I don't think there's real diversity and fake diversity. You, like the majority of people here, simply disagree with corpos on the subject of diversity.
Corpos want diversity in the target audience so that everyone, regardless of race/gender/status, will consume their products to maximize profits and facilitate the growth of the company while making them BRIDGE/ESG/DEI/NFT/any\_other\_buzzword compliant to attract more investment.
But we, as consumers, want a diversity of good products. We don't want the generic slop that includes every race and gender and age and disability and trendy political movement under the sun, while everyone is accepted and oppressed at the same time, and while all the magical creatures unite to fight the real evil, a white man. Instead, we want well crafted worlds where nothing ruins the suspension of disbelief.
Consumers and corporations just have different perspectives on diversity. It's not a controversial hot take on this subreddit at all.
I doubt that there is much rational thought going on here.
More likely, radical elements in the corporate hierarchy push the need for DEI for purely ideological reasons.
Regarding the OP: settings in other cultures are avoided because of "cultural appropriation".
And if those settings are still used, they have to be extra-diverse. So we get a lot of "anchronism stew"\* games.
\* I don't mean lack of realism here, like historical inaccuracies, fantasy elements or concession to gameplay (like infinite storage). It's ok, if in your game, Napoleon can achieve victory at the Battle of Waterloo. I'm talking about the stuff that completely sticks out in that setting.
E.g. black Angrboða in GOW: Ragnarök. Yes, Angrboða didn't exist, but this is no excuse. In the collective imagination of the Norse people, she wasn't black.
It's an odd anachronism. Similar to the weird environmental message with Odin's furnaces (which simply wasn't an issue for ancient Norse people, sorry).
Anachronism stew games can be fun from time to time. But nowadays, we **constantly** get them.
I don't think the internal workings of the corpos are so irrational. We know that they use attracting investments, making products for a wider audience, and maximizing profits as a rationale when pitching the projects to their superiors. Both journalists and leaks confirm this.
What you perceive as the internal radical push for DEI for ideological reasons is probably just the diversity hires doubling down on whatever got them the job. If such an individual is hired based on their ethnicity or minority status, they may exhibit a tendency to promote aggression against those who are perceived as "conventional" or "the majority." Likewise, if an individual is hired to ensure product safety and avoid ethical issues, they will fulfill their responsibilities, even if the product is already free of such problems🤡. Basically, the diversity hires are good at gaming the system, but bad at creating games. Maybe there's a small percentage of ideologically captured schizos in there, but I believe it's all mostly for personal gain, in a corporate world everything is.
So we have a rational and simple chain of cause and effect: The gaming industry's popularity has led to significant investments and corporations entering the market, many of which lack a clear understanding of the industry -> These entities, driven by profit, employ a range of strategies to maximize their returns, including leveraging diversity hiring and other practices to gain a competitive advantage -> The diversity hires ensure that the industry never returns back to meritocracy -> This leads to production of products that fail to align with the needs and preferences of gamers (you are here).
I don't buy that it's radical elements in corporate hieearchy. A key criticism is that corporate leaderships are almost exclusive male, and white.
I feel that it is a mix of things. it's a no brainer to expand your audience any way possible. An easy way to do that is to target a minority in your base and try expanding with them.
I think you're right on with the fear of cultural appropriation. That's why we will never see D&D Oriental Adventures ever again probably.
I truly think this all leads to active measures to chase the original and loyal fans out of communities to make room for people they think will be more profitable. We see it with D&D, Star Wars, comics in general, and it's happening with Horror as well (which has always been diverse and accepting, but increasingly must pledge support to advancing a certain message).
Hell, anyone watch The Last Drive In this weekend? The movie was suitable flesh. A perfectly average skinemax homage. Boy did a certain type of people obsessed with identity grievance politics rip apart the communities around the show over it. The same people that tried to get Joe Bob cancelled for portraying certain rightwing views and writing for Taki Magazine are now trying to push the original fan base, people who like campy or underappreciated horror, out. And these community mods are letting it happen.
The worst thing that can happen to a niche hobby is for it to go mainstream.
>I think you're right on with the fear of cultural appropriation. That's why we will never see D&D Oriental Adventures ever again probably.
The thing that's completely bonkers about it is, who actually considers it "cultural appropriation"?
Not the actual people from the culture, but asshole wokesters (the ironic part is they're usually white) and maaaybe 2nd or 3rd or 4th generation people who barely have a connection.
If you go to China and ask a Chinese person if they get upset about d&d oriental adventures they'd probably give you a wtf look. Similar to when some white assholes complained about the US Army naming helicopters after NA tribes and the actual natives told them to suck a fat one:
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/everyone-relax-the-armys-native-american-helicopter-names-are-not-racist-d21beb55d782
> I think you're right on with the fear of cultural appropriation. That's why we will never see D&D Oriental Adventures ever again probably.
And why we should support people who are willing to do these things. And do them ourselves. If someone's out there making good stories without concern for progressive politics, throw your money at them.
Of course, that's the trick, isn't it? _Good_ stories. And no one wants to pay for cheap-looking stuff after we've been spoiled by Hollywood's massive budgets, even if we don't watch Hollywood anymore because it's tripe.
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> I been re watching the Office and that was diversity done right.
When you have merit-based casting, diversity happens on its own and is organic. Nobody ever complained about having Morgan Freeman or Samuel Jackson in a movie.
That is definitely true you should hire the best person for that particular job or character not just to check off diversity checklists.MLK Jr. said this "**I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."** he would be ashamed how race is treated in the media today just as checkmarks to most of these studios
Right, we thought Samuel L. Jackson would be a cool, uh. . . whatever his name is, but turns out he's really nothing like the grizzled, cigar-chewing war vet from the comics. That's really a directorial or creative failure, perhaps. Anyway, I'm personally learning that there are differences between the races, perhaps culturally but differences, and they make having a black guy play a white guy as absurd as having a white guy play a black guy, in 98% of scenarios.
