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mouseworks at 04:31pm on 20/04/2010
mouseworks at 04:31pm on 20/04/2010Most popular fictions are vicarious winning experiences that subvert themselves. If they didn't, we'd be called to change our lives. They're read by people who escape into identifying with the protagonists. Written printed fiction comes from either from people who have a certain combination of ability and determination to make the time to do something that their families and employers discourage or from those who come from fairly privileged backgrounds where their immediate income wasn't critical to their families survival. Mostly the latter.
The poor are neither the audience nor the producers of written fiction, with some very rare exceptions.
The writings that are about being down and out and dealing come from people whose culture comes from music, song lyrics, and bars -- see Jerry Lee Lewis, or listen to any non-Nashville clone country band. The black equivalent is rap -- Lil Kim did time in the Philly jail for not testifying against a colleague. "Get Rich or Die Trying" doesn't lead to a tenured chair. It leads to making money however one can. It's the bootleggers in the mountains; it's the drug dealers in the cities. It's the people who'll do anything, legal or not, to give their children better chances in life, and their idea of a better life is not becoming a Ph.D. in English or an MFA in creative writing. That's for people with economic resources to spare.
The guy who runs the power buffer may, in his loves and leisure, may do more interesting things than we hear about, but he's not going to be writing for or to us. My uncle gave me some amazing stories about life in the factories, the local juke joints, all the stuff my father fled at 18 for college and beyond. We mostly don't know those people (and my uncle is somewhat clueless about his own agricultural workers). When I have gotten views into their lives, it's very hard to figure out how to write about them (I've been sitting on such a story for several years now).
(This is also why I think worrying about getting more black writers or readers into a field is confusing effect for cause. As we have more of those people living middle class lives and upper middle class lives, more of them will develop middle class tastes, which may or may not be a particularly good thing. Electing Obama was a better thing to be concerned about, but making room for a scattering of POC simply gives gigs to careerists who don't have an audience in POC circles or in the poor white circles which are so much like them).
The middle class tend to like both stories where they can admire the spunk of the workers and stories where they can imagine themselves to be capable of being heroic upper class kings and princes and mages. It's a wonderful group to write for since they have more money in aggregate than the rich.
The poor are neither the audience nor the producers of written fiction, with some very rare exceptions.
The writings that are about being down and out and dealing come from people whose culture comes from music, song lyrics, and bars -- see Jerry Lee Lewis, or listen to any non-Nashville clone country band. The black equivalent is rap -- Lil Kim did time in the Philly jail for not testifying against a colleague. "Get Rich or Die Trying" doesn't lead to a tenured chair. It leads to making money however one can. It's the bootleggers in the mountains; it's the drug dealers in the cities. It's the people who'll do anything, legal or not, to give their children better chances in life, and their idea of a better life is not becoming a Ph.D. in English or an MFA in creative writing. That's for people with economic resources to spare.
The guy who runs the power buffer may, in his loves and leisure, may do more interesting things than we hear about, but he's not going to be writing for or to us. My uncle gave me some amazing stories about life in the factories, the local juke joints, all the stuff my father fled at 18 for college and beyond. We mostly don't know those people (and my uncle is somewhat clueless about his own agricultural workers). When I have gotten views into their lives, it's very hard to figure out how to write about them (I've been sitting on such a story for several years now).
(This is also why I think worrying about getting more black writers or readers into a field is confusing effect for cause. As we have more of those people living middle class lives and upper middle class lives, more of them will develop middle class tastes, which may or may not be a particularly good thing. Electing Obama was a better thing to be concerned about, but making room for a scattering of POC simply gives gigs to careerists who don't have an audience in POC circles or in the poor white circles which are so much like them).
The middle class tend to like both stories where they can admire the spunk of the workers and stories where they can imagine themselves to be capable of being heroic upper class kings and princes and mages. It's a wonderful group to write for since they have more money in aggregate than the rich.
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