Poll: Should stories be praised for being progressive?

[Zontar]

He brought up that he had a husband in a conversation where he was talking about how he died. So any time a person mentions that they have a spouse and it clarifies that they're gay, it's hamfisted?

Did you actually play the game or just read what happened in it? Because the way it was presented was pretty heavy handed and ham fisted.

Gay people have a bad tendency to get killed in fiction.

So to straight people, that's the thing about fiction: a lot of people bite the bullet. For every example of a gay character being killed there's a good 50 of straight ones being killed, but no one cares because people die in fiction. The same issue happens with women in fiction: kill fifty men in a story and no one bats an eyelash, but kill one woman and everyone looses their shit. Now granted this stems from how we as a society perceive people based on their sex, but it still remains an issue where treating people who are not straight white men the same way as straight white men leads to backlash even stronger then that of not using said people in the first place.

Unlike straight people, they don't have an army of alternative replacements standing behind them.

Well in the case of gay and trans people that leads to a problem, namely in the case where there is no army of alternative replacements in real life either. Being collectively 3% of the population tends to do that, but the problem is that in a story where characters bit the bullet on a regular basis, eventually everyone save the lead has a good chance of not making it through. So that leads to a dilemma: either the character gets special treatment because of what they are instead of their place in the story (which leads to lower quality stories) or they are treated the same way as everyone else (and thus have a similar chance of dying). Funny thing how those complaining about equality tend to be the first to oppose it.

Though in any even the entire issue is moot when one remembers The 100 nontroversy came about because the actress who played a lesbian had to be written out of the story and there was literally no other logical way to do it without it being a Deux Ex Machina that would have turned off a lot of people who watched the show.

It's easier to suspend disbelief? Uh, says who?

Says basic evolutionary psychology. It's the same reason henchmen are always men who wear the same clothing, often with sunglasses and/or some other mask. Well, not the exact same reason, but it stems from the same place.

It says...interesting things about our culture.

It says our fiction reflects reality and is built upon it, not holey separate from it. Men in combat roles is the universal rule, always has been and unless we alter our brains on the species level. The only times in all of human history a noteworthy number of women where used in direct combat roles was when nations where literally fighting in their final days for survival. Before industrialization it was so rare that any occurrence of it was covered extensively in writings because of how unusual it was. It's the reason why in Star Trek it's so odd to see that happen while in 40k no one blinks an eye at the fact there are all female regiments in the Imperial Guard along side the all male ones. But even then we don't see those all female regiments in stories that often because we as a society and as a species do not like seeing women get harmed instinctively, and require an active attempt to suppress this instinct for it not to be present.

Having a male lead for those type of stories also allows for more types of stories to be gotten away with. You can't have a women go through the same hardships as a man and elicit the same response, despite attempts to act as such humans don't view men and women the same and thus being put through the same thing does not lead to the same end point. It's the same reason why insulting a woman directly doesn't have the same results as insulting a man directly, and is why insults against men tend to target their mother, wife or children instead of themselves, as those elicit the same responses despite their being different in nature.

The simply TLR of it is men and women are different, we as a society and species understand that, and fiction reflects that fact.

 

[Redd the Sock]

I picked no for 2 reasons:

1) I won't lie, the way it's handled too often makes diversity efforts little more than cosmetic. I continue to see people praise it as being something different, but I don't see efforts in that regard to be more than a minor visual difference, with perhaps a line or two added. This isn't to say it shouldn't happen, but it's like praising the uniqueness of a cake with green icing instead of pink when all that changed was the flavorless food coloring. Hell, we all did that kind of thing as kids, swearing that the canned pasta in the shape of our favorite TV characters was just better than the plain Alpha-getti. Eventually I grew up and looked for more substantive differences and don't see the point behind praising what is all too often a pallet swap to pass off the same old character in new packaging.

2) And with that it leads to praise for progressiveness only going to what gets noticed, and not what's doing the most toward the goal. We beg for more stuff like Ms Marvel to break up the deluge of white guys, only to not realize how many books already exist and are flirting with cancellation / or getting canceled / from small indie publishers that could fill that need and have been trying to do so for a long time. It takes the idea of praising good behavior and makes it more about the dreaded virtue signaling by going "aren't I a good person for praising something doing good that passed under my nose" instead of something like "Gold Digger by Antarctic press has had a book with a female lead and many strong female side characters running for over 20 years now and that's impressive."

