Your thought on accurate racial depiction?

punkarsenic 2016-07-31 21:44:27 UTC #21

I care abt racial depiction - it's too easy to perpetuate racist stereotypes, so we have think thoroughly about how we're presenting race in our stories. We also have the ability - especially with a lack of publisher pressure - to be very diverse, and tell stories that rarely get to be heard, and that's important. Just look at the effect of things like Ms Marvel and Cleverman.

Keeping things vague is okay, and sometimes useful and effective, but I personally don't like it. Often, a 'racially neutral' character is assumed white, or written as white - it's extremely difficult to pull off, especially in a realistic setting, because of how culture, ethnicity, and racism affect a character. It's also not always effective representation for these reasons - it's leaving the work to the readers. You might as well just have white characters that aren't explicitly stated to be white - Harry Potter and Hermione Granger were white, originally, but fandom made them poc. (this is mainly referring to race neutrality that doesnt depict skintone, like homestuck or in a book, not a character who is clearly dark-skinned but with an unspecified ethnicity)

I don't know how much it's about diversity per se. It's more about realism; in reality, the world's not all white (and there certainly weren't white people in ancient Egypt, for example). Focusing on diversity can get confusing too, as it places a story with mainly a white cast, but also a black character and an asian character, for example, above a story with an entirely black cast - technically, the former is more diverse, but that doesn't make it any better representation or more progressive than a story focusing on black narratives. For me, it's more about telling stories that don't get listened to, and creating a character for someone to connect with and relate to that rarely gets that representation.

I don't know what you mean by 'are you okay with whatever the author wants to do?' I mean, in the end, it's their story, they can do what they want. If an author's being racist, I'm not okay with that, and I'd complain. And if their story is unrealistically white, I disapprove, but usually avoid - they're just being predictable and uncreative, and the best I can do is vote with my views. I rarely bother reading stories these days that are unrealistically white, or unfairly prioritise white narratives, because that's how I am and what I'm interested in, and want to support.

Although, when it comes to my own comic, race gets confusing and vague. Obviously, it's a social construct, invented long after the time of my comic (roughly 400BC) - and then, half my characters aren't even human. This leads to a lot of vagueness wrt race. White skin didn't exist in Europe back then, generally, so none of my main characters are white, but they're still ethnically Irish - because of trying to at least vaguely depict an ancient society, representation doesn't really come into it.

That being said, because of the storyline and myths I'm working with there's race parallels. They're not really intentional; I don't want to write a race metaphor, because I'm not trying to say smth abt race with my comic. I'm worried about people trying to compare the oppressions shown in my comic with real life issues, because they're very different. But this means I'm concerned about the messages I'm giving off - if my fictional situation will teach a negative message about real life situations that are similar.

As you can see, I overthink things. This included.

also, wrt your query abt anime's depiction of Japanese people vs Western depictions - western/American cartoons have largely been made by white people, with their depictions of east/s. east asian characters being stereotyped - this coming from out and out racism, and from their default style being the depiction of a white person, so they need to change it to depict an e/se asian person to make it clear. (for example, in daria the eyes are typically lines with dots in them, no whites, which is often how e/se asian eyes are drawn in cartoons of the time - so they have to slant the eyes of e/se asian characters in a way that is stereotypical and exaggerated)
whereas anime is made entirely by East Asian people, primarily Japanese people - so they don't have racist stereotypes about what e asian people look like, and in anime - being japanese - that's the default ethnicity. So they don't default to exaggerated or stereotypical features. (and then, to differentiate, their american characters are hilariously stereotyped and i love it)
also, anime is largely for kids, so the characters have different colours of hair and eyes - not just brown and black - to differentiate, and because pink hair is fun, lets face it.

punkarsenic 2016-07-31 21:45:12 UTC #22

I love that comic! It's so well made.

punkarsenic 2016-07-31 21:45:32 UTC #23

holy CRAP thats a lot im sorry lmao

zetina 2016-07-31 23:02:36 UTC #24

Seeing as I'm from a small European country but consume American and Japanese media, I often struggle with real world settings. Do I set my high-school story in my home country and assume they speak my language? Do I go for an English-speaking country, even though I don't actually understand their culture? And then, I'm also not used to other ethnicities - the white person is my default setting when I picture a new character; and I don't know if I should go and forcibly change their skintone or cultural background and.... //SIGH

I'm not comfortable with any of this.

