Impossible? The Art of Writing Rhimes-Worthy Normal - Think Again, It's possible.

by Kimberley Allen McNamara

In 1997,  Whitney Houston partnered with Disney and accomplished the Impossible. They produced a live action Cinderella with a culturally diverse cast. Have you seen it? If you haven’t, you really should. 

This Cinderella starred:  Brandy Norwood (Brandy) as Cinderella, Whitney as the fairy godmother, Bernadette Peters as the stepmother, Whoopi Goldberg as the queen, Victor Garber as the king, Paolo Montalban as the prince, Jason Alexander (of Seinfeld fame) as the prince’s valet… a truly diverse cast. *

Despite the cast “looking different” from Disney’s previous animated version of Cinderella, given that the story was very recognizable, this musical production was easy to follow for the audience. The diversity of the cast, or the “mixedness” of the cast, once acknowledged, did not detract from this entertaining production. Some may argue it even enhanced it.

Now consider when Shonda Rhimes won the 2016 Norman Lear Achievement award, as Kelly Brennan of the DailyBruin.com reported: “During her acceptance speech, she (Rhimes) said something…. “It’s not trailblazing to write the world as it actually is.” 

Think about this for a moment - Shonda Rhimes was saying her shows: Grey’s Anatomy, How to Get Away with Murder, Scandal should not be considered trailblazing because of the mixed cast: different by culture, race, gender, and class… Not trail blazing because all ways of identification for the characters and the actors are within the normal.

“In her eyes, her shows are not revolutionary; they are simply reflections of the world in which we live. Her characters are an extension of this belief – they are imperfect, dysfunctional and human, and they resemble people from the real world.” (K. Brennan)

Rhimes, Brennan also notes, makes her characters of color equally flawed. In short all the characters have flaws despite, their skin tone, because the are PEOPLE, people are by their very nature flawed. Normal on the television screen. Think about this for a moment.

Fast forward to 2019 when Disney announced a live action remake of the Little Mermaid. Taking a page from Whitney Houston and Shonda Rhimes casting playbook, Ariel will be played by Halle Bailey - a young black singer/actor, the prince will be played by Harry Stiles, a white British singer, with the rest of the cast still being compiled. Immediately, the internet was flooded with outcries such as: Ariel (the Little Mermaid) should be played by a white singer because she’s Danish (and in truth her author was Danish), Ariel should have red hair, etc…  After remaining silent for several days, Disney’s Freeform responded with an Instagram post explaining rather simply: Ariel is a mermaid. The post then went on to explain that black people can be Danish, that black people can have red hair and again, Ariel is a mermaid in a made-up world under the sea and thus it can all be imagined however they chose to imagine it. 

As writers, we want to bring the normal Shonda Rhimes referenced to our novels. Our novels too are fictional worlds but there exits a certain amount of push back by the publishing industry with regard to writers writing Other (as in other than you). My colleague, Elizabeth Solar explores this DOA scenario in her coverage of Jennifer Senior’s NYT piece entitled Teen Fiction and the Perils of the Cancel Culture: Solar examines the narrow scope of the publishing industry when it comes to considering the writing of Other and how even if all your ducks are in a row (sensitivity readers etc…) you may still have your book pulled before it is shelved. Read Solar’s post Who Gets to Write the Story? for more.

So what should writers do when they want to bring such “normal” to their novel, especially in an era warning against writing Other in general (Other is as in other than you)? How does an author navigate this minefield? Walk across the eggshells? 

Well for starters, it helps to educate oneself by reading. Reading articles such as: My Friend Asked Me on Facebook to Explain White Privilege by Lori Lakin Hutcherson, or Yichen (Lily) Shi’s articles for Deaddarlings.com: That Western Lens that Filters Our Words and So You’re Not Racist, What Next?  The author, Kosoko Jackson, highlighted in the NY Times article above and had his novel pulled before the books even hit the shelves, was critiqued for not having a strong bibliography (FYI: he is a gay black man writing about characters in Kosovo and not all the main characters were gay, black, or western). So definitely do your research if you’re going to write Other but be aware as Shi writes that: “Huge differences divide people of the same racial background.”

We can also do this by word choice when describing our characters. Forget the chocolate skin, the almond-shaped eyes, or using words like ‘flesh-colored’ or ‘nude’ to mean ‘white-skinned’ - step out of that 1960s Crayola crayon box. Describe characters exactly as they are but be mindful to also do so as your POV character would describe them. Remember, when you are in the mind of your character you are seeing the world as that character sees it. To learn how to do this you need to read as a writer books written by writers of color, LGBTQ writers, foreign authors (non-western) or more specifically books that are written by the Other than you. 

Additionally consider the advice given to writers of health communication as noted in Writing About Race and Ethnicity your narrator’s description should be : 1. relevant, 2. it should be in context, and 3. it should be specific. This is a two minute read but the advice meant for writers of health communication is so applicable to fiction writers. By doing your research, reading articles and books by other writers, and adhering to such advice (relevant, context, be specific) your writing will reflect the normalization you seek.

Sidebar

It’s been nearly 22 years since Whitney’s groundbreaking Cinderella, the 15th season of Grey’s Anatomy begins this fall, and we’ve had a black President. And yet, still when stories are adapted to the big screen ie:  JK Rowlings Fantastic Beasts and Magical Creatures (2016) with the time period of the piece as being early 19th century, in an imagined world, the key characters were all cast as “white”. Here was an imagined world clinging to the “historically authentic world” of the 19th century so of course blacks were shown only as maids and street sweepers - just extras to populate the world as the “real”19th century NYC would have been populated. But what if, as Whitney and Disney did in Cinderella, the cast - the prominent characters and the “extras” had been just as diverse or had just reflected how this imagined world could have been had there not been social constructs in place? What if, indeed. Cue the Star Wars franchise and how they brought such normalization to their recent movies.***

As novelists our worlds are made up - fictional: “Because that’s what novelists do: conjure other worlds, imagine their way into other realities, guess at the texture of other people’s consciousness. It’s part of the pleasure of inventing stuff for a living.” (Senior, NYT)

And as novelists, we must as Yichen (Lily) Shi writes: “recognise it’s that lens of yours that’s making you judge people based on their colour in a bad or good way. Our languages, our schooling, our friends and neighbours. The shows we watch, the books we read. Way too many factors shape us.”

Recognize this, the lens, applaud loudly when the lens broadens, and keep writing. Remember you won’t always get it right, but if you’re lucky enough you may just write something that is Rhimes-worthy normal.

*** as always the views expressed and interpretations are the author’s***