I'm also going to add one last thing, having seen that a lot of Barbar's argument is about "why I keep on bringing up my gender."
I keep on bringing up my gender because I have to think about it, constantly, and I am yelling because no one seems to understand that privilege is invisible to the privileged parties no matter how many times I speak politely. If this were about simple probability, I'd say, sure, whatever. But it isn't about simple probability. It's about the mechanisms of power and how they exert force on me and the people around me.
Using probability masks the fact that there are people out there damaging my rights, as a human being, and one of the ways in which this damage is exerted is through the media. "Political correctness" is a nice word for "not fucking over other people intentionally or unintentionally." Reviling the concept of diversity and equality in media is a damaging strategy. Period. End of story.
I'm not saying that people get it right, most of the time. Usually, they are "politically correct" just to be "politically correct." The secret is that while doing this, they still usually end up working into the schema anyway. They just express the old tropes, again and again, and they get points for being "edgy." The secret is that they're still failing the groups that they're theoretically trying to support, almost 100% of the time.
Therefore because it is a democracy, majority rules.
Nope, but nice try =) If that were true, we'd have mostly female leads. Because there's more women than there are men.
There was no 'supposed to be' in there. I was directly stating that you know math. It wasn't really necessary (we both know you know math) but I like to preface things.
Right, and it was that "supposed to be" that set me off. Because it completely changed the meaning of what you were saying, and made it not about your probability argument, but about my skills.
How am I subjugating women by making this argument? Nothing I've said is directly preventing women from running for public office, making a name for themselves, or other such things. Basically what I'm advocating is a meritocracy. Instead of fulfilling quotas of minorities, I'm of the opinion that the important characters should be the best characters. Best is open to interpretation, but in general the words I'd use to describe a 'best' character are 'interesting' and 'unique'. If a monocultural cast is interesting enough, I say go for it. If a multicultural cast is interesting, I say go for it. The differing perspectives and such add to the interest value of a character, so generally diversity helps a story.
Because by most people's standards, "best" often means "the character I can relate with." Those who have the power and the money thus create or fund narratives that they can identify with. Those people are usually not women or other marginalized groups. Sometimes, we get lucky and have narratives funded by people interested in those diverse stories, but usually we don't. Usually, we don't have good, interesting stories about women told. We fund the stories about men. Because they're "better."
As I said, shows from other countries that come here are often whitewashed or written to be more male-centric. Because that makes them "better" narratives, more worthy of our time. They don't change anything else, though. They won't allow even those superficial differences.
If it makes you feel any better, Vector, you do a darn good job of playing the heroine of every argument you get in to. People generally agree with you because you seem to pick the 'right' options to support. When you get into something this sticky and ambiguous, peoples' opinions vary wildly. Your opinions on this matter are noted, and they are digested and contemplated. However, I do not agree with all of them.
Do they agree with me because I pick the right options, or because I actually espouse those opinions? Am I playing the heroine? Rhetorically speaking, you are saying that I am putting on an act. That I don't believe what I feel, and that I am "performing" to gain popular opinion. That may not be what you want to say, but
it is what you are saying.
Once again: pay attention to your language, please.
That's just the thing. When you're championing an undeniably just cause, you aren't going to hit much resistance. When you start getting into subjective matters like the usage of language, the various shades of gray are going to have their own opinions too. The problem herein, I believe, is that people just don't want to be wrong. Imagine if you are wrong on this. (I'm not saying you necessarily are.) Wouldn't you also defend your position until the sheer weight of the opposition forced you to change? Humans are stubborn creatures, myself included.
Well, let me put it this way. To me, the usage of language is very clear and not at all subjective. Like the difference between purple and orange. I believe what I am saying. I will defend it. I will continue to defend it, because I know very well that I am right, and that I can argue for as long as I have to. Should someone somehow manage demonstrate me incorrect, I will--as I usually do--apologize and move on.
Remember that? I give out a lot of apologies here, more than I see anyone else give. There was one in the happy thread just today, because I was wrong. So I apologized. No, I don't defend my position until the weight of the opposition forces me to change. I defend my position until I can see that I am wrong, because one of the things we students of mathematics are taught to do is, indeed, to attack and rethink our own positions as violently as we attack anyone else's, and to instantly give them up or change them once we have seen their flaws.
And yes, generally we do in fact want to watch people like ourselves.
The question then becomes: Do you value watching people like yourself over equality for other people?
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Topic: Diversity In Media (Read 8847 times)