Race, Gender, and other such Controversies in Media (a friendly discussion)

[BiblioRook]

This is clearly a topic people have something to say about, so might as well give a proper platform for it.

So what do you think about there being an all-female Ghostbusters team? That the Anchent One in the Doctor Srange movie is nether Asian or male? I kind of think the idea of making a controversy over not casting Danny Rand (Iron Fist) Asian is kind of silly, but maybe you think otherwise. What about Scarlet Johansson in the Ghost in the Shell movie? Personally I'm still irked at the whitewashing of The Ladt Airbender but honestly that was probably just a drop in the bucket with what was wrong with that movie...

What about wether you think an African-American Batman could be pulled off? Any thoughts on Marvel's All-New All-Diffrent line with making Thor female, Captain America black, the Hulk Asian, etc? How long do you think some of those will last?

Let's Discuss. (But remember, this is a friendly discussion)

[digiman619]

This is clearly a topic people have something to say about, so might as well give a proper platform for it. So what do you think about there being an all-female Ghostbusters team? That the Anchent One in the Doctor Srange movie is nether Asian or male? What about Scarlet Johansson in the Ghost in the Shell movie? Personally I'm still irked at the whitewashing of The Ladt Airbender but honestly that was probably just a drop in the bucket with what was wrong with that movie... What about wether you think an African-American Batman could be pulled off? Any thoughts on Marvel's All-New All-Diffrent line with making Thor female, Captain America black, the Hulk Asian, etc? How long do you think some of those will last? Let's Discuss. (But remember, this is a friendly discussion) I have 0 problems with the Fem-Ghostbusters. What bugs the heck out of me about it is that it's a reboot rather than a sequel. Just make it about, say, the new Chicago branch or something! We don't need the original four for us to believe it's the same universe! AAARRRGGGHHH!!!!!!

[Blackhawk748]

The only thing i care about with Ghost Busters is that they be funny. Though i would like Bill Murry to make a cameo.

As to the rest? Idk, lets see how they pan out, Thor Girl could be awesome.

[digiman619]

The only thing i care about with Ghost Busters is that they be funny. Though i would like Bill Murry to make a cameo. That is exactly why this should be a sequel!!

[An Enemy Spy]

The new Ghostbusters isn't a sequel? I just assumed it was. I don't care about them being female, I'm not going to see it because the trailer made it look painfully unfunny. As for racial stuff, I find the concept of hating someone because they're a different color than you as absurd as hating someone because they have the set of reproductive organs that yours have to match up with to create a baby. Maybe I'm just weird.

[Blackhawk748]

The new Ghostbusters isn't a sequel? I just assumed it was. I don't care about them being female, I'm not going to see it because the trailer made it look painfully unfunny. As for racial stuff, I find the concept of hating someone because they're a different color than you as absurd as hating someone because they have the set of reproductive organs that yours have to match up with to create a baby. Maybe I'm just weird.

I thought it was too, though i did find the trailer funny, but i happen to like that kind of humor.

And if you're weird so am I. There's plenty of legitimate reasons to dislike people, why do i need stupid ones?

[BiblioRook]

The new Ghostbusters isn't a sequel? I just assumed it was.

They've explisately stated that the new Ghistbusters movie exists in a separate continuity where the original Ghostbusters never happened. Truthfully this seems to be much more the controversy then them being all female.

Personally rather then be upset over that they are all female (which I was fine with before they even announced casting) I'm more annoyed that they felt it nessisary to make the only black woman in an otherwise all-white cast the only non-scientist. That could have so easily being changed to one of the other actresses... Malisa Mccarthy For one (who I'm actually not very trilled about to begin with).

[Blackhawk748]

They've explisately stated that the new Ghistbusters movie exists in a separate continuity where the original Ghostbusters never happened. Truthfully this seems to be much more the controversy then them being all female.

Its probably because there was no need to do that, it just feels extremely unnecessary and it doesnt allow them to have the original cast make cameos, which would have been fun.

[BiblioRook]

It's probably more case of very lazy writing. If they are starting 'fresh' they can recycle a lot of the material from the original (which certainly looks to be the case) which would also help add to the nostalgia. It's sort of the Golden Rule of Hollywood these days, why create something new when you can just reuse something that already worked in the past.

[AvatarVecna]

This is clearly a topic people have something to say about, so might as well give a proper platform for it.

So what do you think about there being an all-female Ghostbusters team? That the Anchent One in the Doctor Srange movie is nether Asian or male? What about Scarlet Johansson in the Ghost in the Shell movie? Personally I'm still irked at the whitewashing of The Ladt Airbender but honestly that was probably just a drop in the bucket with what was wrong with that movie...

What about wether you think an African-American Batman could be pulled off? Any thoughts on Marvel's All-New All-Diffrent line with making Thor female, Captain America black, the Hulk Asian, etc? How long do you think some of those will last?

Let's Discuss. (But remember, this is a friendly discussion)

Female Ghostbusters doesn't cause an issue with me, but the trailer's humor didn't leave me particularly impressed. Hopefully they were putting some of the worse jokes in the trailer or something, because a whole movie like that would not be to my liking. The actresses seem fine, but the characters presented in the trailer don't quite have the...what's the word I'm looking for here? Realism? Grittiness? Well, the thing is that, watching the original Ghostbusters, they came across like real people in a world that has some strange stuff; the...relatability?...of the characters made the movie, at least for me. And the characters on display in the trailer are bland at best and borderline stereotypes at worst (I had to watch the trailer twice to convince myself that wasn't Kevin Hart in drag, because it one of those lines sounded exactly like him, both in tone and the words used). I really hope the movie is good, and I have no issue with a female cast...as long as it has good characters, a good story, and good comedy; the trailer isn't leaving me very optimistic. Hopeful, but not optimistic. In regards to the debate over whether it's a sequel or reboot (and which one it should be), I heard from a buddy and later confirmed via IMDB that a number of actors/actresses from the original Ghostbusters are showing up in this (with an obvious exception).

I'm not familiar enough with the stories of Dr Strange to have an opinion on the whoever that is, but the trailer certainly looked interesting. Hopefully, there's a decent story and likable characters to go along with the interesting visuals.

Haven't heard of Ghost In The Shell. At all. So...no comment?

Last Airbender sucked for a lot of reasons; screwing up the races was just one of them.

Batman is cool regardless of his skin color; as long as whatever changes to the character that are made because of race are non-stereotypical (and of course, make sense), it would probably be pretty cool. Same goes for Captain America, although the time period would make the original origin go a bit differently...

The "power of Thor" was to be granted to whoever was deserving of it who tried to wield the hammer; there was no gender requirement in there, and a Lady of Thunder is awesome. Black Cap sounds cool, but I don't read comics enough to have seen it; same with Asian Hulk (although it certainly sounds like it would be interesting). I can't imagine it'll last long, though; comic retcons are infamous for setting things back to standard before too long. Death, lost in another dimension, possessed by demons? Retcon. The comic book writers will literally have Superman punch reality in the face and shatter it into a million billion pieces if that's what it takes to get things "back to normal".

[BiblioRook]

With the All-New All-Diffrent stuff the one I thni might have the most staying power is Cho as the Hulk, probably because they wanted to do something more then 'I'm ether big and angry or small and smart! And which Cho they went 'Why not have him be both?' I don't know, I never really read the original Hulk comics, but all I can really say is how much I'm enjoying the new one. As for the new Thor and Captain America I can't really seeing them sticking around permanently mostly because Thor is slowly dying of cancer and the original Captain Amerca who lost his powers for quite a while just recently managed to get them back.

[HardcoreD&Dgirl]

My thing is that everything can be changed and be cool, or stupid depending on the story...

black actor to play batman makes the character a bit different...but then again adam west, vale kilmore, and ben aflek already each play very different... it could be an interesting take. (this whole thread is because of the Derail of someone else pointing out that there would be diffrneces and me trying to sum them up with old money vs new money)


Ghost in the shell I know very little about, but having a power house actress can't hurt...

I would rather see ghost busters as a long distant squal then a reboot, and I liked the trailer...

In the dr strange thread I posted multi ways a female ancient one works...


edit: all new all different... I LOVE x-23 her and Angel are total win... female wolverine is great... I don't read thor so I can't say much about him/her, except that the next two I complain about make me think of them...

I don't like 2 hawkeyes, but I could deal with it as the thing about them... 2 spidermen is weird (3 if you count prowler)but maybe... 2 captain Americas is dumb beyond words... I like Falcon, I want to see him take the lead, but I don't want him taking the captian America name...it seems like back sliding... he has his own thing.

Edit 2: spidermen... why isn't miles working for parker, then we have peter as the owner of parker industries and miles as his body guard... still only 1 spider, unless something big goes down...

[BiblioRook]

Not only have I been firmly on team 'it's ok to change in any direction' but my example was (old money vs New money) just how the character changed...

batman who is bruce a 1% multi generational rich guy who's family helped build gotham
and
batman who is bruce a 10% second generation rich guy who's dad made a a killing ont he dot coms

are not major diffrences, but they are different. By the way those two bruces could still be white, but the 1st one most likely (without something major) isn't black... having Michale B Jordan, Alba, or smith or heck sam Jackson play batman is fine... but it's different... I am totally team different is fine so again your internet 'read mind' power failed my listing of diffrences in no way is an excuse to not change anything...

The reason why I say the Batman 'Old Money vs New Money' thing doesn't really matter is because it only really matters that Batman's parents were rich philanthropists. That's it. His character and story can be done equally if his family made their fortune recently or if it was built up over generations because (correct me if I'm wrong) his background never actually goes into anything past his parents. The 'Batman must be from old money' thing feels more just an excuse to use to make sure Bruce stays white then really anything anyone would actually care about otherwise. But even then it's a weak excuse considering that (as much as I hate to play this card) it is all based in a utterly fictional universe, is the fact that a black family has old money any more unrealistic then the idea of billionaires and aliens running around the city in costumes fighting crime?

[Lethologica]

I was unimpressed by the decision to adapt All You Need Is Kill into a Tom Cruise movie, but it was at least a decent film* (albeit nearly unrecognizable as an adaptation). I will be surprised if the GitS adaptation reaches that bar. The director is previously known for...Snow White and the Huntsman and an affair with Kristen Stewart? (Random thought: is GitS what Scarlett Johansson is doing because she can't get a Black Widow film for love or money?) I dunno, there just doesn't seem to be much sign that the people adapting this property will treat it with care and respect.

