However, what I feel she fails to take into account is the idea of artistic expression. What is to be said about an author that simply imagines his main characters as male? Should he force himself to have female characters that he isn't enthusiastic about?
To me, this feels like a more sophisticated version of the 'it's shonen, it's always been this way, there isn't a problem' argument.
A while back where I talked about this - about how I tended to envision characters that were white for my original fiction and then write white characters. Now, I could just go, 'this is how I see them, there's nothing racist about it,' but I didn't. I looked at how white-washed my stories were and went, 'you know, there is a problem here' and made a conscious effort to write more PoC. Because my 'artistic expression' is molded by my culture just as Kishimoto's is - but that doesn't mean that I have to swallow and repeat everything my culture tells me. I can choose what I agree with and make a conscious choice to change what I don't agree with.
So, in short, while I feel it's important, there just isn't anything that can be done about his artistic choices. All I can do is adjust mine...or choose not to read it.
You're right in that I can't make Kishimoto write a less sexist society, you're wrong about there being nothing I can do besides not reading it and writing my own things - I can critique it. I can say, 'hey, this is problematic and here's why' and I also go, 'just because Kishimoto is a product of a sexist culture doesn't mean he gets a free pass to be sexist'.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
To me, this feels like a more sophisticated version of the 'it's shonen, it's always been this way, there isn't a problem' argument.
A while back where I talked about this - about how I tended to envision characters that were white for my original fiction and then write white characters. Now, I could just go, 'this is how I see them, there's nothing racist about it,' but I didn't. I looked at how white-washed my stories were and went, 'you know, there is a problem here' and made a conscious effort to write more PoC. Because my 'artistic expression' is molded by my culture just as Kishimoto's is - but that doesn't mean that I have to swallow and repeat everything my culture tells me. I can choose what I agree with and make a conscious choice to change what I don't agree with.
So, in short, while I feel it's important, there just isn't anything that can be done about his artistic choices. All I can do is adjust mine...or choose not to read it.
You're right in that I can't make Kishimoto write a less sexist society, you're wrong about there being nothing I can do besides not reading it and writing my own things - I can critique it. I can say, 'hey, this is problematic and here's why' and I also go, 'just because Kishimoto is a product of a sexist culture doesn't mean he gets a free pass to be sexist'.