Why has Social Justice and Feminism become such Pervasive Topics?

Not trying to offend, just asking.

Seriously, it seems that no matter where you go in terms of media, be it movies, video games, television, etc, there always has to be some sort of discussion around things like "how does it portray women" or "how diverse it is" or "this show was made by white heterosexual men, therefore it's problematic" or "this show is right-wing propaganda" or "is it showing all gender types equally". Like, it's not enough to simply have the creator tell the story they want to make, but they must adhere to the right (or in this case "left") side of the political spectrum, lest they be accused of "promoting the patriarchy" or something along those lines. Heck, I've seen a ton of recent works who's creators have bragged about how "diverse" their staff is, and many journalists are quick to pounce on those they are interviewing about if it will include LGBT content for that audience, even if it's not something that the creator had in mind. That, and if the creator is a heterosexual white male. It's almost gotten to the point that anything masculine is seen as a bad thing to have, with feminism being all good, all the time.

Just when and why exactly did this become such a huge point of discussion amongst the media and the people within it?

Edited by LDragon2 on Aug 27th 2018 at 2:23:43 AM

I think it's a floodgate effect sort of thing. People have wanted to speak up about these issues for a long time but weren't able to, but as soon as it got going it picked up speed pretty quickly.

Exactly how pervasive it is will depend a lot on where you live and what your social circle is like though. Tvtropes is a fairly left-leaning site in many ways, at least by American standards.

No it hasn't. Not even close. You'll always get a few (perhaps understandably frustrated) vocal minorities, but all that most people are really asking for is just some basic respect and better representation.

People who are not heterosexual cisgendered Christian white men want to be represented in film, television, video games, etc., with preferences shifting towards media that is inclusive of multiple demographics.

This isn't complicated. It turns out that other people enjoy media too.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Aug 27th 2018 at 8:20:43 AM

When privilege shifts away from a group that has traditionally had greater than its fair share, this creates a backlash of people feeling as if something is being taken away from them. This is natural human psychology, and leads to intense resistance from the dominant group. There's always some pain associated with a fall from the heights, but the people who have previously been stood atop don't see it in the same way.

For reference, read Yertle the Turtle, or The Sneetches. ^note (The latter is more about the stupidity of basing your social identity on superficial traits, but the mechanics of privilege are still quite relevant.)

The thing about such movements towards equality of power and representation is that they take on a vast momentum: once an underprivileged group gets an opportunity for redress, they tend to seize it and push hard until a new balance is established and maintained.

Put in a simpler way, if you've been trod on, put down, harassed for your entire life and made to believe it's your own fault, getting the chance to get your own back feels like a breath of air to a drowning person, and unleashes a wave of pent-up anger and frustration, but also joy and relief.

There are valid concerns that such movements may overcompensate, but come back and talk to me when blacks and women occupy more high-power positions and have greater political influence than white men, or when LGBT groups are systematically beating up cis-het people in the streets.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 27th 2018 at 11:02:47 AM

See the recent controversy regarding the spice gaurdians crunchyroll Original show, which despite promoting itself as diverse due to being an all female production staff, is made up of all white women and no one of them being minorities and it’s head creator, Kate Leah, being a transgender male (ergo, it’s not technically 100 percent all female) which makes the “diversity message” come across as hollow.

Yes, the problem of underprivileged groups forming their own privileged cliques and excluding others is well known.

I myself, being on the left, are all for diversity. If it’s organically put in the story and is used as a major plot point, I approve. But theirs limit to try and market something based on diversity and diversity alone.

So your cast is diverse, great!

Tell me why I should care for any of the characters and show me what they are like then what’s they are.

It’s why Steven Universe works out as well as it does. It’s diversity and social justice issues are interwoven into the series narrative and not just put in for the sake of it, and it’s why when series that are all about diversity and diversity only bomb or are poorly received by critics, even those that are minorities.

There’s also the fact that lot of younger social justice advocates are much younger, like high school, and this don’t have any real world experience or understand how to make use of social justice and diversity issues in a nuanced way that feels natural.

It’s similar to why all the overly preachy anti drug and green Aesop message from the 80’s and 90’s are laughed at today. They didn’t work because they didn’t make sense from a narrative perspective.

A balance between good writing and diversity will be why certain works like The Last Airbender franchise and Steven universe will endure, while works such as the guardian spice show will likely be completely forgotten and laughed at.

Given the tone of the OP I don’t really feel like that question is being posed in good faith, but I’ll echo what others have said that it’s only recently really become acceptable at all to have a conversation about those things.

To use homosexuality as an example, I’ve heard people ask why people have only started being homosexual recently. The answer is that there have always been homosexuals, they just haven’t been permitted to exist by society until recently.

This, basically.

It’s also why I find Yoko Taro’s games to be very refreshing, despite their taboo subject matter.

The main reason why he made Emil Gay, and Kaine a Transgender in Nier wasn’t simply for diversity’s sake, but it’s because people like them exist, and that it’s ok that they exist.

It’s also why the various androids in Nier Automata, despite technically not having the concept of gender, decided to make their bodies male and female becasue it makes them feel closer to humanity and it’s why various different types of relationships in them like hetero, homo, and bisexual relationships are common place. Because relationships of all types exist and that’s ok.

