Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 7

Author Topic: Diversity In Media  (Read 8802 times)

Heron TSG

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Seal Goddess
    • View Profile
Diversity In Media
« on: April 06, 2011, 01:11:46 am »

Bauglir wanted some thread, so I am providing.

This whole debacle was sparked by this trailer for "The Governator."

Specifically, people were talkin' about how all of the known main characters were white and male. Some people took issue with this. These people are arguing for diversity, which is generally a good thing.

Others, such as myself, are of the opinion that the color and gender of the characters does not matter, so long as they are interesting and unique characters regardless. I made an offhand comment about how AAAAA was just as valid a result of random generation as ADEBC, and then went on to this.

I'm going to type something I'll probably regret later.
Fairly irrelevant for this thread, but kept for completeness: Here's the reason I am angry. It has been a common theme for every single person I speak to find one single flaw in any argument, one single mistake, one single slipup, and magnify it until it utterly eclipses the original meaning of the argument. Just because I accidentally wrote Oranje instead of Orange does not mean I am talking about Dutch royalty, and it's downright insane to think that in a conversation about growing oranges in Florida. Accidentally confusing a hastily drawn multiplication dot with a subtraction sign doesn't mean I've forgotten Algebra. Requiring readers to infer information instead of writing down literally everything I know on the matter isn't going to kill anyone. Except me, apparently.

Spoiler: My rebuttal (click to show/hide)
Rant over. I certainly feel happier for getting that out there.
It's a bit of a targeted rant, but it outlines the theme fairly well and this is really just a transplant thread from the Happy Thread. So, what are your opinions on diversity in media, forumgoers?
Logged

Est Sularus Oth Mithas
The Artist Formerly Known as Barbarossa TSG

Criptfeind

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Diversity In Media
« Reply #1 on: April 06, 2011, 01:14:15 am »

Thoughts: I don't really care if everyone is all white males or if it a diverse cast. So long as the plot is good.
Logged

Tellemurius

  • Bay Watcher
  • Positively insane Tech Thaumaturgist
    • View Profile
Re: Diversity In Media
« Reply #2 on: April 06, 2011, 01:16:19 am »

Kinda shitty i guess, women are treated like weak flowers while men are hulking boulders. Hell the last movie i just watched Sucker Punch reversed the diversity (movie kinda was meh) which is pretty rare.

Criptfeind

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Diversity In Media
« Reply #3 on: April 06, 2011, 01:19:28 am »

Kinda shitty i guess, women are treated like weak flowers while men are hulking boulders.

I have to wonder if that is even true anymore. Reverting stereotypes seems like the easiest way to make a show 'different' and producers have noticed this. Honestly most of the shows I watch now-a-days have strong female leads.
Logged

Heron TSG

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Seal Goddess
    • View Profile
Re: Diversity In Media
« Reply #4 on: April 06, 2011, 01:22:19 am »

Thoughts: I don't really care if everyone is all white males or if it a diverse cast. So long as the plot is good.
+1.

I'm frankly a bit tired of society's need for political correctness. There is a point where it has gone too far, and that point is the one where people get enraged that an otherwise decent show isn't diverse enough.
Logged

Est Sularus Oth Mithas
The Artist Formerly Known as Barbarossa TSG

3

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Diversity In Media
« Reply #5 on: April 06, 2011, 01:24:53 am »

Maybe the writer of this show had some great ideas for characters. These characters are all different and exciting people. There's just one problem, apparently! They're all white! What do you propose the writer do, go in and change his characters based on the color of their skin? For what reason? Because people can't stand to accept his characters as a group if they all look similar? Are people going to suddenly dislike his interesting character because there aren't any Hispanic characters about? Maybe they just live in a town where there aren't many Hispanic people. There are many towns like that.

As little as saying as much adds to the (potential) discussion, this is essentially the view that I take. Artist's prerogative.
Logged

Retro

  • Bay Watcher
  • o7
    • View Profile
Re: Diversity In Media
« Reply #6 on: April 06, 2011, 01:25:11 am »

I think diversity is great and should be encouraged, and honestly, white protagonists have been getting a little boring to me in their repetition. That said... the attitude executives seem to take towards diversity in cast is "HEY WOW LOOK AT ALL THE COOL NON-WHITE THINGS WE DO" rather than just having the characters be themselves. It's very often badly done and gimmicky. Not that I want them to stick to white leads until they adjust or anything, but they really need to work on that.

