A hopefully non-controversial thought on character diversity in media.

[Elijin]

Question for "Diversity for the sake of Diversity sucks" crowd:

Why is it so negative for the minority character to be a bland character without flaws who nails every situation, but seemingly acceptable for the white dude/girl to be such? And yes, you're going to argue 'But that's still a bad character with bad writing' but its accepted, which is the issue. You cant rebel against the idea of a minority being poorly written and just accept a poorly written default character as just a bad character to tolerate.


Also want to echo the 'Why is it only pandering when the target is not you?'


But yeah, why cant the 'diversity pick' be a powerful hero with their ducks in a row and not many problems? Why do they require to be flawed in specific ways, when the stock default doesn't?

 

[Saelune]

On the one hand, I do not mind changing a character's race/sex/whatever...

...

At the end of the day, it's like this. Will changing a character alter them or the work in any way? Can you make the work better for it? Depending on the answers to those questions should tell you if changing a character's race or gender is a good idea.

Okay. Not to single you out or jump down your throat...

But.

Did I, at any point whatsoever, mention or allude to changing a character's race/sex/whatever?

Like I said, no matter how one attempts to broach this subject or from what angle, it always veers straight into this territory.

I think we need more NEW characters that are more diverse. I dont think re-tooling pre-established characters into something else is a good idea.

Id be down to watch a black female secret spy with lots of neat gadgets take on near-comic super-villains. I just dont want her to be called "Bond"...for example.

Changing a character just pisses people off and probably gives undue negative attention onto whatever they were changed into.

Ofcourse some people dont even want the new characters to be diverse, but those people need to get over that. Of all the issues I have with say, the recent Star Wars movie, that the man characters are a woman and a black guy aint one of them.

 

[Saltyk]

On the one hand, I do not mind changing a character's race/sex/whatever...

...

At the end of the day, it's like this. Will changing a character alter them or the work in any way? Can you make the work better for it? Depending on the answers to those questions should tell you if changing a character's race or gender is a good idea.

Okay. Not to single you out or jump down your throat...

But.

Did I, at any point whatsoever, mention or allude to changing a character's race/sex/whatever?

Like I said, no matter how one attempts to broach this subject or from what angle, it always veers straight into this territory.

So what are you asking about? Writing stories that include minorities? Who would have an issue with that? I certainly don't. A character is relatable if they are well written and the director and actor are both competent. I don't think anyone would argue with your totally original work including minorities in it. And if they do, fuck them.

Seriously, some of my favorite characters do not share my race/sex/whatever. People aren't going to be bothered by a well realized original character, regardless of any differences they may have.

I've only ever really heard people take an issue with changing an established character to make the cast more diverse, or the work more inclusive. Well, that and sometimes people feel the minority character is offensive to those people (but that's a whole different subject).

And your original post never really makes it clear that you were steering away from the idea. Admittedly, it's almost 2AM here and I'm just being a minor insomniac and not going to bed, so maybe I'm just not reading your post right, but I don't see any reason to think that you wouldn't be open to discussing the idea of changing established characters. It's kinda the only real way this subject gets argued from any angle.

 

[Kenbo Slice]

Question for "Diversity for the sake of Diversity sucks" crowd:

Why is it so negative for the minority character to be a bland character without flaws who nails every situation, but seemingly acceptable for the white dude/girl to be such? And yes, you're going to argue 'But that's still a bad character with bad writing' but its accepted, which is the issue. You cant rebel against the idea of a minority being poorly written and just accept a poorly written default character as just a bad character to tolerate.

It's not acceptable, for me anyways. A character can be white/straight/black/gay/female/trans. Really all I care about is that they are a good character and aren't written to pander or just fill some status quo to sell something. Making a character who's defining trait is that they're a minority hurts more than it helps. Them being a good character first and foremost. Race/gender/sexuality should come second.

 

[Prime_Hunter_H01]

Question for "Diversity for the sake of Diversity sucks" crowd:

snip

I don't know about others though my own problems with it are when it is a selling point that does not deliver. Its like any other selling point that does not deliver, though based on tone it has a tinge of arrogance.

