Poll: Should stories be praised for being progressive?

[CaitSeith]

Automatic praise? No. If people want a work with progressive content to be praised, then it must earn it by being well made.

 

[Ryallen]

The reason why I'm skeptical is that those traits of the two characters were put in with no real effort, as in it seemed like they flipped a coin and decided "Fuck it."

Would it have taken more or less effort to make those characters more standard?

...but how they were implemented seems more like the writers of the show have demonstrated that they look out a window to see the different kinds of people rather than just the generic straight white dude.

Is that a bad thing?

Would it have been better if they had not looked out that metaphorical window?

At best, they are being praised for having a coin flip tails instead of heads.

Given how characters tend to default to certain traits, I'd say it's more like they flipped a coin and it landed upright on its side and stayed like that.

That's exactly my point. Marceline's mom was black and people praised the show for it, despite it not having any sort of impact of the story whatsoever. It makes sense, like I said, but praising the show for having a black person just seems... sycophantic.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Snip

I didn't wanna leave this hanging, but I can see we're not going to agree. It's fine if you don't think media needs more representation, but I do think that.

So I'll just agree to disagree.

How can you do this. I'll never understand people who can 'agree to disagree' like this, I barely even grasp the concept.

I mean, he's so obviously wrong. It's not without reason I'm not always good with people.

 

[JoJo]

The problem I can see with this is that there's no way for the reader to tell from the text what the author's intention was. Let's say I write a book and the protagonist's neighbour Joe Bloggs is black. How can the reader tell if Joe is based on my own black neighbour in real life, or if I decided to make him black as the rest of the main cast is white? And does it really matter either way?

I think it does matter for the simple reason that I can usually tell the difference. But I guess that if someone can't tell the difference then it wouldn't matter either way for that person.

I've got to say I doubt that, unless you personally know the author and can ask them what their original intention was then you have no idea whether your hunch is accurate or not. It could just be that the character is poorly written and their origins are irrelevant.

 

[Mylinkay Asdara]

I think stories should be praised for what they are doing well, whatever that may be in a particular case. So my natural answer would be "yes" - if they are doing it well being the qualifier.

Progressiveness just for the sake of it is not usually something done well, in any format. Slapping an LGTB character in somewhere just to have one isn't an improvement to a story on its own - same for a character of different race (or that in a fantasy or other-world Sci-Fi setting represents a non-white real world race by offering another skin tone). If this is done well however and adds to the complexity of the story and improves the coherency of the world - then yes, it is to be applauded.

 

[JimB]

Umm... if you want to?

Pretty much. If "progressive" is something you hold to be a value, then praise or criticize a work for meeting or failing to meet that value. If it's not, then don't. Dunno why we have to frame the discussion in terms of blanket orders about what is and is not permissible.

 

[False Messiah]

I've got to say I doubt that, unless you personally know the author and can ask them what their original intention was then you have no idea whether your hunch is accurate or not. It could just be that the character is poorly written and their origins are irrelevant.

Well, it's hard to convince you if you do not believe me. When I read in my native tongue the differences between a well written and integrated character versus a token character are rather glaring, and I think that I can pick the differences in an English text too.

A good story contains Nothing that doesn't drive the plot, paints the scene or improves the story in some other way. And usually you can find out the reason behind a certain decision on the writers side just by reading what they has? [#fn1] written.


1. Has or Have? I'm having problems with the singular form of they in English, sorry.

 

[JoJo]

I've got to say I doubt that, unless you personally know the author and can ask them what their original intention was then you have no idea whether your hunch is accurate or not. It could just be that the character is poorly written and their origins are irrelevant.

Well, it's hard to convince you if you do not believe me. When I read in my native tongue the differences between a well written and integrated character versus a token character are rather glaring, and I think that I can pick the differences in an English text too.

A good story contains Nothing that doesn't drive the plot, paints the scene or improves the story in some other way. And usually you can find out the reason behind a certain decision on the writers side just by reading what they has? [#fn1] written.


1. Has or Have? I'm having problems with the singular form of they in English, sorry.

It doesn't seem to be something that can be proved either way without the input of the author. What I will say though is that a character's skin colour could easily be considered to paint a scene, for example to show that the location being written about is ethnically diverse. Same with sexuality, for example showing that a place is tolerant of LGBT people, or not if that's the case.

(Have btw)

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

Umm... if you want to?

So, here's the thing. Why do you think it is that only minority characters are required to justify their existence?

Why isn't the question, "Why is this character a Straight White Male? How does this add to his character? Does this character sufficiently explore what it means to be a Straight White Male? If not, why does he need to exist? Was this character just included to pander to the Straight White Male lobby?"