 

[SilverLion]

No. Progressive doesn't necessarily mean interesting or endearing. You have to make sure that your character is someone we want to have an interest in before you make them black or gay or transsexual or lobster etc. However, it is fine to write a character as either of those things if it is incidental to their actual character and is just a nice addition. It's why I think the "Oscars So White" thing was overblown a little bit; if you have diversity just for the sake of it, then you are just as racist, albeit in a positive way.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

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.

Fun fact: There actually is a transgender character in Pokemon, who does come outright and says they are. In X and Y, there's a Beauty character in the Battle Mansion whose opening dialogue goes 'Isn't modern medicine amazing? I used to be a Karate King!' (or something along those lines). Karate Kings are an exclusively male trainer class, and Beauties are an exclusively female trainer class. Can't remember what her ending dialogue is, but it's also pretty blatantly 'I'm transgender!'.

Like, it doesn't have to be this big, pained reveal full of trust building and character discussions. Minor NPC? Go nuts and establish that shit as soon as you can. Some NPC going 'well I'm transgender' or 'I'm gayer than a Peacock riding a Rainbow' isn't any much different to an NPC going 'Well I was talking to my wife the other day...' or 'Me and my Kids just arrived in the city...', so it's always really... weird when people get all huffy about it and talk about how it seemed 'forced'.

Speaking of...

He brought up that he had a husband in a conversation where he was talking about how he died. So any time a person mentions that they have a spouse and it clarifies that they're gay, it's hamfisted?

Did you actually play the game or just read what happened in it? Because the way it was presented was pretty heavy handed and ham fisted.

...so, have to ask, is a character talking about their wife 'hamfisted' with their heterosexuality? And how would you have presented his overwhelming gayness (sorry I can't help myself sometimes) if you find him so 'hamfisted'?

Just curious, really. As a gay man I didn't find anything about him offensive or overt (I talk about my own partners in a much similar vein, and I've said 'I'm gay' something like... 15 times on this site already), and as a romantic option there wasn't anything different from how the straight characters/Liara present themselves as romantic options (I'd actually say the straight relationships are far worse, though that's mainly because in ME1 Kaidan/Ashley always seemed to assume I wanted to jump their bones after a couple conversations).

 

[Ryallen]

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.

Fun fact: There actually is a transgender character in Pokemon, who does come outright and says they are. In X and Y, there's a Beauty character in the Battle Mansion whose opening dialogue goes 'Isn't modern medicine amazing? I used to be a Karate King!' (or something along those lines). Karate Kings are an exclusively male trainer class, and Beauties are an exclusively female trainer class. Can't remember what her ending dialogue is, but it's also pretty blatantly 'I'm transgender!'.

Like, it doesn't have to be this big, pained reveal full of trust building and character discussions. Minor NPC? Go nuts and establish that shit as soon as you can. Some NPC going 'well I'm transgender' or 'I'm gayer than a Peacock riding a Rainbow' isn't any much different to an NPC going 'Well I was talking to my wife the other day...' or 'Me and my Kids just arrived in the city...', so it's always really... weird when people get all huffy about it and talk about how it seemed 'forced'.

But the difference is that this is a companion, meant to be fleshed out as you play with this character. And, like I said, it's presented very inorganically. The dialogue goes like this: "Hi, [PC], my name is [name]." "[name] is unusual. Where does it come from?" "Well, you see [PC], I was born a man but became a woman and made up my name using various syllables from the Dwarven language."

That's not how normal people talk. Not in my experience.

 

[Zontar]

...so, have to ask, is a character talking about their wife 'hamfisted' with their heterosexuality? And how would you have presented his overwhelming gayness (sorry I can't help myself sometimes) if you find him so 'hamfisted'?

It's not the fact that he talked about his lover that was hamfisted it itself, it was the way it was presented. The way his introduction was handled wasn't exactly up to snuff in terms of writing quality, and while I don't know if it was the intent when the character was first conceived it was impossible not to see the end result and think he was meant to be "the gay one" in the cast.

