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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Lit Ignorance is Bias: The Diversity Manifesto

Discussion in 'Literature' started by CooperTFN, Sep 2, 2012.

  1. blackmyron

    blackmyron Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2005
    I'm wondering if he's even figured out which of the posters here are female yet.
     
  2. patchworkz7

    patchworkz7 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2004

    Well, considering his own gender and sexuality confusions...

    ...probably not.
     
  3. Erik_B

    Erik_B Jedi Padawan star 1

    Registered:
    Feb 11, 2014

    Hell. I am British. In video games I might even prefer to play a gay British dude than a straight American. I'll certainly pick British girl over American dude, but if someone offers me Straight British Guy (which with James Bond and Harry Potter I am quite well sorted for) I always seem to plonk for that.
     
  4. blackmyron

    blackmyron Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2005
    What video game is this, exactly?
     
  5. Erik_B

    Erik_B Jedi Padawan star 1

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    Feb 11, 2014

    Might. Currently a theoretical thought exercise, as far as I know.
     
  6. TrakNar

    TrakNar Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 4, 2011
    In Conclave, my brother and I played gender-swapped characters. He played a female Forgeborn (robot/golem) named Dorothy, and I played a male Mezoar (lizardman) named Lizardon. Since that went freemium, we've taken to playing Final Fantasy: The Hunting Grounds, where he plays a White Mage and I play a Black Mage.

    When given the chance, we often play gender-swapped characters. Not entirely sure why.
     
  7. blackmyron

    blackmyron Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2005
    @patchworkz7: Huh. Well, looks like you're batting a thousand here.
     
  8. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 29, 2005
    Alright, I've had enough of this. Erik, you're only here to antagonize the people participating in the thread and appear unwilling to actually contribute to discussion in any kind of meaningful fashion. Since you're just here to troll,



    This is serving no purpose other than to drag the thread through the muck.
     
  9. Vthuil

    Vthuil Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 3, 2013
    Oh, thank mod.

    Now, uh, what were we talking about before?
     
  10. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2012
    "Have we seen any conflicts based on class or the blue/white collar divide?", I think
     
  11. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
    I feel like Marvel actually did a fair bit with the "working class vs elites" concept--back in those days there was so little known about GFFA culture that the villains usually defaulted to either patrician humans like the Tagges or alien dragon monsters who for some reason worked for the Empire.
     
  12. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    Heh, I was just catching up to yesterday's train wreck and was about to make a warning post but Hav beat me to it.

    WEG cast aspects of the GCW in that fashion. Aspects because it's complicated by the fact that ex-senators and displaced nobles were Rebels too, just as some Imperials were poor people who joined the Party apparatus.


    Missa ab iPhona mea est.
     
  13. Point Given

    Point Given Manager star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Dec 12, 2006
     
  14. Darth_Garak

    Darth_Garak Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 28, 2005
    So I just looked over the last few pages ...... what in the world was that all about?
     
  15. Robimus

    Robimus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 6, 2007
    I'm happy to see the growing diversity as well in the Star Wars Universe, I'm just not sure about this whole "identify with" thing that seems to be coming up of late. I just don't think that people of any skin color or sexual preference had any problems identifying with Luke Skywalker.

    I have no problems watching a Jackie Chan film and "identifying" with the hero, while decidedly not "identifying" with the white villain - because one is a good person and one is not. I've also never had issue "identifying" with Star Wars characters that don't share my skin color. That has never been a prerequisite and I don't think it has anything to do with skin color.

    Sometimes it seems like there is a fine line being walked between making Star Wars more accessible and welcoming to all fans and telling these same fans, "finally, you have someone you can identify with, someone you can cheer for, someone you can cosplay as", - as if they hadn't been doing that all along already. It makes the franchise better, it doesn't suddenly flip a switch and say "your suddenly welcome here now", because everyone was always welcome - increased diversity may make someone feel more welcome but I don't think it was ever a requirement for fans who don't happen to be white.

    The long term benefits of this increased diversity will likely be best represented by new fans, kids who will grow up with these new characters. Having positive role models growing up is a huge thing and the fact that some of these role models will be more diverse can only mean good things.
     
  16. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    I don't disagree with the identification thing. It's never been relevant to me that somebody needs to look like me, especially as I'm rather unlike people who look like me. I'm also offended by the idea that somebody who looks like me knows my life or has anything to do with me. I dislike it in politics and in media.

