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Angelus on 26 May 2018
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Azuren said:
Angelus said:

1. Ideally, yes. In practice, we all know that often isn't the case.

2. I don't believe he was saying there needs to be a reason for characters to be male, or status-quo, just that there doesn't need be one to justify them NOT being that either. Which, tbh….it's a weird thing to say that any type of character doesn't need to be justified. All characters need to be justified via good writing, regardless of who they are. Though from the stand point of whether or not one needs extra justification for falling outside the status-quo of casting, I think we can all agree with that, if we're being reasonable. Unless the production in question is of a very specific nature, where it would be strange to see certain people represented, there is no reason to demand something beyond the scope of what we subject the status-quo representation to.

But if there isn't a justifiable reason for either or, then why do women keep demanding strong female leads?

Well that's easy, because the majority of female characters are written simply to revolve around, and enrich the existence of male characters. Obviously there's exceptions, but more often than not that's the case. Their characters are often defined by little more than how they influence some guy, which is ultimately quite shallow. So why wouldn't women want more strong female leads, or just strong female characters in general?

Just because because there doesn't necessarily have to be a reason for why a character is written as/cast as male, female, black, white, etc.... doesn't mean there aren't valid reasons for people wanting to see more of certain representation, or even just better written, more nuanced versions for those they do get.