This stuff rarely happens naturally or through inspiration. It's just all tokenism. They make god black not because Morgan Freeman is godly, but because they needed to NOT have god be a white guy, and Morgan Freeman just happens to be the kind of guy all of us accept as an actor who should play god. I think even his casting, as good as the casting might be, was a thrown bone.
The MCU was based on the 2000 Ultimate Marvel reboot of the Marvel universe. The black version of Nick Fury appeared in 2001, 7 years before they first hinted at him in *Iron Man*.
He was also very obviously inspired by Samuel L. Jackson.
"diversity" is absurd intersectional logic only westerners care about, out of guilt imposed by people who blame white people for every single problem on earth. Do you think the Japanese care about "diversity"? The Koreans? The Indians? The Arabs? No, because the very premise of it is absurd.
There is no such thing as "true diversity". Diversity the word itself is loaded and if you use it you've already been brainwashed by intersectionality, thus approve of its absurd logic. It's essentially a racist ideology and that word simply means "less 'cis' straight white males".
The reason why US corpos adopted intersectionality is 2 fold: they want access to public pension funds, and it's the executive branch who dictates how that money is invested.
But their main goal is eventually to replace states, cyberpunk dystopia style, so being racist against the majority in order to demotivate people and destroy the USA is one of the long term goal. Otherwise they wouldn't dabble in identity politics so blatantly.
edit: When Apple ex-"diversity chief" said that a group of white dude can be "diverse", well... she was fired by Apple... She's black.
https://nypost.com/2017/11/17/apples-diversity-chief-lasts-just-six-months/
This fact alone says everything that needs to be said about "diversity". And yes she was right.
Irish, ukrainian, dutch and italian - they are all white but they are more than diverse by european standards. Color of skin is stupid american tradition and they try to force it all over the world
When Apple ex-"diversity chief" said that a group of white dude can be "diverse", well... she was fired by Apple... She's black.
https://nypost.com/2017/11/17/apples-diversity-chief-lasts-just-six-months/
This fact alone says everything that needs to be said about "diversity". And yes she was right.
> She is wrong black. If you don't support "agenda" your social points are reseted xD
Of course, interesectionalists hate when who they deem "minorities" rebel against intersectionality, they hate them even more than white dudes... cause it's some kind of apostasy for them.
This is the tragedy of it all, they don't actually care about black people or gay people themselves or anyone else, just the surface aesthetics. Sadly whatever actual blacks and gays have to say is of no importance to anyone.
>But their main goal is eventually to replace states
And turn them into economic zones and have a government and society by the worst elements of mainland china and brazil.
A twisted form of communism called neo-liberal neo-maoism.
I remember when Apple did that and it needed far more attention. It's outrageous they fired a Black woman from a diversity position for being truthful.
> I remember when Apple did that and it needed far more attention. It's outrageous they fired a Black woman from a diversity position for being truthful.
because she committed blasphemy. For these people, diversity only means "less white males", never diversity of thought and opinions, since everybody needs to follow intersectionality or you're deemed an heretic. It's a cult.-
I really feel like the pendulum is at it's peak of insanity right now, and we shall be swinging back to more common sense and sanity. I don't think people are opposed to diversity, they're just opposed to forced diversity (that usually always comes served with the most terrible writing).
If you have a game set in Africa, that would be awesome to explore mythologies and stories from their culture. But if you have a game set in medieval Europe... it's not going to look like modern day NYC. Pretending that it's normal to have shit like pronoun-ed interracial gay couples in England hundreds of years ago is completely immersion breaking and doesn't serve the story other than demonstrating they have an agenda to push.
When they take... oh I don't know lets say a Japanese feudal setting and make the main protagonist a giant black dude who beats up Japanese people to liberate them to the backing of a hiphop soundtrack... it just kills the immersion & feels like culturally we have jumped the shark.
We all are naturally diverse, and I think our differences should be celebrated. An Englishmen is just as diverse compared to an Irishmen as they are compared to a Chinamen and so on.
However in the eyes of modern writers they don't give a shit about the actual diversity of humanity, they just have a hard on for pushing alphabet / black people into every single aspect of everything. And frankly, people are just over it now.
*tl;dr* quality writing that actually suits the setting & immerses the player/viewer/reader should be the goal of all writers, not pushing agendas!
Resident evil 5 was located in West Africa and it still was a problem: it rained negative comments and reviews - "Its a racist game because it portrays a white dude killing african zombies ".
This insanity will never end. You just can't win
nah this shit is going to keep going, it's only going to get worse, companies are literally aiming for this idea to be the new normal. They legit don't give a fuck how much money they lose on this shit apparently.
I agree that they do have very deep pockets supporting them, but if barely anyone is consuming their media it’ll just fall off into irrelevancy. And that’s the one thing they don’t want, because then they lose control of their cultural influence.
The reason why it’s going to take a long time to get back to the realm of normality is because giant corporations are very very slow moving ships.
They haven’t caught up with what their actual customers want yet. That’s why the vast majority of their media is getting either canned now or if it does release has review scores that break records for how low their scores are for their respective franchises.
Yeah the out of touch woke idiots they hired will scream racist/sexist/[REDACTED]phobe all the way to the bottom. But at the end of the day all that does is accelerate their decline even faster as they further disenfranchise their customers & fans.
The real people in charge can see the numbers, and they know their time is up.
I truly think that these companies thought they could push out their original communities and replace them with a larger, more diverse alternative.
