Diversity and Representation in Media

The Russos believe Marvel's success will allow them to take bigger risks in the future.

If you can't take "big risks" in casting after 10 highly successful movies I don't see what 3 more movies changes. The pressure is coming from the top of Marvel and Disney and not from some invisible guy with a gun out to shoot them if any kind of LGBT character shows up on the set unless he's paid 3 billion dollars more.

edited 3rd May '16 1:18:10 PM by LordofLore

And they might just mean "gay side characters", not gay protagonists. They are very much dragging their feet into bringing about a black protagonist or female protagonist and it's been at least 40 years since that actually would be controversial, so perhaps we will see an LGBT Marvel protagonist in 2060.

I still think they should've gone for Phyla-Vell(half-Kree, daughter of the guy who probably won't be in the Captain Marvel movie so they might as well use his family if they aren't going to use him, one of Marvel's few non-mutant lesbian characters and part of the only couple from the gotg comic the movies are taking their inspiration from) in the new gotg movie instead of Mantis.

Executives like finding excuses to do things the way they've been done for the last several decades, even when it's something that would pretty much pose no significant risk.

Wouldn't surprise me if they were still operating on the logic of "Catwoman and Elektra flopped, so clearly female superhero movies won't be successful", despite the fact that it's been so long and them having female protagonists had little to do with their failures.

edited 3rd May '16 1:34:44 PM by wehrmacht

48% of a recent poll(on people who bought Civil War tickets)want a Black Widow movie. Number 2 was only 15%(a Vision movie). People want more female superhero movies.

Interesting... Is there a link to that poll somewhere?

Here. Wouldn't surprise me if the most that happens is that we get a Scarlet Witch and the Vision movie after the next 2 phases.

edited 3rd May '16 1:45:17 PM by LordofLore

Not far from the truth at all. When the Sony leak happened, one of the things that made news was Ike Perlmutter, C.E.O. of Marvel Entertainment, chastising Sony for their shared universe plans because they wanted one of their movies to star a female protagonist. In his email, Perlmutter cited Catwoman and Supergirl as examples of why you should never make a superhero film starring a woman.

Perlmutter no longer has creative control over Marvel Studios, fortunately, but that's a recent development.

edited 3rd May '16 1:43:42 PM by TobiasDrake

On Twitter, a hashtag emerging as of late is #whitewashedOUT, where people are sharing stories of examples of whitewashing they've heard about or experienced firsthand. Here are three to start.

And on another topic, here's a link to the Frozen thread discussing a petition #GiveElsaAGirlfriend.

edited 3rd May '16 4:11:42 PM by Tuckerscreator

The Chinese/Japanese/Korean tension that comes up when it comes to Asian casting always intrigues me, because of how specific it is to those scenarios. I'm aware of the history behind the three countries, but I'm surprised people seem to use Hollywood casting as an extension of those tensions.

Also, I can totally get behind promoting LGBT acceptance with a Disney princess, but I can't help but be a tad skeptical, if only because of how popular the Elsa/Anna ship is.

What the Russo's actually mean is "Perlmutter is out of the way." It is no secret that the guy is sexist and homophobe. Now that Marvel Studios is directly under Disney's control, the chances for something like a Black Widow movie have grown considerably.

Yeah, Elsanna isn't exactly a hill I want to die on.

I went through the entire hashtag and there were no mentions of Elsa/Anna anywhere.

Admittedly it's more of an implicit assumption on my part than a direct accusation.

Like, if they can give Elsa a lesbian lover without taking anything away from her sisterly bond with Anna that would be perfect.

I don't think it needs to be implicit. The amount of Elsa/Anna fanfic and fanart (ranging from the cutesy to pure smut/porn) is staggering and is something that baffles me, considering how most people are not exactly fond of real life incest cases.

But this might be a bit off-topic, so, I apologize for this brief post.

edited 3rd May '16 9:13:59 PM by Quag15

I always thought that was out of nowhere until I saw the short.

Then I was like, "Okay if I didn't know any better I'd say the blonde has a crush on the redhead.''

Is it bad that this is where my mind went as soon as I heard about this? In my defense though, that stuff was everywhere for a while.

An officially gay Disney character or two would be pretty neat though, but the inevitable outrage from certain people would be just as tragic as it would be hilarious.

The popularity of Elsa/Anna kinda makes me sad. I think a well-written familial/friendship love is genuinely more interesting (and difficult to write) than romantic love. I dislike the fact that shippers default to a romantic love. It's the idea that romantic love is the inevitable progression of non-romantic love that bugs me.

It's why I had mixed feelings about Korrasami. On one hand, I thought it was a huge step and interesting... but on the other, I was sad to see one of the more interesting and well-written platonic relationships turn into a romantic one.

Also they're siblings

Welcome to the Internet. Please enjoy your stay.

How ethnically pure should an actor be to be allowed to play a character of a certain ethnicity? Obviously something like Sean Farris, who is fully white playing Kyo Kusanagi is 100% BS but then there are cases actors like Takeshi Kaneshiro, whose mother is Taiwanese and father is from Japan and has played mostly Chinese roles. Then there are Korean Japanese actors like Yuri Nakamura, Yusaku Matsuda, Tomoyasu Hotei and Hyunri, who have mostly played Japanese roles. I remember Chen Kaige saying in an interview that he cast Hiroyuki Sanada and Jang Dong-gun on purpose among otherwise Chinese (counting Hong Kong natives) cast in The Promise.

edited 4th May '16 9:41:45 AM by harkko

My problem with Korrasami had more to do with the opposite problem. Asami had not much chemistry with anyone, due to being so criminally underdeveloped. Her role seemed to waver between walking plot device to move the story forward and (future) love interest to Mako or Korra without much of a chance to stand up on her own. It's a shame because the series was pretty good with its other female characters and Katara.

edited 4th May '16 10:00:44 AM by AlleyOop

I thought that the development that Asami got, while somewhat marginal, was pretty good. That being said, I love Korrasami and it was a groundbreaking moment for LGBT characters having a presence in animated shows. Like, I love the fact that both Korra and Asami are explicitly not straight. :)

...Katara's hiding a secret, is she?

edited 4th May '16 10:05:27 AM by TobiasDrake