A bad character is a bad character, when presented as is its up to the person to determine if they notice certain traits or not. Its annoying when the bad character was shoved in your face as "She's a minority, this automatically makes them the best thing ever" by any sort of marketing.

I regret doing anything other than reading this thread, Zhukov is right, the standard arguments are being thrown around like usual. Its difficult to have a neutral opinion as it is easy to slide in to being a hypocrite. Without basically writing a dissertation its hard to get all the specifics as the factors that determine what some one sees in a work are as numerous as the people in the world.

I can say that my problem with it is when it seems preachy, which is what I failed to say in my last few posts. I hate it when anything gets to preachy, no matter what the topic is.

Urgh, I thought I had learned my lesson years ago not to take part in online discussions. If anything the megaphone and echo chamber effect of the internet is probably why this topic exists as it does. The people who feel strongly start the discussion and pull people in, where as in every day life I doubt this matters much at all.

Do these issues take place when deciding what to read, watch, or play for anyone else. If there is an annoying thing I can recognize about myself is that I love playing the devils advocate, and foot in mouth syndrome strikes hard when you have to jury rig some kind of passion for a side of an argument that annoying you because you stupidly decided it would be worth expending energy to be a devils advocate.

My god I hate my mind some times.

 

[Zhukov]

So what are you asking about?

My entire point was

a) Can we agree that people derive enjoyment from heroes that reflect an aspect of themselves?

and

b) Is there any reason to deny or begrudge that small pleasure to people who get it less often?

Seriously. That was my entire point. As the title says, I was hoping it wouldn't be a contentious one. But alas.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

"Diversity for diversity's sake"

So what the hell is "default", and why?

It depends on what you mean by this question, default can mean the historically most common portrayal of protagonists, or what you would instinctively expect in a certain character

It's the "why" that's the sticking point for me. Like "why does a lady in vague-Tolkien-esc setting have to have all these justifications about how they exist and what abilities they have when bland white dude doesn't?" I mean, bland white dude and vaguely medieval lady are going to be equally incapable of wielding the Airplane Wing of Sharpness +3, so why is one an automatic shoe-in while the other needs justification?

Why are black dudes "unrealistic" in a vaguely medieval story with djinn and dragons and magic portals, but white dudes don't need to justify being there?

How come a trans character either has to fill a role in the story through their trans-ness or literally never mention it ever, but... well, you get the idea.

Hell, there was Cortez grieving over family he just lost in ME3, but mentioning said family included a Husband was "shoving it in our faces." An NPC in The Division had a random throwaway line about her wife and that was "diversity for diversity's sake."

No one ever asks "what does making this character white/straight/male/cis add to the story? Why are we including these traits? What unique challenges will they have to face in order for this to be unrealistic?"

 

[Kolby Jack]

I like diversity. But not when it's done just to have diversity because at that point it becomes pandering (see every Marvel comic for the last 7 years or so).

"Pandering".

Ever ask yourself why it's only called pandering when it's aimed at someone else?

"Here's a Stock Default hero"
"Very good, carry on.
"Now here's a hero who differs slightly from the default."
"PANDERING!"

Like I said in the OP, if someone out there gets a little buzz out of Ms Marvel being a Muslim kid or whatever, I see no reason to begrudge them that buzz.

[Edited in a futile attempt to try to avoid the usual buzzwords.]

No. The problem is with Marvel these new characters character trait is "THEY'RE BLACK!/MUSLIM/ASIAN/GAY!" And that's really all these new characters amount to. Nothing. I like different heroes, but when they don't seem forced or unnecessary.

Kamala Khan is a great example. Plain character, easy for people to project themselves onto. She's honestly quite boring and just there to be the token Muslim. Now, DC did it right by creating Simon Baz and giving him a good backstory and character arc, and not allowing his religion/race to be his only defining trait.

I'm curious how you see the case of Wally West in DC Comics. If you don't know, when DC did its "New 52" relaunch, they shelved Wally West, the original Kid Flash and third Flash despite him being pretty popular since the 90's, appearing on Justice League and Young Justice. Eventually they brought him back, as a kid again... and half-Black. With parental abandonment issues. There was naturally a huge backlash, but rather than hit the reset button again, DC went and reintroduced the original Wally West alongside the new one as two separate characters (cousins) with the same namesake (the reason nobody remembered the original Wally existed can best be summed up as "eh, comic books"). So now we have both, one white adult Flash, one young black Kid Flash.

