Artistic Licence vs. Cultural Appropriation

44 IMPACT Robert examines the complexity of representing identities outside one’s own in literature. What do nearly-murdered orphans, sock-deprived slaves and arachnophobic gingers have in common? Besides the fact that they’re all blessed with better luck than the people who paid to watch ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’, they refer specifically to things that J.K. Rowling isn’t. Yet, it would be pointless to criticise Rowling for writing characters struggling with experiences and identities worlds away from her own given the fantastical nature of the genre and setting they inhabit and the common-sense belief among most readers that fiction is like a globalist utopia or an irritating friend: entirely without boundaries. But when those experiences and identities are socially sensitive, when they have the capacity to gravely offend or lend much-needed representation to readers from marginalised minorities –say, when a white and wealthy middle-aged author tries to pull off the voice of a black teenage schoolgirl– the line between promoting diversity and respecting divides becomes a slippery one to walk. “The crucial variable here is accuracy. Empathy might be universal, but without the requisite research it’s muddied by misconception” The conundrum is that in order to convincingly pull off that black teenage girl’s voice, the author must first put it on. Appropriation involves approximation, meaning the result is bound to be imperfect. Though, in the words of author Elizabeth Gilbert, “perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes” – in this case, the understandable fear of misrepresenting the idiolects, habits and hardships of black readers and looking racist as a result. To have a passionate readership at all is a rare and powerful privilege, particularly when, according to the Guardian, the British publishing market is dominated by a 93.7% white status quo. As literary icon Uncle Ben once observed, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Namely, the responsibility of writers to do their research. Skin colour isn’t like hair colour, sock size or steak preference; it’s not just a character trait, an aesthetic detail or a plot point. It carries a whole history of cultural baggage, of proud traditions and painful memories, of assumptions in the mind of the reader over which the writer has absolutely no control. Hence, when white writers actively (or in Rowling’s case, retroactively) assign their characters arbitrary colours and creeds without bothering to explore how those identities might affect their every interaction, many readers bristle and bubble with rage. “Just as the worst autobiographies are concealed fictions, the worst works of fiction are concealed autobiographies” The crucial variable here is accuracy. Empathy might be universal, but without the requisite research it’s muddied by misconception. Award-winning children’s author Cynthia Smith urges a policy of reading at least 100 books by members of a character’s culture, w hether it be working class Welshmen or West Indian women, before attempting to put pen to paper. Although daunting, such thorough precautions stave off the tendency among novice novelists to cherry-pick only the most distinctive, Artistic Licence vs Cultural Appropriation: Identity in Fiction

45ARTS superficial, and narratively expedient parts of a foreign identity – a phenomenon dubbed ‘exotica’. Staunch defenders of artistic licence argue characters are purely creations, not appropriations. Fiction doesn’t replicate reality –that’s the job of nonfiction– it represents reality with plausible lies, a job altogether easier to do but harder to do well. And the laziest, lowest form of creation is surely to regurgitate one’s own life experiences like some naval-gazing narcissist, changing only the names and the handsomeness of the narrator. Just as the worst autobiographies are concealed fictions, the worst works of fiction are concealed autobiographies. The glibly clichéd advice of simply ‘writing what you know’ removes imagination from the equation of storytelling and risks replacing outward-looking empathy with uninspired self-indulgence. assumption trumping insight. Are there certain stories, certain unhealed societal pressure points, that white cisgendered heterosexual writers just shouldn’t touch with an ego-length pole? (I ask, blushingly belonging to exactly that bullet-point bundle of privileges). Well, to quote Douglas Adams, “I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don’t know the answer.” The Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet Winslawa Szimborska famously wrote that “whatever inspiration is, it’s born from a continuous ‘I don’t know’”. Insatiable curiosity is the bread, butter, knife and spork of any decent writer’s trade. Storytellers will always cross boundaries, whether equipped with a passport or not. The onus falls upon them to tread with humility, humanity, and heaps of humdrum hard work.

Moreover, the claim that

only X can write about X might seem

reasonable intuitively, but it smuggles in the sinister implication that X can only write about X.

Earlier this month, a heated hullabaloo erupted across social media and literary outlets over the well-intentioned but slightly shoddy drama-thriller American Dirt, whose white-Latino author Jeanine Cummins woke up one morning to find her reputation irreparably bruised by a barrage of one-star death threats. Her crime? Making her main characters Mexican migrants. Her critics argued that because she’d had no personal experience inside Mexican culture and had never herself been in the position of a penniless immigrant forced to flee lawless cartels, she had no right or reason to tell the tale she wanted to tell. And because of this cultural disconnect, her story was stained with ugly tropes and stereotypes like that of the American Dream-chasing foreigner, whose plight can be solved by the monolithic white saviour known as Amurrrica. A quintessential case of

My personal view is that, just as squinting through a window with only partial vision reveals more than staring with perfect vision at a wall, a flawed experiment in empathy is preferable to none at all. Venturing outside the comfort zone of one’s own identity is a risk that requires skill, sensitivity and attention to detail – but then isn’t all artistic expression a risk?

Authors must reserve the right to write whatever their muses desire, to construct whatever characters, plots and settings they deem acceptable and interesting (barring obvious illegalities like defamation). But they must also consider the cost of oblivious mistakes: misrepresenting real-world cultures and identities will aggravate and alienate a great many readers and court the disdain of critics whose quotable opinions can make or break a new writer’s credibility.

Robert Nettleton Graphic by Rachel Mortimer Page Design by Natasha Phang-Lee