Ingela Bohm's Blog, page 54

Throwing your hat over the fence so you have to retrieve it

Okay, so now I’m sort of stuck with a decision to have my boys perform in Carthage… bought the stock photo and everything! Well, I’ll just have to bite the bullet and do the research!

Asexual Sherlock

Today I just want to share this excellent post on BBC Sherlock as an asexual character. I love this kind of intelligent, thought-provoking, rigorous analysis. It’s worth reading the whole essay. All I can say is, Bravo!

http://anagnori.tumblr.com/post/70661417641/sherlock-holmes-as-an-asexual-character

Should art be censored?

Oh my, am I really opening this can of worms? Evidently I am. Maybe I have a death wish. But I feel like both sides need to be heard, in the same text – and I like the sound of my own voice, so here goes. ;)

First things first: do I consider myself responsible for what I write in a novel? Yes. I wrote it, no one else did, so who is responsible, if not me? Sounds like a no-brainer, but I want that to be really clear from the start. I believe that reality is created by what we say and do, so I can’t hide behind a shield that says “it’s fiction”. It may be fiction, but that doesn’t make it any less powerful. If fiction wasn’t powerful, we wouldn’t care about it.

On the other hand, I also believe that opinions and tastes are the result of social conditioning and societal discourses. People rehash what they’ve been taught. We are what we eat, and if we were raised to be hateful bigots, it can be hard to break free from that. When we voice opinions that hurt people, maybe we weren’t even aware that we did: we’re just retelling a story we’ve learned, and we didn’t stop to question it.

So should we question art? Shouldn’t art be allowed to explore the dangerous and the obscene? Can there really be any art at all if we’re not prepared to offend?

I once read a weird but genius short story called The Good Family, in which nothing happened, because everyone was happy and respectful all the time. In the end, the atmosphere in the story got really eerie, because no one disagreed with anyone else, and everything was “Really good!” The moral was that every story needs conflict. In fact, we love conflict in fictional form. We love exploring the limits of our bodies and psyches from the safety of our sofa. The question is, how much exploration is enough? Should we draw a line where the pushing of imaginary boundaries just becomes too gross?

In the eighties, there was a lot of controversy around heavy metal music and video violence, issues that continue to elicit strong feelings to this day. Things like The Chainsaw Massacre whipped up a wave of moral panic, and heavy metal was held responsible for shootings and suicides. In my own country, a powerful TV personality staged a veritable character assassination of a 23-year-old editor of a music magazine, in front of a hostile studio audience, because he wrote about bands like W.A.S.P.

In hindsight, it looks ridiculous – even cruel. Who was he to police what people enjoyed? The heavy metal fans I’ve known are some of the kindest and most polite people ever.

But maybe he had a point? Art does influence us, after all. Who hasn’t felt inspired to do or say something after watching a movie or reading a book? Who hasn’t felt strengthened in a resolve by having their feelings mirrored in a work of art?

Of course, most people don’t directly copy what they hear in a song or see in a movie. Someone who’s mentally stable doesn’t listen to Marilyn Manson and then go out randomly shooting people. But maybe, just maybe they feel justified in their actions by having them mirrored in art? Maybe it can even make the law more lenient towards perpetrators, and more prone to blaming the victim?

I saw a documentary once, where soldiers in Afghanistan were shown pepping themselves for the coming slaughter by listening to Burn motherfucker, burn. Charming, huh? But the war in Afghanistan wasn’t the band’s fault. We can’t blame artists for writing songs that people use to bolster their courage in a horrible situation that was created by politicians and global companies. And said politicians can’t decry violent art one second, only to invade foreign countries and massacre people the next.

Bottom line is, if artists glorify violence, the reason can be found in the world around us. It’s everywhere. Should we lie and pretend that these atrocities don’t exist? Should artists be held accountable, when warlords aren’t? After all, artists only mirror reality, they don’t necessarily create it.

Or do they? I believe things like racism and other forms of hate are naturalized through language and stories. By speaking, we create the world. Violence begins with words, with calling people “rats” and “cockroaches”. Art can contribute to a conversation that dehumanizes a group of people, making it easier to hurt them. Lene Riefenstahl created an image of the Nazi Übermensch. Wagner’s music was used to strengthen German nationalism. Similarly, if rock videos show women being tied up and whipped, or books romanticize domestic abuse, that contributes to the conversation about violence towards women.

