Writers' Agendas

"I'm sick of this show pushing its liberal agenda on us."  "Why can't they just tell a story without cramming their conservative politics up our noses?"  "That book series is a lot of propaganda."

Anyone who has been in a High School or College literature class can tell you about having to psychoanalyze writers.  What is the significance of Harry Potter's glasses?  Why do they run through a series of rooms in The Mask of The Red Death?  How does Dracula illustrate the sexual repression of the Victorian era?   That analysis of the author's psyche is not a lot different from seeking out the agenda.

Everyone has an agenda.  Speaking for myself, as a fiction writer, I don't deliberately plant mine into my stories.  But it leaks in there.  My stories tend to focus on large, loving families.  I put together couples who fit, not really caring about their race or sex.  I don't set my stories in large cities.  I never thought much about those things - I was just enjoying my chosen role as story teller.

I've been guilty of diversity for diversity's sake - which led to the happy accident of Olivia Ross.  My white heterosexual male Owen became an Amerasian* lesbian and for some reason (buried deep in my psyche) this new incarnation blossomed into the rich character Owen never was.  Olivia also taught me not to force these things.  A diverse cast of characters is good, but only if they can bloom as Olivia did.  She isn't "the lesbian" or "the Asian".  She's Olivia.

But I digress.  My point is this - what so many today are calling the writer's agenda is nothing more than their subconscious mind leaking into the tale.  If two characters fit as a couple, it doesn't matter to me what color they are or what genitalia they're packing, so I write them together.  Is that pushing my liberal agenda on my readers?  If my characters go hunting, am I screaming in reader's faces about the Second Amendment?

There are writers out there actively pushing agendas.  It would be foolish to claim otherwise.  I've found that, in that case, the story telling suffers.  All the characters are stereotypes.  Couples that make no sense hook up.  Those writers lose viewers/readers.  I often think that George Orwell didn't sit down to make a comment on Big Government.  If he had, I doubt 1984 would be the classic it is.

A final bit of advice - if you don't like the way the story is going?  Put down the book or change the channel.



*Not sure what the current "correct" term would be.  Olivia has a white American father and a Korean-born mother.  I intend no offense to anyone by my use of this term.  This is the term I imagine Olivia herself using.

Baby It's Cold Outside

People are calling for a ban of a classic song based on their own personal interpretation of the lyrics. 

"Baby, It's Cold Outside" is basically a conversation between a man and a woman, one in which she thinks she should go home and he wants her to stay.  While some of the lines can be problematic ("what's in this drink") it really does boil down to our own interpretation. 

Can it be seen as him sexually harassing her and possibly setting her up for date rape?  Yes.  Can it be seen as both of them wanting more time together and her being concerned about gossip?  Yes.  It's all a matter of interpretation, and if we see something problematic in it, why not use it as a teaching moment? 

My sister loathes "Santa Baby" because of the singer's obvious greed.  Others say it sexualizes Santa because the singer is using her feminine wiles on him.  (Santa's not allowed to be sexual?  Poor Mrs. Claus)  These people have, for decades, simply turned the station.

I hate "Blue Christmas" because, to me, it's a guilt trip.  You go on and have fun - I'll sit in the corner and eat wet cigarette butts. If you hear nothing more than "I miss you", that's fine.  That's probably the actual intent of the song.  But what I hear is what I hear. So I just turn the station.

Does "Rudolph The Red-Nose Reindeer" imply bullying is okay?  Does "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" support the Patriot Act?  "12 Days of Christmas" has human beings as gifts - slavery, anyone?  Should anything be banned because of what you or I read into it? 

It's not like any of these songs are coming right out and saying these things.  We're reading into them, as human beings do, and even if they did...  this is called a teaching moment.