*: Come to think of it, this is also my opinion of the Jack Reacher movie, minus the 'Why can't you cast Asian leads, Hollywood?' sentiment.

[BiblioRook]

*: Come to think of it, this is also my opinion of the Jack Reacher movie, minus the 'Why can't you cast Asian leads, Hollywood?' sentiment.

Whenever I hear about the plight of Asian actors being overshadowed this track (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNmzegQUtFA) from the Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog Commentary comes to mind...

[Jayngfet]

It's probably more case of very lazy writing. If they are starting 'fresh' they can recycle a lot of the material from the original (which certainly looks to be the case) which would also help add to the nostalgia. It's sort of the Golden Rule of Hollywood these days, why create something new when you can just reuse something that already worked in the past.

Which is, I think, generally the nail on the head.

Race/Gender is usually brought up, but it's only ever usually(the key word here) made prominent in cases where there's clearly a whole bunch of other stuff going on that's just less visible. The fantastic 4 reboot was directed into a race argument despite not being a good movie(for a lot of the same reasons. A director casting some dude he's friends with that isn't known for resembling or acting like the character he's playing will screw up a lot of other things). Likewise The Last Airbender had a bunch of other problems due to M. Night Shayamalan's ...funny... ideas about how a lot of things work. People can complain about race and gender with say, The Force Awakens, but that's essentially just one bullet point on a long list of things that was questionable about that film.

If the film comes out and it's good, or even that role is good, people will quite clearly drop their complaints in a heartbeat. Notice how nobody is talking about say, Idris Elba's Hiemdall now. Or the conversation about Finn in TFA has moved on because John Boyega did a decent job with what he had(something even the most hardened imageboard trolls have wound up admitting), to Rey, who's the crux of a lot of the films narrative problems.

If you do your job well, people won't complain. It's not complicated.

That's not to say a lot of creators don't intentionally try baiting people with it. Considering some of the actual lines therein, you will never convince me that FemThor wasn't some kind of ploy. Particularly since the motivations justifying the character seem to go against what previous authors wrote about those characters.

[Crow]

If a character's part in the story needs them to be female, asian, black, transexual, whatever; then make them that. Hell, make them that just because. Maybe the dude who had the best audition was black. I don't care, good for him, give him the part! However, if you are making a character female because you think you "need" a female, asian, or whatever, so as not be be called sexist, racist, or whatever; then you are the sexist, racist, or whatever. That is the only time I take issue with it.

[BiblioRook]

If the film comes out and it's good, or even that role is good, people will quite clearly drop their complaints in a heartbeat. Notice how nobody is talking about say, Idris Elba's Hiemdall now. Or the conversation about Finn in TFA has moved on because John Boyega did a decent job with what he had(something even the most hardened imageboard trolls have wound up admitting), to Rey, who's the crux of a lot of the films narrative problems.

This is why I think a lot of the heavy criticism about the Ancient One being female and not asian in Doctor Strange will die down pretty quickly once the movie comes out. Mostly because I feel pretty confident that that movie will do great (I mean, it's Marvel and they've been on quite a streak) but also I imagine her actual role in the movie will be much smaller then people are expecting...

[Jayngfet]

This is why I think a lot of the heavy criticism about the Ancient One being female and not asian in Doctor Strange will die down pretty quickly once the movie comes out. Mostly because I feel pretty confident that that movie will do great (I mean, it's Marvel and they've been on quite a streak) but also I imagine her actual role in the movie will be much smaller then people are expecting...

I'm gonna be a pessimist and say every streak has to end sometime. That's not a knock against this film, it's just that I don't really like the idea of getting super hyped for films we don't know that much about.

[endoperez]

If a character's part in the story needs them to be female, asian, black, transexual, whatever; then make them that. Hell, make them that just because. Maybe the dude who had the best audition was black. I don't care, good for him, give him the part! However, if you are making a character female because you think you "need" a female, asian, or whatever, so as not be be called sexist, racist, or whatever; then you are the sexist, racist, or whatever. That is the only time I take issue with it.

Pardon me, but I'd like to ask if I got it right.

Do you think that anyone who thinks that a character has to be (something), so that a work is not (type of bigotry), is a (bigot)?

Or, do you think that it is a mark of a racist/etc to think that a piece of media is racist/etc for not having a woman, or a black person, or whatever?

I disagree with both views.

Put really simply, it is possible to make a racist movie. Changing something so that a movie is not racist can be done for many reasons, but intentionally avoiding racist portrayals is definitely not racist.

As for the second view, there is a well-constructed argument about why movies that do not hire minorities are sexist, racist and so on. The argument isn't that the individual works are wrong for not doing it. The argument is that the industry as a whole is wrong for giving less much money and work and chances and respect as actors get farther and farther away from the ideal of a straight white man.

It doesn't matter whether a single movie is racist, per set. It's the fact that so few movies do it. As an example, any major actors in a high school comedy movie is unlikely to be Asian, and any major voice actors in a Disney film are unlikely to be Asian, and any major actors in a Hollywood summer flick are unlikely to be Asian, and any major actors in a random "chick flick" romance are unlikely to be Asian, AND any major actors in a manga adaptation are unlikely to be Asian, AND the GitS, AND Doctor Strange, and so on.

A movie director deciding to have an Asian actor to fight racism isn't doing it only for the one movie, but also for the industry.

[BiblioRook]

I'm gonna be a pessimist and say every streak has to end sometime. That's not a knock against this film, it's just that I don't really like the idea of getting super hyped for films we don't know that much about.

True, but my confidence in Doctor Strange is based on a few things aside from blind optimism. I like the look of the trailer for one but also concerning it's star-power and the existing fan-base and such I'm very skeptical that it will do badly unless did something that just seriously botched it irredeemably. Like I don't know, like casting Doctor Strange as a black woman or something (Which, while I haven't personally checked, I don't believe Benedict Cumberbatch is).
Now the movie that I'm really concerned about and that I worry might be Marvel's first real flop is Captain Marvel just because how much the industry has a bias against women in the superhero genre... which really bums me out because she's a huge favorite of mine...

[Bulldog Psion]

The question is -- and it seems to be an important one, because the issue crops up in practically every thread about movies, and often crowds out all other discussion -- is what balance is acceptable?

Every time a movie stars a white dude, the cry is "too many white dudes as the protagonist! Institutional racism!"

Every time a movie stars a lady, the cry is "too many girls as the protagonist! It's a political agenda, nothing more!'

Every time a movie stars a black dude, the cry is "tokenism!" (Which can come from either side of the debate.)

And etc., and etc.

So how do we determine what is an appropriate mix of diversity? What percent of white dude protagonists is acceptable? 0%? 8%, their total on Earth* (about 1 in 13 movies)? 31.3% to reflect their U.S. population (about 1 in 3 movies)? Does this only apply from this point on, or do the balance need to be redressed -- no white dudes at all until the overall global film balance is corrected for the global population percentages?

It seems easier to decide how many female protagonists there should be, since women are 50% of all populations. But there's more to it than that. Do female protagonists count in romantic comedies, for example? Or is this another example of gender bias and thus we need a higher than 50% percentage of female action stars, and a higher than 50% male romantic comedy protagonist percent, to redress the bias?

Do these rules only apply in one direction? Are only majority-European countries morally obliged to represent everybody? Should Korean movies have to have 9% Indian women, 8% white dudes, 0.002% Nigerian men, etc.?

Additionally, who decides what the correct balance is? How do we actually achieve that balance? Movies come out one at a time -- therefore, it we keep making movies with white protagonists alongside other ethnicities, for example, the balance will still be skewed in the favor of the white actors for a long, long time until tens or hundreds of thousands of new movies have been produced over several generations.

With that in mind, how can making one more movie with a white or male protagonist be justified? It seems like if this is going to be seriously pursued, we need to stop making movies with white males in them at all right now, and have a moratorium on them until a sufficient mass of female and non-white protagonists.

Furthermore, if we accept that white male protagonists (and white female protagonists) are still acceptable, what level of non-white, female, and non-cisgendered protagonists is necessary in new films to achieve "vibrant diversity"as opposed to "tokenism"?

I guess my point is that these endless arguments occur, in part, because people aren't looking at the big picture. Without the big picture, there's a sense of futility to the whole thing -- every female is going to be objected to because she's not male, every white male is going to be objected to because he's privileged, every non-white is going to be objected to because they're a token, etc. etc. Which just produces endless back and forth accusations rather than even an attempt to find a satisfactory resolution.

If constructive steps are going to be taken, concrete actionable answers to these questions are needed. Otherwise people are just poking each other in the eye with generalities. And this may just be one tiny forum and not a World Problem Solution Thinktank, but there are a lot of smart people here, and someone's got to start somewhere. At a minimum, it seems like it's a more intellectually stimulating conversation this way.

*Note: I'm just going by someone else's percentage over on the Dr. Strange thread.

[Murk]

-Snip-

All the other wise things you said apart, you do illustrate fairly well that all this stuff is very difficult. It is very easy to do it wrong, and very difficult to do it right.
Maybe this is why a lot of people are tired of the "diversion" debate - apart from those that are honestly bigots, there's also a lot of people who feel that there's always someone who feels underrepresented.

---

To illustrate this, take the movie Pan from last year.
Granted, it was a horrible movie for other reasons, but it serves as a good example.

The original Peter Pan stories had the indians. These indians were, let's say, not treated all that subtle. They had red skins, they liked fighting, they lived in tipi's and had totem poles and they make silly noises. They lived up to all the stereotypes of native Americans. The Disney movie made small fun of that, but continued it anyway.

That might be wrong, but for later adaptations such as the 2015 Pan, the fact that this tribe was mystical, had spirit knowledge, and loved to fight, were essential for the story (as broken as it was otherwise).
The film-makers decided to do away with the "native american" part. There were mostly whitish-looking actors playing the Neverland natives, they wore colourful dresses - except for "mystical and fight-loving", there wasn't much left from the original.

The "whitewashing!" cries were plenty, and probably rightly so. "This was an opportunity for native american actors to finally appear in a big-budget hollywood film, and once again their roles are given to white people!"
Now, this is true, but imagine if they did give those roles specifically to native american actors. It wouldn't be clear at all then that they tried to distance themselves from the rude, stereotypical portrayal of the Neverland "Indians" - heck, they even tried to make it "more indian" by casting native americans!

There would have been a lot of protest, too. Instead of "An opportunity for native american actors..." people would shout "Now we finally have native american actors in a big-budget hollywood film, and it's in a rude, derogatory manner!", and once again, they would have been right.