So even when I do a real-world setting, it's always "vagueland". At most, I do vary the skintone for each character. I'm hoping to eventually be able to more naturally include truly diverse people in my work.

I think representation is important. For people who need to be represented but also for other people to learn about the different kind of people that exist. I just don't feel confident in my ability to represent any group.

69Michi 2016-07-31 23:31:03 UTC #25

@HulkHoQuinn When I choose skintone, often time I don't think of characters' races. The lighter:darker ratio of skintone are also varied from style to style. I know I tend to have a lighter skintone choice because it's pleasing to my coloring style, while if I choose a dark skintone, it would be somewhere around the brown-ish color (chocolate color). When me and my friends draw the same character, her art tend to have darker skintone than mine when you use the eyedrop tool to analyze! Idk skintone has never been that much of a bother to me I guess LMAO

@isaacfriedman Oh yes, drawing realistic is easier to stick with specific racial feature, while my "manga" style is sort of generic and usually overlook racial futures. While I can try to incorporate those things in, my character designs are often just whoever/whatever appeals to me at that time. So when people ask "how did you come up with A's design?" I could only shrug most of the time lmfao

@joannekwan OMG jeez that is bad LMFAO People shouldn't be so nitpicky!

@Michelle Ay I got what chu mean! TBH When I design character, I often don't think /that/ deep into how I should incorporate their race into the character designs. I just draw whatever that appeals to me and fix it up later. Most of the time, my character design reflects more of their personality and lifestyle rather than their "origin" ;_;

@shazzbaa Ah right! I mean most of my character's design will have all different skintone because it'ss fun to switch palette around, but I wouldn't go out of my way and say they are all "white" nor "this person is black". But yeah, I understand what you mean! Funny thing is that there was a few Chinese novels I read, everyone was Asian (Chinese to be specific) even when the setting was in America, and I actually had never questioned that... I guess I have never been that much bothered by racial diversity and just enjoy the work for what it is haha

@stnmaren Yes that was what I told people haha, I didn't have a specific race in mind when I designed the character, and I would like to keep them racially neutral since what I want to focus on is the plot and the character's development, not what race or country they came from. I just tend to pick the lighter skintone when I color character because it just goes well with a lot of my color choice, plus my shading style. Although I do adore some dark colored skin character and would surely include a few of them in the future.

@Tanisha I received a lot of "Asian stereotype" ever since I moved here in America and honestly by this point they no longer bother me. I mean my family gave me worse with calling me fat and chinky eyes LMFAO (Relatives have no mercy when it comes to words sadly, but once again, I'm used to it)

@punkarsenic I think mainly because racism has been a big problem going on for a while, I have the tendency to avoid it. The thing about racism is that it's usually just a battle between "black" and "white", to the point I feel like as an Asian, I can only stay neutral and not taking any side because who am I to judge? To me who has been reading Japanese manga and Chinese novels growing up, a racial neutral character is more "Asian" to me, but that is probably just me LMFAO. Even if the character has pale skintone, they are Asian, even if the character has different eye and hair color, they are still Asian.

Oh I forgot to include it in the original post but I did say bellow, "anything as long as they aren't being racist or badly stereotyping people", unless the comic was meant to do that... then I have no word.

