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Forums - Movies & TV - J.J. Abrams: "I'd Welcome Gay Characters In STAR WARS"

thismeintiel on 27 February 2016
Mr_No said:
There's a part of me that dislikes when they want to include more LGBTT characters on movies just because. However, the other part of me is okay with that as long as the character is not blatant and obvious, and contributes greatly in the story.

Agreed. The sad fact is most of these characters are put onscreen just because Hollywood wants to push acceptance.  Because tolerance and being kind isn't enough, no, now you must be pro-gay or you are a homophobe.  In a way it is working, as studies show people believe that around 30% of the US population is gay, when in truth it is lower than 5%.  

Having said that, if being gay isn't the characters main trait and it is revealed in a throwaway line, but not harped on, I'm fine with it.  But if it is harped on and thrown in your face constantly, I'll wait to watch it online.  For free.



 

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Torillian on 27 February 2016
IkePoR said:
Torillian said:

This seemed like a fun math excersise to think about so I decided to find out how many movies have gay characters and whether that fits with how many there should be statistically.  

According to this article: http://variety.com/2015/film/news/glaad-report-gay-movie-characters-2014-tammy-get-hard-1201471698/

"The report, which studied releases from the seven major studios in 2014, found that 20 of the 114 movies (17.5%) that bowed last year had characters who identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual."

So 17.5% of movies in 2014 had a gay character of some sort.  

 And according to this article: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-22/americans-vastly-overestimate-size-of-lgbt-population 4% of the population is gay.  

That means 96% of movie characters should be straight.  Assuming that an average movie has 10 characters that would mean .96^10 chance that all the characters should be straight statistically or 66.48%.  So 31.52% of movies should have a gay character, but only 17.5% actually did in 2014.  Therefore if anything LGBT community is still underrepresented in movies.  

The Gallop of the gay population was of one thousand people.  That number is way too small.

Then give me another number with a source and I'll adjust.  



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Torillian on 27 February 2016
vivster said:
Torillian said:

This seemed like a fun math excersise to think about so I decided to find out how many movies have gay characters and whether that fits with how many there should be statistically.  

According to this article: http://variety.com/2015/film/news/glaad-report-gay-movie-characters-2014-tammy-get-hard-1201471698/

"The report, which studied releases from the seven major studios in 2014, found that 20 of the 114 movies (17.5%) that bowed last year had characters who identified as lesbian, gay, or bisexual."

So 17.5% of movies in 2014 had a gay character of some sort.  

 And according to this article: http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-05-22/americans-vastly-overestimate-size-of-lgbt-population 4% of the population is gay.  

That means 96% of movie characters should be straight.  Assuming that an average movie has 10 characters that would mean .96^10 chance that all the characters should be straight statistically or 66.48%.  So 31.52% of movies should have a gay character, but only 17.5% actually did in 2014.  Therefore if anything LGBT community is still underrepresented in movies.  

There could be 100% of movies having a gay person in it but it never comes up because no one gives a shit about their sexuality. So by that logic every movie that does not specify its gay people has any number of them in it.

So claiming that you specifically have one or two gay people in your movie is suggesting that everyone else is straight. That means movies where the minorities are specified have actually less minorities in there than movies where it's not specified. 

So yes, Abrams is a homophobe by underrepresenting gay people.

Yeah you and I aren't on the same wavelength here.  Nevermind.



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IkePoR on 27 February 2016
Torillian said:
IkePoR said:

The Gallop of the gay population was of one thousand people.  That number is way too small.

Then give me another number with a source and I'll adjust.  

You should only adjust by adding an asterisk to your post, informing that the pool was only of 1,000 people.  The information is misleading.  



"You should be banned. Youre clearly flaming the president and even his brother who you know nothing about. Dont be such a partisan hack"

Torillian on 27 February 2016
IkePoR said:
Torillian said:

Then give me another number with a source and I'll adjust.  

You should only adjust by adding an asterisk to your post, informing that the pool was only of 1,000 people.  The information is misleading.  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/07/15/what-percentage-of-the-u-s-population-is-gay-lesbian-or-bisexual/

Mk, so here's one with 35,000 respondents.  If we look at just gay and bi then we have 2.3% of the population.  Changing the numbers above 80% of movies should not contain any gay or bisexual people, making 20% of movies should have one which roughly matches with the 17% of movies that had one in 2014.  Again, I just don't think there's any reaonable math to say that LGBT minorities specifically are overrepresented in movies.  

