Disney Becoming Blander?

[Kyberwulf]

Ah, but it does negatively affect me.

To the lesser extent, it's because of people that complain about "How good this movie was because it had "whatever" in it." Such as Ghostbusters. Or this movie is BAD because it "blank" such as had *gasp* A non asian playing a cartoon character. Or replaced a character that wasn't a certain race, with another actor, who wasn't from a certain place. Such as Iron Fist or KHAN!!

The majority of it affects me cause, let's face it. Most of America is white. Yeah, people talk about representation in media, yet somehow fail to realize, that it's not a straight 100%/100%/100% split between white and "colored" people and any other thing you want to push into the narrative. People ruin good movies, or potentially good movies by both trying to for some sense of diversity into something that just doesn't really have that much diversity in it. I wonder how many movies in the recent years, would have been better, if they didn't try focusing on trying to get the "Black" Viewers or the "gay" viewers or any other viewers, who.. let's face it, or never going to be happy with anything that comes out anyway.

The way I see movies, basically comes down to two things. You are either Batman Begins, or Batman and Robin. Or Tangled and Frozen, but let's face it the way Disney is buying everything... They will own DC in a couple years anyway.

Either you are trying to make a movie, that tells a story and is pretty decent at it, or you are making a movie that dumbs down the media to appeal to the lowest immature audience.

For the record, I am not saying I want an all white form of entertainment either. That is just as bad. I don't want an all anything media. I would prefer that they pick the person best suited for the role. That being if the situation calls for a black guy, sure make him black. If it calls for a tall guy, make him tall.

I am not the one who thinks I live in a perfect world. I live in a world where most of the people are white. That is how it is. I don't see perfect diversity in everything. I see inadequacy in everything. Living conditions, Economic conditions, power dynamics. The world is an imperfect place, so the movies should be an imperfect place to adequately reflect the world. Trying to force the media to show us a world that isn't even close to being the real world, just makes it blander. It just makes the media go from One movie, to the other.

[DomaDoma]

Okay, legit problem. The solution isn't "more white people", though. That just expands the perceived-quality-based-on-race problem. The solution might be "more semblance to the real world", but only if you're talking about areas in which everyday reality has more depth and transcendence. Rag on The Notebook all you (and I) like, but it beats the pants off your average real-world college romance. On these terms, race, in and of itself, is completely neutral.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Yeah, people talk about representation in media, yet somehow fail to realize, that it's not a straight 100%/100%/100% split between white and "colored" people and any other thing you want to push into the narrative.

No, because that would make the total 300%.

But sure, this is you asking for representation based on the US census. According to those statistics, a hair over 6 out of 10 Americans is "white, non hispanic or latino". And half of those remaining 6 out of 10 are women. If you're seriously trying to make the argument here that way less than 3 out of every 10 big movie roles are played by white males you must be watching different movies than I do. (And I watch some good movies, just to be clear.)

Again, I don't give a flying **** about how individual movies represent any population. I'd be completely fine with a movie about the stripper crew of a gay bar featuring only straight women with dwarfism. (Okay, maybe I give a bit of a ****. I just really don't know where I was going with that example.) What I'm not fine with is there being one cartoon with a mostly black cast, or one comedy movie with a group of female leads, and people picking exactly that one to complain that it doesn't do equality and it's bad because the world is not just 100% female you know. You're zooming way in and proudly proclaim you're seeing the bigger picture. Because it's not completely normal for movies to fail the Bechdel test while reverse Bechdel nominees are everywhere, right?

EDIT: Note that this doesn't mean I disapprove of commentary on these movies in general. If you think a certain comedy movie starring women is unfunny or an unnecessary remake or shot with too much shaky cam (I haven't seen it, no idea) that's just fair criticism. Even if you think a movie trying to give female actors the spotlight really shouldn't be typecasting the black woman as the sassy one or the uneducated one (again: no idea) or whatever that's fine. But the commentary "it overrepresents women!" is stupid because of the actual real bigger picture of today's movies.

