I'll just say that I'm black and I hate being pandered to. If it's natural, by all means. Don't throw a random black friend in there just to make me feel like a part of the story. I can connect to people who don't look like me just fine.

But we need to have a token black guy (even if it's set in China)

I don't get what you're arguing. 

This is why the new Star Wars movies are absolute garbage.

Nope. I'm going by the definitions of those words and appling them universally. 

Oh yeah, let us just have a regular dude play a goofy emo character that doesn't resemble him at all in any way or fashion. I don't expect 100% perfection, but I expect them to at least try. 

This guy here feels me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps7R3Fp0zSY

And what is and isn't diversity for diversity's sake? As I said before, the issue seems to be that people are so used to the default of male-dominated media that when it starts to change and diversify people take issue to that. People that are saying that it should just be determined by merit are ignoring the disadvantage that already exists in the industry, and in order to be resolved it cannot just be brushed aside, it has to be combated.

Went to sleep and woke up with 100 replies. Well.. this one caught my eye.

It makes money? Really? They do forced diversity for money? Hm. You're right.

So.. is this a good thing? NO! Do you think loot boxes in call of duty are great? NO. You're exactly right! This whole thing is caused by companies wanting to appeal to a wider audience to make money. Add the hot Asian chick so she can appeal to Chinese audiences. Add the black friend (I'm not trying to be racist) who makes funny racist jokes to appeal to the black community. You think this is good?

You're right man! I agree totally! It's all money! And that's absolute garbage!

And I'm not asking for everything to be white, male, hetero. You obviously (and others) didn't read my post properly. I mean, if you will have a homosexual lead or a female character, do it because it means something for the story. Not just because you had to, for money, to check some diversity boxes, etc. I love female leads and I love foreign films featuring foreign actors and stories that make sense for their character. Why force a gender or sexual orientation change when it doesn't do anything for the character and the whole existing lore will get messed up?

For money? And you defend this practice? Shame on you. Ruin the storyline for money and it's all good, just don't buy it even though I supposedly love this franchise. Shame on you man. You're like a corporate shill.

I think when you experience actual sexism you see the gradations in society better. I was told as a girl that I was limited in what I could achieve because of my sex by elders. That attitude within the religion/cult is the type of deeply misogynistic culture some call out.

I am a tomboy, always have been, I love being physical, I love video games, I even love women being bisexual. In my experience there are realms men and women gravitate toward. I played Halo with my guy friends, I went shopping with my girl friends. Most of my guy friends are like guys on here, nerds. I say that with affection because I'm a nerd of sorts too. Nerds are often very passionate and protective of their game/show/movie/etc. These are people who obsess over details and semantics, they challenge each others fandom on how esoteric they can appreciate a given work.

We live in an era where the nerd IPs won, in essence. The big movies are Star Wars and Marvel (sci-fi/fantasy and super hero) so this means the dynamics of those fandoms have changed. I do think more women are gravitating to these spheres, but they are often still male centric. You can't force equality when it comes to interests of a fictional world. When you try to address the shifting demographics have to remember how important these worlds and characters are to us nerdy fans.

Let's take Star Wars for example. I am a fan of the original movies and loved the characters. When I saw they were making a new one (Force Awakens) with the old characters coming back and new ones I was really excited. I saw the casting and the main character roughly equivalent to Luke was a woman. I confess, I was a bit excited by the possibility of seeing a female Jedi. I loved Luke and thought Rey could be a great successor. After I watched the Last Jedi I felt doubly disappointed. Not only did they make Luke lesser, they did nothing to make me like Rey. It was clear that rather than seeing a character, Rey is a marketing tool to be carefully protected from negative elements. She has to be stronger and better with everything coming easy because they are afraid if she was like Luke they'd get blowback about her weaknesses and frailties being sexist.

The issue is nerds rarely make these movies. Average people do, and more these days average people consume it. They don't care about lore, it's about selling as much as possible to as many people as possible. Have a niche you need to fill? Cast someone of that in a role and promote them. It's not wrong to have diverse casts, I actually like it, but to do so cynically (cast some Chinese actors to get Chinese people to watch it) it is off putting.

Nerds or hardcore fans are not hateful, but they are protective of these imagined realities. They need an explanation as to why a character is changed (see Sulu Star Trek discussion in this thread). If you don't care and think "Wouldn't it be fun if we rebooted this beloved IP with the genders swapped" you don't love it the way the fans see fully formed characters, not census labels.

We want the world to be fair and equal when it is not. There are more of some people than others, fandoms are made up more of one group. Economics dictate over representation of majorities in media. It is hard to make new IP as opposed to latching on to old ones. There are many factors that can keep traditionally minority groups in media fighting an uphill battle. It stinks if most of media is not made for you, but that's life. Find what you do love and support it all you can.

So your solution is to just tack on random diverse characters for the sake of diversity? How wonderfully superficial. Does it truly further the cause when all you're doing is forcing characters into roles they weren't meant to have?

How about creating new stories and new characters that are meant to be female, gay, black, Hispanic, or whatever? Instead of changing gender to suit your agenda, why not make your own goddamn character wherein the gender makes sense? Why ruin an entire storyline just for a minority when the vast majority hates breaking continuity?

That's the problem. Diversity backers don't have the courage to fix the problem with talent and creativity and hard work. They just want to do it the easy way. Popular franchise, let's change the gender and it's done! No need to work on something new!