I’m not sure why the writers matter much. Is there really that much that is white specific written into scripts?
Just go ahead and do it. The waffling tends to be racist…
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Uh. Sex appeal has been studied to death over the last 50 years. Seriously, there are thousands of papers on everything from how ethnic Chinese respond to various body types in advertising to A/B tests of product imagery on packaging in stores to studies on movie posters effect on people going into theaters.
You really believe they appeal to the male gaze in tv/movies (ugh, what a strange choice of words for something that you are supposed to stare at) because of confirmation bias? Good god. Damn near everything is market tested.
Sure, no one really knows if a film is going to be a blockbuster, but they sure as hell know how to tilt the odds in their favor.
Why would all ‘white’ people be lumped in together in the first place? There’s as much diversity in appearance (and other genetic traits) in there as there is between ‘whites’ and Jews, or Africans, or anyone else (in fact, a native of Andalucia looks more like someone from North-Africa than they do someone from Scandinavia, yet the Spaniard is stuck in the same box as the Dane?). These labels are completely arbitrary at the end of the day, it’s annoying we can’t just stop using them already. Maybe I should start labeling myself black, if Obama can be black, then so can I (a reasonable percentage of my skin has a quite high concentration of melanin in the form of freckles).
I’m not sure why the writers matter much. Is there really that much that is white specific written into scripts?
What does ‘white specific’ even mean?
At the end of the day writers should write whatever makes sense in the context of what their writing, if that means the cast mostly all look similar and have the same genetalia than fine, if not, then that’s great too. This constant picking apart of media to ensure it measures up to some unattainable ideal is getting increasingly tiresome (even when there’s praise for something, there always has to be some area where they’ve got it wrong, e.g. that Agent Carter article on AV Club). It also does a disservice to the stories themselves, good writing results from people writing what they know, forcing unnatural diversity will just result in tokenism and lazy stereotyping. I’m all for more diverse writing voices getting heard, the more perspectives our stories are told from the better IMO, but lecturing at consumers and producers of media you don’t like isn’t the way to go about it, create and champion the shit you do like instead.
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I said for it to work well. If you have a generic character that anyone one could play, then it won’t matter.
But IMHO, people write best what they know. I think your average writer has difficulty writing characters that they can’t directly relate to with out resorting to archetypes, stereotypes, and tropes. I honestly think that is why there is less diverse characters in video games as well.
And I am not saying writers can’t do a good job with say a different race and sex than what they are, I am saying those of that race/sex will generally do a better job as they know the material better.
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Mmm. That’s kind of the point, there isn’t that much that is written that is specific to white people. Most roles you could stick anyone in and as long as the actor was decent, they could add whatever color they needed (no pun intended).
The only thing that I can think of that is white specific would be sunburns, tanning salons, spray on tans, skin cancer and high suicide rates.
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I’d oppose a cap too, but just because those are the stories we usually see portrayed on screen doesn’t mean those are necessarily the most interesting or film-worthy stories to tell.
For example, The Wire proved that even in a gritty crime drama the stories of the black drug dealers’ lives were every bit as interesting as the stories of the (largely) white police officers trying to apprehend them.
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See original comment. The “male gaze” wasn’t actually related to what the original poster was talking about (it was about the presumption of men wanting to watch men on screen). We’re not talking about something even remotely as simple as packaging testing. The reality is, anyways, that the majority of people who go to films are actually women. And yes, despite market testing, etc. what makes a successful movie is highly subjective in many ways and is entirely dependent on what movies get made in the first place.
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Ahh I see the problem now. While the audience of all moviegoers does skew female (52% though 50% of tickets sold), the demographics of the highest grossing films skews male.
For 2014, of the top 5 grossing films, 4 of them had populations that skewed male (upwards of 59% for the #1 film Guardians of the Galaxy to 55% for The Lego Movie) while one skewed female (Hunger Games went 57% female).
Sadly the MPAA limits demographic breakdown to the top 5 grossing films, but I can’t imagine the trend wouldn’t continue for movies that are clearly geared towards men (X-Men, Planet of the Apes, Spider-Man, Godzilla, etc).
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In all likelihood, this old white man will be voting for a woman to my president next year, against a probable white guy. I voted twice for a Black guy, and have no regrets. I think the reason society think all white men are bad, has something to do with the rich white men who own and run everything in this country. Society forgets all the white men who work a job, pay taxes, and generally, are not racist,homophobic or sexist. I am one of the latter…
Most of the characters in the Avengers are white male; they were created by two Jewish white males, who latter added several strong female characters, including, The Black Widow.Why do I have to wait to see a Black Widow movie? Someone decided this character could not bring an audience into the theater. The all white Fantastic Four, created by those same two white Jewish guys, gave us The Black Panther, way back in the 1960’s. I have been waiting since I was a kid to see this Black African character on any screen, cause the character is so good and so cool. Why do I have to wait so long to see a Black Panther film? I did finally get to see Gamora, from Guardians in the Galaxy in action, and the actress who portrayed her was perfect, and not white.