Blame it on bad writing more then anything, but it really felt like he was meant to fill off a box more then he was meant to actually be a part of the story as a whole. Which if we're being honest applies to a lot of the story and characters of Mass Effect 3, with the worst writing in the whole series by far.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

But the difference is that this is a companion, meant to be fleshed out as you play with this character. And, like I said, it's presented very inorganically. The dialogue goes like this: "Hi, [PC], my name is [name]." "[name] is unusual. Where does it come from?" "Well, you see [PC], I was born a man but became a woman and made up my name using various syllables from the Dwarven language."

That's not how normal people talk. Not in my experience.

...isn't she an NPC merchant? First I've heard of her being a companion. Though even then I wouldn't be fussed with a companion doing that. There's been numerous companions in various RPGs that have been fairly blunt about who they are/what their motivations are.

And I mean, 'normal' is a very... subjective thing to say. Maybe she's just super confident? Maybe there isn't any gender biases in the world, so she doesn't have any of the usual anxieties Transgender people have when talking about their identity? It's a fantasy world where you can eat peoples souls and fist-fight dragons, I can buy the transgender chick going 'Yo isn't my new name fucking badass'.

...so, have to ask, is a character talking about their wife 'hamfisted' with their heterosexuality? And how would you have presented his overwhelming gayness (sorry I can't help myself sometimes) if you find him so 'hamfisted'?

It's not the fact that he talked about his lover that was hamfisted it itself, it was the way it was presented. The way his introduction was handled wasn't exactly up to snuff in terms of writing quality, and while I don't know if it was the intent when the character was first conceived it was impossible not to see the end result and think he was meant to be "the gay one" in the cast.

Blame it on bad writing more then anything, but it really felt like he was meant to fill off a box more then he was meant to actually be a part of the story as a whole. Which if we're being honest applies to a lot of the story and characters of Mass Effect 3, with the worst writing in the whole series by far.

Yeah, fair enough. As said though I think it's hard to hold Cortez up as a 'bad' example given... honestly, all the romances in Mass Effect are pretty poorly written (I did like gay-Kaidan more than Cortez as a romance choice though), since they're so... abrupt and sudden. Even back in the first one, where Liara would try to jump your bones after two friendly interactions because... blue space titty? I dunno, I've had to throw her out of my cabin like 5 times across various playthroughs, it's hard not to get the feeling Bioware really wanted you to hook up with her.

 

[BytByte]

On the topic of just presenting a gay/black/female/other minority as they are and adding "nothing" to the story, I'm not so sure. In the show Clarence, a gross out cartoon with some good and bad episodes, Jeff, the square headed one, has two moms. Nothing is ever said about it, they are just side characters. So a main character having lesbian parents can't add anything to a show about a fat child who may or may not be a demi-god, can it? I'd disagree. The world of Clarence has now implicitly established that married homosexual couples are nothing to bat an eye at. That they are normal like everyone else. So a character having "minority traits" may not be important to the character themselves, but it does inform you of the universe and world they live in, which is just as important for well written media.

 

[DrownedAmmet]

...so, have to ask, is a character talking about their wife 'hamfisted' with their heterosexuality? And how would you have presented his overwhelming gayness (sorry I can't help myself sometimes) if you find him so 'hamfisted'?

It's not the fact that he talked about his lover that was hamfisted it itself, it was the way it was presented. The way his introduction was handled wasn't exactly up to snuff in terms of writing quality, and while I don't know if it was the intent when the character was first conceived it was impossible not to see the end result and think he was meant to be "the gay one" in the cast.

Blame it on bad writing more then anything, but it really felt like he was meant to fill off a box more then he was meant to actually be a part of the story as a whole. Which if we're being honest applies to a lot of the story and characters of Mass Effect 3, with the worst writing in the whole series by far.

I thought they did that well, I got a "Gene Roddenberry" vibe from it, where they were hopeful that in the future a man can say "I lost my husband" and nobody bats an eye

I definitely see him as "the dude who lost a loved one" and not "the gay one"

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

I played the game, thank you very much.

