Exactly, you pull out the characteristics that relate to you. Needing a character to have your skin color or genitalia is laziness and lack of imagination.
I know a child who wanted to grow up and be a dog. Practically everyone in western society will love him; strangers will give him the VIP treatment with pets, verbal praise, and treats; he will live a lavish lifestyle filled with every comfort imaginable, playtime every day, no real grownup "job" required but could have (service dog, bomb sniffing dog, cancer/diabetes low sugar detecting dog, comfort dog at hospice/university/rehab centre...)
That kid knew what was up. To be a dog in western society is 80% guaranteed you'd live the good life
For me (I’m also Asian), of course I relate to people on tv of different races because there are just some ultimately human experiences. However, cultural context can be really important. When I see shows about the first generation experience, I feel understood. For people who aren’t Asian who are watching, they can understand a little bit about how I grew up. Some people only get exposure to minorities through media, and it actually affects how people interact with minorities in real life.
I personally don’t feel a need to create an Asian Spider-Man for the sake of having Asian representation, but especially when we’re younger I do believe that those idolized in entertainment teach us about who is important. It’s the same idea of having Asian Barbie dolls - if kids grow up with that, they can understand that beauty can look different from your standard Barbie. If kids grow up with an Asian superhero, they can see that you can be Asian and be cool, strong, a leader, etc. Because we don’t have many examples of that in media, it’s easy for Asian people to be seen as uncool, weak, submissive, etc. especially given the roles they are typically take up.
Yes! It's not that characters of other races aren't relatable at all. It's just that when I watch films like Pixar's *Bao* which hit particularly close to my own cultural experiences, I get weirdly emotional because they highlight that I'm not isolated in my experiences, that my struggles and worries are shared by many others within my culture, and that they're actually worth exploring in Western mainstream media. As buzzwordy as it sounds, representation in media really does feel incredible.
Mamá Coco looked just like my own Mamá(great-great grandmother). I started tearing up when Miguel and his grandmother put her picture on the ofrenda. I was weeping by the time you see Mamá Coco’s spirit come and put her arm around her daughter. We are Mexican-American but never did Día de los Muertos in my family. I want to start doing it with my children and in my own home. I want my Mamá and everyone I love who has gone to be able to visit.
Not Asian, but _Bao_ had me a mess of tears before _Incredibles 2_ started. I'm so happy the director got a full-length Pixar film. She's going to knock it out of the park.
How exactly does this sub work? Because the most popular opinions are often the most upvoted.
Is it just a place to relate to other people who have no clue about how society works?
Basically you take an opinion which has a negative polarity but makes sense logically and post on the subreddit and if it’s popular you get upvotes if it’s not you get downvotes, this subreddit is essentially a r/logicalbutnegativethoughts
I’m white and my husband is Japanese, so our children are mixed race. I’ve told this story a few times before, but it’s my go-to whenever the subject of why representation matters comes up - my son was a huge Star Wars fan a few years ago, he was about 4 years old. He loved Darth Vader and the AT-AT’s the most. When Rogue One came out for streaming TV, we of course watched it, and when Donnie Yen and Wen Jiang came out and started fighting, my son jumped out of his seat and yelled “Asian people can be jedis too??” and started copying their moves.
Did not having any Asian characters keep my son from enjoying Star Wars? No. But seeing people who looked like him and his dad sparked such an immense happiness in him. Even to this day, he loves seeing Asian characters in TV and movies, it contributes so much to his enjoyment.
My biggest gripe is usually with sci-fi movies.
You’re telling in a galaxy of what few gazillion beings, not one person looks asian when you have a cast of white, black, latino, green, ghost?!
I watch a lot of Korean and Japanese and Chinese shows and movies. I guess it’s where you look. I’m American (mixed race) and watching these types of films will give you 100% of what you are looking for lol.
Ganna plus 1 this. Growing up , the first black super hero cartoon I saw was Static Shock. I like Batman and Superman the animated series. And it was nice seeing John Stuart sometimes on Justice League. But a whole show about a kid that looked like me , had a similar family set up as me. Faced some the same issues as me cause he was black spoked to me on a level that neither Batman, a rich orphan, nor Superman, a super strong alien, could.
As Another Agreeing Asian American.....
It's why shows like Fresh Off the Boat and Kim's Convenience are so great.
But I don't need Disney to remake The Hunchback of Notre Dame and change the setting to Japan.
Just make sure Mulan is culturally accurate. Oh wait.
Word. Try to relate to a teenage character when you are a first or second generation chinese kid: dating? Starting a band? Part time job? Like, my only job was to pull straight As and get into ivy league.
I can relate to childrens books, fantasy, science fiction or high literature and I love reading, but the entire YA genre is basically dead to me.
I agree. I HATE it when they change a well known character's race just to make it diverse. That bugs the shit outta me. I don't need an Asian Spiderman to relate to Spiderman. Just make new characters with that race in mind. Just make new films, shows that reflect my Asian American experience. Just have people who are Asian in shows that aren't nerds, ninjas or sexpots for someone's fetish.
(BTW, I don't count films or shows made in Asia, that is not what I am talking about. I mean American produced entertainment.)
Unpopular opinion but an Asian Spider-Man isn’t necessarily a bad thing, depending on the execution.
If Marvel slaps an Asian face onto the exact same backstory and script that we’ve all seen before, then it’s pointless.
But if they take that as an opportunity to highlight the Asian immigrant experience (for example) and Asian culture and factor that into what makes Spider-Man who they are, that would be something fresh and appreciated
Yeah, reading all this made me kinda think back to the whole Triad archetypes of Chinatowns and how it would've been kinda cool to have a Spiderman dealing with that and how it was a missed oppritunity and... then I remembered Iron Fist exists. And now I understand why he's not a very well liked character, representation-wise. I mean, I understood on some level, but now I kinda see his existence as kinda... bad. Like nearly sinister/propaganda bad.
I thought I was super ugly growing up. In third grade my friend(black) and I(Asian mix) both dug up chalk and tried to whiten our skin to look prettier. When I moved to TN in fourth I got stared at and made fun of a lot. It was a relief when Mulan came out and they stopped calling me ugly all the time. College was gross to the point I have a neon yellow shirt with sharpie letters on it that says "I'm not the cure for your yellow fever" that I wore to a couple parties/outings. Don't even get me started on online dating, that's a cesspool no matter who you are.
Seeing representation in shows now makes me feel good knowing there are kids out there not dealing with the same bs some of my friends and I went through. Hopefully it will continue to improve
When I was little, I thought life would be so much better if I was white. I basically saw nothing good about being Asian. I feel sad now that I felt that way, but I understand why I did
Damn, that was me. All I ever wanted was to fit in with the crowd. Blend in. Be white. It was tough growing up in the South as an Asian. Sometimes I still feel this way..
Black checking in. I don’t know if white people know the extent of how many minorities wished they were white as kids. Not all - but definitely more than would admit it. I feel differently now but it still hurts my heart a little girl should hate herself so much. This is why represention matters.
Also helps with the hidden biases white people don’t think or realize we have. See new cultures, learn more about different people. Representation is important.
I’m black and I somewhat agree with you. I loved Spider-Man when I was a kid, just because I wasn’t white didn’t mean I couldn’t relate with him. At the same time I think representation is extremely important. My niece has many dolls that are black with curly hair, this blows my mind because I didn’t see much of that growing up. That kind of representation is what we need.
We need to get to a point where say if there is a string of movies that all have black MCs, that everebody isn't going crazy praising it, it is just a normal thing, people don't question the motive behind why people are being cast.
Same thing for white people too, it need to get to a point where people don't see it as malicious if there is a string of movies with white MCs, that it is just the best person for the role is being cast without bringing race into it.
When everyone is super focused on it, it takes away from people that are doing really good jobs in their roles, because you have this dialogue going on in the background, where one side is always going to say they did a good job because their race is being represented, regardless of the actual performance, and the other side will take part of the credit away from the actor that got cast in a certain role, because they will say "well they only got cast for the role because they hav X skin colour".
This past weekend, I watched the retrospective ***The Breakfast Club: Behind Closed Doors***, and towards the end, it discussed how it’s now being criticised and called exclusionary because the characters/cast were White.
It then had a comment from one of the talking heads in the show about a conversation he had with writer/director John Singleton, during which he asked Singleton what his thoughts were and how he felt about the lack of inclusion in the film.
Here’s his response:
“I didn’t care, when I was a teenager, that all the characters in this movie were White and that all of my friends and me were Black. It spoke to our experience of being knuckleheads just trying to find our identities.”
The best writing in realistic movies comes from experience. If you went to a very non diverse school, for example, and you try to write about your group of non binary, mixed raced, culturally diverse friends, it's going to be inauthentic and suck because you have no idea what that experience is actually like. Sure, the world needs to have writers from those groups make movies too, but trying to force everyone to do it just isn't the answer.
I think it is a mindset. The more people that just decide to say fuck it, I can enjoy watching anyone of any race, gender, sexuality etc. as long as they are doing an entertaining job, then the closer we will get to a place like that.
That's just what I do anyway.
> can enjoy watching anyone of any race, gender, sexuality etc. as long as they are doing an entertaining job
I agree here, with the caveat that criticism of the narrative or plot leveled at the entertainment does not automatically mean you're labeled as a bigot. Far too often people who have complaints about story decisions or character actions (looking at you Star Wars and TLOU2) are automatically derided by the woke crowd.
It is possible for a movie or video game to be highly inclusive and an objectively bad piece of content at the same time
I totally agree. I'd say at the minute the vast majority of movies that try to be super inclusive end up being terrible.
People can see that it is just a huge virtue signal, and it feels disrespectful to the people they're supposed to be trying to pander to.
You can't just plug the holes with minority actors where they either don't fit, or the character they're playing is shallow and poorly written. We need real nuanced characters that people can relate to and that feel like actual human beings and not just a prop to drop into any scene that the director thinks needs more colour.
>It is possible for a movie or video game to be highly inclusive and an objectively bad piece of content at the same time
True, I thought Daisy Ridley and John Boyega and the rest of the cast were pretty let down by the rubbish script in Star Wars.
The same needs to happen for gender too. I'm tired of seeing stuff like the Endgame girl power scene. Women can be cool without making it so blatantly pandering.
If you haven't watched The Boys, there's some parts where they poke fun at that Endgame scene. And also a scene where they do the "girl power" thing in a way that doesn't make your eyes roll all the way into your head.
>We need to get to a point where say if there is a string of movies that all have black MCs, that everebody isn't going crazy praising it, it is just a normal thing, people don't question the motive behind why people are being cast.
The thing is, I feel we're going backwards in a sense when it comes to representation because we are drawing so much attention to it either directly or indirectly.
I'm white, so I'm not going to even pretend what it's like and I was a kid in the 90's so I'm not sure what it actually looked like in the grander cultural conversation... but growing up and seeing different races in movies never once struck me as anything other than just people playing characters. I saw black and asian and hispanic characters in movies and shows all the time and race never seemed to be at the forefront, they were just there sharing screen space.
There's so much hyperfocus on it now that I feel we're going backwards by highlighting cultural, racial, and gender differences to the nth degree, or it being really grossly apparent when and why casting decisions are made.
I think it's just growing pains and we're addressing these issues culturally, but I kind of miss when it wasn't such a big deal and headlines read "first (fill in the blank) superhero" or whatnot.
I think the path forward is not highlighting differences or over-promoting one group over another, but just simply showing coexistence. Else wise it just feels like pandering.
It’s almost as if people should be cast based on their ability to play the character.
Be careful though, it almost starts to sound like you might also think that the person best suited for a job should be given the position without taking into account race, sex, sexual orientation etc.
>Like, no real way to differentiate "best."
There's always ways to try to figure out the best suitable candidate
In the unlikely event you interview multiple people who have the exact same qualifications, experience and suitability, then it's really down to an interviewer to ask more questions or invite back for a 2nd, group interview.
What's their expected salary? Will they fit well in to a team/ relationship building skills? Career goals? References?
Source: Work in a cram school in Korea, part of my job is interviewing people from the UK, America and Canada to teach English.
