The White Male

[Zontar]

I've seen this claimed a few times, but my experience has been quite the opposite-- those who I recognise who often argue in favour of greater diversity tend to be the ones defending instances in which it occurs (including myself).

I'm not saying all people who call for greater diversity are attacking it when it happens, what I'm saying is those who tend to be the loudest about it tend to also attack the very types of characters they called for when they are not the perfect image of what they thought it would be.

I'll admit they are a minority voice within the community, but then again so are the people actively oppose greater diversity, and I find myself hating those extremists less due to the fact they aren't hypocritical in their stance.

 

[shrekfan246]

Those gosh darned Americans! They make American movies, for a primarily American audience, and they have the audacity to cast Americans! And take them from the racial group that makes up two-thirds of the population!

Perhaps I'm misreading something here, but Asia has a higher population than every other continent on the planet combined. China has a higher population than North America, Europe, and Oceania combined. Once you add in South America and South Africa, sure, the numbers finally skew out of China's favor, but over half of the population of the world lives in Asia. And not everyone who lives in North America, Europe, or Australia is white, and even less of South America and Africa are white (only 1% of the population of China is not Asian).

 

[Redryhno]

Those gosh darned Americans! They make American movies, for a primarily American audience, and they have the audacity to cast Americans! And take them from the racial group that makes up two-thirds of the population!

Perhaps I'm misreading something here, but Asia has a higher population than every other continent on the planet combined. China has a higher population than North America, Europe, and Oceania combined. Once you add in South America and South Africa, sure, the numbers finally skew out of China's favor, but over half of the population of the world lives in Asia. And not everyone who lives in North America, Europe, or Australia is white, and even less of South America and Africa are white (only 1% of the population of China is not Asian).

I think he's still talking about the U.S. there buddy. I mean, he does make reference to it like five times in his post.

 

[shrekfan246]

I think he's still talking about the U.S. there buddy. I mean, he does make reference to it like five times in his post.

Fair enough, just seemed like a very odd way of continuing the thought to me. Problems of communication over the internet, sometimes things get lost in the interpretation other people make of your words. EDIT: I did acknowledge that I may have just been misreading it, too.

 

[Lightknight]

Yup, just as boring

Nothing wrong with the archetype inherently , but let's not pretend it isn't a massive safe zone that gets treated as default for arbitrary reasons.

Massive safe zone? You mean "safe investment with a reliable rate of return"? You might as well be calling it a good business move.

Yep, it certainly is safe. Especially since the vast majority of their customers are also white.

Tell me why you find other demographics inherently more interesting? Isn't that an inherently racist/sexist/bigoted belief? That Hugh Jackman is less interesting because he's white, straight, or male? Not that it's the bad kind of racism/sexism of course. It's a lot more subtle form of it. But it certainly fits all the criteria.

I think the problem we see more frequently is that the character they make is boring. The skin color, sex, gender, and orientation. Those don't make someone more interesting. But a character with interesting conflict, interesting behaviors and emotions? A story arc and all that? That's good. That's interesting. But seeing a pained grizzled soldier type protagonist? That's an overplayed archetype. Not an overplayed race. I'm tired of other stereotypes I see in media too. The gay stereotypes or the various woman stereotypes (Ms. Male and whatnot where they make her be "strong" by behaving like a man). Sorry, but any race/gender/sex/orientation can be boring. None of them are inherently more interesting.

But please, let's stop imposing subtle racist notions that something is less valuable because we don't like the race or sex being used.