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Comment by racktash | Hacker News Reader

I agree. I love reading books from around the mid 20th century – Chaim Potok and Richard Yates being my favourites. There are lots of things in Yates that could today be considered sexist or insensitive, but they're such a wonderful way to get a sense of the attitudes and culture of the past. Plastering over it to appease people who don't even really read (or watch movies in the case of Spielberg) is just immature in my view.

It's a side note, but I also dislike the notion of sensitivity readers and such for new publications too. All it can lead to in my view is a dulling of writing.

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> It's a side note, but I also dislike the notion of sensitivity readers and such for new publications too. All it can lead to in my view is a dulling of writing.

As an author, I have used sensitive readers, especially when I wrote a story where one of the main characters was transgendered. I got most of it right, but one detail was wrong and that affected the entire story in a terrible way. I am forever grateful for the person who graciously explained this to me.

The purpose of sensitivity readers is to let you know what you're missing in the details of the story. You can write a total bastard serial killer who goes after gay people, but you should care about getting the gay bar scene correct instead of reinforcing harmful stereotypes.

It should be like fact checking on historical fiction. Most of the time humans don't have a good grasp on how other humans see the world. Plus, getting that perspective right is usually far more interesting. You're capturing culture that your audience may not be aware of.

When it comes to old books, I'd say slap a preface on it rather than rewriting it. A good example is the original Star Trek. The show was really progressive for its time, but a lot of it has not aged well. TV Tropes calls this "Fair for Its Day", a sub trope of "Society Marches On". :)

A censor convinced you that you were wrong. You weren't necessarily wrong at all. You may have been correct the first time. And what is correct when it comes to art? Who is this person to tell you, the artist, that your art is wrong?

Buck Angel and other trans people often disagree completely with the conclusions of these censors, who motivated by exerting power over others. Why listen to them over other trans people? Don't give censors that power over you and your work. You're the artist. Don't let others tell you your art is "wrong". It's not. Stand up for yourself and your art.

Who said anything about censors?

I specifically asked for this person’s opinion and checked it against my own sources and knowledge. We talked for several hours about identity. We compared and contrasted each other perspectives. In the end, I realized I didn’t know enough about body-dysphoria.

So I did more research and revised my story.

In the original story, my character decided to not transition and still have sexual relationships in a female body. In the revised story… that didn’t change. What changed was his feelings and reasons for doing so.

My story got better, not worse with my reader’s feedback. The story was more interesting because the was explanation deeper and more accurate.

My character isn’t trans, he’s a character who happens to be trans. But that fact profoundly affects everything about him. And you get to learn what his experience is. And because it’s his experience, I don’t have to get everything “right”. I just needed to not miss a very important aspect of body-dysphoria.

That’s how this is supposed to work. You want to see what you’re missing and make an informed decision.

If you don't follow a strictly sanctioned path, nobody will want to publish your book or produce your film.

Netflix has the custom to massively rewrite history in their productions. And some people think this is ok. Some do not.

See Egiptians suing Netflix over historical drama: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/netflix-sued-egyptian-la...

There is a big difference between editing/censoring existing art to conform to contemporay values (as OP is talking about) and to create new content. New content (like a new netflix production) will always reflect contemporary values.

A black Cleopatra is “rewriting history” in the same way an English speaking Cleopatra is. How do you think a Cleopatra which didn’t “rewrite history” would look?

A black Cleopatra is “rewriting history” in the same way an English speaking Cleopatra is.

Oh man, a production with historically-accurate Latin, Egyptian, and Greek would be so awesome.

How do you think a Cleopatra which didn’t “rewrite history” would look?

Like someone who's 3/4 Greek and 1/4 Egyptian. Not that most people are genuine about it anyway. I have doubts the people angry about whitewashing in Aloha, Dr. Strange, Lone Ranger, and Ghost in the Shell are the same set angry about blackwashing in Cleopatra, Little Mermaid, and Anne Boleyn.

> blackwashing in Cleopatra

Agree on everything else you said, but Cleopatra is different from the other 6 you mentioned, because it's not presented as fiction.

It's not "a show about Cleopatra, where the actor happens to be black". That's fine, whatever, artistic license.

