Question Is it immoral to produce a work of fiction where the main antagonist is also the only representative of a disadvantaged minority? For example, a film where the psychopathic killer is also the only gay man, or where the terrorist is the only black man. Does producing such a work contribute to discrimination? What are the responsibilities of the authors/artists?

Accepted:
December 24, 2010

Comments

Thank you for your questions. Onecan imagine a strong 'no' answer to your first question, which isfounded upon the following argument. It stresses the notion offiction. If the novel or film is called fictional, that means itdeviates from, and is known to deviate from, an accuraterepresentation of reality. Fictionseem to function by creating 'worlds' that we as readers or viewerscan occupy in the mode of 'as if'. To get carried along by a story,to be affected by it in any way, is to treat it 'as if' it were real.So, to be sure, in the midst of the experience, the differencebetween fact and fiction is blurred. Now, of course, normally wedon't carry on being affected after the film is over; we're able tosee the story as fiction and thus the world it presented asfictional. So (this argument continues), why should oneelement of its fictionality bother us? Or, expressed differently, whyshould we assume that readers and viewers are perfectly capable oftelling the difference between fiction and reality in every detail,except this one?

What objection can be made to the aboveargument? What is 'discrimination' (as the word is used in yourquestion)? Let us define it provisionally something like this: atreatment of or attitude towards one group on the basis of anirrelevant criterion, and thus an unjust treatment or attitude. Suchdiscrimination likely originates in feelings of self-interest: onemight (in the 1950s or 1960s, for example) feel threatened by thepotential political and economic power of African-Americans; onemight in some more intimate way feel threatened by someone'ssexuality. However, though discrimination may begin like this, itperpetuates itself throughwhat can only be called 'fictions'. For example, the fictions thatblack men are less rational, or less able to control their impulses;the fiction that gay men are more likely to have dangerous mentalillnesses. The upshot here is that those who discriminate in thissense are, indeed, unable to tell fact from fiction. And thus afiction that repeated those stories would have to be accounted insome way immoral.

Still,though, might it not be argued that somereal life criminals are X. Therefore, it is not discriminatory todepict a man or woman from group X as an antagonist. Similarly, somereal life days are rainy, and it would be ridiculous to accuse a filmof perpetuating myths if it had a scene set on a rainy day. Thisargument would hold water, if fiction was somehow a randomly selectedsubset of reality. However, fictions create worlds for our 'as if'occupation. So, the standards of fair representation are set not bythe real world, but by that fictional world. Every feature hasmeaning. The rainy day scene is probably linked to the emotional lifeof a character, and is not a contingent weather system. In thefictional world of your hypothetical film, there is only oneterrorist; thus 100% of all terrorists are black. If those whodiscriminate unjustly are unable to tell the difference between someinstances of fiction and reality, then they may be equally incapableto telling the difference between some instances of an accidental orrandom element in a story, and a statistically meaningful one. Nevertheless, I believe the arguments I have put forward here should not be taken so far as to justify a political correctness gone mad; rather, they serve best as reminders to producers of fiction not to be naive, and not to forget the potential power they have over audiences.