---

What this showed to me was that it is very hard to do this right - sometimes, impossible. Especially when dealing with material from past times, such as peter pan, or, in the OP's example, comic books.

I'm not saying diversity in movies is wrong or anything - I am saying that I understand not wanting to get involved. Sure, having a gay protoganist or an aboriginal, or a cripple, or a transgender is good, and ethical, but you do enter the ****storm willingly, so to say. And sometimes, if you enter the ****storm, there's no coming back out. Sometimes it's better for your movie to just stay miles away from the ****storm.

[HasSIn]

The only thing i care about with Ghost Busters is that they be funny. Though i would like Bill Murry to make a cameo.

As to the rest? Idk, lets see how they pan out, Thor Girl could be awesome.
Actually, it was already confirmed that Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Sigourney Weaver will all make cameo appearances in the new movie.

[Grinner]

@Bulldog Psion: I think you might be overthinking this.

Conjecture: Hollywood is an amoral, profit-focused culture. They do not care about race, gender, or the politics thereof. They do not care about art. They care about money. Everything is secondary to money. Thus, their habit of making sequels and reboots until they've bled the IP in question dry.

Now, an interview I heard with the director of the film Dear White People indicated to me that white males have sort of become the face of the "everyman". So whenever someone of a different race or gender is employed in everyman roles, it's unusual. One might even call it "tokenism", as you put it.

There's two ways to design a product to maximize profit. You can aim for the least common denominator, or you can target underserved niches and milk them for all everything they'll pay. Going back to Hollywood, I'm willing to speculate that they base castings on keeping their focus groups and critics happy. I seem to recall an actress once observing how movies in Hollywood tend to be made using flowcharts; the initial product design (i.e. scriptwriting) may even be based on cost-benefit analyses with regards to the genres of recent releases, cost of production, expected viewership, etc. What else would a bunch of business majors do when charged with keeping the wheels of the film industry turning?

[Rodin]

The Ghost in the Shell one really bugs me because the character is very explicitly Japanese. Her name is Japanese, both the movie and the series are set in Japan, Japanese politics are very prominent features of both the plot and the backstory...there is absolutely no defense.

For a significant amount of fiction, I wouldn't have the same level of objection. If it's set in a fantasy universe with fictional countries, color the people however you like. If it is set on Earth but politics aren't a major factor...again, do whatever you like. I didn't mind Edge of Tomorrow using Tom Cruise because there really wasn't any reason not to - it's the world defending itself against an alien invasion, and changing the country for the movie didn't have a great deal of impact for the story they wanted to tell.

But for Ghost in the Shell, it freaking matters.

[Morty]

So how do we determine what is an appropriate mix of diversity? What percent of white dude protagonists is acceptable?

I don't know what an appropriate mix is, but I'm fair sure it's somewhere to the left of what we have now. There's a long way to go before we can ever have too many prominent characters that aren't white, straight, male or (usually) a combination of the above.

[HardcoreD&Dgirl]

The reason why I say the Batman 'Old Money vs New Money' thing doesn't really matter is because it only really matters that Batman's parents were rich philanthropists. That's it. His character and story can be done equally if his family made their fortune recently or if it was built up over generations because (correct me if I'm wrong) his background never actually goes into anything past his parents.
you are very wrong over the years many stories (some good some...well return of bruce wayne wasn't bad per say, but very weird)





The 'Batman must be from old money' thing feels more just an excuse to use to make sure Bruce stays white here we go with internet mind reading again... "Hey if I just say your a racist you can just be dismissed"





then really anything anyone would actually care about otherwise.
so how does that work when someone doesn't care if he is black, white, Asian or any mix or other as long as it means something in story????



But even then it's a weak excuse considering that (as much as I hate to play this card) it is all based in a utterly fictional universe, is the fact that a black family has old money any more unrealistic then the idea of billionaires and aliens running around the city in costumes fighting crime?
it's a fictional universe layed over a veneer of our universe, every change has ripples... (yes some are ignored, like Maggie sawyer using Kryptonian tech in metropolis then movieng to gotham and not asking to bring the cool toys)



I don't understand do people think there is no life experience difference between different races? DO they think that black men are always given the exact same respect and advantages white men are or women for that matter???? The idea that you could take any person, a switch there gender or skin color or anything and it would effect nothing boggles my mind... these changes when looked at could make a great story, but damn if you ignore them why even bother...



I don't know what an appropriate mix is, but I'm fair sure it's somewhere to the left of what we have now. There's a long way to go before we can ever have too many prominent characters that aren't white, straight, male or (usually) a combination of the above.

the problem is that you can never reatch appropriate mix because there just isn't enough time to do so...

lets imagine 5 TV shows all on Friday night, 4 are 1/2 long ones, and one is an hour long one... between them they have 100 named cast members that show up more often then not (stars and supporting cast).

now some quick google (not sure it is true but lets say it is because none of us want to spend hours digging)
The polling organization most recently found that less than 4 percent self-identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.May 22, 2015
so 4 of those characters (2 stars and 2 supporting) are gay, 2 lesbians star in one of the comedy 1/2 hour, 1 bi man is support in another 1/2hr show, and a trans man is supporting in the hour drama...

is that enough? is it too much? I mean 4% fit right... or is the half hour lesbian comedy too gay, and the 3 comedies with none sexsist against gay characters?


Non-Hispanic whites make up 63 percent of the U.S.; Hispanics, 17 percent; blacks, 12.3 percent; Asians, 5 percent; and multiracial Americans, 2.4 percent. About 353 of the nation's 3,143 counties, or 11 percent, are now "majority-minority."Jun 13, 2013

what if 63 of those actors are white? that is more then half... again, what if one of the 1/2 comidies was like blackish (funny show you should watch it) and had 8 main cast black actors and 2 supporting black, but only the hour long drama also had black actors, and one of those was the trans man...


we can't just say "Make the numbers right" we need to let writers write the characters and the casting directors cast the actors and the directors direct...

[Kitten Champion]

The Ghost in the Shell one really bugs me because the character is very explicitly Japanese. Her name is Japanese, both the movie and the series are set in Japan, Japanese politics are very prominent features of both the plot and the backstory...there is absolutely no defense.

For a significant amount of fiction, I wouldn't have the same level of objection. If it's set in a fantasy universe with fictional countries, color the people however you like. If it is set on Earth but politics aren't a major factor...again, do whatever you like. I didn't mind Edge of Tomorrow using Tom Cruise because there really wasn't any reason not to - it's the world defending itself against an alien invasion, and changing the country for the movie didn't have a great deal of impact for the story they wanted to tell.

But for Ghost in the Shell, it freaking matters.

Even presuming she is supposed to be Motoko Kusanagi as in the manga and various adaptations, and it's simply that her android body looks like that... I have strong reservations with the idea that she - as a Japanese woman in a fictional setting wherein her appearance is essentially of her own making - would decide to incarnate as Scarlett Johansson. The unsaid implications of that are vexing.

Part of me is saying that could be an interesting story, about body image and what racial identity means if anything in a transhumanist cyberpunk setting, and were that given due consideration as with something like Ex Machina it might have some genuine value to it. However, the greater and more realistic part of me sees this as Johansson being a viable safety net for the studio's profit margin, rather than any creative intent behind her casting in this role, and that the unfortunate message this conveys is just something audiences will have to live with.

[HardcoreD&Dgirl]

Even presuming she is supposed to be Motoko Kusanagi as in the manga and various adaptations, and it's simply that her android body looks like that... I have strong reservations with the idea that she - as a Japanese woman in a fictional setting wherein her appearance is essentially of her own making - would decide to incarnate as Scarlett Johansson. The unsaid implications of that are vexing.

Part of me is saying that could be an interesting story, about body image and what racial identity means if anything in a transhumanist cyberpunk setting, and were that given due consideration as with something like Ex Machina it might have some genuine value to it. However, the greater and more realistic part of me sees this as Johansson being a viable safety net for the studio's profit margin, rather than any creative intent behind her casting in this role, and that the unfortunate message this conveys is just something audiences will have to live with.

since I am nothing like an expert or even a big fan I have to ask, is it true that the character looks europian in her cyborg body in the anime?

[Kitten Champion]

Depends on your preconceptions. She's had a variety of different looks over time.

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQv_dSx-kbdCisWRF1PPHYUND0Fanz1BumY23C_xdq8hQ8mWVKF


She's supposed to look somewhat inhumanly perfect relative to the more organic characters, as her body is mostly artificial.

http://i512.photobucket.com/albums/t323/HappyGestapo/anime/Ghost%20in%20the%20Shell/98913.jpg

It's a different medium, different expectations.

[Ashen Lilies]

\and that the unfortunate message this conveys is just something audiences will have to live with.

To be quite honest, I'd rather not.

Everything I've heard about the Ghost in the Shell 'adaptation' (including reports that they did VFX tests to see if they could make ScarJo look more 'Asian') disgusts me to my very core. They hate us so much they'd rather hire a white woman and use yellowface to try and fix it, rather than hire from the dozens of actresses that could have done the role justice while keeping the cultural heart of the story intact. The mere thought that Ghost in the Shell could become a success while blatantly spitting in our faces and stepping on our backs makes me want to curl up into a ball and cry forever.

I'm tired.

[Bulldog Psion]

All the other wise things you said apart, you do illustrate fairly well that all this stuff is very difficult. It is very easy to do it wrong, and very difficult to do it right.
Maybe this is why a lot of people are tired of the "diversion" debate - apart from those that are honestly bigots, there's also a lot of people who feel that there's always someone who feels underrepresented.

---
*snip*
---

What this showed to me was that it is very hard to do this right - sometimes, impossible. Especially when dealing with material from past times, such as peter pan, or, in the OP's example, comic books.

I'm not saying diversity in movies is wrong or anything - I am saying that I understand not wanting to get involved. Sure, having a gay protoganist or an aboriginal, or a cripple, or a transgender is good, and ethical, but you do enter the ****storm willingly, so to say. And sometimes, if you enter the ****storm, there's no coming back out. Sometimes it's better for your movie to just stay miles away from the ****storm.

Yes, there is a bit of "damned if you do, and damned if you don't" about the whole situation. This seems to be the Age of Being Offended on all sides -- I'm not singling anyone in particular out here -- and the fact is that even if they're extremely well paid people, the creators of this stuff are still people. They have to earn money to live, even if that's living like a monarch. So dancing through the political minefield must be a bit daunting -- no matter where you put your foot, it's going to get blown off. The only choice is the exact method by which it's removed, and whether you make enough money at the same time for a prosthetic. :smallbiggrin:


@Bulldog Psion: I think you might be overthinking this.

