Gender and Sexuality Representation in OOTS

[jere7my]

And again, IMPHO, cultural inertia is not a totally invalid reason either. Cultural products (I don't disagree at all with the way Shadowknight defined "art" a few pages ago, so for the purpose of this discussion I'll be considering that an author who lives off his/her work is "a creator of cultural products", not "an artist") don't exist in a vacuum, and the unfortunately-largely-culturally-inert audience (you know, the ones paying your bills in the end) is something that you kinda sorta have to consider.

Then the artist would be opening themselves up to criticism (including, quite possibly, self-criticism), the way any artist who compromises their principles for monetary gain opens themselves up to criticism. I don't see why "I did it for the money" should grant an artist immunity.

There's a tumblr called Clients from Hell, where designers who are doing work for hire complain anonymously about their clients' unreasonable demands. A frequent demand is "Those stock photos are too..um...ethnic. Do you have anything that wouldn't upset people in Iowa?" Sometimes the designers still do the job, because they need the money, but to their credit they complain bitterly about it. If, as you say, a writer feels pressured to leave "ethnic" people out of their work...okay, maybe they need the money, but I would expect them to complain about it, and work in small ways to change it. Otherwise they're legitimate targets for criticism.