Gays and Minorities as villians in fictional media... Good? Bad?

[Milanezi]

Earth 2's Green Lantern is gay, and we have some hot scenes of him and his fiancé

Spoiler

(well the fiancé dies so he's not a fiancé for a long time at all)

; Batwoman is screamingly lesbian, with DC serving some erotic scenes of her and her girlfriend, and not in a "lesbians! we will sell more comics" way, but in a pretty decent and artistic way, plus, it is one of the best, if not THE best comic book in the New 52. There was something about a gay marriage in the X-Men, and I remember that one of the big league mutants was gay, I dare say it's Mercury, but since I usually mix him up with some other mutants, I'm not sure

Outside of geek media you have my favorite gay couple, probably because they act "normal", David & Keith from Six Feet Under (the very best and heaviest drama tv show I've ever seen).

Basically, I don't recall homosexuality and minorities being, NOWADAYS, force fed to the audience as villains. We have them as villains yes, look at Skyfall, but just as far as we have "majorities" as villains as well, look at almost every other Bond villain for instance.

 

[Batou667]

It's a tricky one. In an ideal and enlightened world we should be able to have any character in a story a minority - whether the protagonist, or villain, or sidekick or whatever - and have them be treated on their own merits first and their "minority-status" merely a bit of humanisation or characterisation.

Unfortunately what tends to happen is that if a protagonist is in any way a minority, that then defines the character. The minority aspect is pushed to become part of their raison d'etre and motivation. Ditto if it's a villain, and you're then equating the minority aspect itself with negativity, even if just on the surface level.

It's stupid, but then again characters aren't people. Characters are meant to be recogniseable and relatable to 100% of the audience, not just the 20% that shares the character's race/sexuality/religion. I suppose that's why in mainstream media at least there are so many "blank slate" protagonists, and why tropes exist in the first place - they're a culturally-accepted hand-wavey way of introducing the main players in a story without having to build each one from the ground up, because that would take literally hours. Possibly that's more feasible in a serialised form of media like comic books or soap operas, or in a long novel, but in "bite sized" media like films and games I think the broad tropes are here to stay.

 

[The White Hunter]

Well it's fine so long as it isn't a point of derision or handled in very poor taste or whatever. So long as it isn't token representation and it's handled with class then there is no problem.

Wouldn't openly gay characters be a bit too risky for Disney though? Pretty sure they still like that traditional american audience thing.

 

[Andy of Comix Inc]

As long as they aren't villains because they're gay (or gay because they're villains), that's fine. Skyfall had a gay villain and he was handled pretty tastefully I thought, it wasn't overbearing and it wasn't homophobic. He made allusions to the fact that he liked men and came on slightly to Bond.

But yeah. If it's some kind "oh no it's a gaaay!!" storyline then that's awful. But just a gay villain? Hey. Everyone's evil.

 

[elvor0]

Well as long as the sexuality isn't defining their character, (unless you know they're insane and its done with some sort of context or tongue in cheek or whatever) then it doesn't really matter, a villain that just /happens/ to be gay is perfectly acceptable.

A good example would be

Spoiler: dexter season 7 spoilers

Isaak Sirko, he was gay, and yeah his primary motive was revenge because Viktor was his boyfriend, but you wouldn't exactly see it coming, it's not until right at the end that Isaak revels he's gay, and it's done in a very "offhand" way. That and Isaak Sirko was a great character.

 

[Eddie the head]

The villain in Metal Gear Solid 3 was bi. It worked with him due to his I'll do what I want attitude.

 

[SonicWaffle]

You mean like in Skyfall?

Ha, wow, you managed to remember something from that movie? Good for you. Personally, it's been months since I saw it and I'm only now recovering from the headfuck of it all

Anyway, it also depends on the plot. If this hypothetical homosexual plans to HOMOGAY-NIZE (that's a horrible, horrible pun) the world through kiddie rape; then yeah. That's a negative depiction. If he's flamboyantly gay and wants to steal, I don't know, Christmas or something, that's okay in my book.

Hmm, perhaps not the best example. It's a fairly well-known way of alluding to a gay person's sexuality to call them "camper than Christmas". Christmas is camp, gay people are camp, implication being gay people want to steal all the camp things for themselves? I dunno. It's a stretch, obviously, but then so are quite a few of the things that people get upset about when this topic comes up.