Conjecture: Hollywood is an amoral, profit-focused culture. They do not care about race, gender, or the politics thereof. They do not care about art. They care about money. Everything is secondary to money. Thus, their habit of making sequels and reboots until they've bled the IP in question dry.

True enough, but how does it get changed? Boycott every movie with white male protagonists? Pass dictatorial legislation obliging studios to use some government-determined formula? Lament it vainly until people are sick of the word "diversity?" Just recognizing that the problem is rooted in pragmatic survival rather than malice doesn't provide much of a solution; in fact, it makes it appear there is no good solution, at least not for a long, long time.

[Grinner]

To be quite honest, I'd rather not.

Everything I've heard about the Ghost in the Shell 'adaptation' (including reports that they did VFX tests to see if they could make ScarJo look more 'Asian') disgusts me to my very core. They hate us so much they'd rather hire a white woman and use yellowface to try and fix it, rather than hire from the dozens of actresses that could have done the role justice while keeping the cultural heart of the story intact. The mere thought that Ghost in the Shell could become a success while blatantly spitting in our faces and stepping on our backs makes me want to curl up into a ball and cry forever.

I'm tired.

Emphasis mine.

I'm not entirely certain what "us" means in this bolded phrase. Those of Asian-descent? Anime fans? Regardless, you need not take this upon yourself; I don't think hate enters their calculus at all. Adapting an anime, something of growing but not utmost popularity in the US, to the broader US market is a risk. As Kitten Champion observed, they have gained some insurance by hiring a headlining actress that even if the film is a critical wash (and in their hands, I'm confident it will be), it'll at least not be a total failure profit-wise.


True enough, but how does it get changed? Boycott every movie with white male protagonists? Pass dictatorial legislation obliging studios to use some government-determined formula? Lament it vainly until people are sick of the word "diversity?" Just recognizing that the problem is rooted in pragmatic survival rather than malice doesn't provide much of a solution; in fact, it makes it appear there is no good solution, at least not for a long, long time.

In order to solve a problem, you must first know what to solve. With the causes of the perceived problem now identified, it is possible to address those causes. In this case, the answer lies in behavioral psychology.

To answer your questions.

Yes. If you want to see no white male protagonists whatsoever (edit: in Hollywood films).
That's unconstitutional.
Hasn't worked so far.

[Morty]

the problem is that you can never reatch appropriate mix because there just isn't enough time to do so...

lets imagine 5 TV shows all on Friday night, 4 are 1/2 long ones, and one is an hour long one... between them they have 100 named cast members that show up more often then not (stars and supporting cast).

now some quick google (not sure it is true but lets say it is because none of us want to spend hours digging)
so 4 of those characters (2 stars and 2 supporting) are gay, 2 lesbians star in one of the comedy 1/2 hour, 1 bi man is support in another 1/2hr show, and a trans man is supporting in the hour drama...

is that enough? is it too much? I mean 4% fit right... or is the half hour lesbian comedy too gay, and the 3 comedies with none sexsist against gay characters?

what if 63 of those actors are white? that is more then half... again, what if one of the 1/2 comidies was like blackish (funny show you should watch it) and had 8 main cast black actors and 2 supporting black, but only the hour long drama also had black actors, and one of those was the trans man...

we can't just say "Make the numbers right" we need to let writers write the characters and the casting directors cast the actors and the directors direct...


Whether or not we can ever reach an "appropriate" or "ideal" mix is irrelevant in face of that fact that we can, and should, do better than we do now. "We can't ever make it perfect" isn't a reason, it's an excuse. And "just letting people write, cast and direct" led us to the situation we're in now. So it's not really working out so swell.

[Sapphire Guard]

If the answer is money, it seems like a worthwhile approach would be to promote the hell out of whatever works represent diversity best, buy it, promote it to all your friends, rave on forums like these about how great it is. Some kind of large scale campaign promoting works that are representative, try to make it a social media craze, that kind of thing. Criticising established works just invites clashes with its fans, it seems like trying to promote things that are suitably diverse works could sidestep that somewhat.

[Crow]

A movie director deciding to have an Asian actor to fight racism isn't doing it only for the one movie, but also for the industry.

Once you start choosing people because they happen to fall within a certain ethnic group or category, it's really hard to make the case that you aren't being discriminatory. Discrimination isn't just showing favoritism against certain groups and categories; it also includes showing favoritism for certain groups or categories. In both cases, you aren't treating the person as an individual. You are treating them as a/n [category].

Unless some piece of the story requires the actor be of a certain group, the role should go to whichever actor fits the character best and is going to do the best job; regardless of ethnicity.

[The Glyphstone]

Once you start choosing people because they happen to fall within a certain ethnic group or category, it's really hard to make the case that you aren't being discriminatory. Discrimination isn't just showing favoritism against certain groups and categories; it also includes showing favoritism for certain groups or categories. In both cases, you aren't treating the person as an individual. You are treating them as a/n [category].

Unless some piece of the story requires the actor be of a certain group, the role should go to whichever actor fits the character best and is going to do the best job; regardless of ethnicity.

Without putting words in anyone's mouth, I think the intent of the counter-argument is that in the current culture, the mindset is that white actors are overwhelmingly considered the people most likely to do the best job, and leaving it in-place will only perpetuate the exclusionary trend. Deliberately including minority actors in headline roles is favoritism, but it's seen as necessary favoritism to 'train' the industry that minorities can bring in the same box-office numbers and positive reviews. Now, where that stops and you no longer need this 'corrective action' to ensure everyone actually gets a fair shot based purely on their acting skills isn't really predictable.

[HardcoreD&Dgirl]

Now, where that stops and you no longer need this 'corrective action' to ensure everyone actually gets a fair shot based purely on their acting skills isn't really predictable.

the best way is to try to stop it today... cast the best actor not one based on skin tone or hair color...

Imagine I said, "That actor really was good but I can't cast them they are X"

if x is white, black, male, female, trans... how many of those are racist or sexist.

You shouldn't hire her because she is white and the part should be Asian = You shouldn't hire her because she is black and the part should be white...both are wrong

[endoperez]

Once you start choosing people because they happen to fall within a certain ethnic group or category, it's really hard to make the case that you aren't being discriminatory. Discrimination isn't just showing favoritism against certain groups and categories; it also includes showing favoritism for certain groups or categories. In both cases, you aren't treating the person as an individual. You are treating them as a/n [category].

Unless some piece of the story requires the actor be of a certain group, the role should go to whichever actor fits the character best and is going to do the best job; regardless of ethnicity.

You're saying it's favoritism and discriminatory.

I'm saying that these minorities get less work.

Do you think I'm wrong? We can look at various studies and check this out.

If you do agree that minorities get less work, and STILL say that hiring specifically people of those groups is favoritism... you're in effect saying that it's WRONG to hire the people who do NOT get hired, because it is favoritism. I don't see the logic in that. It seems contradictory.

As Glyphstone said, it is favoritism. It's favoritism with the goal of trying to balance the scales, which are already way out of balance.

There are some interesting legal and ethical issues with this. Depending on the exact situation and way it's being done, it can be racial discrimination, or it can be perfectly acceptable. There's no clear line to draw between the two. Should equality be upheld at a small level, so that inequality persists in societal level? Or should socieatal equality be improved by making unequal small-level decisions?

[Frozen_Feet]

Another thread on representation? Oh gee, it's becoming a tradition as cemented as complaining about monks...

On the topic: I think there is a major problem with the discussion as a whole.

I touched it in the "gay protagonists" thread. Namely: a lot of these discussion try to use various sorts of representation and/or discrimination as analogues, even homologues, to each other. I think this is wrong. To illustrate how and why, I'll paraphrase a dialogue between Psyren and Olinser in Dr. Strange thread:

Psyren: it's a bummer they made Ancient One white, but plus they cast a woman.
Olinser: how is changing one aspect (ethnicity) bad but changing another (sex/gender) good?

There are two ways to read Psyren's initial comment: 1) sexism is a more severe problem than racism, so representing women is better than representing either white or asian males, or 2) various forms of discrimination are equivalent, so while changing a character from less-present group to more-present along one axis (asian--->white) is bad, this is canceled by changing them from more-present to less present along another (man ---> woman).

I think Olinser would disagree with both forms (you can go and read the discussion which followed from the other thread), but I do think they would've asked a different question if Psyren's stance would've been more explicitly 1) over 2). Failure to properly distinquish groups and say why representation of some groups matters more than others bogs down discussion.

Let's think of another example: Witcher 3. This game got flak for not having enough non-whites in it.

But I recently found two good blog posts critiquing this criticism. They raised an important question: do the characters in the game represent white people?

Or do they represent Polish people?

(You can find the first post in Jeff Vogel's Bottom Feeder, and it has link to the second.)

Why is this in an important question? Because Polish people might give a different answer than foreigners. Why? Because foreigners, without understanding of Polish culture and folklore, might not be able to have an informed opinion, and would hence focus on the wrong things.

In this case, the superficial "whiteness" of the game characters.

Arguments like "it's fantasy, you can ignore [history/realism/statistics] and add black people in!" are disingenuous towards all non-black Poles. It veers pretty close to implying "your priviliged-white-people history and folklore are racist!", which turns from silly to outrageous when you go and familiarize yourself with actual history of non-black Polish people.

This kind of stupidity has been skirted in the Dr. Strange thread. I don't remember who it was, but they suggested modern CGI allows for "race lifting" of old Hollywood movies, so in time the originals can be discarded as "racist relics". Which might barely work if you only ever consider Hollywood, but veers into madness when you try to apply it more generally, because it quickly becomes synonymous with faulting movies for accurately representing reality and attitudes of when and where they were made.

Back to superficiality: I'll generalize the question from the "gay protagonist" thread: "are there big movies where main character is X, but X is not a big deal?"

In my opinion, this is not asking for representation. It's asking for its blind-idiot cousins, off-hand mentions and informed attributes.

To find the problem, ask yourself: "if a character stated to be X is not shown doing things characteristic of X and does not face any issues X might face in reality, does it really represent X?"

In my mind, the answer is a firm "no".

But again: what different audiences consider as the relevant characteristics and issues of X may differ.

An audience composed of non-X might be hilariously clueless as to what actual X want, leading to non-X demand X be portrayed in Y way instead. Non-X might not even realize X exists as a relevant group to be represented. Or they might confuse Y for representation of X.

