In a defense of pieces about cultural appropriation, Linda Holmes muses on “little stories”:
Think about the way the rigor with which writers are understood to think about things conventionally expands as the distance (both literal and figurative) between the reader and the subject increases. Writing about international affairs is sometimes treated as more “serious” and higher in status than writing about national politics, which is more serious than writing about local politics. Foreign movies are more serious than Hollywood movies; inaccessible books are more serious than popular and accessible books. While it’s certainly not the only metric that affects all these status decisions, we do very often wind up assigning ascending levels of importance alongside ascending levels of remoteness.
You can see echoes of this in lots of places: go in for medical treatment, and the status of the doctor who may see you only briefly will often be more credited for the success of your care than nurses who actually touch you, who swab your skin and move your limbs and wrap and clip and stick things around you and to you, on top of the expertise they’re bringing. What feels close feels easier and simpler: I could take somebody’s blood pressure, I guess.
It’s sometimes the same in writing. When you write about appearance and beauty, it might seem like pure frivolity, and sometimes it is. But when you are touching on people’s bodies, on their hair and skin and shape, you are actually treading on something that’s powerful because of its intimacy. Writing about books or TV shows can be the same way: people are attached. It’s personal. It’s not a pass to take your eye off the ball. In a lot of ways, it’s the opposite.
The Dish 