[Link] Stepping Into Raymond Chandler’s Shoes Showed Me the Power of Fiction

by Denise Mina

“The Second Murderer” is the first Philip Marlowe book written by a woman. Me.

Marlowe is, of course, the most famous creation of Raymond Chandler, perhaps the most famous of American crime novelists. Reading Chandler was always a guilty pleasure of mine, his vision of 1930s Los Angeles unfolding vividly for me all the way in cold and rainy Glasgow. On the one hand, there is his glorious writing, his blue-collar heroes and the occasional profound observations about the human experience. But there’s also his liberal use of racial slurs, his portrayal of people of color and homosexuals as grotesque caricatures and the fact that his work is suffused with misogyny. It takes a strong stomach to read a story in which a woman needs a slap to calm her down.

Crime fiction was, and is, anti-feminist. That’s why I chose to write it in the first place.

Traditionally, women never had agency in crime fiction, and when I started out I wanted to try to shift the dial, casting in with a movement that already counted such lights as Sara Paretsky, Marcia Talley, Mary Wings and Val McDermid. The way I saw it, crime fiction was the new social novel, wrapped in a genre that already seemed to be reaching a wide audience of largely female readers.

The knock on commercial fiction is that it’s often written so quickly that it tends to simply mirror, for good or ill, the social mores of the time that produced it. Chandler may have been a misogynist, but he definitely lived in misogynist times, and his fiction reflects that. When values change or views become more enlightened, these kind of books tend to age poorly. Sometimes this aging-out happens quite suddenly: How tired the endless copaganda procedurals seem now; how tone-deaf the books that end with the police justifiably shooting a suspect to death. The tsunami of books featuring women with faulty memories cannot be read in the same way since the #MeToo movement or in the context of changing attitudes about sexual violence and child abuse. Overnight, yesterday’s resilient trope seems hopelessly offensive, even dangerous.

Read the full article: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/26/opinion/raymond-chandler-philip-marlowe-denise-mina.html

My Diversity Soapbox (Or Don't You Throw That "Woke" Shade at Me)

One of the things that bugs me as a writer who aims for diversity in my work is that in the eyes of a lot of folks, any attempt to be diverse and inclusive somehow gets automatically declared as woke or virtue signaling. 

Now to be fair, some are. But not all of it. And not most of it. In fact, among the stuff worth reading or watching, very little of it. 

It's just that there's a predisposition of some people to see anything diverse and intentionally so as woke or virtue signaling so they can then immediately dismiss it as lesser work.

But... They're Trying To Push an Agenda 

To be fair, there are times when people ARE pushing a belief and "agenda-ize" their work, but geez-Louise do I feel like the lady doth protest too much. It's not every one. Hell, it's not even most of them. But they get lumped together by "anti-wokes" all the time. To quote rocker Steve Taylor, "Good, bad, there they go down the same drain."

There are lots of great socially conscious stories with great writing that have at their hearts BOTH strong storytelling and an intentionally socially conscious (or diversity-driven) story. Look no further than the drug issues of classic Spider-Man for some of the best examples of this. Or the race issues of Green Lantern and Green Arrow. Or the new Far Sector comic. Or... well, you get the picture.

The antithesis of that is the trouble that comes when certain groups push back so hard against any progressivism in comics as though "the good ol' days" own those characters and stories outright and modern ideals only serve to turn them into damaged goods. As if "good comics" and progressive ideals don't mix. 

Nowhere does it say that any comics, let alone super hero books, are supposed to only include white, middle-class, straight couples with 2.5 white, straight kids. Nor shouldn't favorite characters change it up from time to time and be replaced with various races or genders. Change has been the single constant in the comics I've read since my childhood, well, at least for the characters who weren't the trademarked faces of the companies. Seems like those are more untouchable (and not in the Elliot Ness sense of the word). 

As most of my favorite heroes are C-listers and below, trust me, they are changed all the time. The designs. The people in the costumes. Their races. Their genders. Their powers and backstories. Why not broaden that to include A- and B-listers as fair game. 

And even then, with DC's multiverse, why not have a black Superman or a trans Batman or a have Nubia take Wonder Woman's spot on the Justice League? Why not? "Because that's not my Superman or Wonder Woman, and you can't take those away from us fans, damn it! You can't push your agenda on me." 

