So you do have a problem with straight characters.
Yes I do. I hate straight people, especially you. Really, really despise everyone straight. Straight is not okay. I hate straight. Gross breeders get out.
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These days itās best to put a ā/sā after a sarcastic comment. You have to remember there are people who actually think that way.
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With the amount of straight characters available to us, I am really not in any hurry to require more, which is the one of the main reasons why Iād like more LGBT characters.
Just to mix things up a little. Kinda gets boring after seeing 7 trillion straight romance stories. Theyāre rarely deviating from any tropes, often portraying awful and outdated stereotypes that are insulting to both men and women, straight or otherwise, and Iāve had enough of that since I was 12, when I first noticed that straight characters and straight peopleās stories are just repeated ad nauseam while promoting bad ideas that mostly target and negatively affect women.
Being a young teenage girl and being constantly bombarded with the same types of stories that kept telling me that a woman can never truly be happy and fulfilled until she finds a man, gets married and has children made me feel like a freak and also made me take way too long to figure out my sexuality. Then once I finally understood myself, I started simply getting bored of the same crap being repeated over and over.
Like, write something new and different. Iām begging. Even with straight characters and relationships, thereās more to explore, please, use some imagination media writers.
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No matter how many times you tell people why representation and minorities being portrayed in media and entertainment matters, it will always fall into deaf ears and you often get the response akin to āā youāre wrong, you shouldnāt care about representation, you should be fine with just having straight characters, I can personally enjoy characters despite their sexuality and you should too, otherwise you are a loser āā which is incredibly aggravating and just plain ignorant.
Recently Iāve come to the conclusion that I am jealous and bitter. Jealous and bitter over the childhood that others had but I didnāt. Jealous that I couldnāt fully embrace the culturally significant works of entertainment because it was always so heteronormative. And you donāt fully acknowledge this when you are a kid, despite it affecting you and your view on the world and yourself. But when you grow up and understand yourself and where you land in the spectrum, you start wanting something more from media than just heteronormativity that doesnāt represent or interest you anymore. You acknowledge that things could be done differently, that media could show people like you, but they donāt. But you keep on wishing.
I used to play a lot as child, but then I eventually grew out of it. I didnāt care about games for a long time until I was recommended Dragon Age: Inquisition. The game blew my mind, I could make my own character and have a gay romance, and I had OPTIONS TOO!? It was completely mindblowing to me, and Dragon Age Inquisition really ignited my interest in games again, that games could be inclusive and see me as a customer. That they could tell stories that would connect and entertain me specifically as a gay man.
Then came Overwatch which also excited me with itās diversity while being a fun shooter game (despite the state of gay representation, gameplay and lore now). Nowadays Iām constantly on the lookout for new games, and E3 is one of my favorite times of the year, I shake with excitement every time. Heck, I even watch those speedrun marathons. Any kind of big event that connects gamers are now really enjoyable, because Iāve witnessed that games can be inclusive and represent even sexual minorities.
I can only hope that the representation continues, and people genuinely want to write more LGBT characters into their games. Hopefully Cyberpunk 2077 will deliver.
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This really hits the nail on the head. And thereās nothing wrong feeling that way because we were all robbed of normal childhoods and growing up like everybody else by our society not understanding our needs and being ignorant (or, worst case scenario, violent).
People might think itās petty because they take that stuff for granted, but while everybody else was encouraged to form relationships and was getting their first experiences in that aspect of life, most of us stayed hidden, confused and often abused. My gay friends openly said to me that they were very young when they started believing they would be forever alone. Thatās pretty depressing stuff for someone whoās 13-14 to think about.
I dodged that bullet by being bi, but the lack of education, understanding and the excessive societal pressure to only pursue men left a different type of a scar where I missed out on things because I was too busy overthinking, being confused and feeling awful and alienated.
Iām glad that things are better now and that thousands of kids like we used to be are growing up in a better environment, but thereās still more work to be done. If for any reason, then for them. I donāt want any kid to grow up feeling like we did.
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We just donāt understand why that matters. There are also plenty of examples of such characters being terrible.
I understand the value of representation. It can be a useful tool for showing how a character from a rarely explored background handles a familiar situation. Unfortunately, itās also become a political statement.
Have you ever watched a Christian movie? Particularly one set in current year? If you havenāt let me break it down for you. The main character is almost always a Christian. And he (just about every time) is being subjected to some form of injustice because heās Christian. The solution is always faith in God.
These movies always appeal to Christians who think theyāre being persecuted becauseā¦ well, basically because people are allowed to not live by Christian standards. The non-Christians are always presented as cartoonishly evil, some law is blown way out of proportion, and the entire plot may as well a crap, distopia fan fiction.
Now replace Christianity with LGBT politics and you have a pretty good idea of what LGBT media looks like to the rest of us.