It's "a show that presents itself as historically accurate, and makes the specific claim that you, the viewer, were mistaught in school and they are historically accurate in claiming Cleopatra was in fact black".

When something presents itself as an accurate documentary and then holds up something false as truth, that's a huge difference and is held to a different standard.

Imagine if James Watson funded a documentary saying "actually I discovered DNA alone, Rosalind Franklin had nothing to do with it". It would be rightfully criticized, because it's made up.

I agree completely; I just couldn't think of a semi-recent film where a historical person was whitewashed. It's especially relevant because as a political leader of a conquering dynasty, Cleopatra's differing heritage from her subjects may have, probably did have, effects on how her people thought of her and how she was able to wield power. The way the Ptolemy dynasty interacted with the people of Egypt is something I know almost nothing about and would have been very interested in seeing depicted onscreen.

Il Primo Re uses archaic latin for all dialogue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_King:_Birth_of_an_Em...

> Like someone who's 3/4 Greek and 1/4 Egyptian.

Yeah, but how should her nose look? Should she be beautiful or ugly? How old?

>A black Cleopatra is “rewriting history” in the same way an English speaking Cleopatra is.

So you'd be fine with Rami Malek playing Mansa Musa in a documentary or the next black panther?

An "English speaking Cleopatra" is, unless there's a specific in-story reason to speak English, not actually speaking English within the context of the story. The English is just there so the viewer can understand it.

Sure. We also know the actor is not actually Cleopatra, and she probably looked quite different in reality.

Sorry, but Cleopatra is a few thousand years old content.

> Netflix has the custom to massively rewrite history

This is a longstanding Hollywood tradition, arguably it goes back to Shakespeare.

The problem is people have come to accept that fictional works can perfectly describe reality as it is or was. That has never been the case and never will be. One should not believe what one sees on tv, outside of news and documentaries (and even there, a lot of critical thinking should be applied).

It goes back at least to Gilgamesh.

So in the next season, Cleopatra will be a trasnswoman and the first person to travel to Mars while claiming 100% historical accuracy.

> ...sensitivity readers...

I have no experience with sensitivity readers. I also have no problems with checking texts prior to publication to look for parts that are offensive to (minority/disadvantaged) groups. That doesn't mean the text shouldn't offend any individual - nor even that it shouldn't offend groups.

It does ensure that if you're being rude to some group in your text, you're doing that on purpose.

Yes, and if that's as far as it goes – "Hey, are you sure you want to use that word? Okay, it's your call." – I have no problem with it.

Some excellent writing involves getting into the heads of hard, mean characters who are going to say and think nasty things. I'd like it if writers were free to plumb the depths of such characters in their writing without having to worry about hurt feelings.

I'm not saying you're arguing contrary to any of this by the way. Just expanding on my views a bit.

Do they in practice go further than that?

Certainly be warned about things that might unintentionally be offensive to some readers is a good thing.

For example, many Americans don't see anything with the word "spastic" (as an adjective), because it really was not widely used derogatorily over here. But in the UK it is one of the worst ableist slurs.

That is certainly the logical sort of thing to watch out for. Or other cases where a phase has a popular slang meaning in some subcultures that might confuse or overshadow the intended meaning, even if not offensive.

Even when writing a characters that is supposed to be offensive, it can be good to know if some people are likely to find the character far more offensive than intended.

But if they are going beyond just pointing these things out (and possibly offering alternatives that the author may want to consider), then yeah, I could see that potentially being a problem.

For example, if publishers are insisting that say all sensitivity readers concerns are addressed, even when likely minor, that would definitely be going overboard.

I'm not an author, editor, or publisher, so I'm not familiar with how such things work in the industry.

What do you think, then, about Mein Kampf being unavailable? Or Youtube videos beeped whenever fuck, shit or god can be heard?

I am curious of a US perspective (I am French). On our country what is to be normal in the 80's is still as scandalous today - and it is a real shame in many aspects (especially the position towards nudity).

When I was growing up in the 80's, people would often look at TV and movies and say, "man you couldn't have gotten away with that 30 years ago". Now, people point to TV and movies from the 80's and 90's and say, "man you couldn't get away with that these days".

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