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The so-called "forced diversity" in today's media
3 years ago
Alright, a fair warning: this is a very difficult subject for me to discuss, without it potentially coming out as offensive to certain groups of people. Again, it is not my place to offend anyone. =/ I merely want to express my opinions, in the most respectful manner that I can get.
Pride Month and Juneteenth are around the corner, and I couldn't help but feeling like wanting to discuss how media has evolved over the years, in relation to how morals have changed... and the people who are still stuck in the past, and unable to accept this change.
Nowadays, it seems that every single media in this current decade must include ALL of the following, and only positive depictions of them are allowed:
- Black characters
- Female characters in powerful, dominant leading roles
- At least ONE transgendered/non-binary/genderfluid character
- At least ONE explicitly gay/lesbian character and their relationships
To be fair, that shouldn't be a bad thing. In fact, the truth is that media had always included all of the above for decades now; the difference was that morals were different back then. Racism and discrimination were still normalized, and the LGBT movement wasn't as strong as it is now, so it used to be more normal to have these portrayed in negative light. Even today, a few countries in the world are still largely homophobic, especially Muslim-majority countries, so local media portrayals of these relationships are still exceedingly negative -- I should know; I live in one such country. =_=
With more and more media these days tried to portray all of the above in more positive light, one term got spread around like wildfire: "forced diversity". The last thing a media would want is to be accused for including forced diversity. There's no concrete definition of forced diversity that I could find -- lots of people are trying to claim that the concept does not exist at all -- and the ones who do define it appear to also be those discriminatory types, which I won't be pointing out in this journal entry. (I do not, and will not, support discrimination of any form.)
Also, villains are almost always straight, for some reason.
My guess is that, the reason why people these days make it such an issue, is because portrayals of these groups are now far more "in-your-face" than before. This can be seen with today's American children shows, which appear to be more "woke" than before, being accused for promoting certain agendas, such as gay pride and one's right for sexual identity. Due to cultural differences and the fear of potentially offending anyone, I will not be commenting on any of these in more depth. (Western culture is still very alien to me, despite being exposed to it all the time via the Internet.) All I can say is that, even with all these positive changes and more positive representations in today's media, a lot of us are still stuck in the past, back when it was traditionally more common to depict them negatively.
So yeah, that's just something I wanted to discuss. There are a few shows that I've watched that appear to fit all of these criteria; for instance, one anime series that I happen to enjoy, Carole & Tuesday. I've never watched The Owl House save for some clips here and there, but judging by fans' reaction to its cancelation, I guess that it's a positive example of a show that did it right. But then, we also have shows that did it wrong, like High Guardian Spice, which got thrashed by even the LGBT crowd, the very audience it was marketed for, for reasons that I won't be pointing here.
Pride Month and Juneteenth are around the corner, and I couldn't help but feeling like wanting to discuss how media has evolved over the years, in relation to how morals have changed... and the people who are still stuck in the past, and unable to accept this change.
Nowadays, it seems that every single media in this current decade must include ALL of the following, and only positive depictions of them are allowed:
- Black characters
- Female characters in powerful, dominant leading roles
- At least ONE transgendered/non-binary/genderfluid character
- At least ONE explicitly gay/lesbian character and their relationships
To be fair, that shouldn't be a bad thing. In fact, the truth is that media had always included all of the above for decades now; the difference was that morals were different back then. Racism and discrimination were still normalized, and the LGBT movement wasn't as strong as it is now, so it used to be more normal to have these portrayed in negative light. Even today, a few countries in the world are still largely homophobic, especially Muslim-majority countries, so local media portrayals of these relationships are still exceedingly negative -- I should know; I live in one such country. =_=
With more and more media these days tried to portray all of the above in more positive light, one term got spread around like wildfire: "forced diversity". The last thing a media would want is to be accused for including forced diversity. There's no concrete definition of forced diversity that I could find -- lots of people are trying to claim that the concept does not exist at all -- and the ones who do define it appear to also be those discriminatory types, which I won't be pointing out in this journal entry. (I do not, and will not, support discrimination of any form.)
Also, villains are almost always straight, for some reason.
My guess is that, the reason why people these days make it such an issue, is because portrayals of these groups are now far more "in-your-face" than before. This can be seen with today's American children shows, which appear to be more "woke" than before, being accused for promoting certain agendas, such as gay pride and one's right for sexual identity. Due to cultural differences and the fear of potentially offending anyone, I will not be commenting on any of these in more depth. (Western culture is still very alien to me, despite being exposed to it all the time via the Internet.) All I can say is that, even with all these positive changes and more positive representations in today's media, a lot of us are still stuck in the past, back when it was traditionally more common to depict them negatively.