[ThunderCat]

So, yes, that's a push to change the stories being told for the sake of politics.

The big difference is that the people here advocating greater diversity in fiction acknowledge that the representation of any group in fiction is invariably somewhat political and ideological in nature, since works of fiction tend to reflect on the surrounding culture, including the political landscape.

Kyberwolf stands out not for the group he's championing (straight white men), but for his insistence that members of said group are in the unique position of deserving everything they get solely by virtue of their own merit, and are being overrepresented because of simple market demand and some nebulous artistic merit which springs from the creators' mind completely unaffected by dirty politics.

[DomaDoma]

"Everything is political" is the stance that's more deleterious to storytelling, I would say. Yes, we are all borne upon by our place and time, political climate included. But it's a serious mistake to reduce all stories - no, "texts" - to the contemporary power struggle and the bigger megaphone. Macbeth may go well out of its way to approve of James I, but that is not the reason it's been handed down through the centuries.

[georgie_leech]

"Everything is political" is the stance that's more deleterious to storytelling, I would say. Yes, we are all borne upon by our place and time, political climate included. But it's a serious mistake to reduce all stories - no, "texts" - to the contemporary power struggle and the bigger megaphone. Macbeth may go well out of its way to approve of James I, but that is not the reason it's been handed down through the centuries.

That's not quite what is meant by that idea. It's not saying that everything is intended as a political statement specifically, but every story will in some way support certain views while advocating against others. That's inherent to stories; some characters will have different viewpoints from each other, and some will prosper while others don't. These can be a reflection of the creator's values and ideas (or their sponsors, in the case of Macbeth) or just the values that led to an interesting story or image (I very much doubt Disney actually endorses Divine Right of Kings, but that scene in the rain is undeniably a powerful one). This isn't because all ideas are political in nature, but because politics concerns itself with competing ideas. Questions of the rights of the self vs the responsibilities to the group, ethical dilemmas, questions of faith, and the role of new ideas in our lives have been a part of media from all cultures from all places for as long as we've had history. And probably before that too, even if we can't prove what we can't find.

You can't get away from this by subverting prosper/decline dichotomies either. A story where multiple competing ideas prosper at the same time is implicitly making the argument that not everyone has to agree with nor dominate each other to prosper. A story where everyone suffers for the struggle between characters is making a point about that struggle itself; if the suffering is due to some external force independent of ideally, it says that ideas can't prevent all tragedy regardless of conviction or quality.

Now, whether a given work should be making these points the focus is a debate we can and should have. When and how bluntly to express ideas is a question that different stories can come to different conclusions about, and we can talk about the merits of different approaches. What we can't do is remove all politics from our writing. After all, rejecting the current political realities is itself a political statement.

[Kitten Champion]

There's a vast eclectic of compelling narratives which exists only when one voice doesn't monopolize every facet of the media to produce homogeneous content that reflects themselves through an imperfect, self-serving mirror.

But... more to the point, I'd rather watch a Shakespeare play where the women are played by women. Controversial though it may be, I do believe they can probably do a better job of it then boys.

[Liquor Box]

That's not quite what is meant by that idea. It's not saying that everything is intended as a political statement specifically, but every story will in some way support certain views while advocating against others. That's inherent to stories; some characters will have different viewpoints from each other, and some will prosper while others don't. These can be a reflection of the creator's values and ideas (or their sponsors, in the case of Macbeth) or just the values that led to an interesting story or image (I very much doubt Disney actually endorses Divine Right of Kings, but that scene in the rain is undeniably a powerful one). This isn't because all ideas are political in nature, but because politics concerns itself with competing ideas. Questions of the rights of the self vs the responsibilities to the group, ethical dilemmas, questions of faith, and the role of new ideas in our lives have been a part of media from all cultures from all places for as long as we've had history. And probably before that too, even if we can't prove what we can't find.