[Lethologica]

The "whitewashing!" cries were plenty, and probably rightly so. "This was an opportunity for native american actors to finally appear in a big-budget hollywood film, and once again their roles are given to white people!"
Now, this is true, but imagine if they did give those roles specifically to native american actors. It wouldn't be clear at all then that they tried to distance themselves from the rude, stereotypical portrayal of the Neverland "Indians" - heck, they even tried to make it "more indian" by casting native americans!

There would have been a lot of protest, too. Instead of "An opportunity for native american actors..." people would shout "Now we finally have native american actors in a big-budget hollywood film, and it's in a rude, derogatory manner!", and once again, they would have been right.
So cast Native American actors and don't portray them in a rude, derogatory manner? I mean, that's hard work, but it's not exactly impossible.


Emphasis mine.

I'm not entirely certain what "us" means in this bolded phrase. Those of Asian-descent? Anime fans? Regardless, you need not take this upon yourself; I don't think hate enters their calculus at all. Adapting an anime, something of growing but not utmost popularity in the US, to the broader US market is a risk. As Kitten Champion observed, they have gained some insurance by hiring a headlining actress that even if the film is a critical wash (and in their hands, I'm confident it will be), it'll at least not be a total failure profit-wise.
I'm sure your analysis of their motives is correct, but what bugs me about their motives as you've presented them is that they're all out of whack with the decision to make the adaptation in the first place. It's like making a PG Deadpool to reach the broadest possible audience, because making Deadpool rated R is too risky. Give Johansson a cameo if she wants one and you want the name recognition, it's not like GitS is short on foreign ambassadors (or, hey, they could do that one Russian (?) spy character, too). But why make GitS if you don't believe you can sell GitS?

Upshot: movie will be terrible to mediocre, it might make back its money, it'll continue the noble trend of tanking the prospects of anime adaptations in the west, and people will seize on Johansson's casting as the most visible symptom of the broken mindset that produced the film.

[Jayngfet]

So cast Native American actors and don't portray them in a rude, derogatory manner? I mean, that's hard work, but it's not exactly impossible.


Of course then depending on what you change you may lose the spirit of the original film and the works preceeding it. It may be rude and crude but that's how the source material is, and once you wind up changing things it's hard to find where to draw the line, particularly on old works where it's rarely just one thing one person would like changed. Of course I'm of the opinion that remakes are almost never a good thing and shouldn't be supported at all. Old works should either be ignored from a distance or if you must remake, do it with utmost respect to the original authors intent and technique.

Remakes of old works are a situation where you literally can not please everybody.

[Morty]

the best way is to try to stop it today... cast the best actor not one based on skin tone or hair color...

Imagine I said, "That actor really was good but I can't cast them they are X"

if x is white, black, male, female, trans... how many of those are racist or sexist.

You shouldn't hire her because she is white and the part should be Asian = You shouldn't hire her because she is black and the part should be white...both are wrong

Are we supposed to believe that the current balance - or rather, lack thereof - in media representation is the result of hiring best people for best roles?



Let's think of another example: Witcher 3. This game got flak for not having enough non-whites in it.

But I recently found two good blog posts critiquing this criticism. They raised an important question: do the characters in the game represent white people?

Or do they represent Polish people?

(You can find the first post in Jeff Vogel's Bottom Feeder, and it has link to the second.)

Why is this in an important question? Because Polish people might give a different answer than foreigners. Why? Because foreigners, without understanding of Polish culture and folklore, might not be able to have an informed opinion, and would hence focus on the wrong things.

In this case, the superficial "whiteness" of the game characters.

Arguments like "it's fantasy, you can ignore [history/realism/statistics] and add black people in!" are disingenuous towards all non-black Poles. It veers pretty close to implying "your priviliged-white-people history and folklore are racist!", which turns from silly to outrageous when you go and familiarize yourself with actual history of non-black Polish people.


Witcher has far less to do with Polish culture or history than people think. It's a generic fantasy land with Polish/Eastern European trappings, that's about it.

[Grinner]

I'm sure your analysis of their motives is correct, but what bugs me about their motives as you've presented them is that they're all out of whack with the decision to make the adaptation in the first place. ...

Fun story: I once heard about this famous Hollywood scriptwriter, one of the ones that turn everything into dramatic gold, who sent one of his scripts to a number of producers. Before sending the script off, though, he added a scene to the middle of the film in which the two very heterosexual, very male protagonists suddenly decide to make very gay love to one another.

All but one of the producers he sent it to said they loved the script.

This last producer asked the writer,"So we liked the script, but there's this one scene in the middle where the leads suddenly start making out. What's up with that?" Turns out that none of the other producers had apparently even read the script. They just saw the name and figured it would sell.

The moral of the story is that Hollywood by and large doesn't give a damn.

In this case, they might just be exploring how well the overseas pool of untapped IPs called "anime" can be incorporated into the Hollywood production cycle to feed the flames of industry. Sort of like how comic books are being exploited right now. As you've noticed, there's a good chance they don't actually understand the franchise. Time will tell, I guess.

[Crow]

There are some interesting legal and ethical issues with this. Depending on the exact situation and way it's being done, it can be racial discrimination, or it can be perfectly acceptable. There's no clear line to draw between the two. Should equality be upheld at a small level, so that inequality persists in societal level? Or should socieatal equality be improved by making unequal small-level decisions?

You either have equality in how decisions are made, or you don't. There is a huge difference between saying "You cannot exclude somebody because they are X.", and "You must include somebody because they are X."

As a society, for whatever reason we have grown impatient and are veering from the former into the latter. Look at hollywood in the 40's compared to hollywood in the 90's; We were heading in the right direction, but you can't change a huge society overnight. When you try to force something like that, you actually risk deepening the divides that are already there, rather than mending them. I think you can see this in a lot of places right now if you look around.

The dilemma you present at the end of your post is based upon a flawed premise. You cannot have equality on a societal level when that society is built upon inequality at the individual level. Real cultures don't work like that. However, if you have equality at the individual level, you will see a gradual shift towards equality at the societal level; but it takes time.

We have seen this shift occurring over the past few decades; but people are impatient and seem willing to sacrifice all the progress we have made so that we can have an enforced "unequal equality" right now.

[Frozen_Feet]

Witcher has far less to do with Polish culture or history than people think. It's a generic fantasy land with Polish/Eastern European trappings, that's about it.

1) Which people?

And

2) is that a good reason to lessen or replace said trappings?

[Jayngfet]

1) Which people?

And

2) is that a good reason to lessen or replace said trappings?

The "trappings" kind of make the setting in ways that other RPG's could only dream of. It's the little things that count, like a poster on the wall being drawn in the same style used during the medieval period, and the same point therein that the same style of slash and puff everyone's costumes are done up in, and with the same fashions used. It's that kind of attention to detail that make a good game great and it's the kind of thing that should under no circumstances be compromised. In fact my main concern is that occasionally a reference that doesn't quite feel right slips through and it adds a little crack to the immersion, but those are usually so small and general they aren't game breaking.

Art direction is extremley important for a game that relies on immersion. That's why every major game has a team of like a dozen people working on knowing exactly how everything looks and fits together. The moment those things stop working together cohesivley the product breaks apart. Which is why so many people are less and less enthused with the Elder Scrolls after Oblivion became generic fantasy and why people were so excited when Skyrim had a slightly more unique vision and when they returned to the crazy stuff Morrowind did in the DLC.

If your art direction is "Poland. Circa sixteenth century." Then every part of your game has to reflect that.

[Dragonus45]

So, I have a question for people that are really really concerned with the GItS movie mainly aimed at people who are actual fans of it. Would you rather see it get made even if it means the need for a compromise, E.G. Scarlet Johansson being cast as The Major, or do you feel that such a change makes it not worth trying. And I'm not going to say one is really better than the other because I fall on both sides of it sometimes. But in the case of finally getting this GItS movie made I would rather deal with a actress who I know can act and pull off good fight scenes then get nothing at all. Unless the movie itself also winds up bad, which it probably will.

[Lethologica]

So, I have a question for people that are really really concerned with the GItS movie mainly aimed at people who are actual fans of it. Would you rather see it get made even if it means the need for a compromise, E.G. Scarlet Johansson being cast as The Major, or do you feel that such a change makes it not worth trying. And I'm not going to say one is really better than the other because I fall on both sides of it sometimes. But in the case of finally getting this GItS movie made I would rather deal with a actress who I know can act and pull off good fight scenes then get nothing at all. Unless the movie itself also winds up bad, which it probably will.
I strongly suspect that this venture will turn out worse than if nothing had been made by these people at this time. I look forward to being shown otherwise. I do not have a uniform position on nonspecific compromises.

[Grinner]

I can't claim to understand the nuances of acting all that well, but Ms. Johansson's talents can't be all that unique.

[BiblioRook]

I can't claim to understand the nuances of acting all that well, but Ms. Johansson's talents can't be all that unique.
Her acting probably has nothing to do with it, just her draw. Names on a poster get butts in the seats.

[Bulldog Psion]

If the answer is money, it seems like a worthwhile approach would be to promote the hell out of whatever works represent diversity best, buy it, promote it to all your friends, rave on forums like these about how great it is. Some kind of large scale campaign promoting works that are representative, try to make it a social media craze, that kind of thing. Criticising established works just invites clashes with its fans, it seems like trying to promote things that are suitably diverse works could sidestep that somewhat.

You took the words right out of my mind.

I was out and about, and thinking, "how can ordinary people affect this without making themselves obnoxious to all and sundry?" Catch more flies with honey than vinegar, etc. And I came up with:

1. Be positive. If the movie's good, talk about how good it is. Don't say "hey, this movie is great because they cast X as the main character, finally!" Say -- "hey, this movie has great dialog, or action scenes, or romance, or cinematography, or suspense, or whatever" -- in short, promote it as a fun entertainment experience instead of a heavy political statement.

2. Talk it up online. Give it high marks on IMDB. Post what you like about it on forums. Make people feel good about it rather than lecturing them.

3. Upgrade your participation if you can afford it. Go to see it twice in the theater instead of once. Talk some friends into going. Buy the expensive Director's Cut Blu-Ray Gold Seal Extra-Snazzy discs instead of the cheapo DVD. Buy someone a copy for their birthday/some other holiday.

4. Don't knock other stuff (unless it's actively noxious or poor quality) if it doesn't conform to one's political wishes. People will listen to your opinion more if you don't come across as someone with a chip on their shoulder, lecturing them all the time. Remember that life is short and this stuff is supposed to be fun.