Anyone who does ask those questions is doing it to make a point, like I am right here, and usually gets shouted down for being a feminazi SJW etc etc.

Other kinds of people exist. Surely they're as valid a character type as ye olde Straight White Male (possibly with brown hair).

Well, the reason why I posed this question in the first place is that, like I said, people drew attention to the fact that there were characters that were black and transgendered in the respective shows and then praised them for it. The reason why I'm skeptical is that those traits of the two characters were put in with no real effort, as in it seemed like they flipped a coin and decided "Fuck it." Again, I'm not saying that they need to justify their existence, but how they were implemented seems more like the writers of the show have demonstrated that they look out a window to see the different kinds of people rather than just the generic straight white dude. At best, they are being praised for having a coin flip tails instead of heads.

I think they are being praised for considering the possibility of including minorities in incidental character slots, which is usually not done. To use your analogy, they are not being given credit for how the coin landed. They are being given credit for flipping it in the first place. And I think that is an entirely valid thing to praise them for. Huge praise? No. But it is worth mentioning as a good thing that was done.

Lets call this incidental representation.

Now, how is this different from tokenism? I admit they can look very similar. But I think the intent is important, and that intent often shows through. The difference is with Tokenism the creators say "We need a black person for our check list, who do we make black?" so we end up with "The black character". Where as for incidental representation starts at a more basic level, where at the beginning of the decision making process for every character they start with "Ok, what race are they?"

Taking race as an example, tokenism starts with the assumption of white and then considers the possibility of changing a few characters to be something else. Incidental representation happens as a natural consequence of not starting with the assumption of white. The same is true of gender, sexuality, trans/cis, anything you care to note.

The rest of this goes off in left field, sorry.

Now, sometimes this can be harder to actual pull off. With race it is pretty easy, you just make your character the race. Done. But with things like sexuality or gender identity, you now have to decide if you are going to make them visibly gay or trans or whatever. Because they can be trans in your head, but until there is something to indicate that cis-normativity is going to mean everyone will assume they are cis. So if you want it to be a case of representation, you need to signpost it some how. And this is where "They are shoving it down our throat!" comes from. I don't think people do this consciously, but they instinctively know that if someone is shoving representation in our face then it is seen as less genuine (tokenism) and insulting to the minority in question. Thus, any time they see representation they do not like the instant accusation is "tokenism" and "shoving it down our throat, in our faces," etc.

Some one mentioned the case of the division, where a character who is gay has one line in the entire game where she mentions her wife. A single line of incidental dialog had a single word be "wife" instead of "husband" and a certain amount of people flipped out about it, saying it was shoved it down our throats. Evil tokenism! So insulting! Recently there was a big stink about a transgender character in a baulders gate, which was established in an entirely optional conversation several layers down in a dialog tree and was a two sentence explanation closely related to something else you specifically asked an explanation for. Shoved in our faces! Unrealistic! Such tokenism, so insulting to trans people!

I have seen this called concern trolling before. Re contextualizing a distaste for a minority as concern and championing of that minority. Making sure they are not taken advantage of. Etc.

Now not everyone who says these things is doing this, and I actually think most people who do this don't even realize it. They just find a minority character in a game or show and see red and start trying to find reasons to hate the character that they can internally justify so they don't have to think themselves a racist or sexist or whatever.

 

[Ryallen]

Some one mentioned the case of the division, where a character who is gay has one line in the entire game where she mentions her wife. A single line of incidental dialog had a single word be "wife" instead of "husband" and a certain amount of people flipped out about it, saying it was shoved it down our throats. Evil tokenism! So insulting! Recently there was a big stink about a transgender character in a baulders gate, which was established in an entirely optional conversation several layers down in a dialog tree and was a two sentence explanation closely related to something else you specifically asked an explanation for. Shoved in our faces! Unrealistic! Such tokenism, so insulting to trans people!

From what I understand, the conversation in the game actually came about rather inorganically, as the character in question was willing to divulge her entire backstory, including her sexual identity, to someone she just met after talking for about 30 seconds. That was my problem, anyways. Not to turn this into a whole "thing", but the game did clearly have a checklist going into it, as there was also a goblin who berated you for assuming he was evil, despite that, to my knowledge, goblins are always evil, similar to kobolds and imps. Hell, the conversation with the transgender character seemed very inorganic and deliberate in general, as the PC noticed that the name was odd and asked about it, even though, from what I understand about social norms and patterns, nobody would do that.

 

[shrekfan246]

So, here's the thing. Why do you think it is that only minority characters are required to justify their existence?