The Way They Used To Be

To be fair, DC and Marvel have tried this from time to time, and often with awful backlash from "fans" who immediately scream about how much they dislike the change. Some manage to stick (like, at least for now, Ms. Marvel and lesbian Harley and Ivy) and some run the scope of a long story arc (Jane Foster female Thor and Falcon-Cap, which was as natural a progression as Dick to Batman, in my opinion). Others are quickly shot down by fans as pandering and disappear from the racks with little to no fanfare. 

It's that "friendly fire" of "I like my comics the way they used to be."

Oh, so you mean the Golden Age? I agree. We should completely reject Hal Jordan and Barry Allen and all the changes that arrived with the Silver Age. 

"No, no. Those changes are okay. Those are the changes that were made for us and we like those heroes." 

Well, if those Silver Age changes were put into place to reflect a more modern sensibility than the 1940s and 1950s, shouldn't we update again to reflect the change in culture and society from the 1960s to the 2020s? Why not a new "Silver" Age change to recreate a new DC Universe in a modern light? What about the changes that need to be made for other generations, more inclusive generations?

"Oh, no. Those characters are established now. We can't mess with them. We updated their backstories and their technology and their timelines instead to keep them fresh. If you want to recreate something beyond that you'll have to just create new characters instead." 

I'm starting to believe Janus or Harvey Dent might be behind this little double standard.

Dropping Some Comic Shop Truth

But maybe it really is about characters and not an aversion to real, modern-cultural change for comics... Sadly, my experience as a comic book shop manager tells me otherwise.

These are actual questions asked/statements said to me when I managed a comic book shop by actual, real, living people:

"Why do they have to put their gays in my comics? They're just comic books." 

Because LGBTQ+ people are part of the real world and they like to see themselves in the pages of entertainment and on TV and movies just like the rest of us.

"They should stop trying to push an agenda on me, man." 

As if having diverse characters, particularly in leading roles, is about pushing an agenda and not just inclusion of all those folks who exist in reality. 

So, what's there to do? Sadly, it's an uphill climb, and I'll tell you why. 

It's because of little hypocritical tendencies like these: 

"I don't mind comic characters that are POC or are LGBTQ+ as long as they don't change my favorite characters. They should just create new characters instead." 

On the surface, that's a safe statement, right? Maybe, if it stood alone in a vacuum. 

If you ever make that first statement and don't support books with new characters, then I won't say that makes you a hypocrite, but it does create a concern to be questioned. It's kind of like saying: "I just want my old favorite characters and if SOMEBODY ELSE wants to support inclusion in comics, well, that's okay, but not at the expense of my favorite key characters who I won't allow to be taken from the spotlight to make room for new characters of diversity, whether by changing them or by sidelining them." 

But unfortunately, it doesn't stop there. The questions continue to indict the asker. 

"Why did they have to make (insert a favorite character) black, gay, etc.?"

"Why are they publishing that book? That's not the (insert favorite team), not the real one. I don't know hardly any of those new characters."

"If people really wanted diversity, they would have bought (insert inclusive character whose solo book died from lack of support), wouldn't they?

That's when the true colors come bleeding out, it seems. 

So, from a long-term fan standpoint, from that perspective, it seems it would be wrong to change or replace characters (either directly as in the new LSH book or N52 Wally West or by new legacy character as with Ms. Marvel).

But apparently, it's also wrong to sideline the favorites to allow for an influx of new characters on a team book that has a better chance of surviving than creating a new character as a solo book lead. 

That seems a bit like wanting to play both sides to relegate diversity to the sidelines, where new books go to die, and then you also get to the last question mentioned above: "See, fans don't really want diversity. That's why those new books don't sell well." 

I only bring all this up because you'd be surprised how often I heard all of those statements when I was managing a comic book store. It's the ultimate "have your cake and eat it too" against diversity in comics. 

They Wouldn't Make Luke Cage White, Would They?

There's a huge difference between being portrayed as white and whiteness being critical to a character's story.

For example, Hal Jordan's whiteness is a factor in his Hard-Traveling Heroes era and he would need to be a white man if that story were told in a film. Maybe Ollie too, as the "outsider" who sees what's going on beneath the radar. But I can't recall, for example, Supergirl's or Deadshot's whiteness ever being intrinsic to her or his story. It's always seemed to me just the "coat of paint" she was created with. And that's what the difference is for me.

