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Representation in media and why it's good/bad
6 years ago
Lately, i've been finding myself discussing the topic of representation of POC, Women, LGBTQ+ and such with increasing number of people, both on the left and right end of spectrum, collecting a serious number of Nazi,Bigot, Communist, SJW and such from either side. This stems from my argument that representation, while not bad, is usually done rather heavy handedly or straight up insulting, both to the audience and people it claims to represent. Before i get to the meat of it, it must be said that i tend to generalize for expediancy sakes and that im well aware there are enough people and circumstances that dont fit the "norm", so dont worry, I dont do it with malicious intent or ignorance. With that said...
Representation is the easiest thing to do and, ironically, extremly easy to fuck up. Ya want to represent a certain minority? BOOM, just add them. Thats the gist of it and nobody in their right mind will complain about it, unless they are part of the group that hates that minority, in which case, fuck em. Where things get complicated is when chosing the media where to represent them. Movies, as a staple, are visual (duh) and actions usually shape the character more than the words do. Some minority representation works easier here (just plonk a PoC in and ya is done) while things like sexuality are rather...complicated, to say the least. Due to the way this particular media conveys the message, you NEED to work the sexuality into the story somehow if one wants to convey it, cause, for all intent and purposes, unless clearly shown, each character could be anything. There are plethora of ways to do this - in the past, it was done via stereotypes (hello lisping gay!) or by a sudden reveal (see Paranorman), but since both ways were played for laughs, they are hardly worth of being called Representation, since the intended group was played for laughs. You can also have the character state they are gay, a tactic that usually brings the run of the movie to a grinding halt, since you dont really have people stating out loud what sexuality they see themselves drawn to. Easiest would be is to give the character a boyfriend, hint at it or put him in situation where it becomes apparent. All of these are rather glaring, but as said, portraying sexuality elegantly is really, REALLY hard in a pure action and visual media. I might be alone on this, but i still think that Mortal Kombat X, of all people, did it rather elegantly with Kung Jin, a scene so good it was WASTED on that shit game. Umbrella Academy, a series on Netflix, also hat a rather great gay character (Klaus) who was, despite somewhat stereotypical, a very well written and deep character. What im getting at, representation of sexuality can and should be done, but HOW its done is the issue here.
After all, all these things are just facettes of persons personality - a straight guy doesnt ALWAYS date a girl, think of girls or fuck girls, and given the scope of most movies, we only see a interesting moment of that persons life. For all we know, James Bond only woos girls during the time we see him as part of his Spy job, to get info or closer to the target - he could be a leather daddy banging twinks as soon as the camera looks away for all we know. I know, bad example, but example non the less. What im trying to hint at, the sexuality of a person isnt their whole thing, their only label and, if one wants to point at that aspect of their personality, one needs to incorporate it organically - unless the goal is only to pander and put labels. Like with Overwatch, where Traces and Soldier 76 are lesbian/gay in the west, but turn suddenly straight when the game is promoted in countries that arent as liberal with the LGBTQ+ movement - id see it as an insult, personally, since the big company is using my identity to promote itself in the eyes of the public, but what do I know...
So far, there isn't a problem with representation at all - after all, all these people exist in real life, so its only fitting to portray them in media as well. Where this starts to be a problem is when you try to do this with properties that are already established and one does it extremly wrong. I'll take Witcher as an example here - the big kerfuffle with it was portraying certain characters by PoC actors. Now, witcher, while fantasy, is heavily based on polish history, a country that, at best of times, had so little PoC running around that they wrote it down when one of em showed so far up north. Tha majority of characters you meet in games are also white as snow, so pushing for the 50% PoC representation here is not only wrong towards the material, but also insulting to polish people, This setting would prove a much more fertile ground for sexuality and gender representation, but NOT racial representation. If they really, REALLY want to have their cake and fuck it, send witcher down south, let him meet new and interesting characters instead of taking established ones and changing them up. And thats the gist here - taking an established character and changing them up. This is a hit or miss and is one of those things that best works on case by case basis. I watched Gotham, for example, and there are a lot of PoC actors playing canonically white characters in it, but the SETTING allows this, so I never raised an eyebrow at that. Also, taking an established property and changing up the main character with minority/gender/sexuality works if you can explain it in canon. For captain america, for example, there were many cases where the title was passed on, so you can plop anyone in there with no problems. Batman is a more difficult thing to do, since bruce wayne and his backstory plays such a huge part in it - so, he could pass the title on, but he would still need to kinda stick around. You can make Thor female, but that gets us to the actual reason people have a heavy dislike for representation - Politics.
Its one thing to have a female Thor, but a tottally different one if the said Thor-ette(?) spouts feminist politics and beats up the eeeeevil misoginists, Its one thing to have a gay character, and other thing to have him spouting walls of text how oppressed they are and how they cant gay it up like proper gay cause of gay hating bashers. Once the entertainment media starts preaching, it tends to get ugly. Its even uglier cause, in most cases, the creators are so dead set on passing on a message that they dont bother making a GOOD movie, like with Black Panther, where every white person was being racist and condescending to to such a silly level, that I couldnt take it seriously. And ofcourse, the movie preached - a lot. If it was a fun action movie to watch, these moments could be overlooked. But it was such a boring movie with pretty drab action scenes so the moments it was politicizing stuck out like sore thumbs. I know this movie was deemed as important to African American community (at least, the media deemed it that way), but putting heavy politics in what is essentially a popcorn cinema is kinda missing the point. Now, one can say, im a white person and this movie wasnt meant for me - and yes, Im slav, and this movie was just pure racism, just not for the usual racist crowd.
