Lit Ignorance is Bias: The Diversity Manifesto

Where the "episodes" are concerned I agree, but I can conceive of a situation in a young Han movie, say, where there's some random tertiary gay couple involved--the spinoffs will have a lot more leeway for getting into average GFFA culture. Am I expecting it, not really, but I don't think it's totally unlikely.

 

I expect you're right, but that's a bunch of crap. Plenty of heterosexuals are always established in the movies, so it's hypocritical double standards to say that the orientation of gay characters just wouldn't come up.
There's enough original novels coming out that it would be pretty ridiculous if fair LGBT diversity weren't included going forward. Even if the movies fail to have gay diversity, there are bound to be hundreds of original characters created just for the novels over the years.

 

I haven't gotten around to reading any of the new books, but I will, so I didn't know what the diversity looked like there.

I am still sceptical and concerned for the LGBT diversity even in the novels. Doing better with gender and racial diversity is great, but that's a fairly safe move compared to LGBT characters. I'll be very happy to be wrong, but mainstream genre media hasn't left me any reason to expect fair diversity in this aspect. Not when, for example, as far as I know the Star Wars online game still only has gay characters segregated to one planet, for example. It wouldn't surprise me if we had great gender and racial diversity with complete LGBT erasure - which is what JJ has done with both of his Star Trek movies despite a couple of interviews I've read where he addressed concerns for the issue and said that there was talk of having gay diversity somewhere in both movies, he completely failed on that front. It's debatable how good his racial and gender diversity is, with an overwhelming number of male character vs the one or two female characters in both movies, and the main characters of both movies are all white men.

In his defense, he is working with a cast of well established characters. Spock and Kirk are the stars, and they are long established as heterosexual white men. But that's not to say the minority characters Uhura and Sulu couldn't be given more to do, that the original characters created for both movies couldn't have been more diverse - even two men holding hands in the background of the bar would be more LGBT diversity than the entire franchise on screen has ever done. Sorry if that rant is veering OT, but JJ's previous work is of interest to see what he'll do with Star Wars. His work with Lost had a large cast with good racial and gender diversity and still was very poor in LGBT diversity.

Is there any info out there than a desire for greater diversity led to the de-canonization of the EU? I have never heard anything even suggesting that at all. As far as I understand, it was done just because the new movies didn't want to follow the EU continuity.
There is a lot about the EU I love, and I'm still adjusting to it being an alternate reality instead of the "real" Star Wars after all these years of thinking that it was the real Star Wars story. But all that given, the EU was pretty tepid at best with LGBT diversity, and it would be nice if there really are plans for fair diversity going forward, but I'll believe it when I see it.

 

Thanks, I didn't quite understand what you meant before, but that makes sense and is good news.

Is there a link or quotes available from the publishers on diversity and the new books? I wasn't aware that there was any kind of new policy on diversity. The Rebels books will of course be more diverse with gender and race just because the characters on the tv show are more diverse. I'm still going to have to take a wait and see attitude on LGBT and the novels. As far as I know none of the new novels have had any gay characters.

As much as I love the EU it was shameful how little LGBT characters ever made it into the entire sprawling franchise. As far as I know there's a gay couple in a few books in supporting roles, and a couple of bi/gay women in supporting roles in the Old Republic. That's pretty poor considering the hundreds of novels and comics that were put out over the last couple of decades.

 

It is but you've heard about the idiotic response to the trailer over Finn being a black stormtrooper? I'll lose brain cells just summarising it so I'll assume you have. I have this notion in the back of my head that it'll be this idiot brigade that movie studios wish to appease first, despite that being impossible.

 

I've heard that there is some black stormtrooper outrage, but I've chosen mostly to ignore the stupidity. That there is outrage is the sum of my knowledge on that issue.

 

Keep it that way, this is perhaps the one time that ignorance is bliss!

 

Thanks, that is interesting and informative. I expect JJ to do good diversity with race and gender, he has a history of doing big diverse casts, with LGBT erasure, unfortunately.

In a lot of ways I find that really frustrating, because I do feel he's trying to show diversity, that it is important to him. It's bad enough for gays to be erased by someone who obviously doesn't care about diversity, but then for someone who otherwise is very good at diversity to take the safe route and keep everything safe and heteronormative, that's even worse, because I'm being erased by someone who should know better.