That seems like a positive, upbeat way to promote movies for the "little guy" to participate in. Sure, it's not ideal, but it probably will add a tiny bit of weight towards shifting things in the right direction without getting people's political hackles up instantly, IMO.

[Kitten Champion]

So, I have a question for people that are really really concerned with the GItS movie mainly aimed at people who are actual fans of it. Would you rather see it get made even if it means the need for a compromise, E.G. Scarlet Johansson being cast as The Major, or do you feel that such a change makes it not worth trying. And I'm not going to say one is really better than the other because I fall on both sides of it sometimes. But in the case of finally getting this GItS movie made I would rather deal with a actress who I know can act and pull off good fight scenes then get nothing at all. Unless the movie itself also winds up bad, which it probably will.

I'm fine with it never being made. Putting aside all casting issues and even if it's somewhat better than expected, I think ultimately it'll be negatively compared to the animated movies anyways. Having a live-action portrayal just isn't terribly important to me, I suppose

Though, in general, GitS seemed like the prime opportunity to utilize an internationally-based cast. I think it could easily have been ambitious and gotten away with it based on its source material and genre, it's the kind of project which attracts people who are into this stuff even if not GitS specifically.

Anyways - on a personal level - whatever the movie provides, it won't be worth seeing variations of this argument everywhere every time a trailer or the like comes up. It's... as Kris said, tiring.

[TheThan]

Once you start choosing people because they happen to fall within a certain ethnic group or category, it's really hard to make the case that you aren't being discriminatory. Discrimination isn't just showing favoritism against certain groups and categories; it also includes showing favoritism for certain groups or categories. In both cases, you aren't treating the person as an individual. You are treating them as a/n [category].

Unless some piece of the story requires the actor be of a certain group, the role should go to whichever actor fits the character best and is going to do the best job; regardless of ethnicity.

Thank you very much for this post. I think it’s something people need to learn.


Are we supposed to believe that the current balance - or rather, lack thereof - in media representation is the result of hiring best people for best roles?

Why not? Movie companies are in the business of making money. It benefits them to hire the best actors they can afford to hire. If those actors happen to be of demographic “X” then they get hired. How is it wrong to hire the best people for the job?

Unfortunately not every actor/actress is of equal capability; so some actors that simply aren’t as skilled as others will get passed up for jobs.
Why should a business, any business really, be forced by an outside entity to hire people of a certain demographic? Is it fair to force a company to fill quotas of demographics “X”, “Y” and “Z”? How is that fair to people that fall outside those demographics?

I think a lot of people seem to not realize is that movies are a transaction. You give your money to a movie company and they give you the opportunity to watch their film; which hopefully will entertain you. You get what you want, entertainment, and the movie company gets what they want, money. Everybody comes out on top and is happy. (Why people seem to think capitalism is depressing, sad and vaguely “bad” is beyond me).

[druid91]

Well, to be quite honest, I don't understand the desire to make a live action ghost in the shell movie in any case. To accomplish the same visual effects as the show, you'd require so much CG that it might as well just be a cartoon anyway. So the whole thing is kind of.... Ridiculous?

[Jayngfet]

Well, to be quite honest, I don't understand the desire to make a live action ghost in the shell movie in any case. To accomplish the same visual effects as the show, you'd require so much CG that it might as well just be a cartoon anyway. So the whole thing is kind of.... Ridiculous?

It's likley that some executive thought it would be a good vehicle for ScarJo or some other actress and didn't give it any additional thought.

[Rodin]

I'm fine with it never being made. Putting aside all casting issues and even if it's somewhat better than expected, I think ultimately it'll be negatively compared to the animated movies anyways. Having a live-action portrayal just isn't terribly important to me, I suppose



Sums it up for me too. I really like the universe and seeing a live-action story done well would be cool...but I didn't have high hopes to start with and the bad press it's been getting hasn't encouraged me. Do it right or don't bother.

---

On the subject of positive discrimination:

The reason that you can't just say "Pick the right person for the job" is that we are all racist. Yes, even you, even me. Scientists have done studies on this. They send in resumes to managers with zero history of racism, and the ones with foreign-sounding names don't get picked. They then send in the same set of resumes, but with the names reversed (So John Smith become Jorge Rodriguez, and vice-versa), and the foreign-sounding names still don't get picked.

They've also done facial studies - when looking at someone who doesn't share a race with you, different parts of your brain light up than when you're looking at someone of the same race. The further away they are, the more pronounced it is.

So it isn't just a matter of "let the culture sort it out". Racism is always going to exist, because our primitive monkey brains are still programming us to protect the tribe. That's why it's important to be constantly vigilant, and where possible put enforcement in place that prevents us from rationalizing it away.

Now, I'm not saying culture doesn't matter. Culture can be a powerful tool to enforce change, as the rapid change in opinions on racism, women's rights, etc. has shown us. At the core though, we will slip back into those old nasty habits just because we are still essentially very smart apes.

Hence, constant vigilance. Which includes positive discrimination when we see an imbalance, as we do with Hollywood.

[Donnadogsoth]

The reason this issue will always be an issue, is that no amount of social engineering will change the basic fact that groups like to see themselves totally expressed. If I were black, would I be satisfied by a token--even a leading-man or leading-woman token? No, I would secretly want total expression. I would want such sustained total expression that I would get sick of it and start wanting non-blacks in the films I attend, just for variety.

The same goes for gays. There are gay resorts, gay cruises, gay day at Disneyworld: gay people like to see themselves totally expressed. So any film that isn't 100% gay is a kind of a loss from that perspective.

And on for any group.

There is another problem, and that's that the social engineering that presumes everyone should be satisfied with a token-per-film, a kind of "the gang's all here!" expression, is based on a paradox, which is that audiences are expected to be race-blind even while, hypothetically, the filmmakers were bending over backwards to monitor and adjust the established percentages of race. But this doesn't make sense. If I am expected to not care what the races are of the actors that I see performing for me, then why should anyone care? And in that event, what does it matter if the situation of racial percentages come to rest exactly as they are? If we're supposed to be race-blind, then problem-solved, just train everyone, including minorities, to be race-blind.

The only problem in that case, is that some actors will continue to find getting parts hard, but this is no more relevant that a short person being overlooked for a tall role or vice versa.

[HardcoreD&Dgirl]

Movie companies are in the business of making money. It benefits them to hire the best actors they can afford to hire. If those actors happen to be of demographic “X” then they get hired. How is it wrong to hire the best people for the job?

Unfortunately not every actor/actress is of equal capability; so some actors that simply aren’t as skilled as others will get passed up for jobs.
Why should a business, any business really, be forced by an outside entity to hire people of a certain demographic? Is it fair to force a company to fill quotas of demographics “X”, “Y” and “Z”? How is that fair to people that fall outside those demographics?

I think a lot of people seem to not realize is that movies are a transaction. You give your money to a movie company and they give you the opportunity to watch their film; which hopefully will entertain you. You get what you want, entertainment, and the movie company gets what they want, money. Everybody comes out on top and is happy. (Why people seem to think capitalism is depressing, sad and vaguely “bad” is beyond me).


the capitalism argument is pretty strong...

It reminds me of comics. If I were to get a monky paw to make some wishes and used one to replace DC higher ups so I could get the stories I want pubished here is what I would want:

Teen titans/young justice... a mix of the young justice cartoon and the 80's line up of titans in 1 set of books one west coast one east coast and lots of cross over

JLA/JLTF/JLE/JLD... 3 titles linked, with dark being slightly in the link. JLA would be Booster gold, blue bettle, fire, ice, guy gardner warrior, Jessica Cuiz power ring, gnort, Green lantern, Maxima, Zatanna, Icon and wally west flash. JLTF would be Martian Manhunter and a roatating cast of heroes. JLE would be Captian Atom, WOnder woman, Crimson fox, Knight and square, October General, and Rocket red. JLD is Fate (jared stevens), Frankinstein, Bloodwynd, ragman, enchantress, and hawk girl

Storm watch (nu 52, but add in hawkman and alan scott GL to the team)

Firestrom (nu52 Ronnie and Jason)

Action and Detective pretty much as per rebirth

Birds of prey- put Barbra back as orcle put Stephanie as batgirl have black cannary and lady black hawk and huntress with guest spots by misfit and black alice...

sinister six...with gail writing



but if that would make money they would do it... the fact that it doesn't make money means they wont.

[LokeyITP]

Why not? Movie companies are in the business of making money. It benefits them to hire the best actors they can afford to hire. If those actors happen to be of demographic “X” then they get hired. How is it wrong to hire the best people for the job?
I'm sure the Economics 101 argument for Shia LeBeouf is really, really convincing too. Please enlighten us.

[Lethologica]

It's likley that some executive thought it would be a good vehicle for ScarJo or some other actress and didn't give it any additional thought.
Margot Robbie was the actress they initially had in mind before she signed on with Suicide Squad.


Why not? Movie companies are in the business of making money. It benefits them to hire the best actors they can afford to hire. If those actors happen to be of demographic “X” then they get hired. How is it wrong to hire the best people for the job?
Oh, hey, it's an assumption that monetary interests automatically produce non-discriminatory rational actors. I'm sure there aren't any examples in history that could, ah, complicate this assumption. Like, say, businesses who benefit from hiring the best workers for the job having apparently unrelated job requirements? Or businesses who benefit from selling their products/services making apparently unrelated distinctions in the products/services they'll sell to different types of customers?

https://manwiththemuckrake.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/no-irish-need-apply-1915.png

http://www.christenacleveland.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/blacks-need-not-apply-44029839847.jpeg

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/2009079-11isaiah2-110923102144-phpapp02/95/structural-racialization-a-lens-for-understanding-how-opportunity-is-racialized-18-728.jpg?cb=1316777314

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CCwBsOAXIAMGJbn.png
The notion that "the best person for the job" will automatically produce non-discriminatory hiring practices in acting is even less supportable, because unlike the above examples, here "the job" is usually partly defined by appearances, so it's piss-easy for discrimination to persist while always hiring "the best person for the job."

[jere7my]

I'm sure the Economics 101 argument for Shia LeBeouf is really, really convincing too. Please enlighten us.

The idea that we're allowed to criticize studios for making every kind of lowest-common-denominator decision in pursuit of the bottom line EXCEPT straight-white-dude casting is baffling to me. What other artistic criticism would be met with "Well, it makes them more money, so it's okay"?

