OrangeRakoon wrote:Representation isn't about giving token appearance to every minority you can think of in a single film, it's about how visible those minorities are in the wider environment and films in general. A Disney film isn't problematic for not having the main character belong to x minority, but the collection of all Disney films is probably problematic if they never give any representation to that minority.
Plenty of people can word that better than me but hopefully that gets across the idea, where arguments like "where does it stop" and "you can't satisfy everyone" I think miss the point. There's nothing wrong with a straight white thin main character. The problem comes when that's /every/ main character.
Exactly.
It is easy when you are part of the majority or part of the privileged to think “there’s nothing wrong with it”, but representation is important to people. Look at how black kids responded to Black Panther, finally they had a big screen superhero that looked like them.
The same goes for girls, gay people, disabled people etc. Seeing somebody on screen that looks like or acts like you is a big deal. For example, there is no shortage of straight white men in movies/on TV, but I always find it exciting if something is filmed or set in Bristol. It’s amazing to see people acting in locations that I recognise. I can only imagine just how much more exciting it must have been for black people to see Black Panther after decades of movie superheros being white.
It shouldn’t be shoehorned in, or made to be really obvious just for the sake of it. But it’s easy enough just to make an animated character look Asian, or to matter of factly show a love interest as being the same sex.