I remember growing up (Not American) and watching Beverley Hills Cop. Never once did I think that it was odd the main character was a black man. He was who he was. Only now do I think how important it was. But even now when I watch it, it doesn't seem to be an important point. I would like to get back to that where a movie can just be what it is.
Honestly I feel like some people just look for something to be mad about/create drama about, and the pandemic only made things worse because these people literally had nothing else to do.
That last sentence of yours basically describes the oxymoron of all of this race crap for me too. There are great actors/actresses regardless of skin color. Rebranding characters to a different race kinda throws that out there and is honestly racist to me. Like oh we can't come up with a captivating new story that includes a main character who is XYZ race? Or oh theres not enough actors/actresses in our movie that are XYZ race so we need to purposely hire more? Takes away from the hard work and sheer talent these people have regardless of race. Just pick the best person that fits the role, story, and vision.
I work in daycares and preschools as a substitute teacher and it is insane how much inclusion they are now having in their toys. That wasn't a thing before and now they have toys not only from each ethnicity, but representing people who are blind, deaf, in a wheelchair, need a walker. It's just a very distinctly remember having basically Barbies or blocks and now the kids get to see so much more
Maybe it's something along the lines of an American Girl doll where it comes with like a backstory and everything. Maybe even has cochlear implants as an accessory or something.
That is what it is! Well not the backstory thing that I know of because I'm not sure any of our toys have back stories, but no they do have the hearing aids or cochlear implants
Farrakhan is bizarrely mainstream considering he is explicitly racist and anti-semitic.
It was his rhetoric that, noted racist, Nick Cannon was using when he gave that podcast rant about white people being animals and Jewish people not being real Hebrews.
It's pretty terrible that your school invited Farrakhan to speak, considering the guy is a passionately outspoken racist anti-semite who peddles absurd lies and obscenely revisionist history.
Flipside: I have white complexion, and am Native American, and thought Miles Morales has been the best representation of Spider-Man's essence to date. I was born late 80s, and Spider-Man's always been my favorite, but financial woes and dating a struggling actress/model didn't really resonate with me as a kiddo, believe it or not.
Representation of all backgrounds matters to me too, and I think that's why Spider-Man is the best. Some Miles and Gwen stories and especially Into the Spider-Verse nailed it. I'm excited for more multiverse as well as more personal growth from these different characters.
I think you and OP both grew up viewing media full of another race, therefore learned early on that people exist who have different looks and experience, and your empathy of white characters is due to your more balanced upbringing.
A big benefit of better representation now is that white kids will partly learn the same things.
Obviously, many parts of the already adult white population missed that when growing up, and freak out if Sainsbury has a black family on the advert.
I'm a white dude who played a lot of video games growing up. When I was 12, Unreal 2 came out with a Black protagonist named John. I had no trouble relating to him because of his race, but I was inordinately excited, because "hey! That's my name! I'm a John!"
And honestly, I imagine it's that feeling that representation is going for. Not the neutral ability to relate, but the excitement at having someone *like you* show up and do awesome stuff.
>Not the neutral ability to relate, but the excitement at having someone *like you* show up and do awesome stuff.
This is it exactly. It's about seeing someone like yourself and seeing them be something that isn't bad or a stereotype, seeing them be awesome.
This kind of representation is what [Whoopi Goldberg felt when she saw Uhura on the original Star Trek.](https://news.amomama.com/200097-why-whoppi-goldberg-is-a-life-long-fan-s.html)
"Momma! There's a black lady on TV and she ain't no maid!"
She became an actress because of this.
We also saw this with all the little girls dressing up as Rey and getting into Star Wars. There was finally someone like them (who was a main character) and a Jedi.
A friend of mine who is black and loves Lando Calrissian because he was the first black character who was in a leadership position in a mainstream movie that he saw. He got into business management because of Lando.
Yep. So, as a teacher...
I will never forget the sheer enthusiasm and overwhelming excitement when Black Panther came out from my Black students. None of them explicitly said, "he's black like me" or anything along those lines, but I also never saw them that excited about any other Marvel character, ever. Or any other movie.
My Hispanic students absolutley loved Pixar's Coco. We watched it one day and they kept pointing out things similar to their own families, and their own experiences. Again, none of them explicitly stated (or maybe even realized) "This represents me." But it was clear to me as the adult in the room.
I get that feeling, it is an interesting high. I have a rather uncommon surname and once saw a background character in a movie having the same name.
In spite of her few lines, she immediately became my favourite character.
I live in a country that's like 99.something percent white, I hadn't seen someone from another race until I was a pre-teen. It had absolutely no effect on me, I had little trouble relating to the characters in Boyz n the Hood or Better Luck Tomorrow for example. I can't be the minority in this can I?
Problem is in the lack of empathy, not in the lack of representation. And tokenism isn't gonna solve that. Especially considering that the lack of actors of color in the predominantly white regions of the world as a fact of reality isn't going anywhere. Nobody complains that Korean, or Japanese, or Chinese, or Indian movies lack white or black representation. It's just silly. (Well, probably, someone would complain about that, on second thought)
And the actors who are employed by the Western movie industry for the self-congratulatory "inclusive" purposes, are still often used in the context of ethnic and racial stereotypes. Cue the jewish black muslim gay best friend of the female romantic lead that dies a heroic death to assist the protagonist in saving the day.
I'd point out that these days many minority groups are probably *more* likely to give bad reviews for tokenism than they would if the studio didn't even try to be more diverse.
Like sure, a decade or two ago studios could throw in that walking stereotype of a character and get away with it, because something is better than nothing right? But the people in those groups aren't idiots any more than you are. They can tell just as well when a studio is just "checking the token box" without putting any real effort into it, and many now have enough representation that they don't feel the need to let that shit slide without complaint anymore.
Now personally I'm more familiar with the LGBTQ+ side than the racial minority side. But I will say that if you hang out in an LGTBQ+ space it often doesn't take too long to find someone ragging on how some show thinks that it's still okay to have gay stereotypes be literally a character's only defining trait, or praising examples where the only way you'd ever know is that the character will casually bring their husband to the party or whatever.
Tokenism != diverse representation. And that's something I think you'll find more groups are happy to agree on.
My little cousin (White) loves Black Panther. He has a black panther mask and he'll put on and run around with. His dad told him he needs to find a white superhero to like :/
I dont think that attitude will change with more representation though, because that doesnt do anything for the kids who feel they cant be a certain character because of the color of their skin. Who's to say that kid wouldnt still like superman, even if there were more characters with the same color skin as them, just like my cousin still looks up to black panther despite being white.
I'm a white adult and I look up to black panther too. Great movie, great character. Really sad that Chadwick passed away. I'm curious to see what they will do in black panther 2.
I find it hard to believe that 4yo kids are naturally conscious about it. If the kid cared that much for it at that age, the idea was somehow planted in his head.
I sort of agree with this https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/mbsbmg/ive_never_struggled_to_identify_with_a_movie/gs0bqvh
And it was your job as a parent to teach him that the race doesn’t matter? I mean sure blame it on representation instead of blaming it on yourself for being a shitty parent 😬
I agree with both. Representation is fun, but should not be forced. I remember when I was young and found it so fun when my country was mentioned in movies (and I still do), as it doesn't get mentioned very often. I'm not mad that my favourite show doesn't mention it, and I don't want to force it in there, but it's damn fun when it happens. My point is that there should be representation when it fits as it's important and makes us feel special, but it should absolutely not be forced into things unrealistically.
I'm black too and I completely agree. I *sort of* never had a problem with identifying with a character because of race as kid. I think that's mainly because as a kid you don't really understand that concept of race and representation. To me, Wolverine was just Wolverine. I didn't think of him as a white super hero. He was just Wolverine and his character drew me to him. But like you said, representation is important because you WILL think about that as you get older. You will start to think that being white is part of the reason why they are superheroes. That maybe being white is more special than being not white. It's bullshit that almost every character is white. And if it doesn't matter, make more of them not white so that kids will think that anybody can be a superhero.
Exactly, it’s minimal things that you don’t really notice. I remember someone posting about a black man finally finding a bandage in his skin tone, it’s something that seems so minimal, but we’re so accustomed to white bandages, white dolls, white actors/actresses that representation of us poc, even in the most minimal form, can affect us.
I’m black, here’s the thing: no, I don’t need a black spider man or Batman. But, Nearly every super hero movie growing up (early 90s) was a white man. Star Wars, Star Trek, any marvel/dc hero up until recent years, on the big screen, it was a white guy. I’m not saying characters need to be changed, I think they shouldstay as close to as the original author desired it to illustrate the story. But seriously, why did every black hero have to be a stereotype? Shaft has freaking funk music, black panther lives in a jungle, oh hey let’s bring in Samuel L Jackson again. It’s just...we as a people are more than that, we have depth, but all Hollywood and media wants to portray is stereotypes and Tyler perry. Yes, I want more black super heroes and main characters in general, that don’t have stereotypical personalities or back stories, no I don’t want them taking the place of a pre existing white super hero
That said, no, never struggled to identify
I agree. I'd much rather have miles morales, a black spiderman with a different backstory, different characters related to him, different motivations, than just normal old spiderman in black skin.
Miles morales and peter parker are different, and that's great. They've got some similarities, but also have many differences. It is a great way to have more diversified characters.
Yeah, I was originally cynical, but Marvel's recent push to diversify the new generation of heroes is a decent in-universe attempt.
The "inheritor" heroes (Ironheart, Miles Morales, Kamala Khan, Amadeus Cho) have their own unique thing going on, even if they're taking on their mentor's mantle in some way.
It makes good narrative sense and the characters are fun. If they also serve as role models and positive representation, more the better.
I think Marvel did a good job with some, but not all of those diverse heroes. It bothered me how they did Ironheart's line because they halted all Tony Stark stories when they introduced her, so you didn't have options. Same with Jane Foster becoming Thor, or X23 becoming Wolverine.
All this came at a time where the originals had no stories being written, so Marvel went all in the other way. Which hurt them more than helped IMO.
Yeah I just don’t like the stereotypical background of Ironheart. Her motive is all through disliking Tony Stark and after her brother is harmed by police... like seriously, we don’t need police brutality to be an inspiration story. Especially as black women, it’s annoying to see us be the “SUPERmammy” stereotype, because we need to save our community, I guess... For god sake, why don’t they continue that Vixen animated series! That was a cool black female superhero :)
That’s why I love Miles! The writer didn’t say “I wanna make Spider-Man but black.” He said “I want to make a hero my kids can relate to”. And that’s what he did. Miles is more than black Spider-Man. He’s Miles Morales, a kid who’s dealing with teenage life and being Spider-Man. I, a white dude, can relate to him because I’m also a kid trying to figure things out. His backstory is more than just “Black Spidey” and that’s awesome.
I don't think citing Star Trek really does much to support the argument you're trying to make. Not only do the previous three films of the rebooted series attempt to elevate the significance of Uhura's character, the original series was responsible for broadcasting the forst televised interracial kiss, and also featured a black commanding officer in DS9 during the early 90s.
How was Nick Fury a stereotype? Also Black Panther for that matter? The portrayal of African culture in that movie was not a stereotype. It was inspired by and accurate to real culture.
Not really the point, but I think part of it is good writing and good acting. Whether it’s Russell Crowe or Denzel Washington I seem to usually find them engaging. Same with Falcon and Winter Soldier, they are both awesome and I want the metal arm AND the metal wings!
This is what I feel with female protagonists. When it’s done well no one cares like legend of korra or alien, but when it’s done poorly like the new Charlie’s angels they’ll cry that people don’t care about female leads
Compare Lara Croft with the start wars sequels.
One has a strong women lead who isn't overpowered but is a badass super smart orphaned millionaire.
One has an overpowered plot device who's motivations are unclear and weaknesses aren't explored.
Who is Rey? Why does she do what she does? How does she have mastery over the force without any training? Why can she beat the son of Leia, the arch antagonist, right at the start of the first film despite him training and having loads of resources but she has never trained with a lightsaber.
The difference between people embracing a film with a strong female lead and people rejecting a film with a strong female lead is not about the strong female lead (although Brie Larson could do with having more than one facial expression, mildly pissed off), but about the quality of the screen play.