And yeah, to sum it up - representation good; representation to convey politics bad; representation to manipulate public to think you are great - awful.
Representation is the easiest thing to do and, ironically, extremly easy to fuck up. Ya want to represent a certain minority? BOOM, just add them. Thats the gist of it and nobody in their right mind will complain about it, unless they are part of the group that hates that minority, in which case, fuck em. Where things get complicated is when chosing the media where to represent them. Movies, as a staple, are visual (duh) and actions usually shape the character more than the words do. Some minority representation works easier here (just plonk a PoC in and ya is done) while things like sexuality are rather...complicated, to say the least. Due to the way this particular media conveys the message, you NEED to work the sexuality into the story somehow if one wants to convey it, cause, for all intent and purposes, unless clearly shown, each character could be anything. There are plethora of ways to do this - in the past, it was done via stereotypes (hello lisping gay!) or by a sudden reveal (see Paranorman), but since both ways were played for laughs, they are hardly worth of being called Representation, since the intended group was played for laughs. You can also have the character state they are gay, a tactic that usually brings the run of the movie to a grinding halt, since you dont really have people stating out loud what sexuality they see themselves drawn to. Easiest would be is to give the character a boyfriend, hint at it or put him in situation where it becomes apparent. All of these are rather glaring, but as said, portraying sexuality elegantly is really, REALLY hard in a pure action and visual media. I might be alone on this, but i still think that Mortal Kombat X, of all people, did it rather elegantly with Kung Jin, a scene so good it was WASTED on that shit game. Umbrella Academy, a series on Netflix, also hat a rather great gay character (Klaus) who was, despite somewhat stereotypical, a very well written and deep character. What im getting at, representation of sexuality can and should be done, but HOW its done is the issue here.
After all, all these things are just facettes of persons personality - a straight guy doesnt ALWAYS date a girl, think of girls or fuck girls, and given the scope of most movies, we only see a interesting moment of that persons life. For all we know, James Bond only woos girls during the time we see him as part of his Spy job, to get info or closer to the target - he could be a leather daddy banging twinks as soon as the camera looks away for all we know. I know, bad example, but example non the less. What im trying to hint at, the sexuality of a person isnt their whole thing, their only label and, if one wants to point at that aspect of their personality, one needs to incorporate it organically - unless the goal is only to pander and put labels. Like with Overwatch, where Traces and Soldier 76 are lesbian/gay in the west, but turn suddenly straight when the game is promoted in countries that arent as liberal with the LGBTQ+ movement - id see it as an insult, personally, since the big company is using my identity to promote itself in the eyes of the public, but what do I know...
So far, there isn't a problem with representation at all - after all, all these people exist in real life, so its only fitting to portray them in media as well. Where this starts to be a problem is when you try to do this with properties that are already established and one does it extremly wrong. I'll take Witcher as an example here - the big kerfuffle with it was portraying certain characters by PoC actors. Now, witcher, while fantasy, is heavily based on polish history, a country that, at best of times, had so little PoC running around that they wrote it down when one of em showed so far up north. Tha majority of characters you meet in games are also white as snow, so pushing for the 50% PoC representation here is not only wrong towards the material, but also insulting to polish people, This setting would prove a much more fertile ground for sexuality and gender representation, but NOT racial representation. If they really, REALLY want to have their cake and fuck it, send witcher down south, let him meet new and interesting characters instead of taking established ones and changing them up. And thats the gist here - taking an established character and changing them up. This is a hit or miss and is one of those things that best works on case by case basis. I watched Gotham, for example, and there are a lot of PoC actors playing canonically white characters in it, but the SETTING allows this, so I never raised an eyebrow at that. Also, taking an established property and changing up the main character with minority/gender/sexuality works if you can explain it in canon. For captain america, for example, there were many cases where the title was passed on, so you can plop anyone in there with no problems. Batman is a more difficult thing to do, since bruce wayne and his backstory plays such a huge part in it - so, he could pass the title on, but he would still need to kinda stick around. You can make Thor female, but that gets us to the actual reason people have a heavy dislike for representation - Politics.
Its one thing to have a female Thor, but a tottally different one if the said Thor-ette(?) spouts feminist politics and beats up the eeeeevil misoginists, Its one thing to have a gay character, and other thing to have him spouting walls of text how oppressed they are and how they cant gay it up like proper gay cause of gay hating bashers. Once the entertainment media starts preaching, it tends to get ugly. Its even uglier cause, in most cases, the creators are so dead set on passing on a message that they dont bother making a GOOD movie, like with Black Panther, where every white person was being racist and condescending to to such a silly level, that I couldnt take it seriously. And ofcourse, the movie preached - a lot. If it was a fun action movie to watch, these moments could be overlooked. But it was such a boring movie with pretty drab action scenes so the moments it was politicizing stuck out like sore thumbs. I know this movie was deemed as important to African American community (at least, the media deemed it that way), but putting heavy politics in what is essentially a popcorn cinema is kinda missing the point. Now, one can say, im a white person and this movie wasnt meant for me - and yes, Im slav, and this movie was just pure racism, just not for the usual racist crowd.
And yeah, to sum it up - representation good; representation to convey politics bad; representation to manipulate public to think you are great - awful.
They're inclusive, but at the same time they don't put anyone on a pedestal.
For instance, while it does come up every now and then, Kelly Kapoor's race is the furthest thing from anyone's mind when she starts talking.
And Stanley, he's not just the office's black man, he's also the black burnt out shell of a former man who's all but given up on life and finding any joy or thrill in it.