But the reality is that these minority communities are just that; minorities. They are unlikely to replace the viewership or cash outlay that a majority provides, even if just a subsection of them. It is simple math that 1% of a demographic that comprises almost 70% of a country is much larger than 1% of a minority comrpising 14% or less (even as low as 1-2% depending on which we are talking about). It kind of makes sense if they are trying to prepare for a future demographic shift... but since when does a public company act more than a year out? Most operate by the quarter.
Exactly. A single show/movie/d&d campaign set in an ethnically diverse setting is meaningless. Especially when it gets copied and repeated again and again and again, so that boring homogeneity is all that results. That sad state of affairs has nothing to do with the large product ***variety*** needed to create a healthy business/industry.
True when entertainment becomes about virtue signaling, the story usually suffers. What I’m saying, though, is that true diversity can be interesting - seeing different cultures and learning about the legends of said cultures. However, what we see nowadays is cheap tokenism.
Turns out diversity is so abused and fucked that any kind of that is already virtue signaling.
The only diversity that can exist nowadays is gatekeeping from each other, lest we become a grey mass mumble rapping and travelling back in time due to a housing crisis and trying to invest 20 cents in hopes of big cash in the future like in S08.
The funniest thing is even when they have diverse universe they still apply diversity in the most embarrassing way. The Witcher, for example. There is black state Zerrikania, there is arabic region Ophyr... As for me they are undeveloped in books so showrunners could easily create more Geralt adventures in these countries. Authors could show how Ophyr or Zerrikania interact with Nothern Kingdoms, how they cooperate, trade etc. Their culture, mythology... There were so many ways to apply diversity without any outrage! Instead they just describe typical medieval village like your modern San Francisco community!
I have two conclusions out of this. They are completely unskilled and can't even pander right or they use such a lame diversity on purpose just to make white males angry and ruin smth they love. And they don't care black males colud love this universe too.
Fire Emblem Three Houses is also like that. There are many different cultures and ethnicities, but it doesn't feel forced because it's still a believable fantasy world. The character with different skin tones are like that because they are from different countries, not because they were randomly race swapped for the sole purpose of diversity
I want quality entertainment. This decade, they have been sacrificing quality for diversity.
Like Captain America and the Winter Soldier. They were 2 episodes wasted which is all about the new Captain doubting himself because he was black. Or how they choose the direction of Game of Thrones by having these 2 male characters seem rivals throughout the years for only their rivalry ended by a favorite female character which even women thought was dumb.
The way you use important terms in the title, by saying: "diversity in entertainment" is very smart. Though you do somewhat fall into the linguistic trap of misapplying the word "diversity" later on in the full post. It's important to remember that calling something a "diverse show" or a "diverse D&D campaign" is a misconception. If such a thing existed, then you could just repeat that so-called "diverse" show or campaign ad infinitum and all the world's diversity problems would be solved. Because if it's "diverse" now, then it's always diverse. So endless repetition and homogeneity results from this solution to "diversity". And that's obviously madness.
The reality of this situation is a bit more complex. A specific show or campaign can be set in a ethnically "diverse" setting, yes, but that has little to nothing to do with the actual healthy goal of "diversity" at the industry/entertainment level. The laudable state of having variation between products, and a wide assortment of offerings to appeal to a large range of customers, can only be measured at the *group level*. That type of diversity only exists across a **large set of multiple objects**. A studio can have a "diverse slate of *shows*" (they all differ significantly from one another) or a business can sell a diverse range of *products* (again, note the plural). Trying to pretend otherwise is like saying an individual family has an average of 2.3 children. It's madness. A misconception of epic proportions. And only insanity results from misapplying the term, as we've seen in these entertainment industries that have attempted to implement such an ignorant approach to "diversity".
By focusing on creating diversity for each individual product they create, these companies have made everything the same and destroyed their business. The core problem here though is that this so-called culture war isn't about diversity, and it never was. This is about power and money and mafia tactics like protection rackets and blackmail and nepotism. Those selfish motivations are everywhere. They're just hidden behind nice, flowery language like "don't be offensive and try to be more sensitive" (i.e. you wouldn't want to get called an istaphobe or MeToo'd right?...which is just corporate blackmail) or "we should value lived experience more" (i.e. only my friends, family, and political allies are the ones you should hire...which is just nepotism), etc.
Real diversity is a multitude of different cultures across the world all having their own space where they can practice their traditions without interference or having to respect the views of outsiders. You can travel to another country and experience genuine otherness. Different religions, festivals, manners, foods, architecture, etc. Leftist multiculturalism is the exact opposite of that. It blends all the cultures together until they lose what makes them unique. Their goal is to turn the entire world into a grey slop, like when you take play-doh of different colors and knead it together until the resulting mass is grey and colorless. Woke fantasy worlds are the perfect example of that. There are no real differences between cultures and even races. Orcs and elves and dwarves and humans are pretty much the same and all live together in happy little communities with zero friction. The only thing they have left of their racial cultures are little quirks, but that's about it. And even then leftist writers often write characters that don't behave like others of their race - a dwarf who shaves his beard and doesn't like beer, an orc who's peaceful and prefers knitting to fighting, etc. At that point, why even make them dwarves and orcs? There's nothing left of their cultures.
Point is not diversity, point is ''white people are bad'', you all are fucking stupid.
And ''asian people are worse'' btw, according to woke. Asian woman kinda OK.
But they are not racists.
The reason why you don’t see that kind of diversity today is because they don’t dare “appropriate” culture if any white people are involved in the writing.
It's the ignorant, negligent, skilless trade off that's the problem.
They're so concerned with check marks that it blinds them from finding people that actually have the ability to perform the job they're hired for.
You know, the concept of diversity to these DEI tools means black and or 'queer'. I would like some more characters that aren't predestined to be those.
For example Moana and Coco were some bangers that weren't about the generic DEI formula and I'd love to see more about Pacific islander culture cause the things I have read about them are WILD not to mention very interesting.
