'The Tiffany Problem' and Representation

LuaVerena

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“the Tiffany problem” is a phenomenon noted by Jo Walton as the conflict between an audience’s ideas of a time and the actual historical truths, such as how the name ‘Tiffany’ is seen as ‘modern’, even though it dates back to medieval England and France.
Became very relevant when I was writing up an excerpt from my current project to submit for a university module, and I nearly came to blows with certain family members I let look at the draft that were determined I should not have a character use they/them pronouns in 1994, one of them saying it was like 'having a microwave be used in Downing Street', and that my blatant anachronism would be marked down.
Proud to say I stood my ground without telling them to get [REDACTED], but ooh lord it was close. Anyone else dealt with similar resistance or backlash couched in 'historical accuracy'?
 
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Drascus

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I've had that issue with character voice, sometimes I cut the anachronism sometimes I kept it in.

The thing about things that feel like anachronisms that actually aren't is that they will still throw the reader out of the story. One reader giving you that feedback doesn't mean anything, but if lots of them do it's a problem.

If there's an easy way to explain it in-story I think I would try to do that if it seemed to be a problem. Have a character remark on the pronouns and the character using them can briefly explain how long they've been in use, or something similar.
 
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Chris P

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I totally remember 1994 (shoot, I was an adult already) and "they/them" was very much a thing (calling something "a thing" was not a thing yet, though). "They" was used as a general term for when the gender of the person didn't matter or was unknown: "When a customer wants the bill, they need to signal to the waiter." Grammar sticklers would correct me, but usually nobody thought it was off. I think your family member might have meant that the preferred pronouns discussion in relation to gender identity was not happening back then.

I've experienced the opposite of the Tiffany effect, actually. One project of mine took place in 1917 during the First World War, and a couple people insisted I had the allies refer to the Germans as "Jerries," when that term wasn't used much until WWII. I had never heard the term "Boche" (which was used in 1917) until I was doing research for the project. It took me a while to figure out what it meant, and in the end I settled for accuracy rather than what a 2020 reader would expect based on a different and more recent war. But there as to be balance. We tell stories differently today than in the past, and not playing to modern expectations can be a risk.
 
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Lakey

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Proud to say I stood my ground without telling them to get [REDACTED], but ooh lord it was close. Anyone else dealt with similar resistance or backlash couched in 'historical accuracy'?

Your phrasing here -- "couched in", the use of scare quotes around "historical accuracy" -- and the anger you express makes it sound like this dispute with your family isn't about your story at all, but is about something much more personal and existential about nonbinary identities. Is that what is really going on? If so, I'm sorry -- that sounds really difficult, and maybe you should find a different audience from which to seek feedback on your stories.

But, if your family members really were only reacting to perceived anachronism in your story, -- well, for a person to use they/them pronouns (to ask others to refer to them that way) was extremely unusual in the 90s. If nobody in your story reacts to it or remarks on it being unusual in any way, then I probably would find it anachronistic and odd as well -- not the use of the pronouns per se, but the portrayal of the 1990s societal milieu in which your character exists. But I haven't seen your story, so I don't know if that's what the problem is.

For what it's worth, I write about lesbians in the 1950s, so I am familiar with this sort of issue. No matter what is going on my characters' heads, no matter how comfortable they are in their own sexuality (some of them are, and some of them are not), they are embedded in the culture of the time, and absorb some of its attitudes and beliefs. If my stories didn't take that into account in addressing how these women interfaced with the culture around them, the culture in which they were raised and lived, then my stories would be anachronistic. I don't want just to take modern lesbians with modern sexual identities and plunk them down in the 50s.

So, even though this critique from your family enraged you -- consider whether there might be a nugget of truth in it, and whether there might be something inappropriately modern in your portrayal of a nonbinary person a generation ago. Again, I haven't seen your story, so I could be way off base -- but it is a problem that one sometimes sees in writing about queer people in the past.

(I don't understand the "microwaves on Downing Street" analogy at all. Downing Street is the PMs residence, offices, that sort of thing, right? Why wouldn't there be microwaves in use there?)

:e2coffee:
 
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PyriteFool

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Good for you for standing up to your family! (And for not coming to blows, that would probably not be productive) It’s your story, tell it the way you want to tell it. Respecting people’s identities wasn’t invented in 2019, and I think there is value in challenging the idea that queer identities are inherent a contemporary thing. They aren’t. They’ve been around as long as there have been humans.

I also think there’s value in portraying queer people being accepted by their communities. There’s nothing anachronistic about that! Yes, queer people did and do face challenges, but we need stories where we don’t have to suffer for our identities. Context is important to. If your character is with their friends/family then it’s perfectly natural to expect those people would no how to refer to them.

I can’t promise whoever is grading you at your university will see it the same way, (assuming you’re being graded?) but I do think history is on your side.
 

LuaVerena

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Ah, I had meant to write Downton Abbey, like the period TV show! My mistake. And yes, while it definitely wasn’t common, it was a) an established and recorded thing, and b) something said members don’t really accept as a thing *these* days, in others or myself. I admit that is a sore subject for me, but I am also confident that I *did* ultimately manage to present my character as being recognisably non binary in a manner that gels with the story’s period and time.
I can recognise the valid parts of their feedback, and I did adapt for them with some further intext clarification, but there was very much the spectre of their own beliefs at influence in the battle of wills: they didn’t just want clarification or context, they wanted that aspect scrubbed completely.
Relating back to the Tiffany problem, this kind of thing often comes into play with optics in period or fantasy fiction, when people insist that other ethnicities being visibly present in Ancient Rome or Victorian London is a grievous error made in the name of rewriting history, and can’t be swayed by actual historical evidence because they’re invested in the specific image they’ve internalised after being taught to invest in the idea of these times and places - completely white and ‘normative’.
My apologies if anything is mistyped here, I have just been woken up obscenely early By cats, and have to rush to tend to them :’)
 

PyriteFool

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Yes, people really get stuck with certain images. Sometimes I think it’s worth it for a story teller to cater to. Costuming and furniture are major examples. If your story takes place in 1860, people always have older stuff, just like we do today, but it doesn’t cost too much to cater to the audience. But in terms of representation? No, I don’t think people should compromise. In fact I think there’s a moral obligation to challenge the white washed mythology people have constructed about the past.

With fantasy it’s even more ridiculous to object. It’s all made up! That’s the point! How are wizards and dragons easier to accept than like...queer people?
 

dickson

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I had never heard the term "Boche" (which was used in 1917) until I was doing research for the project.

Your story takes me back to High School German. Our teacher, who was actually Hungarian, had been in the Wehrmacht in WWII on the Russian front (he was a translator, not a front-line soldier). One day he told us, in a carefully deadpan manner, that "Germans have often been called names relating to cabbage, such as Boche or Kraut." Thus leaving us to wonder, what did Hungarians call Germans? He never said.