If it's an openly gay (muslim, black, whatever) vilain where their minority doesn't influence their villainy I don't see a problem with it. We don't claim '101 Dalmatians' is a sexist movie because the villain is a woman (do we? God I hope not...)

Well, she is obsessed with fashion and her entire character is driven by her desire for more clothing. There's probably some unfortunate implications there, for those who want to see them. Women, they love the shopping and the clothes, right fellas?

I never got into boys untill....ummm....I don't know how does one define "into" boys?

I think the rule states that if you go deeper than two inches, it's gay.

Earth 2's Green Lantern is gay, and we have some hot scenes of him and his fiancé

Nope. Not a thing. Didn't happen.

I don't give a damn who Alan is sticking his dick in, but this Earth-2 bullshit makes me do an angry face. He is Sentinel and he is a member of the JSA on the same Earth as all of the other superheroes and that is all I will hear on the matter!

Batwoman is screamingly lesbian, with DC serving some erotic scenes of her and her girlfriend

Man, they carried over Batwoman to the New 52? Batwoman?! I read some of her stuff pre-New 52 and it was godawful rubbish. As far as lesbian characters go, I'd have chosen an interesting and well-rounded one like Scandal Savage. The only effect her sexuality really has is in who she's actually fucking, it has no bearing on how much of a homicidal loon she is.

 

[lord canti]

So what happens if the minority is a villain due to the treatment of thier kind?Kind of like in tales of symphonia. I wonder if that would be fine with a lot of people.

 

[Vault101]

[
Man, they carried over Batwoman to the New 52? Batwoman?! I read some of her stuff pre-New 52 and it was godawful

well aparnetly the new stuff is good..and I have to say I'm kind of hooked, but yeah her sexuality is handled pretty much normally, she has the same relationship issues as anyone else

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

Everyone wants to be treated equally but as soon as the villain is anything but a white male, everyone is being raaaaacist.

 

[MrBenSampson]

I wouldn't have a problem, as long as being of that minority isn't the reason that they're portrayed as evil. Vincente de Santa from Red Dead Redemption was an antagonist, who just happened to be gay. I thought his character was done pretty well.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

Ha, wow, you managed to remember something from that movie? Good for you. Personally, it's been months since I saw it and I'm only now recovering from the headfuck of it all

I remember most of it, seeing as I think it is one of the best Bond movies (and THE best of the new ones, not that is saying much though).
I also remember him not doing a correct defence against a tackling on the bridge over the pen with the Komodo dragons. Starting to do self defence really makes you aware of all the faults of fights in movies

 

[SonicWaffle]

[
Man, they carried over Batwoman to the New 52? Batwoman?! I read some of her stuff pre-New 52 and it was godawful

well aparnetly the new stuff is good..and I have to say I'm kind of hooked, but yeah her sexuality is handled pretty much normally, she has the same relationship issues as anyone else

My problem with her old book was never her sexuality, in fairness, it was everything else. The horrible art style that made everything look all washed-out and dreamy, her relationship with her father ("I do not condone your being gay but I am pretty OK with you battling lunatics in dark alleys"), the fact that the villain was her long-lost sister argh argh argh my brain...

 

[SonicWaffle]

Ha, wow, you managed to remember something from that movie? Good for you. Personally, it's been months since I saw it and I'm only now recovering from the headfuck of it all

I remember most of it, seeing as I think it is one of the best Bond movies (and THE best of the new ones, not that is saying much though).

I used to be a pretty big Bond fan, but in recent years my enthusiasm has been waning and honestly, Skyfall not only broke the camel's back but gave him a kicking and threw him into a car crusher for good measure. I spent almost the entire movie turning to my brother and going "What?! Why?! How?! I don't know what is happening here!"

Fair play to those who could enjoy it, but even by the incredibly low standards Bond has historically set, the film didn't make a lick of sense.

I also remember him not doing a correct defence against a tackling on the bridge over the pen with the Komodo dragons. Starting to do self defence really makes you aware of all the faults of fights in movies

I remember there being a bit where a dude is eaten by a Komodo dragon. I think my commentary at the time was "Why is there a fucking Komodo dragon there?!"