I said that when a straight person is killed, there's an army of other straight people to replace him. Not the case with gay people. Same with women and gender. It isn't the same. Treating them the same way straight white men are treated? Yeah, uh, no. We are nowhere near close that level. You know when you can honestly say that? When said people make up the majority of characters in fiction, are always given the dominate role, people act like putting in someone that isn't them is a big deal and you don't have to go looking. for good examples of them. You say they're being treated the same. I say they're being treated the same in the same ways that Jim Crow literacy tests treated blacks and whites equally. Technically it applied to both of them, but affected blacks disproportionately. Also people freak out if a woman is killed? Example? Because I've played a lot of games where women get killed recently, Sunless Sea, Fire Emblem Fates, Dark Souls 3, and I've yet to see everyone freaking out.

Everyone except the lead has a good chance of not making it through? Then make them the lead...extremely simple solution. People complaining about equality want TRUE equality. Not "we're treating you the same way as everyone else, except not really." I say again. Make them, the lead. Very simple solution...oh, and they're being treated equally? How many gay leads in shows have there been recently? Because I can't think of a damn one. That doesn't sound like equality to me. And you keep bringing up percentages, but I fail to see how they factor in. Only 3% of the population is gay? Only 50% of the population are male, but that doesn't reflect in shows, where the cast is often more than 50% male. Creators can do whatever the hell they want, numbers aren't stopping them, and clearly people aren't too bothered via realism. It's well within the realm of possibility to have enough LGBT people in a show so that it wouldn't be cut in half if a single one dies

Well then it's a no-win situation. Still doesn't stop it from being the latest entry in a very annoying trend. That's kind of how it works, it doesn't matter what was going on behind the scenes. Dale in the Walking Dead died because the actor left in protest. It didn't stop his death from being Carl fuckup #14.

Oh you're bringing psychology into this? Then I'm going to have to ask for a citation on that one. Because that claim didn't sound very scientific. Not to mention rather inaccurate, henchmen are not ALWAYS men, even freaking Assassin's Creed had female goons recently. I don't remember anyone talking about shattered suspension of disbelief then.

Men in combat roles is the universal role? I feel like all the women who fought over the course of history beg to differ. Such as shield-maidens, Onna-bugeisha, and the hundreds upon hundreds of examples of women either fighting in armies or leading them. Uh, the Onna-bugeisha weren't fighting for the survival of their country. Neither were shield-maidens. It was odd to see women fighting in Star Trek? Uh. No it wasn't. The Enterprise-D had a female chief of security. And she died. TWICE! DS9 had female soldiers who were in the standing army of the Bajorian people long after the Cardasians had left their planet and long before the Dominion showed up. Women fighting in Star Trek was never odd. Ok, 40k. Are Chaos cultists fighting for survival? Because I don't think they really care about stuff like that. The later Gaunt's Ghosts and all Ciaphas Cain novels beg to differ.

Only in the hands of a very narrow minded writer. Yes you can. I've done it. I've had women get their limbs ripped off, cheeks clawed off, their brains blown out, their family members killed, had them be tortured, and no one ever batted an eye. And I have well over a thousand readers, many of them women. It just seems more like we've yet to grow out of mindsets that we held to be the gospel up until a few decades ago. Another few decades and they could very well be distant memories. That's because women are encouraged to show their emotions and men aren't. And even then it doesn't matter because that isn't universal. Some men are really bothered by insults, I am, and some women don't give a shit, my sister doesn't. Men are not from Mars and women are not from Venus. We are taught to act in different ways
,
So in short fiction, the world of infinite possibilities, is too narrow minded to escape the limited social structures of reality, ignoring those who deviate away from it? That's sad. That's sad and pathetic.

EDIT: Also you didn't answer my question. How do you establish someone as gay without it being hamfisted? And in a way that there's no ambiguity of them being gay?

 

[Leg End]

Short: Not really, no.
Long:

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).

Mine: Whatever works in the context of the story. The best form of progressive is not needing to note it.. You have people and that's it.

 

[someguy1231]

Stories should never be praised merely for what they try to do. They should be praised for how well they do it. A story full of people who aren't straight white males doesn't deserve praise solely for that reason.

 

[Josh123914]

snip

Try not to demean people that you are trying to have a conversation with. It doesn't reflect very highly on you.