I don't know much about Simon Baz. He hasn't done too much in Justice League yet and I don't subscribe to any Green Lantern books because I've never been a huge GL fan. In Justice League he seems like a pretty average guy, which I guess is the point.

Anyway, on the topic itself, I find that I can relate to characters who are less like me better than I used to when I was younger. I don't mind seeing female protagonists or people of color taking the lead. Maybe it's just because I grew up in a time when those characters saw bigger pushes in media for diversity's sake. I don't take it personally when I see characters that are different from me, a straight white male. I also don't mind if established comic characters get race changes in OTHER media like movies, because those are basically elseworld stories so you can experiment a bit with them. I will say I'm very resistant to established characters getting race changes in the media they originated from, because THEN it feels like pandering and a lack of respect for the source material. New characters taking up the mantle of superheroes doesn't fall under that though. That said, teen supergenius Iron Man would chafe me even if she were a white guy.

I'm reminded of the case of Sulu being gay in the new Star Trek movies. The writers did it out of respect for George Takei, but George Takei himself wanted Sulu to be straight because that was how Gene Roddenberry envisioned the character. Of course every case involving diversity in media isn't just like this one. This is just one example to show that sometimes there is no clear right or wrong in these matters.

 

[Kenbo Slice]

I like diversity. But not when it's done just to have diversity because at that point it becomes pandering (see every Marvel comic for the last 7 years or so).

"Pandering".

Ever ask yourself why it's only called pandering when it's aimed at someone else?

"Here's a Stock Default hero"
"Very good, carry on.
"Now here's a hero who differs slightly from the default."
"PANDERING!"

Like I said in the OP, if someone out there gets a little buzz out of Ms Marvel being a Muslim kid or whatever, I see no reason to begrudge them that buzz.

[Edited in a futile attempt to try to avoid the usual buzzwords.]

No. The problem is with Marvel these new characters character trait is "THEY'RE BLACK!/MUSLIM/ASIAN/GAY!" And that's really all these new characters amount to. Nothing. I like different heroes, but when they don't seem forced or unnecessary.

Kamala Khan is a great example. Plain character, easy for people to project themselves onto. She's honestly quite boring and just there to be the token Muslim. Now, DC did it right by creating Simon Baz and giving him a good backstory and character arc, and not allowing his religion/race to be his only defining trait.

I'm curious how you see the case of Wally West in DC Comics. If you don't know, when DC did its "New 52" relaunch, they shelved Wally West, the original Kid Flash and third Flash despite him being pretty popular since the 90's, appearing on Justice League and Young Justice. Eventually they brought him back, as a kid again... and half-Black. With parental abandonment issues. There was naturally a huge backlash, but rather than hit the reset button again, DC went and reintroduced the original Wally West alongside the new one as two separate characters (cousins) with the same namesake (the reason nobody remembered the original Wally existed can best be summed up as "eh, comic books"). So now we have both, one white adult Flash, one young black Kid Flash.

I don't know much about Simon Baz. He hasn't done too much in Justice League yet and I don't subscribe to any Green Lantern books because I've never been a huge GL fan. In Justice League he seems like a pretty average guy, which I guess is the point.

Anyway, on the topic itself, I find that I can relate to characters who are less like me better than I used to when I was younger. I don't mind seeing female protagonists or people of color taking the lead. Maybe it's just because I grew up in a time when those characters saw bigger pushes in media for diversity's sake. I don't take it personally when I see characters that are different from me, a straight white male. I also don't mind if established comic characters get race changes in OTHER media like movies, because those are basically elseworld stories so you can experiment a bit with them. I will say I'm very resistant to established characters getting race changes in the media they originated from, because THEN it feels like pandering and a lack of respect for the source material. New characters taking up the mantle of superheroes doesn't fall under that though. That said, teen supergenius Iron Man would chafe me even if she were a white guy.

