Gays and Minorities as villians in fictional media... Good? Bad?

[Zetatrain]

Not really, even if the villain simply being a certain minority can be interpreted as racist or anti-whatever by the viewer, I usually don't see anything wrong with it unless the person behind said material is intentionally trying to bash a minority.

 

[rbstewart7263]

What some people are talking about in this thread boils down to."People will think ill of blacks or gays if we make them the antagonist so make them all white and straight."

This is the most ignorant form of activism i think there is out there right now.

It's arbitrary, and we shouldn't be pretending that minorities are incapable of evil

I don't think anyone is arguing that.

What I and some others are arguing is that there is a problem when it's seen as "more acceptable" to cast minorities in the role of antagonist than it is in the role of protagonist, or why, if we want more minority inclusion in the media, we must start with giving them antagonistic roles instead of protagonist roles.

And, you know, the fact that often antagonists have been given certain minority traits in order to make them more disgusting/scary/loathsome/strange and so on.

WELLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!! ok sounds good to me. as long as were not making silly rules and instead promoting diversity than im down.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Snip.

It's excess information, read: not needed information. Does it help explain the character to know their sexual preferences? Perhaps. But unless those sexual preferences have a direct baring on the story then it's information that's not needed. She could have just as easily said that Dumbledor and Grindlewald were just REALLY close friends...would that have changed the actual story?

Seems pretty backwards to me. After all, you haven't supplied any reason as to why the author shouldn't have supplied that information - if it has no bearing on the story (though I'd argue the Dumbledore/Grindelwald relationship did have a pretty large impact on the story, being the main reason Dumbledore refused to confront Grindelwald for so long and acting as a major source of shame for the character), then it's inclusion can only have bearing on the character, in helping to flesh them out and make them more nuanced.

Take the works of Stephen King for example. He's meticulous about small details, often describing a room or a person in great detail. Technically almost none of the little details ("there were three cars parked on the road, two were blue and one was green. They were make X, Y and Z respectively. One of them had a cracked wing mirror" and so on and so forth) have any bearing on the story outside of the occasional Chekov's Gun, but they help to set the scene and for the reader to picture things in their head.

Put simply, there's no reason not to mention that Dumbledore was gay, and in fact it adds a little more depth to the character, so why on earth would Rowling leave it out?

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

It's fucking horrible and a disgrace to every long-held moral underpinning this glorious society. I cannot believe that anyone would put a gay or minority as a villain, or in fact, in their media at all! Not even those who go through particularly painful deaths are excused, there is absolutely no reason to ever use anything other than a heterosexual white male for key roles, and possibly female for minor roles, and I will not be consuming any content at all from now on...!

Seriously though. Who cares. There is one way to screw up a 'fringe' anything character - making that the predominant aspect of their personality. [small]And quite honestly I can't believe the OP created this topic expecting anyone to condemn minority characters.[/small]

 

[SonicWaffle]

Well... what about LA Noire where Cole Phelps stands idly by while black characters are talked down to, and a woman even gets slapped in his presence? I know many people weren't thrilled with those aspects of Cole's character but he remains likeable nonetheless.

...wait, since when was Cole supposed to be likeable?! He gets a pass for standing by while bigotry runs rampant around him, because protagonist or not he's still intended to be written as a product of his time, but he's a holier-than-thou preacher who is really just as corrupted as any of the partners he constantly talks down to. He puts up a big act of being a devoted family man, talking about how the most important things in his world are his wife and children, and then (with roughly 10 seconds of very poorly done foreshadowing) runs off and sleeps with some random chick.

At that point, I got so sick of the hypocritical little **** that I stopped playing the game. I had no idea we were actually supposed to like the guy!

Roarshach from watchmen is a staunchly bigoted right-wing character but he gets a pass as well... I'm not sure the exact argument I'm making here, just that yeah we live vicariously through the story but it seems were likely to forgive negative traits of a character.

Rorscach is an interesting version of this, actually. He's regarded by many (often, from my own personal experience of talking to them, misanthropic young men or teenagers who're still in the "god people suck, if only everyone were more like me" stage of their development) as being the true hero of the story, but he was actually written as a figure of disgust. According to Alan Moore the audience was supposed to dislike Rorscach and see him as no better than the criminals he was fighting.

