Characters of Color: Personality Types we’d like to See
Hi,
What your question really seems to get at is what personality traits we as People of Color would like to see ourselves in. We think using the Briggs personality type as a base to create develop characters is a good idea, .though note that most people don’t fit 100% in one type and there will likely be overlap.
Resources
A great way to learn what sort of roles People of Color are wanting to see themselves in is to consume media by said PoC. Another resource would be our POC Profiles in which submitters share everything from their home lives, culture as well as the roles they’d like to see more for themselves. WWC Mods also created a Mod Wishlist of the type of characters we’d like to read about.
Read the grievances within fandoms of what writers are doing wrong (and right) in media with characters of color as well. For Black characters, for example, and across several shows you’ll find people take issue with Black women being Strong Black Women + Mammy types, not expected to be helped or show a range of emotion yet always expected to save herself and exert energy towards others.
And while it it doesn’t directly deal with a specific personality type, it’s what I (Colette) have noticed all too much in the shows I’ve watched with Black women. All the focus is on our strengths and sacrifice, not so much on our weaknesses and the range of emotion we experience. Sometimes we want the romance, softness, and the saving too and it’s not a bad thing.
Overall, I just want to see a wide variety of Characters of Color with all sorts of personality types in various roles, and definitely some that directly contrast with the stereotypes we’re smashed into the most.
Personalities We’d Like to See
Though a lot of our perspectives on this, again, can be found in the mod wishlist, some of us had further opinions to share.
Jewish Characters
Shira: Fictional Jewish men could stand to be “stronger” every once in a while, and when our women are depicted as strong it’s nice to see that as a positive instead of some kind of hellish negative.
Native Characters
Lesya: I’d like to see more E types for Natives, and more rational types. Natives often get stuck in the “so emotionally sensitive” and “I love being alone with nature” boats that it gets really flat. Not all of us are feelings-people, and not all of us are loners. It just really shows how the Noble Savage still has alive roots in modern representation.
Black Characters
Najela: I would like to see more introverted Black women. There’s this stereotype that Black women are only loud and outspoken, but there’s this whole other side that gets neglected when Black women are quiet and softspoken. I would just like to see a wider range of Black women with different personality types.
Colette: I wholeheartedly agree with you, Najela. I’d like to see more Black women who are tender, gentle, and shy (and not just to be utilized in a maternal way either). I want to see the same with Black men. So often Black people are typecast as brazen and bold, natural performers and entertainers. While some of us are and it’s great, this neglects a whole other side of Black people that aren’t like that and yet we’re somehow all expected to fit the same role. People are often surprised and express how “Sweet and quiet” I am before I get to know them, and I just can’t tell what is making them so surprised by that!
Additionally, being shy or quiet doesn’t make one a pushover or unable to speak for themselves so that part is definitely optional.
East Asian Characters
Jess: Yeah, I mean–I’d like to see less ~submissive~ East Asians, or just a more well-rounded spectrum. For women it seems to be either delicate flower or Dragon Lady, without anything in between.
South Asian Characters
Nikhil: As far as character types, I’d like to see more Indian characters in leadership roles. These are usually E–J types, though INTJ is often called the “Mastermind” or the “Architect.” My biggest peeve about the portrayal of Indian/South Asian characters in media is that we’re usually “small” characters, nerds and followers, ready to kowtow to the biggest baddest thing in the room. As someone who has a leadership role at his job, I’d love to see someone who looks like me calling the occasional shot in fiction (and not just as the group leader in a novel set in South Asia, where everyone is South Asian—that’s cheating).
I could actually get behind a well-written Indian supervillain-type character. The joke is that ENTJ is the Myers-Briggs type for a supervillain, and given that the only thing we’ve got so far in Western media is Aasif Mandvi in that atrocious The Last Airbender movie, I could totally get behind an Indian- or South Asian-coded villainous character whose background is more than a cartoon.
Related to this is my more general complaint about a dearth of Badassery in South Asian representation. As I said above, we’re usually shown as nerds, but even then moments of even smarts-driver badassery are few and far between. South Asian mythology and history and full of Crazy Awesome (beheading people with chariot wheels, one mostly naked guy fighting off the Pakistani Army with only grenades and a bayonet, just to give a few examples), but we never see stuff like that in fiction. That new series Quantico looks kind of interesting. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be any good or not, but Priyanka Chopra as a half-Indian female BAMF at least got my attention.
–WWC
Followers, please share the personality types you’d to see irt Characters of Color!
sweetlittlevampire
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