Why Pop Culture Matters

It's the "Age of the Geek," as Alec Hardison would say. He's a hacker on a TV series that ended four years ago, but his words are no less true.

In many ways, most people are geeks, expressing their deep interest in a particular film, television show, band, hobby, or sport. They are not just comic-collecting, bespectacled nerds brandishing a wand at a moment's notice. The world is full of geeks, and many of these geeks engage directly and enthusiastically with popular culture.

Pop culture is usually viewed as something silly, fun, and not worth thinking about too deeply. Tell that to the sports fan with countless stats memorized, or the budding musician who spends hours practicing their favorite band's songs. Fans of the "geekier" side of geekdom—genre-specific films, shows, and books—often express their  interest by writing and creating art based on it, but some also engage with it through critiques of the shows and movies they love.

Unfortunately, critiques of big names in pop culture are invariably met with someone saying, "Why are you complaining about this? It's fiction! It's not real! It doesn't matter!"

They couldn't be more wrong. Yes, these stories are fictional. Yes, wizards and superheroes aren't real. But it absolutely does matter.

Recently, JK Rowling was criticizedfor her presentation of Native American magic in the wizarding world. Many people, including fans of the Harry Potter books, felt she didn't do enough research. They argued that she appropriated concepts and values of Native American nations (ignoring the differences between nations), and that she presented a non-white culture as less civilized than their European counterpart. For example, while establishing in the original series that wandless magic showed exceptional skill, she implied the lack of wands among Native American magic-users was a sign that they were less developed than European wizards.

Marvel is also not immune to criticism, as more images from their upcoming Dr. Strange film illustrate a blatant appropriation of Asiancultures with nary an Asian actor in sight. Films like Dr. Strange contain costumes, settings, and props inspired by Asian cultures (often lumping the many different countries into one vague culture. And yet, the presence of Asian actors is completely missing. When that occurs, it can feel as if the filmmakers are treating the cultures themselves as props—that the look of Asian cultures is worth using, but the actors from those countries aren't. Children notice that.

Fiction—be it fantasy, science fiction, horror, superheroes, or any genre bringing the unreal to the page or screen—tells us something incredible about the things that are important to us as human beings. It matters, not just to the fantasy and sci fi geeks, but to everyone who reads and watches and engages with these fictional portrayals.

http://www.quirkbooks.com/post/awesome-racebent-harry-potter-fan-art-and-why-racebending-matters

Rowling writes about wizards and dragons and magic. She also writes about a boy growing up in a role he never asked to be in, joining a new school, and navigating a culture that's unknown to him. How many people have been the new kid at school? How many have had to deal with the expectations of adults around them?

Marvel's X-Men, the crime-fighting group of super-powered mutants, has long been seen as a metaphor for race. Kids growing up with the comic books, learning how mutants respond to often hateful reactions from non-mutants, see a similarity in how people from other races are treated, making real-life experiences easier to understand.

Representation matters. Pop culture matters. Because even in a world of magic, superheroes, aliens, or ghosts, the characters are based on our understanding of humanity, and there's no way to write a story or make a movie without consumers looking for themselves and learning about life. When a piece of pop culture deliberately ignores a group, or dismisses a population's experiences or identity, it is a reflection of the world we live in.

The Chosen One*

*But only if male, cisgendered, and white.

[It's been a while since I last posted and I have no excuse. I'll sum it up as LIFE and leave it at that.]

Instead, here's what I want to talk about: The Chosen One trope.

It occurred to me today that often, when this trope is used in a story, it refers to a male protagonist. Usually young (10-18), always--as far as I can recall--heterosexual cis-gendered, and frankly, usually white.

The kid learns that their normal life is a fraud/to keep them safe/about to change irreversibly, and they have been chosen to defeat a great evil. Harry Potter was far from the first, and nowhere near the last.

It's not to say girls/women can't be protagonists or heroes, but more often, they seem thrust into the role through circumstances. Katniss just wants to protect her little sister. Sabriel just wants to find her father.

What I do find more is the role of female protagonist as "Not like the other girls." You see it a lot in romantic comedies. Debra Messing's character, Cat, from The Wedding Date: not the first woman to hire Dermot Mulroney as a date, but the first to make him fall in love. Katherine Heigl's Jane in 27 Dresses is like many women in her love for weddings and desire to help friends, but she's the only person to make James Marsden's Kevin see the love and romance is weddings and marriages.

It feels like a way to simplify their characters. Why, out of all the other women these men meet, are these the ones who get through to them? Why, they aren't like other women! Of course! How aren't they like other women? Uh, well, they sing? You know what? Just trust us on this.

But that's not the only place. You can find the trope in fantasy books as well, but they take a different approach.

Alanna is the only girl who wants to be a knight in Tortall and poses as a boy to do it, and later, Kel is the first girl to become a knight since it was allowed through royal decree. Daine, in the same world, is the only Wild Mage. October Daye is a changeling who has one foot in the fae world and one in the human world, the first person to really befriend the Luidaeg, who doesn't like anyone. Cat and Beatrice in Cold Magic have their own special (slightly spoilery so I won't mention specifics) traits that set them apart from everyone else in their community.

But rather than being called Chosen Ones, and beyond their special something that separates them from other women, they are heroines through the choices they make and the circumstances of society around them.

It makes all of these characters even more complicated--sometimes they make the wrong choices and have to deal with those consequences. Sometimes they want to do one thing, but the rest of the world is working against them because other forces have their own motivations and goals. The characters are complex and the worlds are complex.

On the one hand, it'd be nice to see more female Chosen Ones. But maybe the answer is more to get rid of the Chosen One trope for males. One of the fan theories (almost canon? actually canon?) that's always intrigued me is the idea that Neville could have been the Boy Who Lived. He was born around the same time, his parents suffered because of Voldemort, and if Voldemort had thought it was him and gone after his family, the books might have turned out differently in some very interesting ways. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy in terms of the villains choices, but how could it have been different if there wasn't the label of Chosen One hanging over Harry's head?

Anyway, those are my thoughts today. I'll try not to wait so long to post again.

Books/Series referenced:
Harry Potter: The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
Katniss: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Sabriel: Sabriel/Abhorsen by Garth Nix
Alanna: The Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce
Kel: Protector of the Small series by Tamora Pierce
Daine: The Immortals Quartet by Tamora Pierce
October Daye: The October Daye series by Seanan McGuire
Cat and Beatrice: The Spiritwalker Trilogy by Kate Elliott