A few days ago someone in one of the writing
groups I belong to on Facebook put up a post that set off a discussion. The
post was asking for views on racial stereotypes and whether it is OK to use
them in our novels.
Now I'm against any stereotypes; to be honest I
hate them (I have my own reasons why) but it got me thinking...
Can we really escape stereotypes? In our novels?
In our lives?
It's mission impossible, I know. Stereotypes are
well known, or they wouldn't be stereotypes. But does that give us the right to
use them?
I have to admit, I usually find that if an author
uses stereotypes, then you can usually guess what's going to happen in the
story. Somehow, stereotypes destroy the anticipation, the not knowing what will
happen.
I know. I know. We writers do lots of things that
reveal the plot too soon and spoil the story. But I do think that using
stereotypes makes the story even 'thinner' and you can just look through it,
right?
So here are some of the stereotypes that I think are
really just too common
(and I appologise in advance if this offends
anyone - it's really not my intention).
- stupid (blondes, cops etc.)
- fat (cops (double sorry), 'lower class' moms)
- lazy (people from the 'lower classes')
- brilliant minds but socially impaired (usually
police detectives, MD's)
- bi**hes (all the rich women in YA or not so YA)
- whores (basically young women from what we used
to call Eastern block countries)
- criminals (hmmm... black people, white kids
from the 'lower classes', Serbs, Russians)
- terrorists (too large group to count them
all, but let's face it, at the moment this group is usually depicted as being
Muslim)
And here is another – well, actually another two.
Unfortunately, both are so true:
