Marvel Officially Acquires Alien and Predator Comic License

[BlueMarsalis79]

Often true.

[SiL]

Would Rey have suddenly been more interesting or better written if she were male?

Of course not. That's the whole underlying bigotry of the argument; it's not that Rey's a badly written character, it's that she's a badly written character because they made her a woman to force diversity, and that somehow broke everything.

[Perfect-Organism]

Well she has Latino in her regardless.

Of course, but why not portray her as a white Latina -- they do exist, clearly, and even Disney featured one in Big Hero Six -- instead of putting her in brown face? That was the problem.

I'm Australian, that wouldn't make it OK to put me in black face and have me play an indigenous Australian.

Isn't part of the definition of acting to put on a performance of being someone you're not?

[SiL]

If that's your takeaway of the history of black face and minstrel shows I've really got nothing for you.

[Local Trouble]

Yeah, it doesn't really matter how many boxes they tick on the representation checklist if the writing is poor.  If anything, it does a disservice to the very people they're ostensibly trying to help.

[BlueMarsalis79]

The best way to get genuine representation for a character, obviously being, getting people for who it concerns involved in the writing and characterisation, no such thing as forced diversity far as I'm concerned, apart from if it's intended as a historical and for whatever reason the decision's incongruous with the history.

[SiL]

Yeah, it doesn't really matter how many boxes they tick on the representation checklist if the writing is poor.  If anything, it does a disservice to the very people they're ostensibly trying to help.

But if they're poorly written heterosexual white guys, is everything fine?

The notion that POC, female, or LGBTQI characters are only worthwhile if they're particularly well written just feels like more fuel to not include them. "Don't be diverse if they're not perfectly well written, just stick with the default" feels kind of shitty?

[Engineer]

Local trouble that's jasmine from Aladdin. She's Asian not black.

Jasmine wasn't Asian, she was Persian.

[Kradan]

I had no idea there were fans that actively disliked Dead Orbit.

Same

[Local Trouble]

Yeah, it doesn't really matter how many boxes they tick on the representation checklist if the writing is poor.  If anything, it does a disservice to the very people they're ostensibly trying to help.

But if they're poorly written heterosexual white guys, is everything fine?

No, they suck too.

The notion that POC, female, or LGBTQI characters are only worthwhile if they're particularly well written just feels like more fuel to not include them. "Don't be diverse if they're not perfectly well written, just stick with the default" feels kind of shitty?

I think it's more "don't just be diverse and just call it a day, hoping that you'll get by on that alone."  I'll take a well-written lesbian POC over the live-action Anakin Skywalker any day.

[SiL]

I think it's more "don't just be diverse and just call it a day, hoping that you'll get by on that alone."  I'll take a well-written lesbian POC over the live-action Anakin Skywalker any day.

You're still comparing a well-written character to a poorly written character, at which point why does the lesbian POC part become relevant?

That's my problem here -- the line between "bad writing" and "forced diversity" is whether the character is something other than a straight white dude.

[BlueMarsalis79]

Blah blah blah

[SM]

I just wanted to add my two cents to what EVIL was saying earlier. This is specifically to SM, Jonsey, and 426. Nothing he said was racist, homophobic, or sexist. His whole point was that their is a trend in a lot of movie studios and comics especially Disney where they will make a character just for the point of them being a minority. These characters typically end up being written very poorly and are uninteresting, the reason why people are getting so annoyed with these types of characters is because people will them say that you are this or that if you say that they are a poorly written character. A good example of this is Rey from Star Wars. And on the whole marvel as always been political yes you are correct they have been, but they were put in very subtly and not in your face like how it's done now.

Yeah because Iron Fist and Luke Cage are oh so subtle.

[SiL]

It's just not cool using people's very real marginalised identities to bump your sales, whilst simultaneously (to go back to the sequel trilogy) cutting Finn out of your Chinese posters. (Not to mention shit like turning your American-Guatemalan character into a dru- I mean, spice runner.)

What really drives me crazy, is people saying I'm (insert derogatory adjective of choice and that's the only reason I don't like Y) for saying "I do not like X thing, it's bad, Y is a bad character."

No such thing as forced diversity as far as I'm concerned, unless you're making a (intended to be faithful) historical thing, and for whatever reason you made a casting/character decision that's incongruous with the time and place.

No arguments here for any of that. What they did to John Boyega was appalling, and filling your diverse cast with diverse racial stereotypes is some fierce bullshit.

[Local Trouble]

I think it's more "don't just be diverse and just call it a day, hoping that you'll get by on that alone."  I'll take a well-written lesbian POC over the live-action Anakin Skywalker any day.

You're still comparing a well-written character to a poorly written character, at which point why does the lesbian POC part become relevant?

That's my problem here -- the line between "bad writing" and "forced diversity" is whether the character is something other than a straight white dude.

I'm honestly not sure what we're at odds about now.