So yeah, that's just something I wanted to discuss. There are a few shows that I've watched that appear to fit all of these criteria; for instance, one anime series that I happen to enjoy, Carole & Tuesday. I've never watched The Owl House save for some clips here and there, but judging by fans' reaction to its cancelation, I guess that it's a positive example of a show that did it right. But then, we also have shows that did it wrong, like High Guardian Spice, which got thrashed by even the LGBT crowd, the very audience it was marketed for, for reasons that I won't be pointing here.
But i will point out one thing i dislike.
it's never really "powerful, dominant Women". In fact, I would LOVE more powerful women in media. (Samus, Ripley, to name a few.)
But no, they don't make strong confident women, They make some sorta... weird hybrid? not sure what to call it.
It's like they always gotta have something to prove, Like they need to show they are better than the other hero's.
Witch ironically shows a lack of confidence. And they often come off as whiny and entitled, And not Strong at all.
Real Strong confident women don't need to prove they are, they kick ass and take names.
It took me a while to finally get it why people don't like the post-ROTJ Star Wars movies. Rey just came out as a total Mary Sue for a lot of people, and after watching Rise of Skywalker, I finally get it.
Just, I don't understand WHY characters that were established with certain genders/sexualities.
Suddenly have to be gay or bi. As it flies in the teeth of their design. I mean yeah. Granted, times change, characters evolove
Do they have to have everything change?
An the media >.< Huh boy that's a can of worms.
Their depiction of strength is almost always violence (Use what sells)
So, of course. Their idea of a strong woman is a hyper violent banshee who feeds off of hate.
Not say, a woman who can stand her ground in a board meeting and systematically destroy the "Oh well we know more, we're guys"
leadership. Proving she knows her shite and should be respected and feared.
As for established characters that were previously written to be straight, I guess it's a case of the characters suddenly being retconned to be gay or bi all along, just for the sake of following the changing times. Which, I admit, does felt too shoehorned and clunky. Personally, this betrays the characters' established origins.
And yeah, the media appear to have always had an obsession for showing violence as a show of strength. >_o Because it's more interesting than seeing people fight each other via words alone.
I mean I get it, ya want it entertaining. Apparently violence, is more entertaining then being real
An it's disgusting when one's sexuality is sposed to be the only major thing of the character. That's not a person. That's one dimension character
I appreciate your candor in this and be willing to talk about it with out taking it to extremes. That's a rare thing
Let's take this as an example: The idea of a strong female role model, let's compare the Mulan of the 90s to the Remake 'Mulan'.
90s Mulan had traits that didn't pertain herself to be a traditional wife of the time. When her father was meant to be drafted, in her desperation to protect her father, posed as a male and trained herself from the get go to become tough. The traits we saw as odd and funny started to make sense: Working Efficient, but she needed to hone herself. She wasn't inherently better than any of the male cast but she proved herself a capable soldier through hard work, dedication and grit. Another aspect that was quite forward thinking and resonant with current values (and actually representative of the Xiongnu of the time) is how Shan-Yu treated Mulan as a soldier first and didn't care she was a woman. Mulan was fallible, human, but she was also capable of kicking your ass with everything she learned through trial and error.
Remake 'Mulan' meanwhile gives us a poor execution of a character that's meant to be isolated for having qi like powers, and is repeatedly represented to be perfect but purposefully holding herself back because it'd make her legitimately (and nonsensically) superior to the male cast. 'Mulan' does not succeed on her own merits but rather a one-woman army with little to no flaws. Furthermore, the villain, Bori Khan is blatantly misogynistic because that's a trendy villainous thing these days. It doesn't help 'Mulan's' case where she lacks many emotional moments that were important to the first film, and while one can also blame the material for being bland, the one working with it can always spice it up but we didn't get that. We're not even going to go into the research failures and other controversial aspects. Oh and there's some Sapphic elements in it. I guess.
This is but one example I can think of. What 90s Mulan represents is that women can be men's equals and while not entirely accurate to Ancient Chinese history, it taught valuable lessons about breaking the mould. What Remake 'Mulan' unintentionally teaches unfortunate implications of NOT breaking the mould because you can be possibly be very very special but that's wrong. Alternatively it teaches people that women are superior to men because... Magic? Honestly, the interpretations of what Remake teaches are quite all over the place but it certainly is not doing what the original did. What was supposed to be a strong female lead that people can look at as a role model, we got 'Perfect Woman Hiding Her Perfections as a plot point'.
There are shows, games and other forms of media that represent LGBTQ+, feminism and other modern values in a much better way, in a way that's in service to the characters. But there are many that kinda go with the idea that "we wanna see this and that" without doing it in a way that's interesting. Hell, I've seen great examples in friggin British Soap Operas...
