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.