I want to make it clear that Iām not making the argument that LGBT characters will turn the game into propaganda. Thatās as stupid as saying characters with guns make it right wing propaganda. But if an LGBT character is going to be written like the protagonist of a Christian movie, you canāt blame people for not liking it.
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Why are you bringing up politics AGAIN when none of us have talked about politics?
A: You did bring up representation as it is politically defined.
B: Iām talking about why people donāt always respond positively to representation characters.
C: Do you at least understand what Iām trying to tell you?
I mean, thatās a poor comparison because Christians are not actually subjected to systemic injustice and are not a minority. They can be subjected to small scale, personal injustice, but not systemic, so their Christian movie power fantasy is not comparable to LGBT issues, which are systemic and target a minority.
And also, why would we want an LGBT character to be written like that? Itās literally in the introductory post for this thread: we want a well written character thatās not defined by their sexuality. We just want a character that happens to be somewhere on the LGBT spectrum. Their story doesnāt have to revolve around being LGBT nor do they need to have a storyline where the solution isā¦ I donāt know, being LGBT saves the world?
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Letās just say they arenāt the only people who donāt realize just how good theyāve got it.
Regardless, my point is if a character is written in that way itās gonna suck.
Well, we can agree on that point.
Iāve often expressed my disdain for endless LGBT tragic drama stories that revolve solely around LGBT issues. These stories are important, but it becomes a problem when theyāre the only stories available to us.
Which is why we want more representation that has nothing to do with that, in other genres, especially fantasy and SF because us LGBT nerds just want representation in genres that interest us and are tired of being forced to watch only dramas.
Overwatch is a good example, Tracer is a lesbian but sheās not defined by it and her story is not about that. Sheās just a person in a futuristic SF world who happens to be a lesbian. And while I have some criticism for Soldier, heās been handled more or less the same way. Heās just a character who happens to be gay, not a character that is defined by this.
Unfortunately that can send the wrong message about people whoās LGBT attribute is plainly apparent. And can even cause people to look down on people for being āsteriotypicalā. There are a lot of LGBT people who are criticized (by other LGBT people) for āacting like a [insert slur here]ā and not hiding who they are. But thatās an argument that tends to get me in trouble.
This comes down to a question of why a character exist with the qualities they have. Do they have them because they fill a part of the plot and add to the experience? Or do they have an attribute due to external demands?
Take for examples characters brought in to replace a character played by an actor who is departing. Such characters are often forced, underdeveloped, boringā¦ You pretty much wish they had just not replaced the character at all and just left that space blank.
Please donāt do that. Just tell Ā« what it looks like to ME Ā» because thatās only your opinion.
Itās a commonly held opinion. Most people avoid Christian, LGBT, most forms of demographic pandering media like the plague because it sucks.
Would you want to watch a movie about a straight man being persecuted by society because he rejected the advances of a man in a dress? The kind of thing the far right never shuts up about. With cartoonishly unrealistic caricatures of gay people, specifically designed to promote bigotry. Something that panders to people who want to convince themselves they have the moral high ground because theyāre the victim. Sound like something you want to watch?
I didnāt read your message because the only thing youāre looking for in those forum is having the last word. Go back to Twitter or Facebook to share your point of view. Please
That is indeed a problem within the community, among other problems. This problem comes from a clear lack of education and representation, as well our need to be visible to other LGBT people which was crucial before, but isnāt too crucial right now. Being able to plainly identify others who are like you is a basic human instinct, and itās stronger amongst people who are classified as minorities in any given society.
This is an issue that will be solved gradually with better representation and more education. Thereās nothing we can do except introduce more varied characters. We need āstereotypicalā characters and non-stereotypical characters within the same piece of media, we need different personalities attached to those characters. Basically, the solution is: more diverse LGBT characters. Because yes, some LGBT people are presenting stereotypically and there shouldnāt be anything wrong with that. There currently is because this stereotypical presentation has been used for a long time to demonise us so naturally some members of the community are angry when others āperpetuateā that stereotype. But ultimately, you canāt ban peopleās expression just because it happened to be a negative stereotype at some point in time and was used against us. Again, this will be solved over time with more visibility and more education.
Thatās an interesting question because it only ever arises when it comes to diversity and representation of minorities. Itās because we see āwhite human straight manā as a ādefaultā human being. Any deviation from this is seen as an outlier that has to be explained. āWhy does this character have to be black?ā āWhy does this character have to be female?ā āWhy does this character have to be gay?ā
Truth is, they donāt have to. But they donāt have to be white, male or straight either, though thatās never questioned because, as Iāve explained, we see that as ādefault.ā Attaching any other attribute, especially multiple of them, tends to raise eyebrows and bring accusations of āpanderingā and āforced inclusivityā even though thatās literally how the world is in reality. Itās those questions that are supposed to showcase the ridiculousness of inclusivity, such as āOh whatās next, a black gay trans Muslim?ā as if black gay trans Muslims do not exist in reality.