It’s diversity like that I find to be much more believable in general.

Edited by Demongodofchaos2 on Aug 27th 2018 at 12:23:25 PM

There's a blind spot in a lot of white CIS heterosexual guys eyes and I was as guilty of it as anyone else. When I was writing my first book, Cthulhu Armageddon, I decided to make John the protagonist black. It was just because, why not, since I was thinking of Idris Elba as the protagonist (before he was cast as the Gunslinger).

You would not BELIEVE the number of butthurt Lovecraft fans who assumed I was making some sort of statement about it. That Lovecraft's racism or whatnot was being called out by my SJW ways because they were actually OFFENDED the protagonist was black.

So, I made it a point to make sure my books always have rainbow of color casts and sexual diversity as well because fuck those guys.

Taro haven't admitted that he more of less don't do that for the sake of Edge rather than genuine belief in representation?

Like, Right for the Wrong Reasons

See the recent controversy regarding the spice gaurdians crunchyroll Original show, which despite promoting itself as diverse due to being an all female production staff, is made up of all white women and no one of them being minorities and it’s head creator, Kate Leah, being a transgender male (ergo, it’s not technically 100 percent all female) which makes the “diversity message” come across as hollow.

Are you really saying that a transwoman makes it less diverse?

I suppose the concern is that it feels like tokenism... that or they ran into the TERF backlash among white women.

Stephen Colbert said in a recent interview that he had a real problem diversifying his writing staff for The Late Show because when he called for resumes, 99% of them were white males. He had to start intentionally excluding those to get what he was looking for.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 27th 2018 at 12:36:39 PM

Kate Leah identifies as male.

@Kazuya Prota: Yoko Taro’s edge is not as meaningless outside of Drakengard

It’s from Nier onwards that his understanding of Post 9-11 changed his edge from edge for the sake of it, to edge that actually makes a point about society in general.

Which itself seems like a potential legal headache because it is, strictly speaking, discriminatory hiring practices.

There's nothing wrong with injecting feminism and social justice into the writing and the production of media. It's not pervasive — disease and poverty are pervasive, not attempts by media makers to diversify their product. What you seem to be recoiling against is the media and news culture that surrounds these works.

If you're talking about the Colbert example: Not really. Their background is part of a writer's qualifications. You can't 'write what you know' about things you don't know about.

Even with the best intentions and the most open mind in the world, a team of three white male writers can't call upon as wide a range of diverse experiences as a team of three where only one of them is a white male. And therefore if Colbert wants a wide range of material for his show, he needs a wide variety of people on his writing staff. He didn't exclude people who are equally or more qualified based on identity, he excluded people because their identity, by default, made them less qualified for the team he was trying to build.

Edited by Robrecht on Aug 27th 2018 at 10:13:36 AM

Yeah.

Albeit, All White and all female is not really diverse.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 27th 2018 at 11:58:19 AM

That was a critique of GIRLS.

It received rave and incredible reviews from....richer than average white New York women reviewers.

Which kind of skewed the subject.

Which is still excluding people for their identity. Having a justification doesn't change if it's being decided on racial criteria etc.

I cut this out of the original post and am reposting it with more information:

It took me literally less than five minutes (most of which was spent figuring out what the correct names were) to discover that Kate Leth is not transgender at all... She is bisexual though.

Also the show is called High Guardian Spice. Not Spice Guardians...

The actual transperson on the writing staff is Raye Rodriguez, who is not just a man, but also latino (whether that constitutes as 'not white' depends on where you live).

Edited by Robrecht on Aug 27th 2018 at 10:31:28 AM

The reason for their exclusion/inclusion isn't their race, it's the breadth of their material in comparison to other applicant. Race, gender, sexuality et. al. just happen to be factors that extend that breadth.

Oh that is nice. Good to see a fellow latinoamerican.

The discussion have always been going on, what’s changed is that they’ve become more public and probably that you’re now active in spaces where they happen.

Underrepresented groups have always talked about their lack of representation, people who study social ideas have always discussed what ideas a work puts forward.

With the advent of social media more people are able to engage in or watch these discussions, additonly underepresented groups have gained more power in recent years and that alongside the disconnectedness of the Internet has enabled them to publicly speak about things that before they could only speak about in private.

Minorities have always wondered why there are no minorities on TV, you’ve just started noticing them wondering it.

Edit: On the Colbert thing, he wasn’t factoring out candidates, he was expressing to recruiters the kind of candidates he wanted them to send him. What he explained was he’d ask for 50 C Vs of good writer candidates (with candidates themselves presumably being able to submit themselves as well) and he’d get 48 white men, this kept happening even when he kept saying “guys I need women and minorities, include any qualified women and minorities you’ve got”.

So eventually he said “send me only qualified women and minorities, women and minorities only”, and he got 50 qualified women and minorities, his recruited had basicly been hiding qualified diverse candidates from him out of unintentional racism and sexism.

Edited by Silasw on Aug 27th 2018 at 10:38:25 AM

This right here.

Edited by Rynnec on Aug 27th 2018 at 8:18:45 AM