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
"White person lectures Asian on how they should be cool with Marvel's Asian representation." What part of this picture is wrong?
Erasure is not the answer to a character having racial baggage. You either find a way to make the character not racist (or as not-racist as possible) or you don't use them. You do not, under any circumstances, replace a minority character with a white one. Or a woman with a man. Or a disabled person with an abled person. Etc, etc.
... Christ almighty, Daredevil was offensive.
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Trying to defend Marvel's treatment of Asians is, at this point, nothing short of baffling. Or at least evidence of a total inability to see the problems with one's favourite franchise.
I'll reiterate what I commented the last time the Mandarin discussion came up-
The MCU Mandarin is a great deconstruction of then-current Osama bin Laden/ freedom and America hating terrorist characters (whether or not explicitly Muslim).
However, he actually doesn't really do anything to address the Mandarin's Yellow Peril aspects, and the film opted for no representation instead of having Chinese characters of various moral alignments.
I'm inclined to agree. And in a vacuum, I don't think I'd even really mind it (speaking as someone half-Asian, half-white).
But it's just that Marvel keeps piling on all of these super awkward "not that bad on its own, but in aggregate it's pretty fucking bad." It's worse than the sum of its parts.
That is why I'm sorta thankful for Daredevil S2. It went so blatantly over-the-top in ist brazen racism that no sane person can just keep chalking it up to "oh, just a little tonedeaf." Like, it's not like they're just dropping the ball anymore. They're throwing them into peoples' faces now at this point.
Edited by Larkmarn on Jul 16th 2018 at 4:00:15 AM
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
It also didn't really help that for all the pretense of social commentary and supposed depth they were going for with the character concept, Killian was still a really bland, uninteresting villain. Even the (intentionally) stereotypical orientalist version of the Mandarin that Ben Kingsley's character was playing had more gravitas, and you know that's fucked up.
I'm Sad Frogerson.
Iron Man 3 could have been worse though. Apparently, earlier drafts of the film had Killian essentially rape Pepper thanks to his Extremis-enhanced pheremones and then he would broadcast the sex-tape on live television just to fuck with Tony. I think we can all be grateful that part of the film got scrapped, as I don't think Iron Man 3 would've treated this subject matter respectfully at all.
:((((((((((((((((
What.
Edited by Tuckerscreator on Jul 16th 2018 at 5:19:10 AM
A wandering user
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
...Thank god it got scrappped...that sounded something Urobutcher would do...
I vaguely recall hearing about a sex tape in early drafts of IM 3 but that's worse than I expected. Really don't know how anyone thought that was a good idea, even taking aside its obvious offensiveness there was never any chance it would be greenlit given the relatively family friendly nature of the MCU films.
Jesus Christ, Shane.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."
Holy shit.
Oh, bother.
It's bad enough they thought that was a good idea in the first place. It's even worse that, judging by what they said, they still have no idea why this was a bad idea. Or that the scenario they were describing was rape.
It says a lot about what their idea of consent is.
Disgusted, but not surprised
Maybe that's why they wanted Killian to be white. Can't have Pepper having "consensual" sex with an Asian now, can we?
God everything about that movie was a trainwreck.
So, I guess in somewhat better Marvel news, the new trailer for Marvel Rising is out now:
If you need more info, here is our own page on it. Basically, a mostly female and/or Po C cast come together to stop a massive threat to the Earth.
Edited by Aleistar on Jul 16th 2018 at 12:25:40 PM
The animation and art style look very clean and appealing, and the trailer is promising. I'm guessing this is the Rayshaun Lucas incarnation of Patriot due to whatever nebulous legal issues are keeping them from using the Bradleys.
the new She-Ra reboot has shown it's new design for the character. And apparently, there are some assholes upset because she isn't "sexy"enough.
Oh, bother.
I wish I could say I was surprised by this...but well, I'm not.
Whut? Pepper didn't have any sex with Killian, consensual or otherwise. He was just a guy she used to know and who was strangely obsessed with her (one of the various plot points in the movie which were just odd).
