Diversity and Representation in Media

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Keep in mind this is framed through the horrific shipping and character stan Fan Dumb.

I can't count how many times I've seen such criticisms brought up alongside "this finale wouldn't be a problem if they just had let Lance/Shiro get with Keith to make this all better", or that most complaints about the show's supposed racism due to how it treats Lance equates to "why isn't Lance, one of the most well-rounded characters in the show, and whose Comic Relief is meant to portray him in a likeable light, not the Possession Sue I wanted him to be, and why don't the teammates who I'm convinced abuse and mistreat him worship him instead?" Allura is another character who also attracts fans whose criticisms and accusations of sexism or racism are the result of self-inserting as her to a frightening degree, as aside from a few moments in the earlier seasons the show almost always portrays her in the most positive light possible (I'd argue a bit too much, as the lack of real flaws ultimately robbed her of meaningful depth). In other words they don't hold much water, they just sound like they do since this fandom is notoriously good at twisting SJ terminology to pretend that they have an argument (e.g. all the times they yell about the show queerbaiting Klance).

That said, I do think there's a stopped clock moment here and that the show indeed let these three characters down particularly hard. Princess Allura (who is an alien they've stated is not meant to be black so much as dark-skinned Mukokuseki, and we do see characters with overtly African features that she lacks) does elect to sacrifice herself in order to help rebuild the multiversal reality together. But she does have complete agency in her sacrifice, it's treated as an extremely noble and triumphant thing to do on her part, and nearly all the remainder of the episode is dedicated to the characters and even the rest of the universe mourning her afterwards. It's more the fact that she needed to do so at all, when there was little explanation of how she got to be that powerful in the first place, or why the sacrifice was even required since she's shown to be capable of magical Deus ex Machina with little cost before. As for the redemption moment, she does extend a hand in sympathy to the (also dark-skinned) female Big Bad who became an Omnicidal Maniac, which was silly after a previous scene of Allura Mind Rape-ing another villain as revenge for his crimes (and this being presented as the right thing for her to do, despite the other characters being horrified).

Lance's characterization for most of the show's run was as the light-hearted glue that binds the other heroes together. He's a Comic Relief character, sure, but he's portrayed as well-meaning with Hidden Depths whom we are meant to root for, and a Dogged Nice Guy whose genuine love for Allura turns him from a Casanova Wannabe (who was clearly using love as a means of covering up his insecurities, not the Latin Lover stereotype or Armored Closet Gay Fan Dumb deliberately misconstrues it as) to someone who sincerely tries his best to be a good and supportive friend and eventually boyfriend to Allura. It's clear his epilogue is supposed to mimic the ending of Simon from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, but I agree they botched it by making the fun-loving character swerve into such a depressive state for the sake of their shoutout. The rest of his Cuban family, including his older sister who is a prominent secondary character, are shown clearly living happy lives on their own. And the Samoan/black character who tends to get forgotten by the fandom all the time gets a happy and fulfilling ending.

As for Shiro... hoo boy. They clearly tried to Author's Saving Throw the previous seasons, and now they're getting torn apart for it. It's a no-win situation. Not to say I approve of it, as from a writing perspective it deserves all the flack it gets, especially since the accompanying text means his story ends on a full-blown Out of Character moment that I don't blame people for wanting to ignore. But it's not like they could've done anything more short of completely rewriting and reanimating the whole season, and had they not done it, all the complaints from the previous season would still stand.

I hope you're not implying fans of the old Voltron are upset about them making Sven gay, because I haven't seen any of that at all. And Shiro is one of the most well-rounded characters on the cast. The representational side of things was not as well done as it should've been, but he's still a good character who happens to be gay. Nearly everyone was happy about it with the most measured responses ironically being from people who were hoping for Lance to be confirmed gay/bisexual, or for Keith to be confirmed gay and in love with Lance or Shiro.

Edited by AlleyOop on Dec 16th 2018 at 3:20:17 PM

I'm just saying there's always a backlash when a character gets a Race Lift or Adaptational Sexuality. Always.

