The original comment was: “Regarding all the comments about people making the “mistake” that one assumes a character is white/herterosexual until explicitly told otherwise: I think Marvin Minsky’s work on frames is quite applicable.”

I’m not familiar with this theory, and I apologise if my comment led you to think it was in relation to this.

I spent two thirds of “Stars” in a state of confused WTFuckness before I found out about his use of language. It taught me something about my basic assumptions about gender and attractions - the point of the throwaway line was to encourage other people to go through the same experience.

So how do these novels relate to Minsky’s theory of frames?

Pointing out the real heteronormativity of the Potter universe is not the same as saying the work discriminates or that the author does.

I only have a few minutes to write this, but that does seem to be the impression that some people have in this thread.

Does a person’s assumption that, lacking any explicit information, someone is heterosexual imply that that person is uncomfortable with non-heterosexuality? I don’t think that’s true, since people fill in the gaps with information they don’t know all the time, and defaults will be used to do it. I don’t see how those defaults can immediately be construed as deriving from discomfort.

It might not have made a difference to YOU that your co-worker was gay, but even the fact that your co-worker had to call his partner a “roommate” rather than his husband or partner, speaks volumes about the way that gay people have to moderate their own lives every day, just so that the broader heteronormative community sees them as “normal”. It might not have been a big deal to YOU, but you can’t speak for whether or not it was a big deal to HIM.

(Just as a disclaimer, I am both white and straight– I’m not trying to speak on behalf of non-white or GBLT communities, but this is stuff that I’ve taken on board as a result of listening to people who are in those communities).

It is ambiguous, isn’t it? I have no idea which Dana meant, either.

Dana: it was obvious, though subtly, that he was gay without him having to make some big deal about it

Given that he undoubtedly knew you are homophobic, it sounds like he picked a good, tactful way to come out to you so that you could get to know him as a person first and would be less likely to attack him for his sexual orientation.

I die. After I die, my book collection is scattered into the market, cut up and sold throughout the globe. Years from now, a teen with the potential for psychosis comes across my annotated copy of “The Man In The High Tower” and is inspired to form his own authoritarian movement advocating killing all the lawyers, all the people with law degrees, and (in a pinch) anyone who took a law course at university. The world divides between those who think this is a good idea and, well, lawyers, and nuclear holocaust ensures.

All die. O the embarrassment!

I meant this.

And who has said anything suggesting this. Pointing out the real heteronormativity of the Potter universe is not the same as saying the work discriminates or that the author does.

Is that supposed to be a serious question?

Regarding all the comments about people making the “mistake” that one assumes a character is white/herterosexual until explicitly told otherwise: I think Marvin Minsky’s work on frames is quite applicable.

“Nova”, Samuel Delaney.

Heh heh heh.

Checked out the entry on Wikipedia, and I’m still lost. Are you referring to the changing narrator from page to page, or the fact that the main protagonist is black, which caused issues with its publication, or something else entirely?