#nonmerlin

Just wanted to show you guys what I’ve been busy with in December. Christmas is here, and everyday in December I made one drawing. Based on a Christmas movie. It might be a scene from the movie, or just inspiration that should hint to which movie it is. Sort of a quiz but somewhat not? If that makes sense... Anyway, it got posted on our local film club’s facebook page. Where people are welcome to guess :) 

Personality traits / qualities / characteristics are often neutral. The same essential traits can be found in both “heroes” and “villains,” as Hogwarts Houses show quite nicely. How a character presents their traits, uses them, overcomes or succumbs to them determines the kind of person they are. Are they cautious, or cowardly? Confident or arrogant? Brave or rash? Trusting or gullible?

At times, underlying personal and cultural biases affect whether someone perceives a certain trait or a certain character’s traits as positive / negative, forgivable / unforgivable, understandable / unreasonable, interesting / annoying. It isn’t a decision, and it usually goes unnoticed. A lot of people don’t stop to examine why they think the way they do or like the things they like.

And examining the “why” isn’t always necessary. You don’t need to know why you like broccoli but not cauliflower; the answer doesn’t matter to anyone, except maybe yourself.

But sometimes it is necessary, and it does matter. Recognizing our own biases is the only way we can learn and move past them. 

And part of that means examining the way we see women and marginalized characters in fiction, even if you are a woman and/or marginalized.

I’m not saying you definitely dislike whichever character because of racial bias or misogyny or whichever bias(es) would apply. But I do think it’s something fandom culture should take into consideration when analyzing, judging, and thinking about women and marginalized characters.

For me, that means trying to compensate for my biases by consciously understanding their perspective, and interpreting or re-interpreting their motivations / decisions / characteristics in a different light. Not necessarily positive, but complex, engaging, important, real. I compare my interpretations of them to my interpretations of characters I know I like: Am I judging the same traits more harshly in one or the other? Am I less forgiving of their flaws? Am I ignoring them, or ignoring them more than people with less characterization?

I think---I hope---it's been a pretty effective method for me so far.