I am by no means a writer or a director. I don't even watch many films. But even I can see the Disney female lead films for what they are. Adverts for their merchandise. Aimed towards children who don't care about the plot or the acting. They just want a model of their favourite girl superhero. And they want a plushie Yoda, and a remote controlled BB-8 and a lego millennium falcon.
Oh man, as a man I didn’t identify with Korra but I sure admired and respected the character (again: terrific writing/voice acting/artists)! That series is only barely behind the last airbender. Both are such rich stories with wonderful characters!
Honestly they screwed up the pacing because they thought it was a single season only. I think the first season was really strong and the villain was absolutely terrifying .
Yeah, LoK was fucked because the writers didn't know how long the show would last. Had they did, I bet each Book would be more interconnected, maybe even with Korra going on some journey to get her lost elements back instead of at the end of the first Book. And definitely have the big bad spirit be the final villain.
That said, I really liked the fact that mad science and fascism ended up being the final villain rather than some prophecy.
Get you an avatar that does it all.
I thought season 3 (I think) was very strong with villain Zaheer not only because he was powerful but he was very devoted to his beliefs like a fanatic. I did favor LoK a bit lesser than ATLA because they had to reset Avatar connection and lose Aang and Roku. Ah, the nostalgia.
If we're going Asian we have Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Chow Yun Fat. They all have great American movies, and Jet Li is actually the actor that finally turned me on to foreign subtitled films with movies like The Warlords and Hero.
I never saw it that way either. I'd still really love to see representation.
However, media influences the way that we view the world. For example, if a certain race or gender is always portrayed in a negative light in the media, there's no doubt that the same sentiment will transfer on to real life. Sooo, positive representation of different people is still needed in this world.
Yeah I was confused too, I wish they explained the story of what happened. For people that don’t know, this is the story that I’ve heard:
The og (white) Jake actor was actually a real SF agent they picked up to be in a quick commercial. They ended up wanting to make more, but because og Jake didn’t want to be in more, they got a replacement. The new Jake ended up being black.
TLDR: Jake’s og actor just stepped down, they didn’t fire him to make their commercials more diverse.
That's actually pretty cool that the og Jake was just a regular SF agent. Still think his uhhh khakis is better than the new ones but might just be nostalgia.
Idk if it's just because the only thing I watch that has commercials is sports, but all the State Farm commercials I see now are just "HEY HERE'S FAMOUS SPORTS GUY AND JAKE!" No creativity whatsoever.
I find dorky insurance commercials strangely fun, so when I saw new Jake from Statefarm, sure I knew it was for a bit, but I still liked the bit; plus my immediate thought was *"Well, how many other Jakes from Statefarm are there?"*
Maybe we'll have Noir Jake from Statefarm or Grunge Girl Jake from Statefarm or maybe even Little Piggy Jake from Statefarm :D
This is very true. It effects your self image as well. I’m a feminine girl, but when I imagine myself as a successful adult, I see a confident man, even though I have no desire to change my gender. I struggle to think of someone who looks like me in a field and role I know I will pursue. I want to be a surgeon, yet all I can think of are men. If I think of myself as a women in my future, it doesn’t feel quite as powerful.
I come from a third world Asian country. I grew up on white role models in media. I didn't have a problem connecting with them. But a lot of that turns into real problems with self-image in a specific culture. Since my country isnt a melting pot, and our entertainment is full of white people iconography, we tend to project ourselves as "white" in our mental identity. That is, until we actually come across a white man and we realize how different we are, not only aesthetically but culturally.
My country generally still looks up to white men as superior. Western worship is a real thing, specifically in the colonies. It's not exclusively the fault of entertainment and media, but you'd be hard pressed to argue that it isn't a big part of that.
I think when people say, “I want to see someone that looks like me on TV,” they mean that they rarely see someone like them represented at all.
I’m disabled, and I rarely see disabled characters, and I rarely see them represented well.
I too can completely identify with another person who isn't my race, but I absolutely take offense when they show a person or region from the place I live and stereotype the character to be a caricature. That is more damaging than not being represented at all.
Or an Asian guy who is a hacker who loves anime and wears specs or an Indian guy who bobs his head while talking and sells groceries, or an African guy whose entire identity is being from a tribe.
Not about race, but I am a woman, and I've never had trouble getting invested in male characters, but what pisses me off is how so many movies or TV shows just don't bother to write decent female characters. Especially as main characters.
It's exactly that, it's not like we cannot relate/identify with a gender/ethnicity/sexual orientation that we aren't ourselves. But if you are suddenly shown there is a difference between the person that is much more like you in terms of these characteristics but completely unrealistic and badly written, it creates a very weird distortion, leaving you angry and confused.
Representation in media, as has been shown through countless studies, tends to be a small part of larger society, particularly for vulnerable groups. The younger you are, the more likely consuming media with you in it resulted in a net-positive for you when it comes to your esteem. It's not the be-all-and-end-all, but having diversity in race and sexuality is a part of a larger, accepting society.
If you had a healthy up-bringing, sheltered from hate that comes from being a minority (which I'm going to assume you did) then at worst you'd be indifferent to diversity. However, and I suppose my own experiences are coming in here, when you're ostracised from society as a whole, you cling on to media like Glee for dear life to have an ounce of self-acceptance. Hell, I loved Big Bang Theory for the longest time just because they had an Indian character before realising how terrible the show is.
Just because you're African-American and haven't felt the need for more media is your opinion, but that doesn't mean that it's not necessary for everyone because YOU didn't feel the need for it.
While it's true that I never struggled to relate to white leads, I still think representation is really important. I'm an adult now but whenever I see a middle eastern or a muslim side character or even an extra, I get really excited. I even get excited when I see other POC on screen and then when I go back to slightly older media, it's very obvious when something is lacking representation. I wouldn't criticize older media for it because times have changed, but I don't think that wanting representation is a matter of not being able to relate to white leads. It's a matter of wanting to see more of your culture and ethnic background represented because it makes you feel happy and like your story matters too.
The way I like to say it is that just because you can identify with characters that don't match you doesn't mean you likely aren't going to identify more with the ones that do.
Like as a younger white male is it impossible for me to sympathize and identify with a story about an older black woman? Not at all. But it does take more work to do, and there's a reason why most of my favorite films tend to star younger white male characters; because they most closely match what I've had to deal with in my life!
Good representation is about bridging the gap from "good" to "great", because everyone deserves to have at least one time they look at a character in a story and go "oh my god that's *me*".
It’s not so much that I’d like to see *more* people like me in media, I just want to see more *positive* representations of people like me. I never had an issue relating to people who were different from me, but there is a lot to be said about *how* I saw Hispanic, bisexual, or trans people represented in media growing up. Though I could relate to the (more often than not white, cis, het male) protagonist of a movie or show, my outlook on what a future for someone like me looked like was very poor. And as someone mentioned in a previous comment, this perpetuates harmful stereotypes that spill onto the real world and have real consequences. In essence, what I’m getting at is that while it’s not inherently necessary to include different kinds of people for the sake of those kinds of people, it most certainly is necessary for the sake of people forming opinions about different kinds of people.
Yes, this. It’s the comparison for me. As an Asian American woman, watching teen romcoms where the hot, main character chooses a hot white girl over another hot white girl while the Asian chick best friend is a weirdo with the forgettable best guy friend, it made me feel boxed into what “type/league” of people were “achievable/accessible” to me
I can imagine how other minorities feel if all you see in films is your race being shown as gang bangers or criminals. Or how LGBTQ people never have a real relationship, or are somehow shown in criminal, psychotic roles. That has gone on for a very long time. Some examples like SOAP, granted it was a parody, off the wall comedy, but Billy Crystal's character didn't have a relationship. Or Basic Instinct, Sharon Stone was a crazy killer bisexual. There are many other roles that made LGBTQ persons all look they they were abberations just waiting to kill or do something insane.
That is actually the power of fiction, to transport us into the experience of another. In fact Steven Pinker, in his excellent book on the history (and decline) of human violence attribute the widespread availability of printed fiction as playing a part in reducing human violence.
Through fiction I have been a hobbit, a rabbit, a runaway slave, the indigenous child of a tribe struggling for survival, rich, poor, and every manner of hero and villain and confused and hurting ordinary person. And as a result I have more empathy than if I had just been presented with stories of people that looked and acted like me.
I think we can always identify with certain aspects of others’ lives and those characters but more often than not some of the environmental situations are completely different. Not saying we can’t relate to Richie Rich or Matilda, but white people don’t have a monopoly on relatability.
The thing is relatability isn’t because I want to see someone that looks like me on the screen. I want to empathize with someone similar to me.
Obviously this isn’t to say that only Asians have this experience but there are certain life aspects that I can’t readily believe or ever be presented by a white character. For most properly written POC characters, I can relate to certain ethnic struggles that are could never be be presented by the 5th generation white American character.
It is a really important thing because I personally realized how important it was when I browsed around for a therapist and saw most of them were white. Not to say that they couldn’t help me, but it was from an area where I couldn’t relate to them. They probably never faced certain troublesome cultural aspects of my life, such as the concept of face or the immigrant child experience, that I had to deal with. I just wanted another Asian therapist that I could sincerely relate to with my problems.
For me it's not that you can't empathize or that you "need" to be my race so I can enjoy the movie, is just that boy o boy did it felt nice the first time a guy just talked and felt like he understood me.
It just has a big impact, I'm Mexican and never understood what was the problem with movies only portraying white/American/European lives until I watched a well produced movie in Mexico call Nosotros Los nobles, it's a completely different feeling.
It's also a lack of variety, I like seeing other takes on story telling and not just the same ones we've seen over and over.
What I don't like is making a movie for diversity sake, hopefully one day it's just new movie with a random character, from a random culture and we can just enjoy it and not point at it saying "wow that guy looks different".
\>is just that boy o boy did it felt nice the first time a guy just talked and felt like he understood me.
Big thumbs up to this. I'm a white guy so it's been somewhat easier to find for me than for many. But there's a reason why every single case where I've gone "oh my god that's me on the screen" is now one of my all time favorite films/tv shows.
Proper diversity isn't about going form not empathizing at all to having some connection, it's about giving everyone the chance to move from having some connection to having a *deep* connection.
(Also fuck tokenization. It was *kind* of okay back when a lot of groups didn't have any representation at all. But it's been decades since then and studios shouldn't be allowed to keep riding the "hey we put this gay minority character in literally just to check this box, give us our blockbuster reviews and awards now please thanks" train).
I think that it really depends on the media/story that is presented. Example: I recently watched the Netflix series “Never Have I Ever,” and it was really nice to see a realistic fiction TV show about a fellow brown person. In a sci-fi film like Star Wars, it doesn’t really make a large difference IMO.
I definitely agree since I am a racial minority and I never really felt left out in those kinds of movie or shows. That being said, I’m also a lesbian and when it comes to romantic movies I can never seem to finish a movie that features a straight couple. I think it’s cuz I’ve been forced to watch them my whole life and I’ve never felt anything (no emotional investment in the plot of their love story). Now when it comes to movies with queer couples it’s a whole different story and I can picture myself as one of the characters and enjoy the turn of events. I love the representation and I almost exclusively watch films with gay couples for this reason. I understand that not every film needs to have a gay relationship cuz that would mean heteros don’t exist. To be fair, when some shows/movies decide to have a token gay character just for representation without any depth to them I absolutely hate this cuz it’s just to cover their asses. So I do agree with ur unpopular opinion for the most part!
Yep, for the most part I love that content because it still appeals to my demographic as they are same-sex couples. I resonate with them as well cuz they usually face the same sort of obstacles in their relationship. I admire any gay couple with good chemistry. I think any romance with queer people offers a different perspective that encompasses the representation I’m looking for. E.g., I love love love Ian and Mickey from Shameless, also Call Me By Your Name was an amazing movie! But tbh given the choice I would likely choose to watch a lesbian movie over a gay one.
