Writer's Block: Thumbs down!
Jan. 10th, 2010 09:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sunlit_music[Error: unknown template qotd]
Don't have least favourite book genres. But I do have least favourite books. Liiike...Mills and Boon books. Chock load of sexism and racism in a lot of the Mills and Boon novels I've read - ugh. Hatehatehate the exoticised ethnicity romances (which are chock full of racist stereotypes). Seriously, it wouldn't hurt for authors to do their own research on other cultures.
And stereotypes harm people (and said stereotypes are taken more seriously when written by a white person. The argument "Write more books to counter racist stereotypes" doesn't help much. Because as lady_ganesh said, People of Colour already *are* writing such books. And as lady_ganesh has pointed out, those books usually only get published by small independent presses because big mainstream presses normally say things like "Nobody wants to read a book about a Chinese person" or "Who wants a story filled with black people?" .
For hilarious posts on such romances, check out rachelmanija's posts here:
http://rachelmanija.livejournal.com/tag/genre:+exoticized+ethnicity+romance
Bad/laughable books with offensive, immoral values. The Venom Cock book, the Left Behind series and anything by Ayn Rand springs to mind...
Least favourite movie genres: uh...hm. Bigoted and brainless movies like My Super Ex Girlfriend, and Killer Lesbian Vampires (where lesbian vampires are attacked with phallic symbols like stakes). Crappy sexist Horror films like Dracula 2000 and Scream - where the girls who have sex are portrayed as weak/bad and get killed, whereas the virginal girl is the 'good one' who lives. And Sacha Baron Cohen's (of Ali G fame) movies (like Bruno and Borat). Racist stereotypes suck, they hurt and they're not funny.
Don't have least favourite book genres. But I do have least favourite books. Liiike...Mills and Boon books. Chock load of sexism and racism in a lot of the Mills and Boon novels I've read - ugh. Hatehatehate the exoticised ethnicity romances (which are chock full of racist stereotypes). Seriously, it wouldn't hurt for authors to do their own research on other cultures.
And stereotypes harm people (and said stereotypes are taken more seriously when written by a white person. The argument "Write more books to counter racist stereotypes" doesn't help much. Because as lady_ganesh said, People of Colour already *are* writing such books. And as lady_ganesh has pointed out, those books usually only get published by small independent presses because big mainstream presses normally say things like "Nobody wants to read a book about a Chinese person" or "Who wants a story filled with black people?" .
For hilarious posts on such romances, check out rachelmanija's posts here:
http://rachelmanija.livejournal.com/tag/genre:+exoticized+ethnicity+romance
Bad/laughable books with offensive, immoral values. The Venom Cock book, the Left Behind series and anything by Ayn Rand springs to mind...
Least favourite movie genres: uh...hm. Bigoted and brainless movies like My Super Ex Girlfriend, and Killer Lesbian Vampires (where lesbian vampires are attacked with phallic symbols like stakes). Crappy sexist Horror films like Dracula 2000 and Scream - where the girls who have sex are portrayed as weak/bad and get killed, whereas the virginal girl is the 'good one' who lives. And Sacha Baron Cohen's (of Ali G fame) movies (like Bruno and Borat). Racist stereotypes suck, they hurt and they're not funny.
