r/justneckbeardthings • u/CapAccomplished8072 • 3d ago
Next time someone complains about "Why is this character a Woman, or Queer, or POC, or Autistic or Trans?" Ask them "As opposed to?" or "Why not?". And see what the response is.
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u/BigBowlOfOwlSoup 3d ago
"it feels forced" will almost certainly be the answer
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u/FuckHopeSignedMe 3d ago
Yeah, but the follow up is, "Why do you think it feels forced?"
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u/Professional-Hat-687 3d ago
"It just does. It's something you can tell was written as a story and not based on reality."
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u/mossyfen 3d ago
just because you personally haven’t had diverse friendships doesn’t mean these types of people don’t exist/ aren’t in relationships with people of all races and genders in reality. Like come on, with the internet nowadays it’s so obvious that all different people exist in proximity to each other - there are plenty of real life situations that are represented by “woke” characters.
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u/BigBowlOfOwlSoup 3d ago
then it becomes a discussion of subjective examples though. Some stuff that falls under the enormous "woke" umbrella isnt very good content and people can just point out the crap and say "see what about this" rather than just acknowledging that it would have been crap even with a different cast.
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u/Professional-Hat-687 3d ago
Idk about any of you but none of these people I know would avoid saying "normal". Then they'd start complaining about dei hires ruining media.
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u/EpicPhail60 3d ago
Yeah, this post is pretty silly because the people who constantly complain about this are not trying to pass themselves off as progressive. This is some "winning imaginary arguments in the shower" logic
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u/not_kismet 3d ago
Yeah people have gotten really comfortable with just blatant transphobia and racism. If I asked "as opposed to?" The answer would like just be "a (cis) white man" and they'd see nothing wrong with that statement
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u/Adventurous_Ad_6546 3d ago
We can all thank the great orange pile of shit for that.
God bless America.
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u/friesaretasty 22h ago
and what would other government do? very delulu to think people adjust their convictions to the current party line. also >american, lol youre just a third world country really
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u/Adventurous_Ad_6546 21h ago
Where did I say anything about other governments/countries? You seem to be having an argument with yourself, so I’ll leave you to it.
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u/Smee76 3d ago
I usually hear these complaints when it's a remake and they swap the character's race. So the obvious answer you will get is "as opposed to someone similar to the original."
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u/EpicPhail60 3d ago
You're just not tapped in enough, lol. They will literally say it about anything. This month's biggest controversy was about the main character of an entirely new game revealed at the Game Awards.
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u/DRac_XNA 3d ago
Follow up piece of writing advice - if your character's most interesting trait is something they have zero control over or say in (sexuality, gender, race, ability, etc), then they're a dull ass character.
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u/DarkSylince 3d ago
Agreed. Race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality should accentuate a character, not completely encompass and define them. If I can race swap a character in a story not about race, and nothing is lost. It's a decent character. If a little is lost, then it's a good character. (Because the race was used to accentuate) If it's worse, then the character is garbage and is most likely there for (woke, DEI, etc....) and they're not really there for the story. They're there because someone wanted to push something into the "work". Whether it's politics, beliefs, and/or personal trauma/experiences.
Or the people making these stories with LGBT and "Minority" etc... characters, are just REALLY bad at making stories, and the byproduct causes people to instinctively dislike them from the start. IDK
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u/HeresyReminder 3d ago
“This post is making cis white people angry.”
I wouldn’t allow either this person or the person they’re talking about into my campaign.
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u/Lifeshardbutnotme 3d ago
I feel like this has an easy answer. If it's relevant to the theme or plot, then take it into consideration. If it's not, then ignore it.
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u/Seductive_Pineapple 3d ago
You can have diversity without it impacting theme or plot. You can simply have a diverse setting without it having to “say” anything outside of set building.
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u/capnwinky 3d ago
Funny that people think this strategy works since it’s the 90’s now. They’ll just dig their heels in and say some more heinous shit not hiding their bigotry.
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u/Seductive_Pineapple 3d ago
Does the character accurately portray a poc or queer experience or are they just token diversity for the sake of rainbow capitalism or some kind of a joke?
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u/rivchamp 2d ago
I’ve never been one to get upset when a revamped character has a different identity, but I think the idea is more of a “you took a preexisting character with their own identity and changed it to a new, more ‘diverse/woke’ one instead of creating a new character to have those traits, thereby wiping the original of their identity and (sometimes) over saturating the series with an unrealistically diverse cast as opposed to real life populations” and less of a bigotry issue.
It’s almost always harmless and never something that deep, but I think to some people it can feel a little performative and fake to appeal to a certain “woke” crowd and boost ratings. Additionally, as normal as queer/poc people are, a decent chunk of (ex. North American) population is cishet and white, so if a show hypothetically went so far as to wipe ALL cishet white characters, it would go backwards into a new level of non-inclusion
But for real, its almost never THAT serious
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u/Fun-Neck-9507 2d ago edited 2d ago
I think people on both sides take it way too seriously. People have also been trained to associate that black/woman/gay=bad movie because movie companies started taking well established franchises that people love, ruining the story and writing it like shit, and sticking a tokenized character in there to use as bait.