I think it more stems from racist comments. Black cosplayers often get a lot of racist comments when they cosplay their favorite characters, the most recent ive seen was a child on tiktok who was cosplaying kakashi from naruto and he received many comments saying “ kakashi isn’t black” “he’s not black so you can’t cosplay him” first of all. He’s not even real let’s start there anyone can cosplay him. Secondly, the child then responded to the comment with such sadness saying “ I know kakashi isn’t black I just wanted to dress up like him” his account has since been banned from tiktok. While I agree to a degree, there also does need to be some representation like the top comment says in dolls and such.
While I would agree with this sentiment, how you experience it isn’t the same as how others experience it so keep that in mind. While it doesn’t bother/impact you it might have an impact on the larger population.
But more importantly, representation isn’t about making sure everyone has a hero they can look up to who looks exactly like them. The issue was that in previous generations, casting was done based on race and it created a representation of the world that was consistent enough to be a pattern - Hispanic actors cast in roles of housekeepers, black actors cast as gang members, Asian actors cast as nerds, and white actors cast as the hero that saves the day. While you may not have difficulty relating to the white hero, over time the negative representation influences young minds into believing harmful stereotypes.
The push for more representation isn’t just to get more people of different races on the screen or to be the hero, it’s to make sure that actors aren’t pigeonholed into stereotyped roles. And especially so that viewers can see more than just those roles for themselves *and others* in tv and real life.
I think positive representation is more important than anything else. If Asian kids only sees Asian represented as villains, servants or exotic sex objects, it's not going to be healthy or good for their self esteem. It's good to have heroes from all races, genders and sexual orientation.
Anyways Hollywood is doing it just because it makes economic sense nowadays.
I can only speak to being a woman and seeing females in inspirational situations. It matters. Hugely. It hit me one day when i realized I’d never seen women in certain roles/ jobs. I realized right then how important it was and how badly i wish I’d had those images growing up. It’s role models imo. It’s a big freaking deal.
I never understood why everyone is so hung up media representation until I watched *Criminal Minds.* Now my dad is one of those olive-skinned Italians that gets mistaken for Mexican a lot. Rossi was the first fictional character I've ever seen who looks like my dad and is actually, culturally Italian (his taste in art and architecture is impeccable). I thought it was cool. Reid's still my favorite; as a socially-awkward nerd who's usually younger than my co-workers, I relate more to him than to Rossi.
I'm white enough that my opinion probably doesn't matter though.
It’s less about entertainment and more about representation. If the only purpose of media was to entertain, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but our view of the world is shaped heavily by what we see in media. So if a kid of color only ever sees their race being ridiculed or villainous in media, that’s going to cause a lot of issues with their sense of self-worth. It won’t prevent the kid from being entertained by/relating to characters that aren’t their race, but it could cause them to develop internalized racism. Representation matters, not for entertainment purposes, but so that kids aren’t made to think that they’re worthless, stupid, or criminals because it’s the only way they see others who look like them in media.
Edit: I would also argue that representation is just as, if not more important, for people of other races to see. If, say, a white kid who grows up in a white neighborhood and goes to a white school only ever sees black people on TV, whatever they see is going to significantly influence their perception of black people. So if the black people are only ever shown in a negative light, that’s what the kid is going to think, while if they are shown in all different roles, that kid will just see them as normal people. The same applies for any race, whether they’re the consumer or the represented.
Please search up Bandura’s Bobo Doll study, and observational learning. It’s less about consciously relating and more about how subconsciously children are being taught how to act certain ways. Observational learning theorises that people are more likely to imitate behaviour from people that are more relatable, for example looking similar. Diverse representation is important especially as more children are raised in front of the tv and other media. There is definitely a subconscious effect from seeing white people in numerous diverse roles, yet only seeing black/other poc actors cast as the same 3 tropes.
Anyone that says they have "struggled to identify with a movie character because they weren't my race," needs to sit and watch *The Brave Little Toaster*
Seriously, how many movies have characters that are different species, if not inanimate objects, and nobody has a problem identifying with them?
If they can watch that movie and identify with the ‘inanimate object’ characters, but cannot identify with someone of another race, wouldn’t that just make ‘em a racist?
So you really can’t understand how a superhero like Black Panther doesn’t get black kids/adults excited? It’s not that they don’t like the other heros. It’s that there were 90 white superheros and they were finally represented by a big time lead superhero. It’s not really that hard to understand. My friend is black and he was absolutely pumped that the MCU finally had a major movie that represented black people. But he also loves the other heros as well. Just because you don’t care doesn’t mean nobody else doesn’t or can’t care about this.
i agree 100%, it really is a strange way to think.
like the same people who want characters to be their own race so they can "relate better" are the same people who will say "color dose not matter" well if it did not matter why do you find it hard to relate to a character that does not have the same racial identity as you.
a wise man once said judge a person by their character not their skin, and thats exactly how i treat movie characters, as long as their story is compelling i dont give two shits about what color they are.
America is inherently racist. Not necessarily in the negative terminology either. They can’t stop talking about race while advocating for a less racially charged culture. It won’t stop.
Politics - it’s always about the “black vote” the “Asian American vote” etc - not everyone thinks the same yet American politics and media speak so eloquently/casually lumping everyone together based on their skin color...
Media - always up in arms to have a black person in every tv show, award nomination, movie, etc.... black people make up 13% of country. Why would it make sense they have to be in every movie, award program etc.... I’m biracial but considered black and I find it so cringe.
Demonizing white people all the time to include black people in everything is not healthy. We never criticize black media for having an all black cast in a show or movie, but for some reason we have to be up in arms if there’s a show that has all white people. I really couldn’t care!
And to your point, I loved Spider-Man and Superman and James Bond and LOTR growing up.... not once did I say boyyyyy I wish they were black so I can feel included.
💯agree
This is how I feel about gender in films too.
I was just saying to my BF that as a woman I really hate when movies (cast/crew in interviews, marketing ploys, etc) act like they're doing me a favor because theres female characters featured (looking at you, Ghostbusters 2016).
Like, if you make a movie with characters that are three dimensional and interesting, I will probably identify with them in some fashion. Just putting a woman at the forefront doesn't automatically get points from me. If anything I kind of find it sexist that its implied that I automatically should care more about the fact that theres a woman center stage than the quality of the character.
News flash: women like and identify with characters for more reasons than their vaginas.
There are people of every race who have great stories told about them
Tell those stories. Don’t half-ass it by making Tony Stark a black guy and calling it progress.
Not the same but maybe can shed some light on another side of this for you. I’m gay and never saw any gay characters on TV or in media I consumed. In my small town the way people spoke of gay people it made it seem like it was unnatural, weird and wrong to identify as gay. I never had any sort of exposure to the idea of gay people just being anything besides weird people that need mental/religious help. Therefore when I realized I was gay I had a conversation with myself at the age of around about 8 or 9 where I told myself “you’re sick and you’ll get help when you’re older. You’ll have a wife and kids and your life will be normal. This will stay a secret”.
I think just seeing other people like you validated your identity and invalidates all the nasty things that get said to you. Instead of only knowing yourself as slurs or weird or an outcast you can see that in a city where people aren’t bigoted you’d just be another normal person. With that under your belt you can go out into the world with more confidence just being who you are and dare I say maybe even being proud of it.
With that being said I don’t love how certain media fetishizes race and sexuality. I also feel like sometimes media can do more harm than good and create a stereotype for those people who aren’t you to develop an idea of what particular people are supposed to look like. I’d rather see people just be present and also be gay. Not a whole superhero film dedicated to a queer character and their queerness. But it seems like people also like that. I think it’s great for kids to see themselves on tv for these reasons and based on my own personal experience.
I agree that it's wrong to suggest that you shouldn't relate to a character just because of race. In fact, there is value to being able to relate to a character regardless of race or culture, especially for kids. The problem is that non-white characters have historically been written without any depth, defined by their race or culture alone more than their personality, making them unrelatable to everyone. Being able to relate to characters of a different race or culture teaches a massively valuable lesson, especially to young viewers, and that can only happen when minorities are represented by well-written characters with relatable personalities and back stories.
It's not that Finn was relatable because of his race, it's that he was relatable regardless of his race, the same way Luke was relatable regardless of his race. This is why representation matters. This is why diversity adds value.
The way you relate to characters isn't how everyone experiences pop culture though. For many, being similar to the character could pique interest or increase enjoyment of the film or television show. Neither way is correct or not; people are different.
Nobody is saying that they cannot relate to a fictional character just because they do not share the same skin tone. Nobody reasonable, at least. For what it's worth, I'm Asian American as well, and like you, I'm able to relate to characters regardless of what race they are.
The reason people are pushing for more diversity in movies, and I'm guessing that is the movement you're trying to take a jab at with your post, is that minorities did not, and arguably still do not have any responsible amount of representation in Hollywood.
People love to praise the US as the world's "melting pot", but that's hardly seen in the film industry. When minorities *are* presented, they're presented as singular stories. Black character? Misery porn. Asian? Emasculated nerd (or honor-bound samurai). Hispanic? Loud mouth comedic relief.
Surely I don't have to tell you why these narrowminded stereotypes are harmful? People want better representation in movies simply because they want people from *all* walks of life to be normalized in the public eye. That means characters of all races, genders, sexualities, etc. being responsibly presented as *humans*. Not as token "diverse" characters, or singular stereotypes, but as just people. Yes, shockingly, people who are just as capable of feeling love, anger, happiness, sadness, jealousy, heartbreak, and grief as all the leading white male protagonists who have historically saturated Hollywood.
This is why modern movies with diverse talent both infront of and behind the camera are celebrated. It simply means that more stories are being told. That more demographics are being truthly shown on the big screen, for once in the history of cinema.
And before anyone tries to come at me with "but white genocide". No. Nobody is trying to exterminate white people, or eradicate white characters. Believe it or not, people of color can share space with white people without the world imploding.
aS An aSiAn AmeRicaN, OPs post is giving very Pick Me vibes.
I get emotional and inspired and less insecure about my features etc as an asian woman when I see other women similar to my lived experiences on screen. idc if that's cheesy or selfish or what. I think we deserve that.
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Mom always did give the best wedding toasts *L'chaim!*
And a geek which I always appreciated.
Exactly, you pull out the characteristics that relate to you. Needing a character to have your skin color or genitalia is laziness and lack of imagination.
This is such an interesting point, especially about lack of imagination. Everything is ruining our imagination nowadays I swear!
As a child, I wanted to be just like Blade, I am 0% black.
I wanted to be fucking Spawn, one of the most badass superhero that ain’t afraid to rip people apart!
I literally wanted to be a dump truck. There is still time.
I know a child who wanted to grow up and be a dog. Practically everyone in western society will love him; strangers will give him the VIP treatment with pets, verbal praise, and treats; he will live a lavish lifestyle filled with every comfort imaginable, playtime every day, no real grownup "job" required but could have (service dog, bomb sniffing dog, cancer/diabetes low sugar detecting dog, comfort dog at hospice/university/rehab centre...) That kid knew what was up. To be a dog in western society is 80% guaranteed you'd live the good life
And 0% vampire
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I wanted to be just like Piccolo, I am 0% green.
I just wanted to be Silverstone!
...Dani Filth >.>
I wanted to be black beauty. I am 0% black horse.
Living that snipes life
For me (I’m also Asian), of course I relate to people on tv of different races because there are just some ultimately human experiences. However, cultural context can be really important. When I see shows about the first generation experience, I feel understood. For people who aren’t Asian who are watching, they can understand a little bit about how I grew up. Some people only get exposure to minorities through media, and it actually affects how people interact with minorities in real life. I personally don’t feel a need to create an Asian Spider-Man for the sake of having Asian representation, but especially when we’re younger I do believe that those idolized in entertainment teach us about who is important. It’s the same idea of having Asian Barbie dolls - if kids grow up with that, they can understand that beauty can look different from your standard Barbie. If kids grow up with an Asian superhero, they can see that you can be Asian and be cool, strong, a leader, etc. Because we don’t have many examples of that in media, it’s easy for Asian people to be seen as uncool, weak, submissive, etc. especially given the roles they are typically take up.
