This was necessary.
Yes that was sarcastic.
First don't get me wrong, I'm all for diversity and all that. But the collective western mindset is going down a very weird road.
Lets look at all the recent LGBT, female empowering. body type diversity, headmate tolerating and all these other things we're dealing with in our media culture these days.
At what point do we go....yes people are gay...but, it doesn't really matter? I mean think about it, as a relatively heterosexual male....I don't wander around throwing my straight maleness in peoples face, I'm not like...WHATS UP BABY, BY THE WAY ALL THIS MAN IS TOTALLY STRAIGHT AND REALLY LIKES GIRLS.
Now that sounds fucking asinine but think about it from a character development standpoint. I'm hetero, this needs no real expansion or expression. I am what I am....as a "character" it makes very little sense to simply display me as a raging hetero for the point of ensuring people know I really like women.
Conversely the entire "diversity" bullet train we seem to be on over the last few years (not that there wasn't a diversity movement or a call for diversity before that, it just seems like over the last few years things have gotten extremely militant) has stopped respecting the fact that people are gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgendered and is simply putting them on display as window dressing to appeal to the LGBT demographic.
An Imperial Moff that just happens to be visually communicated as a lesbian is meaningless fluff, its a pointless character definition that is simply there to be there, its simply there to say "Look...we have a lesbian".
Lets be fair, I'm pretty sure the Star Wars galaxy is full of all manner of interesting sexualities and hilarious bigendered cantina mix ups...I mean it just stands to reason...its a freaking galaxy of course.
Do I really need to know who is sticking who's ovipositor into who's cloaca? Is this relevant? Does it serve a point in defining the Star Wars galaxy at all other than to wave a little rainbow flag and say "yay" in a flat, monotone voice?
I think there is one thing that is a tumblrism that I feel is nearly relevant here and its the term "cultural appropriation"...the LGBT community may feel like its getting a lot of diversity and equality passed to it finally, but what is really happening is the entire alt culture of what being LGBT is, is being appropriated, politicized and turned into meaningless bullet points on a "diversity for profit" check list.
Do I need to know someone is gay to appreciate them as a person? No....just like you don't have to know if I have a large penis to respect my viewpoints or disagree with them...its an unspoken understanding....I have a penis, it might be large, it might not be, its irrelevant to what you may or may not care about in regards to who I am as a person.
Characters being gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered in most representations, unless directly relevant to what their character does, is a meaningless fluff definition which isn't required other than to force a character under the LGBT communities scrutiny and give "them" their own "self insert" character into a fictional franchise....which is ludicrous and unnecessary.
I mean since when did a gay man not want to be Obi-Wan just cause it wasn't specifically defined that Obi-Wan was gay? I can't think of any gay men I knew that feel Obi-Wan was any less of a relatable character because nobody specifically told them he liked men.
Again, diversity is amazing, its a beautiful thing, but its not diversity when labels are used to separate people, its just oppression from entirely another direction. Its like saying....30 years ago you had to stay in the closet, now, heres your little box weirdo...get in your box and stay in it with your weirdo toys we made specifically for you so you could feel "equal" to the other kids....but thats not equality, thats not acceptance, thats pandering and dishonest.....equality is a world where no one has to be different. Even a celebration of differences is a direct and loud announcement of "LOOK AT HOW DIFFERENT THIS PERSON IS".
If I was gay...I probably wouldn't want to be forcefully demarcated via social and media definitions as "different
, I'd just want to be a person and judged as a person, not as a person who happens to like other men....perhaps people that self identify as LGBT feel differently and I respect peoples right to disagree or even find my point of view offensive...but if I was gay..I wouldn't want to be treated any differently than anyone else is treated. My true victory wouldn't be "diversity" or at least not the freak show that the western media calls "diversity" at least.
Thats a lot of fucking typing in response to something that is effectively minor, but its just a large idea thats been banging around in my head for the last few years as media and creative culture has been shifting around this entire "social revolution" that is called "diversity". Heavy clang on the quotation marks in both cases....cause its not a social revolution, its the assumption of a social revolution, for the purposes of profit, by companies that could care less if people are gay or not, they're simply pandering to demographics to make a profit, and its hardly diversity when everyone is being herded, like cattle, into their own personally labeled pens where they can be targeted and sold what they think/live/believe.
Blah I need to shut up. I apologize if anyone finds this offensive, I'm not intending to be offensive, I'm expressing an idea which says that true acceptance and diversity is different than all this....fakeness, that we're being sold, as long term creative franchises simply adapt to cultural changes in the last 50 years.
