4 ms·

In a movie landscape of formulaic sequels, uninspired remakes, endless superhero flicks, and a total lack of original ips... why is more diversity the first fac

In a movie landscape of formulaic sequels, uninspired remakes, endless superhero flicks, and a total lack of original ips... why is more diversity the first factor you jump to?

hotcold 5y ago
The new variable in the equation, and the only one I hear people complaining about. The things you mention have always existed and people were able to sift through them to find the gems. However the more recent subtle political messaging, sprinkled into most modern media, really turns people off.
ipaddr 5y ago
The forced unreal diversity makes things unbelievable. The black and white couple with only gay Asian children under 10 with a Latino teenager makes everything into a farce. All of those things happen but not all at once all of the time. It's labelled as progressive but it's regressive and mocks each minority group along the way.
- krapp 5y ago
  > The black and white couple with only gay Asian children under 10 with a Latino teenager makes everything into a farce. That doesn't happen. No one is writing movies where people who aren't Latino just have Latino children to score "progressive points" or whatever. Interracial couples do exist. Asians and Latinos exist, and their portrayal in media isn't any more "progressive" than portraying any other race or ethnicity, it's just realistic. And anyone of any race, including interracial couples, can have gay children. Most of the "farce" you've described is perfectly normal. >It's labelled as progressive but it's regressive and mocks each minority group along the way. I doubt there is anyone in any minority group who feels mocked by greater representation. But, as a Gay Black Asian Latino yourself, you can probably tell us what it's like.
  - slibhb 5y ago
    > I doubt there is anyone in any minority group who feels mocked by greater representation. But, as a Gay Black Asian Latino yourself, you can probably tell us what it's like. Are you unfamiliar with the concept of tokenism? To me and to many others, though not to you, certain parts seem to exist purely to collect diversity points. This seems like pandering to me, and I expect it is insulting to anyone who views it that way. For some people, being a token is even more demeaning than being excluded.
    - krapp 5y ago
      Sure, having the one black or gay character in a tv show is obvious tokenism, particularly when portrayed as shallow stereotype, but it seems to me as if any attempt at representation nowadays is written off as "political" or tokenism, even when it's sincere. It's like, you can have Asians OR Latinos OR Blacks OR gays but no more than two, and they can't stack, and you definitely can't rewrite an existing character to represent some other race, religion, gender, sex or nationality even if you yourself are of that race, religion, gender, sex or nationality. That's a narrow minded view and unfortunately a common one.
      - slibhb 5y ago
        > Sure, having the one black or gay character in a tv show is obvious tokenism, particularly when portrayed as shallow stereotype, but it seems to me as if any attempt at representation nowadays is written off as "political" or tokenism, even when it's sincere. This is the crux of the issue. To me, "attempts at representation" are demeaning by definition. Giving someone a part because of their skin color or sex or sexual orientation is demeaning. Diversity has to be genuine for it to be good. You have to cast an actor or write a part because you thought the actor was good or the part works, not as part of an "attempt at representation".
        watwut 5y ago
        Yeah, if all characters are white guys, we know it is because of them being all super awesome. Mediocre white guy characters are everywhere and where everywhere. Why is it such an insult to be those roles filled by others?
paulpauper 5y ago
Same story but more diversity in casting
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Yep. Mostly taking former white roles, and just replacing the actors/characters to be black... There are whole conspiracies about hollywood being against gingers specifically. Instead of taking a new story, and making a new movie with something we haven't seen before 50 times (and here they can take some story from an actually diverse world), they take an old story (eg snow white), that we've seen many times, in many forms (books, cartoons, movies, comics,...), and replace the actress who should have "skin white as snow" (literal quote from the book) with someone more "diverse". Africa and asia are huge places, with many different people and cultures and that creates many tales, stories and legends... And hollywood? Let's take a 1960s cartoon (eg 101. dalmatians), make Anita black, and then make a movie out of that.. or (previously mentioned) snow white, make her columbian, and make (another) movie out of that. Are they really so incompetent, that they cannot create anything new? Or are the beancounters stopping any risks, so they feed us 200+ year old fairytales, that we've seen before?
  - kelnos 5y ago
    I'm not sure why you're so offended by remakes of things where the race of a main character has changed (on the grounds that writers should be able to come up with some new stories), but for some reason are ok with remakes where the race of a main character is kept white. > Or are the beancounters stopping any risks, so they feed us 200+ year old fairytales, that we've seen before? I mean, yes, I think this should be pretty obviously the case, given all the remakes and reboots we've seen in the past decade or two. This has nothing to do with some diversity conspiracy, though. To be fair, though, I do think there is at least some creativity in animated movies recently (that don't specifically target a white audience), for example (IMO fantastic) movies like Coco and Soul.
    - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
      Snow White is white in the story itself - "skin as white as snow". It's a "historic" fairytale set in northern europe, where people are white. It has many adaptations, where they keep to the canon, and she's... well, white as snow. It's literally in the title. Snow white has "skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood and hair as black as ebony". Even if she stays white, if the actress was blonde, that would bother me... she's not Snow White anymore. I know this page is very american-centric, but snow white was one of the stories most of us here in europe read (or listened to our parents read) as kids, and we all remember the story, and the image of Snow White, we've all built in our heads.