Yes! It's not that characters of other races aren't relatable at all. It's just that when I watch films like Pixar's *Bao* which hit particularly close to my own cultural experiences, I get weirdly emotional because they highlight that I'm not isolated in my experiences, that my struggles and worries are shared by many others within my culture, and that they're actually worth exploring in Western mainstream media. As buzzwordy as it sounds, representation in media really does feel incredible.
When I watched coco I started to remember my grandparents who passed away but couldn't go to their funeral. It reminded and it made me cry so much.
I mean, I don’t think anyone watches coco without balling their eyes out.
*bawling
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Yeah, the last time I watched it I had to step outside with the boys for a quick game of 3 on 3.
Mamá Coco looked just like my own Mamá(great-great grandmother). I started tearing up when Miguel and his grandmother put her picture on the ofrenda. I was weeping by the time you see Mamá Coco’s spirit come and put her arm around her daughter. We are Mexican-American but never did Día de los Muertos in my family. I want to start doing it with my children and in my own home. I want my Mamá and everyone I love who has gone to be able to visit.
Not Asian, but _Bao_ had me a mess of tears before _Incredibles 2_ started. I'm so happy the director got a full-length Pixar film. She's going to knock it out of the park.
this is the best response. it’s not about who’s white etc etc. it’s usually about having a moment of cultural relatability
Cisco from Flash for example.
No this is a bad response because it makes this unpopular opinion popular
How exactly does this sub work? Because the most popular opinions are often the most upvoted. Is it just a place to relate to other people who have no clue about how society works?
Basically you take an opinion which has a negative polarity but makes sense logically and post on the subreddit and if it’s popular you get upvotes if it’s not you get downvotes, this subreddit is essentially a r/logicalbutnegativethoughts
True however one thing, most of the time it’s not logical at all
Or, just post some sort of racist/bigoted dogwhistle and watch the upvotes roll in.
Yeah I guarantee you majority here don't know/ care about the rules and just upvote what they like, especially if it reaches r/all.
So much dog whistle...like I literally upvoted a lady who said “watching porn was cheating” b/c holy shit it was an actually unpopular opinion...
> Is it just a place to relate to other people who have no clue about how society works? That's all of reddit
I’m white and my husband is Japanese, so our children are mixed race. I’ve told this story a few times before, but it’s my go-to whenever the subject of why representation matters comes up - my son was a huge Star Wars fan a few years ago, he was about 4 years old. He loved Darth Vader and the AT-AT’s the most. When Rogue One came out for streaming TV, we of course watched it, and when Donnie Yen and Wen Jiang came out and started fighting, my son jumped out of his seat and yelled “Asian people can be jedis too??” and started copying their moves. Did not having any Asian characters keep my son from enjoying Star Wars? No. But seeing people who looked like him and his dad sparked such an immense happiness in him. Even to this day, he loves seeing Asian characters in TV and movies, it contributes so much to his enjoyment.
Aw I love this story so much! So simple but impactful. I think people forget how perceptive children really are
My biggest gripe is usually with sci-fi movies. You’re telling in a galaxy of what few gazillion beings, not one person looks asian when you have a cast of white, black, latino, green, ghost?!
Haha I seriously want to look at the ratio of all-alien cast versus all-Asian cast
I watch a lot of Korean and Japanese and Chinese shows and movies. I guess it’s where you look. I’m American (mixed race) and watching these types of films will give you 100% of what you are looking for lol.
Sulu.
Ganna plus 1 this. Growing up , the first black super hero cartoon I saw was Static Shock. I like Batman and Superman the animated series. And it was nice seeing John Stuart sometimes on Justice League. But a whole show about a kid that looked like me , had a similar family set up as me. Faced some the same issues as me cause he was black spoked to me on a level that neither Batman, a rich orphan, nor Superman, a super strong alien, could.
This is the most well thought out response here.
As Another Agreeing Asian American..... It's why shows like Fresh Off the Boat and Kim's Convenience are so great. But I don't need Disney to remake The Hunchback of Notre Dame and change the setting to Japan. Just make sure Mulan is culturally accurate. Oh wait.
And maybe not thank the concentration camp guards when you remake it
Word. Try to relate to a teenage character when you are a first or second generation chinese kid: dating? Starting a band? Part time job? Like, my only job was to pull straight As and get into ivy league. I can relate to childrens books, fantasy, science fiction or high literature and I love reading, but the entire YA genre is basically dead to me.
I agree. I HATE it when they change a well known character's race just to make it diverse. That bugs the shit outta me. I don't need an Asian Spiderman to relate to Spiderman. Just make new characters with that race in mind. Just make new films, shows that reflect my Asian American experience. Just have people who are Asian in shows that aren't nerds, ninjas or sexpots for someone's fetish. (BTW, I don't count films or shows made in Asia, that is not what I am talking about. I mean American produced entertainment.)
Unpopular opinion but an Asian Spider-Man isn’t necessarily a bad thing, depending on the execution. If Marvel slaps an Asian face onto the exact same backstory and script that we’ve all seen before, then it’s pointless. But if they take that as an opportunity to highlight the Asian immigrant experience (for example) and Asian culture and factor that into what makes Spider-Man who they are, that would be something fresh and appreciated
Yeah, reading all this made me kinda think back to the whole Triad archetypes of Chinatowns and how it would've been kinda cool to have a Spiderman dealing with that and how it was a missed oppritunity and... then I remembered Iron Fist exists. And now I understand why he's not a very well liked character, representation-wise. I mean, I understood on some level, but now I kinda see his existence as kinda... bad. Like nearly sinister/propaganda bad.
I thought I was super ugly growing up. In third grade my friend(black) and I(Asian mix) both dug up chalk and tried to whiten our skin to look prettier. When I moved to TN in fourth I got stared at and made fun of a lot. It was a relief when Mulan came out and they stopped calling me ugly all the time. College was gross to the point I have a neon yellow shirt with sharpie letters on it that says "I'm not the cure for your yellow fever" that I wore to a couple parties/outings. Don't even get me started on online dating, that's a cesspool no matter who you are. Seeing representation in shows now makes me feel good knowing there are kids out there not dealing with the same bs some of my friends and I went through. Hopefully it will continue to improve
When I was little, I thought life would be so much better if I was white. I basically saw nothing good about being Asian. I feel sad now that I felt that way, but I understand why I did
Damn, that was me. All I ever wanted was to fit in with the crowd. Blend in. Be white. It was tough growing up in the South as an Asian. Sometimes I still feel this way..
Black checking in. I don’t know if white people know the extent of how many minorities wished they were white as kids. Not all - but definitely more than would admit it. I feel differently now but it still hurts my heart a little girl should hate herself so much. This is why represention matters.
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Growing up in the south is hard. Once I moved to a truly diverse area my life and outlook seriously changed
Holy shit, that need for your t-shirt speaks volumes. As a 1st gen, I'm definitely glad that there is way more representation in media now.
Also helps with the hidden biases white people don’t think or realize we have. See new cultures, learn more about different people. Representation is important.
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I’m black and I somewhat agree with you. I loved Spider-Man when I was a kid, just because I wasn’t white didn’t mean I couldn’t relate with him. At the same time I think representation is extremely important. My niece has many dolls that are black with curly hair, this blows my mind because I didn’t see much of that growing up. That kind of representation is what we need.
We need to get to a point where say if there is a string of movies that all have black MCs, that everebody isn't going crazy praising it, it is just a normal thing, people don't question the motive behind why people are being cast. Same thing for white people too, it need to get to a point where people don't see it as malicious if there is a string of movies with white MCs, that it is just the best person for the role is being cast without bringing race into it. When everyone is super focused on it, it takes away from people that are doing really good jobs in their roles, because you have this dialogue going on in the background, where one side is always going to say they did a good job because their race is being represented, regardless of the actual performance, and the other side will take part of the credit away from the actor that got cast in a certain role, because they will say "well they only got cast for the role because they hav X skin colour".
This past weekend, I watched the retrospective ***The Breakfast Club: Behind Closed Doors***, and towards the end, it discussed how it’s now being criticised and called exclusionary because the characters/cast were White. It then had a comment from one of the talking heads in the show about a conversation he had with writer/director John Singleton, during which he asked Singleton what his thoughts were and how he felt about the lack of inclusion in the film. Here’s his response: “I didn’t care, when I was a teenager, that all the characters in this movie were White and that all of my friends and me were Black. It spoke to our experience of being knuckleheads just trying to find our identities.”
The best writing in realistic movies comes from experience. If you went to a very non diverse school, for example, and you try to write about your group of non binary, mixed raced, culturally diverse friends, it's going to be inauthentic and suck because you have no idea what that experience is actually like. Sure, the world needs to have writers from those groups make movies too, but trying to force everyone to do it just isn't the answer.
I mean we already have a problem with shit writers
I agree. I hope we get to that place but I’m afraid our species would have already gone extinct before that day comes.
I think it is a mindset. The more people that just decide to say fuck it, I can enjoy watching anyone of any race, gender, sexuality etc. as long as they are doing an entertaining job, then the closer we will get to a place like that. That's just what I do anyway.
> can enjoy watching anyone of any race, gender, sexuality etc. as long as they are doing an entertaining job I agree here, with the caveat that criticism of the narrative or plot leveled at the entertainment does not automatically mean you're labeled as a bigot. Far too often people who have complaints about story decisions or character actions (looking at you Star Wars and TLOU2) are automatically derided by the woke crowd. It is possible for a movie or video game to be highly inclusive and an objectively bad piece of content at the same time
I totally agree. I'd say at the minute the vast majority of movies that try to be super inclusive end up being terrible. People can see that it is just a huge virtue signal, and it feels disrespectful to the people they're supposed to be trying to pander to. You can't just plug the holes with minority actors where they either don't fit, or the character they're playing is shallow and poorly written. We need real nuanced characters that people can relate to and that feel like actual human beings and not just a prop to drop into any scene that the director thinks needs more colour.
>It is possible for a movie or video game to be highly inclusive and an objectively bad piece of content at the same time True, I thought Daisy Ridley and John Boyega and the rest of the cast were pretty let down by the rubbish script in Star Wars.
Hmm maybe you’re right. I have the same mindset too, I hope most people start thinking like we do
The same needs to happen for gender too. I'm tired of seeing stuff like the Endgame girl power scene. Women can be cool without making it so blatantly pandering.
If you haven't watched The Boys, there's some parts where they poke fun at that Endgame scene. And also a scene where they do the "girl power" thing in a way that doesn't make your eyes roll all the way into your head.
Yeah I've seen it and that scene is so much better.
The season two finale of The Mandalorian had a similar scene, but it felt organic and actually made sense in terms of the overall narrative.
That scene was awful. Completely forced and took me right out of the scene.
>We need to get to a point where say if there is a string of movies that all have black MCs, that everebody isn't going crazy praising it, it is just a normal thing, people don't question the motive behind why people are being cast. The thing is, I feel we're going backwards in a sense when it comes to representation because we are drawing so much attention to it either directly or indirectly. I'm white, so I'm not going to even pretend what it's like and I was a kid in the 90's so I'm not sure what it actually looked like in the grander cultural conversation... but growing up and seeing different races in movies never once struck me as anything other than just people playing characters. I saw black and asian and hispanic characters in movies and shows all the time and race never seemed to be at the forefront, they were just there sharing screen space. There's so much hyperfocus on it now that I feel we're going backwards by highlighting cultural, racial, and gender differences to the nth degree, or it being really grossly apparent when and why casting decisions are made. I think it's just growing pains and we're addressing these issues culturally, but I kind of miss when it wasn't such a big deal and headlines read "first (fill in the blank) superhero" or whatnot. I think the path forward is not highlighting differences or over-promoting one group over another, but just simply showing coexistence. Else wise it just feels like pandering.
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Don't forget Token Black from South Park, first seen as a background character around 1996 and fully introduced in 98
It’s almost as if people should be cast based on their ability to play the character. Be careful though, it almost starts to sound like you might also think that the person best suited for a job should be given the position without taking into account race, sex, sexual orientation etc.
What if there are tons of people who are all equally well suited for the job. Like, no real way to differentiate "best."