I agree that plot is far more important, but race shouldn't really affect plot except generally in dramas, so there's no real reason for producers not to expand their horizons.

Tellemurius

  • Bay Watcher
  • Positively insane Tech Thaumaturgist
    • View Profile
Re: Diversity In Media
« Reply #7 on: April 06, 2011, 01:25:25 am »

God political correctness, makes me want to actually become a lawmaker then stand in front of the assembly and flip them all off. They are now getting pissed off for putting anger in speeches now too >_>. And what, our forefathers just monologued the british to death?

fqllve

  • Bay Watcher
  • (grammar) anarcho-communist
    • View Profile
    • ufowitch
Re: Diversity In Media
« Reply #8 on: April 06, 2011, 01:25:49 am »

I'm frankly a bit tired of society's need for political correctness. There is a point where it has gone too far, and that point is the one where people get enraged that an otherwise decent show isn't diverse enough.
It doesn't even have to be about political correctness though. Diversity of cast means diversity of perspectives which gives you a wider range of experience to draw from. It allows the characters to be deeper because it gives them more to contrast against each other. Having a diverse cast is almost always a good thing.
Logged
You don't use freedom Penguin. First you demand it, then you have it.
No using. That's not what freedom is for.

Heron TSG

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Seal Goddess
    • View Profile
Re: Diversity In Media
« Reply #9 on: April 06, 2011, 01:28:44 am »

A diverse cast is something I support. Forcing each character to look different to 'match' their character is just silly. You can have contrast with four different races of people. You can have just as much contrast with four of the same race.
Logged

Est Sularus Oth Mithas
The Artist Formerly Known as Barbarossa TSG

Criptfeind

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Diversity In Media
« Reply #10 on: April 06, 2011, 01:29:23 am »

I'm frankly a bit tired of society's need for political correctness. There is a point where it has gone too far, and that point is the one where people get enraged that an otherwise decent show isn't diverse enough.
It doesn't even have to be about political correctness though. Diversity of cast means diversity of perspectives which gives you a wider range of experience to draw from. It allows the characters to be deeper because it gives them more to contrast against each other. Having a diverse cast is almost always a good thing.

That would be great. But shows are scripted.
Logged

Vector

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Diversity In Media
« Reply #11 on: April 06, 2011, 01:33:21 am »

I have to wonder if that is even true anymore. Reverting stereotypes seems like the easiest way to make a show 'different' and producers have noticed this. Honestly most of the shows I watch now-a-days have strong female leads.

If you think those are strong women, you usually need to think again.  For example, basically everything written by Joss Whedon doesn't count.


You're tired of someone coming up with one little flaw in every argument you make?  Enjoy mathematics.  I imagine it will piss you right off just about every day, for a little while, as it has all the rest of us who studied it.

Your tone was condescending ("you're supposed to be a mathemagician"-- supposed to be, implying that I am not and instead you, with your tools of mathematics, can be used to strike down my argument without impunity.  I do not want my skill to be called into question as you attack it with a probability argument I understood in elementary school) and you employed an argument that has been used by others, hundreds and hundreds of times, to continue to subjugate women (and other groups)--likely because you have no understanding of the way privilege works in general.

I want the privilege to not fucking care who stars in a movie, and to not care about what they're saying about my sex, gender, and mental health.  I want the privilege to see people who look like me, act like me, and are like me in places of power.  I want the privilege to be able to walk around without hearing woman-targeted rape jokes and stupidity jokes, and I want the privilege to have my voice be heard and listened to in a group of men.  I want my very sex to be used to confer positive feelings, like yours is, rather than being used as a pejorative.

Hell, you know what else I want?  I want to ride on an airplane and never, ever hear people loudly making fun of my group (AS-diagnosed folks) as a bunch of whiners whose mothers were too cold and who decided out of spite to secede from the world--with no one calling them on it or looking uncomfortable.  But I don't have that privilege, either.  I'm sure you know about how well it would go if you had two people with Asperger's making fun of all neurotypicals and their "irrational" and "insensitive" behaviors.

