic black character' stereotype means less when it has to compete with stories starring PoC with nuance and character depth and problems they solve for their OWN benefit.

And that's really all we need, for the cliches to look like cliches, and not like realistic standards that impressionable people might try to apply to the world around them. The only people who can make that happen are the storytellers.

Is the audience responsible for the type of media they consume

Um, yes...basically, what I said above, but the other way around. People who write 'harmful' stories just to make a profit won't be motivated to do so if the audience refuses to consume them.

Where is the line drawn? As an example, Lolita contains a great deal of disturbing subject matter, but the book is praised for its writing style and descriptions. Does that mean quality has a hand in dictating what can be accepted and what cannot?

This is a bit different, I think...a harmful/demeaning message and a bad situation are not the same thing. The former holds up the content as ideal, or at least as normal; the latter simply portrays it. In the context of the story, it is just a fact.

The distinction, in practice, is very subtle, and when a creative work gets popular it can often get lost (for example, Romeo and Juliet...), but a careful reader can usually tell the difference between an author saying 'this situation is a good thing' and 'this situation is what it is'.

[WriterLinXiaolong]

1. No. Creators are free to create whatever they want. If people are going to start policing the creative spaces, then the so-called 'Imaginations are limitless and without boundaries' wouldn't exist anymore. People will start to lose creativity since whenever they try to go beyond something, they would get... 'policed'. The only responsibility creator has is to avoid, glorifying things that go against moral belief (such as genocide, 'taking advantage of human child', creating a story that is meant to harass a specific person/ethnic/group/belief/culture). To be honest, we can already see it in several places. Twitter discourse has tons of this, and this forum also wasn't spared.

2. The audience is always responsible for the type of media they consume. They are responsible for the choices they make. If the story affects their life choice, then that is their choice. The creators are not responsible for whatever their consumers decided to do. If they are easily triggered by something, then they shouldn't be reading it in the first place. It just mean that the media is not aimed towards them and if they still force themselves to see and say that the creator is bad for making such and such, or that they want creators to change the content to conform their views, then they are just being a douche.

3. The line is drawn by how the creator presents such a story. Most harmful tropes that happen in fantasy settings can be turned blind eyes on. But sometimes, when it was done in modern settings, it is hard to stomach. Let's be honest, readers can perceive whether or not a creator is over-glorifying something. But then sometimes, readers are just reading too much into something or was looking at it through a biased lense. That's why one needs to be neutral when trying to critique on something.

[therosesword]

I'm seeing the word "harmful" batted around in here.

Please define "harmful?"

Please define who makes that determination of what is and isn't "harmful?"

Y'all realize this site has a whole buttload of BL, GL and every other kind of "L" type of work on it and frankly... to a lot of people with their eyes, ears and brains closed... that's harmful as ever.

I've got friends that will tell you the most harmful book ever devised is the bible.

"Draw the line"

What line? There is no line except one that an author may, or may not, deal with on their own, they don't need you or their next door neighbor, their mother or their clergyperson telling them what to create.

Again, who determines this line? Who polices the line?

Are you suggesting the books/authors get banned? Burned?

Do entertainment presentations affect what people do? Ask my cousin about breaking his arm pretending he was superman when he jumped off the porch when he was six. The answer, obviously is yes. Does that mean people should stop creating? No. Does it determine what they should create? No. Why? Because no matter what someone creates, no matter how sugar squeaky clean or "harmful" someone else will use it in a way it wasn't intended to be used. It's called cherry-picking.

Who's going to police all of this? Who's going to remove things from the library and the airwaves?

But most of all...

Who determines what someone else should create, read or watch?

[IndigoShirtProd]

I feel like the idea at hand in the first question is being lost here. The first question seem to be less about censorship of creative work and more about self policing. A creator really asking themselves some hard questions and deeply considering how what they make will affect others. Being able to see past "well, it's my work and I can do what I want" may not sound favorable but empathy goes a long way. It's pretty selfish to only consider yourself when your supposedly creating for an audience. And that's not an insult; it just is what it is: selfish. You're thinking of what you want to put out to satisfy yourself regardless of how harmful it is. (Now there are plenty of good reasons to be selfish with your work, like gaining financial stability or not having full ownership of it previously, etc. etc. I'm really just trying to make a point)

Harmful meaning: reaffirming ignorant and malious sterotypes about a group of people, demeaning people, relaying and reinforcing poor relationship dymanics, spreading misinformation, etc.

