Defying The Standards

Over time, at least in western media, certain standards have been developed. If you merely write about a ‘hero,’ people will have a similar picture in mind, no matter their own ethnicity, gender, or sexual interest. They’ll all see your hero as a straight, white man. And it sucks in so many ways. There’s the obvious reasons, such as ignoring minorities. There’s also less obvious ones, though. Using heroes with other backgrounds leads to more interesting, less ‘same old’ stories, among other things.

It’s not hard to see how the Straight White Dude, as I like to call him, became the standard hero figure. For a long while, the West criminalized homosexuality, so having a hero who wasn’t straight would have been an affront to the morals of people (and to the laws, even though an imaginary person can’t be incarcerated). Throughout the long history of Europe colonizing other areas of our planet, white people were dominating wherever they went. They made a horrid mess of countries in Africa by paying no heed to the ethnicities living there and creating borders wherever it suited them. They ruled with a strong hand, taking slaves, taking resources the areas really needed. Other areas of the world, be they in Asia, the Americas, or even Australia and other areas in the Pacific, were treated no better. The white man came, saw, and conquered with a horrid regularity. Women were not taken for equal for a long time, either, so the hero has to be a man, right? Well, that’s what this post is about.

And even though the colonies are gone by now, the problems remain. White is beautiful, so people not white by nature try their best to look white - Africans and African-Americans straighten their hair, because straight hair is white and that looks better. Asian people dye their hair blond (which usually turns out orange) and do surgery to make their eyes more ‘European.’ People bleach their skin, because ‘white’ skin is better than dark skin. It’s the whites who do it the other way around, curl their hair or tan their skin - because they can afford to try and look less white. Homosexuality is frowned upon and still criminalized in parts of our planet. Even where it’s legal, people still have a lot of prejudices which make it harder the moment you’re not clearly heterosexual. Having more positive characters in media who are not heterosexual, not white, and not identifying as male (whether they are identifying as female or as something else) would be great and would help a lot with that problem. Normally, everyone should assume the hero of a story, if not described otherwise, looks like them.

What do you get out of defying the standards and not using the Straight White Dude? First of all, you get a more memorable main character, because it’s easy to mix up all those Straight White Dudes. If your character is not standard, chances are readers will remember them for a bit longer. Of course, some will be annoyed that they are not getting their regular hero (especially straight, white men, perhaps, but some of them might approve of something a bit different, too). There’s no pleasing everyone, so you shouldn’t base your decision for a main character on that, though.

You will also get a character who might approach things from a different angle, perhaps not being quite as strong as the Straight White Dude or not quite as influential or not trained as a fighter. That will lead to different stories with different things happening, which is also something a lot of your audience will like.

Personally, I love casting against expectations and not using the regular standards, because it leads me on different paths (as a discovery writer, I never know quite where the story will end and, with an unusual main character, there are even more paths open to me). It means I can’t just write the same story others have written before, because the usual solutions might not be open to my main character, but then, who just wants to rehash other people’s stories? People who just copy a bestseller in order to cash in on its success, I guess, but that’s not me. And, just for the books, that ‘copy the formula and get rich’ plan usually doesn’t work. Bestsellers more often than not are made by the moment they’re released - it’s not so much a formula than being in the right place at the right time. That, too, is no reason to play it safe.

There is, of course, also a reason to use the standard model - if it fits best with the story you have in mind. I’m not saying that you should never use the Straight White Dude again, since he does have his uses. What you shouldn’t do, is think that he’s the only possible hero type around. Or the only hero type safe to use. That’s a weakness of Hollywood at the moment - they rather remake old movies than risk doing something new and unique. And then they’re surprised that people aren’t really hot on the movies, because they’ve seen the originals and like them more - nostalgia is a powerful force, but can work in unexpected ways.

When you start a new story, ask yourself whether you need Mr. Straight White Dude or whether another hero, not straight, not white, not male, perhaps even neither, will serve you as well or even better. Think about what having that other hero in your story might change about it, which new solutions to problems, which new conflicts you can find this way. Just don’t try to make it all about the ‘otherness’ of the hero - or to tell people who really are part of that part of the population what their lives are like. Chances are they know that better than you do. If you want to make the problems a specific minority faces a major plot point of your story without being part of the minority, you should definitely interview people beforehand and you should have some sensivity readers who will check the finished text and tell you if and where you were wrong. If they’re not a major plot point, you can simply use a character who is not Mr. Straight White Dude and ignore those specific problems.

Defying the standards can be fun and also very satisfying. It means not always being able to follow a regular formula, but it definitely helps with writing something more unique, to stand out from the regular crowd. It also may make your process of writing much more interesting, because you will have to explore different aspects of the character and figure out how they would handle a certain situation. So why don’t you try it out and see if you like it? You can always return to Mr. Straight White Dude, if you don’t.