Lost did have one guy, who was one of the "bad guys" who was revealed to be gay in one episode, the last episode he was in I think. That's not terrible, it's nice to get even that much I guess, but when you consider how huge the regular cast was, there should've been room for more and better gay inclusion. Other shows of his I'm familar with Alias and Fringe, also were pretty heteronormative.

I don't think he's homophobic at all. I suspect he's just playing it safe and not being too controversial. Overall I even like his work as I'm pretty familiar with it. I just am disappointed that he hasn't been more fair in gay diversity.

 

Ignorance is bias.
Sorry, but it's the thread title, I had to.

 

Oh, I've a bias all right, against giving idiots more air time than they deserve!

 

I always prefer not to be catapulted, myself.
I'm really not sure why I felt the need to make that pun.

 

A lot of the black stormtrooper rage involves a lot of very stupid people, but also a lot of people on the other side putting words in others' mouths.

If folks can promise not to have a hair-trigger reaction, I can summarize what I see as the only legitimate non-racist version of that argument. Though I don't have strong feelings either way, I was involved in the conversation a few months ago because I believe in elucidating the opinions which others dismiss. I believe that one has to bring some darker points of view into the discourse and give them actual consideration if one wants to know best how to root out that villainy from the world.

But do me a favor and don't open the spoiler tags if you're not going to actually hear it out, and please don't snark me. This is not wholly my opinion, but an argument which I simply see as valid.

Spoiler

- First of all, the outrage over the trailer is certainly misplaced, but people might not know why; a black stormtrooper makes total sense in the post-Palpatine Empire. I expect we'll see a more idealistic version of the Empire in his absence (and perhaps a plotline not unlike the Vong which requires them to unite at the end of the trilogy, which makes that newer friendlier Empire make more sense in the end).

- Saying that there shouldn't be a black stormtrooper, particularly in the Palpatine era, is not inherently racist. Some people prefer to see their villains handled a certain way. One might point out that you don't watch Schindler's List and say that Steven Spielberg is racist because he didn't include any black Nazis. Is that simplistic? Yes. But is it racist? No. No, not everyone feels that Star Wars should be so heavy-handed, but some do, so don't make the mistake of conflating a subjective opinion on the tone of the series with actual racism. They might prefer that sort of villain because it makes them hate that villain even more... that's the opposite of racism. *On the other hand, that argument can also be improperly called down upon legitimate works of art; my usual example: people criticized True Detective for being about two white guys, but the fact was, it was specifically intended as an examination of the ****-up psyches of two white male archetypes---not to mention the people on the DISTANT margin that is the southern swamplands---and it was brutally honest about their flaws. You can either say that privileged people have a ******-up history and allow writers to examine that, or you can pretend they don't and ignore it, but you can't say that privileged people have a ******-up history AND ask writers to pretend it doesn't exist.

- The mostly legitimate argument for Palpatine promoting racism is that he doesn't care, but it's just a tool like any other; perhaps core-worlders are mostly white, so it's not really racism but more akin to xenophobia, but there are vague racial lines which are implied in the Imperial hierarchy to make its members brutally competitive. Are people attributing false meaning to the overwhelmingly-white body of Imperials in the OT? Maybe. But they've also established speciesism as an analogue for racism, so prejudice is in their blood. Could they have moved past it? Sure, but that's conjecture; point is, an argument which tried to deny it altogether is still based on subjective assumptions.

- Personally, I choose to believe the racism hinted at in the films is deliberate. I don't think it's outright, but I think the Emperor just has a way of turning his men against each other, and the ones with the privilege from core noble families got a head start, and race simply became an inadvertent indicator of status. I'm from a Jewish family who converted to another religion, and that religion was also hunted down by the Nazis---double duty, bigtime---so that analogue makes the films more personal for me. I'm also naturally resentful of authority, but some folks around here who are self-styled Empire fans have a vested interest in seeing things differently, and that's fine... But just don't call me a goddam racist. I'm not a racist.

I'm just incredibly tired of people taking somebody's differing opinion about a movie and invoking accusations of racism just because you liked imagining different things about a movie. To anyone who does this: If you must boil someone's argument down and put words in their mouths so that you can call them racist, you are trivializing a much bigger issue, making you the socially-insensitive one. I mean, you're bringing a history of violence and injustice into a discussion because you disagreed with somebody about a movie. That is EFFED UP.

