race fail is full of fail, aka this is a rant (but with gifts!)

[kristin]

i do not generally read sf/f anymore. not since high school, except a few beloved authors i keep up with. i had been considering getting back into it, but have decided not to. right now my list of authors i would be willing to read is far shorter than the list i am now avoiding.

maybe it is because i had been paying so much attention to racefail, to everyone (at least outside of flock) in fandom decrying the pros, but i got super angry earlier looking at the fandom steel cage match. i saw the qualifying round, voted without really looking at the results, then checked back for the first round and noticed my options.

now i don't know all the fandoms, but using wikipedia i found (not surprised, but disappointed) there are seven characters of color who made it through to the first round, two of which (Cameron from T:SCC and Michael on Prison Break) are not coded as CoC. That is out of 48 characters, so roughly 15%. discounting cameron and michael, 12.5%. as an aside, there are 19 women. all in all, not surprising, and not as bad as it could be.

the issue i have is when you look at the results so far. only one CoC (the wonderful Gus of Psych) is winning. only one. (of the women only 7 are winning, none of whom are CoC.)

i think it is a pretty safe bet a white male will win this. now i know the CoC are often underwritten, suffering from lack of knowledge on the part of the creators, shoehorned in and under utilized. i know this. but still, it is a bit disappointing.

people, there are characters of color and they are awesome! take a look at nextian's characters of color yenta meme!

.

Now for the gift. tell me about your favorite CoC and i will make you an icon of them. (i would appreciate it if you could provide an image if it isn't a fandom i know.) depending on how many people reply, you might get more than one.

eta: i'm now unlocking this post
eta the second: gus didnt make it to the next round, so the sweet 16 is all white, with four women, at 25%, when fandom is 95%(guesstimate) female. looking at the results, it looks like there will be one woman (VMars) in the top 8 for certain (is she just that awesome or is it the fact that she hasn't been up against a guy before? i really hope it is the former, because she is pretty fucking awesome.) and one possibly (lorelei gilmore).

Comments

[whetherwoman.livejournal.com]

My point of view, as another very white girl, is that it's okay to point it out and be angry about it if I'm not trying to take over someone else's fight, but because it makes my own experience as a fan poorer. I dunno if that's actually being a helpful ally, though... I suppose I put it in the "anything is better than nothing" category, and if I make a mistake someone will tell me about it and then I can do better...

Anyway. Um, if you're still in the mood for icon-making, one of Gwen from Merlin? Except I don't have any pictures of her handy... *goes in search of screenshots*

[attempt-unique.livejournal.com]

no need to find any!

I have Merlin caps I made awhile back

[whetherwoman.livejournal.com]

Woo! :) If I only get to keep one thing out of RaceFail09, an awesome CoC icon sounds about right to me. ;)

[attempt-unique.livejournal.com]

here are two!

Gwen is a happy wonderful woman:


Who is also kickass with or without a sword:

[whetherwoman.livejournal.com]

HELL YES. OMG those are gorgeous!!! Wow. Thank you so much!!!!

[attempt-unique.livejournal.com]

no problem! it is no hardship at all to look at pretty pictures of gwen!