Crash Course For Aspiring Writers

Stereotypes

Today's chapter is about something you see all around you, every day, every time you consume a piece of media. Well, not all pieces of media, but an annoying amount of media contains this.

Stereotypes.

The most common ones are the following:

- Dumb blonde: This one is the king of stereotypes. Or, rather, queen. You make a character blonde, most of the time a female-indentifying one, and make them stupid. In a horror movie, they are (inexplicably) one of the last ones to survive, despite that annoying habit of running, stopping and screaming and not continuing. Please, scream while you run.

- Funny fat kid : this one is seen the most in high school movies and series. The person is usually a male-identifying person, who is best friends (or close) to the main character and seemingly always has a joke to crack. This is highly offensive towards fluffy body typed people, as these characters are literally THE ONLY PLUS SIZED PEOPLE YOU EVER SEE IN THE MOVIE, and makes them feel like they need to be funny to be allowed a fluffy body type. Lemme tell you, I find fluffy body types beautiful, sometimes even more than society's beauty standard, and that if you have a fluffy body type, you're perfect just the way you are!

- Black haired main character: this one has, sadly, too many examples. Harry Potter (which is already rife with problems, but that's a problem for another day), Percy Jackson (sadly, but this one is slightly less visible), and so many more feature a black haired (usually male-identifying) main character. They're always shown as a powerful person, with issues that go from the mildest form of emotional to full on anger issues. Mostly of white ethnicity.

- The feminine gay and masculine sapphic: this one is only seen in the few medias containing LGBTQIA+ characters. It's the gay that acts their opposite gender: a lesbian that wears suits and acts in a stereotypical masculine way, and the gay that wears nail polish, dresses and probably does ballet. There's nothing wrong with acting like that, as everyone is different, but a problem when people try to be inclusive is that they tend to show the same sort of character: the sassy african-americans, the uber-feminine gay, the funny latinx.

Now, let me explain why stereotypes are bad:

Stereotypes is like drawing on top of one of those bases for characters. You already have the character's personality and looks figured out. It's boring, as when you write using stereotypes, you don't get the fully imagined, fully created by you character you would if you wrote a non-stereotypical character. Not to mention some of the most used stereotypes are harmful to a community and spread the information that everyone from the origins, be it sexuality, gender identity, ethnicity, personality or anything, is like that.

Now here is how you can combat stereotypes!

I'll use a few examples of media that combats stereotypes, starting with Annabeth Chase from Percy Jackson.

Annabeth is a blonde, who is a child of Athena, goddess of wisdom. She is depicted as a smart character in the series. This shows blonde girls they don't have to be dumb.

Fleur Delacour from Harry Potter shows that pretty girls aren't all shallow.

To write a character, get inspiration from around you: for example, that one friend that's really good at math but bad at English. They are smart, but only at certain things.

Looking at the people around you gives you a realistic idea of personalities: it helps readers feel more immersed within your stories, brings them that tiny bit over the line between not connecting and relating to a character that they finally needed to feel like they're in your world.

It's fine if you show stereotypes in your media, but not when its too much and your character isn't believable anymore.

With that said, I hope you have a nice day, hydrate yourself, and eat enough!