Remember, any argument other than what is in the tags above, I do not endorse... don't shoot the messenger.

 

That argument would be a lot easier to take seriously if there was any indication ever that people cared about human skin color in the GFFA. I think in 35 years there's been like one reference to a literal non-species-focused racist.

 

I'm not saying people are smart---I'm only saying that being simple-minded doesn't make them racist.

(Also, most of the people with that position are only going on the movies. As for my own case, I see it as implicit subtext.)

 

Were? Just wondering

 

No idea; I just vaguely remember reading somewhere that Han (I think?) once ran into a person who hated non-white humans and basically was completely baffled by it.

 

I think that was in the Lando books actually, but yeah, the exact reference has eluded me for a while.

PC, is that a potentially credible reading of the OT? I suppose. But whatever its moral character, it's now abjectly incorrect, instead of just uncommon. And for those of us who've historically taken the EU into consideration, it was rendered incorrect a long time ago--so I don't know that we should be required to take it under consideration in perpetuity.

I mean, Jello watches the OT and chooses to interpret Mon Mothma as the bad guy. That's what's great about it; it's a universal enough story to foster all sorts of different perspectives. But at the end of the day, Jello still has the sense to understand that he's wrong.

It's one thing to see the OT that way, and another to be angry when you're proven wrong.

 

NSFW but Jim hits the nail on the head again when it comes to the people that complain about Dragon Age Inquisition

LINK TO VIDEO (Language Warning)

PS:
Endor_boy

Spoiler

Since we talked about it a while ago when it came to video games, Dragon Age Inquisition has a full fletched male only same sex romance and the Mage you get to romance is without doubt the most fun party member as far as I am concerned.

Videos featuring language from our disallowed words list should be linked to with an appropriate warning, rather than embedded. Thanks.

 

Is he wrong, though? In her two minutes of canon screen time she...plots to overthrow the legitimate, democratically-elected government, (RotS deleted scenes), and...shamelessly commits genocide in order to legitimize her intentions to destroy governmental property (RotJ).

 

Is it? Because people are still going to dismiss the books and TV shows, and I think it's a silly nerdragey thing to say they're "abjectly wrong" for that; it's easier for one to reframe that nerdragey sentiment because race is involved, but it still remains a matter of personal interpretation. If the concept of "personal canon" is valid, then this instance of "personal canon" is not inherently any more or less racist. Arguing that it objectively shouldn't happen? Well yeah, that's dumb, I'll give you that, but I don't think anyone should try to argue that something objectively should or shouldn't happen in a story.

I see that as more a matter of forcefulness, and frankly people who like to dismiss the EU have louder and more simplistic opinions in every way anyway. It certainly doesn't constitute conscious racism, and in most cases I think it's a simplistic form of anti-racism, applying that Nazi analogue.

Again, I don't think it's a matter of "proving" anything, because nothing is truly concrete which isn't explicitly stated in the films---and frankly, looking at fanedit culture, not even the films are concrete. Anyway, like I said, if people are still imagining the OT version of the Empire under Palpatine and have that Nazi thing in their heads, they're just reacting to a break in the form they had subconsciously accepted as a part of Star Wars (that is, not a "default position of racism," but simply the idea that the bad guys are racists). As always, they're not thinking of the possible explanation.

But my point is, whatever you think about it, it isn't helping any cause anybody cares about to throw around accusations of racism where there's a reasonable margin of error there. Nobody responds to that.

And as for my own position, like I said, it was always an implied thing (suppression, not oppression) and not something institutional; frankly, we've got two black stormtroopers breaking ranks in the new canon, and to me that's a fairly substantial subtext about the non-institutionalized---but possibly real, if you wish to read it that way---standard for mistreatment based on characteristic differences in an unforgiving system. I gave my reasons for seeing it that way, and crazy as you may think they are, I feel the narrative is heartier in that context.

 

Yeah, calling me of all people "nerdragey" is not enamoring me to your cause.

I will just add, though, that your use of the term "conscious racism" is interesting given your past problems with this thread, because I would say that 99.9% of the diversity conversations in here have always been about unconscious racism. Hell, the very title of the thread alludes to just that.