@zetina

I honestly feel your pain, right, here.
Most of the time, I just want to tell a story with my comic/novel. I think about the plot, I think about how the character should look base on their personalities, how they should interact with each other, but I often leave out their races because in a way it's not "important" to me. I grew up in a small third world country in Asia with no racial struggle. I only knew about the struggle between black and white American after I came to the states. I understand the need for diversity, but at the same time I also have seen a lot of extreme and unreasonable argument coming from people who cry for diversity to the point I couldn't bring myself to care anymore. Overall I'm a very neutral person, I don't like taking side, I think in a way that part of me also got carried into my work..

WasHNooB 2016-07-31 23:56:34 UTC #26

For our comic The Dumpling King there is racial depiction. Although I'm not sure if its obvious now, a huge theme is racism. Our story is set in Japan and so many ( but not all) characters have a Japanese ethnicity. Trying not reveal too much but, a few of our characters will be explaining the struggle of being part of a Japanese community while being a different race. I think in that case I took racial depiction into detail because it had to do much with our actual story.

I had to make the decision, as the artist, to show how our characters would look like. I was confused whether to draw the characters to their true racial diversity, because it plays a huge role in the overall comic. I tired, but personally I didn't like a "realistic approach" to the characters (art wise) and for me it was easier to draw then more manga like.
The only differential trait would be hair color because Japanese tend to have dark hair. My non-Japanese characters have blonde hair, which is not really true to their true ethnicity but It gives a heads up to the readers that they are "different".

-WasH

NickRowler 2016-08-01 00:35:34 UTC #27

I do like racial diversity in stories, if they are done right. Awkwardly stereotyped POC character makes your series awkward and makes the author seem like they live under a rock.

I come from a racially diverse family and I live in an area which is very diverse. But I do know there are place in the world and people's family where this is not the case. However, you would mix it up a little, heck some Asian people are very pale and some have much darker skin.

I don't think using "anime" as an example to defend yourself is the best thing. Anime is a bit complicated because Japan and how it's people view themselves is complicated.

scythe 2016-08-01 00:42:55 UTC #28

My ex has very noticeable asian-looking inner eye skin thing, but not on the outer part of the eye like Ike up there, and she's white as a cloud. I wonder how common it is.

dglisson 2016-08-01 01:04:03 UTC #29

I have to say that I agree with @shazzbaa that the "default" race, however vague, does not necessarily have to be white or Caucasian. Your story does not have to be historical or modern fiction in order to tell a story starring a black, Asian, or Hispanic person--you can choose.

As a Hispanic male myself, and having grown up with mostly Caucasian media and heroes, I actually am pretty proud to be telling my story starring a Hispanic male, and I am using a modern "real world" fantasy setting. Manny Marcado doesn't make it a big deal that he's Hispanic (although his background will come into play later on in certain storylines). The second main character in the story is a Caucasian female. So far all of the background extras have been diverse, they have met a couple of Hispanic guest stars, I have a biracial (Asian/black) character waiting in the wings, and later as the cast grows I will be ensuring that there is racially diverse casting. I am going to do my best to be respectful of heritage without making it a "beat the reader over the head" kind of issue, instead I just intend that they see a world that reflects our own (the story is very clearly set in the US, so that is the world I am depicting).

In my opinion, a fantasy world can indeed look like whatever you want it to look like. I just crave more racially diverse stories and when I see one it gets me excited because it tells me that the author wants people of all races to feel like they could identify with the narrative.

indagold 2016-08-01 02:00:23 UTC #30

My mom's family going back to russia nearly a century ago looked asian despite being white. Had epicanthic folds and very high cheek bones. Might be that they mixed with neighboring Asian minority groups in Russia but they had no idea why. Probably has to do with regional genetics.

scythe 2016-08-01 04:43:23 UTC #31

Ohhhh, a discussion on accurate racial depictions. What's that I hear under my feet. Eggshells?

I read through the whole thread expecting some light white shaming and I must say, I am a little disappointed. There was a bit, but not anywhere near the 2014 levels I was hoping for.