I haven't watched the remake, but after reading reviews about it, now I'm glad that I haven't. >_o Many of these live-action Disney remakes suck.
At least, you didn't say anything too harmful or bad, which is all I care about. :3
And it's good to recognize that, yeah, anyone still ranting about "Forced diversity" today just doesn't like to see diversity, and usually is discriminatory. You won't see us LGBT+ folks or women or other races complain too much since... either it doesn't feel forced to us to, you know... exist? :3 Haha, and even if it feels shoe-horned in or awkward, at least there are positive, helpful intentions behind it. I don't mind if folks are awkward or learning how to be helpful, it's just nice if people are helpful. :3
And people who are bothered by LGBT+ folks, other races, gender, etc. are going to complain about seeing things they don't want to see, usually just because in the end, they simply don't like it or want to see it, and don't like the message behind it.
Currently in the U.S. there's a huge wave of anti-transgender laws and discrimination going on. But it's also the one thing TV and media hasn't touched much on. We're just starting out. So, I'd think it's a good idea for more media to educate people, and make it seem normal and less scary, since they're just different kinds of people. :3 No one can change or force someone else's opinion, and if people don't want to like LGBT+ folks then, I can't help them, but maybe they'll be less cruel to transgender people, like Texas basically making them illegal, arresting kids or parents who are, forcing them to move away to other states, or making fleeing to other states illegal. Maybe if the next generation gets familiar with that stuff early, it'll make the lives of transgender people easier up ahead. :3 I'd think that stuff has helped gays like me, or ladies and other races - even if prejudice and sexism of all kinds are out there, and is a little hard to totally get rid of, I'm at least thankful there's some effort. :3 I'd much rather minorities have happier lives, even if the typical straight white male in the states here has to whine about seeing it. Everyone has their trials, but his life's a lot easier than the rest of ours. ono I want folks from other countries like you to feel welcome and understood here by those types of people too. :3 Because usually, they wouldn't like either of us, haha.
I used to also be bothered by the "forced diversity" phenomenon back in mid-2010s, but that's only due to culture shock. Over here in Malaysia, any positive depictions of LGBT are not allowed: entire movies like Brokeback Mountain are banned outright. Censorships are extremely common, and movies and TV shows face extreme scrutiny to ensure that any content objectionable by the government will be cut before they're even allowed to be aired here. It's a very bothersome way to enjoy a movie. I'm thankful that things like Netflix even exist to begin with. (Actually, now I'm not sure if Netflix could continue to exist, due to the service now suddenly losing subscribers, leading to several planned series to have to be canceled.)
When I started seeing American children's shows suddenly start introducing "woke" topics like racism and LGBT, admittedly, I became worried. Personally, kids are still too young to learn about sexuality, but again, that's also only due to culture shock, and I'm not sure if it's different in the US. When clips of these episodes got posted on YouTube, they're massively disliked to death, back when YouTube used to show the Dislike counter. I'm not sure if the majority of the dislikes came from the right-wingers, or LGBT and people-of-color folks who just felt that these shows just don't represent them right.
A good example of such representation is in Path of Exile, one of the playable characters is a lesbian (the Ranger) and it also has gay villains (Maligaro and Fidelitas) but they never try to make a political point about it, so it feels like a natural inclusion in the game. Oh yeah, another memorable LGBT villain is Sybil Reisz from Transistor. The main character, Red, is actually in a straight relationship and has a boyfriend. Sybil is lesbian and has unrequited romantic feelings for Red, and this is her motivation to commit the terrible acts that set up the plot of the game.
Not to mention that sometimes, the people who want to include these minorities don't know how to naturally write them, and either make them overly-perfect for fear of making them look inferior, or make whatever trait they have into their entire personality (I forget who said this, but Todd from Bojack Horseman is interesting because he's written as a character before he's written as asexual). Wish I could give some more specific examples to show if it's really a thing; glad to see others can provide some.
This especially happens with trying to make strong female characters, who at their worst end up being laddish, violent bullies who hide their emotions and have to constantly assert their strength to be confident in it. UOP put it perfectly with comparing the original Disney Mulan movie (which did it well) and the remake (which failed spectacularly).
Regarding Mulan, yeah, that's mostly why the remake failed miserably: they just don't get it with why the original movie is successful as it is.
A term I’m not readily running across while scrolling through the surprisingly lengthy discussion is queer coding: namely the queer coding of villains. Disney was especially guilty of this up through the 90s. Ursula was modeled after Divine, a drag queen. Prince John, Jafar and Scar all speak for themselves. The only case that it really “worked” was for Professor Ratigan, as the voice actor was literally quite gay, and he hammed it up: playing the role of an embittered ex-lover.
Yet so many people don't seem to remember that.