    That having been said, some people feel differently. And I will say that there is something of a sense of exclusion if everybody looks a certain way and doesn't admit anybody looking differently. It may be perceived rather than intended, but perceptions can be no less real.

    I was meeting friends at a club that apparently had a big black fraternities event going on. Though I was just waiting for people, I felt like I stood out. It was awkward. I feel like a lot of people would have felt the same. But then we get the idea that if it were a place full of white people, well that's just normal.

    Perhaps it is. But people might still feel awkward. It's the same principle with SW. I might not usually have issues with representation but others certainly might. Kids might internalize things differently too.


    Missa ab iPhona mea est.
     
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  17. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
    I always come back to the Clark doll experiment here--they gave very small children a black doll and a white doll and asked them to pick the "good" and "bad" one, and kids of both races unerringly picked the white doll as "good". That suggests that yes, POC can indeed identify with white characters when that's all they're presented with, but to force them to do so instills some really insidious ideas about their own self-worth. It's subtle, but on a generational scale, very harmful. Another subtle side-effect: it gives people with aggressively insular worldviews a lot of rhetorical wiggle room to say things like, oh, "Star Wars is the story of white people versus other white people". Just because it doesn't have to be interpreted that way doesn't mean it shouldn't have a responsibility to fight that interpretation. Ignorance is, well, you know.
     
  18. Robimus

    Robimus Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jul 6, 2007
    I don't disagree, everyone is different. People are going to have been shaped by their surroundings and upbringing.

    While I myself might feel out of place in a black Church, I'd feel equally out of place - if not more out of place, in a Ukrainian church where everyone shares my skin color, but not my language. I don't think the feeling automatically comes back to skin color, there are a lot of factors in play. Skin color can certainly be one of them.

    If Asian girls are suddenly encouraged to cosplay as Sabine because of her skin tone that is awesome, but it is kind of a disservice to asian girls who have already been cosplaying as Mandalorians to suggest or imply that the creation of Sabine finally allowed them to participate. That is the distinction I'm looking at.

    To me it is more about how you fight it. I mean did you ever post a picture of ethnically diverse Star Wars cosplayers before the one you posted of the 'Rebels' team? You never really said specifically why you posted that image?
     
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  19. Darth_Garak

    Darth_Garak Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 28, 2005
    I never got the whole identify with the protagonist thing. I'll generally like characters whose moral compass is close to my own or who are cool/badass enough I don't care - their skin color, gender or species doesn't even matter. In TOR I have only two white humans and they are brother and sister (the Sith Warrior and the Trooper), all my other characters are aliens (my smuggler is a red sith woman because I thought that would be interesting to see).

    I mean how can I identify with these heroes anyway since my life is normal - no prophecy of being the chosen one, no blood oath of vengeance to swear against someone who killed my family, no home planet being blown up etc. (Once again intentional hyperbole on my part). I like the heroes that I like because of the sort of people they are not any shallow visual similarities between me and them. The more diversity in characters the better.

    And I like the villains I like because evil looks cool and it's fun to play the bad guy some times and do something you normally wouldn't. As an example when it comes to just about any franchise or game I prefer to see inter-species cooperation than raging xenophobia, enlightened outlooks on the universe instead of superstitious dark age fears ....... except when I go read/play 40k. Then I embrace the Imperium of Man and all it's glorious insanity like Jello embraces the Galactic Empire on these boards.
     
  20. MercenaryAce

    MercenaryAce Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 10, 2005
    On identification: you know, lately I have found it easier to identify with one of my characters the farther away from me they are - I usually make a non-human when that option is available, when I make a human, they are usually non-white*, and almost always female, regardless of human or not.

    *I also have some Native American ancestry, but its not something anyone would notice.
     
  21. Darth_Garak

    Darth_Garak Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jul 28, 2005
    I've been playing a female character since Dragon Age or Mass Effect (can't remember which came out first). For DA:I I already know what I'll play as: female Qunari.
     
  22. patchworkz7

    patchworkz7 Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2004
    Look, I love them, but not everything is about Mandos. And while there may be Asian people cosplaying as Asian Jedi, Asian Mando, Asian stormtrooper, that's not the same as having a protagonist who is Asian.

    Read about how Whoopi Goldberg felt as a child seeing a black woman on the bridge of the Enterprise...and an officer, not a maid or wise black friend or space shaman.

