At 01:44 PM 2/7/01 +0000, Alison Page wrote:
For the most part characters in fiction are a lot less complex than real characters. Also they don't generally put a bomb under your ideas in the way real people do.
Put it like this. A racist person might see Hal Mellanby and think to him/her self 'ah, but in real life black people aren't clever enough to be top scientists - it's just BBC political correctness' (or whatever racist people think in the privacy of their own minds). But in real life if they are confronted with a black person who (say) explains quantum mechanics to them, they don't have this escape do they? Real life puts a bomb under preconceptions.
I don't think it usually works that way. Sincere belief is impervious to both logic and empirical evidence. Art, on the other hand, can sneak in, appeal to the emotions (one passionate propaganda poster is worth a thousand reasonable words). In real people you can always find real flaws (maybe your hypothetical black genius has an unpleasant odour--then hypothetically racist me can think "so 'They' *can* be quite clever, but only at the cost of personal hygiene...I shudder to think what her house must look like and just imagine her poor neglected children--we should really discourage 'Them' aspiring to such heights if these are the social costs" etc.). Yeah I know I'm getting even sillier than usual, gotta go ;-p -- For A Dread Time, Call Penny: http://members.tripod.com/~Penny_Dreadful/