Look, I am NOT defending Marvel's treatment of Asian characters...god knows that I ranted about the casual racism in Daredevil more than ones. But if we discuss the MCU again, because it is currently apparently the only franchise which counts, we need to do it honestly. So no, Ironman 3 is not a good example for erasure, since what the movie was going for was pretty much the opposite of pushing a problem Marvel comics traditionally had by the side (again, what you think of the result is another question, I am not saying that the movie isn't problematic on multiple levels, I am saying it isn't a particularly good example for erasure). Yes, there are other movies in the MCU which are either examples of erasure or dip way too deep into the yellow peril well all on their own. Does this mean that the whole MCU treads Asian characters shitty? No, because if we complain about Daredevil, we also need to praise Agents of Shield for the way it treats female and Asian characters (which is not surprising considering the show runners) and acknowledge that both Runaways and Cloak and Dagger sprout a pretty diverse cast overall. (If we go on movie level only, the picture looks very different though.
My point is that blanket statements are not helpful in discussing a franchise which contains of 20 movies 10 TV shows and various one shots.
We were discussing one of the older drafts of the film, not the final script.
Oh, bother.
Funny that Agents of SHIELD got brought up as a positive example, since Chloe Bennet called out the industry last year over its discrimination against Asian people.
'Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D' star Chloe Bennet speaks out about discrimination in Hollywood
She wasn't born Chloe Bennet. She had to change her name from Wang to Bennet to actually get cast for roles.
And no, IM 3 is textbook erasure. A character who was Chinese, a character whose identity is strongly rooted in being Chinese (albeit with Yellow Peril connotations)...is made into a fake cover identity of a white guy.
Edited by M84 on Jul 17th 2018 at 4:54:00 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised
Chloe Bennet was not talking about the show runners of Ao S though...regarding Ao S she has been nothing but complimentary. When she speaks up it is either about the MCU as a whole (which could use more Asian representation) or the industry.
Remember, Chloe Bennet plays in Ao S what might be the most powerful female in the whole TV verse and a character which is explicitly half-Asian, just like Chloe Bennet is.
Fun fact, though: Agent May was originally called Agent Rice...they changed the name when they settled on an Asian actress for the role. Apparently they did a colourblind casting for it.
Oh, bother.
Another earlier article about this:
Agents of SHIELD’s Chloe Bennet: Why I Stopped Using My Chinese Last Name
At least until she changed her last name.
“Oh, the first audition I went on after I changed my name, I got booked,” Bennet tells The Daily Beast, in an interview timed to Marvel’s Women of Power month. “So that’s a pretty clear little snippet of how Hollywood works.”
That audition was for the role of Hailey, an office assistant on ABC’s Nashville. That same year, Bennet was cast as the lead in Marvel’s first cinematic universe TV show, the Joss Whedon-created SHIELD. Over three seasons, Skye, a headstrong young “hacktivist” who gets recruited by SHIELD and eventually discovers her real identity, the half-Inhuman Daisy Johnson (aka Quake), has evolved into what is still a rarity on TV: a superhero who happens to be both female and Asian-American.
As great as the showrunners who aren't named Whedon are, one has to wonder if they would have booked her if she was still named Chloe Wang.
Disgusted, but not surprised
What the article doesn't mention (which is quite insulting) is that Agents of shield has two show runners (three if you count Joss for being involved in the concept which I don't, he hasn't really done anything since the pilot episode, which might be for the best). The Second show runner which also happened to have a lot of responsibility in the casting is Maurissa Tancharoen. And yes, as the name suggests, she is Asian-American.
So no, it is not a given that Cloe wouldn't have had a chance with a different surname, not if they did a mostly colorblind casting (as she explained the problem was less that nobody wanted an Asian actress, but that whenever an Asian actress was wanted she didn't look Asian enough). It also proofs my ongoing point that the best way to get diversity on our screens is more diversity behind out screens.
I just "love" how someone is trying to 'splain to me, a Chinese-American guy, about how I shouldn't be feeling upset about how the Mandarin character was portrayed in IM 3.
And I'm not saying they "just" sidestepped the whole issue. I'm saying they totally fucked it up.
Edited by M84 on Jul 17th 2018 at 3:19:20 AM
Disgusted, but not surprised