When people say they don't like the new film due to its shitty writing/story, the director then weaponizes that tokenized character to discredit the criticisms and gaslight people into thinking they're racist/homophobic/sexist. Meanwhile a great portion of the main characters from critically acclaimed films from the 2000s were female and black, so it kind of becomes maddening.
I feel in a way this marketing strategy has turned more people sexist and racist than anything else, because now some people associate any and all films that have leading roles with minority characters as "woke trash". The fact that i had to convince my friend to watch into the spiderverse, just because he thought it was going to be a shallow movie pandering to black people is insane to me, especially considering he is black.
Same thing with Arkane, I had to convince all of my friends to watch it because they thought it looked bad because "neon haired lesbian show" = bad. But in a way how can you blame people for thinking otherwise?
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u/Fun-Neck-9507 2d ago
Nowadays it feels like a lot of directors cast and write their films with intent, which detracts from the film. Such as Ghostbusters 2016, where instead of just making a good film, the director made it a point to try and convince the audience that you should like these characters more simply because they're female and if you fail to like the film, you're sexist by default.
If you compare that to Into the Spiderverse, where they wrote a great character in miles morales who just so happens to be black, you can easily see it's not just the representation but the intent behind the representation that dictates whether or not someone likes a character or film.
We've had a plethora of incredible diverse protagonists since the 90s. Ellen Ripley, Sarah Connor, Agent K, Blade, all great castings that fit the movie, and none of which were only remembered for their color or sex. When I think of Eddie Murphy, I dont think "wow he's a great black actor/comedian" i just think "wow he's a great comedian.
Again, nowadays it seems like when they cast a female or black lead role, they feel the need to compensate and overdo the marketing, leading people to believe they have no confidence in their cast, which is not only untrue given the success of past films, its also sexist or racist.
Its these out of touch companies who only care about the bottom dollar who mockingly pander to people and try and trick them into watching their shitty films under the guise that "it's not the movie that's shittily made, it's the fact that youre racist/sexist/homophobic" or shamelessly take previous roles and just gender bend them rather than creating new characters and stories to represent them.
As far as characters with mental disabilities go, everybody lauded over films like Gilbert Grape, I am Sam, Forrest Gump and the Green Mile, so idk why people would suddenly be upset over it.
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u/younggun1234 3d ago
I legit have been playing as girls if I have the choice since the damn 90s lol Kya Dark Lineage is a phenomenal game. Bayonetta is a phenomenal game. So many games have been girl characters lol I feel like most people complaining have to be younger generations cuz I don't remember anyone complaining about that in the past.
Also, just don't play the game? No one is holding a gun to your head and saying you HAVE to play a game where the main character is gay lol
Seriously so many other problems in the world. Grow up lol
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u/CapAccomplished8072 3d ago
FNV has perks to being a woman.
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u/ChewySlinky 3d ago
And for being a gay man, right? I took that perk pretty much every time.
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u/Professional-Hat-687 3d ago
There is also a lesbian equivalent perk. It's a French saying so I'm not going to attempt to spell it.
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u/thewalkindude368 3d ago
Remember, real gamers don't actually like video games. They only like masturbating to video games, and they can only masturbate to 12 year old girls with H-cup tits. Video games are simply a means to gooning, and if a game doesn't make their PP hard, then it is absolutely worthless, and has no value whatsoever.
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u/younggun1234 3d ago
Oh yes silly me.
Gonna rub one out to Zagreus from Hades to counteract their nasty
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u/ElectoralCollegeLove 3d ago
You are no better unfortunately, you do not care whetther if the character accurately portrays a PoC or queer experience or they are just token diversity for the sake of rainbow capitalism or some kind of a joke.
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u/what_is_sracasm 1d ago
I am not angry, but cheering at this. Does that make me not cis white male?
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u/ForHeHasReturnedNow 1d ago
What is it then? Is representation important and race swapping is done deliberately or does it not matter?
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u/Freshrust65 1d ago
I think I prime example of why this thinking doesn't work is when people got angry that Doctor who was being played by a woman, like are u gonna look me in the eyes and tell me the alien that essentially shape shifts couldn't possibly transform into a woman
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u/imowgracias 3d ago
Spop?
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u/CapAccomplished8072 3d ago
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. Muscular Dom Warrior Lesbians and yandere lesbian catgirls
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u/KurapikaKurtaAkaku 3d ago
It’s almost as if those people actually exist… hence, representing them makes a story more realistic
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u/BurningRiceEater 3d ago
Do you think people are scared to tell you exactly how they feel?