Self censorship

[Lensing]

What are your thoughts on self censorship?

The term is self explainatory but here is a quote from wikipedia:

Self-censorship is the act of censoring or classifying one's own discourse. This is done out of fear of, or deference to, the sensibilities or preferences (actual or perceived) of others and without overt pressure from any specific party or institution of authority. Self-censorship is often practiced by film producers, film directors, publishers, news anchors, journalists, musicians, and other kinds of authors including individuals who use social media.
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees freedom of speech from all forms of censorship. Article 19 explicitly states that "everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers

I personally think about self censoring my work a lot when writing and I often ask myself if I should do that or
if it holds me back from creating. When I show my uncensored work to people I often get "you can´t write
that", "this will piss a lot of people off", "this is political uncorrect" and that´s usually the only "negative" critique
I´m getting + people suggesting what I should change to make the story more appealing. When they offer their
alternative I usually think that it would maybe be more pleasing to people but really boring for me to read.

So my question is, do you self censor your own work and then not write it even if you would want to?
Some examples:
You think what you wrote is too violent or you write something which might be considered sexist or you write
something which sounds like you glorify serial killers or you write something which
people could consider racist

[Noorie]

I don't write romance, because people often react strongly to this kind of stories, and also my romance could be a little non-standart, and I also fear that adding this element could make sci-fi part less interesting for some people, but for others who prefer sci-fi the romantic line would seem boring and unneeded, so by mixing I would only get people angry, but I don't want to draw a long comic without sci-fi

[DasIstWunderblyat]

I'm pretty lax about it.
My ongoing question is rather if that is necessary for the conveying story and enhancing characterization or not?
If it's necessary, I will try to not hold the brake. If it's not and/or there are outside rules or suggestions to not go that far, I might not.

[darthmongoose]

It ultimately comes down to a sense of responsibility.

Some creators believe that all the responsibility to critically read their work, its messages and the things it puts forward as "fact" or "how the world works" should be on the reader and that they should be allowed to write anything they want, even if it depicts marginalised people in potentially damaging ways, even if it normalises slurs, even if it glorifies violence.

Some creators believe that the responsibility is all on them. That since fiction has such a profound effect on people's perception of the world, that they should be careful what ideas they're putting in people's heads.

Personally, having read the research on how strongly fiction impacts empathy, I've come to stand on the "I have a responsibility" team. In fact, the first time this came up, I was just eight years old....

So, there was this one boy who was ALWAYS bullying me. He took every opportunity. He once put lemonade in a waterpistol so he could shoot me in the eyes with lemonade (YES. IT REALLY HURT), he would call me names, he would steal my stuff... and one day, I'd had enough so...
I drew a picture of him looking like a complete fool and I left it on my desk.

So the next thing I know, I'm being quietly taken aside by my favourite teacher, who was sympathetic, because that boy was a little s*** but his parents were wealthy PTA members and very influential in our little local area, so the school always wanted to be on their good side. Anyway, the boy had come running to the teachers in floods of tears because I'd made him look like a fool and all the kids were laughing at him. What that teacher explained to me then were words I've always lived by; my ability to draw is more powerful than any weak insults he could throw at me, or even any punches, because it can legitimately influence how people see him and how he sees himself. I'd never really thought of art as powerful like that before, and it had a big effect on me.

I think it's true though. When I went to spend study in Japan, I was shocked by how many British people's ideas about Japan were shaped almost entirely by:
1. The book "Memoirs of a Geisha"
2. That one Simpsons episode where they go to Japan (you know, the "MISTER SPARKLE!" one?)

So people had all these misinformed ideas about Japan that they'd got from fiction that doesn't even necessarily claim to be factual and simply never questioned. Bits of misinformation like "Japanese cartoons regularly cause seizures", "In Japan they have American-themed restaurants", "Geisha are basically high-end sex workers", "Japanese people are obsessed with honour, and if dishonoured will stab themselves in the stomach with a katana" (that's not even how seppuku works...).

The things you put in your work may confirm or challenge people's world view, or put ideas into their heads that they'd never thought about. If your story only has one gay character and he's a bitchy fashion designer who is really creepy to your cis-het male protagonist... you're reinforcing 1.Gay people are not main characters because we're not "normal", we're a fringe group. 2. Gay men are confined to being flamboyant artists, they can never just be a normal guy. 3. Gay men are threatening and off-putting and if you don't like being near them that's justified because they might do scary things like perv on you!
As a note, it's worth remembering I didn't really come to terms with the fact that I'm gay because media in the 90s and before so consistently depicted lesbians as being big, butch, gruffly-spoken, always angry OR sexy bisexual dreamgirl who doesn't really exist IRL who wants threesomes all the time. I couldn't see myself as gay because I hadn't seen a character who was a swotty dork girl who was gay, and then Willow from Buffy happened... and I was like ".....wait."

