Please watch Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun

I really dislike Kawaii Future Bass or whatever this genre is called so I made it sound shitty with a bunch of random samples.

A japanese-american Beth Harmon would be pidgeonholed as another nerdy asian stock character. Baby Driver with a black lead would be accused of perpetuating stereotypes about black youth and crime. Phantom Of The Opera with a female Phantom would be accused of playing into the predatory lesbian stereotype. Romeo & Juliet with a gay couple would be accused of pulling the bury your gays trope – and no, you can’t just rewrite it into having a happy ending, the final tragedy of the tale is the rock onto which the entire central thesis statement of the play stands on. Remove that one element and you change the whole point of the story from a “look at what senseless hatred does to our youth” cautionary tale to a “love conquers all” inspiration piece, and it may not be the story the author wants to tell.

Sometimes, in order for a given story to function (and keep in mind, by function I don’t mean just logistically, but also thematically) it is necessary that your protagonist has specific personality traits that will play out in significant ways in the story. Or that they come from a specific background that will be an important element to the narrative. Or that they go through a particular experience that will consist on crucial plot point. All those narrative tools and building blocks are considered to be completely harmless and neutral when telling stories about straight/white people but, when applied to marginalized characters, it can be difficult to navigate them as, depending on the type of story you might want to tell, you may be steering dangerously close to falling into Unfortunate Implications™. And trying to find alternatives as to avoid falling into potentially iffy subtext is not always easy, as, depending on how central the “problematic” element to your plot, it could alter the very foundation of the story you’re trying to tell beyond recognition. See the point above about Romeo & Juliet.    

Like, I once saw a woman a gringa obviously accuse the movie Knives Out of racism because the one latina character in the otherwise consistently white and wealthy cast is the nurse, when everyone who watched the movie with their eyes and not their ass can see that the entire tension of the plot hinges upon not only the power imbalance between Martha and the Thrombeys, but also on her isolation as the one latina immigrant navigating a world of white rich people. I’ve seen people paint Rosa Diaz as an example of the Hothead Latina stereotype, when Rosa was originally written as a white woman (named Megan) and only turned latina later when Stephanie Beatriz was cast  – and it’s not like they could write out Rosa’s anger issues to avoid bad optics when it is such a defining trait of her character. I’ve seen people say Mulholland Drive is a lesbophobic movie when its story couldn’t even exist in first place if the fatally toxic lesbian relationship that moves the plot was healthy, or if it was straight.                          

That’s not to say we can’t ever question the larger patterns in stories about certain demographics, or not draw lines between artistic liberty and social responsibility, and much less that I know where such lines should be drawn. I made this post precisely to raise a discussion, not to silence people. But one thing I think it’s important to keep in mind in such discussions is that stereotypes, after all, are all about oversimplification. It is more productive, I believe, to evaluate the quality of the representation in any given piece of fiction by looking first into how much its minority characters are a) deep, complex, well-rounded, b) treated with care by the narrative, with plenty of focus and insight into their inner life, and c) a character in their own right that can carry their own storyline and doesn’t just exist to prop up other character’s stories. And only then, yes, look into their particular characterization, but without ever overlooking aspects such as the context and how nuanced such characterization is handled. Much like we’ve moved on from the simplistic mindset that a good female character is necessarily one that punches good otherwise she’s useless, I really do believe that it is time for us to move on from the the idea that there’s a one-size-fits-all model of good representation and start looking into the core of representation issues (meaning: how painfully flat it is, not to mention scarce) rather than the window dressing.

I know I am starting to sound like a broken record here, but it feels that being a latina author writing about latine characters is a losing game, when there’s extra pressure on minority authors to avoid ~problematic~ optics in their work on the basis of the “you should know better” argument. And this “lower common denominator” approach to representation, that bars people from exploring otherwise interesting and meaningful concepts in stories because the most narrow minded people in the audience will get their biases confirmed, in many ways, sounds like a new form of respectability politics. Why, if it was gringos that created and imposed those stereotypes onto my ethnicity, why it should be my responsibility as a latina creator to dispel such stereotypes by curbing my artistic expression? Instead of asking of them to take responsibility for the lenses and biases they bring onto the text? Why is it too much to ask from people to wrap their minds about the ridiculously basic concept that no story they consume about a marginalized person should be taken as a blanket representation of their entire community?

It’s ridiculous. Gringos at some point came up with the idea that latinos are all naturally inclined to crime, so now I, a latina who loves heist movies, can’t write a latino character who’s a cool car thief. Gentiles created antisemitic propaganda claiming that the jews are all blood drinking monsters, so now jewish authors who love vampires can’t write jewish vampires. Straights made up the idea that lesbian relationships tend to be unhealthy, so now sapphics who are into Brontë-ish gothic romance don’t get to read this type of story with lesbian protagonists. I want to scream.      

Update from Tan Jiu, translated by Yaoi-BLCD.

Their Story Character Guide

“But I got bored of feeling depressed, so I got to thinking… I wanted to get my love for skating back.”

Whenever I hear these statements, I interpret it as “Not all men, but enough men to make this a prominent issue amongst men”

Yuri is a character that struggles with his weight, and he is a professional athlete. This isn’t a one time comment or information from an interview, it is an actual character trait and something as simple as showing what Yuri eats maintains this consistently.

Yuri had a bit of a crush on Yuko when they were children, but the fact they never got together doesn’t mean they are no longer friends; they care for each other, for each other’s families, root for each other and are always happy when the other is happy

on top of that Yuko is married to Takeshi, and Takeshi is a good friend of Yuri’s as well. The Nishigori marriage are easily Yuri’s closest friends in Japan and their daughters are fans of him too.

Yuri doesn’t get on Yurio’s level whenever Yurio is mean to him, the only time Yuri competes against Yurio is on the rink when they are skating cause they are both professional skaters. Yuri, an adult, does not fight a teenager but doesn’t let him win either.

Yuri’s friends support Yurio as well. Even if Yurio is still pissed at Viktor, Yurio does communicate with Yuko and her family and doesn’t treat them badly for being Yuri’s friends.

this may seem like a small thing but, the main pairing in this show is made out of two adults. Yes it may not seem like much but if this was any type of Yaoi, a literal child would wind up portrayed as the one having a romance with his coach.

Yuri’s problems are stated as being psychological. Mental and emotional issues affect your life and it is ok to portray that.

Yuri’s previous coach still talks to him and is proud of him, same as his ballet teacher. Just because you changed careers or are trying something new, that doesn’t mean that all the people you knew before are gone from your life.

Yurio is not used to loosing, but upon loosing to someone else that he looked down on he changed strategies and stepped up his game.

Yuri is not afraid to be selfish anymore. People praise selflessness, but that shouldn’t come in the way of not moving forward. Yes you can want someone else’s affection, you deserve to win at what you are working on, you deserve to feel important and to not let others tell you otherwise.

you can be an adult and still decide to do something new with your life

Yuri’s parents don’t know anything about his career besides “he got a good rank we guess”. I actually relate to this a lot cause no one in my family has the same career as me, not even distant cousins, so there’s only so much of what I do that they can actually understand.

that said, just because they don’t get it, this doesn’t mean they don’t support it. Sometimes all your parents know to do with what you like is tell you “sure go ahead” and that’s a form of encouragement. They found a dance teacher for Yuri and let him ice skate (which is probably not cheap) and they always watch his competitions.

this is an international competition. And we have people from at least 3 continents representing that. A character from Thailand? can’t remember seeing that elsewhere, a dude from Switzerland? Azerbaijan too? the Chinese boy is not a kung fu stereotype? and the American one is Latino?!?!? yes please

by スズキハヤセ