For the course I am taking on Cyberpunk, I had to both read and watch Ready Player One. It’s a tough read, and an even tougher watch… plot holes aside, there are a lot of issues with how women, minorities, and other sexual orientations are depicted (or not depicted, in some cases). Cline didn’t do a great job, and Spielberg somehow managed to make it worse? That’s unfair, I’m not sure it’s Spielberg’s “fault” insomuch as the movie somehow made a lot of the questionable decisions worse.
But as always, I am drawn back to my own art. Would my portrayals of other races, other genders, and other sexualities be equally bad? I try to be conscious of it, but I have a lot of baggage to work through and I am positive some of it falls through the cracks. I wrote an entire character who is basically a sexist jerk for one novel… I could’ve fixed it, but I didn’t. Maybe I should’ve? I dunno.
Anyway. It was good to revisit the world of RPO to remind myself that I don’t have to get things perfect… I just need to try and do better, and that’s a pretty low bar, sadly.
Hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy!