Political Correctness and New Pulp Fiction

Take your seats, boys and girls. Today we’re going to talk about political correctness in genre fiction, particularly stories set in our less than culturally sensitive past.

But let’s back up first and walk before we try to run, as the cliché goes. When we talk about political correctness, we’re not really talking about politics at all. We’re talking about cultural exclusivity/inclusivity and cultural sensitivity, and most commonly we’re talking about culture clashes (and that’s where politics gets involved). In particular, we usually are talking about the “good ol’ days” bumping heads with the new-fangled days of integration and acceptance of things like interracial relationships, homosexuality, transgender issues, counterculture (pierces, tattoos, and the like), etc.

There are several points of view when it comes to these clashes.

One says don’t sweat it because the good ol’ days were good, and even things like racism and sexism and homophobia can be overlooked because it was a different time and that makes it all right.

Another says history is filled with bad things like racism and sexism and homophobia, and those memories must be purged and hidden so future generations don’t know they ever existed.

Still another says sure, those things were there, and we can learn from them, but let’s cut our elders some slack. They just didn’t know any better.

Yet another says reparations. The sons and daughters of those former generations owe something special because of the actions of their grandparents and forebears, whether in the form of public apologies or in political and economic changes.

Still others say that when we revisit that racist and sexist past, we must use our creativity to recreate that past with culturally sensitive stories in our art, even to the point of rewriting the past so that characters in the 30s are as culturally sensitive with blacks and women voters as we oft believe ourselves to be today.

Others beyond even those have views that combine some of these already mentioned, often in personally confusing ways that don’t always line up logically in their worldviews. Hence the struggle, as they say, is real.

Where does all this leave us as writers of new pulp and genre fiction? Do we have a responsibility to the truth of the past, the values of the past, the values of the new culture, the dictates of the market, or somehow to all of these things and more?

https://seanhtaylor.blogspot.com/2018/04/political-correctness-and-new-pulp.html