LGBTQ characters are often written two dimensionally because the writers mistakenly believe that a character's queerness is inherently compelling enough to make up for shortcomings elsewhere in their characterisation. Audiences consequently dislike these characters and push back, not out of bigotry but out of distaste for the poor writing of these characters. Authors of these characters lack empathy because they are unable to empathize with audiences that push back on these characters. These authors fail to understand the failures of their character writing and instead place the blame on social forces like racism, sexism and transphobia.
I mostly disagree with this take, I am simply trying to clarify what I believe OOP was trying to convey. The only part I partially agree with is the first sentence, but that is typically in the case of straight/cis/white/male authors writing queer/trans/POC/female characters and failing due to a lack of understanding in regards to the characters they're writing. It's also something that you see from many amateur writers but that's simply because their writing has not developed yet. Neither case is the type of character the bigots usually point to though.
I think your spot on in your interpretation. I also tend to think their is merit in the argument, just not as much as the op intended. Some writers make orientation or gender identity central to the character to the detriment of really developing them. Others are bang on and create richer, realer, and more rewarding narratives because of it.
Bad writers use gender and orientation as a crutch. Good writers make compelling characters - with identity taking a back seat to essence.
Yeah, it’s not like tokenism, Flanderization, etc. aren’t things that happen to “woke” characters… it’s just that people like OOP conflate cause and effect. Bad writers write bad characters, not because of whatever trait(s) they’ve assigned those characters, but because they’re bad writers. All that’s changed is that bad writers are now more likely to write characters from backgrounds they and/or the reader aren’t familiar with, which makes it harder to fill in the blanks and try to see depth in the character.
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u/DarthArtero 6d ago
I read that three times and I still have no idea what they're trying to say.
Are they saying that writers who use LGBTQ+ characters lack empathy? That's the part I can't wrap my brain around.
The same writers also actively refuse to understand racist transphobic incel chuds??