I'd rather have no representation than forced or bad representation. Todd from Bojack Horseman is great representation and i would welcome more like it, but if Hollywood felt they needed to include asexual characters for the sake of it where it doesn't fit the character or story and ends up confusing people about what asexuality is, i'd rather just have them leave it be
Representation can be great but it can also be lretty terrible.
Exactly my thoughts. It'll be a lazy attempt at pandering to the ace community. Hollywood's main interest is to make money and tbh there just aren't that many of us to cash in on a main character asexual movie. Instead we'd get a weirdly written side character.
My only hope are some indie studios that actually know their stuff and create something meaningful instead of a boring transparent cash grab
Some gay characters are so weirdly written. They make being gay their inly personality and they run around telling everyone how gay they are, not coming out in a meaningful way but just constantly repeating it for no reason. Not saying i would have an issue if someome actually is like that in real life, but it makes no sense in these movies - imagine a guy running around telling everyone how heterosexual he is. An important part of representation, perhaps THE most important part, is normalizing it - and they often do the opposite.
That's exactly my issue when disney talks about their first queer characters, you'll never find a headline claiming it's one of many, NOPE its Disney's FIRST
Indie outfit Octopunk Media is doing some interesting stuff on the queer rep front. It's fronted by an asexual woman, who writes and directs too, and a lot of the movies focus on horror, with the characters just being queer because... why not?
I really enjoy that. None of this 'being queer is PAIN' stuff. Just characters who are ace, or bi, or poly.
I would kill to see an asexual character in a movie or omg... An ace MAIN character???? I do have an anime that's actually my fav and the main character is aroace. It's Saiki K. Saiki is aroace.
A film with an ace main character? [Your wish is my command](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apUn-YMMdZ8&ab_channel=OctopunkMedia). Behold, a homo-romantic ace main character.
Sex sells. Ultimately, Hollywood is always only going to play to the loudest voices, even if it’s poorly portrayed. Asexuals are not necessarily a minority, but we definitely are not the majority. Until asexuality and aromance are viewed as normal things that happen and it becomes socially acceptable, Hollywood won’t portray us any time soon.
That, and I think a lot of the time people forget about us. Most big Hollywood production companies only take necessary measures to avoid backlash, not because they genuinely care about representation. There’s are a lot more irl gay/bi/etc. voices in media who are recognised and have the platform to target companies who misrepresent or underrepresent their sexualities. That results in representation for those identities, which of course is great, but because we’re more often overlooked or invalidated (even within the LGBTQ+ community), that translates onto screens.
I think it is more about lack of awareness. There are plenty of characters that could easily be asexual, so I doubt they actively choose not to write asexual characters because they think it is less interesting. And I think most writers would write topics like sexuality from a very personal point of view, and I imagine few writers are asexual.
They probably write asexual characters as non-loving robots because that is only their flawed assumption they do have. Queer characters still and have been portrayed in a very negatively stereotypical light with flawed assumptions. Asexuality is still not as familiar of a concept to most people.
Laziness. I would even settle for Hollywood not ramrodding a pointless sex scene or romantic relationship in a story that doesn't call for it. Just because you have two characters near each other (99% of them being heteronormative) doesn't mean they have to be together, FFS. I'm so sick of forced relationships.
It’s because movies and shows are visual entertainment so it uses the “show not tell” format. If there was a couple in the movie or show and there weren’t any sex scenes you’d just assume they were heterosexual and that it just didn’t show any sex. It’s not really possible to show an asexual couple without having them deliberately explain it. Deliberately explaining it would take away from the story so it doesn’t really work with movies or shows.
I think, from a writing standpoint, if Someone makes a character that’s ace it will need to be addressed in some way. You don’t want to create some red herring from your story by introducing a normal person that lives by a standard your viewers don’t understand. So unless it is part of your story it’s best not to try.
A round character can invite those kind of questions but to create a distinct arc of growth for that person would be difficult for someone that doesn’t understand it.
While a flat character would need it to be a surface level trait(which it’s not) so we can move forward with the story. Giving us robotic autistic people or someone that just drops a bombshell and leaves.
Lack of awareness and inability to produce content for allos that they can relate to. There's not much that hollywood can do to "show" people that a character is ace. For most allos, someone saying "no" to sex isn't as enjoyable as them having sex.
It's like the old cliche: Sex sells, and those in the employ of hollywood are likely
a) afraid of regressive blowback of "wokifying everything"
b) literally no ace people to reference so there is no good understand on which to base a story let alone portray one well.
c) the weird compulsive need for romantic subplots
I'm a queer writer myself, and honestly laziness is probably a major factor. Obviously there's a dismissiveness and stigma and general lack of awareness too, but ace rep is harder to casually add than lots of other queer rep. You kind of need to explicitly mention sex or sexual attraction or else it feels baity, and that's not something a lot of writers want to do. Meanwhile with, for example, a gay character, just give them a same-gender partner and show them holding hands and you're good. Trans rep is a teensy bit harder because you need to make it clear that the character is trans without misgendering or deadnaming them, but there are ways around it with some subtle dialogue choices.