Anyway my issue isn't that Cortez is gay, its that, well firstly the game simply isn't finished, and you can tell that by just how poor the dialogue options across the game are-- most of the time you don't have any input, with "Press X to speak" interactions after eavesdropping on another conversation becoming commonplace. They devoted time to Cortez over, say, the engineers from ME2 (or like half the squadmates from previous games that are reduced to short cameos), but as somebody who didn't romance him, it meant my only real non-eavesdropping interaction was helping him grieve, and using him as a taxi to and from missions.

He's not needed is what I'm saying, he seems like the result of a committee thinking the Normandy needed another black person, another hispanic, and a gay person, and decided to roll it into an NPC-- never mind that there's still a sizeable contingent of the fanbase salty that James Vega never got to be a romance plotline, straight or gay.
You could say some of this about your new ensign, but I don't think it applies because at least she had some fun lines, and you didn't have a subplot spelling out how she was a lesbian.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

snip

Try not to demean people that you are trying to have a conversation with. It doesn't reflect very highly on you.

I don't think calling someone out on nonsensicle thinking is demeaning them, unless they are feeling very sensitive about being wrong. Pride and all that jazz.

Anyway my issue isn't that Cortez is gay, its that, well firstly the game simply isn't finished, and you can tell that by just how poor the dialogue options across the game are-- most of the time you don't have any input, with "Press X to speak" interactions after eavesdropping on another conversation becoming commonplace. They devoted time to Cortez over, say, the engineers from ME2 (or like half the squadmates from previous games that are reduced to short cameos), but as somebody who didn't romance him, it meant my only real non-eavesdropping interaction was helping him grieve, and using him as a taxi to and from missions.

Ok, you don't like the character because the game was rushed...

He's not needed is what I'm saying, he seems like the result of a committee thinking the Normandy needed another black person, another hispanic, and a gay person, and decided to roll it into an NPC-- never mind that there's still a sizeable contingent of the fanbase salty that James Vega never got to be a romance plotline, straight or gay.

Is any character "needed" in any game? Who gets to decide what is needed and what isn't? I assumed it was the creator.

You could say some of this about your new ensign, but I don't think it applies because at least she had some fun lines, and you didn't have a subplot spelling out how she was a lesbian.

Oh dear. So the lesbian's ok because she has some fun lines? Do you not see any double standards here?

 

[Emanuele Ciriachi]

It largely depends on what you mean by "progressive". A lot of stuff regressive liberals call so isn't progress to me.

 

[Josh123914]

cutting

Yeah pretty much it was a rushed job. It would have been preferable to cobble his subplot into another character's (most likely Vega) so then you'd at least add some depth, rather than have two characters that aren't particularly interesting.
As for the ensign, again, its the approach, you find out about her sexual orientation after you get an idea of her personality and interests. She isn't going to be remembered for being gay because there's already about a half dozen other things about her you learned beforehand.

Try not to demean people that you are trying to have a conversation with. It doesn't reflect very highly on you.

Where was the demeaning of him? I talked exclusively about Cortez and ridiculed his argument; I even used quotes and sources. There was nothing targeted at him, just his argument.

I don't know about you, but this;

So beware writers of gay people! You're not allowed to mention you have a spouse if people ask about it or it's "laziness" and "nothing at all like we see in most entertainment"! Wives and husbands are never mentioned by straight people ever!

came off as condescending. Nobody's saying that. Nobody, and all it does is mean that when somebody responds they have to spend another paragraph trying to explain why that isn't the case to you.

Anyway my issue isn't that Cortez is gay, its that, well firstly the game simply isn't finished, and you can tell that by just how poor the dialogue options across the game are-- most of the time you don't have any input, with "Press X to speak" interactions after eavesdropping on another conversation becoming commonplace. They devoted time to Cortez over, say, the engineers from ME2 (or like half the squadmates from previous games that are reduced to short cameos), but as somebody who didn't romance him, it meant my only real non-eavesdropping interaction was helping him grieve, and using him as a taxi to and from missions.