So yeah, I am VERY careful about what I put in my work. Not least because I'm a queer female creator and will inevitably be judged with double standards (see: Steven Universe and Owl House discourse...). With great power comes great responsibility, and being able to write and draw is a pretty great power.

[Lensing]

That´s really interesting to read.
You gave that example of the boy in class, what about nowadays, do you have moments where you
want to write something but then don´t because you self censor it?

And bonus question, do you think creators should censor themselves more?
I just watched some Quentin Tarantino movies, I enjoyed Pulp Fiction but some of his
later work is too violent for my taste and I also don´t feel good in a cinema with people
laughing about a scene where a person gets shot in the face because they talk too much.
I think violence is glorified in most movies. It´s always hard to draw a line

[Lensing]

What kind of stories do you write?

[Lensing]

I do write romance, erotic stories and other genres and so there is a lot of self censorship going on.
I don´t write action or violent stories and that´s genres which get censored a lot too.
I just watched some Quentin Tarantino interviews about the violence topic

[darthmongoose]

You gave that example of the boy in class, what about nowadays, do you have moments where youwant to write something but then don´t because you self censor it?

My approach is always to ask myself:

"Is this thing I want to put in my story honestly so interesting, funny or plot-essential, that I really can't leave it out or replace it with something else?"

In the vast majority of cases, the answer is "NO."

Like suppose a character just did something very silly indeed. And my immediate thought is "Haha, it would be funny if somebody said "Woah, he's crazy!", and then I might stop and go "Hm, actually, people don't really like the word 'crazy' these days, I don't want to be seen as stigmatising mental illness..." It's really not that hard to simply decide to have the character responding to the odd behaviour say something else, and the thing I come up with might be funnier. "Yeah! live your dreams!" or "I'm not with him!" or even just stunned silence might all be funnier responses than "Woah, he's crazy!"

Or let's say, I need a character who is a fashion designer, and I also feel like it'd be nice to have a gay man in my story to reflect real world diversity. Well, yes, I could have the fashion designer be a catty camp gay man who is always screaming hysterically at his poor downtrodden female assistant... but come on... let's put in some effort! So! The fashion designer is a messy, anxious straight woman who hates dealing with people, and then she has a gay man who is her assistant who is say... a friendly, chubby guy with a beard who projects a zen-like calm, but has the capability for deep, unrelenting fury if you upset his boss.
So now instead of some really dull, stereotypical characters, I have a pair of actually pretty interesting and fleshed out feeling characters who aren't just stereotypes.

Like yes, it may sometimes require a little extra effort, like googling things, or asking some friends from a marginalised group about words or stereotypes, or spending a little extra brainpower when drawing minor characters like "does this doctor in the background need to be a white dude? Why not a lady in a hijab, that'd be cool." But it adds so much texture and often really makes somebody's day so... I'm perfectly happy to do it!

And bonus question, do you think creators should censor themselves more?I just watched some Quentin Tarantino movies, I enjoyed Pulp Fiction but some of hislater work is too violent for my taste and I also don´t feel good in a cinema with peoplelaughing about a scene where a person gets shot in the face because they talk too much.I think violence is glorified in most movies. It´s always hard to draw a line

I actually quite like the work of Tarantino, and I feel like his violence is so over the top and ridiculous, it never really feels like it makes violent actions look fun. Killing people in a Tarantino movie is nasty, dirty work that leaves you exhausted and probably hurt. I think that's in some ways quite a responsible approach compared to something like old Bond films where bond effortlessly shoots bad guys, adjusts his pristine tux and strolls into a party for a martini.

[Lensing]

Thanks for the answer.

I do like some of his work too, he has bad ass female characters which I really like,
great soundtracks and dialogues.
I guess I would also see the movies differently if I hadn´t seen Jackie Brown in the
cinema + the reaction of the other people in the cinema

[thepenmonster]

Not wanting to be an asshole is actually an admirable trait.

But if you're worried you'll look like you're in support of something reprehensible rewrite it until you don't. Atwood did what she could to make sure she was condemning Gilead. It's not her fault some people see it as an instruction manual.

[Lensing]

Not wanting to be an asshole is a constant struggle for every human

I do enjoy some asshole literature and I´m glad they wrote down unfiltered uglyness

[TheLemmaLlama]

I think self expression is important. And so is not being an asshole and giving enough of a crap about how you might be hurting other people to avoid it when it doesn't cost you much to do so.

Luckily, there's a middle ground between self-censorship and indiscriminately saying whatever the heck you want and not caring who hears! Namely, content warnings! Give people a heads up about what you're gonna talk about, and if they're actually trying to avoid being hurt instead of looking for things to be angry about, then they'll just move on and not read your thing.

