Agent Offers to Cut Gay Characters from Author's Work

[yellowdingo]

Apparently Gay Characters not acceptable?

My justification would have been the reclassification of the work to ADULT if it had any sex or violence content - seeing it is for children. Young Adult? Rubbish. Adults begin at 18+ in the eyes of the Law. Until then they are children.

[Seabyrn]

yellowdingo wrote:

Apparently Gay Characters not acceptable?

My justification would have been the reclassification of the work to ADULT if it had any sex or violence content - seeing it is for children. Young Adult? Rubbish. Adults begin at 18+ in the eyes of the Law. Until then they are children.

I wouldn't try to justify it myself - it's just ridiculous bigotry.

[thejeff]

yellowdingo wrote:

Apparently Gay Characters not acceptable?

My justification would have been the reclassification of the work to ADULT if it had any sex or violence content - seeing it is for children. Young Adult? Rubbish. Adults begin at 18+ in the eyes of the Law. Until then they are children.

Except that the article says:

Quote:

Yuki Nakamura, is gay and has a boyfriend. Yuki’s romance, like the heterosexual ones in the novel, involves nothing more explicit than kissing.

Unless you're going to classify any stories with romance in them as ADULT?

Are you saying there should be a YA category at all? Bear in mind that it isn't a legally mandated division just a marketing thing. Should we just have Children's and Adult sections with nothing to distinguish between picture books for toddlers and books for high school kids?

[Bruno Kristensen]

Is there graphic sexual references in the book? According to the article, it doesn't go further than kissing. Do kids get "traumas" from reading about someone kissing? I sure think not. Do they "become" gay by reading this kind of fiction? No, homosexuality is not a disease, and it isn't contagious.

Hat off for the author for wanting to create a role model that young gays/bisexuals can identify with and she shouldn't "straigthen" the protagonist IMO.

[DM_aka_Dudemeister]

Kudos to the authors for refusing to be represented on such terms. Diversity in fantasy is hard to come by, and Young Adult books are always entertaining fare. People of all sexual orientations, colours and creeds should be represented in fantasy, science fiction and speculative fiction.

As a straight white guy, I had a TON of representation for me in fantasy, but my friends weren't so lucky. I hope that the next generation will be luckier, so that all of them can have heroes to aspire to. To draw strength from, just as I drew strength from Spider-Man (the geek), Pug (the brave little guy with no direction), and the Han Solo (because I wanted to be cool), I'd like to see my brethren and sistren (lul) point out characters they thought were cool who went through stuff they went through as teens.