Characters on book covers, and why it annoys me

There’s been a bit of a trend in publishing in recent years that’s irritated me ever since I first saw it and irritates me to this day; the act of putting a picture of the main character, or more than one member of the cast, on the front covers of books. It’s annoyed me for as long as I can remember, but I’ve never been able to work out why. However, I’ve finally figured it out, and for the sake of a blog post, I’m inflicting my opinions upon all you hapless readers. Have fun!

What the annoyance boils down to, for me, at least, is the factor of interactivity. I enjoy books for the same reason that I enjoy video games, that reason being that I like to be able to interact with the storytelling media I consume; after video games, I’d say that books and written works are probably the most interactive type of storytelling medium  around at the moment.

It sounds an odd thing to say, that we ‘interact’ with a book, but when you think about, reading a book can take a surprising amount of effort and work from the reader. You are merely given the words, and it’s up to you, (with the assistance of the author, of course) to shape these words into characters, settings, sounds, sights, smells and tastes that exist only in your imagination. Reading a story can become a highly personal experience, unique to each and every reader; while the author can say that a character has a deep voice and red hair, how I imagine how deep their voice is, and what haircut their red hair is styled in, will most likely be different to how other reader visualise it.

I’m personally of the school of thought that an author should try and have only the barest details of what something looks like on the page, and that unless its appearance is particularly striking or is key to the plot, an absolute minimum of description should be used. It’s something I certainly try and avoid; I might mention that a character has brown hair, or that they’re black, but unless it’s vital I’ll leave the rest of their appearance up to the reader.

This interactivity is why I find books and video games so much more engaging and compelling than any other medium, even if their methods of interactivity are so different; unless it’s really good I just can’t ‘click’ with a television show or a film, as it’s all there. As an audience member, I have to work my imagination in order to enjoy something, and with films/TV, I’m often left with little to do so my mind wanders.

Getting back on the subject, however, what annoys me about the picture of the main character on the cover is that that interactivity and that personal element, one of things I enjoy the most about books, is taken away from me. Their appearance is plonked down in front of me and made into an irrefutable, objective fact, and I just don’t have the mental flexibility to shake that image and rethink it once it’s there. The personal aspect of the novel, one of its best aspects, is taken away from me; something that is mine suddenly has someone else’s idea shoved into it. Even the most detailed of descriptions will require the reader to fill in at least some of the gaps, but with a picture I’m left with nothing of my own to do. It’s the same reason why I find it so hard for me to enjoy movie adaptations as much as the novel itself; all personalisation is gone.

Of course, this is just my opinion and while, should the stars align and planets be in the right formation, I will make it explicitly clear to my agent/publisher that the characters will not appear on the covers of my books end of story, I’m interested to hear from anyone who does like it. Why does such a thing push your happy buttons? Why do you prefer to see the author’s vision of the protagonist over your own? Leave a comment, let me know; I’d be intrigued to hear your reasons.

Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Feminist?

Yes, this has been a light blog, so far. I’ve put reviews on here, a bit of writing and probably the heaviest thing I’ve put on here is that poem I wrote the other week. But I want to put my Serious Hat on today. If you don’t feel like donning your own Serious Hat, then I recommend clicking onto somewhere else, because in this post, shit’s getting real. How real?

This real. Yeah.

So episode two of Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes vs Women has just started making the rounds across the internet, and as episode number one did, it’s got a good number of people upset. Having watched it myself, I quite liked it. She made well-reasoned points, explains her position clearly and generally provides a good overview on why the trope in question (this one being the Damsel in Distress) isn’t a good thing, how it isn’t a good thing and how it can perpetuate harmful attitudes towards women and how gaming culture, and culture in general, may benefit from it being gone. It wasn’t the most entertaining of videos I’d ever seen on the internet, but it got its point across well, was presented in a reasonable and balanced manner and I generally found myself agreeing with just about everything she said.

This, however, was not the case with everyone. As with video number one, an awful lot of people have come out of the woodwork and have started trying to, it seems, discredit Sarkeesian in just about every way they possibly can.

To clarify, by ‘discredit’ I don’t mean ‘disagree with’. Reasonable debate is always a good thing, and any attempts to discuss the videos by providing well thought-out ways to disagree or refute points made, and to expand and elaborate upon a subject in an intelligent manner are going to help educate people further in matters and encourage them to participate in their own critical thinking, is something that should happen. The people who may disagree with Anita Sarkeesian aren’t the problem here, provided that their reasons for disagreeing are put together intelligently and are sufficiently explained.

The people who are trying to discredit her, on the other hand, are the ones I’m trying to work out. To provide a little context, those responses that do not agree, either wholly or partially, with Sarkeesian’s videos, can generally be broken down into about 4 different types:

1. The intelligent response, e.g. I disagree with some of the points you raised in your video because [evidence-based and rationality-driven response made with an awareness of context]
2. The ‘Can’t she just go away!’ response, e.g. All the people asking ‘why are we even talking about this?’ and ‘if we ignore her, she’ll go away and stop making these videos’
3. The defensive response, e.g. these vidoe are wrong and everyone should ignore everying Anita says because [reasons that, as far as I have seen, take her points out of context and involve an awful lot of ad-hominen attacks]
4. The troll, e.g. all the people who threatened to rape her, murder her, called her a Jew, called her a Muslim, called her a communist, called her a fascist. Well done, you lot.