You can't get away from this by subverting prosper/decline dichotomies either. A story where multiple competing ideas prosper at the same time is implicitly making the argument that not everyone has to agree with nor dominate each other to prosper. A story where everyone suffers for the struggle between characters is making a point about that struggle itself; if the suffering is due to some external force independent of ideally, it says that ideas can't prevent all tragedy regardless of conviction or quality.

Now, whether a given work should be making these points the focus is a debate we can and should have. When and how bluntly to express ideas is a question that different stories can come to different conclusions about, and we can talk about the merits of different approaches. What we can't do is remove all politics from our writing. After all, rejecting the current political realities is itself a political statement.

This is all true.

And people have different preferences as to what messages (intentional or otherwise) they want to see in movies. Kitten Champion expressed her preference above for a more eclectic range, but others may legitimately have a preference for different things.

Fortunately we have a mechanism which (admittedly imperfectly) influences the movie industry to provide movies that reflect what people want to see - in terms of political message, cast ethnic mix, or anything else you care to think of. That is the market. If the bundle of factors that make up a movie are pleasing to a sufficient number of people the movie will tend to do well, and other movies will replicate its formula. Not perfect to be sure - but probably the best mechanism we have to ensure that the movies made reflect the movies that people want to see.

[DomaDoma]

There's a vast eclectic of compelling narratives which exists only when one voice doesn't monopolize every facet of the media to produce homogeneous content that reflects themselves through an imperfect, self-serving mirror.

You mean Hollywood, right? White male novelists are a fractious and often self-deprecating bunch, but Hollywood is homogeneous as mashed potatoes (we'll allow for your odd skin fleck and lump) and seems to gear all its sense of theme toward what plays well in an Oscar acceptance speech.

But... more to the point, I'd rather watch a Shakespeare play where the women are played by women. Controversial though it may be, I do believe they can probably do a better job of it then boys.

I once saw a local production of Merchant of Venice where Portia was played by a man. I have no idea whether the motive for this was to be authentic or to be transgressive or if it was just so Portia could better pass for a man, but I will categorically state that it did not work.

[Rater202]

I once saw a local production of Merchant of Venice where Portia was played by a man. I have no idea whether the motive for this was to be authentic or to be transgressive or if it was just so Portia could better pass for a man, but I will categorically state that it did not work.

It goes back to Shakespeare's original intent.

While it's often depicted as a tragedy nowadays, Merchant was written as a Comedy.

In Shakespeare's day, only men or, if you were trying to be realistic, boys were actors. Even for female roles.

A woman managing to be knowledgeable in law enough to serve as a lawyer, while not unheard of, would be bizarre to the peasantry, while the idea of a man, pretending to be a woman, pretending to be a man would have been hilarious. This was the whole point of having Portia disquised as a man serving as a lawyer.

It's possible that the production you saw was trying to recreate that without quite getting that standards in humor have changed and that most people don't think that The Merhchant of Venice is funny anymore.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I think I've seen that one, or like the second act of it anyway, as a school play. (The other two parts were practiced in other countries and then they got together for the real show in one of those three places, something like that.)

Except in this version the woman pretending to be a man was played by a girl, and so were many of the regular male characters. I don't think they explained that very well, so for young me it got kind of hard to follow. I don't remember the text/language, but semi-Shakespearean English wouldn't have helped either at that age.

[ThunderCat]

"Everything is political" is the stance that's more deleterious to storytelling, I would say. Yes, we are all borne upon by our place and time, political climate included. But it's a serious mistake to reduce all stories - no, "texts" - to the contemporary power struggle and the bigger megaphone. Macbeth may go well out of its way to approve of James I, but that is not the reason it's been handed down through the centuries.

It's a fact, not a stance The scientific evidence has long since come down on the side of the view that A: Unconscious bias exists and human decisions are based largely on intuitions which are formed by expectations created by experiences, and B: The genetic differences between various populations of humans are so miniscule that they can't possibly account for even a fraction of the enormous differences in opinion and tastes between various cultures.

