If fiction doesn't affect reality, then why do we need representation. why don't want just make every character in every media from now on a white cishetallo abled neurotypical man and nothing else. This is not meant to be hate but a genuine question.
I'm gonna use this ask to talk a little about fiction vs reality, and cold war era moral panic & comic censorship
I feel like some of you take "what people write about in fiction doesn't represent their values and desires" and think we're trying to say "fiction is meaningless and serves no purpose" which I think is profoundly and purposefully dense.
Fiction is meaningful while also being not real. Do you mourn the "people" who die in disaster movies as if it's a national tragedy? No. Is the plot of the story potentially touching and emotional? Yes. Separating fiction from reality while still being touched by the contents is common sense I fear.
Fiction a way for people to explore potentially dark or taboo topics. When people create or consume fiction there's a general understanding that it isn't real. This is why people can like antagonists, or have morally grey protagonists that they really enjoy. This extends to allowing stories to exist whether or not you find them palatable or appropriate.
Once you start saying "oh you can't write about this because it's immoral/defies American values/it's gross" you're delving into McCarthyism and cold-war era art censorship, where horror comics were discontinued entirely, superhero comics were censored for having characters that could be read as queer, and there was very much a panic over comics corrupting youth into sexual deviance and violence.
Before you reinvent the talking points from Fredric Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent, I suggest you actually learn where your rhetoric comes from.
For a great collection of essays, you can read Comic Books and the Cold War, 1946-1962: Essays on Graphic Treatment of Communism, the Code and Social Concerns
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