Terasawa wrote:I kinda disagree. I think these things have a lot of influence on young people, especially those who might be closeted and struggling. What's it matter why a filmmaker or studio pushed for an LGBTQ character as long as the character isn't a caricature or stereotype?
I know it was more than 50 years ago but,,, Uhura on Star Trek was consistently underused throughout the show's run. In most episodes she's just present on the bridge to tell Captain Kirk a channel to whatever alien planet is open. But because she was black, her character was hugely influential for an entire generation of young black women. Whoopi Goldberg is one famous example. The astronaut Mae Jemison is another. Both cited the Uhura character (often little more important to any given episode than the extras were) as a major inspiration for their eventual career choices.
In that last decade +, more and more advertisements have come out with non-whites in the cast. If you look at just about any American commercial now, you'll see people ticking many different racial, ethnic, and sexual boxes. Surely this is no more than the ad agency's call for diversity. Do you think that every such commercial is directed by a person with a grand vision?
So I don't care if a studio just wants diversity for the sake of diversity. Sometimes that can be enough, as long as you have a character who respectfully represents a minority.
Yeah, when we're talking about material being produced for a mass-market franchise, almost no decisions are made purely based on the needs of the story. There's always thought given to whom the target market is, and writing and casting choices are made to appeal to them. Basically, if you want to say, "No LGBTQ characters just for the sake of including them," then you have to acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of characters in American movies and TV are straight and white
just for the sake of being straight and white.
It's within the power of the people making those choices - choices which are almost always made for commercial reasons - to try to appeal to the LGBTQ audience, which they will do if they view that as an untapped available market; in doing so, they can achieve the beneficial side effect of making a disenfranchised group feel more included in society, and help to normalize their presence to people who might tend to reflexively think of them as "other."
Tokyo, a smoldering memorial to the unknown, an unknown which at this very moment still prevails and could at any time lash out with its terrible destruction anywhere else in the world.