That's my beef with the whole "Well, they wouldn't make Luke Cage white" strawman argument. Luke's story is based on his blackness. Changing it would be more than a repaint of the character. Same goes for Black Panther, Black Lightning. 

And that argument doesn't even hold up because we white folks have our ways (thank you, Langston Hughes) of doing that already. Remember black face? Remember white folks playing black folks in movies and being "painted" because they couldn't have white and black actors actually share a scene with each other? 

When a character's race is important to the story or to the character's values or self, then I say don't mess with it or do so only with the greatest respect when adapting the base story. But when it's only important to fans who have read the book and only care about "that particular visual representation" then I'm okay with the changes. 

Ask yourself this: "Is this character important to the history of comics or the history of a particular culture? Is this character or team important to the history of publishing comics or the history of a particular culture? Sometimes they're both. Is Captain America more important to comics history or to white history? Is Luke Cage more important to comics history or black history, or is he important to both because of his culture and race? (For the record, if you say Captain America is more important to white history, then you might be drinking the wrong Kool-Aid. He's important to American history, but America isn't just blonde and white.)

See, there's a huge difference between characters' importance to a race or culture and their importance to the history of publishing alone. If you can't see that difference honestly, you're probably just reacting with straw man arguments because you don't want to sound like a racist. (But guess what... you failed.)

The same argument goes for gender and sexual identity, in my book. "If you would make Alan Scott or Iceman gay, what about if you made Midnighter and Apollo straight?" If you can honestly ask that question you really, really don't understand the idea of representation in art and entertainment. When a group is already underrepresented in media, taking any of the examples away is a step back, not forward. If you want to ask that question and do it with any degree of seriousness, ask it when there is equal representation to serve as a starting point. Until then, we've got a long way to go. 

Who Woke My Inclusion?

What I'm REALLY tired of is the way "woke" and "virtue signaling" are thrown around almost every time someone ventures to be inclusive in their work. I remember when including people was just "inclusion" or "diversity" and they were noble endeavors to pursue, not "wokeness" or "virtue signaling" and suddenly by changing the words they became bad things to do. 

Being inclusive is part of who I am as a writer and a human being, and it's not something I do to try to look like I'm morally superior to anyone. It comes naturally to me as a human being. (Okay, I know that sounds "woke" but bear with me. lol) 

It's something I worked hard at changing about myself to become a better human being from the time I learned about my non-inclusive tendencies in high school and college. 

I don't do it to signal anything about anyone (unless I signal that "hey, I like to a fun story with all kinds of people in it"). I have to do that in a way that's true to the story and the characters and the setting. But if I can do that, then why should folks balk at inclusion as the next intentional piece of that story make-up? 

I firmly believe that folks who react to every little instance of inclusivity or diversity in entertainment with judgments of virtue signaling or wokeness, well, I believe that says a lot more about the one who protests the work rather than the one who created it.

Perhaps instead of looking at it as if comics publishers, etc., are suddenly trying to be "woke" and "pushy" by publishing "all these" ethnic and LGBTQ+ books and characters, maybe the truth is that the environment has opened up to the point that formerly disenfranchised creators are finally able to publish the books they've been dreaming of for years -- or progressive creators finally getting to tell the stories that support their beliefs and LGBTQ+ allies rather than suppress those beliefs.

Okay, my soapbox is beginning to groan under the weight of my frustration here, so I'll step down. Be excellent to each other and party on, dudes!

Political Correctness and New Pulp Fiction

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Take your seats, boys and girls and all shades in between. Today we’re going to talk about political correctness in genre fiction, particularly stories set in our less than culturally sensitive past.

But let’s back up first and walk before we try to run, as the cliché goes. When we talk about political correctness, we’re not really talking about politics at all. We’re talking about cultural exclusivity/inclusivity and cultural sensitivity, and most commonly we’re talking about culture clashes (and that’s where politics gets involved). In particular, we usually are talking about the “good ol’ days” bumping heads with the new-fangled days of integration and acceptance of things like interracial relationships, homosexuality, transgender issues, counterculture (pierces, tattoos, and the like), etc.

