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Forums - General Discussion - I'm tired of this overemphasis on diversity spilling into our entertainment.

Jaicee said:
Mnementh said:

First of all to point one: he never said all women are talentless. He said that women are hired because they are women and not because of talent. And that statement I must challenge: I can think of no example of women in entertainement biz that are talentless (and successful). So I would say you both are wrong.

But there is a deeper point to it, something that bothers me. I recently noticed, that I can say if a movie is american or european just by looking at the female cast. Pretty much all american actresses are attractive. While many european actresses are also attractive, they also cast women who look ... well, like normal women. American movies give a total wrong impression on women. Even in supporting roles or side roles all women are good looking. And don't understand me wrong, I think these actresses are good at their job. But Hollywood casting agencies must send all actresses back, that can play a role, but look standard and not like fashion models. A note here: movies by Jodie Foster are an exception.

Point two about bending storylines is also more complicated. Hollywood pretty much always bends storylines - because they basically have no original ideas. Everything on a movie screen was a comic, a book, a foreign movie or an older movie before. So if you remake this, you change stuff. I did not watch the new Ghostbusters. Not because the main cast are all women now. But because I already watched Ghostbusters many years ago and nothing indicated the new movie made anything better than the original. I don't waste my lifetime watching bad movies. On the flipside I watched and liked Jessica Jones. Because I was never into comic books and therefore it didn't matter for me that it was an old story. They remade one figure from male to female (Jerry Hogarth became Jeri Hogarth) and I'm cool with that, because Carrie-Anne Moss played great. Most of the male figures there basically idiots (with the exception of the main villain). But I'm cool with that, because it doesn't matter so much, I watched so much movies with all or mainly male cast, I have no problem with mainly female cast. So, for me you can bend storylines - if you do it well and not shitty. But I prefer original stories, about which nobody can say they storyline is bended. Heck, we are on a videogame forum and here new IPs get praised and companies get slammed for making sequels. We should do that more for movies.

Well, and the stereotype-point: it is everywhere and it is annoying too. OTBWY showed an example. The stereotypical women in Hollywood movies moved on from the damsel in distress to the allmighty powerwomen who can do everything but has a soft heart too. A reason I watch movies and series from all over the world is, that at least each region has different stereotypes, so I have more variety.

So, sorry I answered you, most of my points were more or less general, I just stumbled over your post as my opinions articulated in my head and I noticed that you misinterpreted point one of the original post and felt the need to answer.

I was gonna say that the above includes little in the way of a direct reply to my comments, but it looks like you saw that too at the end. :-p

Anyway, I think some of the points you make here are valid, like with regard to cultural differences between the portrayals of women that prevail in Europe versus the United States. I agree with you there. I don't really have a lot to add to that actually. However, I do maintain my initial point about the presumption that female hires are "diversity hires" by default and anything else by exception. I found that contention insulting.

The girls in Ghostbusters were definitely diversity hires on top of diversity hires. Instead of creating a decent storyline for a comedy with good jokes,  they focused on "it's time".

RIP

Ghostbusters

Survived skepticism of the supernatural but killed by feminism in 2016.

 

 



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the-pi-guy said:

 

John2290 said:

L was a black guy playing a Japanese guy yet when a white guy plays a japanese guy it's somehow worse. You're brainwashed dude.

What?  I never said that a white guy playing a japanese guy is a problem.  I'm saying that skin color doesn't have anything to do with their portrayal.  

I have no issue with either of the actors.  I don't give a flying whatever that a white guy is playing a Japanese dude in the Netflix movie.  

What I disagree about is that a black guy playing a "Japanese" guy is a problem.  I was just bringing up Light because if you are going to have a problem with ethnicities not matching, then you should also have an issue there as well.  

This is literally the only point I was making:

Light was a white guy playing a Japanese guy yet when a black guy plays a japanese guy it's somehow worse. You're brainwashed dude.

But sure, I'm brainwashed.  

celador said:

blind hiring meant to improve women's chances of employment stopped because more men were being hired. which means, of course, women were getting special treatment:    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-trial-to-improve-gender-equality-failing-study/8664888

Women hired 2:1 in some STEM fields over men with identical qualifications:  http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/04/women-preferred-21-over-men-stem-faculty-positions

it is happening more and more. women have already been given every advantage in education, and now they are getting more privileges in employment in the name of their version of """equality"""

https://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/oct/14/blind-auditions-orchestras-gender-bias

When people do these kinds of studies, they have to do them on different populations, different industries.  You can't take one specific study and think that's what's happening everywhere.  