And, this very day, there were people on this board offering photographs of their girlfriend's breasts without their permission--in exchange for tech support, no less, and theoretically all in the name of a joke.  How about you?  Have you ever dated someone and had them offer photographs of your penis in exchange for information on how to fix their computer?  Have you ever had to worry about such a situation?  And, indeed, if that did happen--if I, for example, were to offer such pictures--do you think that half a page of the thread would have just been normal comments, as though nothing had happened, and jokes about how the severed organ would need to be shipped over on ice?  Do you think that people would call you out for being humorless if you happened to report such a person?

I wanted somewhere to be safe, and I was hoping it was here.

Then I was hoping I could be safe studying mathematics, and not having to study it precisely so that, when others attempted to use it, I would be able to deflect their attacks.  You love mathematics.  So do I.  I nearly died for it.  For that opportunity.  For that gleaming chance.  I'm not exaggerating, either.  I'm not saying you have to do that in order to argue with me, but I'm trying to explain: this is why it's so important to me.  That's how important it is.

And I'm tired of telling people "These are the mechanisms of power," and being told "Fuck off, we don't care."  It's a berserk button to say that using the language of mathematics, which I love more than I love myself.  Y'all thank me so long as I argue against the obvious things, but as soon as I start saying "Okay, guys, the way you use language is seriously fucking problematic" it seems like you're not interested anymore.

Well, there you have it.  If you want to educate yourselves, the tools are more than out there.  If you don't give a fuck, good for you.  You've got plenty of company.


So, well, here's how it is.  I don't have the energy for this anymore.  I just don't.  I slept four hours last night so that I could get up and study my math, and I don't have the energy to argue with every single person who ends up disparaging me by accident, or as a joke, or simply because they don't share my opinions.  The fact that I am here arguing, day after day, night after night, with an onslaught of different "offenders" is once again a matter of privilege.  I was given the ability to argue.  I am privileged.  I was also put into a position where I do have to care about gender and other superficial qualities.  That is where your privilege comes into play.

As they say, your privilege ends where mine begins.  To allow others privilege, you will have to give up some of your own.

And that's just basically the way it works.


A diverse cast is something I support. Forcing each character to look different to 'match' their character is just silly. You can have contrast with four different races of people. You can have just as much contrast with four of the same race.

The story of a woman in mathematics is inherently different than that of a man.  The stories of people from different walks of life are also different.  But those stories aren't being told.
« Last Edit: April 06, 2011, 01:37:24 am by Vector »
Logged
"The question of the usefulness of poetry arises only in periods of its decline, while in periods of its flowering, no one doubts its total uselessness." - Boris Pasternak

nonbinary/genderfluid/genderqueer renegade mathematician and mafia subforum limpet. please avoid quoting me.

pronouns: prefer neutral ones, others are fine. height: 5'3".

fqllve

  • Bay Watcher
  • (grammar) anarcho-communist
    • View Profile
    • ufowitch
Re: Diversity In Media
« Reply #12 on: April 06, 2011, 01:39:00 am »

A diverse cast is something I support. Forcing each character to look different to 'match' their character is just silly. You can have contrast with four different races of people. You can have just as much contrast with four of the same race.
I'm not saying that we should do a palette swap of existing characters to make them more diverse. That's stupid and almost always painfully obvious. But when you're creating a character, picking some ethnicity for them to belong to is an stupendously easy way to make them a better character. It's also helps the show appeal to a wider audience.

And I'm not saying that every work should have a racially diverse cast, because in the end is that really any more diverse than all of the characters being John Whiteguy? I'm saying that by including more diversity writers would only be doing their works a service.

e: To answer my own rhetorical question: Okay, maybe a little.
Logged
You don't use freedom Penguin. First you demand it, then you have it.
No using. That's not what freedom is for.

Criptfeind

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Diversity In Media
« Reply #13 on: April 06, 2011, 01:41:57 am »

If you think those are strong women, you usually need to think again.

Okay... Then.
Logged

Vector

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Diversity In Media
« Reply #14 on: April 06, 2011, 01:44:33 am »

If you think those are strong women, you usually need to think again.

Okay... Then.

*shrug*

All I'm trying to say is that I find it hard to believe that "most" shows have strong female leads.  Maybe most of the ones you're watching.  I haven't been able to find any.
Logged
"The question of the usefulness of poetry arises only in periods of its decline, while in periods of its flowering, no one doubts its total uselessness." - Boris Pasternak

nonbinary/genderfluid/genderqueer renegade mathematician and mafia subforum limpet. please avoid quoting me.

pronouns: prefer neutral ones, others are fine. height: 5'3".
Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 7