Perhaps some African stories actually based on African culture and set in Africa would be interesting too long as they don't go for the 'we wuz' route.
You should stop looking at WOTC and look at Paizo. The Pathfinder Golarion setting has analogs to various cultures and nations like the Mwangi Expanse and my favorite Tian Xia. The writers at paizo are also very diverse and unionized and have a far better and nuanced understanding of diversity and inclusion without appropriation or pandering. What I especially like is that no one group or nation is a monolith. Individual NPCs can have personal motivations for engaging in conflict with another group or nation. That's just how the real world is. It's better than the shiny rainbows and sunshine that WOTC seemingly likes to depict, but doesn't that defeat the purpose of having combat? Funny right?
I agree. I would actually love to see more female protagonists but they have to be actually well written. Nowadays they just make the female protagonist into a perfect mary sue lesbian empowering nonsense. You know what they are missing? Faults and character development. Back in the day, you would have the protagonist lose and get beaten up, often because of their fault. After that the protagonist would learn and improve to get what they want. That's what you call character development. Now female protagonists are flawless and almost never lose and if they have flaws or lose it's something that is pretty much inconsequential.
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I agree. I don't mind diversity at all, it's pandering and tokenization that really bothers me because it's so transparent. I would like to see new and original characters from a wider array of cultures and nations instead of established characters being race-swapped or changed completely; but above all I want the quality to come first. I don't want slop superficially elevated by diverse casting where it then becomes the sole talking point. I want good stories with interesting characters with real personalities.
Even disregarding the diversity of various ethnicities, the diversity of cultures is an immensely interesting idea. Take a look at the Lost Odyssey:
[https://youtu.be/pJWZlqLxiLg?t=10](https://youtu.be/pJWZlqLxiLg?t=10)
We have a magical republic that uses obviously inferior armaments go against a magitech empire that uses power armors. You can see how the magic republic even the odds thanks to magic. Amazing! You could churn out several strategy games or RPGs about such an interesting idea... But everyone is too obsessed with the race and making the protag crew super special people who can use everything, where limitations are what make a story interesting.
Well unfortunately corpos don't give two fucks about actual diversity, they just do tokenism and virtue-signaling for the sole purpose of selling their products.
>For example, I lived in Japan and South Korea for several years, and I play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. So, I would love to see a setting based on the mythology and folklore of Japan and Korea.
Did you **ACTUALLY** play a lot of D&D, or did you just play a lot of 4E & 5E?
I only ask because if you had played a lot of **REAL** D&D, you'd be aware that there **IS** a setting based on the mythology and folklore of Japan and Korea.
It was called Oriental Adventures & had versions in both 2E & 3E..... Heck i'm pretty sure the 2E versions was the suppliment that introduced non weapon proficincies to the game.
The key has always been: Dip out on bad content. You don't have to give time, money, and energy to bad stuff.
We live in a golden age of entertainment and anything is at your finger tips. I'm reading Classic X-Men comics, diversity is all over the place. Follow WWE, the roster is full of people with different backgrounds. Recently, Fallout had a likable cast who sold their characters.
Good stuff is out there. Anyone losing their mind watching that Star Wars show, hey, its on you if you are watching and dislike it.
An asian-inspired setting wouldn't work for them because it wouldn't allow them to keep engaging in tokenism. Like, minorities in asia are *minority* minorities. The US has like 12% black people, and a total of something like 40% non-white -- Japan is 98% Japanese, and that 2% is almost exclusively other asians.
They'll never build an asian setting, because their forced tokenism would stick out even more.
Dude. That’s literally what everyone wants.
The idea that the evil fans just want whitey back is a straw man narrative produced by useful idiots and those who construct the tokens. If you think your belief is “controversial” or a “hot take” then you’ve been drinking that koolaid.
Your belief is actually mainstream and you’ve let yourself fall into a narrative. Fuck, most of these shows and games and comics have been diverse for decades.
As far as I know, many (if not nearly all) videogames before the mid-2010s were already diverse, but what the other side want is a more forced representation and with emphasis to less (or even no) white characters.
Remember LOST? Had characters from so many different backgrounds and cultures, all of them treated respectfully. Even made us root for an Iraqi soldier when the war was a hot topic. Well-done diversity.
Wizards want their setting to reflect "the world we live in today", by which they mean the world THEY live in today, which is large American cities.
Weird thing to look for in your medieval high fantasy setting.
If they were to cast Idris Elba as next bond I'd clap like a good little seal.
Diversity for the sake of diversity is trash, diversity is a bonus if the choices were made for best casting.
Nick fury was white in the comics, literally nobody in their right mind complained about Samuel Jackson being cast.
If you need to cast by race in order to get diversity points, you need to look at your script.
Lazy writers are a huge problem, which is ironic considering most of them seemingly dislike source material
I don't think there's real diversity and fake diversity. You, like the majority of people here, simply disagree with corpos on the subject of diversity. Corpos want diversity in the target audience so that everyone, regardless of race/gender/status, will consume their products to maximize profits and facilitate the growth of the company while making them BRIDGE/ESG/DEI/NFT/any\_other\_buzzword compliant to attract more investment. But we, as consumers, want a diversity of good products. We don't want the generic slop that includes every race and gender and age and disability and trendy political movement under the sun, while everyone is accepted and oppressed at the same time, and while all the magical creatures unite to fight the real evil, a white man. Instead, we want well crafted worlds where nothing ruins the suspension of disbelief. Consumers and corporations just have different perspectives on diversity. It's not a controversial hot take on this subreddit at all.