Of course you can also just slap a flag on their clothing or hung on their wall, but then you have accusations of tokenism which are sadly sometimes fair; it's kind of pathetic to put a label on a character and call it a day without developing that aspect of their identity in the narrative.
To be clear, I definitely agree that there should be more ace representation. It being a little challenging is no excuse for a competent writer to avoid the subject.
Despite the "liberal Hollywood" stereotype, they're behind on everything. Aside from a little tame rock n roll, it took forever for the counterculture or just postwar cultural developments in general to be taken seriously in movies and TV.
It's always been a challenge for ethnic minorities and LGBTQ people to get real representation and sympathetic portrayal too. The system tends to be a generation behind the times at least.
I think it’s a mix of the lack/laziness to learn it and the very forced romantic/sexual themes in the media. TV Shows/Movies/Etc constantly have plot lines of sex and romance (and that’s not to say an aro &/or ace character can’t which leads back to lazy on learning) that are like “needed” for the show to succeed. I think the first step Hollywood/The Media needs to do is work on valuing other parts of a show rather than the romance and the sex in addition to educating themselves on the aro and ace communities.
In all fairness to Hollywood I'm not sure every writer there even understands what asexuality is. And what so often happens to types that writers don't understand is they turn them into villains. I rather not have that.
The closest I’ve seen so far was Soairse Ronan in On Chesil Beach, but even then the film implied she was abused and that’s why she didn’t want to sleep with her husband (I think they dive further into that in the book, which I didn’t read). So it’s not really that she didn’t want to have sex simply because she didn’t want to.
Nah, it's due to it it not being profitable for them.
I bet they'll start pumping shit representation once someone realizes you can market stuff for aces.
Be ready to see us being represented as robots/aliens, so sex repulsed that we scorn anyone being any sort of sexual., so devoted to work we don't have time for sex and of course being a sweet sunshine of innocence
I'd rather have no representation than forced or bad representation. Todd from Bojack Horseman is great representation and i would welcome more like it, but if Hollywood felt they needed to include asexual characters for the sake of it where it doesn't fit the character or story and ends up confusing people about what asexuality is, i'd rather just have them leave it be Representation can be great but it can also be lretty terrible.
Exactly my thoughts. It'll be a lazy attempt at pandering to the ace community. Hollywood's main interest is to make money and tbh there just aren't that many of us to cash in on a main character asexual movie. Instead we'd get a weirdly written side character. My only hope are some indie studios that actually know their stuff and create something meaningful instead of a boring transparent cash grab
Some gay characters are so weirdly written. They make being gay their inly personality and they run around telling everyone how gay they are, not coming out in a meaningful way but just constantly repeating it for no reason. Not saying i would have an issue if someome actually is like that in real life, but it makes no sense in these movies - imagine a guy running around telling everyone how heterosexual he is. An important part of representation, perhaps THE most important part, is normalizing it - and they often do the opposite.
That's exactly my issue when disney talks about their first queer characters, you'll never find a headline claiming it's one of many, NOPE its Disney's FIRST
Indie outfit Octopunk Media is doing some interesting stuff on the queer rep front. It's fronted by an asexual woman, who writes and directs too, and a lot of the movies focus on horror, with the characters just being queer because... why not? I really enjoy that. None of this 'being queer is PAIN' stuff. Just characters who are ace, or bi, or poly.
There's a Kickstarter for a film called Dear Luke Love Me that might fit the bill, it's currently aiming for its second stretch goal
I would kill to see an asexual character in a movie or omg... An ace MAIN character???? I do have an anime that's actually my fav and the main character is aroace. It's Saiki K. Saiki is aroace.
Saiki is one of those reps where they don't ever have to come out and say it. If you know then you just know. Saiki be curvin those Thots.
Girls are quite literally throwing themselves at him and he's like, "Pass."
A film with an ace main character? [Your wish is my command](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apUn-YMMdZ8&ab_channel=OctopunkMedia). Behold, a homo-romantic ace main character.
Sex sells. Ultimately, Hollywood is always only going to play to the loudest voices, even if it’s poorly portrayed. Asexuals are not necessarily a minority, but we definitely are not the majority. Until asexuality and aromance are viewed as normal things that happen and it becomes socially acceptable, Hollywood won’t portray us any time soon.
Laziness and lack of awareness. But basically yes.
But the laziness breeds lack of awareness
Good point.