To reword what I said before, yes, I do think the authors bears the brunt of resposibilty to self-police what tropes and ideas they put in their work. . . to an extent. Because again, author are free to write what they want and readers are the one to decide what is worth reading. And I don't think it's fair to demonizes author for problematic things in their work. . . to an extent, again. I think context, previous behavior, and possible consequences play a role in how to react to a creator with a "problematic" piece of media.

When I saw that question, the first person I thought of was J.K.Rowling.

[ble]

I agree.

Like when one individual with mental problems sees a violent movie or a videogame and he kills someone, is not the fault of the videogame/movie, or the creators of those, but of that one person that was "influenced", while everyone else that watched the same movie/videogame just sees it as entertainment.

Blame the one individual, not the media or the creator.

[WillowTree]

It's pretty selfish to only consider yourself when your supposedly creating for an audience.

A lot of people only create for themselves. My works are all done for myself. I decided to share it with an audience, but I wasn't creating for an audience. Plenty of people are just posting their stuff that they do as a hobby and it seems silly to call them selfish for wanting to enjoy their hobby by creating what they want to create

[Seaby]

@therosesword I agree that I used vague wording in my questions, but I wanted them to be open ended. Harmful can mean a variety of things to different people, and I didn't want to constrain the parameters by providing examples. As you say, it's difficult to view these works and determine where imagination and creativity peters into damaging - if such an end does exist. And I agree with your point that it's not as though there is a fair way to determine what stays and what goes as the way these works are perceived is subjective.

@IndigoShirtProd Yeah, these are questions that spring to mind whenever the topic comes up, but they may or may not have little to do with one another . I do think that it's interesting that you mentioned the fact that, in writing a work meant for an audience, the author might end up needing to think about how their work will be received and whether it affects readers in a way that they did not intend it to.
(I also think that the matter with Rowling might be more skewed towards death of the author, where the work itself does not necessarily contain any harmful qualities when viewed as a separate entity from the author.)

Perhaps I should have clarified my questions a little - the context is that it's common to see someone make the point that "X trope is harmful because it perpetuates this stereotype", "Y trope is harmful because it normalizes so-and-so," and many more claims in that same vein. It's not as though they're without basis, because the media we intake can affect us deeper than providing mere entertainment, and yet it's also not as though authors are going to tag a work for 'sexual abuse' when they don't perceive it as such.

A couple more questions:

1. If it is mutually agreed that people shall write what they want without restrictions, then to what end do we provide criticism? (This relates to policing.)
2. Does the authorial intent have any bearing on what could be considered inexcusable? Does the work lose merit if it is written with the intention to harm others rather than for the sake of entertainment and story telling? (I have a feeling this may have already been answered somewhat.)

[therosesword]

tastes and what is "harmful" today will change, just as it changed from 5 years ago or 10 or 20. I'm a big fan of C-drama and right now the censors in China are talking about the harmful stories of myths, Wuxie and just about every costume web and tv story that exists there.

Worrying about what an audience is going to be offended by is like living with an abusive partner where you have to watch every word and action you do. It's going to change from day to day. You might think you're doing right today but tomorrow the "no-no" du jour will be different and you'll be stuck wondering if you have to rewrite.

Authors fall out of favor yearly and then are rediscovered in the next generation. Just do the best you can today.

Write hard, write true.

[IndigoShirtProd]

I'm not wrong in calling someone selfish for doing something solely for themselves. Maybe self-centered is a better word, idk. It's perfectly valid to create for oneself, especially if you get a substantial amount of enjoyment out of it. It's not like when you participate in a solo hobby, you're doing it to help your neighbor. This is oneof the things where being selfish, isn't the worst thing, you could even argue it's not a bad thing at all.

[joannekwan]

To reword what I said before, yes, I do think the authors bears the brunt of resposibilty to self-police what tropes and ideas they put in their work. . . to an extent. Because again, author are free to write what they want and readers are the one to decide what is worth reading. And I don't think it's fair to demonizes author for problematic things in their work. . . to an extent, again. I think context, previous behavior, and possible consequences play a role in how to react to a creator with a "problematic" piece of media.

This is the biggest thing!

I also want to add that the thing creators need to be the most responsible about (if it's within their control) is marketing/promoting their work. Creators should be mindful of what they're selling and how it comes across.

Like yeah, one can write torture porn, but don't sell it as a romance or market it to teenagers.

Also, if one personally doesn't support what is depicted in one's story in real life, a disclaimer never hurts, just to clear the record.