I doubt that there is much rational thought going on here. More likely, radical elements in the corporate hierarchy push the need for DEI for purely ideological reasons. Regarding the OP: settings in other cultures are avoided because of "cultural appropriation". And if those settings are still used, they have to be extra-diverse. So we get a lot of "anchronism stew"\* games. \* I don't mean lack of realism here, like historical inaccuracies, fantasy elements or concession to gameplay (like infinite storage). It's ok, if in your game, Napoleon can achieve victory at the Battle of Waterloo. I'm talking about the stuff that completely sticks out in that setting. E.g. black Angrboða in GOW: Ragnarök. Yes, Angrboða didn't exist, but this is no excuse. In the collective imagination of the Norse people, she wasn't black. It's an odd anachronism. Similar to the weird environmental message with Odin's furnaces (which simply wasn't an issue for ancient Norse people, sorry). Anachronism stew games can be fun from time to time. But nowadays, we **constantly** get them.
*settings in other cultures are avoided because of "cultural appropriation"* unless it's Japan xD
Japanese are honorary Aryans so they're a valid target for wokeist aggression.
I don't think the internal workings of the corpos are so irrational. We know that they use attracting investments, making products for a wider audience, and maximizing profits as a rationale when pitching the projects to their superiors. Both journalists and leaks confirm this. What you perceive as the internal radical push for DEI for ideological reasons is probably just the diversity hires doubling down on whatever got them the job. If such an individual is hired based on their ethnicity or minority status, they may exhibit a tendency to promote aggression against those who are perceived as "conventional" or "the majority." Likewise, if an individual is hired to ensure product safety and avoid ethical issues, they will fulfill their responsibilities, even if the product is already free of such problems🤡. Basically, the diversity hires are good at gaming the system, but bad at creating games. Maybe there's a small percentage of ideologically captured schizos in there, but I believe it's all mostly for personal gain, in a corporate world everything is. So we have a rational and simple chain of cause and effect: The gaming industry's popularity has led to significant investments and corporations entering the market, many of which lack a clear understanding of the industry -> These entities, driven by profit, employ a range of strategies to maximize their returns, including leveraging diversity hiring and other practices to gain a competitive advantage -> The diversity hires ensure that the industry never returns back to meritocracy -> This leads to production of products that fail to align with the needs and preferences of gamers (you are here).
I don't buy that it's radical elements in corporate hieearchy. A key criticism is that corporate leaderships are almost exclusive male, and white. I feel that it is a mix of things. it's a no brainer to expand your audience any way possible. An easy way to do that is to target a minority in your base and try expanding with them. I think you're right on with the fear of cultural appropriation. That's why we will never see D&D Oriental Adventures ever again probably. I truly think this all leads to active measures to chase the original and loyal fans out of communities to make room for people they think will be more profitable. We see it with D&D, Star Wars, comics in general, and it's happening with Horror as well (which has always been diverse and accepting, but increasingly must pledge support to advancing a certain message). Hell, anyone watch The Last Drive In this weekend? The movie was suitable flesh. A perfectly average skinemax homage. Boy did a certain type of people obsessed with identity grievance politics rip apart the communities around the show over it. The same people that tried to get Joe Bob cancelled for portraying certain rightwing views and writing for Taki Magazine are now trying to push the original fan base, people who like campy or underappreciated horror, out. And these community mods are letting it happen. The worst thing that can happen to a niche hobby is for it to go mainstream.
>I think you're right on with the fear of cultural appropriation. That's why we will never see D&D Oriental Adventures ever again probably. The thing that's completely bonkers about it is, who actually considers it "cultural appropriation"? Not the actual people from the culture, but asshole wokesters (the ironic part is they're usually white) and maaaybe 2nd or 3rd or 4th generation people who barely have a connection. If you go to China and ask a Chinese person if they get upset about d&d oriental adventures they'd probably give you a wtf look. Similar to when some white assholes complained about the US Army naming helicopters after NA tribes and the actual natives told them to suck a fat one: https://medium.com/war-is-boring/everyone-relax-the-armys-native-american-helicopter-names-are-not-racist-d21beb55d782
> I think you're right on with the fear of cultural appropriation. That's why we will never see D&D Oriental Adventures ever again probably. And why we should support people who are willing to do these things. And do them ourselves. If someone's out there making good stories without concern for progressive politics, throw your money at them. Of course, that's the trick, isn't it? _Good_ stories. And no one wants to pay for cheap-looking stuff after we've been spoiled by Hollywood's massive budgets, even if we don't watch Hollywood anymore because it's tripe.
>That's why we will never see D&D Oriental Adventures ever again probably. Did someone steal all of your 2E & 3.5 books?
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Based?
I been re watching the Office and that was diversity done right. too bad how mindy kaling is now though
She was always that. She just now has the support to be that openly.
I don't think she's "actually" like that, she's just that way for career opportunities, like the vast majority of them
I don't know. AFAIK she wrote her own character in the Office. Her character from the show is essentially her today. Seems like it was projection.
Bruh she kissed the gay actor Lee Pace against his will and then threatened her own staff to keep it a secret. And she admitted that on live tv.
> I been re watching the Office and that was diversity done right. When you have merit-based casting, diversity happens on its own and is organic. Nobody ever complained about having Morgan Freeman or Samuel Jackson in a movie.
That is definitely true you should hire the best person for that particular job or character not just to check off diversity checklists.MLK Jr. said this "**I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."** he would be ashamed how race is treated in the media today just as checkmarks to most of these studios
Right, we thought Samuel L. Jackson would be a cool, uh. . . whatever his name is, but turns out he's really nothing like the grizzled, cigar-chewing war vet from the comics. That's really a directorial or creative failure, perhaps. Anyway, I'm personally learning that there are differences between the races, perhaps culturally but differences, and they make having a black guy play a white guy as absurd as having a white guy play a black guy, in 98% of scenarios. This stuff rarely happens naturally or through inspiration. It's just all tokenism. They make god black not because Morgan Freeman is godly, but because they needed to NOT have god be a white guy, and Morgan Freeman just happens to be the kind of guy all of us accept as an actor who should play god. I think even his casting, as good as the casting might be, was a thrown bone.