I'm reminded of the case of Sulu being gay in the new Star Trek movies. The writers did it out of respect for George Takei, but George Takei himself wanted Sulu to be straight because that was how Gene Roddenberry envisioned the character. Both sides have merit and there's no clear answer, but of course every case involving diversity in media isn't just like this one. This is just one example to show that sometimes there is no clear right or wrong in these matters.

My only issue with Nu52 Wally was that he was bland as fuck. Zero personality. I am happy we have OG Wally West back, because he's my favorite Flash. I am digging that they gave NuWally some personality in the current Flash run though.

 

[King Billi]

I feel the best way to respond to this thread is with a specific example

The British television series 'Sherlock' is quite a popular show isn't it? How could it not be? Starring Doctor Strange himself Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson, two awesome actors in a pretty awesome show.

However beyond them nearly all the other major characters are also men with the few recurring woman characters in much more limited roles.
This doesn't affect the overall quality of the show by any means and indeed it appears to have a large following of female fans regardless.

Now as usual there is also an American version of 'Sherlock' called 'Elementary' that is set in New York City and in which Doctor Watson is now a woman portrayed by Lucy Liu.
Many would consider it inferior to Sherlock which I am by no means going to try and refute, only to say that I thoroughly enjoy it in it's own right and consider it much better than its initial description would lead a lot to believe.

The casting of a female Watson is exactly the kind of thing a lot of people would dismiss as "Pandering" when really it an is just offering an alternate adaptation of Sherlock Holmes wherein a significant portion of the audience have someone they might (though not necessarily) be able to personally identify with a little more, just maybe?

I feel that is kinda what Zhukov was saying in the original post... It doesn't have to make things significantly different or even better (though I could make the argument...) It just offers a different perspective and focus for a potential audience that doesn't exist in any other versions of the same IP.

 

[Catnip1024]

I basically agree that better characters would help regardless of the colour / gender / etc. But as a hypothetical question: if adjusting characters to allow greater portions of the audience to relate to them is acceptable and encouraged one way, why does it become such a negative thing the other?

Take The Last Samurai, for example. Terrible movie, unlikeable main character. Thoroughly deserves criticism for that alone. But to accuse it of "whitewashing" for casting an American character is missing the point that if it was totally faithful, and only presented a cast of characters with feudal Japanese sensibilities, a vast portion of the audience would be alienated.

Give the movie flack for being a terrible movie. Don't give it a cop out and start saying that it would have been alright if the white guy wasn't in it.

I'm also opposed to any diversity casting which presents Will Smith the chance of winning an Oscar. Nobody else, just Will Smith.

 

[Phasmal]

Oh, Zhukov.
You can try and put it as nicely and non-controversially as you can and you'll still get flooded with responses like "I don't have a problem with diversity however here is all the problems I have with diversity".

I agree with both of your main points. It's nice to see yourself reflected in media, and I think media should make more of an effort to reflect more people.

I sort of think of it this way, if aliens were trying to figure out what our demographics were like just by our media, they would probably assume women were something like 17% of the population of the world and that the world was mostly made up of white dudes and it's just not.

And as an aside, I really hate how bland white guy is business as usual but anything else is PANDERING AND THEREFORE EVIL.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

I basically agree that better characters would help regardless of the colour / gender / etc. But as a hypothetical question: if adjusting characters to allow greater portions of the audience to relate to them is acceptable and encouraged one way, why does it become such a negative thing the other?

Take The Last Samurai, for example. Terrible movie, unlikeable main character. Thoroughly deserves criticism for that alone. But to accuse it of "whitewashing" for casting an American character is missing the point that if it was totally faithful, and only presented a cast of characters with feudal Japanese sensibilities, a vast portion of the audience would be alienated.

Give the movie flack for being a terrible movie. Don't give it a cop out and start saying that it would have been alright if the white guy wasn't in it.

...Might've had a better analogy if you hadn't of picked a pseudo-historical story. And yeah, I happen to think that they could've made a better movie if they didn't spend so much time trying to shoehorn in an American to take part in a pivotal event in Japanese history.

A better example for your analogy would have been the 2013 47 Ronin, which was blatantly a-historical.