He's not needed is what I'm saying, he seems like the result of a committee thinking the Normandy needed another black person, another hispanic, and a gay person, and decided to roll it into an NPC-- never mind that there's still a sizeable contingent of the fanbase salty that James Vega never got to be a romance plotline, straight or gay.
You could say the about your new ensign, but at least she had some fun lines, and you didn't have a subplot spelling out how she was a lesbian.

See how tiring this is? You're blaming Cortez for being a character where he doesn't mention his husband, even the parts where he actually interacts with the plot (he does more than taxi in some mission, most of the Rannoch ones especially). Then you go onto say that's he's basically just the gay one because..? I mean those two statements contradict; you can't acknowledge all the things he does that has nothing to do with his sexuality but then say he's basically just the gay one.

Then, and this is the tiring part, you praise the other gay character for not having a subplot whilst reducing Cortez's story about accepting his grief as "spelling out" he's gay. Is it a story about accepting grief? No apparently it's just a gay story. He should be like the other gay character (who you think is a good example); out of the way with no subplot whatsoever.

Literally unwinnable for gay characters. They're just reduced to "the gay one" no matter what they do, and the less subplots and interactions they have, even when it's got nothing to do with their sexuality, the better.

Cortez isn't well written because he's just a tool, a tool who's place was taken before by EDI who just auto-piloted the landing ship for you. I can probably count with my fingers the amount of times I as a player had input on what Shepard told him in his taxi scenes, something that you really couldn't say about previous games when it came to tertiary characters on the Normandy.
I've been given no reason to care about Cortez at all and have no experiences with him as a player except to help him finish grieving. Again, I don't understand why they felt the need to introduce a new character for this, when his job could have been filled by somebody else we as players got to know before, and look! There's a crew member you'd be more inclined to care about (Vega) blatantly missing anything in this department.
Your bit at the end misses the point, and presumes that's the catch-22 I want. I don't. Making it very simple here, I think its poor writing to make a character's one memorable characteristic be their sexuality. That's why I voted No in the poll, and why I like the ensign (Traynor, btw), and like Kaiden, their sexuality is just another piece of their character, and isn't given a disproportionate amount of time. Fixating on what makes characters different as the poll proposes, rather than just accepting and acknowledging those differences is a mistake.
AND! This isn't exclusive to Cortez, fans gave Thane tonnes of shit because there was little interaction in ME2 for him beyond his dead family, and that was a hetero relationship, so its not like Cortez would get a pass if he lost a wife or something either.

Re-reading it, your last bit is further wrecked when you consider that nobody would have this reaction if it was James Vega, or introduced in ME2 with Jacob, because those characters have more going on than just a dead spouse.

 

[Fallow]

Should art/entertainment be "praised" for being "progressive"? Why not, given it can be praised and criticised for all kinds of reasons.

Anything can be criticized for any reason, that doesn't make it rational. I can criticize my mayor for looking nothing at all like Mayor Cheese, but why should I?

Art can have cultural and social value without being good, and can have none and be excellently crafted.

Some might consider the cultural and social value as the single measurement of how "good" art is. Art is ill-defined and means a lot of different things to a lot of different people - It's use in arguments is therefor limited.

Art reflects who and what we are; the past, the present, and the possible futures - it is a conduit for all these things.

To you maybe. Some consider it to be old pictures of horses, and they are just as correct.

Given issues of race, gender, religion, sexuality, et al still need to be 'solved' in the world, art that reflects those forces in flux are logical and essential.

Art can never be logical, and 'essential' is very subjective. Some will care a great deal, others will not care at all.

'Progressive art' (a term which might change drastically depending on subjective definition and culture. I mean, hell, I've heard some Americans regard Obama as an 'extremist', so cultural perceptions do kooky things to words... ) is not a threat to anyone or anything.

If art is expression, it can indeed be harmful. Why do you think repressive regimes go to so much trouble to prohibit free expression?

It can be hamfisted, but so can all art. It can be egoistic and destructively myopic, but so can all art.

If art cannot be a threat to anything, how can it be 'destructively' myopic?

But, broadly speaking, it exists out of a desire and willingness for diverse, inclusive expression and connection -

What?
Art is subjective but you have now defined what it represents 'broadly speaking' for the entire world?

everyone wants a place in the world, everyone wishes to ostensibly understand it/themselves, and we do this through and with other people who can empathise with our perspective and existence. Ergo, I typically praise it because I see that its heart is in the right place.