Like, thereās no explanation in real life why someone is this or that, and someoneās identity shouldnāt need this explanation in fiction either. If anything, we should require an explanation when 90% of the cast is white or male because thatās literally not realistic and implies something happened to others who are not present.
People tend to complain about āforced diversityā but diversity is the reality of the world. What isnāt reality is forced uniformity.
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Well hereās another possibility. Maybe people act the way they do because thatās who they are. Maybe people who want to be attractive to a certain kind of person will try to make themselves attractive to those people. And maybe thatās a bad thing. Maybe itās ok for gay men to wear tight shirts. Maybe itās ok for lesbians to cut their hair short. For that matter, maybe itās ok for straight women to wear makeup. Maybe itās ok for black people to let their pants sag. Maybe itās ok for Muslims to wear hijabs. Maybe itās ok for people to look however they friggin feel like looking, and anybody who has a problem with it or thinks itās some kind of oppression needs to get over themselves and learn to accept that people are who they are.
spends the next 10 minutes doing breathing exercises so I donāt go on another rant where I tell politicals to go kill each other and leave the rest of us alone
And Iām not sure why youāre acting like I didnāt say this before. Iāll just quote myself here.
Iā¦ fail to understand what you mean with your paragraph.
Yes, of course some people act the way they do because of who they are. And I have never implied itās inherently bad. Social structures and norms are complicated, stereotypes are a whole study of their own within sociology. Why they exist, how they evolve, when are they bad, when are they harmless.
Iām not sure why youāre talking about oppression in regards to how some people act stereotypically. When a real person chooses to āact stereotypically,ā thatās their choice as a person with free will.
Fictional characters, however, are not real people with free will. Theyāre creations of their authors and they reflect what the author thinks about what theyāre presenting or what point they want to make. So if an author only ever represents flamboyant gay men, the viewer has no other option than to think this author sees gay men only as flamboyant and nothing else. And furthermore, depending on how frequent this type of representation is, it can influence society to form an opinion on gay men as flamboyant and nothing else.
Weāve actually seen this with Soldier when people were confused how it wasnāt āhintedā that Soldier is gay and how it doesnāt āfit him as a characterā when being gay has nothing to do with it at all. Of course, some gay people are indeed flamboyant and stereotypical and thereās no problem with that. As a matter of fact, I specifically said that the LGBT community has an issue where they sometimes treat āstereotypicalā members badly, which is not good because weāre imposing on their identity and free will to express themselves as they wish.
But every identity has more than one possible way of expression so authors of fictional characters and creators of pieces of media have to be aware that only portraying stereotypes will have a negative impact overall on their image and on the society. Which brings me back to the point that the solution to this is showing a diverse cast of characters who all behave and look differently. So if you have a flamboyant gay man, you should probably include a gay man who also isnāt like that to indicate that the identity of a gay man can take multiple forms and not just the basic stereotype (that has been historically used to oppress gay men to boot).
In the simplest way possible:
Real person acting āstereotypicallyā = good as long as this is their own choice and for their own comfort and happiness
Fictional character acting stereotypically = good if there are others who donāt act stereotypically, bad if thatās the only way an identity is portrayed in the story
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Isnāt sociology just huggably anthropology?
Anyway, what Iām actually saying is that thereās really no such thing as a stereotype. There are certainly behavioral norms and issues that are more prominent in certain demographics. Most of these are seen or portrayed in a negative light. But most of these arenāt negative, and those that are should be treated like problems to be solved.
I suppose thatās one way to see it. But thatās also remarkably reductive. For one thing most characters are based on real people. And weāre only shown their response to the events of the story theyāre in. And there are plenty of characters who display traits that would be considered stereotypical if they came from a character from another demographic. And letās not forget that flamboyant gays also want to be seen in media. ā¦and in general.
Letās make one thing clear: This community has an infestation of both kinds of politricals. There are people who are upset about Soldier and Tracer because they are homophobic right wingers. And they deserve to be belittled and ignored for it.
That being said, in the case of Soldier 76, he does not display any signs of being attracted to men. Itās not that heās masculine or reserved. Itās that he dressed and acts in such a way to be attractive to women. Heās coded straight. It looks a lot like Blizz retconed his sexuality for political reasons.
Thatās because identity politics is nonsense and everyone is an individual. There are noticeable trends but everyone finds who they are in their own way. Race, sexuality, religion, hometown, size and other factors shape who people become. But they are still themselves. A gay man being noticeably gay is no more of a problem than a black man being noticeably black. And pretending that these things have nothing to do with who people become is unrealistic.
And this is where the representation argument falls on itās face. Itās at this point that youāre trying to control the art. And thatās not ok.