So I’ve read the first two Jessica Darling books—I even reviewed them here—and I bought the next two. And they’ve been sitting on my shelf, unread, for a year. Because I read the first sixty pages or so of the third one and found something that I just cannot get past.
This may seem strange to y’all, because I don’t usually stop reading something racist or sexist if it is an otherwise entertaining book. I’m selective before I begin reading; for example, I rarely read male-authored books with female protagonists. If someone recommends such a book to me, then fine, but I don’t just pick those novels up off the shelf. I don’t doubt that men can write good women—I’ve seen it—but I’ve also seen male authors get it so catastrophically wrong SO many times that, as a matter of course, I find myself putting books down the second I see a male author’s name and a female protag’s name.
I can only stab myself in the face so many times, people.
I am similarly leery of books written by white authors where the main character is a person of color; again, I know some people do it well, but most people do it so badly that it makes me ashamed to be white. Again, I rely on recommendations to weed out the total crap.
Once I’ve started a book, though, I’m often loathe to put it down because I encounter racism or sexism within its pages; frankly, if I did that, I’d have pretty much nothing left to read. There have been cases where the book’s been SO over-the-top prejudiced that I just couldn’t stand it: I threw aside Undead and Unwed because in addition to being an APPALLINGLY bad book, the heroine also had a gay friend and a black friend and argued in favor of Gone with the Wind as anti-racist literary masterpiece.
…yeah. Seriously, y’all? I am embarrassed that enough of you liked that book to send it to series. THAT’S JUST GROSS.
Anyway, once I start a book, I’m often loathe to put it down, and I’ll admit: even though Jessica Darling said some racist things (in a “perfectly acceptable” middle class manner, of course), I glossed them over. I hoped that her attitudes would change in future books—after all, she was getting ready to go to college and that’s a time when many preconceptions about race get re-examined and deconstructed. Her voice was witty and charming, and I was at a point in my life where slipping back into high school felt sweet and uncomplicated compared to what I was currently facing. So yeah. I glossed over the quiet racism, not to mention the quiet rejection of feminism.
And then, in the third book, she made fun of the guidos.
The thing you have to understand is that I have never actually experienced any real ethnic stereotyping or prejudice in my life. In the new South, white is white, black is black, etc, etc. My ethnicity was such a non-issue that it was completely erased, and when I “discovered” it in my teens, one friend actually sighed in frustration and said, “Debbie, get over it, you are just white.”
Which was true, so far as the new South goes. No one ever said anything about my last name, other than, “Huh, that’s hard to spell.” No one ever assumed anything about me based upon that last name. I was white, uncomplicatedly white, and if my high school friends sometimes asked me where my mustache was, that had less to do with their preconceived notions about Italianness and more to do with a natural teenage desire to puncture pomposity wherever they encountered it. And I have to admit, my “discovery” of my ethnicity had more than a little of the theatrical thrown in. What can I say? Teenagers like to be special.
So anyway, being Italian had never really meant anything to me in terms of an actual impact on my actual life. So in the third book, when Jessica Darling goes on a long rant about what guidos are like—even using the term guido—and how tacky they are, and how they do x and y and z and isn’t it HILARIOUS, I…felt like I’d been kicked in the face. And then I felt really, really, REALLY pissed. I had never done any of the things she described, and neither had my relatives. I didn’t look like what she had in mind, or talk like it, or think like it, and even if I had? Where did she get off, thinking she could judge me? Thinking she knew me or my family just because of where our ancestors came from?
In a way, I think it was good for me to feel that way, because it reminded me of the ways in which I’ve grown complacent to being judged. Having people assume certain things about me because I’m a woman doesn’t phase me anymore, and it really, really should. I may not like racism or sexism, may even deconstruct them and try to live a life that is anti-racist and anti-sexist, but on some level I accept them. Having someone come at me from an entirely new angle threw that into stark relief and shook up my complacency a little bit.
It also fucking hurt my feelings. If this is 1/1 millionth of what people of color experience on a day-to-day basis…Jesus Christ. To have someone look at you and your family and your history and your culture and have them all pronounced as tacky and wanting? Yeah, way to make someone feel insignificant and inferior. Also a great way to make a lady want to scream, “SHUT IT YOU HONKY BITCH!” at the top of her lungs, despite the potent irony of a white woman using that slur.
In conclusion, I don’t think I’ll be reading any more about Jessica Darling’s adventures. For some reason, I’m just not very interested anymore…
You put yourself through a lot of shit to deconstruct it, shit I couldn’t and don’t stand. It’s understandable that even you have a limit or line, a Biohazard Level 11 or 42. I suspect historical fiction, written or filmed, is an excuse for writers and actors to vent the racism and sexism they feel they unfairly must constrain in the name of political correctness (as opposed to basic decency). I am disappointed and suspicious of actors who “play” racists. They choose to say the n-word and sundry. “Honky” is great, but “bitch” is sexist.
“I suspect historical fiction, written or filmed, is an excuse for writers and actors to vent the racism and sexism they feel they unfairly must constrain in the name of political correctness (as opposed to basic decency).”
There’s definitely a long history (ha!) of historical fiction being used as a means to reshape our views of the past and the present: Gone with the Wind and Birth of a Nation, anyone? But I read a lot of historical fiction, and most of what I’ve read is not like that. Of course, like I said in the post, I tend to weed out anything with a male author/female protag or a white author/POC protag, so maybe I’m just self-selecting out of the crap you’re describing. Probably, actually. Ugh.
“I am disappointed and suspicious of actors who “play” racists. They choose to say the n-word and sundry.”
Yes, this. There’s definitely this feeling in Hollywood that choosing to play a racist makes you “edgy” and “controversial,” but really? It just makes you an asshole.
“‘Honky’ is great, but ‘bitch’ is sexist.”
Well, one is racist and classist and the other is sexist, so I’m really just a winner all around.
Isn’t there nostalgia to historical fiction? I used to read the series of novels wherein each novel had a female protagonist whose name was the title and she was to choose between two suitors of different classes. I couldn’t read those now; I’d be wondering (or finally noticing!) whether the pirate was a rapist and where the black people were and how they were suffering.
“Honky” is classist? I thought it was synonymous with “white.” Is “whitey” for the wealthy? (Excuse me while I trademark that.)
Well, “honky” isn’t nearly as classist as “cracker,” but it’s still not something that middleclass white people hear on a regular basis. But perhaps they should. Honky away!