A thread for discussing representation and diversity in all kinds of media. This covers creators and casting decisions as well as characters and in-universe discussions.
Historical works and decisions are in-scope as well, not just recent news.
Please put any spoilers behind tags and clearly state which work(s) they apply to.
This week, producer Ross Putnam started a Twitter account called "femscriptintros
", where he puts up examples of how women are introduced in the screenplays he's read. And nearly all of sound like terrible porn or are too concerned with emphasizing said lady is beautiful despite whatever traits she may have. Here's a Take Two podcast made today where he talks about it.
(Edited April 19 2024 to add mod pinned post)
Edited by Mrph1 on Apr 19th 2024 at 11:45:51 AM
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
The Mummy is an interesting artifact from a time when globalization wasn't the big scary second coming of colonialism and the destruction of national identity, but rather the hip new future of everything as everyone experiences all these weird wacky new cultures and peoples. They were films from the 80's and 90's, when communism was on the decline and for a brief glorious timeframe a large chunk of the world didn't want to exterminate another large chunk of the world. The reason why a lot of these globetrotting adventures play with white, well, at least western travelers is because it plays off the central theme of the merger of cultures, the whole "fish out of water" sentiment.
Post-9/11 there's been a trend against these movies, be it on the right with nationalism and xenophobia or on the left with a heavier focus on the preservation of ethnicity and culture, leaving these films as weird reminders of another time. Dunno why they kept these themes for the reboot.
Re: Luke Cage. I feel like it just shows a lot of political nuance shown by the writers in a very politically charged landscape. I like the fact that Luke is an older, more conservative, more reserved character because it allows them to play more nuance in the political commentary. It doesn't mean that everything Cage says is right, but it gives a perspective different from the activist movements that doesn't devolve into straight up racism.
Re: Latinas and all that jaz- erm, merengue. I doubt that this is a direct result of any particular preference for "sexy Latinas" and more because of the lack of non-sexy Latina roles. Unlike male roles, there's a fetish for every female... well, anything, so I doubt that there'd be any particular preference. In which case, a push against sexualization would be sort of besides the point.
edited 5th Dec '16 9:26:20 AM by InAnOdderWay
Screaming Into The Void
annoys me so much.
That being said, the one case where I will pull the "it's just a book/show/movie" card is when people bully each other over their interpretations of a work or for what they chose to watch/avoid. Or send death threats. Because that trash is never acceptable.
Oh my god, I've seen countless people get unbelievably outraged when you tell them "it's just a ship" in response to them being abusive and freaking out at show creators for not making it canon, or exploiting series issues like homophobia, representation, abuse allegations, and accusations of pedophilianote to bash series because they seemed to favor another, equally or arguably more progressive ship or fanon.
Even better when they cite how progressive it is and how much it means to them as an excuse to actively shit on other marginalized groups and tell them they matter less, as if such social issues are quantitatively measurable by oppression olympics. Enjoyment of the textual source material and any subtext at the personal individual level, fine. But it needs to stop when it reaches the level of fandom and externalized interpretations of the text as opposed to the explicit text.
edited 5th Dec '16 1:11:52 PM by AlleyOop
The shipping in Voltron is a vile cesspool of ass and it makes me incredibly bitter.
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Do not get me started.
Season 2 will hopefully help with that When Shiro is King Dead and Allura gets a relationship with the others.
The thing about shipping is that people will claim "Progressivenss" to justify a pairing when they just don't like the idea of a woman hooking up with a guy they think is cute.
Well, it is only a webseries, but during the hiatus of agents of shield ABC will release "MAOS: Slingshot"....making Yoyo the first Hispanic lead in a Marvel property. It's not much, but it is something....and who knows, if the reaction is positive it might lead to more....
edited 7th Dec '16 12:54:20 AM by Swanpride
Technically the first lead was Sitwell in Item 47, but I hope this goes through and gets farther.
A Twitter thread on Madame Ya Zhou, the only Asian woman with speaking lines in Fantastic Beasts.note
Article on Pixar's upcoming film Coco, with an all Latinx cast.
On another Disney note, Disney publicly released this scene from Moana, which I say alone is worth the price of admission (mild spoilers if you haven't seen the film). It's also been warming to see a lot of people of Pasifika descent responding eagerly in the comments, with pride toward their ancestors and the languages displayed.
edited 7th Dec '16 11:59:13 AM by Tuckerscreator
Glad they gave up on the stupid plan to trademark "Dia De Los Muertos", assuming that rumor had any factual basis. Shame they couldn't bring the Paperman aesthetic this time around that they were originally planning with Moana but it looks nice. I just hope it doesn't step too much on the toes of The Book Of Life, although I imagine it'll be a more personal tale while that film was more bombastic.
