Rock wrote:
I'd rather put up a disclaimer than get drawn into a flamewar.
alhoon wrote:
There are things that are offensive.
And there are people that are offended.
I agree with both, I guess?
I'm sure there are FoS members who can put it much more eloquently (and succinctly), but I think when folks wade onto these waters — writing about themes/people/events — that have a history of being marginalized or oppressed or whatever ... it just pays dividends to do it thoughtfully, and with an understanding that there is likely someone else out there might read/hear something that just really sits sideways with them.
It's why they always say, 'write what you know.' You are unconsciously adding an authenticity to your work just because of your worldview and years of research of the source material. I could, for example, convincingly write a tale about growing up in rural upstate NY. The Adirondacks, the people that call that land home, the hundreds of lakes, the small communities, their history, their mindset, etc. I would have a
much harder time convincingly writing something about living in metropolitan Hong Kong. To anyone with a practiced eye ... it would be obvious that I had not ever set foot in the region. The foods, the sounds of the city, the culture, description of the streets and byways ... it would seem 'off' to anyone who had lived that as their experience.
That analogy transfers pretty well to writing about BIPOC or LGBTQ+ folks (if you aren't part of the community, I mean).
At the bad end of the spectrum, the material would lack authenticity. Or worse, seem to rely on/heavily use deliberate caricatures and stereotypes.
At the good end of the spectrum, no one notices and no one cares. The work is just taken at face value and there isn't a conversation about whether or not you realized such-and-such, or if the writer intended this-or-that. So, like most jobs, the research and the work that goes into navigating a touchy area is a bit of a thankless effort ... but still one that you do not want to mess up.
A good way for amateur folks (read: all of us) to preemptively handle/defuse that would be a quick, 'hey, this isn't really my background, here is what I intended' sort of statement. Would I do that for every piece of fiction or game material I write ... probably not. But, like Rock alluded to, I certainly would if the work touched on things that have been hotbeds for arguments in the past.
To Alhoon's point, at the end of the day, it's definitely a 'please some of the people, some of the time' type problem. No one is ever going to keep
everyone happy. And if someone
is offended, even after a 'hey guys, here is what I have done and what my intent was' ... then it's on them.
It doesn't take too much nowadays to make the internet mad.