"That happy ending to the Punisher adaptation was totally out of place." "Your critique is irrelevant, because it makes them more money." Buh?

[Grinner]

Hence, constant vigilance. Which includes positive discrimination when we see an imbalance, as we do with Hollywood.

That's a rather blunt method, yes? Setting aside the probable illegality of it, it would also be rather trivial to sidestep.

A longer-term, more organic approach such as that advocated by Bulldog Psion and Sapphire Guard would be more effective, I think. Don't force a change. Instead, establish an atmosphere in which that change will naturally take place.

[HardcoreD&Dgirl]

Margot Robbie was the actress they initially had in mind before she signed on with Suicide Squad.


Oh, hey, it's an assumption that monetary interests automatically produce non-discriminatory rational actors. I'm sure there aren't any examples in history that could, ah, complicate this assumption. Like, say, businesses who benefit from hiring the best workers for the job having apparently unrelated job requirements? Or businesses who benefit from selling their products making apparently unrelated distinctions in the products they'll sell to different types of customers?

https://manwiththemuckrake.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/no-irish-need-apply-1915.png

http://www.christenacleveland.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/blacks-need-not-apply-44029839847.jpeg

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/2009079-11isaiah2-110923102144-phpapp02/95/structural-racialization-a-lens-for-understanding-how-opportunity-is-racialized-18-728.jpg?cb=1316777314

http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CCwBsOAXIAMGJbn.png
The notion that "the best person for the job" will automatically produce non-discriminatory hiring practices in acting is even less supportable, because unlike the above examples, here "the job" is usually partly defined by appearances, so it's piss-easy for discrimination to persist while always hiring "the best person for the job."

I almost posted the NINA thing myself... capitalsm sucks at fixing this...

[huttj509]

The idea that we're allowed to criticize studios for making every kind of lowest-common-denominator decision in pursuit of the bottom line EXCEPT straight-white-dude casting is baffling to me. What other artistic criticism would be met with "Well, it makes them more money, so it's okay"?

"That happy ending to the Punisher adaptation was totally out of place." "Your critique is irrelevant, because it makes them more money." Buh?

I would have used the I Am Legend last scene change, myself.

I was grinning through the whole movie, then the end felt like they fumbled on the 2 yard line, because the scene as first shot didn't test well with audiences, so they changed it to a heroic death protecting people from the monsters, instead of "wait, these monsters are still people, and I've been hunting them and experimenting on them...@#$$%".

[Frozen_Feet]

@Donnadogshot:

What makes you think groups always wanting total representation is a basic fact?

You say that's true for any group, always. You willing to make that argument for, say, people wearing blur shirts, or wearing eyeglasses?

[Crow]

It's okay to discriminate, so long as it is for or against the right categories.

It's okay to treat individuals as a group, so long as it is the right group.

Equality isn't important, so long as we have the illusion of equality.

Bigotry is okay, so long as it is the soft bigotry of low expectations.


A longer-term, more organic approach such as that advocated by Bulldog Psion and Sapphire Guard would be more effective, I think. Don't force a change. Instead, establish an atmosphere in which that change will naturally take place.

Yes!

Forcing change actually raises the hackles of our primitive "protect the tribe" instincts that another poster thoughtfully brought up. Change starts with us, and societies go as the individuals in those societies go. Change must be driven from the bottom up to be effective and lasting.

Somebody in this thread might be the next casting director. Some of us are already in charge of hiring people at our respective jobs and businesses. If we act with integrity, and we along with others adopt that organic approach in everything we do; societal equality will come.

It just won't be over night.

[Frozen_Feet]

It's okay to discriminate, so long as it is for or against the right categories.

Are you using "discriminate" in the value-neutral sense of "to discern; to judge", or are you using the sociological definition which has "unfair" baked in it?


It's okay to treat individuals as a group, so long as it is the right group.

Isn't it?

[Donnadogsoth]

@Donnadogshot:

What makes you think groups always wanting total representation is a basic fact?

You say that's true for any group, always. You willing to make that argument for, say, people wearing blur shirts, or wearing eyeglasses?

Eyeglasses and blue shirts are to racial/sexual/gender identity as a handful of gravel is to a barrow-load. The former is minor whereas the latter is major. It's natural to want to be in an environment where one can forget one's own major identities and just concentrate on the content of the media product.

[Aedilred]

Are you using "discriminate" in the value-neutral sense of "to discern; to judge", or are you using the sociological definition which has "unfair" baked in it?



Isn't it?

Irony notwithstanding, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with either of Crow's first two statements as it stands. The problems come when you try to determine what the "right" categories or groups are, because that's a subjective judgment that's impossible to bake into a hard principle.

This is one of the major criticisms generally levelled at activists for social change: that they're not demanding equality, they're demanding a rebalancing of inequality to favour themselves. Whether that's fair on the whole or not, one does occasionally see an argument in favour of "change for equality" that really is just a find-and-replace search done on the same principle previously used to oppress them, substituting, in a hypothetical and asinine example, "black" for "white" and vice versa.

The second pair of statements follows from the first two, if you're not paying attention to where the first two are leading you.

[jere7my]

It's okay to discriminate, so long as it is for or against the right categories.

It's okay to treat individuals as a group, so long as it is the right group.

Equality isn't important, so long as we have the illusion of equality.

Bigotry is okay, so long as it is the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Rather than spend any more brain-time on this, I'm just going to repost my response from the other thread and leave you all to it. After the fifty-fifth iteration of the same conversation with the same pro-status quo excuses, I am ready to shortcut this. In three words: it's not symmetrical.



The answer is that either changing the character's race/gender is bad, or is good. You don't get to say that it's arbitrarily good to compromise the character in one direction but bad in the other direction based on some stupid idea of 'diversity'. Either the character depends upon their race/gender, or it doesn't matter. But it's never GOOD to just arbitrarily change a character for some BS idea of diversity. That's nothing but tokenism and needs to be eradicated.

It's not a symmetric change. It's pretty easy to understand, even without bringing social justice into it.

As a thought experiment, imagine every white character in every movie from the dawn of filmmaking to the year 2000 was a natural blond. For most of that time, it seemed perfectly natural; that's just how movies were made. Then, in 2001, some people started saying "Hey, that's really weird. Why are all these people blond? That doesn't look anything like the world around us, and it's pretty unfair to non-blond actors." They start casting brunettes and redheads, and some people complain ("Batman has always been BLOND!"), but slowly audiences start accepting that hair color doesn't really matter to the character. Introducing a variety of hair colors is a positive change because it makes movies less weirdly skewed.

So what should these parallel-universe filmmakers do about remakes and adaptations of works from the 20th century? Keep the characters the same, casting only blonds in the white roles, or accept that works from the 20th century had some outmoded ideas about hair color and make a change to some of the characters? Wouldn't that be a positive change? And if they unearthed some mid-century works featuring redheads, but remade them in 2016 with blond actors, wouldn't that change be harder to defend?

Straight white males are overrepresented in mass media in this country. The further back you go, the more skewed the imbalance is. If you're adapting a story from 50 or 75 years ago, it's likely to be quite noticeable. Making changes to address that imbalance is likely to be a good impulse; making changes that make it more imbalanced is not.


Changing Wonder Woman into a man is bad. Changing Superman into a woman is equally bad. Because the characters are male and female. Changing their gender means you are no longer making a movie about Superman or Wonder Woman. You are now making a movie about Female Superman.

When casting a character, the question is whether the CHARACTER is served by casting an actor/actress that may not match the physical characteristics of the character. Some physical deviation is acceptable if the actor/actress is particularly good at the role, or staying strictly true to the character would severely limit your ability to find a suitable actor/actress. But arbitrarily changing their race/gender for no reason than changing the race/gender is ALWAYS bad, regardless of what direction the change goes.

There's a little musical called Hamilton selling tickets at $600 a pop that would beg to differ. :smallwink: Characters are flexible. Adaptations are flexible. Nothing survives an adaptation between different media unscathed—especially in superhero comics. If the world is big enough for Christian Bale's Batman and Adam West's Batman and Michael Keaton's Batman and Kevin Conroy's Batman, why would anyone object to Idris Elba's Batman? Is his whiteness so central to his character that it must remain constant, even as so many other things change? What about Jimmy Olsen's character requires he be white? Why object to Katee Sackhoff's Starbuck? Othello probably needs to be black, but who cares if Romeo and Juliet are Korean and Irish? Sure, there are some changes you wouldn't want to make—a film set in ancient Egypt with only white actors seems like a bad idea, for instance (*koff*)—but if you're going to adapt media from the lily-white world of pre-1980 US popular culture, it's worthwhile to acknowledge that there were obvious biases in storytelling, take a look at the characters, and see where you can make them more representative of the world around us. It's not "stupid diversity"; it's correcting a skewed vision of the world.

They're adapting Asimov's Foundation into an HBO miniseries, and I can guarantee you that not every single character is going to be male like they were in the book. (There were a couple of ladies in the sequels, but in the first book literally every character is a dude.) Is that a problem? It would just look bizarre to modern audiences. It's like changing the way Mars is presented based on new science. Unless they're deliberately making a pulp Martian movie, a filmmaker adapting a 1960 work about Mars is probably going to make some changes to prevent sophisticated modern audiences from rolling their eyes. (See: 1955's Martian Manhunter, who came from a planet full of happy healthy Martians and wasn't the last survivor of a dead race.)

The argument that we need to be patient, to avoid ruffling feathers, doesn't hold water. People have been born, lived, and died of old age in the time it's taken to go from 5% female protagonists to 7% female protagonists in US cinema, and 0% black protagonists to 2% black protagonists (statistics pulled completely ex recto :smallbiggrin:). And the only reason we've had any change at all, the only reason we've gotten even those extra two percent (or whatever the number actually is), is because people pushed and yelled and posted critical thinkpieces and boycotted and utilized the dreaded stern look™. There has always been a squalling segment of the population that favors the status quo, that demands overwhelming straightness and whiteness and maleness in protagonists. They used to be in the majority; now they're an increasingly irrelevant minority that mostly pops up to whine on Facebook every time a studio hints at progressive casting. That's progress, and that's why it's worth making our feelings known (respectfully, if I have anything to say about it) about increased representation and whitewashing. Those who disagree certainly aren't holding back (see: "J.J. Abrams says there might be gay people in Star Wars OMG THINK OF THE CHILDREN").

