In a post on LitHub, Deena ElGenaidi writes about the politics of representation of minority and marginalized communities in books and other media. ElGenaidi notes that when characters are not described with specific ethnicities, readers – even readers of color – often default to visualizing them as white. Even a character such as Katniss Everdeen – described in The Hunger Games as olive-skinned, with black hair and grey eyes – ends up being portrayed by the blonde Jennifer Lawrence. Because non-white characters must be specifically described as such, ElGenaidi says their stories often take on a political theme, and becomes about the character’s identity as a minority, rather than whatever theme the author might want to write about instead. “How can I write stories with Arab representation if I don’t explicitly state it in the text? And if I state it in the text, does the story then become about that?” she asks.
Food for thought.
Photo by Dmitrij Paskevic on Unsplash
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