What I suspect is that women have an advantage in some fields and worse in others.  Take management, women now outnumber men.  

Women probably have a huge advantage when it comes to elementary school teaching.  


Something to keep in mind is that just because one group has some kind of disadvantage doesn't mean the other group doesn't also have some other disadvantages.  

For example, men can have an easier time becoming president, whereas women can have an easier time becoming elementary school teachers.  

Men can have the privilege of not being raped, and women can have the privilege of not being sent to go to war.  

DonFerrari said:

Since diversity isn't a talent it's very hard to see how some product can fail due to lack of diversity on a team.

On the contrary, diversity is a talent.  

There are numerous studies that show that bringing people from different backgrounds is helpful.  

https://www.ft.com/content/1bc22040-1302-11e7-80f4-13e067d5072c

Because people are going to come in with different perspectives.  This is especially true if you are going to work in the entertainment industry.  If you want to write about a woman, guess what?   It helps to have a woman to be able to share her perspective and experiences.  

Diversity is not talent in any sense. If anything it's more likely to be racist or sexist because you're picking people mainly on sex, race or sexuality over other people who are likely more talented or experienced. It's hypocritical of progressives.



Jaicee said:
Qwark said:

1 Lets see on my PS4 Horizon, Uncharted LL, 2 Tom Raider Games, Fallout 4, Dishonered 2, Bloodborne,  Dragon Age (female dwarf) Nier Automata, Until Dawn (alright not only but still), Dark Souls 3, Infamous first light. So around 40% of my games I played as a woman.

 

2. I am pretty sure White Males also buy the most games by far, so it's only logical for companies to cater to 75% of their audience. That doesn't make them sexist or racist, just capitalist. Besides there are plenty of games with a female lead or quite a few meaningful important  woman characters to begin with. Given the choice I usually play as a female. Athough I don't give the slightest crap that the the new GOW doesn't include memorable non white characters. 

How many people who enjoy enjoy AAA games  are gay probably 3% at best. It's very simple companies make games for their audiences not the world, but people who buy and play their games. If games with other races and sexualities sell much better than games only featuring white males they would have made them a long time ago.

3 From the ones I played, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, The last of Us, Borderlands, Fable, Fallout,Skyrim/ or Dragons dogma you can Mary the same sex. Here is a list with LBQT VG Characters. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_video_games_with_LGBT_characters

 

4 Because most of the games I play usually involve me murdering a shit ton of people. And for some reason I find it more believable that I have a bunch of  steroid, testosterone males kill everything they see than a squad of female characters.

 

As for ghost busters the movie sucked when it was made and sequel ducks too. Also why are you trying to find equality in a comedy. That's like trying to did a good black and Asian representation in Rush Hour.

Alright, let me try and go through this:

1. Most of the games you listed here do not have female-only leads, i.e. allow you the option to use a male avatar, if I can point that out. If my point about wildly disproportionate representation needs to be made any more clear, all one needs do is click on the VG Chartz button at the top of this page and check out this week's top 10 best-sellers list. Fully half the games on it use only male leads and none use female-only leads. That's typical. It's not simply a reflection of what sells and what doesn't, but of what gets made in the first place and what doesn't.

2. Games for other players have to be made in the first place before they can sell or fail. The point here isn't that most gamers are male (that's obvious), but WHY that is so. If developers and publishers make more effort to appeal to different audiences, perhaps gamer demographics will change over time.

(I'm also not a big fan of capitalism. )

3. That's a very small list. And it's also a list consisting mostly of games that ALSO allow for straight romance arcs as well. The point is that the vast majority of video games compel me to pretend that I am not only male, but also a straight male, and you know it. Your list also doesn't include a lot of games that precede the current decade either, it's worth noting.

4. Whatever.

Why am I "looking for equality in a comedy"? What I'm looking for is humor I can relate to better than the kind you might, not political correctness as such. Ghostbusters is hardly the funniest film franchise that comes to my mind in that connection, but it's one that was brought up in the OP, so that's why I responded about it.

