DB

Man, it would be so simple if there was a simple answer to this. I think that at the top, the most important thing when you’re telling a story and if it is going to be in the public eye, is to tell stories from your life. There is something about keeping a kernel of truth that makes stories all the more engaging, especially in acting or in the improv world.

But what if the story isn’t yours? What if it’s something that you experienced, or something that you heard from somewhere else? Should you still tell it?

If the story is being told by many hands at least, maybe you should involve people whose story it’s about. If the story is about an Asian American family, have Asian American folks. If the story is about trans folks, have trans folks. And if the story is about immigrants, have immigrants.

This blog post is inspired by some of the reading done in Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood by Maureen Ryan, which tells the tale of all sorts of terrible practices and norms that were found in Hollywood, the path forward, and the progress that has been made. A good portion of the book was dedicated to the bad, which was disheartening to read, and which also included a history of bias towards Caucasian, heterosexual cisgendered males not just in the stories that were told, but also in the staffing and hiring of projects (which has been getting better!).

I hope to discuss some aspects in telling stories that are not yours, such as recognizing which stories may not be your own, gaining insight to your own implicit associations, and some recommendations when telling stories that are not your own.

What stories are not mine?

Consider your own identity, how you think of yourself, and the people you associate and grew up with. A few examples of these aspects of your person that can be a part of your identity consist, but are not limited to the following:

Socioeconomic status, religion, neighborhood, state of residence, country of residence, race, national or ethnic origin, color, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics, disability, criminal record, life experiences and level of education.

If you find that you are telling the story of a person who does not share an aspect of your identity (and they should, because they may not be you unless this is a biography) be wary of any biases you may have towards people of that group.

Personal biases and implicit associations

There is a project from Harvard which tests people for their implicit biases, Project Implicit. It measures the speed that you are able to make associations between two different identity groups and positive and negative aspects. From Project Implicit, the scores are determined by “slight, moderate, and strong” leanings and are determined as follows:

“For example, if you were much faster to pair Flowers + Good / Insects + Bad versus Insects + Good / Flowers + Bad, you would get feedback saying your behavior indicated a “strong automatic preference for Flowers over Insects.”

By understanding parts of your own biases, not just through Project Implicit, but through recognizing the ways that you talk about different social groups with friends and strangers, you can better make efforts to challenge and change your own biases. Project Implicit has some recommendations on going about this in their FAQ under “What can I do about an implicit preference that I don’t want?”

Telling stories that are not your own

Does this mean that you shouldn’t tell stories with people who have different life experiences than your own? Definitely not! As said before, if you have the privilege of telling this story with a group of people, like on an improv team, with friends through TTRPGs, or with a proper cast and crew in a production, include the people in the creative process who are from the social and ethnic groups that you want to tell stories about.

Say that you don’t have this privilege. How can you respectfully tell these stories? Well, you can challenge existing stereotype. You can flip the script on occupations that typically lean towards one gender–have a female engineer, or a male nurse! You can cast people from different social and ethnic groups within roles that have a greater power dynamic by placing them in roles of leadership and expertise, like a C-suite executive or a doctor. Hell, don’t be afraid to make these people from these different backgrounds to be “just a person”.

It is easy to masquerade characters with the appearance of diversity, like how Hollywood does in Burn It Down. It takes a lot of work to make sure that you are honestly telling these stories of these people, but it is well worth it. Stories and art should challenge our views of the world, and we can be better for it by making our fictional worlds and our real world kinder, and more inclusive.