There are several points of view when it comes to these clashes.

One says don’t sweat it because the good ol’ days were good, and even things like racism and sexism and homophobia can be overlooked because it was a different time and that makes it all right.

Another says history is filled with bad things like racism and sexism and homophobia, and those memories must be purged and hidden so future generations don’t know they ever existed.

Still another says sure, those things were there, and we can learn from them, but let’s cut our elders some slack. They just didn’t know any better.

Yet another says reparations. The sons and daughters of those former generations owe something special because of the actions of their grandparents and forebears, whether in the form of public apologies or in political and economic changes.

Still others say that when we revisit that racist and sexist past, we must use our creativity to recreate that past with culturally sensitive stories in our art, even to the point of rewriting the past so that characters in the 30s are as culturally sensitive with blacks and women voters as we oft believe ourselves to be today.

Others beyond even those have views that combine some of these already mentioned, often in personally confusing ways that don't always line up logically in their worldviews. Hence the struggle, as they say, is real.

Where does all this leave us as writers of new pulp and genre fiction? Do we have a responsibility to the truth of the past, the values of the past, the values of the new culture, the dictates of the market, or somehow to all of these things and more?

A few days ago, a fellow writer of new pulp put forth the following on one of the pulp groups I'm a member of:

At [a con] two weeks ago, I participated in a panel on “Cops and Crime in New Pulp Fiction.” An audience member raised a question concerning political correctness and its impact on NPF. I commented at the time that writing period fiction entails bringing along the baggage of the era, including attitudes and epithets. I also suggested that a part of the nostalgia that fuels the re-emerging pulp fiction market is the joy of reading fiction free from the iron bands of PC.

I recommend reading the new novel by Christopher Moore (Love Bites, Fluke, Island of the Sequined Love Nun, etc.) titled Noir (New York: Harper Collins, 2018), a tongue-in-cheek take on the old the pulp detective genre.

Moore's Author's Note at the beginning of the book reads thus: This story is set in 1947 America. The language and attitudes of the narrators and characters regarding race, culture, and gender are contemporary to that time and may be disturbing to some. Characters and events are fictional.

Well said, Moore.

Frankly, gang, we as pulp writers are not the United Nations, and we need not be all inclusive, nor do we need to be sensitive toward giving offense to any given mainstream reader or special interest group. We write for a niche market, not some public library reading circle or the Weekly Reader Book Club. Write what is genuine.

End of Sermon.

I agree... to a point.

What are our priorities as modern writers of old-style stories? What are our responsibilities as contemporary authors writing about older times and character of previous generations?

We have a responsibility to research and to history to portray our settings (place, time, etc.) as accurately as is needed for our stories. That’s the often hard work (but still fun for those who enjoy it) of writing—research. We do that because we value accuracy. We want out fiction to be as real as we need it to be from story to story.

For example, a cop thriller needs to get its setting—and particularly the police work of its time—right. But, if you're writing an urban fantasy set in the 1920s, then it's far less important to be as accurate—unless you really want to stress the dichotomy between the two worlds. If not, the accuracy of the Valentine’s Day Massacre or police procedure isn’t as important to a world where a wizard and vampire operate as founders of the FBI.

The same could be said for cultural issues. If you’re dealing with an alternate take on historical reality, your 1920s Chicago or New York can be a super-happy world where everyone loved everyone else and no man ever slapped a woman for hysterics. It’s about the story context.

For this topic though, let’s assume a more real world example and story. A cops and robbers thriller (or even a private detective mystery) or a wartime pilot adventure needs to be fairly accurate to the time period. Racism was rampant. Sexism too, and being gay could get you killed if people found out—among other things.

As a writer, you don't have the luxury to pretend these things didn't happen. However, you also don't have the luxury of reshaping them in to harmless tidbits of history. You have to face them for what they were and are.

A caveat… Some among us are writing what equates to a “benevolent” form of propaganda, such as in the religious publishing world. For example, your audience demands that you don’t use “bad” language or (let’s just say) uncomfortable situations. That’s not my calling, and for most of my readers here, that’s not the case either. But if it is yours, you have rules for your market and you must follow them. But even that doesn’t necessarily prevent you from hitting some of these more heavy ideas in a more tactful way.

