I may not be 100% wrong, but I noticed a pattern. Whenever a story is led by minorities and white male characters are secondary, most of the time right-wing ideological white men start complaining and attacking the story. So if someone is starting to create a story, is it better to focus on a certain audience and not create white male characters? Or is that an exaggeration?
It might me the case of correlation. They think all diversity is bad because a few shows with notably diverse cast were bad. For example, in DA:Veilguard, there is a companion named Taash, who is non-binary, who acts brattish and manly, despite being biologically a woman. I admit that some of her dialogues can be classified as cringe, but calling an entire game bad because of one badly written character is kinda stupid, IMO.
I love this quote a lot, “Art disturbs the comfortable and comforts the disturbed.” I am only paraphrasing it here, but you get the gist.
My advice is to not concern yourself at all with what right-wing folks want to get upset about when it comes to your art. Their bigotry should not influence what you want to create.
Don’t make life choices based on the opinion of white supremacists.
Unless melanin levels play a part in the story (Huck Finn, Mockingbird etc) then there’s no reason to even think about it. Describe to me how the following character looks: they go by the name Jordan and work in a Japanese restaurant in Cape Town. Everybody will picture someone different…
Why does the story have to have race as a point?
Does a character have to be white or Latino or Asian, etc?
If the race or sex of the character adds nothing to the story, why include it in the first place?
Is the story less if the reader to knows the character is a Hispanic female?
If race or sex isn’t relevant to the story, then it is unnecessary to include and robs the reader of imagining the character based on their own biases and divinations your writing imparts. If you can write a truely great piece of work without saying what gender or race any character is, that would be remarkable.
Just ignore the losers and write whatever you want.
Make them yellow like the simpsons.
What kind of “better” do you have in mind to aim for here? Why do you want that?
If you think about it and want to be cynical and game the system intentionally not making white men the protagonist. Will piss off right wingers. They boycot it and create a bunch of press then everyone else rush to your defense and you sell even more copies.
Always tread the high ground. You do not need to make any statements or push any sentimental or ideological perspective.
If you are into it, read The God Emperor of Dune for a great example of exploring complexity of characters and how to tackle the subject.
Leto II is extremely dominant and authoritarian to he point of instability and terrorism and yet at the same time he is also the most altruistic and kind person in the Dune universe. Duncan is the lover ladies man and ideologue but also foolish and impulsive. Siona is a strong women and on of the main characters and yet there is not even the slightest hint of some feminist agenda even though this was written in the 1960’s to 1970’s. Hwi is a beautiful smart woman with depth that is torn between the love of two men. Nayla is a shallow but likable soldier with remarkable loyalty. She is part of an all women’s army called The Fish Speakers. There is even a passage where this army goes out of control and rapes men. This is the only element of the book that I felt like it was clearly delineating Frank Herbert’s stance that the women in this book were in fact a ideological choice and more than just great character building. Yet still, nothing about this was forceful, it was simply amusing in breaking preconceptions of my reality. I highly recommend the read.