 

Jaicee said:
Mnementh said:

First of all to point one: he never said all women are talentless. He said that women are hired because they are women and not because of talent. And that statement I must challenge: I can think of no example of women in entertainement biz that are talentless (and successful). So I would say you both are wrong.

But there is a deeper point to it, something that bothers me. I recently noticed, that I can say if a movie is american or european just by looking at the female cast. Pretty much all american actresses are attractive. While many european actresses are also attractive, they also cast women who look ... well, like normal women. American movies give a total wrong impression on women. Even in supporting roles or side roles all women are good looking. And don't understand me wrong, I think these actresses are good at their job. But Hollywood casting agencies must send all actresses back, that can play a role, but look standard and not like fashion models. A note here: movies by Jodie Foster are an exception.

Point two about bending storylines is also more complicated. Hollywood pretty much always bends storylines - because they basically have no original ideas. Everything on a movie screen was a comic, a book, a foreign movie or an older movie before. So if you remake this, you change stuff. I did not watch the new Ghostbusters. Not because the main cast are all women now. But because I already watched Ghostbusters many years ago and nothing indicated the new movie made anything better than the original. I don't waste my lifetime watching bad movies. On the flipside I watched and liked Jessica Jones. Because I was never into comic books and therefore it didn't matter for me that it was an old story. They remade one figure from male to female (Jerry Hogarth became Jeri Hogarth) and I'm cool with that, because Carrie-Anne Moss played great. Most of the male figures there basically idiots (with the exception of the main villain). But I'm cool with that, because it doesn't matter so much, I watched so much movies with all or mainly male cast, I have no problem with mainly female cast. So, for me you can bend storylines - if you do it well and not shitty. But I prefer original stories, about which nobody can say they storyline is bended. Heck, we are on a videogame forum and here new IPs get praised and companies get slammed for making sequels. We should do that more for movies.

Well, and the stereotype-point: it is everywhere and it is annoying too. OTBWY showed an example. The stereotypical women in Hollywood movies moved on from the damsel in distress to the allmighty powerwomen who can do everything but has a soft heart too. A reason I watch movies and series from all over the world is, that at least each region has different stereotypes, so I have more variety.

So, sorry I answered you, most of my points were more or less general, I just stumbled over your post as my opinions articulated in my head and I noticed that you misinterpreted point one of the original post and felt the need to answer.

I was gonna say that the above includes little in the way of a direct reply to my comments, but it looks like you saw that too at the end. :-p

Anyway, I think some of the points you make here are valid, like with regard to cultural differences between the portrayals of women that prevail in Europe versus the United States. I agree with you there. I don't really have a lot to add to that actually. However, I do maintain my initial point about the presumption that female hires are "diversity hires" by default and anything else by exception. I found that contention insulting.

Games started as dots and whatnot, and had like 90%+ young males playing... so there was no need to create anything to "make the man interest in gaming".

That is the point SJW often mistake, the markets evolve to there because there were a market to explore no one had to demand it. And when they force supply for something "to create" a market they leave a lot of dead bodies along the way and all those failures are made fault of the white straight man for not buying it even if made to pander to a black trans woman who doesn't want to buy it, just wanted made.

the-pi-guy said:

 

John2290 said:

L was a black guy playing a Japanese guy yet when a white guy plays a japanese guy it's somehow worse. You're brainwashed dude.

What?  I never said that a white guy playing a japanese guy is a problem.  I'm saying that skin color doesn't have anything to do with their portrayal.  

I have no issue with either of the actors.  I don't give a flying whatever that a white guy is playing a Japanese dude in the Netflix movie.  

What I disagree about is that a black guy playing a "Japanese" guy is a problem.  I was just bringing up Light because if you are going to have a problem with ethnicities not matching, then you should also have an issue there as well.  

This is literally the only point I was making:

Light was a white guy playing a Japanese guy yet when a black guy plays a japanese guy it's somehow worse. You're brainwashed dude.