 

[Thaluikhain]

My problem with her old book was never her sexuality, in fairness, it was everything else. The horrible art style that made everything look all washed-out and dreamy, her relationship with her father ("I do not condone your being gay but I am pretty OK with you battling lunatics in dark alleys"), the fact that the villain was her long-lost sister argh argh argh my brain...

I have to say, I liked the weird art style.

There was also that issue were Batman and Batwoman are doing more or less the same thing in different areas, and the comic splits between the two. A lot of the time, you could only tel by the background colours who was who, they made it BATwoman, not batWOMAN, not stupid sexualised costume or anything.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Is it morally okay to have villains with different sexual orientation, or race, or religion?

I think you've missed the criticism here.

The issue with Disney is that they deliberately coded these characters as "gay" (by making them camp, effeminate, butch or whatever, not necessarily by setting out to making a character who will be read as gay) to illustrate that they are bad. It's part of the visual language Disney uses, which is why you don't see heroes or supporting characters being coded as gay in Disney films.

The issue with gay or minority villains right now is that, basically, there are pretty much no gay heroes, and not many minority heroes either. No, commander Shepard doesn't count. Imagine a male hero mincing around and being openly gay. It's kind of a contradiction in terms, isn't it?

Making your antagonist effeminate or dykey is currently kind of like giving them a British accent. It's not a bad idea in and of itself, after all British people are not always saints, it's just highly, highly overused to the point that it's actually part of visual language as a way of saying "I'm a bad guy". You see a character swishing it up on screen and you can be almost certain they will turn out to be evil (and if not they will turn out to be ineffectual comic relief).

These kinds of ideas about effeminate men and predatory lesbians as inherently morally weak and degenerate are pretty damn old. Movies have been using this kind of thing as shorthand since the early 20th century, the fact that they still do so today is.. it's a relic, and one which I think it's fair to say we probably shouldn't be relying on any more, not just because it's unpleasant in its implications but because it's kind of lazy.

So, one more time for the TL;DR crowd. It's not the existence of these characters, it's the frequency with which they appear.

 

[Kyle 2175]

Whether a minority being a villain would be hateful would really depend on the reason for them being a villain. If it's because of them being a minority, with the idea that minorities are evil(rather than that they were discriminated against until they snapped, maybe?) then it would be blatantly stupid. If them being a minority is just one of their traits and they're a villain for a different reason entirely, then it really doesn't matter at all.

 

[SonicWaffle]

There was also that issue were Batman and Batwoman are doing more or less the same thing in different areas, and the comic splits between the two. A lot of the time, you could only tel by the background colours who was who, they made it BATwoman, not batWOMAN, not stupid sexualised costume or anything.

In that case, why are they refusing to bring back Stephanie Brown? Of the two Bat-females operating in the DCU just prior to the reboot she was by far the more interesting. Her book was much more fun, and wasn't so badly laid out I kept finding myself reading the narration in the wrong order, and thanks to Steph's...unique...character progression over the years she felt much more like a real member of the Bat-family than a relative newcomer who just so happened to be using the symbol.

 

[Thaluikhain]

There was also that issue were Batman and Batwoman are doing more or less the same thing in different areas, and the comic splits between the two. A lot of the time, you could only tel by the background colours who was who, they made it BATwoman, not batWOMAN, not stupid sexualised costume or anything.

In that case, why are they refusing to bring back Stephanie Brown? Of the two Bat-females operating in the DCU just prior to the reboot she was by far the more interesting. Her book was much more fun, and wasn't so badly laid out I kept finding myself reading the narration in the wrong order, and thanks to Steph's...unique...character progression over the years she felt much more like a real member of the Bat-family than a relative newcomer who just so happened to be using the symbol.

I don't think she was particularly interesting, just came across as a generic less than competent female teen sidekick. Swap her for Misfit, or maybe Year One Batgirl.

Not that I'm saying that I didn't like her...though she worked better as Spoiler, being Batgirl's sidekick instead of Batgirl...especially in that they got rid of the more popular Cassandra Cain for someone so generic.

...

I'd agree that Batwoman seems very out of place in the Batman universe, but taken by itself, I still think it's pretty good. Reading parts out of order is annoying, yeah.