I myself try to change offensive things if they don't add much to my work (purely to maximize accessibility, not because I think it's morally wrong to include those things), but if they do add a lot to my work, I will not self-censor. I think my responsibility as a creator extends to attaching a content warning to stuff I know can be harmful (including stigmatizing stereotypes etc), but that's where my responsibility ends.

I also think that only you as a creator get to decide how much 'value' something adds to your work. I might not understand why you wrote that offensive thing, but to you it might have some deep personal significance and so who am I to deny you that self-expression as long as you label that shit so people who don't want to see it can avoid it?

For example, I hate it when people say certain topics in dark humor are 'never funny'. Who's to decide what's funny or not? If you want to argue that springing a joke like that out of the blue can harm people and trigger a serious breakdown, that's one thing, but you do not get to dictate how everyone should universally experience a piece of stimulus. (Just for the record, I've been triggered by dark humor myself, and am kind of ambivalent about how to handle dark humor since the whole point of jokes is you don't expect the punchline so content warnings would kind of ruin them XD)

(I admit I'm also kind of salty about this since I've been pressured by a 'friend' to take down a screenshot containing stuff he considered bigoted because to quote: "those analogies aren't accurate, sensical or interesting". But I and many others found the analogies interesting - I'll listen to his arguments that they're inaccurate, nonsensical or harmful, but there are ways to fix that without deleting the whole discussion. But he doesn't want the discussion to even exist.)

[Lensing]

Thanks for the answer and I think that this is a question with no simple answer and this is a good thing

[BOMB]

I think it's important to draw a line between censorship and filtering. Filtering may not even be the best word for it, but bare with me.

I don't think creators should censor their work. There will always be a group of people out there who don't like what you have to say or how you say it. Yes, we want people to enjoy our work but I believe we have to first tell our stories for ourselves. Censoring our work, in my opinion, waters it down and dilutes it from the heart of thoughts were probably trying to paint.

That being said, we as creative also need filters. We need to know how far is far enough, not because someone else will be offended, but because at a certain point we start to become counter productive. We have to know what is necessary. And that's not censorship.

Censorship is like throwing away ingredients. Filtering is like having ingredients but choosing what to use and how much of it to use so your recipe turns out right, and sometimes that means very little or not at all.

I think our responsibility is to tell an honest story and introduce new ideas. And we can do that with tactic without censorship.

Now, will people be happy? Will everyone agree? Probably not. But every story isn't for everyone. Every idea doesn't need to cater to the masses. It's better to be bold and authentic and hated than it is to be watered down bland and possibly liked...in my opinion anyway.

[Lensing]

Wow that´s an impressing and well thought out answer. Thank you

[JaveCraze]

Yes. I certainly do. There are some topics that are too difficult for me to tackle in some stupid webcomic, and parts of life that I just don't want to put into my fiction because they're too depressing/real.. So I guess I censor myself out of fantasy and not being a skilled enough writer to tackle "serious" topics.

[Azifri]

I don't make a living out of my writing so everything I write is for myself and as such I never censor it. That being said, I like to read the room, so to say, before I share a story with a specific group of people or on a specific website, because I couldn't care less about people complaining about the story not being their thing. I'd rather have them enjoy the story and focus on the story itself.

[N1ghtm4r3]

i only censor, or rather filter myself some all because of what age group i made it for , as it is 14 and up i can do a fair amount ,personally i think here in the west its too "safe" ,as most kids are not idiots and they see far worse on the morning news and can find on the internet ,

[TheBalladofBill]

I intentionally go for what is called 'clean comedy', so I don't swear or joke about things that are considered to be too blue. Aside from that, I don't censor myself in any way. In fact, the second episode of my series is called Deadname the Pirate. Censorship seeks only to erase progress in the name of some phony nonsense about not hurting people's feelings. Well, here's some news, life isn't a liberal arts college campus. Life sucks. Life hurts. Think of everything horrible that you've ever heard of. All of those things exist exclusively in life. Part of what makes it tolerable is cold-hearted (and warm-hearted) comedy. It's just the nature of the beast. Stab it with your steely knives all you want, she ain't going anywhere and it's certainly not getting any better because some dink thinks that you shouldn't use certain words because they're going to get their feelings hurt, whether or not that's even true. It's all or nothing.

[DualDragons]

I'd probably only censor my work because I am posting on sites like tapas and webtoon. But I could care less if someone gets offended over a bad word. After all I make my comic for myself too. If my heart isn't in it then why should other people put theirs in it?

I do things my way, and if people like it then they can come along the journey. If they don't... well there are lots of other comics around