Maybe people are starting to pick up that 99% of the time, 'racial diversity' is just code for 'white people should be shamed for not filling their stories with people and cultures that aren't white'. Everyone else, carry on. Sorry, I'm not ranting at anyone in particular here, just what's been going on in popular culture over the last couple of years has left me pretty cynical.

One thing I will bring up though is this idea of stereotypes. Here's the thing. Stereotypes exist for a reason. That reason being, across a population, they're mostly true and can be quite useful. What I mean by that is, statistically, Asians really are smarter, and the women really are more socially timid. Black men really are more athletic. White people really do like guitar music. But these sorts of things only apply to large populations, and only on a spectrum, so for every person who exemplifies a racial stereotype, there will be someone else who runs totally counter to it. But that doesn't mean the stereotype isn't true. If it weren't, it wouldn't be a stereotype.

And here's where the honest representation thing comes in. People are want to say that if a person is an example of a racial stereotype, then that somehow isn't an honest representation. Or it's 'lazy'. But that simply isn't true. If you have a rich white guy who can't dance and only cares about making money, that is just as accurate a depiction as a poor white guy who doesn't care about money and can really cut a rug.

The issue as I see it then is the problem of coincidences in stories, which, in case you aren't aware of it, coincidences aren't really kosher. Despite being something that happens every day a billions of times over, they're just not accepted. Your villains can't be vanquished by randomly getting hit by a car. Your long lost lovers can't just be reunited by accidentally bumping into each other in some random city. So despite being entirely possible, coincidences generally just aren't accepted in stories. In fact, they're often scorned. How often do people say, "pfft. That would never happen in real life," when in fact, what they're referring to could quite easily happen?

So to get back to race, people who just happen to coincidentally fit their racial stereotypes aren't technically inaccurate representations, and I think most of the time when people complain about representation, it's because the depiction isn't particularly flattering. But all races and cultures have some range of tendencies that aren't all that positive, and we ignore those tendencies to the detriment of our stories.

Flaws maketh the man, so to speak.

Hey, but we're not writing statistical studies here, we're writing stories, full of individual people, not populations. So yes, it would be weird if all of your characters exhibited all the traits stereotypical to their race, but at the same time, don't be afraid to incorporate certain tendencies into their backstories and personalities. And whatever you do, don't ever let someone shame you into changing your story because it doesn't match their preconceived notions of "cultural sensitivity" or "inclusivity". That way tokenism lies.

apocryphagraphics 2016-08-01 05:39:07 UTC #32

@scythe, there is no evidence beyond the anecdotal that Asians are 'smarter ', blacks are "more athletic", or that women are more socially timid etc.... There is much more science to support the idea that actual racial differences are mythological-- that the physical differences we associate with race are extremely superficial or largely cultural and that humans are indistinguishable racially unless you look for specific genetic markers for skin color etc... Ethiopians are great long distance runners because they have a great cultural tradition of long distance running. African Americans make up most of the NBA because they start playing competitive basketball at a much younger age than the average white kid and because the game is more culturally valuable to them. White people like guitar music because rock music and its antecedents were invented in the west. Woman may have once seemed timid in public because our societies have traditionally punished women who are outspoken. Asians in Western nations excell academically because western nations have limited Asian immigration to either highly educated academics or rather extrodinary refugees. Asia is full of average intelligences. Africa is full of average athletes. The world is full of socially outgoing women and non whites who dig the guitar. You have to look past the idea that people are the way they are because of their race. A human is a human is a human and so far all the science supports that. Take the human population as a whole and you are just as likely to find a white elite athlete a black genius and an aggressive woman. Love your comic by the way!