Cool that this movie has an entirely Latinx cast, and the premise is pretty neato.
Looking forward to seeing this.
That is neat. Latinx representation is something that I feel doesn't get talked about as much as it should, and hopefully this will both provide that representation and also help make the conversation more prominent.
Also - ..."Madame Asia?" Seriously? Stay classy, Rowling-verse.
Not film-related, but relevant to the broad topic of discussion nonetheless - Beyond Scruffy McScruffy: Why We Need Diverse Games.
Flash forward to today, with our country in a state of disarray over politics, when the need for representation matters more than ever. While video games may not seem like an obvious target area for diversity, it's a continually growing industry spanning multiple sectors which grossed $23.5 billion dollars last year, more than music or movies. Media has an influence on people, and tons of people are playing video games.
Tanya fell into her role promoting gaming diversity somewhat by fortuitous accident.
"When I started the hashtag #INeedDiverseGames," she explained, "it was because I was frustrated and literally angry about games at 6 in the morning, as you do. The latest round of 'it's too hard to animate women' and 'we were inches from playable female characters' had been making the rounds on my social media, as well as more games with the same bland brown-haired, blue-eyed, Scruffy McScruffy white dude protagonist had just set me off on a tear. So, I added the hashtag to the tweets I was sending out."
"Some people noticed it," she added, "and one of my friends, Mikki Kendall, retweeted some of my tweets. When a friend with over 35K Twitter followers at the time retweets you... that tag grew legs, and by the time I got to work a couple of hours later, it was getting a lot of use."
I Need Diverse Games grew into a popular Twitter handle and blog. While she received a lot of positive feedback, it was the pushback that inspired her to keep at it.
"It got the attention of the vocal few," Tanya indicated, "people who can't stand the idea of diversity or women 'infiltrating' their hobby, and I had to get block bots to keep my Twitter feed readable. What people don't realize is that I'm ornery. The more people pushed against the message, the harder I pushed back, and realized that this had clearly hit a button with folks. There's a greater conversation that was happening again. It needed to happen, so I threw myself into it fully, to the point it became a second job, one I am happy to do now as a full-time gig."
There is an undercurrent of negativity around diversity, whether out in the open with [redacted hashtag], or behind closed doors.
"I don't know honestly what the best response is," she admitted. "Ignoring them doesn't seem to work, and engaging with them just gives them what they want: more attention to tilt at windmills. I've definitely been targeted by them. At first, #INeedDiverseGames was unreadable because of the things they'd spam it with: anime porn, memes, other ridiculous shit that they think will trigger the social justice warriors or something."
"It's pathetic really," she added, "their wailing against progress, because POC, women, LGBTQIA folks have been here, even if they have refused to see us, and this mewling rage is unbecoming. It was always, 'But diversity is here! Look, two different white guys with different hair color! A red-headed white woman instead of blond!' That's their idea of diversity and it's laughable."
Tanya recommends several effective ways for fans and developers to advocate for diversity in games.
"Fans can push back (respectfully, screaming and yelling doesn't always work; in fact, it rarely does) on why there are no characters of color in a game, or if the game is already out,"she mentioned. "Question why a character falls back to a trope instead of maybe getting to be more than a one note joke."
"If you're a developer," she added, "speak up when you see a character design that is tropey. notice how many POC, LGBTQIA, women, trans characters there are and question why. Lastly, hire diversity consultants on your games. If something is outside your experience and you want to be sure you don't fuck it up? Hire people to do a review of the character's back story, art and design to be sure you're not getting it wrong."
While Tanya thinks some developers get it right, there are some that get it really wrong.
"I always give Bioware a mark in each box for this question," she confessed. "On the side of LGBTQIA issues, they do pretty well and are improving with each game. However, on issues of race? They still have a long way to go. But if I didn't love their work, I wouldn't want it to improve."
"Eidos needs help," she explained, "as their two recent Deus Ex titles show. Deus Ex: Human Revolution had Letitia the Trash Lady, someone who sounded like she stepped out of a Stepin' Fetchit cartoon. That makes me cringe even remembering it. Also, their most current game, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, just fell flat with their 'Augs lives matter' fail! You can't try to address real issues of race, racism and go 'oops, well not really.'"
"2K really stepped up the Mafia franchise," she noted more positively, "with introducing Lincoln Clay as the main character in the third installation of the game and actually addressing issues of race and racism in-game."
I was curious to hear the difference in her mind between getting more representation vs. positive representation in games, whether it was the same battle or not.