Alan Moore being Alan Moore, he was pretty pissed off about this, but then he seems to be angry at everything.

 

[Darken12]

I have to make that mod now.

Best. Mod idea. Ever.

And suddenly I have to go back and watch/play every single fantasy/sci-fi thing just to look at it that way.

Actually, the other day I started reading the first Malazan Book of the Fallen... errr, book, and while I at first thought it was really progressive that the ruthless empress in the story was a warrior who took the throne by force, as I read the Dramatis Personae, I noticed that over 75% of the characters were male, and that the women were either civilians or, at best, mages, and that the leadership positions were almost overwhelmingly male. And then as I started reading, the author specifically called out the gender ratio in the army as being predominantly male.

It really shows you how much we can learn from an author by what they replicate from history or modern society.

I think that in any situation where someone has to be coaxed into being a decent human with cookies, something is wrong.
And if they must get cookies, well, the people who live with being different should get an entire buffet.

It's the straight/white/cis/male/middle-or-upper-class/etc privilege thing. They perceive the racist/sexist/homophobic/etc status quo as "normal" and any change is "indulging the annoying minorities" so they better get their damn cookies for it! /sarcasm

Hah! That's the notion behind Affirmative Action and you know how much the privileged groups revile it. Because, you know, racist/sexist/homophobic/etc status quo is "normal" then anything that benefits minorities is "unfair" and "discriminatory" because it's upsetting the status quo in favour of marginalised groups.

Having black villains is not the same as demonizing black people. That's not what the term means.

When the predominant depiction of black people is as villains (or otherwise portrayed in a negative light), they are being demonised.

Unless, of course, you mean the literal definition of demonisation. In which case no, I don't think it's that common for black people to be depicted as actual demons (though it has happened).

I don't play a ton of war games so I don't know what they have for villains and protagonists. But I know a lot of games that minority protagonists. GTA has had 2 black guys (3 if you count GTA V), an Asian and a Hispanic (ballad of Gay Tony) as protagonists. There's tons of black and minority fighters in street fighter and last I checked M. Bison is still white. Twisted Metal has some black drivers, and no real antagonist. There's the main character of Starhawk, there's some Soul Calibur characters and that series the main antagonist is not human.

Now name me a bunch of minority villains.

I'm not the right person for that job, since I don't have an extensive knowledge of videogames, but I'll give it a try:

Bayonetta has Balder, who is dressed as a fucking peacock, though I haven't played the game so I don't know if he's campy too. Resident Evil 5 had plenty of black people as antagonists. For what I'm reading, Kane and Lynch 2 had the protagonists shooting foreigners. CoDBlOps had Hispanic and Asian people as enemies. Hitman: Absolution had that squad of nun-assassins (yes, women are not always minorities, but they are a marginalised group). Call of Juarez. Just Call of Juarez. Battlefield 3 had Iraqi enemies, I believe. I also remember hearing Yahtzee mentioning several times that the "action-adventure games set in scenic landscapes" genre (Uncharted, Far Cry, Tomb Rider and the like) had a propensity for making enemies out of racial minorities.

I'd mention more, but I lack the time to comb through lists and investigate if the enemies are minorities or not. So have some articles instead. Here's one with more examples (though it doesn't focus on antagonists that much):

http://venturebeat.com/2013/02/21/the-misrepresentation-of-minorities-in-video-games/

Here's a paper on the gender and racial stereotypes in videogames:

https://www.msu.edu/~pengwei/Mou%20Peng.pdf

Cracked had an article on it too:

http://www.cracked.com/article_19922_5-prejudices-that-video-games-cant-seem-to-get-over

It has its own trope:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TokenEnemyMinority

Which is what again?

That minorities (and other marginalised groups, like women and the lower class) are under-represented in the media, and even a great deal of the people who are sympathetic to this inequality still insist that we should accept this as an inevitability because "it doesn't sell", despite how absurd the notion is.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Having black villains is not the same as demonizing black people. That's not what the term means.

Possibly this is why nobody is saying it does, outside of strawmen.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Well... what about LA Noire where Cole Phelps stands idly by while black characters are talked down to, and a woman even gets slapped in his presence? I know many people weren't thrilled with those aspects of Cole's character but he remains likeable nonetheless.

...wait, since when was Cole supposed to be likeable?! He gets a pass for standing by while bigotry runs rampant around him, because protagonist or not he's still intended to be written as a product of his time, but he's a holier-than-thou preacher who is really just as corrupted as any of the partners he constantly talks down to. He puts up a big act of being a devoted family man, talking about how the most important things in his world are his wife and children, and then (with roughly 10 seconds of very poorly done foreshadowing) runs off and sleeps with some random chick.

At that point, I got so sick of the hypocritical little **** that I stopped playing the game. I had no idea we were actually supposed to like the guy!

Roarshach from watchmen is a staunchly bigoted right-wing character but he gets a pass as well... I'm not sure the exact argument I'm making here, just that yeah we live vicariously through the story but it seems were likely to forgive negative traits of a character.

Rorscach is an interesting version of this, actually. He's regarded by many (often, from my own personal experience of talking to them, misanthropic young men or teenagers who're still in the "god people suck, if only everyone were more like me" stage of their development) as being the true hero of the story, but he was actually written as a figure of disgust. According to Alan Moore the audience was supposed to dislike Rorscach and see him as no better than the criminals he was fighting.

Alan Moore being Alan Moore, he was pretty pissed off about this, but then he seems to be angry at everything.

I dunno, I ended up liking Cole Phelps and the lesson he learns by the end of the game that a good man has flaws... or something, it's been a while. He ends up living with her as a permanent relationship so I'd hardly say the Russian chick was random.

Yeah I've read that too... It's however, easy for me to see why Rorschach gets a pass, there is something very admirable about a character that stubbornly refuses to compromise his beliefs.... Plus Alan Moore really didn't play up his more bigoted traits enough, I think at most he has some passing lines about some lesbian hero being killed "do to the lifestyle she choose". Plus, and I hope I'm not making this up in my head, that really awesome human moment when Nightowl just rips into him and Rorschach ends up sincerely apologizing admitting "I know it's not easy to be my friend." showing he retains a degree of self-awareness. Moore kinda sabotaged himself.

 

[SonicWaffle]

I dunno, I ended up liking Cole Phelps and the lesson he learns by the end of the game that a good man has flaws... or something, it's been a while. He ends up living with her as a permanent relationship so I'd hardly say the Russian chick was random.

Well, as I said I never made it to the end of the game, but whatever lesson he learns probably wouldn't be enough for me to make up for his personality. After all, there's a difference between having flaws and being a total fraud; he's a family man, until he wants a bit of strange. He's better than his colleagues, and smug about it too, until he decides to do something bad and then it becomes excusable. He allows himself to be passed off as a war hero, and while he admittedly feels a twinge of guilt, he never actually bothers to correct the wide perception of him as a straight-up dude rather than a coward.

Also, not actually related, but wasn't that woman German?

Yeah I've read that too... It's however, easy for me to see why Rorschach gets a pass, there is something very admirable about a character that stubbornly refuses to compromise his beliefs....

This is what I mean about the character appealing to angsty teenage boys (not that I'm accusing you, I'm just saying). This idea of "no compromise, no surrender!" strikes a chord with people in their rebellious phase of life, who have not yet learned that compromise, surrender and picking your battles are the only way to get by in the world. Rorschach's balls-to-the-wall refusal to back down on anything is ultimately not only his own undoing, but implied to be the undoing of the entire world's new Golden Age. Admirable in a fictional character, but in reality a person with such an attitude is going to be wholly unable to function.

Having principles is all well and good, but what exactly are Rorscach's beliefs other than that the law does not apply to him and that he is the ultimate arbiter of justice?

Plus Alan Moore really didn't play up his more bigoted traits enough, I think at most he has some passing lines about some lesbian hero being killed "do to the lifestyle she choose". Plus, and I hope I'm not making this up in my head, that really awesome human moment when Nightowl just rips into him and Rorschach ends up sincerely apologizing admitting "I know it's not easy to be my friend." showing he retains a degree of self-awareness. Moore kinda sabotaged himself.