This right here.

This sort of subject was actually recently brought up by a few other people I chat with, re: people saying (minority) characters are okay "as long as they're written well".

First of all, I don't actually understand where most of these complaints are coming from in the first place. Minority characters in video games or television shows or films with actually progressive writing are practically never one-note token characters. The only time they're used as token characters is as the butt of comedy in, let's say non-progressive media. So unless all you're watching is brainless comedy films/sitcoms or things made by those who are heavily regressive/ignorant, I'd say complaining about minorities in your entertainment is probably not actually a problem with said entertainment.

Second, this often seems to be more of a cop-out response made by people who care only enough to go on and on about how much they really don't care. It's a bit of a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation, because whenever the topic of representation comes up, there are inevitably responses from people who won't be satisfied no matter what's happening. OP of this thread is a great example; they're complaining about someone incidentally being transgender in an anime. However, whenever someone being transgender has more importance to a narrative, people complain about it "being shoved in our faces" and they say that it should just be something really subtle and incidental. These people will never be happy, because what they actually want is to never encounter anything that challenges their perception of the world, and having to accept that transgender men and women exist is exactly that.

Also, because the OP seems to be a bit confused here, transgenderism =/= sexuality. Trans men and women can be homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, or anything else, just like anybody else can.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

From what I understand, the conversation in the game actually came about rather inorganically, as the character in question was willing to divulge her entire backstory, including her sexual identity, to someone she just met after talking for about 30 seconds. That was my problem, anyways. Not to turn this into a whole "thing", but the game did clearly have a checklist going into it, as there was also a goblin who berated you for assuming he was evil, despite that, to my knowledge, goblins are always evil, similar to kobolds and imps. Hell, the conversation with the transgender character seemed very inorganic and deliberate in general, as the PC noticed that the name was odd and asked about it, even though, from what I understand about social norms and patterns, nobody would do that.

Would anything in the division even happen if it was following all the "social norms?" Why pick on that one incidental piece? There are much larger inconsistencies to consider than a hasty line of dialogue.

 

[shrekfan246]

From what I understand, the conversation in the game actually came about rather inorganically, as the character in question was willing to divulge her entire backstory, including her sexual identity, to someone she just met after talking for about 30 seconds. That was my problem, anyways. Not to turn this into a whole "thing", but the game did clearly have a checklist going into it, as there was also a goblin who berated you for assuming he was evil, despite that, to my knowledge, goblins are always evil, similar to kobolds and imps. Hell, the conversation with the transgender character seemed very inorganic and deliberate in general, as the PC noticed that the name was odd and asked about it, even though, from what I understand about social norms and patterns, nobody would do that.

Would anything in the division even happen if it was following all the "social norms?" Why pick on that one incidental piece? There are much larger inconsistencies to consider than a hasty line of dialogue.

It's an especially weird thing to pick up on unless they also happen to question why NPCs are always perfectly willing to talk to you about anything and everything in games like Pokemon, The Legend of Zelda, and Final Fantasy. People whose houses you've typically just broken into and ransacked, might I add.

(EDIT: Hint: That's kinda just the way video games work, for better or worse.)

(EDIT II: Also, Xsjado, OP seems more upset about a trans character being in Baldur's Gate, not The Division. And, OP, being under the assumption that goblins are always evil is pretty much exactly why having a goblin that berates you for assuming he's evil... is a good idea. Racial stereotyping in practice! There are plenty of fantasy worlds with orcs/goblins that aren't "evil", just because you haven't exposed yourself to them doesn't mean they don't exist.)

 

[ThatOtherGirl]

Some one mentioned the case of the division, where a character who is gay has one line in the entire game where she mentions her wife. A single line of incidental dialog had a single word be "wife" instead of "husband" and a certain amount of people flipped out about it, saying it was shoved it down our throats. Evil tokenism! So insulting! Recently there was a big stink about a transgender character in a baulders gate, which was established in an entirely optional conversation several layers down in a dialog tree and was a two sentence explanation closely related to something else you specifically asked an explanation for. Shoved in our faces! Unrealistic! Such tokenism, so insulting to trans people!

From what I understand, the conversation in the game actually came about rather inorganically, as the character in question was willing to divulge her entire backstory, including her sexual identity, to someone she just met after talking for about 30 seconds. That was my problem, anyways. Not to turn this into a whole "thing", but the game did clearly have a checklist going into it, as there was also a goblin who berated you for assuming he was evil, despite that, to my knowledge, goblins are always evil, similar to kobolds and imps. Hell, the conversation with the transgender character seemed very inorganic and deliberate in general, as the PC noticed that the name was odd and asked about it, even though, from what I understand about social norms and patterns, nobody would do that.

