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[Gatleos]

A good LGBT protagonist is easy. The real test is making a good LGBT villain. One that has all the traits of an antagonist, and is gay/bi/trans/etc. What's the point of including LGBT characters if they can't be flawed in any way without being considered to be a "bad representation"?

The problem is, past a certain point it's more about the reaction to the work by society in general than authorial intent. Whether it was intended or not, people are going to interpret the character's sexuality as being linked to their villainy or even mental illness.

[Loud Whispers]

A good LGBT protagonist is easy. The real test is making a good LGBT villain. One that has all the traits of an antagonist, and is gay/bi/trans/etc. What's the point of including LGBT characters if they can't be flawed in any way without being considered to be a "bad representation"?
The problem is, past a certain point it's more about the reaction to the work by society in general than authorial intent. Whether it was intended or not, people are going to interpret the character's sexuality as being linked to their villainy or even mental illness.

Not really. I mean, for all intents and purposes it could be intentionally so, that their sexuality is linked to their villainy or even mental illness by design, like Bruno from 'Strangers on a Train.' Yet most I reckon are not so by design, or if they are are done sloppily or carelessly. The reason why most gay villains, and indeed most gay characters in general tend to fall flat and turn into shit characters is when the creator has already pegged them off from the start as the gay one. Whether it be because they want to have their diversity and shit or if they want to pass censorship laws, this is usually to blame - they've already got their cookie-cutter mould to fit in their character, disallowing it from ever appearing more rough and natural.
Lexington from 'gargoyles' is an example of a natural character growth one, a character that the creators didn't really think about as being gay that just sorta evolved so. As for villains, you've got a good recent example from skyfall where the villain was of dubious sexuality:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Where being villanously sexual wasn't his raison d'etre, it was him using all of his assets at his disposal [in this case trying to sexually intimidate bond] the guy had his own motives distinct from his sexuality, ones developed as appropriately for a villain and a bond villain no less. For all we know, Silva could have just been joking, but we wouldn't know for sure. It's one more elusive thing about him that establishes the traits we come to know as being that of Raoul.

[Ogdibus]

Also, the test is about a shortage of believable positive portrayals.  Whether or not it's easy to do is beside the point.

[Loud Whispers]

Also, the test is about a shortage of believable positive portrayals.  Whether or not it's easy to do is beside the point.

This implies this is really any problem. I'm particularly vehement of this test in that the mentality that gives it life demands mass produced gloop in the vain hopes that something marketable will rise, giving birth to a franchise we can latch onto and consume for generations in order to achieve the goal it seeks. Just write good books, produce good movies, sing good songs and let the rest come naturally. And if you do for whatever reason think hard and decide on a character's sexuality, gender or whatever the fuck, make sure it's only for the character's sake or it really well show.

To end that off, the number of gay villains who've been done incredibly well are all jogging my memory; Ozymandias for example is credited as one of the most god-tier villains of all time and it's an important background plot which you have to discover, it's likely one of the reasons Rorshach immediately distrusts him. If you try to impose what makes a good character from top down you're going to fall into hollywood syndrome where they draw a graph based on successful things and turn it into a formula, not letting success grow from down up independent of what's popular or appealing. 'Rules. Tests. Formulae.' Creativity breaks these boundaries, if it doesn't there is something terribly wrong.

[AlleeCat]

#4 is optional for a reason. I know that having a mental disorder does not equal being a bad person or negative role model, it's just that being gay or trans usually gets lumped together with being crazy. They're gay so they're obviously not thinking properly. They feel like a woman trapped in a man's body, it's just crazy talk.

I mean, for the longest time, all we had for portrayals of trans people in the media were Buffalo Bill and Rocky Horror. Not exactly good examples.

[Loud Whispers]

I mean, for the longest time, all we had for portrayals of trans people in the media were Buffalo Bill and Rocky Horror. Not exactly good examples.

I swear neither are tg. The former's bonkers and believes himself to be tg when he's not, the other's a sweet trans-vest-ite but not otherwise tg.

As far as variety in media portrayal goes, everyone or close to everyone has heard of 'Boys don't cry,' and 'Priscilla Queen of the Desert' even if they haven't seen them, and there's something about tg films and drag films that seem to gather cult followings like rocky horror or hedwig. If you include crossdressers and drag, the number of good examples, dare I say QUALITY examples widens dramatically, with movies like 'Some like it hot' still up somewhere in my favourite movies of all time lists, moving ahead of even some of the 1980's horror movies [the 1980's being apparently one of the best decades for horror movies we are yet to reach again. Paranormal activity isn't suspense building, it's boring]. But to not lose track of what I was trying to say, there's a few mainstream examples and a sea of indie ones [with some claiming mainstream fame], it isn't even remotely close to unanimous condemnation by proxy of villanous characters. I'm sure there's probably a bunch of people on the internet keeping a list of this stuff, there usually is where identity politics are concerned. Check em out.