To my knowledge, no one here has claimed that every single piece of fiction is a deliberate political propaganda piece or anything like that. But the cultural climate you're in affects how you think, including (and perhaps especially) your intuitions. What seems right, proper, fitting, appealing, exciting, etc. depends on your frame of reference which depends on your background and current surroundings. There are individual differences due to different upbringing, experiences, conscious ideology and probably genes, and certain things seem to be more universally appealing, but overall, we're all a product of our culture.

The predominance of straight white (able-bodied, cis, etc.) men in media is not (solely) because of a deliberate political stance, but when a cast dominated by a particular demographic, any demographic, is deemed the most appropriate for a given work of fiction, it's not because the idea appeared spontaneously on a blank slate in the author's mind. The lack of conscious deliberation on part of said author does not mean that their choice to predominately feature a certain group of people is inherently apolitical and unbiased, quite the contrary. The big difference between Kyberwulf and others is not a disagreement about "which demographic they ought to be favoring for political rather than story reason" as you framed it. The difference is that people who argue in favor of increased diversity apply some variation of the above reasoning to all demographics equally, while Kyberwulf insists that only the inclusion of some demographics is political.

[Liquor Box]

The difference is that people who argue in favor of increased diversity apply some variation of the above reasoning to all demographics equally, while Kyberwulf insists that only the inclusion of some demographics is political.

I'm interested in what you mean by all demographics equally. If we limit ourselves to ethnicity for simplicity, what proportion of characters should be of a given race?

In your opinion should each ethnic representation be equal as an absolute? So there are an equal number of black character to white characters, but there are also an equal number of Asian, polynesian, latino, hispanic, Native American, Indian etc etc characters? Depending on how many different ethnicities you slice it into, this would mean that (say) 1/20 characters would be black, 1/20 white, 1/20 polynesain etc. Probably a large decrease in the number of black and white characters on American TV, but a large increase in the number from ethniciities not particularly prevelant in USA.

Or do you think it should be somewhat in proportion to population? If so, which population? The population of USA (77% white, 13% black etc)? The population of the world (majority asian, lrelatively small proportion who are black or white)? The population of the potential audience - say English speaking countries (majority Indian probably)?

Would you skew it for the popularity of the particular genre amongst different ethnicities? For example, if a particular genre was particularly popular amongst blacks, would it be reasonable to have a high proportion of black characters, and genre's popular amongst whites a high proportion of white characters?

[Kitten Champion]

This is all true.

And people have different preferences as to what messages (intentional or otherwise) they want to see in movies. Kitten Champion expressed her preference above for a more eclectic range, but others may legitimately have a preference for different things.

But... having a broader range of material produced by more people doesn't preclude "different things" which are of other peoples preference, though it does mean less of the same thing all the time for only those people in mind.

I'm interested in what you mean by all demographics equally. If we limit ourselves to ethnicity for simplicity, what proportion of characters should be of a given race?

In your opinion should each ethnic representation be equal as an absolute? So there are an equal number of black character to white characters, but there are also an equal number of Asian, polynesian, latino, hispanic, Native American, Indian etc etc characters? Depending on how many different ethnicities you slice it into, this would mean that (say) 1/20 characters would be black, 1/20 white, 1/20 polynesain etc. Probably a large decrease in the number of black and white characters on American TV, but a large increase in the number from ethniciities not particularly prevelant in USA.

Or do you think it should be somewhat in proportion to population? If so, which population? The population of USA (77% white, 13% black etc)? The population of the world (majority asian, lrelatively small proportion who are black or white)? The population of the potential audience - say English speaking countries (majority Indian probably)?

Would you skew it for the popularity of the particular genre amongst different ethnicities? For example, if a particular genre was particularly popular amongst blacks, would it be reasonable to have a high proportion of black characters, and genre's popular amongst whites a high proportion of white characters?