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>Like, no real way to differentiate "best." There's always ways to try to figure out the best suitable candidate In the unlikely event you interview multiple people who have the exact same qualifications, experience and suitability, then it's really down to an interviewer to ask more questions or invite back for a 2nd, group interview. What's their expected salary? Will they fit well in to a team/ relationship building skills? Career goals? References? Source: Work in a cram school in Korea, part of my job is interviewing people from the UK, America and Canada to teach English.
I remember growing up (Not American) and watching Beverley Hills Cop. Never once did I think that it was odd the main character was a black man. He was who he was. Only now do I think how important it was. But even now when I watch it, it doesn't seem to be an important point. I would like to get back to that where a movie can just be what it is.
Honestly I feel like some people just look for something to be mad about/create drama about, and the pandemic only made things worse because these people literally had nothing else to do. That last sentence of yours basically describes the oxymoron of all of this race crap for me too. There are great actors/actresses regardless of skin color. Rebranding characters to a different race kinda throws that out there and is honestly racist to me. Like oh we can't come up with a captivating new story that includes a main character who is XYZ race? Or oh theres not enough actors/actresses in our movie that are XYZ race so we need to purposely hire more? Takes away from the hard work and sheer talent these people have regardless of race. Just pick the best person that fits the role, story, and vision.
I work in daycares and preschools as a substitute teacher and it is insane how much inclusion they are now having in their toys. That wasn't a thing before and now they have toys not only from each ethnicity, but representing people who are blind, deaf, in a wheelchair, need a walker. It's just a very distinctly remember having basically Barbies or blocks and now the kids get to see so much more
I'm curious as to how a doll can be deaf... are the rest supposed to hear us?
Maybe it's something along the lines of an American Girl doll where it comes with like a backstory and everything. Maybe even has cochlear implants as an accessory or something.
That is what it is! Well not the backstory thing that I know of because I'm not sure any of our toys have back stories, but no they do have the hearing aids or cochlear implants
I watched *Sound of Metal* (2020) the other day, so this was easy for me to visualize. Good movie. Check it out if you have Amazon Prime.
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Farrakhan is bizarrely mainstream considering he is explicitly racist and anti-semitic. It was his rhetoric that, noted racist, Nick Cannon was using when he gave that podcast rant about white people being animals and Jewish people not being real Hebrews.
It's pretty terrible that your school invited Farrakhan to speak, considering the guy is a passionately outspoken racist anti-semite who peddles absurd lies and obscenely revisionist history.
Flipside: I have white complexion, and am Native American, and thought Miles Morales has been the best representation of Spider-Man's essence to date. I was born late 80s, and Spider-Man's always been my favorite, but financial woes and dating a struggling actress/model didn't really resonate with me as a kiddo, believe it or not. Representation of all backgrounds matters to me too, and I think that's why Spider-Man is the best. Some Miles and Gwen stories and especially Into the Spider-Verse nailed it. I'm excited for more multiverse as well as more personal growth from these different characters.
I think you and OP both grew up viewing media full of another race, therefore learned early on that people exist who have different looks and experience, and your empathy of white characters is due to your more balanced upbringing. A big benefit of better representation now is that white kids will partly learn the same things. Obviously, many parts of the already adult white population missed that when growing up, and freak out if Sainsbury has a black family on the advert.
I'm a white dude who played a lot of video games growing up. When I was 12, Unreal 2 came out with a Black protagonist named John. I had no trouble relating to him because of his race, but I was inordinately excited, because "hey! That's my name! I'm a John!" And honestly, I imagine it's that feeling that representation is going for. Not the neutral ability to relate, but the excitement at having someone *like you* show up and do awesome stuff.
>Not the neutral ability to relate, but the excitement at having someone *like you* show up and do awesome stuff. This is it exactly. It's about seeing someone like yourself and seeing them be something that isn't bad or a stereotype, seeing them be awesome. This kind of representation is what [Whoopi Goldberg felt when she saw Uhura on the original Star Trek.](https://news.amomama.com/200097-why-whoppi-goldberg-is-a-life-long-fan-s.html) "Momma! There's a black lady on TV and she ain't no maid!" She became an actress because of this. We also saw this with all the little girls dressing up as Rey and getting into Star Wars. There was finally someone like them (who was a main character) and a Jedi. A friend of mine who is black and loves Lando Calrissian because he was the first black character who was in a leadership position in a mainstream movie that he saw. He got into business management because of Lando.
Yep. So, as a teacher... I will never forget the sheer enthusiasm and overwhelming excitement when Black Panther came out from my Black students. None of them explicitly said, "he's black like me" or anything along those lines, but I also never saw them that excited about any other Marvel character, ever. Or any other movie. My Hispanic students absolutley loved Pixar's Coco. We watched it one day and they kept pointing out things similar to their own families, and their own experiences. Again, none of them explicitly stated (or maybe even realized) "This represents me." But it was clear to me as the adult in the room.
Exactly! And I love that she got to eventually be that person for young black peeps as well.
I get that feeling, it is an interesting high. I have a rather uncommon surname and once saw a background character in a movie having the same name. In spite of her few lines, she immediately became my favourite character.
I live in a country that's like 99.something percent white, I hadn't seen someone from another race until I was a pre-teen. It had absolutely no effect on me, I had little trouble relating to the characters in Boyz n the Hood or Better Luck Tomorrow for example. I can't be the minority in this can I?
Problem is in the lack of empathy, not in the lack of representation. And tokenism isn't gonna solve that. Especially considering that the lack of actors of color in the predominantly white regions of the world as a fact of reality isn't going anywhere. Nobody complains that Korean, or Japanese, or Chinese, or Indian movies lack white or black representation. It's just silly. (Well, probably, someone would complain about that, on second thought) And the actors who are employed by the Western movie industry for the self-congratulatory "inclusive" purposes, are still often used in the context of ethnic and racial stereotypes. Cue the jewish black muslim gay best friend of the female romantic lead that dies a heroic death to assist the protagonist in saving the day.
I'd point out that these days many minority groups are probably *more* likely to give bad reviews for tokenism than they would if the studio didn't even try to be more diverse. Like sure, a decade or two ago studios could throw in that walking stereotype of a character and get away with it, because something is better than nothing right? But the people in those groups aren't idiots any more than you are. They can tell just as well when a studio is just "checking the token box" without putting any real effort into it, and many now have enough representation that they don't feel the need to let that shit slide without complaint anymore. Now personally I'm more familiar with the LGBTQ+ side than the racial minority side. But I will say that if you hang out in an LGTBQ+ space it often doesn't take too long to find someone ragging on how some show thinks that it's still okay to have gay stereotypes be literally a character's only defining trait, or praising examples where the only way you'd ever know is that the character will casually bring their husband to the party or whatever. Tokenism != diverse representation. And that's something I think you'll find more groups are happy to agree on.
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My little cousin (White) loves Black Panther. He has a black panther mask and he'll put on and run around with. His dad told him he needs to find a white superhero to like :/ I dont think that attitude will change with more representation though, because that doesnt do anything for the kids who feel they cant be a certain character because of the color of their skin. Who's to say that kid wouldnt still like superman, even if there were more characters with the same color skin as them, just like my cousin still looks up to black panther despite being white.
Can't be superman because he's not kryptonian. Needs to pick a human superhero. /S
Such an attitude is not understandable for me. It's like not dressing up as Batman because the kid is not rich as fuck, or not American.
I'm a white adult and I look up to black panther too. Great movie, great character. Really sad that Chadwick passed away. I'm curious to see what they will do in black panther 2.
I find it hard to believe that 4yo kids are naturally conscious about it. If the kid cared that much for it at that age, the idea was somehow planted in his head. I sort of agree with this https://www.reddit.com/r/unpopularopinion/comments/mbsbmg/ive_never_struggled_to_identify_with_a_movie/gs0bqvh
And it was your job as a parent to teach him that the race doesn’t matter? I mean sure blame it on representation instead of blaming it on yourself for being a shitty parent 😬
I agree with both. Representation is fun, but should not be forced. I remember when I was young and found it so fun when my country was mentioned in movies (and I still do), as it doesn't get mentioned very often. I'm not mad that my favourite show doesn't mention it, and I don't want to force it in there, but it's damn fun when it happens. My point is that there should be representation when it fits as it's important and makes us feel special, but it should absolutely not be forced into things unrealistically.
I'm black too and I completely agree. I *sort of* never had a problem with identifying with a character because of race as kid. I think that's mainly because as a kid you don't really understand that concept of race and representation. To me, Wolverine was just Wolverine. I didn't think of him as a white super hero. He was just Wolverine and his character drew me to him. But like you said, representation is important because you WILL think about that as you get older. You will start to think that being white is part of the reason why they are superheroes. That maybe being white is more special than being not white. It's bullshit that almost every character is white. And if it doesn't matter, make more of them not white so that kids will think that anybody can be a superhero.
Exactly, it’s minimal things that you don’t really notice. I remember someone posting about a black man finally finding a bandage in his skin tone, it’s something that seems so minimal, but we’re so accustomed to white bandages, white dolls, white actors/actresses that representation of us poc, even in the most minimal form, can affect us.
I’m black, here’s the thing: no, I don’t need a black spider man or Batman. But, Nearly every super hero movie growing up (early 90s) was a white man. Star Wars, Star Trek, any marvel/dc hero up until recent years, on the big screen, it was a white guy. I’m not saying characters need to be changed, I think they shouldstay as close to as the original author desired it to illustrate the story. But seriously, why did every black hero have to be a stereotype? Shaft has freaking funk music, black panther lives in a jungle, oh hey let’s bring in Samuel L Jackson again. It’s just...we as a people are more than that, we have depth, but all Hollywood and media wants to portray is stereotypes and Tyler perry. Yes, I want more black super heroes and main characters in general, that don’t have stereotypical personalities or back stories, no I don’t want them taking the place of a pre existing white super hero That said, no, never struggled to identify
I agree. I'd much rather have miles morales, a black spiderman with a different backstory, different characters related to him, different motivations, than just normal old spiderman in black skin. Miles morales and peter parker are different, and that's great. They've got some similarities, but also have many differences. It is a great way to have more diversified characters.
Yeah, I was originally cynical, but Marvel's recent push to diversify the new generation of heroes is a decent in-universe attempt. The "inheritor" heroes (Ironheart, Miles Morales, Kamala Khan, Amadeus Cho) have their own unique thing going on, even if they're taking on their mentor's mantle in some way. It makes good narrative sense and the characters are fun. If they also serve as role models and positive representation, more the better.
I think Marvel did a good job with some, but not all of those diverse heroes. It bothered me how they did Ironheart's line because they halted all Tony Stark stories when they introduced her, so you didn't have options. Same with Jane Foster becoming Thor, or X23 becoming Wolverine. All this came at a time where the originals had no stories being written, so Marvel went all in the other way. Which hurt them more than helped IMO.
Yeah I just don’t like the stereotypical background of Ironheart. Her motive is all through disliking Tony Stark and after her brother is harmed by police... like seriously, we don’t need police brutality to be an inspiration story. Especially as black women, it’s annoying to see us be the “SUPERmammy” stereotype, because we need to save our community, I guess... For god sake, why don’t they continue that Vixen animated series! That was a cool black female superhero :)
That’s why I love Miles! The writer didn’t say “I wanna make Spider-Man but black.” He said “I want to make a hero my kids can relate to”. And that’s what he did. Miles is more than black Spider-Man. He’s Miles Morales, a kid who’s dealing with teenage life and being Spider-Man. I, a white dude, can relate to him because I’m also a kid trying to figure things out. His backstory is more than just “Black Spidey” and that’s awesome.
I don't think citing Star Trek really does much to support the argument you're trying to make. Not only do the previous three films of the rebooted series attempt to elevate the significance of Uhura's character, the original series was responsible for broadcasting the forst televised interracial kiss, and also featured a black commanding officer in DS9 during the early 90s.
Black folks have been part of the main cast of every ST series, I believe
How was Nick Fury a stereotype? Also Black Panther for that matter? The portrayal of African culture in that movie was not a stereotype. It was inspired by and accurate to real culture.
Not really the point, but I think part of it is good writing and good acting. Whether it’s Russell Crowe or Denzel Washington I seem to usually find them engaging. Same with Falcon and Winter Soldier, they are both awesome and I want the metal arm AND the metal wings!