Perhaps the division was a bad example, because I am sure Ubisoft was working toward a diversity checklist. I was more using it as an example of how the absolute minimum that can be done to establish a character's sexual identity is enough to be considered shoving it in our faces. It was a backstory dump of side character in an Ubisoft game, they are all shitty and inorganic, but no one has problems with the other shitty and inorganic backstory dumps in the game, which there are plenty off. But this one happens to establish that a character is gay. And it is not like the way it is done is unrealistic, married people often talk about the person they are married to, seeing as they are the most important person in the entire world to them and they spend most of their life in their presence. "My spouse thinks X" is not an unusual thing to say. And yet, shoved in our face.

As for the trans one, it was shitty writing, that is for sure. But it is also very hard to establish a character as incidentally trans in an organic way, so burying it down in the dialog tree of an NPC, where NPC's typically dump their life story to us, seems like a perfectly legitimate way to do it. I don't think anyone can legitimately claim it was shoved in our face. Again, optional dialog stemming from a question you, the player, specifically chose to ask. Anyone who sees that dialog specifically decided to ask the question, they thought it was legitimate enough a question to ask in the first place. I hardly think they can complain that the question wasn't a good one after the fact. And besides, people ask about names in real life, I have seen it happen often. "Oh, that is a pretty name. Were you named after a relative?" for example. Again, the entire tree was pretty poorly written, but it is not below par for the game itself.

I don't know if they were working toward a checklist, I don't think the goblin thing was any sort of diversity statement. The evil monster that is actually a good person that the player assumes is bad only to be proven wrong is one of the oldest and most overused tropes in that style of RPGs. It is a massive cliche. I just think they were shit writers.

I actually think the baulders gate people provided us with a good example of something. I would say to them "Ok, good job at the attempt at incidental representation. Now go learn how to actually write." I can praise them for an attempt at one good writing practice while criticizing them for the other bad writing practices.

 

[Scarim Coral]

The progess should be priase ONLY when it's actually add the meat to the story.

I mean I can get why Steven Universe is praise for breaking boundries per say (a mostly female superhero ish group and the females cast are diverse eventhought they are class as genderless).

As for Adventure Times Stake, not really (oh big wow, did people not see Doug where everyone are a different colours?) and I never heard of that anime the op mention either.

 

[linwolf]

Well it definitely isn't a mark against the story, I would still say it far more imported that the story is good. But having it be more inclusive for groups that is often overlooked doesn't hurt me, and not following social norms does most of the time makes the world more interesting.

 

[Ryallen]

From what I understand, the conversation in the game actually came about rather inorganically, as the character in question was willing to divulge her entire backstory, including her sexual identity, to someone she just met after talking for about 30 seconds. That was my problem, anyways. Not to turn this into a whole "thing", but the game did clearly have a checklist going into it, as there was also a goblin who berated you for assuming he was evil, despite that, to my knowledge, goblins are always evil, similar to kobolds and imps. Hell, the conversation with the transgender character seemed very inorganic and deliberate in general, as the PC noticed that the name was odd and asked about it, even though, from what I understand about social norms and patterns, nobody would do that.

Would anything in the division even happen if it was following all the "social norms?" Why pick on that one incidental piece? There are much larger inconsistencies to consider than a hasty line of dialogue.

I probably should have started that I wasn't talking about the Division. Sorry, my bad.

It's an especially weird thing to pick up on unless they also happen to question why NPCs are always perfectly willing to talk to you about anything and everything in games like Pokemon, The Legend of Zelda, and Final Fantasy. People whose houses you've typically just broken into and ransacked, might I add.

Well, in the defense of Pokemon, The Legend of Zelda, and Final Fantasy, one of the core tenants of Baldur's Gate, among other things, is the relationship you have with your party members and how much they trust you, where as in Zelda and Final Fantasy, that is not the case. Besides, don't you think that it would have been much better if they had revealed it when you had gained the character's trust? That would have made more sense to me. Having it up front like that just seemed... forced. Like they were advertising that this character was transgender to everyone that was playing the game, rather than building it up to it while talking to the character after recruiting her.

Also, because the OP seems to be a bit confused here, transgenderism =/= sexuality. Trans men and women can be homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, or anything else, just like anybody else can.

In my defense, at the time of writing that, I had forgotten the term "sexual identity" was a thing. That's my bad, my fault. I apologize.

 

[GrumbleGrump]

No. I hold the old and regressive ideal that things should be praised based on it's quality.