Certainly he's self-aware, and Moore is too good of a writer to create a character who is a one-note hate figure. That's the beauty of Rorscach, really - at times, such as in the prison, we do root for him. At times we even agree with his philosophy. He's a nuanced character with a relatively sympathetic backstory who is self-aware enough to know he's a pain in the arse, but all of that is not enough to save him from being a genuinely unpleasant character. He has no problem with murder and torture, even when hunting down murderers and torturers, because it's him doing it. He has placed himself entirely above everyone else in his own mental pyramid, creating a sort of moral system whereby his position is always the correct one. Imagine Batman with a weaker grip on sanity and no supporting cast to ground him, with no trust in the police and no compunction about killing. Suddenly the character, while still compelling, is someone the audience (should) be much less comfortable in cheering for.

 

[Starik20X6]

To echo what's already been said, as long as the minority status has nothing to with the villain status, then I don't really see the issue. But then maybe I just need to check my privilege.

 

[JayElleBee]

Snip.

It's excess information, read: not needed information. Does it help explain the character to know their sexual preferences? Perhaps. But unless those sexual preferences have a direct baring on the story then it's information that's not needed. She could have just as easily said that Dumbledor and Grindlewald were just REALLY close friends...would that have changed the actual story?

Here, let me give you an example in which a character's sexuality plays a direct baring on the story: Willem Dafoe's character in Boondock Saints. He's a self-hating homosexual FBI agent who is over-the-top flamboyant yet viciously insults other homosexuals. This represents and inner turmoil that he's going through which is reflected on the case he's working of the Boondock Saints vigilantes. It even gives him reason to dress in drag to infiltrate a mafia house, make out with a guy then shoot him when his cover's blown. That's a character's sexuality playing a direct role in the story.

Last time I checked, Harry never walks in on Dumbledor and Grindlewald going at it in the supply closet. As far as I recall, there were romantic parts but nothing out-right sexual about Harry Potter..........so why bring sex into it at all? That's my point.

See, there's your problem. You're pulling that whole gay = sex nonsense. I don't recall Rowling ever mentioning where Dumbledore's dick may or may not have been. All she said is that Dumbledore is gay and that he had feelings for Grindelwald. In a press conference. When someone asked her about his romantic relationships. It's not like some random conversation about how gay he is, was shoehorned into the book for no reason what so ever. Information is only excessive if it takes away from the flow of the story. Since no one would even know Dumbledore was gay from simply reading the books (unless they have the single most effective gaydar in the universe), this does not count as excessive information. I wonder if you would be so up in arms about keeping 'sex' out of Harry Potter if Rowling had said Dumbledore and McGonagall had once been in a relationship?

There are few enough LGBT role models in fiction as it is, and I whole-heartedly reject the idea that we should hide away the few who do exist, simply because some people think homosexuality is inherently sexual.

 

[Petromir]

As long as they aren't the villain just because they are in that minority.

It's aloud to indirectly lead to them being the villain, for example their being in that minority has lead to mistreatment throughout their life which has resulted in them becoming the villain.

Someone has to make sense as the character in that setting. For example in a historical piece about a King of England with them as the protagonist, casting anything but a white actor is fairly moronic, in a modern piece based on a lawyer then if a back story fits the character and makes sense for somebody of that race then it should be considered.

Trickier is often re-writing a classic to fit in a minority. It often smacks of tokenism and can detract if it doesn't fit. A good example of how to do this is in Baz Luhrmann's version of Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio is a great performance in that film, but the change of era really makes the casting work, a similar casting in a more traditional version would be trickier to pull of half as well.

A quick note on the Skyrim debate that's come up, a useful viewpoint when creating a fantasy world is trying to work out how it developed and how attitudes develop and evolve. Most societies on this planet have at around the medieval level of development evolved into a Patriarchy or a Matriarchy, and in most larger non nomadic societies with contact with others it's a largely Patriarchal society that's developed. This is likely because most have a fairly inevitable dominance of might in the decision of overall control of society in the lead up to this stage and the leader is generally expected to lead their nation in war. Most of Skyrim's world re-reinforces that this is likely the sort of society that would develop. Creating a world that has developed into a medieval type world that is equal but also make sense within its own confines is trickier than it might appear. Magic offers a potential way, but its no magic bullet as it were, often fantasy worlds limit its practitioners and its often a divisor rather than a equalizer, as as an equalizer its difficult to restrict in a way that produces the balance you desire.