"I'd rather they not try at all," she stated. "To have characters of color all be terrible stereotypes rather than fully fleshed out characters is a worse crime to me than having none at all. On one side, you have the utter lack of representation in a game. Say for instance, Witcher 3. Love this game so much. The writing is fantastic, the story is brilliant, and Geralt grows as a lead in the game. However, there aren't any POC. None. This made no sense in a game where people clearly traveled, have magic, and other wonders. Elves, dwarves, etc. don't count. You can't swap out non-humans for POC. It's a tired fantasy trope that really needs to die out."
Tanya has been a gamer most of her life, from pen-and-paper role-playing games to arcades to console gaming.
"My favorite kinds of games are story driven, role-playing games," she noted. "I have a soft spot for Final Fantasy VII, I always will. But the FF series, Dragon Age, Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect, Witcher 3, where we get to know the characters, save the world (or the universe in Shepard's case)? Those are the ones that will always have my heart. I love fighting games too. Give me Street Fighter, Killer Instinct, Guilty Gear, King of Fighters, or Mortal Kombat, and I'm happy."
Some gamers argue that conversations about diversity and incorporating diverse characters in games takes away from their escapism. One common argument is that incorporating POC/LGBTQ characters is not historically accurate for a lot of games. Tanya doesn't buy it.
"The common counterarguments are that it's not realistic in general," Tanya explains. "Or, that women don't play games, or people of color don't play games, when we actually make up a good part of the market. The other one that gets me is that games with a black lead, or female lead, won't sell. However, it's simply ridiculous to assert that, when games with non-white scruffy dudes don't get the same marketing or ad coverage that, say, another Call of Duty title or similar gets."
In addition to being socially responsible, diversity is good for business.
"Not incorporating diversity in gaming is leaving money on the table, pure and simple," Tanya pointed out. "If I only get games with the same retread hero, the same story, and nothing new, in addition to no people who look like me, I'm going to stop supporting that company's games. For instance, I was pretty much done with the Assassin's Creed franchise until Evie Frye. Finally, the chance to be a female assassin, to kick as much ass as Ezio! Multiply that $70 I dropped by however many people felt the same way about the franchise, or picked up Assassin's Creed 4 because of Adéwalé in the game and his own DLC? That adds up and that's a lot of money people are spending elsewhere."
I'm sure it'll be good, but Coco will earn it's budget back just on Pixar's name alone, while The Book of Life didn't have the same luxury or opportunity too, despite having a similar concept and gorgeous animation.
edited 7th Dec '16 12:33:27 PM by higherbrainpattern
How Alex Danvers' arc on Supergirl helped a teenage girl. [1]
The Witcher 3 is a Russian written fantasy about Europe. That's like complaining about a lack of minorities in Metro where the story is set in Russia. It runs counter to the setting.
Also I need to play Mafia 3. Right now I'm playing Sleeping Dogs, and let me say it straight up, it's a small miracle they didn't make the hero even half-white, let alone a standard white guy.
edited 7th Dec '16 12:57:20 PM by Beatman1
I think the weirdest thing about him is that he's actually the one character with an entirely Chinese name. Most other characters, despite being fully ethnically Chinese have a Multiethnic Name or go by a nickname. But Wei Shen is the main character. He's still But Not Too Foreign since he's American, but you do have a point.
... also, best GTA game I've played in years.
And about the Witcher, that's the thing. When you've got a fantasy setting vaguely inspired by a real life setting, it can be jarring and almost insulting when "black people" is considered more of a break from reality than "lizardman." We have the same discussion about Game Of Thrones.
edited 7th Dec '16 1:06:56 PM by Larkmarn
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From what I understand and correct me if I'm wrong, the naming convention in Hong Kong is due to British influence.
Dragon Age and Skyrim also have pseudo-European settings, and yet both of them managed to include people of color without shattering anyone's suspension of disbelief (and that's without even getting into the fact that there have been people of color in Europe for a damn long time - they didn't just start suddenly showing up in the 20th century). Besides, the much-vaunted concept of historical accuracy stops being particularly relevant when the setting is a fictional one.
What's more, this is a logic that only ever seems to go one way. When nonwhite characters are added to a European setting, even when that setting is pure fantasy, those characterse will inevitably be subject to a barrage of accusations about inaccuracy and unfaithfulness to the time period. Yet when Matt Damon shows up in ancient China, then suddenly it's just a story and the creators can do whatever they want.
It's been said many a time before - but what does it say about us when we find dragons, wyverns, harpies, ghouls, witches, and halflings to be perfectly reasonable additions for the purposes of enriching a story - but we balk at the idea of better reflecting the audience?
Also, I believe that is correct. The European names common in Hong Kong are due to heavy British influence. Hence why there are characters with names like Winston Chu and whatnot.
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."
