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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. anakincol

    anakincol Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 28, 2009
    Yes they have recently depicted death as female since the 1990's but also have depicted death as male as well at other times i noted that in my post.
     
  2. Outsourced

    Outsourced Force Ghost star 5

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    Apr 10, 2017
     
  3. Cracian_Thumper

    Cracian_Thumper Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Feb 7, 2015
    Coming in here just to second how great this show is. It’s great to see racial diversity in a fantasy series like this.
     
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  4. BobaMatt

    BobaMatt TFN EU Staff star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Aug 19, 2002
    This week's Resistance:
    Oh look a nice Hutt jk lol Hutts are racially incapable of decency
     
  5. Ghost

    Ghost Chosen One star 8

    Registered:
    Oct 13, 2003
    Yeah that bothered me.
    And then there's the case of the Neimoidian last season.
     
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  6. vncredleader

    vncredleader Force Ghost star 5

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    Mar 28, 2016
    Even in a captain planet episode Doza's blatant racism would be the obvious set up for how you shouldn't judge people......but nope the GFFA loves it some racial profiling. Doza is somehow continuing to become more unlikable to me.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2019
  7. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Dec 16, 2012
    Special, not racial
     
  8. vncredleader

    vncredleader Force Ghost star 5

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    Mar 28, 2016
    Speciest not special
     
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  9. Daneira

    Daneira Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jun 30, 2016
    I would love some interspecies racism in Star Wars. Imagine if Neeku hated Red Niktos, for instance. Or the five-fingered Trandoshans are completely subjugated on their home planet by their three-fingered Trandoshan overlords.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2019
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  10. Darth Corydon

    Darth Corydon Jedi Master star 4

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    Aug 4, 2018
    Your Right about Marvel's Death but They've never depicted death of the endless as male . Dc's had male lesser death gods like Nekron or Black Flash or Black Racer but She's always been female she's like the ones of mortis. she looks like how the person sees death I.E martian manhunter would see her as the martian god of death . Batman sees her as a loli which kinda tells u all sorts of things about Bruce Wayne

    [​IMG]

    isn't rotta suppose to be the only nice Hutt but he's missing since jabba's death
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2019
  11. BobaMatt

    BobaMatt TFN EU Staff star 7 VIP

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    Aug 19, 2002
    Yeah it'd honestly be cool to have a friendly Hutt character around. Additionally, calling him "Franky" and giving him that accent makes me squirm a little.
     
  12. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

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    Dec 16, 2012
    Based on what little criteria there seems to be for human groups to be classified as near-human do I think there is some notable interspecies racism among the humans.
     
  13. Jeff_Ferguson

    Jeff_Ferguson Force Ghost star 5

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    May 15, 2006
    I just read that the signing Tusken in the most recent Mandalorian episode was played by deaf actor Troy Kotsur. Here's a Twitter status he retweeted:



    It wasn't ASL that Kotsur used and seems to be a language made up for the galaxy far, far away. Here's another one he retweeted (heh, "Tuskan" in the credits):



    I have to say, that's an awesome bit of casting that probably matters to a lot of people in the deaf community, but that wouldn't even have caused a good deal of internet outrage had it not been done. It seems like something they made an effort to do simply because they thought it was the right thing to do.
     
  14. Todd the Jedi

    Todd the Jedi Mod and Loving Tyrant of SWTV, Lit, & Collecting star 6 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Oct 16, 2008
    Oh I remember him from Scrubs, he was really great there. Obviously this role was a lot smaller, but nice they took the effort to cast someone used to communicating with gestures.
     
    Last edited: Dec 10, 2019
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  15. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
    If they weren't actually using ASL it wouldn't even have crossed my mind that an ASL speaker would still be better suited to the role but that does make a lot of sense. Good on 'em.
     
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  16. vncredleader

    vncredleader Force Ghost star 5

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    Mar 28, 2016
    Yeah despite being partly deaf, since I don't use ASL it does not always cross my mind how important that inclusion is. I have a friend who's parent used ASL (IIRC their mom was adopted by a deaf couple is why) as did they, so shape of water having a deaf character be played by a non-deaf person was disappointing for her. Particularly since Baby Driver did make the effort by casting CJ Jones.

    Honestly getting people with disabilities cast, let alone in roles that are not built around the character having a disability as their defining trait, is super important and sadly lacking. It is the kind of thing that even people of other underrepresented groups who are concerned about this stuff, sometimes just don't even think about. This is not their fault of course, it is the fault of a society that even among progressiveness and diversity, erases the voices of a large part of the population cause their difference is so varied. Some are born with it, sometimes it is visible, sometimes it is slight compared to others, sometimes it is invisible and slight compared to others like myself.

    I didn't even think about disability representation, or really much consider myself as having a disability for quite a while despite possibly being deaf in one ear since birth, or at least since I was 3 (we still have no clue when or why). I think that the lack of cohesion makes a lot of people overlook considerations of inclusion. Like as infrequently as we see roles for POC, there is at least a cognizant effort at times to make a character who is ____ as opposed to a ______ character.

    But we don't see that really with disabilities. The best I can think of is Dustin from Stranger Things, whose disability was written into the character because he auditioned and they fell in love with his performance. That needs to happen more often, and should not be reliant on a person taking the risk to go for a role that is almost certainly "intended" to be for a person without disabilities just by default.

    Like why did James Doohan feel the need to hide his missing finger in Trek? We get nice representation via Geordi, but still they erased an authentic, albeit less obvious, disability from the prior engineer even when he hung out with Geordi in TNG. We talk about whitewashing, but rarely if ever give consideration to the fact that oh OH so many people have essentially appropriated a disability for roles with nary a single question asked to the community whose experience is being taken from to net some rich folk an oscar nod.
     