Or here's one with 120,000 respondents: http://www.gallup.com/poll/158066/special-report-adults-identify-lgbt.aspx

This puts the LGBT population at 3.4% which adjusts the numbers above to 70% of movies having only straight characters, 30% of movies should have an LGBT character.  



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IkePoR on 27 February 2016
Torillian said:
IkePoR said:

You should only adjust by adding an asterisk to your post, informing that the pool was only of 1,000 people.  The information is misleading.  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/07/15/what-percentage-of-the-u-s-population-is-gay-lesbian-or-bisexual/

Mk, so here's one with 35,000 respondents.  If we look at just gay and bi then we have 2.3% of the population.  Changing the numbers above 80% of movies should not contain any gay or bisexual people, making 20% of movies should have one which roughly matches with the 17% of movies that had one in 2014.  Again, I just don't think there's any reaonable math to say that LGBT minorities specifically are overrepresented in movies.  

Or here's one with 120,000 respondents: http://www.gallup.com/poll/158066/special-report-adults-identify-lgbt.aspx

This puts the LGBT population at 3.4% which adjusts the numbers above to 70% of movies having only straight characters, 30% of movies should have an LGBT character.  

Well, I wasn't aruging for either side really, only desired your numbers to be present for everyone reading, and that 1,000 people for such a study is far, far too small. That said, thank you for the research.  



"You should be banned. Youre clearly flaming the president and even his brother who you know nothing about. Dont be such a partisan hack"

CosmicSex on 27 February 2016

So what?  And he says hed welcome it.  Again, so what?  I do think its homophobic to hear some one say they are okay with it and then completely lose your shit.  Look in the mirror. 



Torillian on 27 February 2016
IkePoR said:
Torillian said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/07/15/what-percentage-of-the-u-s-population-is-gay-lesbian-or-bisexual/

Mk, so here's one with 35,000 respondents.  If we look at just gay and bi then we have 2.3% of the population.  Changing the numbers above 80% of movies should not contain any gay or bisexual people, making 20% of movies should have one which roughly matches with the 17% of movies that had one in 2014.  Again, I just don't think there's any reaonable math to say that LGBT minorities specifically are overrepresented in movies.  

Or here's one with 120,000 respondents: http://www.gallup.com/poll/158066/special-report-adults-identify-lgbt.aspx

This puts the LGBT population at 3.4% which adjusts the numbers above to 70% of movies having only straight characters, 30% of movies should have an LGBT character.  

Well, I wasn't aruging for either side really, only desired your numbers to be present for everyone reading, and that 1,000 people for such a study is far, far too small. That said, thank you for the research.  

yeah that's fair, I didn't notice the size of the original linked gallup poll, thanks for that.  Out of curiosity, I know there are numbers behind how many people you need to survey to have a reasonable chance of being correct when upscaled to a population of x size, but I don't recall what the equation is.  Do you happen to remember?  



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Normchacho on 27 February 2016

I don't get what peoples problem is with gays, women, or minorities being in movies? As long as they aren't caricatures of those people I don't see the issue.

Also, this thread reminds me of a joke I once heard.

You could drop a white guy in Africa and he'd walk around going "Man! Would you look at all these minorities!"



Bet with Adamblaziken:

I bet that on launch the Nintendo Switch will have no built in in-game voice chat. He bets that it will. The winner gets six months of avatar control over the other user.

IkePoR on 27 February 2016
Torillian said:
IkePoR said:

Well, I wasn't aruging for either side really, only desired your numbers to be present for everyone reading, and that 1,000 people for such a study is far, far too small. That said, thank you for the research.  

yeah that's fair, I didn't notice the size of the original linked gallup poll, thanks for that.  Out of curiosity, I know there are numbers behind how many people you need to survey to have a reasonable chance of being correct when upscaled to a population of x size, but I don't recall what the equation is.  Do you happen to remember?  

Don't quote me on this but:

Number of surveyed

_____________________x100

Expected % to respond



"You should be banned. Youre clearly flaming the president and even his brother who you know nothing about. Dont be such a partisan hack"