More than 50 years ago, a Tulsa high school student wrote a novel about the conflict between “greasers” and rich kids. S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders became a young adult classic. It was made into a movie in 1983.
Hinton wrote other young-adult novels featuring working-class Oklahomans in the ’60s and ’70s.
Now the author is under fire for not including openly gay and black characters, reports Heat Street.
Some readers think two of her Outsiders‘ characters are gay. Hinton says they’re not.
“Want a great gay novel,” she tweeted. “Write it.”
She added: “I am a heterosexual writer writing about heterosexual characters. Being attacked for being heterosexual.”
How am I supposed to know what a gay character goes through? Not writing about the black experience either. I can’t know that!
If she did feature gay or black characters, wouldn’t she be guilty of cultural appropriation?
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