You might do this, but you don't speak for every human being on the planet (or 80% since we are talking about humans). Far from everyone places importance in whatever this "art" is you're talking about, and far from everyone needs continuous re-affirmation from "empathizing" people.

...obvious caveat is obvious: that doesn't mean you need to hand out awards just for box ticking, not by a long shot. But there's nothing bad or damaging about positively acknowledging progressive values in a given work.

But that is exactly the opposite of what you just said. You are handing out awards because "the heart was in the right place". And yes, it is damaging when you positively acknowledge something bad simply because it agrees with your own personal ideals. That's called bias.

A story should be praised for being an awesome story; whether it's progressive or conservative or representative or whatever is hip these days seems irrelevant.

...to you. There's all kinds of art, and all kinds of people engaging with it.

No. If you only praise art for exemplifying things you consider important, you aren't praising any art, you are praising the art's ideological or political similarity to yourself. The syndrome is closer to narcissism than any pretense of sophistication.

For bonus points, extrapolate from there to only having friends of a similar ideology to you...

The beauty of seeing beyond the "Is this in accordance with my ideology or should I hate it" perspective is that I can appreciate a good story even if it does not resonate with my views personally. I don't measure a movie's diversity, and so I am instead free to judge and appreciate the contribution of that diversity (assuming it's good). Looking beyond the core components you might say. I don't like the box ticking awards and I find them insulting.

To insist a form of expression be judged solely on X seems to be a rather narrow minded perspective

Yet here you are, stating that art should be 'typically' praised because it's heart is in the right place. That's a 180 in less than two paragraphs...

(great works don't need characters let alone stories), and does art not have a relative cultural value beyond its core components?

Btw, I'm talking about stories, the OP was talking about stories, but you are here claiming I'm talking about "a form of expression", and you keep going on about 'art'. If these thing are exactly the same, why not use story? If these things aren't exactly the same then you are making unsubstantiated claims regarding what I've said and misrepresenting my arguments. Since you say great works don't need stories or characters I'll assume we aren't talking about the same thing since a book without characters or a story to me would contain no text at all. A story to me is a flow of events or objects, not necessarily in any logical order.

Second, if art is valuable beyond its core component, why are you praising it specifically for its core components of diversity and progressivism?

If an awesome story has nothing but minorities it's still an awesome story; likewise if an awesome story has not a single minority in it, it's still an awesome story. There's no need to go all identity politics here - that path is filled with SJWs.

What's an SJW? I've heard a few hundred definitions of the ill-defined term, so I'm just curious what yours might be. PM me, if you like, to avoid further derailment.

Heh, claiming that SJW is ill-defined but using 'art' as a concrete term...

Here I would say I'm referring to a Social Justice Warrior and the implied context is 'someone that values representation but cannot grasp substance and hates individual freedom of expression' - think about the people that complained over 'The 100' killing off a character due to contract matters ( please correct me if I'm wrong, I have only heard about this kerfuffle and I haven't seen the show). There are three points here:
- representation is important - doesn't matter if it makes sense or not; an individual is always representing the entire group in the whole world and you should attach all the stigmas of that group to the individual; it's 2016 dammit.
- substance doesn't matter - we don't get the context, we don't need to; Death of the Author; it's 2016 dammit! Schindler's List? Add some muslims, they have it far worse than Jews. World War 2 memorial day? Scrap it, not inclusive enough.
- individual freedom of expression is bad - Why are people on the wrong side of history allowed to express things? Let's stop them! Why can people just write their own stories and get published without first checking if their book triggers anyone? Let's burn them! Why let people create their own 'art' when it's clearly not progressive enough? It's 2016 dammit.

As for going all "identity politics"; if art exists for us to express ourselves and to explore who and what we are, why should 'identity politics' (whatever that really means) be exempt? If you don't like art to function as a conduit for certain themes, then enjoy whatever you enjoy, but it seems churlish to begrudge other voices their own exploratory fun, be it done well or poorly.

This has nothing to do with anything I've said.
If you want to create identity politics "art" then have funsies with that, you could probably make quite a bit of money off Patreon/Kickstarter for it.