I believe the point isn't championing equivalent representation in all media, it's in the subsequent reaction. Namely that treating the in-group as inherently apolitical and implicitly justified in whatever role they're in then turning around and criticizing the inclusion of any Other as some kind of power-move by nefarious political forces that's - I guess - been to the determent of general artistic quality in contemporary cinema/television, is discriminatory and absurd.

We have as an example of a work produced by the biggest media giant in the universe which has a predominantly Black cast - an rarity in most respects - and Kyberwulf's first reaction has been "Why do they have to be Black? LOL"

Then to the obvious return "then, if it doesn't matter then why should they - or effectively the majority of characters in media for the last century or so - be White?" the general response seems to be "well, because they're the Majority here, deal with it".

[Liquor Box]

But... having a broader range of material produced by more people doesn't preclude "different things" which are of other peoples preference, though it does mean less of the same thing all the time for only those people in mind.

Absolutely agree. We are all different, and its great that we all have different things that cater to most of us.

It's just that the market is the best placed mechanism to determine how many movies of each type should be made - we would expect that more movies of the most popular type be made, still a significant number that cater for significant minorities (minorities in terms of taste in movies, not in terms of their demographic), but perhaps not many movies for where there is a very small potential audience.

It's not perfect, but it is probably the best tool we have.

I believe the point isn't championing equivalent representation in all media, it's in the subsequent reaction. Namely that treating the in-group as inherently apolitical and implicitly justified in whatever role they're in then turning around and criticizing the inclusion of any Other as some kind of power-move by nefarious political forces that's - I guess - been to the determent of general artistic quality in contemporary cinema/television, is discriminatory and absurd.

We have as an example of a work produced by the biggest media giant in the universe which has a predominantly Black cast - an rarity in most respects - and Kyberwulf's first reaction has been "Why do they have to be Black? LOL"

Then to the obvious return "then, if it doesn't matter then why should they - or effectively the majority of characters in media for the last century or so - be White?" the general response seems to be "well, because they're the Majority here, deal with it".

I tend t agree with most of this - I am wary of calls for more representation as if it is some moral or ethical duty of movie-makers, but where representation of minorities happens organically (for market reasons, artistic reasons or because they are simply best for the job), as appears to have happened with Lion King, then that's great.

But others (Thundercat explicitly) do appear to be seeking some sort of equivalency, and I areally interested in what they think that looks like.

[Honest Tiefling]

Ah, but it does negatively affect me.

To the lesser extent, it's because of people that complain about "How good this movie was because it had "whatever" in it." Such as Ghostbusters. Or this movie is BAD because it "blank" such as had *gasp* A non asian playing a cartoon character. Or replaced a character that wasn't a certain race, with another actor, who wasn't from a certain place. Such as Iron Fist or KHAN!!

Khan was already weird to begin with (Hispanic guy playing a Sikh?...), but I think when you replace a guy created from eugenics with a VERY white actor for a character whose name is Khan Noonien Singh...You done ****ed up, twice. This was not a good example. It kinda showed they weren't thinking about the two issues, which is where a lot of unfortunate implications come from.

[JadedDM]

Khan was already weird to begin with (Hispanic guy playing a Sikh?...), but I think when you replace a guy created from eugenics with a VERY white actor for a character whose name is Khan Noonien Singh...You done ****ed up, twice. This was not a good example. It kinda showed they weren't thinking about the two issues, which is where a lot of unfortunate implications come from.

Also worth noting that is not the reason people did not like Star Trek Into Darkness. They didn't like it because it was a bad movie. The whitewashing was just the cherry on top.

Same with Kyberwulf's other example, Iron Fist. People didn't like it because it was bad, not because it starred a white guy.

But this is how he thinks. If something starring a white guy is disliked, it was only disliked because it starred a white guy. But if people like something that stars a woman, or poc or LGBT, then they only liked it because it starred a woman, poc or LGBT.