Yes, and in this case any backlash outside the usual suspects came primarily from hysterical shippers who wanted their fave to be the gay one. There were surely negative reactions towards turning Pidge female as well, just as with Allura's Race Lift and Shiro's Adaptational Sexuality, but most of that is negligible and from the kinds of people whose opinions aren't worth valuing.

Ahhhhh the SJFB try again, I get it.

In fact in more gender change, I seen the new saint seiya movie have confirm they will change Shun gender to be a woman....which is something that piss me off because Shun is the most "femine" one of the group: is saint suit is pink, he usually the most defensive chararter by virtue of chains of adronmeda(which in turn mean is sign suit is also a woman, and one know for her sacrifice with the kraken), pull off a big fight with Afrodita, who is REALLY camp and bishonen, and of course the scene with Hyoga......

It also just awake frige logic because she show up without the mask witch by the rule ALL the female saint need to were.

I always headcanoned Spike as German/Chinese, what with being in the Triads and Mars being portrayed mostly as a planetary Chinatown. Though Vicious, you know, isn't Chinese so the Red Dragons may just be Equal-Opportunity Evil. Faye was clearly Singaporean old money, so... yeah. Prolly Asian.

Faye being Asian was pretty clear and a LA adaptation changing that would kinda offend me. Spike is way more ambiguous.

Realize that Word of God statements are often misinterpreted. Optimus Prime in the Transformers movies took inspiration fron Liam Neeson, that doesn't mean anything about race (it probably means more about body language in being tall and lanky, while still muscular).

I just prefer pointing out the ambiguity of a character and compexity of casting makes things a lot more complicated. A lot of people have the assumption that a main character in an anime MUST be Asian. So acknowledging ambiguity here is important for healthy discussion. And note I wouldn't be offended if Spike was cast as Asian for the same reason, even if I think it may be them leaning into a "don't want to offend those who assume Asian because it's an anime." I would feel the same if an American Full Metal Alchemist (a very European-flavored setting) was made with an Asian lead. And I did feel the same about the Death Note adaptation, as that was an explicit Foreign Remake.

Optimus Prime is a robot. It's obvious his comparison-to-actor has a limit much lower than that of Spike.

I think this is an argument that would be viewed as unnecessary if it were applied to Western works. I could spend a lot of time arguing that Harry Potter in the books was never specified to be white, but it would be viewed as needless and pedantic, not "healthy discussion".

The offense isn't "it's anime, so it MUST be Asian". It's "it's our marginalized group's rare place to see ourselves in and we deserve to keep it". It's a stronger reason than simply demanding fictional continuity.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Dec 15th 2018 at 11:07:43 AM

On a side note, I love the new fanon trend of Harry being of Indian descent.

That's actually a cool headcanon. I'm not really a big fan of Harry as a character if I'm honest, but this racelift does a lot of cool subtext to the story. One of the comments points out that "Hari" is actually sanskrit for lion, which makes it even better.

Also, I think the "people assume cast from an anime must be an asian" argument is a bit rubbish. If anything with the Ghost in the Shell controversy what I saw was the exact opposite, with many trying to argue that anime characters "look white", showing a complete ignorance of both the source material of Git S and a profound intellectual dishonesty in regards to visual trends in japanese pop art.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Dec 15th 2018 at 2:53:03 PM

I usually just watch the names and the setting. If is a european medieval fantasy, then is European even if anime.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Dec 15th 2018 at 2:14:06 PM

"I could spend a lot of time arguing that Harry Potter in the books was never specified to be white,"

He's white on the cover of the books.

Ahh, but the covers are non-canon, such as this one depicting an arena that isn't from any of the books◊, so they cannot be taken as the absolute description of Harry.

Admire this healthy and essential discussion.

Edited by Tuckerscreator on Dec 16th 2018 at 12:03:13 PM

I think that's supposed to be the Great Hall. Not sure about the pros and cons of reimagining the characters' ethnicities (though black Hermione is a pretty well-established alt-canon at this point), but I'm wondering whether it's a fandom reaction towards Rowling's recent records on the inclusion front.

That could be the great hall, or just a random piece of Hogwarts architecture.