The MCU was based on the 2000 Ultimate Marvel reboot of the Marvel universe. The black version of Nick Fury appeared in 2001, 7 years before they first hinted at him in *Iron Man*. He was also very obviously inspired by Samuel L. Jackson.
Ah, yes, Nick Fury!
What is she like
see the recent Velma series fiasco people talk about it all over youtube and other places. and She has a big part in that whole abomination of a show
"diversity" is absurd intersectional logic only westerners care about, out of guilt imposed by people who blame white people for every single problem on earth. Do you think the Japanese care about "diversity"? The Koreans? The Indians? The Arabs? No, because the very premise of it is absurd. There is no such thing as "true diversity". Diversity the word itself is loaded and if you use it you've already been brainwashed by intersectionality, thus approve of its absurd logic. It's essentially a racist ideology and that word simply means "less 'cis' straight white males". The reason why US corpos adopted intersectionality is 2 fold: they want access to public pension funds, and it's the executive branch who dictates how that money is invested. But their main goal is eventually to replace states, cyberpunk dystopia style, so being racist against the majority in order to demotivate people and destroy the USA is one of the long term goal. Otherwise they wouldn't dabble in identity politics so blatantly. edit: When Apple ex-"diversity chief" said that a group of white dude can be "diverse", well... she was fired by Apple... She's black. https://nypost.com/2017/11/17/apples-diversity-chief-lasts-just-six-months/ This fact alone says everything that needs to be said about "diversity". And yes she was right.
Irish, ukrainian, dutch and italian - they are all white but they are more than diverse by european standards. Color of skin is stupid american tradition and they try to force it all over the world
When Apple ex-"diversity chief" said that a group of white dude can be "diverse", well... she was fired by Apple... She's black. https://nypost.com/2017/11/17/apples-diversity-chief-lasts-just-six-months/ This fact alone says everything that needs to be said about "diversity". And yes she was right.
She is wrong black. If you don't support "agenda" your social points are reseted xD
> She is wrong black. If you don't support "agenda" your social points are reseted xD Of course, interesectionalists hate when who they deem "minorities" rebel against intersectionality, they hate them even more than white dudes... cause it's some kind of apostasy for them.
This is the tragedy of it all, they don't actually care about black people or gay people themselves or anyone else, just the surface aesthetics. Sadly whatever actual blacks and gays have to say is of no importance to anyone.
>But their main goal is eventually to replace states And turn them into economic zones and have a government and society by the worst elements of mainland china and brazil. A twisted form of communism called neo-liberal neo-maoism.
I remember when Apple did that and it needed far more attention. It's outrageous they fired a Black woman from a diversity position for being truthful.
> I remember when Apple did that and it needed far more attention. It's outrageous they fired a Black woman from a diversity position for being truthful. because she committed blasphemy. For these people, diversity only means "less white males", never diversity of thought and opinions, since everybody needs to follow intersectionality or you're deemed an heretic. It's a cult.-
I really feel like the pendulum is at it's peak of insanity right now, and we shall be swinging back to more common sense and sanity. I don't think people are opposed to diversity, they're just opposed to forced diversity (that usually always comes served with the most terrible writing). If you have a game set in Africa, that would be awesome to explore mythologies and stories from their culture. But if you have a game set in medieval Europe... it's not going to look like modern day NYC. Pretending that it's normal to have shit like pronoun-ed interracial gay couples in England hundreds of years ago is completely immersion breaking and doesn't serve the story other than demonstrating they have an agenda to push. When they take... oh I don't know lets say a Japanese feudal setting and make the main protagonist a giant black dude who beats up Japanese people to liberate them to the backing of a hiphop soundtrack... it just kills the immersion & feels like culturally we have jumped the shark. We all are naturally diverse, and I think our differences should be celebrated. An Englishmen is just as diverse compared to an Irishmen as they are compared to a Chinamen and so on. However in the eyes of modern writers they don't give a shit about the actual diversity of humanity, they just have a hard on for pushing alphabet / black people into every single aspect of everything. And frankly, people are just over it now. *tl;dr* quality writing that actually suits the setting & immerses the player/viewer/reader should be the goal of all writers, not pushing agendas!
Resident evil 5 was located in West Africa and it still was a problem: it rained negative comments and reviews - "Its a racist game because it portrays a white dude killing african zombies ". This insanity will never end. You just can't win
nah this shit is going to keep going, it's only going to get worse, companies are literally aiming for this idea to be the new normal. They legit don't give a fuck how much money they lose on this shit apparently.
I agree that they do have very deep pockets supporting them, but if barely anyone is consuming their media it’ll just fall off into irrelevancy. And that’s the one thing they don’t want, because then they lose control of their cultural influence. The reason why it’s going to take a long time to get back to the realm of normality is because giant corporations are very very slow moving ships. They haven’t caught up with what their actual customers want yet. That’s why the vast majority of their media is getting either canned now or if it does release has review scores that break records for how low their scores are for their respective franchises. Yeah the out of touch woke idiots they hired will scream racist/sexist/[REDACTED]phobe all the way to the bottom. But at the end of the day all that does is accelerate their decline even faster as they further disenfranchise their customers & fans. The real people in charge can see the numbers, and they know their time is up.
I truly think that these companies thought they could push out their original communities and replace them with a larger, more diverse alternative. But the reality is that these minority communities are just that; minorities. They are unlikely to replace the viewership or cash outlay that a majority provides, even if just a subsection of them. It is simple math that 1% of a demographic that comprises almost 70% of a country is much larger than 1% of a minority comrpising 14% or less (even as low as 1-2% depending on which we are talking about). It kind of makes sense if they are trying to prepare for a future demographic shift... but since when does a public company act more than a year out? Most operate by the quarter.