[therosesword]

If it is mutually agreed that people shall write what they want without restrictions, then to what end do we provide criticism? (This relates to policing.)

Criticism on what level? Here or the New York Best Seller list?

Does the authorial intent have any bearing on what could be considered inexcusable?

This is tricky, how sweeping do you want to make this? Mein Kampf? Marquis de Sade? Who decides what is inexcusable? I know someone who writes S&M and does very well. Obviously will never put anything here, but again, who decides what is inexcusable? I don't read (not my tastes at all!) it but I don't tell her she can't do that. She's got an audience and they love her work.

I actually do understand what you're trying to get to the bottom of but ...

[HGohwell]

Being aware of an audience is not the same as being afraid of an audience. For instance, you wouldn't (I would hope) put a sexual story where children could easily find it. If you're writing for children (I would hope) you wouldn't include this stuff. If your story includes rape or suicide (I would hope) you would have researched and through things through properly and included a trigger warning, and again, put it where impressionable children can't find it so that you don't harm anyone with that content. If people then circumvent that (as I said in my first post, Dead Dove, Don't Eat) then that is on them. But being aware and not wanting to harm someone is not necessarily the same as censoring and being afraid of what your audience will find offensive.

As I said in my first post Don't Like, Don't Read (I will tell you what's in it, don't like it, don't read it) and Dead Dove, Don't Eat (why are you upset it's what I told you it was) are generally the most sensible way of doing this.

[IndigoShirtProd]

I also think that the matter with Rowling might be more skewed towards death of the author, where the work itself does not necessarily contain any harmful qualities when viewed as a separate entity from the author.

I was mainly refernecing her most recent book and not the Harry Potter series.

1. To any and every end. If this is about freedom of speech and prevention of censorship, then creators should not be surprised if people do not like their work and tell them how poorly it depicts one thing or another, if applicable of course.

2. I think it has some bearing, though the consquences of a work often far reach the intent. Maybe this was just supposed to be a romance between a brooding guy and a cheerful girl, but the consequence was the normalization of verbal abuse somehow unbeknownst to the aurthor. And now that author has to face how his/her work was interpreted. It's not fun and sometimes it's unfair, but it happens. I do think work loses merit, at least a little, if the intent is harm and not criticism.

[Missapogee]

I have to agree with a lot of people here. So long as the work doesn't so anything like doxx someone or call for violence against a real living individual (not a hypothetical), it should be allowed to exist. It's art and fiction, so it's inevitable that sensitive ideas are going to be portrayed, and it's inevitable that people you personally or politically disagree with are going to create art too.

I worry about the idea of drawing a line based on a term as loose as "harmful" because if we say "okay, we won't allow the creation of things deemed harmful" that paves the way for people to move those goalposts and say "anything I disagree with/dislike is harmful, and therefor shouldn't be allowed to be created or consumed, and if you do you're a bad person!" (which already happens in some social media circles) and even straight up dystopian novel style censorship (I.E. dissenting options are not permitted! Conform or be deleted!) (I'm exaggerating for emphasis)

[Seaby]

@HGohwell I think your point about disclaimers seems to be the best action to take in allowing authors to write about what they want while leaving it up to the audience as to whether they're prepared to digest it.

@therosesword As I've stated, it depends on how you want to approach the matter (regarding criticism). Aside from that, I don't believe I've made any claims as to what is and isn't harmful or acceptable, so it's up to you to decide. Be it S&M or war, these topics can be written about in a neutral or supportive manner. But what if the author writes about these things while wanting to hurt others or spread a message encouraging inhumane treatment of others?
(I don't have a definitive opinion on the matter. I agree with both sides and the many points made thus far, so I'm not necessarily trying to get to the bottom of anything aside from hearing everyone else's opinions.)

@IndigoShirtProd (Now that you mention it, I do recall her releasing some rather openly transphobic novel...)

[UrMom]

My answer is the same as @WillowTree's, people should be able to create whatever they want as long as it's tagged appropriately, and the audience should be responsible for what they see from there.

The only thing a creator should consider and be prepared for is the backlash they will get, regardless of how careful they are with content warnings. Be ready to handle all feedback maturely and empathetically. Because even though I believe it is the readers responsibility to police what they read, they also have a right to voice their opinion if they do decide to look into something they shouldn't have. (Freedom of creation. Freedom of speech.)

And oh boy, will readers do just that, especially if they're directly told not to read the thing.