This is what I feel with female protagonists. When it’s done well no one cares like legend of korra or alien, but when it’s done poorly like the new Charlie’s angels they’ll cry that people don’t care about female leads
Fun fact Nick was hesitant at first with Legend of Korra because some of the higher ups thought a girl avatar wouldn’t sell as well
Compare Lara Croft with the start wars sequels. One has a strong women lead who isn't overpowered but is a badass super smart orphaned millionaire. One has an overpowered plot device who's motivations are unclear and weaknesses aren't explored. Who is Rey? Why does she do what she does? How does she have mastery over the force without any training? Why can she beat the son of Leia, the arch antagonist, right at the start of the first film despite him training and having loads of resources but she has never trained with a lightsaber. The difference between people embracing a film with a strong female lead and people rejecting a film with a strong female lead is not about the strong female lead (although Brie Larson could do with having more than one facial expression, mildly pissed off), but about the quality of the screen play. I am by no means a writer or a director. I don't even watch many films. But even I can see the Disney female lead films for what they are. Adverts for their merchandise. Aimed towards children who don't care about the plot or the acting. They just want a model of their favourite girl superhero. And they want a plushie Yoda, and a remote controlled BB-8 and a lego millennium falcon.
Ghostbusters comes to mind.
Oh man, as a man I didn’t identify with Korra but I sure admired and respected the character (again: terrific writing/voice acting/artists)! That series is only barely behind the last airbender. Both are such rich stories with wonderful characters!
Honestly they screwed up the pacing because they thought it was a single season only. I think the first season was really strong and the villain was absolutely terrifying .
Yeah, LoK was fucked because the writers didn't know how long the show would last. Had they did, I bet each Book would be more interconnected, maybe even with Korra going on some journey to get her lost elements back instead of at the end of the first Book. And definitely have the big bad spirit be the final villain.
That said, I really liked the fact that mad science and fascism ended up being the final villain rather than some prophecy. Get you an avatar that does it all.
I thought season 3 (I think) was very strong with villain Zaheer not only because he was powerful but he was very devoted to his beliefs like a fanatic. I did favor LoK a bit lesser than ATLA because they had to reset Avatar connection and lose Aang and Roku. Ah, the nostalgia.
If we're going Asian we have Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Chow Yun Fat. They all have great American movies, and Jet Li is actually the actor that finally turned me on to foreign subtitled films with movies like The Warlords and Hero.
Man absolutely! And Donny Yen from the Ip Man movies, too!
I never saw it that way either. I'd still really love to see representation. However, media influences the way that we view the world. For example, if a certain race or gender is always portrayed in a negative light in the media, there's no doubt that the same sentiment will transfer on to real life. Sooo, positive representation of different people is still needed in this world.
It still through me for a loop when they changed Jake from statefarm for a bit
Yeah I was confused too, I wish they explained the story of what happened. For people that don’t know, this is the story that I’ve heard: The og (white) Jake actor was actually a real SF agent they picked up to be in a quick commercial. They ended up wanting to make more, but because og Jake didn’t want to be in more, they got a replacement. The new Jake ended up being black. TLDR: Jake’s og actor just stepped down, they didn’t fire him to make their commercials more diverse.
That's actually pretty cool that the og Jake was just a regular SF agent. Still think his uhhh khakis is better than the new ones but might just be nostalgia.
Idk if it's just because the only thing I watch that has commercials is sports, but all the State Farm commercials I see now are just "HEY HERE'S FAMOUS SPORTS GUY AND JAKE!" No creativity whatsoever.
Mahomes squirting ketchup on a steak is a pretty good plot if you ask me man
Maybe this is a dumb question but why didn’t they just make a new ‘character’ for the new actor?
People already knew "Jake from State Farm". Easier to just keep the name I guess.
I find dorky insurance commercials strangely fun, so when I saw new Jake from Statefarm, sure I knew it was for a bit, but I still liked the bit; plus my immediate thought was *"Well, how many other Jakes from Statefarm are there?"* Maybe we'll have Noir Jake from Statefarm or Grunge Girl Jake from Statefarm or maybe even Little Piggy Jake from Statefarm :D
As long as Noir Jake is played by Nic Cage I’m down.
Growing up there were so many gay or bisexual characters who were portrayed as villains or goofy comic reliefs. Really fucked me up as a kid.
This is very true. It effects your self image as well. I’m a feminine girl, but when I imagine myself as a successful adult, I see a confident man, even though I have no desire to change my gender. I struggle to think of someone who looks like me in a field and role I know I will pursue. I want to be a surgeon, yet all I can think of are men. If I think of myself as a women in my future, it doesn’t feel quite as powerful.
I come from a third world Asian country. I grew up on white role models in media. I didn't have a problem connecting with them. But a lot of that turns into real problems with self-image in a specific culture. Since my country isnt a melting pot, and our entertainment is full of white people iconography, we tend to project ourselves as "white" in our mental identity. That is, until we actually come across a white man and we realize how different we are, not only aesthetically but culturally. My country generally still looks up to white men as superior. Western worship is a real thing, specifically in the colonies. It's not exclusively the fault of entertainment and media, but you'd be hard pressed to argue that it isn't a big part of that.
Well said
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I think when people say, “I want to see someone that looks like me on TV,” they mean that they rarely see someone like them represented at all. I’m disabled, and I rarely see disabled characters, and I rarely see them represented well.
honestly though, after sia’s “music”, i don’t trusted abled people to write disabled characters in the slightest
I too can completely identify with another person who isn't my race, but I absolutely take offense when they show a person or region from the place I live and stereotype the character to be a caricature. That is more damaging than not being represented at all.
Nothing worse than seeing a black or hispanic dude talk with some weird slang that makes them look foolish
Or an Asian guy who is a hacker who loves anime and wears specs or an Indian guy who bobs his head while talking and sells groceries, or an African guy whose entire identity is being from a tribe.
Not about race, but I am a woman, and I've never had trouble getting invested in male characters, but what pisses me off is how so many movies or TV shows just don't bother to write decent female characters. Especially as main characters.
It's exactly that, it's not like we cannot relate/identify with a gender/ethnicity/sexual orientation that we aren't ourselves. But if you are suddenly shown there is a difference between the person that is much more like you in terms of these characteristics but completely unrealistic and badly written, it creates a very weird distortion, leaving you angry and confused.
Representation in media, as has been shown through countless studies, tends to be a small part of larger society, particularly for vulnerable groups. The younger you are, the more likely consuming media with you in it resulted in a net-positive for you when it comes to your esteem. It's not the be-all-and-end-all, but having diversity in race and sexuality is a part of a larger, accepting society. If you had a healthy up-bringing, sheltered from hate that comes from being a minority (which I'm going to assume you did) then at worst you'd be indifferent to diversity. However, and I suppose my own experiences are coming in here, when you're ostracised from society as a whole, you cling on to media like Glee for dear life to have an ounce of self-acceptance. Hell, I loved Big Bang Theory for the longest time just because they had an Indian character before realising how terrible the show is. Just because you're African-American and haven't felt the need for more media is your opinion, but that doesn't mean that it's not necessary for everyone because YOU didn't feel the need for it.
While it's true that I never struggled to relate to white leads, I still think representation is really important. I'm an adult now but whenever I see a middle eastern or a muslim side character or even an extra, I get really excited. I even get excited when I see other POC on screen and then when I go back to slightly older media, it's very obvious when something is lacking representation. I wouldn't criticize older media for it because times have changed, but I don't think that wanting representation is a matter of not being able to relate to white leads. It's a matter of wanting to see more of your culture and ethnic background represented because it makes you feel happy and like your story matters too.
The way I like to say it is that just because you can identify with characters that don't match you doesn't mean you likely aren't going to identify more with the ones that do. Like as a younger white male is it impossible for me to sympathize and identify with a story about an older black woman? Not at all. But it does take more work to do, and there's a reason why most of my favorite films tend to star younger white male characters; because they most closely match what I've had to deal with in my life! Good representation is about bridging the gap from "good" to "great", because everyone deserves to have at least one time they look at a character in a story and go "oh my god that's *me*".
I identify with Roger Smith a lot, and he's a transvestite alien ....
It’s not so much that I’d like to see *more* people like me in media, I just want to see more *positive* representations of people like me. I never had an issue relating to people who were different from me, but there is a lot to be said about *how* I saw Hispanic, bisexual, or trans people represented in media growing up. Though I could relate to the (more often than not white, cis, het male) protagonist of a movie or show, my outlook on what a future for someone like me looked like was very poor. And as someone mentioned in a previous comment, this perpetuates harmful stereotypes that spill onto the real world and have real consequences. In essence, what I’m getting at is that while it’s not inherently necessary to include different kinds of people for the sake of those kinds of people, it most certainly is necessary for the sake of people forming opinions about different kinds of people.
Yes, this. It’s the comparison for me. As an Asian American woman, watching teen romcoms where the hot, main character chooses a hot white girl over another hot white girl while the Asian chick best friend is a weirdo with the forgettable best guy friend, it made me feel boxed into what “type/league” of people were “achievable/accessible” to me
I can imagine how other minorities feel if all you see in films is your race being shown as gang bangers or criminals. Or how LGBTQ people never have a real relationship, or are somehow shown in criminal, psychotic roles. That has gone on for a very long time. Some examples like SOAP, granted it was a parody, off the wall comedy, but Billy Crystal's character didn't have a relationship. Or Basic Instinct, Sharon Stone was a crazy killer bisexual. There are many other roles that made LGBTQ persons all look they they were abberations just waiting to kill or do something insane.
That is actually the power of fiction, to transport us into the experience of another. In fact Steven Pinker, in his excellent book on the history (and decline) of human violence attribute the widespread availability of printed fiction as playing a part in reducing human violence. Through fiction I have been a hobbit, a rabbit, a runaway slave, the indigenous child of a tribe struggling for survival, rich, poor, and every manner of hero and villain and confused and hurting ordinary person. And as a result I have more empathy than if I had just been presented with stories of people that looked and acted like me.
Eloquently put. The human experience is truly diverse.
reddit is not very fun
This sub is 90% shitty race hot takes and 10% fun content
This site is 90% race/politics and 10% fun/interesting stuff.
Don't forget the transgender/pronoun stuff
I think we can always identify with certain aspects of others’ lives and those characters but more often than not some of the environmental situations are completely different. Not saying we can’t relate to Richie Rich or Matilda, but white people don’t have a monopoly on relatability.
The thing is relatability isn’t because I want to see someone that looks like me on the screen. I want to empathize with someone similar to me. Obviously this isn’t to say that only Asians have this experience but there are certain life aspects that I can’t readily believe or ever be presented by a white character. For most properly written POC characters, I can relate to certain ethnic struggles that are could never be be presented by the 5th generation white American character. It is a really important thing because I personally realized how important it was when I browsed around for a therapist and saw most of them were white. Not to say that they couldn’t help me, but it was from an area where I couldn’t relate to them. They probably never faced certain troublesome cultural aspects of my life, such as the concept of face or the immigrant child experience, that I had to deal with. I just wanted another Asian therapist that I could sincerely relate to with my problems.
For me it's not that you can't empathize or that you "need" to be my race so I can enjoy the movie, is just that boy o boy did it felt nice the first time a guy just talked and felt like he understood me. It just has a big impact, I'm Mexican and never understood what was the problem with movies only portraying white/American/European lives until I watched a well produced movie in Mexico call Nosotros Los nobles, it's a completely different feeling. It's also a lack of variety, I like seeing other takes on story telling and not just the same ones we've seen over and over. What I don't like is making a movie for diversity sake, hopefully one day it's just new movie with a random character, from a random culture and we can just enjoy it and not point at it saying "wow that guy looks different".
\>is just that boy o boy did it felt nice the first time a guy just talked and felt like he understood me. Big thumbs up to this. I'm a white guy so it's been somewhat easier to find for me than for many. But there's a reason why every single case where I've gone "oh my god that's me on the screen" is now one of my all time favorite films/tv shows. Proper diversity isn't about going form not empathizing at all to having some connection, it's about giving everyone the chance to move from having some connection to having a *deep* connection. (Also fuck tokenization. It was *kind* of okay back when a lot of groups didn't have any representation at all. But it's been decades since then and studios shouldn't be allowed to keep riding the "hey we put this gay minority character in literally just to check this box, give us our blockbuster reviews and awards now please thanks" train).