I’m ignoring the trolls in this post, because that’s how you get rid of trolls, and instead am directing this towards respondants 2 and 3 (number 1 appears to be very thin on the ground). My question to these people is namely this: why?

Why exactly are you so determined to make everybody ignore her? I’m genuinely curious about this. Why? Is it because she wants to take away our games? She stated pretty clearly at the start of both videos that she still thinks people are allowed to enjoy video games, even video games with sexist elements, and all she wishes to do is engage in critical thinking around them, so it can’t be that. Is it because she hates video games and wants people to stop enjoying them? As far as I can tell, that doesn’t look like the case; she seems pretty passionate about them, and in her first video points out that she enjoyed the Mario and Zelda games as a child even though she used them as textbook examples of the Damsel in Distress trope. Maybe she just one of these crazy Feminazis who hates men? Wait, that doesn’t work; a reasonably large part of her argument in video 2 was how the damsels in distress trope has adverse effects on society’s views and expectations of men as well as women.

So, to respondent type 2, I say this; do not be dismayed that these questions are being asked, and do not push them to the side. Instead, be pleased that this debate is happening; through critical thinking and asking difficult questions of things, we eventually make them better. Tropes Versus Women carrying out these dissections may well help make gaming more intelligent, more diverse and more engaging for everyone. In the meantime, she isn’t condemning you for enjoying games that have instance of sexism in them, and you aren’t an evil sexist if you enjoyed these games. Hell, Bioshock Infinite, easily one of my favourite games and a game that I all but proposed marriage to right here on this blog, has a good chunk of its plot built around the Damsel in Distress trope, and I still love it. Even though I’m aware of this, I still love Bioshock Infinite, because all she’s asking for is that we take a moment to consider these things when we enjoy them.

To respondent type 3, I say this; consider the above, and then take a moment to think about what you’re doing. Take a moment to think carefully about how this affects the gaming community as a whole, specifically the way the non-gaming world views the gaming community. The perception of gamers being neckbearded, basement-dwelling, socially inept shut-ins who don’t know how to interact with the wider world, especially women, is not helped when somebody who tries to highlight issues with the way women in games are treated is met with an angry mob who are determined to not just disagree with her, but dismantle both her arguments and her person.

Yeah, you’re looking like this guy. And if that’s the case, nobody wins.

Most gamers nowadays are normal people with an engaging hobby that they’re enthusiastic about; I’m a passionate gamer, but also incredibly good looking, socially adept and a people person, physically fit, erudite and admirably humble and modest. The sooner we shake this stereotype and show the world that the videogaming community is a broad church for many people, the better, but if one of the most common responses to attempts to critically think about attitudes in gaming is “we don’t have problems with the way the gaming community views women, you stupid bitch!” then that helps nobody, least of all gamers.

I can kind of understand where this kind defensive reaction comes from, to an extent. Somebody points out an instance of sexism in a game. People like the game, ergo they feel that by liking the game, and by liking something that’s  being called sexist, people calling out that game on sexism are therefore calling those who enjoy the game sexist. And there’s the thing; aside from in the darkest depths of 4chan, I think you’d have to search pretty far to find someone who actively wants to be sexist, who proudly declares themselves to be a misogynist (and no doubt I’ll now get some troll in the comments crying out “I hate teh wimmenz!”). Even men’s rights advocates say they don’t hate women and are just fighting for the male corner. Hence where this defensiveness comes in, as people feel that they should defend a game from accusations of sexism in order to maintain their own integrity.

The second issue, I think, is one of not wanting the games to be bad. When we like something, we generally find our enjoyment of something can be undermined if somebody points out flaws in it. In that case, we wish to avoid hearing about flaws in things we like, as we don’t want our enjoyment of something we like to be spoiled, so when somebody does highlight a problem, we feel the need to silence them so we can continue to like the game without it being ‘ruined’ by this supposed dissent; this, I believe, is part of the reason why the reaction against Tropes vs Women has been so strong, and also where the phenomenon of fanboys/fangirls comes from.

As a result, this kind of automatic-reaction defensiveness can mean that people possibly don’t hear everything that is being said. What needs to be done, however, is to take a step back. Stop, think, and consider everything that is being said. Are they saying “Game X is horrible and sexist and everyone who enjoys it is a stinking misogynistic pig” or are they actually saying “you’re perfectly welcome to enjoy Game X, but there are instances of sexism in it which should be examined”? Because at the beginning of both of these videos, Sarkeesian has said; “Please keep in mind that’s both possible, and even necessary, to simultaneously enjoy a piece of media whilst being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects.”

In short, she isn’t calling you a bad person for enjoying games that have aspects of sexism in them, and she doesn’t want to take them away from you. At risk of being presumptuous, I’d even go so far as to say that the reason she’s making the Tropes vs Women in Video Games series is not because she hates video games, but instead quite the opposite; I believe she’s making them because she loves video games and wants them to improve.

