Wiscon: Panel review

[ljgeoff]

1) Elves and Dwarves: The Racism Inherent in Fantasy

There were some interesting bits in this panel, but most of the time was taken up by boring exposition of the obvious. If I hear another panelist drone on about "well, what I'm doing (did) in my novel...." I'm going to throw something at them. I'm starting up a list of 'who to avoid', as a companion of my 'who to look for.' Anything with vito_excalibur or elisem in it is bound to be good for me.

The meta-question posed in this panel was "Is it a reasonable goal for SF/F to come up with beings who are different, and is it reasonable to accept those differences?

Besides the obvious blatheron re: "oh, my, look at how elves are good and beautiful and fair!" and pendantics about the classification of race and species, the points made were:

1) Writers like to have fun, and elves and dwarves are fun
2) The fantasy world of elves and dwarves etc. is a condom for handling issues that are too dangerous to otherwise discuss.
3) Sometimes an author can say something beautiful and profound with fantasy and magic that transcends race, sometimes authors bend the stereotypes so that even the very thick can see them for what they are, but alot of writers use the fantasy stereotypes because it's easy and safe and it sells books.

Comments

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

Thanks for writing up. Best summary I've seen. Sigh.