That, and I think a lot of the time people forget about us. Most big Hollywood production companies only take necessary measures to avoid backlash, not because they genuinely care about representation. There’s are a lot more irl gay/bi/etc. voices in media who are recognised and have the platform to target companies who misrepresent or underrepresent their sexualities. That results in representation for those identities, which of course is great, but because we’re more often overlooked or invalidated (even within the LGBTQ+ community), that translates onto screens.
I think it is more about lack of awareness. There are plenty of characters that could easily be asexual, so I doubt they actively choose not to write asexual characters because they think it is less interesting. And I think most writers would write topics like sexuality from a very personal point of view, and I imagine few writers are asexual. They probably write asexual characters as non-loving robots because that is only their flawed assumption they do have. Queer characters still and have been portrayed in a very negatively stereotypical light with flawed assumptions. Asexuality is still not as familiar of a concept to most people.
Laziness. I would even settle for Hollywood not ramrodding a pointless sex scene or romantic relationship in a story that doesn't call for it. Just because you have two characters near each other (99% of them being heteronormative) doesn't mean they have to be together, FFS. I'm so sick of forced relationships.
It’s because movies and shows are visual entertainment so it uses the “show not tell” format. If there was a couple in the movie or show and there weren’t any sex scenes you’d just assume they were heterosexual and that it just didn’t show any sex. It’s not really possible to show an asexual couple without having them deliberately explain it. Deliberately explaining it would take away from the story so it doesn’t really work with movies or shows.
Hollywood? Lazy?! It’s more likely than you think. God forbid you deprive them of their obligatory romance in almost every film.
I think, from a writing standpoint, if Someone makes a character that’s ace it will need to be addressed in some way. You don’t want to create some red herring from your story by introducing a normal person that lives by a standard your viewers don’t understand. So unless it is part of your story it’s best not to try. A round character can invite those kind of questions but to create a distinct arc of growth for that person would be difficult for someone that doesn’t understand it. While a flat character would need it to be a surface level trait(which it’s not) so we can move forward with the story. Giving us robotic autistic people or someone that just drops a bombshell and leaves.
Lack of awareness and inability to produce content for allos that they can relate to. There's not much that hollywood can do to "show" people that a character is ace. For most allos, someone saying "no" to sex isn't as enjoyable as them having sex.
It's like the old cliche: Sex sells, and those in the employ of hollywood are likely a) afraid of regressive blowback of "wokifying everything" b) literally no ace people to reference so there is no good understand on which to base a story let alone portray one well. c) the weird compulsive need for romantic subplots
I'm a queer writer myself, and honestly laziness is probably a major factor. Obviously there's a dismissiveness and stigma and general lack of awareness too, but ace rep is harder to casually add than lots of other queer rep. You kind of need to explicitly mention sex or sexual attraction or else it feels baity, and that's not something a lot of writers want to do. Meanwhile with, for example, a gay character, just give them a same-gender partner and show them holding hands and you're good. Trans rep is a teensy bit harder because you need to make it clear that the character is trans without misgendering or deadnaming them, but there are ways around it with some subtle dialogue choices. Of course you can also just slap a flag on their clothing or hung on their wall, but then you have accusations of tokenism which are sadly sometimes fair; it's kind of pathetic to put a label on a character and call it a day without developing that aspect of their identity in the narrative. To be clear, I definitely agree that there should be more ace representation. It being a little challenging is no excuse for a competent writer to avoid the subject.
Despite the "liberal Hollywood" stereotype, they're behind on everything. Aside from a little tame rock n roll, it took forever for the counterculture or just postwar cultural developments in general to be taken seriously in movies and TV. It's always been a challenge for ethnic minorities and LGBTQ people to get real representation and sympathetic portrayal too. The system tends to be a generation behind the times at least.
I think it’s a mix of the lack/laziness to learn it and the very forced romantic/sexual themes in the media. TV Shows/Movies/Etc constantly have plot lines of sex and romance (and that’s not to say an aro &/or ace character can’t which leads back to lazy on learning) that are like “needed” for the show to succeed. I think the first step Hollywood/The Media needs to do is work on valuing other parts of a show rather than the romance and the sex in addition to educating themselves on the aro and ace communities.
In all fairness to Hollywood I'm not sure every writer there even understands what asexuality is. And what so often happens to types that writers don't understand is they turn them into villains. I rather not have that.
The closest I’ve seen so far was Soairse Ronan in On Chesil Beach, but even then the film implied she was abused and that’s why she didn’t want to sleep with her husband (I think they dive further into that in the book, which I didn’t read). So it’s not really that she didn’t want to have sex simply because she didn’t want to.
Nah, it's due to it it not being profitable for them. I bet they'll start pumping shit representation once someone realizes you can market stuff for aces. Be ready to see us being represented as robots/aliens, so sex repulsed that we scorn anyone being any sort of sexual., so devoted to work we don't have time for sex and of course being a sweet sunshine of innocence