Carrie Pruett wrote:
> Here's my thing - if the minority sidekick is
automatically offensive than
> it seems your alternatives are (1) never have a
white male hero or (2) have
> a white male hero with only white friends so that
there's no risk of one
> coming off as superior.
I thought I gave a couple of examples of better alternatives.
Point is, the white male hero might want to treat the
other-race sidekick as an equal, or perhaps even a better. Or
it might be a way to explore ideas about character and
personality, as I think others have credited Parker with
doing. The author might even be using a negative example to
make the point. I'm sure others on the list could come up
with more and better alternatives to fixing stereotypes into
unchanging personalities.
> Well, they don't "have to be" that way, but they
are. You can't fault a
> story for all the "better" alternatives it
rejected.
Uh, why not? That's what you did above. I think Parker made a
bad choice. My suggestion of an alternative is made only to
illustrate my earlier argument about the characters being
racial stereotypes. It is not an "I could do better"
statement. An example of such an empty alternative would be
an unsupported suggestion from me that you spell your name
with a "K".
Kerry
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