Are You Represented?

[RomanticSoul]

The "diversity" tagline annoys the heck out of me. I do not understand why tiny minorities are overrepresented while a majority of hardcore tv viewers are people living with disability. Occasionally we see a person in a wheel chair, an amputee, maybe an actor with downs syndrome.

That reminds about the woman who cried while she was watching Mad Max: Fury Road in the cinema. She had the same disability as Furiosa and she was so thankful and overjoyed that they showed that a person with such a disability is still that capable. You are still a fully functioning human being despite a disability (except mental disabilities to a degree). It shouldn't be such a novelty in movies/shows because more people have disabilities than there are LGBTQ people.

Just give me diverse humans. Race and sexual orientation is such a freaking narrow perspective.

Mental illness is represented because every single person on the planet has "traits" of mental illness if judging by the DSM. What we don't see is the chronically ill, those mutilated by treatment for cancer, those with skin conditions, neuropathy or morbidly obese. To be honest we probably don't make particularly interesting characters if housebound. I'd hate to see tv try it in this current climate, partly because if representation is so important, the vulnerable will look up to those who look like them and be shaped by what they see. Even the documentaries on chronic and severe illness focus on what the characters cannot do, rather than what they CAN do (outside of colouring their hair or getting tattoos to mark them as that 'type')

Human beings are messy. They are cray cray. Just in varying different ways. All the cookie cutter characters are frankly boring because there is no such thing. I'm having a brain fart right now so these are all I could think of. But characters like Dr. House (House) or Fox Mulder (X-Files) are complete and utter messes. They are royally screwed up. That makes them interesting to watch. I wouldn't want to be anywhere near them for more than a day but for entertainment they are great. A lot of American TV/movie characters have either daddy or mommy issues that screw them up. But there are so much more things that happen to a person to screw them up. Again the focus is too narrow for me. And a narrow focus doesn't help with awareness either. It's like trying to shield the audience from real life. How is that a good thing?

It's also completely unrealistic that everything is about beauty and almost everyone on screen has to look like they stepped off the cover of a magazine. There are more obese people than LGBTQ ones but entertainment holding on to this 'beauty ideal', ignores them even more than minorities or LGBTQ. This is not something we have in the entertainment in my country. People on TV shows look pretty damn normal because guess what, that's what 99% of the planet are.

 

[Blaze]

Yet, I would like to point out that for me skin color, gender, and sexual orientation is not why I might relate to another human being. As much as these traits matter in the way one person might perceive the world and act in society, it does not fully define anybody. For example, I never much associated with the typical white male protagonists created by Hollywood. I often found them tasteless and so unlike me. In fact, my role model during my teen years was a fictional black man with a strong conscience, and as I became an adult I strongly connected with the character of Buffy for her unique combination of weakness and strength.

I think this is very important and is also why it's so important to have diversity on TV. If you have diversity, then people really will tend to associate more with character's personality than the color of their skin and their orientation. It will teach people to view those characters beyond skin, gender or orientation. If a white straight guy can identify with a black female lesbian because for example both of them are compassionate and put their family first, then the world will be a better place! It really teaches people to judge people on their values and personality and not on things like race and sexual orientation. That's why it's so important to have diversity but also not just token characters. If you have very well rounded characters who happen to be black, or gay, or female, than more and more people will view those things as normal and look beyond stereotypes.

I also think it's very important to tell the story of those people, like the culture, or the struggles, especially for minorities because it emphasizes that the way they feel or their past is real, something that many minorities need to know. But it's equally important to have other characters who aren't define by one attribute or another, and are just part of a larger story while being culturally diverse etc.

 

[November]

@Tome

I disagree entirely with how you state that media is unimportant. The media HEAVILY influence almost all of us. Even those who think that they are immune are not.

Did I say that? I seem to be an open book to everyone else but myself. The media has TOO much influence on us all, and it should not. That's what I am trying to say. The youth is being shaped more by media today than it has been in years gone past. It's scary to observe. I thought universities were the epitome churning out the moulded minds, now it has extended to fandom.

I also feel you are assuming all other countries are like your own. Cities compete and try to keep up with each other, so they are getting very samesame- but where I am, a rural area, we don't have billboards and bus stops and advertising on every street corner. The people in my town barely know what the internet is, let alone streaming tv/cable channels. The media is restricted to what is fed to them via free-to-air tv, 4 channels, mostly American rerun content besides the news and ABC. So, many of them do not consume tv as much as the city people do because it is a bore and a completely unrealistic world compared with the beauty of outside. The internet service isn't fast enough for most gamers, its out of reach financially for those on welfare, social media is just a place to have a whinge or jump on the latest bandwagon for likes.

It's also completely unrealistic that everything is about beauty and almost everyone on screen has to look like they stepped off the cover of a magazine. There are more obese people than LGBTQ ones but entertainment holding on to this 'beauty ideal', ignores them even more than minorities or LGBTQ

I reckon! (which means "agreed" in aussie 😉 )

I have my shallow moments, I watch Supernatural strictly for the eye candy. It's odd to say that even Home and Away is more accepting and diverse than what Hollywood is spewing out at the world. Yet calling it a revolution in acceptance???? Anyone in the western world can paint their face with expensive face paint and look pretty, anyone can choose who they want to lick, anyone can wear a costume. Life is far more restricted for people living with disabilities, mass media has two positions on that sympathy or complete lack of sympathy. No middle ground, no true representation, I only make a fuss now cos the superficial are making such a fuss and it does my head in that they do not see how freaking easy they have it and its still not enough....

teaches people

teach people

If TV has to teach people these things, the world is doomed.

I am actually starting to wonder what your worlds are like to need to be taught by tv to act human. I have said this before - I went to high school in the 90's. It was an ESL school (new migrants - English as a second language specialty) so we had plenty of colours, It was an arts scholarship school, so we had plenty of gay/bi/lesbians, it was a rich inner city school, so we had men wearing make up and dresses and teachers with dicks who padded their bras and wanted to be called "Miss", we had Muslim and Christian groups, prayer at lunch time . No one made a fuss about these things, no one judged and no one really cared. Whatever you wanted to do with your wrapper was your choice. Now I find the screaming online about acceptance and diversity and needing representation in fandom insane making! This world has gone well backwards and the gap between the online world and real world is so wide my brain is splitting apart.

 

[Blaze]

@HoppyHippy
In a perfect world we wouldn't need TV to teach anything to anyone. However we live in a world where a lot of people have horrible role models (parents etc) and/or do not live in a situation where they can be educated about diversity. So yes having better diversity on TV helps normalize those things. I'm happy you were lucky enough to grow up in an environment so open about diversity. I on the other hand had a very different experience (and I was in highschool in the 2000s). So while some places are very open and you can be whatever you want, others are not so much.

 

[Kratos]

I guess I’m well represented. I’m a white, straight 32 year old male.

I see bits of myself in characters such as Angel, Buffy, Richard Kimble from the 1960s series The Fugitive, Richard Castle from Castle and Lloyd Irving from the video game Tales of Symphonia.

 

[DeadlyDuo]

There's not a lot of characters on tv who wear glasses, especially women. Those that do are either portrayed as geeky and nerdy or the glasses are used just for when a character is working to show that they're the "brain" of their respective group yet they don't need them any other time. The worst one though is when glasses are used for "ugly duckling" transformations. The glasses come off and suddenly the woman is considered "hotter" than she was before she took the glasses off.

Why can't there just be a normal character who wears glasses, and keeps them on, because they're eyesight is crap and they need their glasses to see.