Along those same lines, some among are writing a less religious but equally "benevolent" propagandized fiction in which the writer caters specifically to his or her cultural worldviews. These can include revisionist histories that "nice" up the world for "safer" reading or doing what can come across as a sort of “reverse racism” that often comes with a “let’s see how they like it” tone induced to elicit social change. Just like religious fiction, these have their place and thir markets, but let’s not confuse them for truth in setting.

Don't read so much negativity into the word "propaganda" at this point. I mean it purely in the sense that the writing is intentionally out to influence or indoctrinate.

Others (hopefully not among us) are writing a less benevolent form of propaganda, literally trying to rewrite the world to our POV or our ideals. For example, I know of some who are writing historical stories that makes slaves and owners commonly out to be good friends from opposite sides of the cotton field. And yeah, maybe that was true for some (maybe), but that wasn’t the general truth of the world and portraying it as such is simply trying to rewrite the truth of the historical record. Even if your hero lives such a life, you have a responsibility as a writer to make sure the readers knows that his or her life makes him or her different from the rest of the world.

Outside of those caveats, we contemporary writers have a responsibility to modern readers to be sure that things we understand are bad now, like racism, homophobia, and sexism, while accepted at the time, are in fact bad things.

So, how do you write them?

For me, it gets down to character. The characters who occupy my stories are always on a sliding scale—starting somewhere between pure good and pure bad, and constantly sliding back and forth toward one or the other.

Those bad things from history are great ways to build my non-heroic characters. Your villains can be filled up with these things. That’s fair game. If your villain is a racist bastard who beats women and sees them as less important than a man, that's one thing, but if your hero has the same ideas and the same nature, then you may have a problem when it comes to modern readers.

Your heroes can also be struggling with some of these issues, but usually will be more enlightened in the others. Or at the very least, your hero, if he believes these ideas, must be struggling to better himself against them or to begin to learn the wrongness of them.

Let’s say your hero is on a case that involves a man killed because his rich uncle found out he was gay and it would bring shame on the family name. Let’s say your hero can totally understand that reasoning but is learning throughout the case that maybe that kind of violence is never the answer in such a situation. It may not be a full enlightenment, but it is a step toward the light, so to speak. And that works for a modern reader, particularly if the character’s further adventures continue his progression toward being a better human being.

Be careful though, because the further your hero is from full enlightenment in terms of today’s standards, the harder the sell will be for a contemporary audience. That said, readers have always been and continue to be suckers for a good change-of-heart or redemptive story.

It’s important to mention that these issues also involve questions about marketing. As a writer you may have the ability to write whatever the hell you want, but as a marketer who wants to sell books, you have a responsibility to write what will appeal to your market. And most modern readers don't want an abusive hero.

Now, these are all issues that are near and dear to my fiction writing career. After all, my first published story was about the legacy of an African-American boy who was rescued from a hanging by a still somewhat racist Southern sheriff. These kind of inclusive characters who still struggle are very important to me because they ring true. I don’t know anyone who is pure Lawful Good or pure Chaotic Evil (to use the gaming terms). And I love to write the gradations between those two points.

I think that's one of the reasons people respond so well to the Rick Ruby stories (The Ruby Files Volume 1 and Volume 2). Rick is a man of his time (the 1930s), but he's also a man in a mostly black world. He sees and lives with all the stuff that Belle and Broomstick and Evelyn put up with, and all that he has seen has changed him into a better man of his time. It's there, and the writers in the series don't shy away from it. But, Rick's world feels the pressure from it, and he has to watch out to keep his damn mouth shut when he wanders out into the rich white world of his clients.

Also, Rick is a philanderer (a bad thing), but his reasons are based in those same pressures. He's in love with Evelyn, a black woman who sings at Belle’s club, but they both understand their relationship won't work in that world, in that time. Therefore, he struggles because he can't commit to the one woman he really wants to, no matter what, and it sends him out to other women to try to get around that loss.

The truths of his world make a good man do bad things, and I think that's the difference, that's the important story Rick is telling in his adventures.

And I think that’s a good way to wrap this up. The standards and truths of the time must influence your stories if you choose to set them there. You ignore them at your peril as a writer, and you risk missing out on the really important stories that might be waiting to come out.