"Diverse" works that aren't woke - when diversity does not fuck a movie/game/book/show up

[Some Badger]

Hell, the Nazi submarine arc was the best part of the show.

In retrospect it’s definitely one of the best ones but I’m pretty partial to the vampire twins just because of how fucked up it gets by the end.

The Expanse. Even if it lost steam at the end there, the casting was very good and all the people got a chance to shine as people, not demographic tick boxes.

Isn’t the premise of The Expanse that everyone has basically become multiracial mystery meat by the time we reach interplanetary travel and planet racism fills the void in its place? I haven’t watched the show but I remember journalists leaning heavily into that little fact back in 2018.

The mystery meat brown serf class future is as woke as it gets imo

 

[Skitarii]

Isn’t the premise of The Expanse that everyone has basically become multiracial mystery meat by the time we reach interplanetary travel and planet racism fills the void in its place? I haven’t watched the show but I remember journalists leaning heavily into that little fact back in 2018.

The mystery meat brown serf class future is as woke as it gets imo

Every single race in the modern day is mystery meat except illiterate tribals in the south american rainforest who like to fuck each other up the ass

 

[Some Badger]

Every single race in the modern day is mystery meat except illiterate tribals in the south american rainforest who like to fuck each other up the ass

Don’t give me that acksyully bullshit, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

 

[Krokodil Overdose]

Isn’t the premise of The Expanse that everyone has basically become multiracial mystery meat by the time we reach interplanetary travel and planet racism fills the void in its place? I haven’t watched the show but I remember journalists leaning heavily into that little fact back in 2018.

I mean, if that's the direction they went with they might want to reconsider, given that HBD is extremely real in this universe. Martians and Belters not being able to handle Earth's gravity is a recurring plot point.

Also UN-run Earth is presented as a shit hole welfare state with 50% unemployment with an entitled political artistocracy that has no idea what they're fucking doing. I means, I could see a Marxist reading of The Expanse, but it's a "workers of the world unite"/"one struggle" type Marxist, not the cultural kind that wokies subscribe to.

Also, of the main characters, it turns out that the one who fate dealt the most shit hand to is the blond mechanic from Earth.

The mystery meat brown serf class future is as woke as it gets imo

Yeah but that's presented as a bad thing. (The serf class part.)

 

[Skitarii]

Don’t give me that acksyully bullshit, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

t. Tyrone

 

[Woke Blue Muttlema]

JJBA even though the fandom is shit and half the characters are Italian.

 

[God of Nothing]

As mentioned previously, GTA, Saints Row, and old timey cartoons had diversity without trying to preach a message. I've even read fanfic that did it right, weirdly enough. It also did a bunch of other things surprisingly well by portraying them as brutally as possible. Suppose that's why the gangster games work and the 90s cartoons try to brush over most things for just the good ones because kids.

 

[Ted_Breakfast]

I would say Ratcatcher form Suicide Squad is a character I like whose Hispanic and female. She was specifically made for the movie and what I think help is that she had a sweet personality to the point she grew on me throughout the movie. I think diversity characters can work. Just make them likeable and not unlikable assholes.

I mean it helps too that she is a original character. You know how people always say "if you want a black character make your own character" well they did there.

Well, I mean, she wasn't totally original. She wasn't Otis Flannegan. More of a legacy character, really.

 

[Oats12345]

Well, I mean, she wasn't totally original. She wasn't Otis Flannegan. More of a legacy character, really.

Still that's what I mean. But she still stands in my opinion merely because she was actually likable

 

[The Curmudgeon]

90’s cartoons managed to do it alright.

Totally agree! IMO, some early 2000s stuff did too.

Diverse characters are great when they're unique and interesting. One example I like is John Stewart from the 2000s Justice League cartoon. All that mattered was that he was Green Lantern. If Justice League were a current year cartoon, John Stewart would be an angry black man first and his role as Green Lantern would be negligible.

 

[Newman's Lovechild]

I got thinking about Extreme Ghostbusters during my moan about discarded spinoffs in the Star Wars thread. It was the most Burger King Kids Club cast imaginable, something that would make current year cartoon showrunners chew off their own leg for a chance to smugly crow about it on twitter. But while it was even a bit eyerolling at the time, they managed to pull it off.

 

[Thiletonomics]

Fresh TV's cartoons, in 6teen and the Total Drama series, fit that description perfectly. The characters did stuff in those shows, and it doesn't come off as being done to meet a forced quota.

 

[Epic Fail Man]

The Super Mario Bros movie. They had a brit play an Italian that came from space who lives in Brooklyn. Very progressive.