[Ogdibus]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also, the test is about a shortage of believable positive portrayals.  Whether or not it's easy to do is beside the point.

This implies this is really any problem. I'm particularly vehement of this test in that the mentality that gives it life demands mass produced gloop in the vain hopes that something marketable will rise, giving birth to a franchise we can latch onto and consume for generations in order to achieve the goal it seeks. Just write good books, produce good movies, sing good songs and let the rest come naturally. And if you do for whatever reason think hard and decide on a character's sexuality, gender or whatever the fuck, make sure it's only for the character's sake or it really well show.

To end that off, the number of gay villains who've been done incredibly well are all jogging my memory; Ozymandias for example is credited as one of the most god-tier villains of all time and it's an important background plot which you have to discover, it's likely one of the reasons Rorshach immediately distrusts him. If you try to impose what makes a good character from top down you're going to fall into hollywood syndrome where they draw a graph based on successful things and turn it into a formula, not letting success grow from down up independent of what's popular or appealing. 'Rules. Tests. Formulae.' Creativity breaks these boundaries, if it doesn't there is something terribly wrong.

That's not the intent of the test, nor is it the mentality that inspired it. You're chasing illusions of your own making.

[Loud Whispers]

Possibly I am, I don't possess the same energy to lurk the channels of twits, tumbles and critics to see if that sentiment still rings as true. If so cut out the test part and everything else is still pretty much how I feel about things.

[Ogdibus]

You probably shouldn't spend your energy doing that, anyway, unless you are deeply committed to it.  In that environment, the writers assume that the readers already have a firsthand understanding of the subject.  Even between people with firsthand experience, it's difficult to describe the nature of complicated subjects such as this one, especially for groups that are affected heavily by poverty.

[Gatleos]

snip

Not really. I mean, for all intents and purposes it could be intentionally so, that their sexuality is linked to their villainy or even mental illness by design, like Bruno from 'Strangers on a Train.'

Well of course. And that's the problem. It doesn't matter if it was malicious or not, people just tend to interpret it that way. More vibrant and varied portrayals will come about when well-intentioned attempts stop backfiring. The fact that hateful portrayals need to stop is a given here, I think.

Also, the test is about a shortage of believable positive portrayals.  Whether or not it's easy to do is beside the point.

True. But I wasn't really talking about the test in the OP, which I think is okay. Just the issue in general.

[kaijyuu]

Lexington from 'gargoyles' is an example of a natural character growth one, a character that the creators didn't really think about as being gay that just sorta evolved so.

I had to look this up to see if it were true. Guess it is, according to word of god.




Anywho I'd just like all those standard romance tropes to occasionally be used with gay people.

[Loud Whispers]

Abandon tropes, acquire stories.

[kaijyuu]

* kaijyuu isn't sure what you're saying by that.

Patterns occur in stories and we give them names. Also, nothing new under the sun. Also also, we tend to communicate concepts by shared experiences, so a truly tropeless and original story would be completely alien and communicate nothing.

[Loud Whispers]

You can never judge a work by its tropes, the same way you wouldn't judge food by what ingredients it features.
If you judge it by tropes, Bioware is tries to be good at making homosexual characters.
I will let that sink in.

a truly tropeless and original story would be completely alien and communicate nothing.

What?!

[ed boy]

A character with the setting 'gay' is going to have a radically different storyline to a character with the setting 'straight'. Similarly someone with the settings 'gay' and 'black' is going to have a radically different storyline to someone with the setting 'gay' and 'white'. And so on. Each set of settings gives you a completely different story, crossing over with some others but alienated and separated from them by the differences.

I disagree. Yes, there are situations in which gay people have vastly different experiences than straight people, and yes the situations in which can cause problems for gay people that do not cause problems for straight people. But being gay does not mean that your perspective on everything is different, and there are plenty of gay people who do not have different experiences in situations where some gay people do. Similarly, just because some black people have different experiences, not all of them do and it does not happen all the time.

Now we are trying to choose some base set of settings and universally label them 'normal' and 'more relatable' than other sets. Believing that straight/white/male is more relatable is to ignore all this. Having a character who is straight might make them impossible to relate to to someone who is gay.

Yes, it is possible for someone who is gay to be unable to relate to someone who is straight. However, if you present an experience that the typical straight person can relate to, there is a good chance that a gay person can relate to it, whereas if you present an experience that the typical straight person cannot relate to, it doesn't guarantee that a gay person can relate to it.

Pretending that the experiences of marginalised, minority or just plain non-straight/white/male people are just the same as straight/white/male with a couple extra bits bolted on is what I mean by this being a privileged viewpoint.

You can divide experiences into four categories - gay-exclusive, straight-exclusive, possible for gay and straight, and possible for neither. Do you deny that the gay-exclusive category is larger than the straight-exclusive category? You you deny equivalent statements for race/gender?