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I read some stuff on the race/fandom discourse and got angry.
Title: Five Reasons Why Charles Gunn Doesn't Wear a Do Rag
Author: seraphcelene
Rating: G
A/N: Race and Fandom collapsed under the weight of character and stereotype. This is the result. Summary from Langston Hughes' Theme for English B. Written with only a cursory pass at canon and character, much heated, itchy personal angst, and no real apology.
Archiving: Essential Imperfect, everyone else please ask.
Feedback: Yes, please!
Disclaimer: Angel and all related characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the Warner Company, et al. I'm just taking them out for a little exercise
Summary: So will my page be colored that I write?
I. Cordelia
Yeah, he's hip, dangerous, got plenty of street cred and his name is whispered with fear by the vamps in the hood, but there's something about the way that little white girl looks at him that makes him re-think things ... just about every damn thing, really. It's as if she knows something that he doesn't. Something that maybe doesn't come from her rich, white, suburban California upbringing. Something that has more to do with the stain of blood beneath her fingernails, hazy red despite all the manicures.
Cordelia sees right through that thin layer of cloth and into Gunn's head, to his past and his parents and Alanna. Maybe it's the whole “I See Visions” thing, but he can't knock it. Can't blow off the way she looks at him and sees him: Gunn, Charles Gunn. With two N's.
II. Angel
Getting past the vampire thing was hard. No, it was damn near impossible. Lost him points, rep with the other gangs fighting the good fight in the streets. But doing good ... it had to be about more than just carrying in the dying and the dead from battles lost. It had to mean more than turf and keeping the night at bay with his bare hands.
Angel was a vampire and working for a vamp was the last thing Gunn ever thought he'd do. But the guy was alright for a bloodsucker. Went above and beyond to protect people, take care of them. That could earn a man respect. Trust, if he wasn't careful.
Gunn didn't have the words, not much of a guy for deep and meaningful. He knew he was the muscle and that was okay. It was something he could live with. But without the words, all he could give Angel was the naked shine of his scalp in the moonlight.
III. Fred
Fred liked the rags, but didn't get the meaning. She'd been gone too long, and Plyea twisted her inside out. She forgot a lot of what it meant to be human on Earth. But, somehow, he doubted she ever really knew what that cloth meant in the first place. The streets had never been part of her corner of the world.
When people saw them together, her white hand tucked into his and she's all cuddled up into his side the way that he loves, well, that was a neck ruffling I-don't-want-to-have-to-fight-you feeling. Not that she noticed. If he wore the rag it would be worse. Ten times worse. Bad enough for even Fred, in all her naviete, to take notice.
Gunn didn't want that for her. Not for Fred, his taco loving baby girl. There are enough bad things in the world.
IV. Wolfram & Hart
He's come a long way, and the rag doesn't go with the suit. Something about the cream walls, the steel and glass windows demand hair. Gunn grows his out and that changes everything. The span of cloth doesn't lay right anymore, doesn't fold over his head, doesn't seem to fit. Too much hair, perhaps. Too many responsibilities, too many thoughts.
So, Gunn tucks them away into the bottom of his sock drawer because he can't throw out pieces of his past just because they chafe a little around the edges.
Besides, maybe, one day, they'll fit again. Maybe, one day, his head won't be so full of the things he's seen and his suits won't take up so much space in his closet.
Maybe.
One day.
V. Gunn
He lost a bet and for a year he wore that damn wave cap.
Way back in the day, his mama once told him, a many greats grandfather added the second N for distinction. He wanted to be special, something different. A doctor. But that was back when colored folk didn't do things like that. He died a share cropper with nothing but that second N attached to his last name.
Gunn had that story knocked into the backside of his head by his mother's palm, and later, Alanna's. Gunn grew up and yeah, he was down with the people and keeping it real. And he never, ever sold out to The Man.
But the rag ... well, that was a stereotype. And Charles Gunn was not a stereotype. He was himself and no one else and that piece of cloth meant things that had nothing to do with him.
Then Wesley went and got shot for him. Took a bullet for him and it was as if he really was somebody out in the world and not just in the neighborhood after dusk. That pale, dumb ass, clueless English took a bullet for him and it meant more than black, white or vampire.
Gunn knew he was going to die young, but he also knew that he would die with more than just dirt under his nails and the weight of years settled into his chest. He would die Charles Gunn, with two N's, a champion.
Title: Five Reasons Why Charles Gunn Doesn't Wear a Do Rag
Author: seraphcelene
Rating: G
A/N: Race and Fandom collapsed under the weight of character and stereotype. This is the result. Summary from Langston Hughes' Theme for English B. Written with only a cursory pass at canon and character, much heated, itchy personal angst, and no real apology.
Archiving: Essential Imperfect, everyone else please ask.
Feedback: Yes, please!
Disclaimer: Angel and all related characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the Warner Company, et al. I'm just taking them out for a little exercise
Summary: So will my page be colored that I write?
I. Cordelia
Yeah, he's hip, dangerous, got plenty of street cred and his name is whispered with fear by the vamps in the hood, but there's something about the way that little white girl looks at him that makes him re-think things ... just about every damn thing, really. It's as if she knows something that he doesn't. Something that maybe doesn't come from her rich, white, suburban California upbringing. Something that has more to do with the stain of blood beneath her fingernails, hazy red despite all the manicures.
Cordelia sees right through that thin layer of cloth and into Gunn's head, to his past and his parents and Alanna. Maybe it's the whole “I See Visions” thing, but he can't knock it. Can't blow off the way she looks at him and sees him: Gunn, Charles Gunn. With two N's.