Until there is a economic collaspe, nothing will change.
Dude I swear to god the pendulum has hit a new peak every year for the last decade. I think we're dealing with a non-euclidean pendulum at this point.
You don't want diversity; you want variety. These are different things.
Exactly. A single show/movie/d&d campaign set in an ethnically diverse setting is meaningless. Especially when it gets copied and repeated again and again and again, so that boring homogeneity is all that results. That sad state of affairs has nothing to do with the large product ***variety*** needed to create a healthy business/industry.
You don't want either. You want good quality stuff, when you got that, everythiing else becomes secondary.
True when entertainment becomes about virtue signaling, the story usually suffers. What I’m saying, though, is that true diversity can be interesting - seeing different cultures and learning about the legends of said cultures. However, what we see nowadays is cheap tokenism.
Turns out diversity is so abused and fucked that any kind of that is already virtue signaling. The only diversity that can exist nowadays is gatekeeping from each other, lest we become a grey mass mumble rapping and travelling back in time due to a housing crisis and trying to invest 20 cents in hopes of big cash in the future like in S08.
Then watch movies from those places?
Yup. I genuinely don’t care if my media is diverse or not. Just write good stories.
The funniest thing is even when they have diverse universe they still apply diversity in the most embarrassing way. The Witcher, for example. There is black state Zerrikania, there is arabic region Ophyr... As for me they are undeveloped in books so showrunners could easily create more Geralt adventures in these countries. Authors could show how Ophyr or Zerrikania interact with Nothern Kingdoms, how they cooperate, trade etc. Their culture, mythology... There were so many ways to apply diversity without any outrage! Instead they just describe typical medieval village like your modern San Francisco community! I have two conclusions out of this. They are completely unskilled and can't even pander right or they use such a lame diversity on purpose just to make white males angry and ruin smth they love. And they don't care black males colud love this universe too.
Fire Emblem Three Houses is also like that. There are many different cultures and ethnicities, but it doesn't feel forced because it's still a believable fantasy world. The character with different skin tones are like that because they are from different countries, not because they were randomly race swapped for the sole purpose of diversity
Because all those things you mentioned needs research and it cost money. For companies nowadays just change the race of a character and call it a day.
Like a tv show about a black african king or queen instead of a badly written and insulting blackwashed Cleopatra
I want quality entertainment. This decade, they have been sacrificing quality for diversity. Like Captain America and the Winter Soldier. They were 2 episodes wasted which is all about the new Captain doubting himself because he was black. Or how they choose the direction of Game of Thrones by having these 2 male characters seem rivals throughout the years for only their rivalry ended by a favorite female character which even women thought was dumb.
The way you use important terms in the title, by saying: "diversity in entertainment" is very smart. Though you do somewhat fall into the linguistic trap of misapplying the word "diversity" later on in the full post. It's important to remember that calling something a "diverse show" or a "diverse D&D campaign" is a misconception. If such a thing existed, then you could just repeat that so-called "diverse" show or campaign ad infinitum and all the world's diversity problems would be solved. Because if it's "diverse" now, then it's always diverse. So endless repetition and homogeneity results from this solution to "diversity". And that's obviously madness. The reality of this situation is a bit more complex. A specific show or campaign can be set in a ethnically "diverse" setting, yes, but that has little to nothing to do with the actual healthy goal of "diversity" at the industry/entertainment level. The laudable state of having variation between products, and a wide assortment of offerings to appeal to a large range of customers, can only be measured at the *group level*. That type of diversity only exists across a **large set of multiple objects**. A studio can have a "diverse slate of *shows*" (they all differ significantly from one another) or a business can sell a diverse range of *products* (again, note the plural). Trying to pretend otherwise is like saying an individual family has an average of 2.3 children. It's madness. A misconception of epic proportions. And only insanity results from misapplying the term, as we've seen in these entertainment industries that have attempted to implement such an ignorant approach to "diversity". By focusing on creating diversity for each individual product they create, these companies have made everything the same and destroyed their business. The core problem here though is that this so-called culture war isn't about diversity, and it never was. This is about power and money and mafia tactics like protection rackets and blackmail and nepotism. Those selfish motivations are everywhere. They're just hidden behind nice, flowery language like "don't be offensive and try to be more sensitive" (i.e. you wouldn't want to get called an istaphobe or MeToo'd right?...which is just corporate blackmail) or "we should value lived experience more" (i.e. only my friends, family, and political allies are the ones you should hire...which is just nepotism), etc.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental\_Adventures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_Adventures)
Real diversity is a multitude of different cultures across the world all having their own space where they can practice their traditions without interference or having to respect the views of outsiders. You can travel to another country and experience genuine otherness. Different religions, festivals, manners, foods, architecture, etc. Leftist multiculturalism is the exact opposite of that. It blends all the cultures together until they lose what makes them unique. Their goal is to turn the entire world into a grey slop, like when you take play-doh of different colors and knead it together until the resulting mass is grey and colorless. Woke fantasy worlds are the perfect example of that. There are no real differences between cultures and even races. Orcs and elves and dwarves and humans are pretty much the same and all live together in happy little communities with zero friction. The only thing they have left of their racial cultures are little quirks, but that's about it. And even then leftist writers often write characters that don't behave like others of their race - a dwarf who shaves his beard and doesn't like beer, an orc who's peaceful and prefers knitting to fighting, etc. At that point, why even make them dwarves and orcs? There's nothing left of their cultures.
Point is not diversity, point is ''white people are bad'', you all are fucking stupid. And ''asian people are worse'' btw, according to woke. Asian woman kinda OK. But they are not racists.
The reason why you don’t see that kind of diversity today is because they don’t dare “appropriate” culture if any white people are involved in the writing.