 

[bluegirl]

I think one of the reasons that so many of the diverse characters fail is that writers make them stronger or more powerful than the white male character but give them the depth of a puddle (either out of fear of being called an -ist, or genuine incompetence) expecting the audience to like them because they can beat up the white male character but he would struggle to retaliate.
Forgetting of course that beating up someone weaker than one's self is not something that a good person dose and the audience is primed to feel more sympathetic towards the white male because he now is an underdog.

 

[Uncle June]

JJBA even though the fandom is shit and half the characters are Italian.

This, the Joestars managed to be a family of British, American Italian, and Japanese peoples.

Dying Light 2 was a (shit) game that just came out that was healthily diverse but had virtually zero preach to it.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Really most thing before 2010 (ie, CURRENT YEAR) that had diverse characters made them fallible and didn't hate white people. Obama's race baiting pretty much killed modern popular culture.

 

[Big Scumfuck]

Unironically, Black Lagoon. One the hallmarks of a piece of media that does diversity well is if you can consume it and not get hyperfocused on the characters’ racial backgrounds, especially for a series where the villain of the week is affiliated with some foreign criminal enterprise wrecking shop in some shithole city Thailand, not to mention all the factions coming out of China, Russia, South America, the Middle East etc who are busy killing each other on the regular. You identify characters in the show by their nationality and that’s kind of it. No preachy dialogue on racism (and I’m not counting the nazi submarine arc), fags or the patriarchy despite most of the killing in the show being done by women.

Seconding the fuck out of this.
As he said, the Nazi sub arc is a slight outlier(in an actually good way where it's done tastefully and not REEEEE. I unironically consider the monologue Revy has one of the greatest non-wrestling "heel promos" of all time) but it's great at representation without being dick strokey about it.
It's absolutely a "strong women kicking ass" show but not in a preachy way. None of the women are invincible(this doesn't correlate to the manga as the anime producer wanted Roberta to suffer more than she did in the manga as punishment post RBT Arc.)
But yeah, Lagoon is fucking great

 

[duckbutter&toejamsandwich]

Othello was good

Arcane is the most recent example. POCs are genuinely badass and don't feel forced or out of place. Stronk women have visible flaws and aren't resentful of male allies or counterparts. Male characters given depth and compassion. Both the rich elite and the marginalized populaces are given pros and cons, with both good and bad traits. "Cop" characters are equally represented in a neutral light.

Overall, it's a great show and genuinely exudes diversity in a way that isn't patronizing or malicious.

Arcane was a better show than I had thought possible considering it's origins. Probably one of the best animated series to come out of the US in the last decade.

Totally agree! IMO, some early 2000s stuff did too.

Diverse characters are great when they're unique and interesting. One example I like is John Stewart from the 2000s Justice League cartoon. All that mattered was that he was Green Lantern. If Justice League were a current year cartoon, John Stewart would be an angry black man first and his role as Green Lantern would be negligible.

John Stewart is also the best GL in the comics. Hal is dull, Kyle whiney, and Guy is an obnoxious, annoying douche. I still don't understand why Snyder & WB didn't use him instead of Cyborg, besides the fact that neither understands what makes a superhero interesting.

 

[Cardenio]

Would king of the hill count

One thing I just noticed about King of the Hill was that the main cast & supporting characters were only white, Asian, and a token Native American. Blacks and Mexican characters only served very minor roles and were rarely the focus of any episode.

I wonder if that just happened organically or if Mike Judge and Greg Daniels purposely did this. A major part of King of the Hill was having characters that fell into cultural stereotypes. Khan and his Wife are the best examples; they're first generation immigrants who are smart ("Asians are all smart"), they look down upon their white neighbors calling them white trash & hillbillies ("Asians think they're better than 'us.'") Khan and Minh are also extremely strict with their daughter Connie & push her to have good school grades ("Asians are authoritarian parents.")

And no one I can think of complained about Khan and Minh like how an obscure Indian Comedian ended up killing The Simpson's Apu. I personally think this is because white people (who made up KOTH's creative team) are bound to be attacked if they make a black or Mexican character who portrays any racial stereotypes. Sure you have Family Guy and South Park that can do that stuff but even they only use such characters in one off gags.

I dunno I think that's the crux of Diverse but not Woke. Creators have to have the freedom to portray flawed humans. I can promise you that if Luanne had been a half-black girl people would have lost their shit since Luanne is mocked constantly for being stupid and slutty.

 

[Registration]

Shaman King, characters from various cultural backgrounds, in this third panel we have a japanese witch, a fatty schoolgirl ghost and Santa Muerte. All of them are on México in this moment. And the japanese witch is married with the german dude.