The Trouble with Marginalized Characters

"We run the risk of focusing on the marginalized identity instead of the character him/herself."

In my recently published novel ‘The Aggrieved Parties’ the protagonist, Phany Som, a gay middle-aged Cambodian-American woman says, “If I were a character in someone’s novel the last thing I would want is for the author to waste time thinking, ‘How does a middle-aged gay Cambodian- American woman talk? How does she sit? What would she eat?’ Like there’s some sort of typology for it.”

Not surprisingly, this author agrees with Phany's assessment. In drawing up marginalized characters we run the risk of focusing on the marginalized identity instead of the character him/herself.

In the story, Phany also responds to praise offered by a self-proclaimed progressive for her sexuality with disdain, “… as if my sexuality were some sort of political statement.” Reductionism in its plainest form.

"Identity is an attribute, not an indelible, overriding cause of Who We Are."

Phany Som is a complex character of numerous virtues and flaws. She also happens to be sexually attracted to other women. And although this does affect the narrative, it does not determine or dominate Phany's entire narrative structure. Identity is an attribute, not an indelible, overriding cause of Who We Are.

In my previous novel, ‘The Little Suicides’, the protagonist was a cisgender white Western male. It’s rather easy to write from such a perspective since that happens to matches my own extant identity. So, in order to spice up his world, I tossed him naked into Japan and the Philippines, despite his having never traveled outside the west in his life. In that story, his own identity becomes challenged and, ultimately, altered. Identities, including those of the traditionally marginalized, are fluid, not static.

For ‘The Aggrieved Parties’, I tried to write from the perspective of someone completely unlike myself, doing so not only through Phany’s extant identity, but also from her perspective as a 6-year old child in 1975 Cambodia, and moreover, as one who has been traumatized by having witnessed something horrible. This represented a real challenge to myself. It is up to the reader to decide if, as a writer, I could see through the eyes of someone so inherently different from myself.

"I would be very interested in seeing which actress could play Marika convincingly."

In fact, the character in The Aggrieved Parties I enjoyed writing the most was Marika Machida, a troubled, awkward Japanese female assistant investigator who suffers from several debilitating mental issues, including OCD. Beyond being Asian and female, Marika is psychologically marginalized – and this becomes her dominant quality. Yet, despite her struggles, Marika proves to be closest thing to a moral ‘hero’ in the story.

If the book were ever to be made into a movie (touches wood) I would be very interested in seeing which actress could play Marika convincingly.

"...a singular monolithic identity hive mind, a template, one that will surely produce a caricature rather than a human being."

The bottom line is that we are all made up of multiple, often competing, identities. As borders fade and mobility increases, these identities are becoming even more increasingly hybrid. Simply asking oneself a banal question such as, ‘How do transgender people feel?’ is not sufficient. The very question assumes a singular monolithic identity hive mind, a template, one that will surely produce a caricature rather than a human being (identity politics achieve the same thing – even for those who advocates claim to be defending). It denies those murky, incalculable psychological qualities that make characters fully human and enticingly complex.

The so-called 'marginalized' qualities of marginalized characters are thus better left… in the margins. Although they may be essential to the character's overall identity, these are nonetheless peripheral when trying to construct or understand the person/the novel’s character as a whole.