 

[Elijin]

Reading through more of these responses makes me aware that there's a kneejerk circular response completely detached from the characters themselves. Its the whole over-saturation of SJW issues.
Some people are seeing these characters and their race/gender/sexual preference/etc is entirely incidental. They are what they are, and that's fine. One piece of a puzzle jumbled in with the rest.
Other people are seeing these characters and fixating on that defining trait as a marketing gimmick, and recoiling against it due to some weird sense of 'but it was only done to be inclusive!' overreaction to the more toxic parts of SJW they're exposed to online.

Its a really jarring 'They're different from the status quo, and things that are different are obviously both only added to meet a quota, and their difference is the defining characteristic, no matter how incidental it is to the tale.'

Its really odd to watch.

 

[TheMajesticSpaceDuck]

No Diversity Without Controversy!(actually has a ring to it doesn't it?)

Anyway OT as a straight cis white dude yeah, I'm saturated with people who are superficially like me but growing up and even now I like characters who grew up without a father and have issues relating to that. Fresh Prince of Bel Air had a stand out episode in that regard. It's nice to relate to a character, it makes you feel relatable yourself.

As for what this thread has become we really need to stop saying that a character needs a plot related reason to be a minority. Straight white guy isn't the default. There are plenty of characters who's heterosexuality is ultimately incidental to their personality but we still know they're heterosexual. Just having a characters spouse be same sex doesn't need to be a statement beyond "Lots of people are gay, you're going to meet some of them." The pandering argument is particularly frustrating in the geek community where people will rush to defend the physics defying J cups of anime characters which is blatant pandering. Which is fine. Pandering is fine. We all like being pandered to, be polite and let other people be pandered to as well.

 

[Level 7 Dragon]

Diversity is great, though when done wrong it can lead to tokenism.

I guess more than we need "strong" female LGTBQ POC characters we need more "complete" ones that play a vital role in the story and that don't exist just so the writer can make a few checks in his notebook.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

When do we start demanding the same for, err, "non-diverse" characters?

 

[Mangod]

I think, and this is just speculation, that some people have a problem with diversity because it's being used as a "Selling Point".

Like... "Character A is now racial/religious/sexual orientation group B!"

Marketing makes a big deal out it, and it ends up making people feel like the writers are less interested in writing a good story that speaks for itself, and more like they're "virtue boosting".

That, and there's the "tainted well" thing, where Kamala Khan is tarred by "association" (no matter how far removed) by things like [Unsolicited opinions on Israel??? [http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/unsolicited-opinions-on-israel]]

 

[Saltyk]

So what are you asking about?

My entire point was

a) Can we agree that people derive enjoyment from heroes that reflect an aspect of themselves?

Honestly, no. I like quite a few characters that I have nothing in common. I'm a straight white male. And yet, I like Sazh of FFXIII (not talking about the rest of the game), Steve Cortez from Mass Effect 3, plenty of characters from anime who are definitely from Japan, and let's not forget Finn and Rey from Force Awakens. I could pretty easily go on. I don't think you need to have anything in common with a character to enjoy them.

b) Is there any reason to deny or begrudge that small pleasure to people who get it less often?

But despite what you might expect me to say based on my last comment, I will say obviously there is no reason to begrudge a person liking or wanting to see characters like them in media. One reason that I like Rey is my little cousin, a girl, was getting into Star Wars when TFA came out, and instantly liked Rey. (She also liked Finn.) I like that the movie gave her a butt kicking girl to get attached to.

Seriously. That was my entire point. As the title says, I was hoping it wouldn't be a contentious one. But alas.

Seems to me that you're imagining contention on this one. I have no ill will towards you. Nor do I think your opinion invalid. I just disagree with it in part. Though, you haven't really given me any reason to believe that you extend the same respect to me.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Instead of taking a new character to represent a demographic, it'd be better if you had, say 2 or 3. And maybe some of the background randoms as well. Having "The black guy" is better than being all white, but "one of the black guys" is better.

The other thing, you need to be diverse if your story is about diversity. Hollywood keeps making movies about minorities being oppressed, only they are made up minorities like mutants or wizards or whatnot, and avoiding casting actually minorities.