Of course perfect representation is unattainable. But right now the balance is so weirdly skewed in the SWM direction that every exception has to be treasured, and every reversion (from a PoC to a white actor, for instance) has to be publicly eyerolled. We're probably not going to get to 50-50 on gender in this century, but if it were 60-40 I suspect 99% of the kvetching would go away. It's not linear; people just want it to be not so blatantly, obviously off-kilter. People want enough representation that they don't feel totally excluded from the conversation. Honestly, after Rey and Furiosa last year I've noticed a marked decline in complaints about Yet Another Male Protagonist in other geek-targeted films, and that's only two exceptions to the trend. (And of course complaints from misogynists have skyrocketed, but who cares about those dudes?)

That's it. Peace out.

[Jayngfet]

That was a big block of text so I'm not gonna bother quoting it but let me get this straight.

Because of tiny percentile figures -figures you admit were pulled entirely out of your anus-, people need to drop any pretense and shout and scream at the top of their lungs and hope that works. Because that's the only way any change has ever been enacted. Despite glaring counter examples being the literal only attributed sources for great change(Read: MLK, Ghandi, et. al.).

I'm not even going to respect that opinion. It's rather nakedly inciting people towards violence(or as you so put it "ruffling feathers").

[TheThan]

I'm sure the Economics 101 argument for Shia LeBeouf is really, really convincing too. Please enlighten us.

That’s kind of a cheap shot at LeBeouf. But you asked for it. Shia LeBeouf is clearly a good enough actor to keep finding work. If you don’t like him; too bad, don’t watch his movies. He may not be as skilled as other older more experienced actors but that doesn’t mean he’s without skill. Most of the time people have to practice to get good at a skill, and since acting is a skill; well younger actors simply haven’t had enough time to develop that skill. Maybe he’ll mature into a superb actor, maybe he won’t, only time will tell.



Oh, hey, it's an assumption that monetary interests automatically produce non-discriminatory rational actors. I'm sure there aren't any examples in history that could, ah, complicate this assumption. Like, say, businesses who benefit from hiring the best workers for the job having apparently unrelated job requirements? Or businesses who benefit from selling their products/services making apparently unrelated distinctions in the products/services they'll sell to different types of customers?


If a company chooses to not hire people based upon a demographic, or chooses not to serve people based upon a demographic; then that company has to deal with the monetary loss they suffer for not being willing to serve or hire people from that demographic. It really is that simple. Maybe it’s enough to put that company out of business maybe it isn’t; that’s immaterial, but it is pretty clear that they will suffer financially since they are not reaching out to all of their potential customer base. I say let them make their own financial mistakes and learn the hard way.



The reason that you can't just say "Pick the right person for the job" is that we are all racist. Yes, even you, even me. Scientists have done studies on this.

Oh Yes I can, in fact I already did. We are thinking human beings that are capable of using rational thought (at least I hope you are) and are able to look past whatever demographic a job applicant or potential customer happens to be (again i hope you are at least). We have the power to choose to make a decision based upon logic and reasoning as well as upon emotion. When money is on the line, companies will fall back upon logic and reasoning instead of emotion and look past demographics when hiring or selling to people.


I almost posted the NINA thing myself... capitalsm sucks at fixing this...

I disagree. The thing to remember about capitalism is that it’s voluntary; you choose to participate. There is no-one else to blame for your success or failure. If a company chooses not to participate, then they reap the natural consequences of their actions; both good and bad.
Non- capitalistic systems are not voluntary; you are forced to participate. An entity such as a government is intervening and using force to apply some policy they have on their books onto citizens and businesses. These people/businesses are not given a choice in the matter; submit or face punishment.

Under capitalism, nobody is forcing me to go watch Shia LeBeouf’s latest movie. It’s my choice and I have to face the consequences; if i go see his movie, i am out a bit of money and might possibly be entertained or miserable for a few hours. if I choose not to go see it, then I save a little money and miss out on seeing Shia LeBeouf act. (you can consider that good or bad depending on your opinion of his acting prowess)

But under a non-capitalist system I might very well be forced to watch his latest movie. I’m not given the choice, I’m forced to do it or face whatever consequences whatever entity has power over me has in place to punish me for my defiance.


Eyeglasses and blue shirts are to racial/sexual/gender identity as a handful of gravel is to a barrow-load. The former is minor whereas the latter is major. It's natural to want to be in an environment where one can forget one's own major identities and just concentrate on the content of the media product.

People that wear glasses is just as legitimate a demographic as say… anyone of the demographics represented in the LGBT community. Just because they are not in the “correct” demographic doesn’t mean they should be ignored. Heck in the USA our government was built with that in mind. That’s why it’s a republic, not a pure democracy. People are all for representing “minorities” as long as those “minorities” are of a specific group of demographics; people that fall outside of those demographics suddenly don’t matter and are ignored and pushed aside.

That’s exactly what you’re doing, dismissing the glasses wearing, blue shirt wearing demographic as trivial; it’s unimportant to you because they don’t fall into the “correct” demographic. You’re also making a huge logic fallacy in assuming that people can’t enjoy entertainment that involves people that are not of their preferred demographic. This is clearly not the case as I certainly can and often times do enjoy entertainment that I don’t somehow “belong” to. Heck every person I’ve ever met has done the same thing.


That was a big block of text so I'm not gonna bother quoting it but let me get this straight.

Because of tiny percentile figures -figures you admit were pulled entirely out of your anus-, people need to drop any pretense and shout and scream at the top of their lungs and hope that works. Because that's the only way any change has ever been enacted. Despite glaring counter examples being the literal only attributed sources for great change(Read: MLK, Ghandi, et. al.).

I'm not even going to respect that opinion. It's rather nakedly inciting people towards violence(or as you so put it "ruffling feathers").

Thank you, you saved me a lot of time and effort in responding to that wall of text.

[jere7my]

That was a big block of text so I'm not gonna bother quoting it but let me get this straight.

Because of tiny percentile figures -figures you admit were pulled entirely out of your anus-, people need to drop any pretense and shout and scream at the top of their lungs and hope that works. Because that's the only way any change has ever been enacted. Despite glaring counter examples being the literal only attributed sources for great change(Read: MLK, Ghandi, et. al.).

I'm not even going to respect that opinion. It's rather nakedly inciting people towards violence(or as you so put it "ruffling feathers").

Gamergaters' reading skills have not improved, I see. :smallbiggrin:

I am amused that you turned "it's worth making our feelings known (respectfully, if I have anything to say about it)" into "nakedly inciting people towards violence." That's so transparent I'm thinking of making it into a negligée.

[Frozen_Feet]

Eyeglasses and blue shirts are to racial/sexual/gender identity as a handful of gravel is to a barrow-load. The former is minor whereas the latter is major. It's natural to want to be in an environment where one can forget one's own major identities and just concentrate on the content of the media product.

You did not answer my first question, and this answer to my second is at least a partial negative. Your division to "minor" and "major" appears to be a case of overwhelming expection, vastly undermining the strength of your original argument.

Let's examine this more closely. You say "wearing eye glasses" is a minor. Do you think the only girl with glasses in an otherwise monotype school class would agree?

You say "wearing a blue shirt" is minor. Do you think actual Blue Shirt fascists, let alone their opponents, would agree?

Which are the criteria by which groups are divided into minor and major? Do you believe such divisions hold universally?

And how does "wanting to forget one's major group identifiers" follow? People want to feel accepted and part of a group, yes, but in the real world this entails almost the exact opposite. That is, in order to feel accepted, people want to see other people with shared group identifiers in important positions. Indeed, isn't that what the cries for representation are primarily about? Did you accidentally write "major" when you intended "minor"?

[Jayngfet]

Gamergaters' reading skills have not improved, I see. :smallbiggrin:

I am amused that you turned "it's worth making our feelings known (respectfully, if I have anything to say about it)" into "nakedly inciting people towards violence." That's so transparent I'm thinking of making it into a negligée.

You know I find it noteworthy that the phrase respectfully only just comes into the discussion after you've been accused of what you're doing. Before that you were all "What's this about talking about films when they're good and judging them properly? Screw that!" and "You mean turning Superman into a woman and Wonder Woman into a man would be equally reviled? That's ridiculous, my personal beliefs backed with only specilation say you're wrong."

[Lethologica]

If a company chooses to not hire people based upon a demographic, or chooses not to serve people based upon a demographic; then that company has to deal with the monetary loss they suffer for not being willing to serve or hire people from that demographic. It really is that simple. Maybe it’s enough to put that company out of business maybe it isn’t; that’s immaterial, but it is pretty clear that they will suffer financially since they are not reaching out to all of their potential customer base. I say let them make their own financial mistakes and learn the hard way.
Of course, they'll learn! Why didn't I think of that? The free market fixed segregation, didn't it? And redlining, too! As we all know, bigots everywhere can only look forward to a future of financial suffering, as proven by all the history of bigots suffering and never ever ever succeeding! :smallannoyed:


Oh Yes I can, in fact I already did. We are thinking human beings that are capable of using rational thought (at least I hope you are) and are able to look past whatever demographic a job applicant or potential customer happens to be (again i hope you are at least). We have the power to choose to make a decision based upon logic and reasoning as well as upon emotion. When money is on the line, companies will fall back upon logic and reasoning instead of emotion and look past demographics when hiring or selling to people.
While we enjoy some of the benefits of rationality, humans are not only frequently irrational, we're irrational in predictable and exploitable ways. More specifically, we're frequently discriminatory even when we think we aren't being discriminatory. And it's not at all clear that we do a good job of recognizing when this affects our bottom lines, or preventing it from happening in the future. So while it's nice to pretend that amorphous ambiguous financial incentives will turn companies into coldly calculating logic machines, it doesn't happen that way.

[jere7my]

You know I find it noteworthy that the phrase respectfully only just comes into the discussion after you've been accused of what you're doing. Before that you were all "What's this about talking about films when they're good and judging them properly? Screw that!" and "You mean turning Superman into a woman and Wonder Woman into a man would be equally reviled? That's ridiculous, my personal beliefs backed with only specilation say you're wrong."

Well, see, this is what I'm talking about when I mention reading skills. That "respectfully" line is a direct quote from the post you claimed to be responding to, and it was there when you wrote your response. (Check the last edited timestamp if you like!) Your other quotes have no relation to anything I've said.

So, that's that. This is the last response you get from me. Cheers!

[Douglas]

The Mod Radiant: While this topic may be worthy of discussion, it seems to be heading more towards politics and borderline flaming than anything productively rules-compatible.

Thread closed, and please do not resume this particular line of discussion in the Doctor Strange thread.