And he seems completely oblivious to the hypocrisy of that stance.

[DomaDoma]

Where a white person is made the main character of a story about the plight of non-white people, or a non-white character is changed to a white one, the backlash is inevitable. Back when no one knew about the actual quality of Shyamalan's Last Airbender, the race changes were cause and a half for ire regardless. (Though, man, that casting director. I don't think anyone's been that overtly racist in any other such controversy.)

I cannot think of any diversity-mongering equivalent to the early backlash against Finn for being black and in Star Wars, though. I mean, there was lore justification if your lore was at a precise level of half-baked, but come on, did anyone want the Jango Fett actor back so badly that storm troopers not being clones anymore was a totally unreasonable supposition?

[Lvl 2 Expert]

What I'm kind of surprised about is that we haven't really reached the topic of black superheroes yet. (Or I missed it, either one.) Between leading man Black Panther, side character War Machine, male Black Widow (and easily the coolest Avenger) Falcon, DC's Cyborg and TV's Luke Cage and Black Lightning (I could count Blade, but that's not really an active property at this point) black people, or maybe we should say black males, are probably/likely/kind of overrepresented compared to the American census. Could be a glimpse of the future, where you wake up one day and realize that these days people from East Asian descent (yellows somehow sounds way more racist than whites or blacks, while I'm pretty sure the color-name is off on all of them) are overrepresented in sitcoms while last decade they were nowhere to be found but there were a bunch of cool transgender roles. Superheroes are kind of a nice case study because the number of movies about Iron Man, Captain America and Batman doesn't seem to suffer from the inflow of competition. If anything it helped the whole genre explode onto everywhere even harder.

[ThunderCat]

I'm interested in what you mean by all demographics equally. If we limit ourselves to ethnicity for simplicity, what proportion of characters should be of a given race?

It's more along the lines of what Kitten Champion said. I do not believe the casting of one group of people is inherently less political than the casting of any other group, and I don't think (m)any people here do, except for Kyberwulf. That's the biggest reason people are calling him out, and that's why I disagreed with DomaDoma's claim that it's merely a question of which demographic you favor.

In your opinion should each ethnic representation be equal as an absolute? So there are an equal number of black character to white characters, but there are also an equal number of Asian, polynesian, latino, hispanic, Native American, Indian etc etc characters? Depending on how many different ethnicities you slice it into, this would mean that (say) 1/20 characters would be black, 1/20 white, 1/20 polynesain etc. Probably a large decrease in the number of black and white characters on American TV, but a large increase in the number from ethniciities not particularly prevelant in USA.

Or do you think it should be somewhat in proportion to population? If so, which population? The population of USA (77% white, 13% black etc)? The population of the world (majority asian, lrelatively small proportion who are black or white)? The population of the potential audience - say English speaking countries (majority Indian probably)?

Would you skew it for the popularity of the particular genre amongst different ethnicities? For example, if a particular genre was particularly popular amongst blacks, would it be reasonable to have a high proportion of black characters, and genre's popular amongst whites a high proportion of white characters?

Well, the US is only 77% white if all hispanics are counted as white, and while I personally don't see why they shouldn't , that's clearly not the case for a lot of them.

But more to the point, it's not about exactly equal representation everywhere, but more about proportions and what they say about an industry. As a foreigner, I was long under the impression that the US was more than 90% white. Northern European white to be specific. I was rather surprised to learn that white people are a minority in places like LA , because I've never gotten that impression from US media, who made LA look like a less ethnically diverse version of northern Germany. Even accounting for many movies and TV shows focusing on the wealthier (and presumably whiter) parts of LA, it appears to me like there's a huge inaccuracy in how that city is portrayed And that inaccuracy seems to be a result of a pretty nasty history of racism.