    Read about Anthony Mackie and how emotional he gets that white kids, black kids, and everything in between are going to be dressing as The Falcon next year for Halloween thanks to Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

    Yaya Han cosplays as Jessica Rabbit and Slave Leia...you can cosplay as anything you want, but it's still not the same as having canonical protagonists who reflect the multi-cultural make-up of a fanbase.

    You can genderswap cosplay too, that doesn't mean creatives should not bother creating strong and inspiring female characters.

    I don't want to speak for Mike, but I'm sure he posted the cosplay picture to show that these were fans who were cosplaying not just as "Asian Mandalorian" or "Asian Slave Leia" but as the actual characters. I don't really know how to break it down any more than that.
     
  23. Cynical_Ben

    Cynical_Ben Force Ghost star 4

    Registered:
    Aug 12, 2013
    I don't worry about identifying with protagonists as much as I worry about finding them compelling. It doesn't matter what race or gender a protagonist or other character is to me so long as I want to keep watching them/playing their game/etc. If they're boring, annoying or just bland and cookie-cutter, I don't care enough to keep engaged. And a character being compelling for me has nothing to do with their race or gender. Falcon was a compelling character in Cap 2, I want to know more about him, see him in more movies. But he's not a compelling character in Avengers Assemble because that show's written for six-year-olds and doesn't have anything resembling character depth or development.

    Better example: the difference between the protagonists of Assassin's Creed 1 and 2. At the beginning of their games, Altair is a hyper-competent, arrogant and headstrong man of Middle-Eastern descent, while Ezio is a womanizing, brawling, devil-may-care Italian. Ezio is the more compelling of the two for me, because he has a long-brewing character arc where he deals with the multitude of insane situations he's thrust into on account of his bloodline while trying to get revenge for his slain family members. Altair's arc is... boring. He is stripped of his rank and tools, then has to earn them back, ostensibly learning humility, until it turns out that his teacher is, spoiler alert, the real enemy he faces and was just using him, meaning that Altair was basically right all along.

    There is something to be said for the diversity of a cast to make for more compelling and diverse characters, because this lends them more diverse personalities, pasts and backgrounds and lets the writers approach things from a lot of different angles. A diverse cast is seldom a boring one, unless the writers really, really suck at their jobs. Nor are compelling stories and characters only possible with a diverse cast. But it helps. Look at Justice League/JLUnlimited. Sure, there are a lot of white people in the show (Of course, that's not counting being from a different planet/plane of reality as different race) and the gender divide is skewed a bit, but there are very few characters in the entirety of their massive cast who aren't compelling, regardless of race or gender. That show turned Jon Stewart from the least known Green Lantern into the best known Green Lantern, with Hal Jordan only taking the reigns back as the movie was coming out.

    I wonder how much better the Green Lantern movie would have been if it told Jon's story instead of Hal's? Couldn't have been much worse, anyway.
     
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  24. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
    No, please, continue to speak for me. :)

    Also, again, the doll thing. With regard to the Rebels family, I'm happy for all of them to have characters that actually look like they do, but I'm really happy for the children--because they're still young enough to have the formative experience Whoopi Goldberg had.

    On the other hand, the daughter is playing a Twi'lek...shut up.
     
    Mia Mesharad likes this.
  25. TrakNar

    TrakNar Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 4, 2011
    When I was customizing my Trainer character in Pokemon, I decided on a whim to actually play as a girl (I usually play as a boy) and while looking through the hair/skin color options, I picked black hair/dark skin. I wanted to see how close to my actual looks I could make that Trainer character. In real life, I have black hair and skin the color of egg nog. If I'm out in the sun long enough, I can get a decent tan before I burn, but that tan just makes my skin look yellow.

    That was probably the third time that I actually took the time to try and make the character look like me, despite limited options. My Trainer has since gotten green eyes (like mine) and short hair (like mine). She still has dark skin, but I think she's a decent in-game representation. If I let my hair grow out some and lose the glasses, I could legitimately cosplay as my Trainer character.

    Other than that, I usually play as whatever weirdness I can conjure up. Lizardman? Check. Elvis the Gray Alien from Perfect Dark 64? Check, and my player profile is named Iggy. Faerie alchemist in DnD? Check. Droid sniper in Battlefront? Check. If it's nonhuman and/or male, I usually play as it.
     
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