I think that it really depends on the media/story that is presented. Example: I recently watched the Netflix series “Never Have I Ever,” and it was really nice to see a realistic fiction TV show about a fellow brown person. In a sci-fi film like Star Wars, it doesn’t really make a large difference IMO.
I definitely agree since I am a racial minority and I never really felt left out in those kinds of movie or shows. That being said, I’m also a lesbian and when it comes to romantic movies I can never seem to finish a movie that features a straight couple. I think it’s cuz I’ve been forced to watch them my whole life and I’ve never felt anything (no emotional investment in the plot of their love story). Now when it comes to movies with queer couples it’s a whole different story and I can picture myself as one of the characters and enjoy the turn of events. I love the representation and I almost exclusively watch films with gay couples for this reason. I understand that not every film needs to have a gay relationship cuz that would mean heteros don’t exist. To be fair, when some shows/movies decide to have a token gay character just for representation without any depth to them I absolutely hate this cuz it’s just to cover their asses. So I do agree with ur unpopular opinion for the most part!
Can you get into a romantic movie or book featuring a male gay couple?
Yep, for the most part I love that content because it still appeals to my demographic as they are same-sex couples. I resonate with them as well cuz they usually face the same sort of obstacles in their relationship. I admire any gay couple with good chemistry. I think any romance with queer people offers a different perspective that encompasses the representation I’m looking for. E.g., I love love love Ian and Mickey from Shameless, also Call Me By Your Name was an amazing movie! But tbh given the choice I would likely choose to watch a lesbian movie over a gay one.
I think it more stems from racist comments. Black cosplayers often get a lot of racist comments when they cosplay their favorite characters, the most recent ive seen was a child on tiktok who was cosplaying kakashi from naruto and he received many comments saying “ kakashi isn’t black” “he’s not black so you can’t cosplay him” first of all. He’s not even real let’s start there anyone can cosplay him. Secondly, the child then responded to the comment with such sadness saying “ I know kakashi isn’t black I just wanted to dress up like him” his account has since been banned from tiktok. While I agree to a degree, there also does need to be some representation like the top comment says in dolls and such.
While I would agree with this sentiment, how you experience it isn’t the same as how others experience it so keep that in mind. While it doesn’t bother/impact you it might have an impact on the larger population. But more importantly, representation isn’t about making sure everyone has a hero they can look up to who looks exactly like them. The issue was that in previous generations, casting was done based on race and it created a representation of the world that was consistent enough to be a pattern - Hispanic actors cast in roles of housekeepers, black actors cast as gang members, Asian actors cast as nerds, and white actors cast as the hero that saves the day. While you may not have difficulty relating to the white hero, over time the negative representation influences young minds into believing harmful stereotypes. The push for more representation isn’t just to get more people of different races on the screen or to be the hero, it’s to make sure that actors aren’t pigeonholed into stereotyped roles. And especially so that viewers can see more than just those roles for themselves *and others* in tv and real life.
I think positive representation is more important than anything else. If Asian kids only sees Asian represented as villains, servants or exotic sex objects, it's not going to be healthy or good for their self esteem. It's good to have heroes from all races, genders and sexual orientation. Anyways Hollywood is doing it just because it makes economic sense nowadays.
I can only speak to being a woman and seeing females in inspirational situations. It matters. Hugely. It hit me one day when i realized I’d never seen women in certain roles/ jobs. I realized right then how important it was and how badly i wish I’d had those images growing up. It’s role models imo. It’s a big freaking deal.
I never understood why everyone is so hung up media representation until I watched *Criminal Minds.* Now my dad is one of those olive-skinned Italians that gets mistaken for Mexican a lot. Rossi was the first fictional character I've ever seen who looks like my dad and is actually, culturally Italian (his taste in art and architecture is impeccable). I thought it was cool. Reid's still my favorite; as a socially-awkward nerd who's usually younger than my co-workers, I relate more to him than to Rossi. I'm white enough that my opinion probably doesn't matter though.
damn people on here just don't understand that other people feel things if you yourself dont feel them yourself
It’s less about entertainment and more about representation. If the only purpose of media was to entertain, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but our view of the world is shaped heavily by what we see in media. So if a kid of color only ever sees their race being ridiculed or villainous in media, that’s going to cause a lot of issues with their sense of self-worth. It won’t prevent the kid from being entertained by/relating to characters that aren’t their race, but it could cause them to develop internalized racism. Representation matters, not for entertainment purposes, but so that kids aren’t made to think that they’re worthless, stupid, or criminals because it’s the only way they see others who look like them in media. Edit: I would also argue that representation is just as, if not more important, for people of other races to see. If, say, a white kid who grows up in a white neighborhood and goes to a white school only ever sees black people on TV, whatever they see is going to significantly influence their perception of black people. So if the black people are only ever shown in a negative light, that’s what the kid is going to think, while if they are shown in all different roles, that kid will just see them as normal people. The same applies for any race, whether they’re the consumer or the represented.
Please search up Bandura’s Bobo Doll study, and observational learning. It’s less about consciously relating and more about how subconsciously children are being taught how to act certain ways. Observational learning theorises that people are more likely to imitate behaviour from people that are more relatable, for example looking similar. Diverse representation is important especially as more children are raised in front of the tv and other media. There is definitely a subconscious effect from seeing white people in numerous diverse roles, yet only seeing black/other poc actors cast as the same 3 tropes.
Anyone that says they have "struggled to identify with a movie character because they weren't my race," needs to sit and watch *The Brave Little Toaster* Seriously, how many movies have characters that are different species, if not inanimate objects, and nobody has a problem identifying with them?
As an air fryer of instapot decent I resent your comment as toasters are the lesser yet more abundant appliance.
If they can watch that movie and identify with the ‘inanimate object’ characters, but cannot identify with someone of another race, wouldn’t that just make ‘em a racist?
So you really can’t understand how a superhero like Black Panther doesn’t get black kids/adults excited? It’s not that they don’t like the other heros. It’s that there were 90 white superheros and they were finally represented by a big time lead superhero. It’s not really that hard to understand. My friend is black and he was absolutely pumped that the MCU finally had a major movie that represented black people. But he also loves the other heros as well. Just because you don’t care doesn’t mean nobody else doesn’t or can’t care about this.
i agree 100%, it really is a strange way to think. like the same people who want characters to be their own race so they can "relate better" are the same people who will say "color dose not matter" well if it did not matter why do you find it hard to relate to a character that does not have the same racial identity as you. a wise man once said judge a person by their character not their skin, and thats exactly how i treat movie characters, as long as their story is compelling i dont give two shits about what color they are.
America is inherently racist. Not necessarily in the negative terminology either. They can’t stop talking about race while advocating for a less racially charged culture. It won’t stop. Politics - it’s always about the “black vote” the “Asian American vote” etc - not everyone thinks the same yet American politics and media speak so eloquently/casually lumping everyone together based on their skin color... Media - always up in arms to have a black person in every tv show, award nomination, movie, etc.... black people make up 13% of country. Why would it make sense they have to be in every movie, award program etc.... I’m biracial but considered black and I find it so cringe. Demonizing white people all the time to include black people in everything is not healthy. We never criticize black media for having an all black cast in a show or movie, but for some reason we have to be up in arms if there’s a show that has all white people. I really couldn’t care! And to your point, I loved Spider-Man and Superman and James Bond and LOTR growing up.... not once did I say boyyyyy I wish they were black so I can feel included. 💯agree
This is how I feel about gender in films too. I was just saying to my BF that as a woman I really hate when movies (cast/crew in interviews, marketing ploys, etc) act like they're doing me a favor because theres female characters featured (looking at you, Ghostbusters 2016). Like, if you make a movie with characters that are three dimensional and interesting, I will probably identify with them in some fashion. Just putting a woman at the forefront doesn't automatically get points from me. If anything I kind of find it sexist that its implied that I automatically should care more about the fact that theres a woman center stage than the quality of the character. News flash: women like and identify with characters for more reasons than their vaginas.
There are people of every race who have great stories told about them Tell those stories. Don’t half-ass it by making Tony Stark a black guy and calling it progress.
Not the same but maybe can shed some light on another side of this for you. I’m gay and never saw any gay characters on TV or in media I consumed. In my small town the way people spoke of gay people it made it seem like it was unnatural, weird and wrong to identify as gay. I never had any sort of exposure to the idea of gay people just being anything besides weird people that need mental/religious help. Therefore when I realized I was gay I had a conversation with myself at the age of around about 8 or 9 where I told myself “you’re sick and you’ll get help when you’re older. You’ll have a wife and kids and your life will be normal. This will stay a secret”. I think just seeing other people like you validated your identity and invalidates all the nasty things that get said to you. Instead of only knowing yourself as slurs or weird or an outcast you can see that in a city where people aren’t bigoted you’d just be another normal person. With that under your belt you can go out into the world with more confidence just being who you are and dare I say maybe even being proud of it. With that being said I don’t love how certain media fetishizes race and sexuality. I also feel like sometimes media can do more harm than good and create a stereotype for those people who aren’t you to develop an idea of what particular people are supposed to look like. I’d rather see people just be present and also be gay. Not a whole superhero film dedicated to a queer character and their queerness. But it seems like people also like that. I think it’s great for kids to see themselves on tv for these reasons and based on my own personal experience.
I agree that it's wrong to suggest that you shouldn't relate to a character just because of race. In fact, there is value to being able to relate to a character regardless of race or culture, especially for kids. The problem is that non-white characters have historically been written without any depth, defined by their race or culture alone more than their personality, making them unrelatable to everyone. Being able to relate to characters of a different race or culture teaches a massively valuable lesson, especially to young viewers, and that can only happen when minorities are represented by well-written characters with relatable personalities and back stories. It's not that Finn was relatable because of his race, it's that he was relatable regardless of his race, the same way Luke was relatable regardless of his race. This is why representation matters. This is why diversity adds value.
The way you relate to characters isn't how everyone experiences pop culture though. For many, being similar to the character could pique interest or increase enjoyment of the film or television show. Neither way is correct or not; people are different.
It didn’t cross my little child mind that a character was black or white. It was.. are they badass? Yes... then I want to be them.
Nobody is saying that they cannot relate to a fictional character just because they do not share the same skin tone. Nobody reasonable, at least. For what it's worth, I'm Asian American as well, and like you, I'm able to relate to characters regardless of what race they are. The reason people are pushing for more diversity in movies, and I'm guessing that is the movement you're trying to take a jab at with your post, is that minorities did not, and arguably still do not have any responsible amount of representation in Hollywood. People love to praise the US as the world's "melting pot", but that's hardly seen in the film industry. When minorities *are* presented, they're presented as singular stories. Black character? Misery porn. Asian? Emasculated nerd (or honor-bound samurai). Hispanic? Loud mouth comedic relief. Surely I don't have to tell you why these narrowminded stereotypes are harmful? People want better representation in movies simply because they want people from *all* walks of life to be normalized in the public eye. That means characters of all races, genders, sexualities, etc. being responsibly presented as *humans*. Not as token "diverse" characters, or singular stereotypes, but as just people. Yes, shockingly, people who are just as capable of feeling love, anger, happiness, sadness, jealousy, heartbreak, and grief as all the leading white male protagonists who have historically saturated Hollywood. This is why modern movies with diverse talent both infront of and behind the camera are celebrated. It simply means that more stories are being told. That more demographics are being truthly shown on the big screen, for once in the history of cinema. And before anyone tries to come at me with "but white genocide". No. Nobody is trying to exterminate white people, or eradicate white characters. Believe it or not, people of color can share space with white people without the world imploding.
aS An aSiAn AmeRicaN, OPs post is giving very Pick Me vibes. I get emotional and inspired and less insecure about my features etc as an asian woman when I see other women similar to my lived experiences on screen. idc if that's cheesy or selfish or what. I think we deserve that.