The issue is complicated …that’s obvious enough, with arguments on both ends. One the one hand, it can be a powerful way to give a voice to the voiceless – to bring to attention a particular issue, idea or movement that hasn’t yet had a chance in the spotlight (for whatever many reasons), attention that it perhaps wholeheartedly deserves.
On the other hand, issues of misrepresentation often come up. You’ve probably read articles of certain biopics being criticized by individuals (or their families) that the movie is based upon. The same can be said of books, whether it be an author of a particular race or cultural commenting on, or writing about, stories from another culture (cultural appropriation is a term often thrown around).
Personally, I’m an advocate for literary freedom, of allowing books to be written and published regardless of issues such as potential ‘misrepresentation of a culture’ or alterations and embellishment of certain stories that serve a specific literary purpose. Artistic license is a real thing.
Once the conversation starts to center around censorship, or the banning of certain things – it becomes a slippery slope, with it hard to justify whether anything truly deserves to or allows to be ‘published’ – limiting the advancement of literature in my opinion.
Of course, I understand that this perspective might be seen as reckless. There are those that might alter stories to serve their own purposes or gains. For instance, to attempt to go ahead and spread lies or slander about an individual to discredit them. There are several debates regarding whether or not social media giants such as facebook and twitter should go about banning the accounts of those spreading extremist messages and radicalized statements. Adopting and employing my personal stance certainly has drawbacks to it.
In regards to this, I do think that the author has the responsibility, to be honest, and clear about the contents of a particular book. While I have no issue with dramatizations of a story by an author, even a story about another individual, I do have an issue with the author then pretending that the story is 100% legitimate, or truthful. Misleading marketing is not something that I’m particularly in support of – if you’ve taken creative liberty, declare it.
At the same time, I think some share of the burden does fall on the reader. A responsible reader is one who stops and considers the content of a book or piece of work they have read – who doesn’t simply take the contents of the book to be gospel. Research is conducted to ensure that the author is of a reputable source, to identify and understand potential biases that might have accounted for a particular portrayal of a story.
Ultimately, literary freedom is a powerful and important idea that I believe should be preserved, although careful consideration and research must be conducted by authors and readers alike in order to prevent abuse of this privilege.