So, should art be censored? My gut instinct says no, and yet there are things in film, literature and music that I really wish didn’t exist. What, then, is the answer? Self-censorship? Should we willingly muzzle ourselves instead of staying true to a vision that might hurt people?

Maybe the answer is to always, always reflect on what we do instead of being defensive about it. For example, I’ve used the crazy girlfriend trope in one of my books. I had no good reason, either – I just didn’t think. I hope I gave her enough motivation to be credible, but still: I contributed to the conversation about women who ruin things for the guys in a band. In a way, I regret that. But it’s done, and can’t be undone unless I rewrite the entire book, so maybe I can compensate for it by making sure my next female character is less of a stereotype. I can even bring poor Sapphire back in the final book of the series and try to clear her name.

I guess my point is to keep questioning ourselves. Artists mirror what they see, but through their creations, they also influence the world. At the very least, let us be aware of how.

Telling your own story

I sometimes see people complaining that minorities clamour for representation in books and film, but then complain when they’re finally represented (by members of the majority). At first glance, this may indeed look like a paradox. But at the heart of the matter, isn’t it about being allowed to speak for oneself?

Of course it’s a step forward when a marginalized group is included in, say, a TV series, but in an ideal world, shouldn’t someone from inside that group write the script? It’s about being heard, and you can be partly heard when others tell your story, but the real power lies in telling it yourself.

I live in the north of Sweden, and while my social group isn’t violently oppressed (unlike the Sami), it’s really annoying to see movies where the north is portrayed as exotic, backward and stupid, and where the characters are played by southern actors, speaking a miserable hodge-podge dialect that doesn’t even exist. These movies are obviously made to exoticize us, and we’re often played for laughs.

What we tend to ask ourselves is, aren’t there any actors from the north? Any writers? Can’t we be allowed to tell our own story for once, instead of being othered and objectified by the outsider’s gaze? When the dominant culture speaks for us, it’s just another form of erasure.

I’m part of this problem. I write in a genre that doesn’t belong to me, sometimes about countries I don’t live in. Even though I research my books, I probably get lots of things wrong, because some things just can’t be researched. They’re simply not visible to an outsider. Someone from Stockholm can’t hear the subtle differences in the Arjeplog and Arvidsjaur dialects. But the opposite is equally true: I can’t write with any real authority about Stockholm.

Despite this conundrum, I and many other authors insist on including people, places and things in our books that are way outside our frame of reference. We can pat ourselves on the back for giving a voice to people who don’t usually have one, but the problem remains: it would be better if they were given the mic, instead of constantly being interpreted by a middle man.

I suppose it’s the second best option. We can speak for others from our privileged platform and try to get it right. We can strive to include the less visible, the less heard, and maybe in the future, we won’t have to, because they’ll have their own platform.

Oh, about that… you know what’s even worse? For the longest time, I tried to erase myself. I tried to be the typical romance writer, which meant downplaying my background and pretending to be like everyone else.

Ridiculous!

I could never pass for British, or American. My voice is shaped by my provenance. My perspective is different. I’ve finally realized that I should cultivate that, instead of concealing it. By speaking for my region, I’m contributing a northern Swedish voice to the M/M romance conversation. And in a way, even though I write gay characters as a cis het woman, that is my own story.

The ace of wands and Rayek’s ambition

The fool and the arrival of the High Ones

The eight of swords and Dewshine’s dilemma

The ace of swords and the threat to Winnowill’s ideology

Introduction to my tarot vlog

In which I explain my goal and my background.

Hornblower slash

I started this post to pay homage to another fanfic writer, but they have disappeared off the face of, if not the earth, then at least the Internet. While this makes me sad, I understand that sometimes Real Life gets in the way and makes us revise our priorities. There can be any number of reasons why this person chose to withdraw their wonderful fics, and I won’t disrespect that by naming or complaining about them.

BUT…

I can still link to something else that caught my attention in those early days. This is in the “once you see it, you can’t unsee it” category. Just ask my husband, whose way of looking at the world has been severely altered by living with me.

So, without further ado, let me present Horation/Archie slash from the Hornblower universe. Apparently, this is meant as a parody, but no matter. It works!

Actually, I’ve had a half-finished, unwritten Hornblower bunny lying around for years, involving a very sharp razor, a very bruised face, and the need for a Royal Navy lieutenant to look neat. One day I might do something with it, but I’d have to do so much research, I’m not sure it’s worth the hassle.

And yet, the possibilities when Horatio offers to help…