GesuGesu 2016-08-01 05:39:28 UTC #33

my characters are too "anime" stylized to tell/bother with 99% of the time. I don't mind if a character's ethinicity is part of the plot, but I don't expect them to have to look the part. Especially since in manga like One Piece or D.Gray-man, characters are mentioned in bonus info as "Luffy is Brazillian" or "Lavi is American", but you can't really tell and as the story goes on, you don't really care since it's not brought up as part of the story in any way.

demthorshie 2016-08-01 05:42:43 UTC #34

This is probably the best thing i've read all week. :]

apocryphagraphics 2016-08-01 05:47:59 UTC #35

Well then you are clearly not reading my comic! 😉

avalonmao 2016-08-01 05:52:22 UTC #36

For minority groups seeing yourself accurately depicted is a luxury that represented people don't understand.
In the US, I often saw racist portrayal of East Asians.My webcomic Motsuro Project is not just for others to read; a large percentage of the characters are characters of color, with fullpersonalities and backgrounds that d on't resort to shitty stereotypes. They are full fleshed. And you sadly don't see a lot of fleshed out East Asian charas in the media.
A lot of creator use this platform as a way to make characters that look like them, black, LGBT, disabled, any other minority group and more. There are some amazrg people (like shazzbaa) who include diversity when she wont be the sole receiver of the benefits of having non white characters with proper and agency and a moral compass
You are free to make your characters howevel you please...its nicer though when the audience and reader are taken into consideration. Matt Damon isplaying in the Great wall. I like my representation clear cut and not in a position where someone will haphazardly assume that the main character is of European descent.

avalonmao 2016-08-01 05:53:19 UTC #37

It's called an epicanthic fold.

demthorshie 2016-08-01 06:10:22 UTC #38

That's pretty much the situation. I think it's important for everyone to be able to see positive depictions of themselves through media and that includes comics. I also wish that people would stop accusing creators of being a SJW for having a diverse and fleshed out cast of characters in their comics as well.

My story takes place in an alternate Earth, there's quite a bit of travel that goes on in the story so it's only natural that characters of any varying ethnicity/sexuality will be later introduced along the way. I don't think there's a right or wrong way to portray a character who happens to be an ethnic minority, aside from creating a complete token stereotype. When I dive in to a comic though, i'm more interested in the character's backstory and personality, not so much what their racial background is.

And hey, I love Shazzbaa's work too!

scythe 2016-08-01 06:16:15 UTC #39

I'm sorry mate, we're just going to have to disagree on this one. Do you know for a fact that that there's no scientific evidence for important biological differences between the races, or do you simply assume there isn't? Because I can tell you that there is. It's not hidden knowledge. The studies into racial differences over a wide field of traits are numerous and varied.

I hate to be so blunt, but I find pretty much all of your assertions as to why certain races excel in certain things to be kind of astounding.

Are you really suggesting that if a population of Maoris or Samoans immigrated to Ethiopia their children would become equivalent long distance runners? No, of course they wouldn't. They're not built for it. Ethiopians on the other hand, are. That's just evolution. And that's not to say that no Maori could ever be a champion runner. It all sits on a bell curve. And the bell curve clearly shows us that more black people are born with what it takes to make great basketball players than white people. Yes, some white people will make it to the top, but never as many as there will be black people.

The idea that race is somehow not biological quite frankly baffles me. The people of the Earth evolved over a hundred thousand years in vastly varying climates and under vastly varying circumstances. This created differences in body types, cultures, susceptibility to certain diseases and yes, cognitive ability. And there's nothing wrong with that.

As for women being timid, I was specifically referring to Asian women, and that is culturally evolved, not biological. But that being the case doesn't make the fact that asian women are more timid than non-asian. Again, I'm talking populations, not individuals.

As to your last point, that was my exact sentiment. Namely, people are individuals, they're not their race. Not biologically or even culturally destined to become a stereotype themselves. But at the same time, it's still fine for us as writers to incorporate what are considered stereotypical racial traits into our characters if our goal is honest, authentic characters.

scythe 2016-08-01 06:16:57 UTC #40

Thanks! It's always good to learn new words.