Polish and about fantasy modern day Poland actually IIRC.
edited 7th Dec '16 1:21:46 PM by doineedaname
It is. But like you said, it's surprising that they didn't take that justification and instead gave him a wholly Asian name.
OK. Must have mixed the origin with Metro, which is Russian in origin.
I guess that's their way of showing him as an outsider, which does make me wonder why he didn't get a full Western name. I'm not upset, quite the opposite, but it's rare to go in that direction.
Yes it's pretty normal for Hong Kong people to have Chinese first names for the general public and international media as well as a Chinese first name they use at home and in sinophone media. Donnie Yen, Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Jackie Chan, Andy Lau, Michelle Yeoh etc. If you haven't noticed we like the -y sound a lot and my IRL name isn't an exception
Probably a quirk of how syllables in Cantonese (the version of the language spoken in Hong Kong) don't have any consonant endings other than -n, -m, -k, -t, or -ng so you have to end loanwords with -i words to get the same effect (steak -> see diknote or see tay kee, lunch -> lan chee), like how Japanese loanwords usually end with -u sounds.
edited 7th Dec '16 2:17:00 PM by AlleyOop
Jaded Techie Fox
x9: I think that story has been posted here before. Two times, actually, which I find kind of amusing. It's a really sweet story though.
edited 7th Dec '16 1:50:39 PM by DeathsApprentice
Trust you? The only person I can trust is myself.
The Dragon of the Eastern Sea
Asian Americans who have a difficult to pronounce name will often take an anglophone approximation or adopt a new name all together.
My name is Long(2) Yun(2) Yi(4)
but nobody can pronounce that
so my friends call me "Patrick". In fact, that is my legal name since I got naturalized.
Mainlanders whose primary languages is Mandarin, like Northerners or Beijing-ites just have a Chinese name. I have seen a few people whose names are Chinese-izations of Western names, "Ma(3) Li(4)" ("Mary"), or "Li(2) Qi(3)" ("Richie") but they are the minority.
My favorite Chinese version of a Western name is "Da(4) Wei(4)" ("David").
Because it can mean "important person" if you use enough alternate meanings of the individual words.
edited 7th Dec '16 1:56:47 PM by blkwhtrbbt
Say to the others who did not follow through You're still our brothers, and we will fight for you
The Wanderer
My grandaunt told me my Chinese great-great grandfather was half Cantonese and Manchu from Hong Kong before he came to Guyana, but I suspect I might have some Hakka too since their surname was Yhap. (A romanization you don't really see all that often outside of the Caribbean.)
Eating a Vanilluxe will give you frostbite.
Screaming Into The Void
Hey, it's a positive story in a year where those have been getting difficult to come by, we'll take what we can get. 
I'm totally going to wave it in front of the next person who tells me that "diversity isn't important," though.
On another topic - Hollywood's Message To Latinas: "Shut Up And Take Off Your Clothes."
Yes, it seems the "sexy" Latina stereotype is alive and well: Latinas represent 37.5 percent of all female nudity (partial or full) on-screen. White women account for 31.9 percent of full or partial nudity, while black women come in at 23.5 percent. And Latinos? They don't fare much better either: they are more likely to be seen in "tight, alluring or revealing" clothing (16.5 percent) than any other group.
"Hispanics and Latinos are one of the fastest-growing groups in the U.S.," said Marc Choueiti, one of the authors of the study. "If popular films were the only way to gauge diversity, viewers would be completely unaware of this. Individuals from this group are almost invisible on screen."
Actress Alma Martinez, most recently seen on FX's The Bridge, told KPCC that the "hot Latina stereotype" has been seen since silent films and continues to this day.
"You're looking at Lupe Velez, Carmen Miranda, Salma Hayek," Martinez said. "They're sexualized Latina women. And they have an accent." But don't mistake her for saying these women don't have talent: "They're excellent," Martinez said. "It's [the roles] Hollywood gives them."
Moreover, speaking parts for minorities is, in a word, abysmal. Only about 5 percent of all speaking roles in top movies were Hispanic. In 2010, just 1.5 percent of speaking parts were given to any racial minority. Seriously?
"In reality, we saw no meaningful difference in the representation of characters from underrepresented backgrounds across the six years we studied," said Stacy Smith. Smith is an author and director of the study.
Latinos make up 16.3 percent of the U.S. population and buy 25 percent of all tickets at the box office, yet we are still one of the most underrepresented demographics when it comes to on-screen time and speaking roles.
Despite what it seems Hollywood wants us to do (be quiet and get naked), we'll keep raising our voice to this issue until it changes. And we'll do so with our clothes on.
edited 5th Dec '16 9:21:09 AM by RBluefish
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."