And really, as gamers, shouldn’t we all want the medium that we love, the medium that can change lives for the better, that can engage us and make us laugh and cry and cheer in joy and squeal in fright in the way that no other medium can, to get even better for everyone?

SPAAAAAAAAACE!

Yes, yes, I appreciate that I’ve been neglecting this blog recently, and I’m afraid that right now I don’t have a new story for you (working on a big project, you may hear more about it later, but I’ve not really had much time/ideas for short stores at the moment).  But today I’m taking a little time to talk about something very recent that pushes my happy buttons today, but also pushes my sad buttons for the fact that it hasn’t received much attention.

What is this something? It’s quite simple; it’s the fact that we went to Mars today. And that’s awesome.

And I don’t just mean it’s awesome in a “Dude, that’s totally awesome, bro!” way to describe it as cool or so forth  (though it really is), but I mean in the definition of the word that means “inspires awe, admiration, a sense of amazement.” Because I was definitely amazed.

It’ll come as no surprise to anybody who knows me well that I frickin’ love space. Science fiction is my favourite genre both to read and write for, the only TV programme I’ve actually put time aside for this entire year has been a rerun of Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Solar System and the only TV series I’ve ever bothered to actually follow aside from The Simpsons on Channel 4 was Doctor Who (until I accidentally missed two entire series and thus have no idea what the hell is going on with the continuity), Futurama is the funniest animated show I’ve ever watched and my favourite video game series is the grand, sweeping Space Opera, Mass Effect (shut up about the ending). I mean, seriously, I could get the old passing stars screensaver on Windows 98 and stare at that for hours.

I’m not sure quite why I love space so goddamn much, but I do. It’s exciting, it’s new, it’s unknown. There are worlds out there made of diamond and burning ice (I shit you not), stuff thatwe once thought were the reserve of pure fantasy. There’s the possibility that there is life out there that is nothing like life on earth, other sentient beings with cultures completely different to our own that, knowing our general approach to these things from various movies, we’ll probably end up declaring war on just so Hollywood can make some new blockbusters and then put ‘based on true events’ on the posters.

So yes, this is all tangentially related to the Curiosity probe that landed on Mars, and the simple fact that holy crapping Christ, we’ve sent a robot to another planet. That is why I am happy; we’ve once again pushed past our boundaries and acheived what was once thought impossible. We’ve defied the boundaries of our own planet and gone to a place one thought impossible to go to. That’s brilliant, that’s awesome, and that’s why I’m happy.

And I’m sad because I ultimately don’t think anybody is going to care.

Right now, this is news. As of the time of righting, this the first article on the website ofthe BBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post, and this is going to be seen. It’s going to be read about. Photos are already being shared around Facebook. People are going to be interested.

And the next thing is going to roll around, probably the Olympics, and it’s going to be forgotten about.

It seems that, aside from a select portion of society such as those wonderful geeks at NASA or pretty much any science or sci-fi fan, nobody will actually care about this in the long run. This is, in terms of news, a drop in the ocean. We have done one of the most amazing things I can imagine, short of getting a person Mars or breaking past the barriers of relativitiy to see entirely new solar systems and galaxies with our own eyes, but in the end a vast majority of people are going to treat it with nothing more than a passing comment of “Oh, that’s interesting.”

I can understand this, to an extent. There’s a lot of stuff going on down here on terra firma that should warrant our immediate attention, and even putting aside the problems of world hunger, disease and war, things like making sure the bills are paid and food is on the table are going to occupy people’s minds. A lot of people are probably even wondering why it would be important. They’d probably say that there’s no real benefit to going into space, that we have no real reason to and that there’s no point in it. My knee-jerk reaction of ‘fuck you’ aside, there is the much more obvious reason that science of science’s sake is one of the driving factors in pretty much all human progress; if it hadn’t been for our drive to better ourselves, to learn, observe and see what we could improve on, we’d still be living in cave. The wheel didn’t make itself, you know.

The problem with simply sitting on our arses and not caring about something as amazing as going to Mars is that it risks, well, everything. Stagnation, decadence, decline, boredom. History is testament to the fact that as soon as a civilisation becomes complacent, it will begin to fall. Am I saying that because this acheivement will be largely fogotten all Western civilisation will collapse? Of course not, that’s silly. But it does worry me that we’re simply going to let things like this go, that we’ve already allowed the space shuttle program to pass by, that NASA has had its funding cut. There are burgeoning space programs from China and India, but itt worries me that we’re simply abandoning our curiousity and our wonderment, our awe in the face of the fantastic, fascinating, mind-bogglingly vast universe we live in in favour of simply sitting where we are and watching Made in Chelsea.  Because I mean, really, just what the hell does that say about us? What does that say about the future?

The universe is awesome. It’s huge. It’s exciting. And if we really want to be the infinitely curious, ever-learning, fascinated and wide-eyed people that brought us to this world of art, the internet and modern medicine. Wwith our cabability to push boundaries further than we have ever pushed them before, we should going up there right now. The stars are up there, and it’s high time we went and saw them in person.