It can be from any angle. Presently, I’m pondering what kind of context various LGBTQ+ characters can be written without making any kind of political statement, or rather, simply making a statement through normalization in a natural way. In other words, how do I empathize like the cool kids clique?
a much deeper explanation and context
The only example that comes to mind is the Star Trek Discovery pilot. I tried watching it but it felt cringe to me, like overt feminism without normalization or balance. I had recently finished all of the primary Dune series and absolutely loved Siona and the Fish Speaker army of women (that rapes men at one point) in GEoD; Sheeana, Darwi, and Murbella in Heretics/Chapterhouse; the Bene Gesserit, Honored Matre, etc. I never thought twice about these roles being a statement in of itself. These were simply great characters that happened to be women.
Another example is R. Daneel Olivaw in many of Asimov’s books. They are normalized AGI without the dystopian bias message and fear mongering.
Tell me about your favorite characters or how some niche and underrepresented group is/can be done right please. I’m not just asking about the diversity of those that tend to stand out as targets for conservatives. I want to know about that aspect of your life that very few people are aware of.
For instance I am an ex Jehovah’s Witness. I know what it is like to be raised in social isolation even within a city and suburbia. I know about the artificial mental wall and duality of ‘us versus them’ and how facts are subjectively ignored and filtered. I know how social network isolation is reinforced and used to manipulate. I also know how the brainwashing is achieved both intentionally and unintentionally. Then there is the misogyny, and unique forms of prejudice, and conventional forms with the normalization of hate. I can write this kind of character well, or rather how it feels to escape such a system, the loneliness, the intellectual insecurities, the ungrounded curiosity and the unbounded feeling of escaping the oppression while building a moral and philosophical ethos from scratch after rejecting everything your life was built upon. It is a tragic character that is stuck in the middle; very capable, but very difficult to realize their potential.
Tell me about your secret character like I have revealed mine please. How do I write them in a way that feels natural in their triumphs and vulnerabilities?
For LGBTQ+ specifically, Todd from Bojack Horseman. He’s asexual, and he just kind of…is asexual. It’s a major plot line of character development as he figures himself out, but the asexuality isn’t a gimmick or hook. We care about Todd and this matters a lot to him, so we care about it too. It happens to be him exploring his (a)sexuality, but it could have been anything.
Abed Nadir in Community is one of the best examples IMO of doing diversity in tv right. He is autistic, and that fact is central not just to his character but to making the whole show work. Being autistic creates jokes, it’s never the joke itself. (He’s also not precious or off-limits. Abed IS the butt of some jokes, but not his autism.) He is arguably the audience surrogate despite (because of?) so much of his “deal” being how he doesn’t relate to people like everyone else. In general no one feels sorry for him (and when someone does they look like the asshole by the end of the episode). He has a lot of classic, stereotypical ASD traits, but they are treated like personality traits. He’s a shining example of why identity-first language feels important for a lot of people: he is a complex and fleshed-out whole person as he is. If you took away his autism he’d be flat and boring and unrelatable, a completely different character.
Abed and Todd both kind of just exist very authentically in their worlds. No one (character or writer) is asking you to feel a particular way about them, just to appreciate them for who they are like any other character. If we care about the world and the character, we’ll care about what matters to them.