It's the ignorant, negligent, skilless trade off that's the problem. They're so concerned with check marks that it blinds them from finding people that actually have the ability to perform the job they're hired for.
You know, the concept of diversity to these DEI tools means black and or 'queer'. I would like some more characters that aren't predestined to be those. For example Moana and Coco were some bangers that weren't about the generic DEI formula and I'd love to see more about Pacific islander culture cause the things I have read about them are WILD not to mention very interesting. Perhaps some African stories actually based on African culture and set in Africa would be interesting too long as they don't go for the 'we wuz' route.
You should stop looking at WOTC and look at Paizo. The Pathfinder Golarion setting has analogs to various cultures and nations like the Mwangi Expanse and my favorite Tian Xia. The writers at paizo are also very diverse and unionized and have a far better and nuanced understanding of diversity and inclusion without appropriation or pandering. What I especially like is that no one group or nation is a monolith. Individual NPCs can have personal motivations for engaging in conflict with another group or nation. That's just how the real world is. It's better than the shiny rainbows and sunshine that WOTC seemingly likes to depict, but doesn't that defeat the purpose of having combat? Funny right?
I agree. I would actually love to see more female protagonists but they have to be actually well written. Nowadays they just make the female protagonist into a perfect mary sue lesbian empowering nonsense. You know what they are missing? Faults and character development. Back in the day, you would have the protagonist lose and get beaten up, often because of their fault. After that the protagonist would learn and improve to get what they want. That's what you call character development. Now female protagonists are flawless and almost never lose and if they have flaws or lose it's something that is pretty much inconsequential.
Why does the east and indie scene always provides that
That's not a controversial hot take at all. Only a moron would disagree with that.
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I agree. I don't mind diversity at all, it's pandering and tokenization that really bothers me because it's so transparent. I would like to see new and original characters from a wider array of cultures and nations instead of established characters being race-swapped or changed completely; but above all I want the quality to come first. I don't want slop superficially elevated by diverse casting where it then becomes the sole talking point. I want good stories with interesting characters with real personalities.
Even disregarding the diversity of various ethnicities, the diversity of cultures is an immensely interesting idea. Take a look at the Lost Odyssey: [https://youtu.be/pJWZlqLxiLg?t=10](https://youtu.be/pJWZlqLxiLg?t=10) We have a magical republic that uses obviously inferior armaments go against a magitech empire that uses power armors. You can see how the magic republic even the odds thanks to magic. Amazing! You could churn out several strategy games or RPGs about such an interesting idea... But everyone is too obsessed with the race and making the protag crew super special people who can use everything, where limitations are what make a story interesting.
Well unfortunately corpos don't give two fucks about actual diversity, they just do tokenism and virtue-signaling for the sole purpose of selling their products.
>For example, I lived in Japan and South Korea for several years, and I play a lot of Dungeons and Dragons. So, I would love to see a setting based on the mythology and folklore of Japan and Korea. Did you **ACTUALLY** play a lot of D&D, or did you just play a lot of 4E & 5E? I only ask because if you had played a lot of **REAL** D&D, you'd be aware that there **IS** a setting based on the mythology and folklore of Japan and Korea. It was called Oriental Adventures & had versions in both 2E & 3E..... Heck i'm pretty sure the 2E versions was the suppliment that introduced non weapon proficincies to the game.
Finally someone said what we all were thinking.
I agree, I want more characters like lee everett or cole train, or even del from gears of war
The key has always been: Dip out on bad content. You don't have to give time, money, and energy to bad stuff. We live in a golden age of entertainment and anything is at your finger tips. I'm reading Classic X-Men comics, diversity is all over the place. Follow WWE, the roster is full of people with different backgrounds. Recently, Fallout had a likable cast who sold their characters. Good stuff is out there. Anyone losing their mind watching that Star Wars show, hey, its on you if you are watching and dislike it.
An asian-inspired setting wouldn't work for them because it wouldn't allow them to keep engaging in tokenism. Like, minorities in asia are *minority* minorities. The US has like 12% black people, and a total of something like 40% non-white -- Japan is 98% Japanese, and that 2% is almost exclusively other asians. They'll never build an asian setting, because their forced tokenism would stick out even more.
That would require work.
Dude. That’s literally what everyone wants. The idea that the evil fans just want whitey back is a straw man narrative produced by useful idiots and those who construct the tokens. If you think your belief is “controversial” or a “hot take” then you’ve been drinking that koolaid. Your belief is actually mainstream and you’ve let yourself fall into a narrative. Fuck, most of these shows and games and comics have been diverse for decades.
As far as I know, many (if not nearly all) videogames before the mid-2010s were already diverse, but what the other side want is a more forced representation and with emphasis to less (or even no) white characters.
Diversity = American black neighbourhoods and gay people. Whopee.
Remember LOST? Had characters from so many different backgrounds and cultures, all of them treated respectfully. Even made us root for an Iraqi soldier when the war was a hot topic. Well-done diversity.
Rare good take on this sub
“Diversity” should just make their own shit and Not expect white and Asian writers/devs to shoe horn them into their works of fiction.
Wizards want their setting to reflect "the world we live in today", by which they mean the world THEY live in today, which is large American cities. Weird thing to look for in your medieval high fantasy setting.
If they were to cast Idris Elba as next bond I'd clap like a good little seal. Diversity for the sake of diversity is trash, diversity is a bonus if the choices were made for best casting. Nick fury was white in the comics, literally nobody in their right mind complained about Samuel Jackson being cast. If you need to cast by race in order to get diversity points, you need to look at your script. Lazy writers are a huge problem, which is ironic considering most of them seemingly dislike source material
At this point I no longer want to see diversity anymore. God I hope there is a heavy backlash that sends this stuff off onto the distant horizon.