#yeah kinda shading Maria Dahvana Headley for this

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

Thinking abt things...

Say you have characters from a mythological or ancient source. like Grendel and his mother. ...specifically, Grendel and his mother. These are figures that are monstrous, eat human flesh etc etc. Across recent-ish history (1400s-present), they've been racialized by white authors along various lines, usually being heavily black-coded and fitting very well into that DEEPLY RACIST narrative. They also exist in a field (anglo-saxon studies) that is VERY White Supremacist, even/especially in academia.

now here's me. a white author. I've been writing these characters (in terms of analyses, original stories, putting them in fanfics/fanwork, etc) for a few years. I'd originally made the conscious choice to have them both be white, primarily as a conscious denial of the existing (negative)racialization of these characters, but also because I do not feel that I, as a white author, could or should attempt to portray characters like this through a racialized lens. I've seen other white authors that I otherwise respect try to do Grendel & his mother this way- and hooooo boy did it make me uncomfortable. great critical acclaim from the community but i felt like i wanted to squirm out of my skin. y i p e s. good message, pLEASE DONT WRITE THAT YOU'RE A WHITE WOMAN WHO HAS NEVER EXPERIENCED ANY OF THIS

however... the more I look at these characters and this field as a whole, the less comfortable I am discounting/ignoring the presence of race here. like its ridiculous, and harmful, and racist not to. there's plenty of writing abt it.

however, I also worry about the implications of me, a white creator, making the decision (even just re: my own work) that these characters/narratives "aren't meant for white people anymore". far from being reparative/restorative justice, I feel like I'm veering very far into assigning these monstrous figures to black/BIPOC authors "because they have more of a right to use/understand that narrative than we (white ppl) do"... and that's. also probably very racist. I think.

the closest thing I've gotten to a conclusion here is that racialized AND nonracialized/non-BIPOC-centric depictions of Grendel and His Mother are both okay, good and maybe even (assuming the non-racialized ones still have SOME kind of message or story to tell) necessary. It's harmful to deny race around these characters or try to write them "color-blindly". It's also (though this I'm less sure about) harmful as a white author to "give up" these characters due to some percieved (read: stereotyped) idea that they're more "needed" in nonwhite communities.

...however.... where does that balance leave me, a white author who wants to write about, cosplay, make fic about, and generally love these characters?

I'm not sure I can like them anymore-

but again that feels like overthinking in the most problematic way possible.

I would genuinely love feedback/critique here bc I'm just going around in circles on this....

#Grendel #folklore studies #narrative analysis #critical race theory #academia #yeah kinda shading Maria Dahvana Headley for this #certain parts of The Mere Wife just make me....ewwwww #tw racism #white guilt #if we're being honest #critique #self critique #self reflection #trying to b conscious of my art's implicit biases and motives #probably overthinking it to the point that its now Worse #ive done that kind of over-course-correcting-til-it-loops-back-to-being-racist before #so ik i have to watch out for that trend in my worldview #navel-gazing artist crap #not even getting INTO my constantly projecting these characters onto the main cast of Notably Pretty Fucking Racist Show SUPERNATURAL #figure out the Actual Broad Societal Context before even starting to poke at that