Fantasy is about that, but the most absorbing worlds are generally those that have consitancy and make snese given their worlds.

 

[Brainwreck]

The ostracized are always universally good and noble. The underdog cannot be anything but a paragon of virtue. That's...
bleiggghhh. You know what it is.
Fake political correctness.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Why, someone can't be gay, black, religious, female, disabled or any other category, and still be a c**t?

They aren't mutually exclusive, in reality or fiction.

 

[Ashannon Blackthorn]

Does it really matter a persons sexuality has nothing to do with being a villain or not people are always so fixated on such arbitrary physical or personality traits I don't get it.

People love to be politically correct and shove their viewpoints and opinions down other people's throats mostly....

Yeah, it's definitely nothing to do with certain minority groups being a bit touchy about this sort of thing thanks to a long, long history of being used a punching bags by the more dominant groups. It's all those damn PC brigade creating a storm in a teacup when really there's nothing wrong with portraying all Arabic people as terrorists or all homosexuals as relentlessly promiscuous. Nobody in the history of the world has ever been harmed by a negative depiction in media, after all.

Come on, people, we're supposed to be better than this. Yes, some people react too strongly when they suspect negative motives behind the actions of a fictional character, but going too far the other way and dismissing such concerns entirely is even worse.

It's really simple. People do tend to shove their beliefs down other people throats and if you dare disagree you're immeadiately racist, sexist, homophobic or whatever.

So yes, certain groups have negative sterotypes to fight against. And you know? sometimes they find battles where there aren't any and then when people point it out, they're immeadiately rascist. Like if you criticize anything the Isreali government does, some groups label you anti-semetic. You criticize feminists, (or any type) some people will say your a woman hater.

Just because you're in a minority doesn't give you some right to have anything you say taken as the gospel truth.

And this isn't saying rascism is good. It's just a statement that people can get very PC about there own personal beliefs hust the way people are.

 

[SonicWaffle]

It's really simple. People do tend to shove their beliefs down other people throats and if you dare disagree you're immeadiately racist, sexist, homophobic or whatever.

So yes, certain groups have negative sterotypes to fight against. And you know? sometimes they find battles where there aren't any and then when people point it out, they're immeadiately rascist. Like if you criticize anything the Isreali government does, some groups label you anti-semetic. You criticize feminists, (or any type) some people will say your a woman hater.

Just because you're in a minority doesn't give you some right to have anything you say taken as the gospel truth.

And this isn't saying rascism is good. It's just a statement that people can get very PC about there own personal beliefs hust the way people are.

Well, thanks for the extended post, it's certainly a lot less objectionable than the original. To be honest, the only reason I responded as I did in the first case was because without the added context, it appeared as if you were saying that any objection to mistreatment of a minority group was being "politically correct" (which to some people is apparently shorthand for "pretentious self-important pissflap") rather than a decent human being.

 

[Axolotl]

I also remember hearing Yahtzee mentioning several times that the "action-adventure games set in scenic landscapes" genre (Uncharted, Far Cry, Tomb Rider and the like) had a propensity for making enemies out of racial minorities.

I which case either you or him are wrong. I've only played Uncharted 2, but in it all the villains are white. Far Cry 1 has white villans, 2 has a fairly even mix of ethnicities for heroes and villains but the main villain is white, 3 has a white villain although his main henchman is Asian. Of the Tomb Raider games I've played (1, 2, 4, Chronicles, Angel of Darkness, Legend, Underworld and the reboot) there's only a handful of times I can remember fighting non-white enemies who weren't undead, and all the major villains were white.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip.

Look, the sad fact of the matter is that I was only marginally interested in this topic in the first place, and now I'm afraid I just simply don't care anymore. Have a pleasant evening.