  17. Jeff_Ferguson

    Jeff_Ferguson Force Ghost star 5

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    May 15, 2006
    Doohan was missing a finger?

    I have been watching way too much Trek this past year and honestly I didn't even know.
     
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  18. vncredleader

    vncredleader Force Ghost star 5

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    Mar 28, 2016
    Yup, lost it when he got shot by friendly fire on D-Day......no I'm not kidding. James was an amazing person. He actually got hit in the heart in that same incident, but a metal cigar/cigarette (I forget which) container his brother had given him stopped the bullet.
     
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  19. Jeff_Ferguson

    Jeff_Ferguson Force Ghost star 5

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    May 15, 2006
    And I finally got to Enterprise. I know that the potential for non-human diversity in the crew was limited by the show's time frame, and I know that I'll be seeing plenty of Andorians and Tellarites as the seasons go by, but it's still a bummer to see so many generic-looking humans on board the ship. Captain Quantum Leap's two best friends are pretty interchangeable white dudes, whose different accents do most of the heavy lifting in distinguishing between them. And the show hewed very closely to the 90s/2000s rule of exactly one black guy but unless the show is about street gangs or an inner city school then his hair can only be so long (read: very very short so as not to frighten the whites). Looking back on a lot of media from this era, it's really heartening how far Hollywood has come in terms of embracing natural black hairstyles. Obviously there's still a lot of ground to cover, but contrasting Mayweather with, say, Naomi Ackie's hair in Episode IX... there's a world of difference.

    The doctor. Why is he Neelix? I can't figure that out.

    A Korean-American actress: Fantastic! Mad points for that. Even if her character is Japanese.

    The show is about humanity's first voyages to the stars, so of course the crew is primarily Earthlings, but still... Voyager's crew was basically the same thing: a big group of humans (with one half-Klingon), one Vulcan, and one Neelix. And they did so much better.

    The early 2000s were weird. I have a working theory that most movies from that era have aged moor poorly than those from other eras; I haven't gotten all the details worked out and can't explain it very well, but look at some of the blockbusters --- Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes, that awkward post-X-Men superhero era that gave us Hulk and Daredevil... anyway I'm straying from the topic. The Andorian Incident is the next episode in my queue. Looking forward to it.
     
  20. Gamiel

    Gamiel Chosen One star 9

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    Dec 16, 2012
    Maybe of interest: https://www.cbr.com/new-mutants-trailer-whitewashing-sunspot/
    A talk about the problem with the Afro-Brazilian X-Men character Sunspot being portrayed as a non-black Brazilian both on film and in the comics

    -----------------------------

    Feel like you think it's a bit of a problem that her character is Japanese. Am I wrong in my reading? And if not: why is it a problem? Just wondering

    the Hulk movie was good :(
     
  21. Jeff_Ferguson

    Jeff_Ferguson Force Ghost star 5

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    May 15, 2006
    I mean... I'm whiter than a cloud taking a bath in a porcelain tub full of hand cream, so I'm nowhere qualified to present a thesis on the intricacies of someone with heritage from one East Asian country portraying a character who has a different kind of East Asian heritage. I wouldn't say it's a problem --- John Cho seemed to have a blast playing Sulu, after all, and George Takei was vocally supportive of it --- but I also think it's a good thing when, say, The Last Jedi takes care to cast Vietnamese-American actresses as both of the Tico sisters.

    2003's Hulk was good? Are you sure you're not thinking of the Edward Norton pseudo-sequel/reboot from 2008? I actually kinda liked that one.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2020
  22. vncredleader

    vncredleader Force Ghost star 5

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    Mar 28, 2016
    Also conflating Korean and Japanese is not a good habit to get into. Understandably there are a lot of Koreans who get really uncomfortable with that. Still sensitive. Also I'd say I do think casting just anyone of East Asian decent for an East Asian role is a problem, the good can outweigh it like with John Cho, but Hoshi could so easily have just been Korean for example.
     
  23. Daneira

    Daneira Jedi Grand Master star 4

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    Jun 30, 2016
    Or what about Chinese American actress Rosalind Chao playing Keiko, a Japanese character, in Deep Space Nine? Or Harry Kim in Voyager, a Korean American, played by a Chinese American? And then there's Sulu, who was initially created as simply a generic "Asian" character of no specific national origin, which is weird enough in itself. He's become canonically Japanese American even though the name "Sulu" cannot be a Japanese surname.
     
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  24. vncredleader

    vncredleader Force Ghost star 5

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    Mar 28, 2016
    Yeah......is there an asian character in Trek who is not arbitrarily a specific nationality that their actor is not? Like why is Keiko Japanese and not Chinese? It feels like peak checking off boxes instead of considering the people themselves. The aesthetic of having a POC is there so they shrug and give themselves a pat on the back calling it a day. It just commodifies minorities
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2020
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  25. CooperTFN

    CooperTFN TFN EU Staff Emeritus star 7 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 8, 1999
    As I understand it this is as much about playing into larger trends/stereotypes as it is the simple fact of casting anyone who isn't precisely the correct heritage--Sunspot was a big thing because downplaying African heritage, and darker skin in general, is a huge trend all over the globe that New Mutants accidentally (at least if you want to be charitable) became a part of. Likewise there can be specific historical baggage involved in conflating a Korean character, f.e., and a Japanese one. I don't think there's one absolute solution to this, just that creators need to be educated and prepared to justify their decisions. Sometimes, like John Cho I suppose, you can get away with it for the right person--but they have a responsibility to know what they're stepping into.
     
    Last edited: Jan 10, 2020
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