You already stated the absurdity of the statement when applied to Western works, so I'm not sure what you are trying to argue about. In a multi-cultural setting, either real life or fictional, anything not specified in the work is up to interpretation. If the setting is homogenous with only a few outliers, it whittles down that ambiguity (if someone is specified as black while in a British setting it stands to reason the other characters are not). That difference needs to be addressed with every situation, otherwise it is a disservice to the efforts for diversity. A Race Lift just to appeal to a minority group often has the opposite effect.

If we're using book covers to determine characters appearances and ethnicity, would it make more sense to go by the UK covers (e.g. the ones on the work pages) rather than the US covers◊.

...That does look like an Indian guy from my lab.

I'm gonna be honest (and again I'm saying this as an outsider), bringing up shipping and Fan Dumb to almost completely dismiss the issues I mentioned seems at best like it's throwing the baby out with the bathwater and ignoring any legitimate criticisms about racism or other issues that could reasonably be levelled at the show. None of the complaints I've seen have involved shipping at all or come from people who care about ships (besides the aforementioned issue of Lance being doomed to misery after his girlfriend dies).

Also "she chose to sacrifice herself" is Watsonian reasoning for the Doylist decision to kill off the character. The character does not ultimately have the agency to choose their death, that is solely in the writer's hands.

I know Voltron's fanbase has a reputation for being rabid or whatever, but I'm not about to believe that the show is secretly excellent with its representation and that the many, many criticisms I've seen levelled against it by non-white and non-straight viewers are just the result of 'crazy shippers and antis'.

Interpreting Harry as non-white has definitely been a thing for a while- people latched on pretty quickly to mixed Harry, what with his whole 'half-blood' situation. The Desi Harry post that wisewillow linked to is actually from three years ago.

I think it's pretty safe to say that Rowling's fumbling of those issues has spurned those headcanons on though.

"The character does not ultimately have the agency to choose their death, that is solely in the writer's hands.

"

Sorry but that is border on the pedantic, none of chararter have ever being agency whatsoever since everything they do is thw rtier hand, it feel is just throwing thing arond.

It's very important for representational purposes to distinguish between the Watsonian versus the Doylian. "It's not sexist that this female character wears a skimpy Chainmail Bikini while her male comrades are fully suited because it was her choice to wear it." No, it was the writer's decision to design their female character that way. She's a fictional character who doesn't have the true agency to decide what she wears.

Likewise, "It's not problematic that a black/female/etc. character is killed because they made the choice to die." It was the writer's decision to put them in that situation. The writers can't escape culpability just by them or their fans saying that it was an in-character decision because the writers are responsible for making it an in-character decision.

The problem with that is if that it make all agency of a chararter pointless overall.

Also you are kind misunderstanding Alley here, a problem with female death is more often that not force by narrative or external force outside the chararter while male chararter have a choice or a result of their choices, Alley just said the narrative make her choice rather than something it happen to it.

I just view it as funny that the only version, regardless of the sliding scale of darkness, where she dies, is the one where she’s black. Only one, including comics targeted at adults, sequel shows, etc.

Like I said, it is a stopped clock moment and I totally agree that the show did a poor job in concluding the stories for these three characters. It's more the complaints tend to imply that Allura was passively Stuffed Inthe Fridge primarily for the sake of manpain, as opposed to it being more a Cruel Twist Ending Heroic Sacrifice that had no reason to happen in the first place, other than because the writers were that in love with the ending of Gurren Lagann. I agree that the choice to have this as the character's fate given everything is certainly a bad and problematic one regardless.

And while I explained earlier that Shiro's situation was a Catch-22 I do agree that the final outcome ultimately let the character and the representation he brings down. IMO it would've been more satisfying to just have Shiro's new LI just ask him out at the end and leave it at that, instead of pulling him all the way into not just a wedding but the bizarre implication that getting married was his true biggest desire in life and that he become a househusband after being characterized all series as a Determinator Married to the Job. Might not have been as bold, and people would've complained about it for that, but it would've achieved the same goal of averting Word of Gay and But Not Too Gay without tainting the whole thing with the spectre of Character Derailment, and the O.C. Stand-in nature being more forgivable in that case. Of course the best solution would've been just to not have killed Adam off in the first place and it's too late for that.

Edited by AlleyOop on Dec 16th 2018 at 5:10:04 AM