In a movie landscape of formulaic sequels, uninspired remakes, endless superhero flicks, and a total lack of original ips... why is more diversity the first factor you jump to?

hotcold 5y ago

The new variable in the equation, and the only one I hear people complaining about. The things you mention have always existed and people were able to sift through them to find the gems. However the more recent subtle political messaging, sprinkled into most modern media, really turns people off.

ipaddr 5y ago

The forced unreal diversity makes things unbelievable. The black and white couple with only gay Asian children under 10 with a Latino teenager makes everything into a farce. All of those things happen but not all at once all of the time. It's labelled as progressive but it's regressive and mocks each minority group along the way.

krapp 5y ago
> The black and white couple with only gay Asian children under 10 with a Latino teenager makes everything into a farce. That doesn't happen. No one is writing movies where people who aren't Latino just have Latino children to score "progressive points" or whatever. Interracial couples do exist. Asians and Latinos exist, and their portrayal in media isn't any more "progressive" than portraying any other race or ethnicity, it's just realistic. And anyone of any race, including interracial couples, can have gay children. Most of the "farce" you've described is perfectly normal. >It's labelled as progressive but it's regressive and mocks each minority group along the way. I doubt there is anyone in any minority group who feels mocked by greater representation. But, as a Gay Black Asian Latino yourself, you can probably tell us what it's like.
- slibhb 5y ago
  > I doubt there is anyone in any minority group who feels mocked by greater representation. But, as a Gay Black Asian Latino yourself, you can probably tell us what it's like. Are you unfamiliar with the concept of tokenism? To me and to many others, though not to you, certain parts seem to exist purely to collect diversity points. This seems like pandering to me, and I expect it is insulting to anyone who views it that way. For some people, being a token is even more demeaning than being excluded.
  - krapp 5y ago
    Sure, having the one black or gay character in a tv show is obvious tokenism, particularly when portrayed as shallow stereotype, but it seems to me as if any attempt at representation nowadays is written off as "political" or tokenism, even when it's sincere. It's like, you can have Asians OR Latinos OR Blacks OR gays but no more than two, and they can't stack, and you definitely can't rewrite an existing character to represent some other race, religion, gender, sex or nationality even if you yourself are of that race, religion, gender, sex or nationality. That's a narrow minded view and unfortunately a common one.
    - slibhb 5y ago
      > Sure, having the one black or gay character in a tv show is obvious tokenism, particularly when portrayed as shallow stereotype, but it seems to me as if any attempt at representation nowadays is written off as "political" or tokenism, even when it's sincere. This is the crux of the issue. To me, "attempts at representation" are demeaning by definition. Giving someone a part because of their skin color or sex or sexual orientation is demeaning. Diversity has to be genuine for it to be good. You have to cast an actor or write a part because you thought the actor was good or the part works, not as part of an "attempt at representation".
      - watwut 5y ago
        Yeah, if all characters are white guys, we know it is because of them being all super awesome. Mediocre white guy characters are everywhere and where everywhere. Why is it such an insult to be those roles filled by others?

paulpauper 5y ago

Same story but more diversity in casting

ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Yep. Mostly taking former white roles, and just replacing the actors/characters to be black... There are whole conspiracies about hollywood being against gingers specifically. Instead of taking a new story, and making a new movie with something we haven't seen before 50 times (and here they can take some story from an actually diverse world), they take an old story (eg snow white), that we've seen many times, in many forms (books, cartoons, movies, comics,...), and replace the actress who should have "skin white as snow" (literal quote from the book) with someone more "diverse". Africa and asia are huge places, with many different people and cultures and that creates many tales, stories and legends... And hollywood? Let's take a 1960s cartoon (eg 101. dalmatians), make Anita black, and then make a movie out of that.. or (previously mentioned) snow white, make her columbian, and make (another) movie out of that. Are they really so incompetent, that they cannot create anything new? Or are the beancounters stopping any risks, so they feed us 200+ year old fairytales, that we've seen before?
- kelnos 5y ago
  I'm not sure why you're so offended by remakes of things where the race of a main character has changed (on the grounds that writers should be able to come up with some new stories), but for some reason are ok with remakes where the race of a main character is kept white. > Or are the beancounters stopping any risks, so they feed us 200+ year old fairytales, that we've seen before? I mean, yes, I think this should be pretty obviously the case, given all the remakes and reboots we've seen in the past decade or two. This has nothing to do with some diversity conspiracy, though. To be fair, though, I do think there is at least some creativity in animated movies recently (that don't specifically target a white audience), for example (IMO fantastic) movies like Coco and Soul.
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    Snow White is white in the story itself - "skin as white as snow". It's a "historic" fairytale set in northern europe, where people are white. It has many adaptations, where they keep to the canon, and she's... well, white as snow. It's literally in the title. Snow white has "skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood and hair as black as ebony". Even if she stays white, if the actress was blonde, that would bother me... she's not Snow White anymore. I know this page is very american-centric, but snow white was one of the stories most of us here in europe read (or listened to our parents read) as kids, and we all remember the story, and the image of Snow White, we've all built in our heads.