II. Angel
Getting past the vampire thing was hard. No, it was damn near impossible. Lost him points, rep with the other gangs fighting the good fight in the streets. But doing good ... it had to be about more than just carrying in the dying and the dead from battles lost. It had to mean more than turf and keeping the night at bay with his bare hands.
Angel was a vampire and working for a vamp was the last thing Gunn ever thought he'd do. But the guy was alright for a bloodsucker. Went above and beyond to protect people, take care of them. That could earn a man respect. Trust, if he wasn't careful.
Gunn didn't have the words, not much of a guy for deep and meaningful. He knew he was the muscle and that was okay. It was something he could live with. But without the words, all he could give Angel was the naked shine of his scalp in the moonlight.
III. Fred
Fred liked the rags, but didn't get the meaning. She'd been gone too long, and Plyea twisted her inside out. She forgot a lot of what it meant to be human on Earth. But, somehow, he doubted she ever really knew what that cloth meant in the first place. The streets had never been part of her corner of the world.
When people saw them together, her white hand tucked into his and she's all cuddled up into his side the way that he loves, well, that was a neck ruffling I-don't-want-to-have-to-fight-you feeling. Not that she noticed. If he wore the rag it would be worse. Ten times worse. Bad enough for even Fred, in all her naviete, to take notice.
Gunn didn't want that for her. Not for Fred, his taco loving baby girl. There are enough bad things in the world.
IV. Wolfram & Hart
He's come a long way, and the rag doesn't go with the suit. Something about the cream walls, the steel and glass windows demand hair. Gunn grows his out and that changes everything. The span of cloth doesn't lay right anymore, doesn't fold over his head, doesn't seem to fit. Too much hair, perhaps. Too many responsibilities, too many thoughts.
So, Gunn tucks them away into the bottom of his sock drawer because he can't throw out pieces of his past just because they chafe a little around the edges.
Besides, maybe, one day, they'll fit again. Maybe, one day, his head won't be so full of the things he's seen and his suits won't take up so much space in his closet.
Maybe.
One day.
V. Gunn
He lost a bet and for a year he wore that damn wave cap.
Way back in the day, his mama once told him, a many greats grandfather added the second N for distinction. He wanted to be special, something different. A doctor. But that was back when colored folk didn't do things like that. He died a share cropper with nothing but that second N attached to his last name.
Gunn had that story knocked into the backside of his head by his mother's palm, and later, Alanna's. Gunn grew up and yeah, he was down with the people and keeping it real. And he never, ever sold out to The Man.
But the rag ... well, that was a stereotype. And Charles Gunn was not a stereotype. He was himself and no one else and that piece of cloth meant things that had nothing to do with him.
Then Wesley went and got shot for him. Took a bullet for him and it was as if he really was somebody out in the world and not just in the neighborhood after dusk. That pale, dumb ass, clueless English took a bullet for him and it meant more than black, white or vampire.
Gunn knew he was going to die young, but he also knew that he would die with more than just dirt under his nails and the weight of years settled into his chest. He would die Charles Gunn, with two N's, a champion.
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no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 05:30 pm (UTC)From:he can't throw out pieces of his past just because they chafe a little around the edges.
Besides, maybe, one day, they'll fit again. Maybe, one day, his head won't be so full of the things he's seen and his suits won't take up so much space in his closet.
You really got there, Gunn's conflict with who he was and what he's becoming, which is what all of S5 is about, really, and you captured it in a little bit of cloth. Nice.
That pale, dumb ass, clueless English took a bullet for him and it meant more than black, white or vampire.
I love this, too. Because Gunn is a champion. He isn't about stereotypes.
This was really freakin' cool, and touched me in deep places. Thank you for sharing.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 09:03 pm (UTC)From:I started off thinking of including an addendum along the lines of: "See, read the garbage and what makes me any better informed or better prepared than you to write a black male character." That morphed into "I am un-apologetically going to write RACE into this and slap people in the face with it. Ha! You won't talk about it, don't want to write about it? Where does the impression come from that CoC's are JUST a RACE. What happened to their CHARACTER!"
I was so having your gut reaction moment. I still don't know that I'm terribly articulate.
Somewhere along the way of all this, I realized that I had legitimate perspectives on Charles Gunn, so then I had to revise because he deserved more than my bitch-slap to fandom stereotyping. He deserved to be treated like the complex character that he is.
Man, I miss my shows ....
no subject
Date: 2006-09-27 09:36 pm (UTC)From:Well, I got this from the piece, even though the piece went much deeper than a bitch slap. There's been a bit of wank or kerfluffling or something going on about this right, about people who feel qualified to write alien and robot characters but not to write Black people or other ethnicities? Correct me if I got whatever the issue is wrong.
"Where does the impression come from that CoC's are JUST a RACE. What happened to their CHARACTER!"
And I love you for saying that, and how this fic said it. Race is very important to who a person is; it's very defining. But to treat it as the be-all and end-all of characterization, to say that you can't sympathize with so and so or get into her head because she is of another race, that just strikes me as...wrong on so many levels.
One of the reasons I enjoyed this fic so much is I was thinking these things myself, because I'm writing lots of Gunn in a fic right now. And I find as I write, which somehow I didn't quite see in canon before, is that Gunn is all about self-definition. Gunn's story is finding himself, and where he fits into this whole mess called life. And that answer is so much more than skin deep.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 03:39 am (UTC)From: