Poll: Should stories be praised for being progressive?

[Dango]

That depends on how you define progressive.

I would say if you include a character that's in a racial/sexual/any other minority without properly comprehending their experiences and being able to communicate them, then you're wasting your time. In other words, I believe something can't be progressive if it's not well written, regardless of the race/sex/etc. of the characters it includes. However, if you're able to change the views of the majority by giving them a lens into a minority to promote better understanding, that's progressive, and yes, I think that deserves to be praised.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

Also wow, a lot of back and forth going on about Cortez. Personal opinion on that is that yeah, if I recall the literal first conversation you have with him he says he lost his husband, which doesn't make sense to share with a total stranger you're supposed to have a professional relationship with. It was pretty much a "nice to meet you, I'm gay and single." BUT keep in mind he's the only gay romance in that game (I think?) so he kind of has to flag down the player with that info early.

Go back and watch that scene. The husband conversation is the second conversation you have with him, the first being a standard "hey, I'm your new shuttle pilot let's have a chat" conversation. And the reason he brings it up is because your character catches him in the middle of openly crying about his loss. But no, why would a gay character bring up being gay unless it's a precursor to hitting on me, right?

This is what I mean, damned if you do, damned if you don't. Maybe it's just a problem with game audiences, or Bioware's audience in particular, but it's impossible to please people trying to depict gay characters.

I'm not saying the point is that he's hitting on you. I'm saying the point is that they had to explicitly throw that information your way kind of early so that you know he's an option if you choose to romance him. Also to be fair you do have to ask about "family," but he can definitely bring it up the first time you meet him. 2:53

He even says "I don't want to talk about it" after he pretty much tells you about it. And then the next scene is the scene you're talking about it in depth anyways. So depending how you talk to him the last thing he says in the first conversation can be "I had a husband" and the whole next conversation is "I had a husband. Here is the full emotional depth of my inner turmoil and mourning, commanding officer I've met once."

If you take the gay part out of it that character gets laid emotionally bare pretty damn fast. Like he'd probably be poked fun at by the internet as "the guy who keeps telling you his wife is dead" if he were strait.

I thought the way they handled the Lesbian character was pretty good though. You have a playful back and forth with her that's written to be kind of ambiguous on whether it's friendly or flirty. That way when you ask her out if Shepard is a dude she goes "whoa sorry, you misread that, I'm into girls" and if Shepard is a chick she's into it.

 

[09philj]

Yes, with a few qualifiers:

- Are we still living in a world filled with regressive authoritarian bastards terrified of any kind of lifestyle different to theirs?
- Is the story actually progressive or some braindead so-called "liberal's" idea of progressive?
- Has it got glaring plot holes that invalidate the positive message?
- Is it actually any good?

 

[sumanoskae]

"Marceline's mom was revealed to have been black" THAT, that's the problem with this question. Saying that her mom is REVEALED to be black is like saying "Marceline's mom was revealed to have owned a green shirt"; it's relevance to the narrative is roughly equal.

Her mom wasn't "Revealed" to be black, she just was. The fact that we consider this innocuous fact important enough to discuss is exactly the issue.

Let me tell you a little something about Cowboy Bebop. Cowboy Bebop is widely praised for it's presentation; it's one of the most beautifully animated shows to ever come out of anime.

Another thing people point abut Bebop is how textured and exquisitely detailed it's setting is. A common criticism of anime is that if character's didn't have different clothes and hair, it would be impossible to tell them apart because they all have the same face and body type.

Bebop is the perfect counter to this argument; you could render all the characters nude and bald and tell them apart just as easily. The show's staff didn't do this to make some kind of political point, they did it because having your story take place in a believable world with lots of different kinds of people is just GOOD FUCKING STORY TELLING. Having everyone look the same isn't bigoted, it's contrived.

In Bebop, nobody comments on anyone's race, many of the character's just happen to be black, or native, or Japanese, or white. They don't treat it like a big deal because the whole point of the Civil Rights Movement was that it isn't a big deal; at the core, we're all human, we're all the same.

Let me ask you this; if you hadn't grown up in a world where 80% of all protagonists are white men, why would you EXPECT them to be?

Whenever someone makes up a main character who's black or a woman or gay or something, we get all up in arms about it like it's going against some kind of unspoken rule, and we never stop to consider how silly it is that we're surprised by something so mundane. We always assume that the writer has done so deliberately, like special care had to be taken in order to resist some cosmic urge to populate every story with people of the same race, gender and sexual orientation.

But we never assume the opposite; sure, we might give a writer some shit over everyone they write being male, white and straight, but we usually chalk it up to laziness or simply assume that the writer is also all of these things.

It never seems to occur to us that when someone is trying to forge a cohesive, believable narrative, having different people be different is just a natural thing to do. That maybe the overabundance of just ONE of the many races on our planet is proof that our fictional landscape is in an unnatural state, one that left it's own devices would just gradually disappear.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

I take it with the same stance as I do things like Sexuality and Transgenderism in characters. If it's just part of the character/story, and not THE major defining feature of it, then whatever. However, when that's ALL there is to the story or character then there's a problem in that your story or character is very shallow. You can't expect being progressive to be enough to tell an interesting story in and of itself.

Look towards Lovecraft here (Not progressive at all, but that's not the point here). Man was NOT a fan of mixing the races, but rather than just tell a story about how black and white people shouldn't mix he instead got metaphorical up in here, and had people breeding with fish monsters that end up creating more monstrosities. Same basic idea, but presented in a much more interesting way.

Or, to put it an an ACTUALLY progressive light, the early X-Men comics are a pretty good example. The mutants can be used as any stand in for any minority you wish. You had them as just people who wanted to be accepted by the world at large, but had to struggle against not only those who fear and hate them, but other mutants who's more destructive methods were doing them no favors. Back in the 60's Prof X was basically Martin Luther King Jr. and Magneto was Malcolm X in his earlier years.


Basically if you want to write a progressive story go nuts. Just make it INTERESTING.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Stories should be praised if they're good and because they're good.

If you're heaping said praise onto a story simply because it's "progressive?" You're doing it wrong.
If you're heaping said praise onto a story that's good and it just so happens to have "progressive" elements? You're doing it right.

This doesn't preclude one from acknowledging bits of a bad story that are "good" in the "progressive" sense, but it's not an all or nothing kind of thing.

That's about the long and the short of it.

 

[Silvanus]

snip

These are still merely sites talking about something some people are interested in. If you don't care, don't read it, but it's a characteristic of the piece; it's still notable when it happens, because it's relatively rare; and it's of interest to a number of people. With that in mind, it's perfectly reasonable to report on it.

Why on earth should people react with hostility to the presence of articles about something other people enjoy? What kind of cultural hegemony does someone have to have? Let people enjoy what they want, and let people report on what they want (if it's harmless cultural stuff like this). To react with hostility when other people enjoy something and want sites to cover it is... well, frankly quite bizarre and alienating.

 

[StatusNil]

However, if you're able to change the views of the majority by giving them a lens into a minority to promote better understanding, that's progressive, and yes, I think that deserves to be praised.

"Being able to change the views of the majority" is how you measure propaganda, by the numbers. Providing a view that contributes to an understanding, whether of a minority or something else, is a laudable artistic achievement by itself. One that doesn't depend on popularity.

Art can be praised or not praised for just about anything, really. There's no "should" in the equation. What has value depends on who you ask.

Sure there is, criticism needs a point of view. We can argue about what that should be, but dismissing the need altogether just makes it arbitrary and useless as a measure of anything.

 

[Estarc]

Stories should be praised for being good. If they're progressive for the sake of being progressive and do so in a lazy and poorly considered fashion there is no need to praise them, though I don't think it is necessary to get angry at them either for trying and failing. If a story executes progressive ideas is a way that you think was really well done though feel free to let the devs/writers know you approve.

To be honest I find it hard to think of a specific case where I thought a progressive political idea was inserted into a game in a shit manner. Video game writing is usually pretty shit in general, and I'm pretty chill about it (though not other things lol). But on the positive side I loved Dragon Age: Origins' same sex romances. Hell, just the romances in general actually. At the time it was very noteworthy, and definitely paved the way for it to be acceptable in more games and games in general. So I'm grateful for Bioware for that, since I know they must have been concerned over a public backlash.

 

[Stewie Plisken]

These are still merely sites talking about something some people are interested in. If you don't care, don't read it, but it's a characteristic of the piece; it's still notable when it happens, because it's relatively rare; and it's of interest to a number of people. With that in mind, it's perfectly reasonable to report on it.

Why on earth should people react with hostility to the presence of articles about something other people enjoy? What kind of cultural hegemony does someone have to have? Let people enjoy what they want, and let people report on what they want (if it's harmless cultural stuff like this). To react with hostility when other people enjoy something and want sites to cover it is... well, frankly quite bizarre and alienating.

Silvanus, this is exactly what I said. It becomes a problem when the subject is approached in an exclusionary manner, in which others are labeled as bad, should they not exhibit the same interest in the 'progressive' part of the material. I'm not talking about people approaching the material and embracing its progressive bend, because I honestly don't know if such people (with a platform) exist. Whenever the subject is approached it is done under ideological and political grounds, in an antagonistic manner and with liberal criticism of people, rather than the work.

You write enough of these articles, you create a pattern. You'll get reactions. Sooner or later, the reactions will be reactions to the pattern instead of the material itself. If it's not intentional shit-stirring, then it's irresponsible and counter-productive.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

If the 'progressiveness' shown is a character who has no characterization beyond "I'm a [whatever minority]", no.

If the character is an actual character instead of there for the sake of being there, yes.

If everything they say relates to them piling on how 'progressive' they are, that's more of a step in the opposite direction. Sort of like asking if you're cool.

Basically, write the entire thing as though everyone was an actual person with their own quirks and personalities, then decide later if 'Eternally Optimistic Girl #3' is actually trans, and only bring it up once, in a context where it'd matter. Or, if 'Hipster Nerd Guy #2' is black, make sure it gets hammered in mentally, but don't re-write any of his lines.

Basically, the common sense answer of 'stop putting political BS in entertainment, and start putting thought into the characters to begin with.
But, it's not like I expected common sense from humans who judge other humans by appearance or outward gender.

this.

not like a character has to justify being *insert race/gender/etc.. here*, but writers seem to have this weird idea of defining that character based on that characteristic, or mentioning it a ton in a non satirical way, so it just takes away from it rather than deepening/adding to it like newly progressive plots would hope to. Eventually it shouldn't be a big deal at all, but baby steps and all that.

On sense8, I loved the way they used transgender and gay characters, it worked great and unless you are one of those "ew icky, not straight/cis" people, I can imagine you might feel the same.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Of course not. Just becaue something good is in something doesn't make the whole good. I love mushrooms, they're delicious but if you put mushrooms in a pile of shit the shit won't magically taste good. Rather, the mushrooms, too, will taste like shit.

A token diverse char who is diverse just to be diverse and is diverse in shallow, sexual identity or race ways, as opposed to being diverse in ways that matter, such as being diverse in their actual ideas and mentality and not just on who they wish to have sex with, is what is actually good storytelling.


I had this experience when people talked to me about steven universe, I asked what was good about it and I was told its the first animated show to feature lesbians or something, I retorted that sailor moon did it back 20 years ago and was told it is the first american show to do this. As I don't judge quality on a nation by nation basis and as my enjoyment isn't affected by mere knowledge that something that isn't new feels new to other people, I saw no distinction, so the one trait of the show that made it praiseworthy according to its fans was instantly nullified.

 

[Silvanus]

Silvanus, this is exactly what I said. It becomes a problem when the subject is approached in an exclusionary manner, in which others are labeled as bad, should they not exhibit the same interest in the 'progressive' part of the material. I'm not talking about people approaching the material and embracing its progressive bend, because I honestly don't know if such people (with a platform) exist. Whenever the subject is approached it is done under ideological and political grounds, in an antagonistic manner and with liberal criticism of people, rather than the work.

Oh, that's rubbish. Most articles I see on this stuff merely tend to report it's happening, or say it's good in some muted way. I don't believe I've ever seen an article actually criticising people merely for failing to exhibit interest in it.

This seems to be jumping at shadows, imagining condemnations where none exist. There's nothing "exclusionary" about praising a story for being progressive.

 

[Stewie Plisken]

Oh, that's rubbish. Most articles I see on this stuff merely tend to report it's happening, or say it's good in some muted way. I don't believe I've ever seen an article actually criticising people merely for failing to exhibit interest in it.

This seems to be jumping at shadows, imagining condemnations where none exist. There's nothing "exclusionary" about praising a story for being progressive.

You're pretending these pieces exist in a vacuum. That's just silly.

You write a piece about something and call it 'racist' or 'sexist' or 'homophobic' on very thin justifications, which are often dictated by a specific ideology. You instantly use incendiary language and associate very negative connotations to both the material and, by extension, its audience. You create certain expectations, because you're building your brand. When you move on to praise something for being progressive, these expectations are going to be met and your praise will be questioned if not outright dismissed. I have not seen a single site, which exist simply to look at the positives and promote progress, without at the same time relying on being antagonistic to material that does neither of the above. In this climate, I'm not even sure there is space for such a place, but if you know of any, please link them to me.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

No, because it tells you nothing of the content of the story.

 

[Silvanus]

You're pretending these pieces exist in a vacuum. That's just silly.

You write a piece about something and call it 'racist' or 'sexist' or 'homophobic' on very thin justifications, which are often dictated by a specific ideology. You instantly use incendiary language and associate very negative connotations to both the material and, by extension, its audience. You create certain expectations, because you're building your brand. When you move on to praise something for being progressive, these expectations are going to be met and your praise will be questioned if not outright dismissed. I have not seen a single site, which exist simply to look at the positives and promote progress, without at the same time relying on being antagonistic to material that does neither of the above. In this climate, I'm not even sure there is space for such a place, but if you know of any, please link them to me.

Very rarely will articles focusing on the progressive nature of a piece actually use the terms "racist", "sexist" or "homophobic". In fact, very rarely will critical articles use such language; I don't recall any of the articles criticising Tomodachi Life, for example, using the term "homophobic". That "incendiary language" is pretty rare in articles themselves. Again, much more often I'll see people in the comments infer that that's what the article is saying about them, without the article actually saying it (or even implying it), and then getting knickers in a twist.

So, I call bollocks on the antagonistic nature of articles on progressive themes. People are reading things they disagree with and reading antagonism into them. I'd be perfectly willing to look at some examples if you can find 'em, though; I'd be very interested in seeing where you believe this antagonism is in evidence.

 

[Fallow]

This is such a very empty statement. You do not genuinely believe that the potential of art to communicate is no greater than that of toilet paper;

I believe that the potential of art to communicate is 100% in the interpretation. A blind man cannot draw a drop of meaning from a painting, nor can a deaf man feel a single shred of joy from a concert. The entirety of expression from art lies purely in the interpretation of the art itself, more traditionally defined with the aforism "Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder". Furthermore, art has no future-predicting powers, else we'd see more of it working in the stock exchange. You are ofcourse free to argue that point, but I have yet to see a study where art outperforms predictive algorithms in any field.

As for toilet paper saying things about us as humans, it again goes back to the interpretation. Without a frame of reference or the ability to interpret within the context (i.e. only an objective measurement), art is as communicating as toiletpaper.

in order to draw that tortured conclusion requires one to reduce art down to what can be claimed of it objectively.

I fail to see how you draw this conclusion, especially in light of my previous post. Waaait, didn't you claim I was a "cynic" for "needlessly" stating that art was purely subjective?

Objectively, yes, art is as meaningful as anything we do, but only a post or two ago you were decrying the idiocy of making objective statements about art.

And I still do. I think you have taken a turn in some direction other than the way I was going. If art has no objective meaning, how can it have an objective interpretation of any meaning? Judging a table on how well it can fly is possible, but it doesn't seem like a worthwhile exercise outside of some archaeology exhibit long after we're dead. Jousting windmills is an equally meaningless task.

Sophistry, in modern usage, refers to ostensibly intellectual arguments with very little of substance or relevance underneath. The above fits that to a tee.

Exactly! Wait, what are you referring to?

Perhaps, using your definition here, one could also appropriately label a statement so vague and open to interpretation that it could mean anything at all, as sophistry...

Please tell me you recognise the irony in this statement. Please. I'll lose all faith in humanity if you said this unironically.

Sorry, I haven't spent a single night in an ivory tower yet, and I can't afford an arm-chair.

 

[Dizchu]

What I find so frustrating about the whole "should stories be praised for being progressive" discussion is that people are eager to dismiss things because they seem like "pandering", and they like to assume that any praise a certain work gets is because it has LGBT characters or a cast with multiple ethnicities, or prominent female characters etc.

It's pure cynicism. People love to trash Gone Home for being "SJW pandering", however the story wouldn't have even worked if the subplot didn't have gay characters because the whole reason there's a complication is because of homophobic prejudices. People love to take films about gay characters and insist "hey, if they were straight nobody would care!" But being straight and being gay aren't the same, because the latter has been an extremely taboo subject until only fairly recently and the former don't face persecution for their sexual orientation. There's also the fact that there's a whole lot more straight people in the world.

When it comes to the original question, I think having progressive morals in stories is a good thing though the effectiveness largely relies on how it's handled. Similarly, having stories with only straight male characters isn't exactly a sin like many believe it is.

But this whole cynical "well it's just pandering!" mentality is infuriating because nobody gives a shit when straight people are pandered to. Probably because it is so common that people stop noticing.

 

[Vanilla ISIS]

No.
Progressivism is just a popular ideology of today.

It's like when in USSR, fiction was praised for being communist.
It's not a good idea.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

A story should be praised if it is praiseworthy. It should stand on its own merits. I don't agree with the quote unquote "progressive"/liberal movement that has this current generation crusading, at all. I actually consider it regressive, not progressive as it is an un-democratic movement that stifles free speech and discriminates severely in the name of anti-discrimination. Pandering a political ideal in the form of art is the right of the artist, but not something I care for. People may have the right to speak but everyone else has the right to ignore them.

Baldur's Gate got an expansion courtesy of SJW devs and pushed a "progressive" agenda. It has been panned almost universally. Ghostbusters seems to be doing the same thing and isn't getting favourable comments, tho it at least has the benefit of being unreleased till now. I don't care for it. I play a game or watch a film for entertainment, escapism and enjoyment, I don't want your or anyone else's political agenda assailing me from there. I have no objection to minority characters, but I'm tired of the left's victim Olympics and the witch hunt against anyone not conforming to the rabid "progressive" mind set with their "safe space" bullshit.

Praise a story for being well written and realised, for creating sympathetic, believable characters OF ANY background, gender, sexuality, colour or creed and for entertaining you. Don't praise it because the writer is a leftist/liberal/progressive who adheres to the same mentality. That's the exact problem with the extreme-left, this cliquey nonsense.

That's not to say art cannot be political; consider Banksy as just the most topical example. Making a political point is one thing and sublime when done well. So called progressives force conformity to THEIR idea of what things should be like, elevating "victims" and putting them in a "safe space" where they can never be offended or have to hear any idea contrary to their own, is not subtle or clever and helps no one.