Since I'm always in favor of people checking their biases, I'm generally in favor of increased diversity in US media in general. As a rule, I expect most people in a story to be of the same demographic as the area where the story takes place, unless there's a reason for them not to. But of course there should be room for divergence. If the only truly qualified actors you can find to play ancient Egyptians just happen to all be white, I'd say go for it. Unfortunately, I don't think unique acting qualifications are the main reason for why this particular casting choice is made so often

[Kitten Champion]

I cannot think of any diversity-mongering equivalent to the early backlash against Finn for being black and in Star Wars, though. I mean, there was lore justification if your lore was at a precise level of half-baked, but come on, did anyone want the Jango Fett actor back so badly that storm troopers not being clones anymore was a totally unreasonable supposition?

That confused me, personally. Not the racial issue - I expect that from a certain percentage of the population - but that for me one of few EU things I've actually read stated plainly that the Empire was conscripting and brain-washing human men to be its fighting force at the point of A New Hope. A character in that work was even expressing sorrow for having lost her brother after he was drafted into the Storm Troopers.

Just, on the level of fiction, it's far more impactful to have the people you're fighting be innocent victims of the despotic State much like yourself rather than disposable homunculi sprung up whole from laboratories with little significant difference from droids or those Minions from Despicable Me. It's also a far more useful tactic for an Empire to control its population by indoctrinating a certain percentage of their members through their military apparatus rather than ignoring that there are likely trillions upon trillions of people in the Star Wars galaxy who aren't really factoring into things -- the... scale thing is an issue.

What I'm kind of surprised about is that we haven't really reached the topic of black superheroes yet. (Or I missed it, either one.) Between leading man Black Panther, side character War Machine, male Black Widow (and easily the coolest Avenger) Falcon, DC's Cyborg and TV's Luke Cage and Black Lightning (I could count Blade, but that's not really an active property at this point) black people, or maybe we should say black males, are probably/likely/kind of overrepresented compared to the American census.

There's numerous factors there. One, obviously being these studios acknowledge that there's an over-saturation of White Male leads which these media conglomerates have taken steps to smooth over somewhat. Cyborg being a pretty big "they can't all be white" nod in the nu52 and that translating into his addition to the movies -- plus he has cartoon-based name recognition. Much the same reason I believe John Stewart was incorporated as the Green Lantern for the animated universe. Secondly, the surge of Superhero media that's been a decade long at this point has also illuminated the fact that there is a market that's interested in non-White and non-Male heroes that wasn't being catered to -- and you could extend that to more mature non-Disney-esque content with Daredevil and the Punisher as well.

Then there's the issue of "why black male characters?" and part of that appears to be that they're already there to be used. The Blaxploitation sub-genre spurred the creation and growth of heroes like Luke Cage and Black Lightning, given that Superhero comics are pretty on-the-nose in exploiting contemporary media trends for their own benefit they had a clear market that they could peddle to into the 70's. The characters survived long enough to get an identity and name recognition, which in 2018 terms is more than enough to be a thing worth doing... and with the above paragraph, the reasoning for why they would at this point.

Then there's just the issue that most comic book Superheroes are men, the largest visible minority in the United States is African American, if you're looking to include a visible minority for your universe - because this isn't a recent issue we've been discussing - then chances are you're going in that direction. Though for a secondary role or in a team, because that's how things go.

Though, until present Black Panther - because that seems like it's blowing up to be something huge - the biggest Black superhero I would've said was his wife, Storm. The X-Men were pretty fearless and were generally quite successful in bringing in persons of colour into their universe - books like the modern iterations of the Teen Titans were a thing because of the X-Men's proven marketability which in turn gets you Cyborg - and not simply creating them but giving them rich characterization and a significant amount of story content in a way that an attempted solo title probably would've never gotten.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

O, right, I had completely forgotten about Sue Storm. She's a woman even, she doesn't have the word black in her name and as far as I know her background is not "was a criminal from the hood", so she is a very good example. And thanks for your thoughts on the matter.