But sure, I'm brainwashed.  

celador said:

blind hiring meant to improve women's chances of employment stopped because more men were being hired. which means, of course, women were getting special treatment:    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-trial-to-improve-gender-equality-failing-study/8664888

Women hired 2:1 in some STEM fields over men with identical qualifications:  http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/04/women-preferred-21-over-men-stem-faculty-positions

it is happening more and more. women have already been given every advantage in education, and now they are getting more privileges in employment in the name of their version of """equality"""

https://www.theguardian.com/women-in-leadership/2013/oct/14/blind-auditions-orchestras-gender-bias

When people do these kinds of studies, they have to do them on different populations, different industries.  You can't take one specific study and think that's what's happening everywhere.  

What I suspect is that women have an advantage in some fields and worse in others.  Take management, women now outnumber men.  

Women probably have a huge advantage when it comes to elementary school teaching.  


Something to keep in mind is that just because one group has some kind of disadvantage doesn't mean the other group doesn't also have some other disadvantages.  

For example, men can have an easier time becoming president, whereas women can have an easier time becoming elementary school teachers.  

Men can have the privilege of not being raped, and women can have the privilege of not being sent to go to war.  

DonFerrari said:

Since diversity isn't a talent it's very hard to see how some product can fail due to lack of diversity on a team.

On the contrary, diversity is a talent.  

There are numerous studies that show that bringing people from different backgrounds is helpful.  

https://www.ft.com/content/1bc22040-1302-11e7-80f4-13e067d5072c

Because people are going to come in with different perspectives.  This is especially true if you are going to work in the entertainment industry.  If you want to write about a woman, guess what?   It helps to have a woman to be able to share her perspective and experiences.  

Nope, being white or black isn't a talent.

Having different visions certainly is helpful (although not a talent) and hiring someone less qualified because he is of a different background (or quota) isn't the right way to do anything.

On the privilege of not being rapped I would like to point that in Brazil you are 10x more likely to be killed as a man than a woman, but apparently our society is misogynist.



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Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

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forest-spirit said:
I don't know if I should laugh or cry at this whole idea that creators needs special justifications for making characters that are female, gay or black, or else it's "pandering to the evil SJW demons".

You should blame the thousands of articles that are written every day asking for more "diversity" in entertainment simply because it's "2018". 



Jaicee said: 

2. Games for other players have to be made in the first place before they can sell or fail. The point here isn't that most gamers are male (that's obvious), but WHY that is so. If developers and publishers make more effort to appeal to different audiences, perhaps gamer demographics will change over time.

Are you saying that if developers made exclusively female leads, that the trend would change and video gaming would be a female-centric activity? That seems like a huge leap of logic.

Let's take the most outlandish of examples. Sports games - replace male teams with female teams and watch the sales plummet from millions into thousands.

It's a difference in interests, not in lead characters. If your train of thought would be appropriate, then strategy games would need to be split 50/50 in popularity as there is no male or female lead, but as this graph shows, it's one of the least popular genres at 11% and 7%. 




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The entire thing is stupid. Diversity for diversity's sale isn't diversity at all, it's pandering. It doesn't help that most arguments for this forced "diversity" don't hold up even under their own rules (ex. "If it doesn't matter what gender the character is, then why can't they be a woman?" Because that would imply is does matter for the simple reason that it was suggested and that ignoring the suggestion could result in a shitstorm)



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DonFerrari said: 

On the privilege of not being rapped I would like to point that in Brazil you are 10x more likely to be killed as a man than a woman, but apparently our society is misogynist.

And women and children are prioritised in evacuation and hostage situations, and that's something that men don't even complain about. 



areason said:
DonFerrari said: 

On the privilege of not being rapped I would like to point that in Brazil you are 10x more likely to be killed as a man than a woman, but apparently our society is misogynist.

And women and children are prioritised in evacuation and hostage situations, and that's something that men don't even complain about. 

Men don't complain about it because men generally accept their roles as providers and protectors.



Watch me stream games and hunt trophies on my Twitch channel!

Check out my Twitch Channel!:

www.twitch.tv/AzurenGames

the-pi-guy said:

Just because you say it is happening, doesn't mean it is.  

Affirmative action, and quotas.

It's happening. 



the-pi-guy said:
Azuren said:

Men don't complain about it because men generally accept their roles as providers and protectors.

I complain about it.  

Seems like you would.



Watch me stream games and hunt trophies on my Twitch channel!

Check out my Twitch Channel!:

www.twitch.tv/AzurenGames