Representation in books, comics, film, and television is not equal, never has, but it has gotten better over the years. I remember a lot of big Hollywood films in the 50s and 60s where white actors were portraying Asian, Hispanic, and Native American characters. The weak woman stereotype. All that was wrong.
Over the last few years, I have gotten a little tired of the way white men are portrayed on television; the fat white guy with the hot wife, the dumb white friend to the black guy, the white boyfriend who can’t get over his ex and turns out crazy. All stereotypes I can see on network television and film, still popping up from time to time.
You can’t change a character that is white and male and make into something other than the author intended. For that reason, I won’t be catching the next Fantastic Four movie, cause they are not the characters I grew up with.The Human Torch is not Black, instead of the blonde teenager he was originally depicted. Does this mean we should redo Harry Potter with an all Hispanic cast? No. That is not gonna fly with any of the fans. Lord of the Rings with an all Black cast? Tolkien lawsuit. Obviously not gonna happen. Star Wars has very strong Black characters, if not nearly enough, but no Hispanic or Lesbian characters. They could fix that with next films.
Obviously, adapting white characters into film has been lucrative for the industry. If the books never sold, the characters would have never made it to the big screen. Clearly the weight of fixing television and film is on the people who make them.
The key to success is better original characters, regardless of…well, anything. No more stereotyping anyone.
Make that a rule.
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Relevant podcast!!
Nerdist Podcast with Kal Penn.
He talks quite a bit about diversity in the entertainment industry (mostly TV), and while I don’t agree 100% with everything he says, and there are some things he discusses that perhaps weren’t fleshed out enough due to the length of the podcast, it’s a wonderful interview and I highly recommend it.
(Also, check out Battle Creek if you like buddy-cop procedurals. It’s excellent!)
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Ha ha…you make a good point…none of this shit we watch is real.
Way to dismiss Thing’s Igneous-American heritage.
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…its a rocky road identifying anyone by race. I apologize to any igneous rock species i may have offended…
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I don’t recall “blonde” being one of his most important character attributes. I’m pretty sure the thing that made him distinctive was that he could freakin’ light himself on fire and fly.
Are you one of those people who flipped out when they cast Idris Elba as an Asgardian?
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It was an adjustment, but really, i gave it a pass. They could have made Jane Foster black or any of the other Non-Norse characters black; they got more screen time anyway. I am trying to get used to Iris being black on The Flash, and I think okay with it. I just can’t read any of the old Flash stories without thinking about it.
Can we get back to the class politics of a tiny fraction of a percent thoroughly dominating the rest of us?
The near majority of those dominating the rest of us? WHITE MEN.
Are you a person of color or a woman or transgender person, I wonder?
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Come on, the big problem with Idris Elba is that he is British! Where are the Scandinavian actors? And why aren’t their accents Scandinavian for goodness sakes?
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Actually Jews present a very interesting issue when it comes to cultural status, since the idea of “Jew” is two different by inter-related things. You can be a non-Jewish Jew, or a Jewish non-Jew, which leads to some hiccups in talking about them. Compounded by the fact that ethnic Jews are also diverse (even if they remain a bit more “Jewish” genetically than the cultures they are in)… If I was a cultural anthropologist, or population geneticist, I would probably devote my life to studying Jewish populations (even if I’m a gentile).
Ignoring my diversion: Jews are a very different case, since in many cases (economically, socially, racial appearance), white, and members of the dominant culture. They kind of stand alone, but also don’t, at the same time. But then again, the hatred of Jews can be much deeper than the hatred of other groups. My dad is a racist, but he’s had black and hispanic acquaintances who are “good blacks/hispanics”, but to him, there is no such thing as a good Jew. “Traditional” minorities just drag down property values and kill “American Jobs”, but Jews rule the universe, and should be stopped for the good of us all. His words and sentiment, not mine, obviously. My father is far from alone in this, and it sickens and perplexes me. No one is deserving of hatred, but I fail to see why Jews would be more deserving than anyone else.
But in the Marvel mythology Asgardians aren’t Scandanavian—they aren’t even human. That’s why it was silly for so many people to freak out that they didn’t all look like Norse people. It’s not like they cast a black guy to portray Leif Erikson or something.
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