[hamishspence]

That confused me, personally. Not the racial issue - I expect that from a certain percentage of the population - but that for me one of few EU things I've actually read stated plainly that the Empire was conscripting and brain-washing human men to be its fighting force at the point of A New Hope. A character in that work was even expressing sorrow for having lost her brother after he was drafted into the Storm Troopers.

Was that Legends or Newcanon?

Either way - both versions have had clones be heavily supplemented by conscripts/recruits in the OT era. The newcanon has gone so far as to say the Empire stopped producing clones - with the vast majority being retired by ANH and only a few still being in service.

[Vinyadan]

O, right, I had completely forgotten about Sue Storm. She's a woman even, she doesn't have the word black in her name and as far as I know her background is not "was a criminal from the hood", so she is a very good example. And thanks for your thoughts on the matter.

Sue Storm is Mr Fantastic's wife though, isn't she?

[Rater202]

Sue Storm is Mr Fantastic's wife though, isn't she?

Yes. Susan Storm-Richards.

Though it should be noted that early on she was just a woman he kind of liked and it wasn't guaranteed that they'd end up together--she flirted with Spider-Man the first couple of times he interactedwith the Fantastic Four(She didn't know he was in highschool at the time) and it's notated that, even after becoming happily married to Reed, she sort of has a thing for Namor the Submariner.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I'm an idiot with names.

Yes, I just meant Storm.

I guess it's one of those names that just sits in your head in the superhero department somewhere because studios keep making bad Fantastic 4 movies and refuse to quit ever.

[Zmeoaice]

O, right, I had completely forgotten about Sue Storm. She's a woman even, she doesn't have the word black in her name and as far as I know her background is not "was a criminal from the hood", so she is a very good example.

Well.... her origin has been be orphaned in Cairo and joining a crime organization and becoming a master theif. I suppose that's not "the hood".

[Kitten Champion]

Was that Legends or Newcanon?

Either way - both versions have had clones be heavily supplemented by conscripts/recruits in the OT era. The newcanon has gone so far as to say the Empire stopped producing clones - with the vast majority being retired by ANH and only a few still being in service.

I believe it was a X-Wing book? The ones with Wedge Antilles' squadron. I don't know, I only read three or so Star Wars books and they were all from different series so it could have been any and I'm jumbling them all together.

With Newcanon they show the fate of the last surviving Clones on the Rebels cartoon, which was okay.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Well.... her origin has been be orphaned in Cairo and joining a crime organization and becoming a master theif. I suppose that's not "the hood".

Dammit.characters

[Lord Joeltion]

Was that Legends or Newcanon?

Either way - both versions have had clones be heavily supplemented by conscripts/recruits in the OT era. The newcanon has gone so far as to say the Empire stopped producing clones - with the vast majority being retired by ANH and only a few still being in service.

I always believed Clonetroopers were an oddity of their age, mainly Clone Wars? After all, more than the "Jango expertise" excuse (which is told, but never actually shown) the real deal of having clones was basically Order 66 and nothing more. Ok, the fact that they can't be bribed, but still.

Is there an actual example of a clone shown still alive by the time of the Death Star in the Legends canon? There are plenty examples of Stormtroopers explicitly not being clones. Even if the Empire still produced clones (for whatever reason, since it's heavily implied clones were never cost effective) I don't think the "new canon"* so heavily contradicts the old canon. The problem with Finn wasn't that he was black, specifically. The problem is that the directors apparently hired a black actor because no writer could give him a distinctive quality (unlike Lando, for instance). I think that's a whole problem on its own**, despite the specific ethnicity involved.

*Haven't watched rebels, nor seen any Disney canon other than the movies

**The problem isn't pandering a specific audience by casting an "appropiate" actor/ess for inclusiveness' sake. The problem is when executives/fans/critics thinks being "inclusive" alone shields the character in question from valid criticism and automatically negates the flaws in a story.