🔹 Someone else’s fiction cannot cause you physical harm.
🔹If someone else’s fiction is causing you emotional or psychological harm, or distress, you can put it down and not read/watch it.
🔹Your emotional well-being is not the responsibility of fiction writers.
🔹Someone else’s fiction is not about your personal trauma.
🔹When reading or watching fiction, you always have the power. You can always stop. You are never reading fiction without your own consent.
🔹Fiction writers are not responsible for other people’s mental health.
🔹The content of a piece of fiction does not reflect on the morality of its author.
🔹Just because someone writes about bad things happening, doesn’t mean they want those things to happen.
🔹Don’t like? Don’t read.
“The content of a piece of fiction does not reflect on the morality of its author.”
Allow me to be clearer, because I think you misunderstand.
Your personal interpretation of the content of a piece of fiction does not reflect on the morality of it’s author.
You have to understand that you’re, lowkey, being dismissive.
Every interpretation of a story is- personal. You aren’t gonna interpret the entire story the exact same way your friends interpret it or even the author itself. Our interpretation is entirely based on personal feelings, knowledge, experience, etc. It’s an inherently subjective process.
Though, that doesn’t magically mean our interpretation of things are inherently false, kind of like how you shouldn’t just dismiss people that think the Earth is flat or Pluto is a planet. You should be asking, “Why? Why do you think the Earth is flat? Why do you think Pluto is a planet? Why do you think [random author goes here] is a bad person? What evidence do have that supports this?”
Media literacy is gonna stay low if we can’t bring ourselves to have more constructive discussions.
I feel like we have some kind of miscommunication or disconnect of meaning here.
Because I agree with you that every interpretation of a story is personal.
Which is exactly why we can’t draw any conclusions about an author’s morality based solely on the content of their writing and our interpretation of it.
There was a post going around recently where someone had misinterpreted Miyazaki’s anti-fascist work to believe that he was pro-fascist.
A person can’t go around assuming that an author believes in immoral ideas just because the characters in their fiction act in immoral ways.
But, they can. They can go around assuming an author believes in immoral ideas simply because the characters in their stories act in immoral ways. That have the right to do that, and should have the right to do.
The way to address that kind of problem is not the spreading absurd lie that “…we can’t draw any conclusions about an author’s morality based solely on the content of their writing and our interpretation of it.” As a writer myself, I just think it’s an unreasonably defensive position to take.
A much better solution would be talking to these people, challenging them and making them defend their positions. Making them explain themselves, and support themselves with evidence. At the same time, providing evidence as to why what they believe is wrong.
The shape of the Earth has been questioned and discussed so much that it is easily one of the most well supported scientific theories out there. In other words, we should see people misinterpreting Miyazaki’s work as opportunities to grow ourselves and help others grow. You have every right to be annoyed and frustrated, but at the end of the day, the best weapon against misinformation and disinformation, is true information.
I am gonna assume you’re not trying to insult me, but understand that I’m a little pissed, so I’m gonna swear more than usual:
I’m literally telling you, “Hey, proving these people wrong would be more effective than telling them what they can and can’t do,” and you’re response is “How would they know anything about the author?”
I don’t fucking know! I don’t fucking care! I wish you would fucking listen to me and realize I’m trying to help you address the very problem you’re talking about in a genuinely productive manner.
As far as I can tell, you’re trying to address the problem of people incorrectly interpreting a work of fiction.
I’m trying to address the problem of judgemental assholes who believe in thought-crime thinking it’s okay to automatically assume that people who write or read about child abuse are child abusers.
But maybe I’m interpreting you incorrectly. That would be pretty hilarious given our conversation.
I’m sorry, but assuming that people who write or read about child abuse are thus child abusers themselves, is incorrectly interpreting a work of fiction. They are the same things.
Even they weren’t, don’t you think holding them to a reasonable intellectual standard by talking to these people, challenging them to defend their positions, and demanding they provide actual evidence for their argument would help?
There’s a reason why Flat Earthers aren’t taken seriously by scientists.
Okay, I need to figure out if I’m understanding you correctly or if we’re just talking across purpose at one another.
Answer yes or no for me– does the following statement accurately reflect your beliefs?
“I believe that it is possible to judge the morality of an author, based only on what I believe to be the correct interpretation of that author’s fictional work.”
Discussion ¬