TV/Movies Megathread

[Josquius]

I don't want to see myself on tv

Perhaps not. But perhaps it is also because the need to see projection of yourself is already sated by a ton of heroic hetero white men, that you could conceivably project as being a better version of you (stronger, sexier, smarter). After all, and celedh can correct me if I am wrong, identification, or at least, sympathizing with the hero, is a key aim of popular fiction. And perhaps if every time you saw someone with whom you were supposed to identify, that person was proven to be inferior in every way to the real hero, it may become old after a while.

I will not comment about plot of Quebec TV since I can no longer watch it. I only know that the casting is less than diverse.

I certainly want to see diversity on television (and in movies), but just as I find stupid to use a white man because the audience can't relate to a female/black/asian, I find equally stupid this need that you need a token black or token gay character in a tv show.

I think everyone would agree that tokenism is bad - i.e., having a black character for the sake of having a black character (and usually staying within stereotypes). But some would argue that it was because the issue was raised in the first place, and that tokenism happened first, that eventually producers (and perhaps white audiences as well) began opening their minds to other possibilities. Like:

I just finished rewatching Deep Space Nine.  That captain is a black man.  Only in 2 episodes did it really matter.  He could have been asian.  It could have been a woman.  It could have been a white man.  This is what I like: create a role where anybody could get the part, rather than token roles where everything is centered on their cultural identity.

I think it's great - and I think that was a deliberate casting procedure from Deep Space Nine. But I also think one would have to be naive to think blind casting is the standard in the industry: I am pretty sure that choice had to be discussed over and over again with the producers. And sometimes, even when race of the character is not at all an issue in the script, the imagination of casting agents and producers with eyes on numbers, is severely limited.

You know, I got a totally different impression from DS9. That the African American captain was a pretty big part of it.
I got the impression that there was a lot of stuff about black rights and the like.
Perhaps just that those prominent 2 episodes where he is a pulp sci fi writer were frequently repeated and annoyed me as a kid?
Maybe I'm seeing this in the baseball and the New Orleans stuff that to a white American wouldn't seem so tied in with the captain being African American?
But to me that the captain was African American stood out pretty strongly.

[Barrister]

You know, I got a totally different impression from DS9. That the African American captain was a pretty big part of it.
I got the impression that there was a lot of stuff about black rights and the like.
Perhaps just that those prominent 2 episodes where he is a pulp sci fi writer were frequently repeated and annoyed me as a kid?
Maybe I'm seeing this in the baseball and the New Orleans stuff that to a white American wouldn't seem so tied in with the captain being African American?
But to me that the captain was African American stood out pretty strongly.

I don't know about that - the character of Captain Sisko could have been white and very little would have changed about him, or the show.  White people like baseball and come from New Orleans as well.

[HVC]

There were those back in time as a maybe crazy black writer episodes. But I always skipped those cause they were boring.

[LaCroix]

tyr, black people don't like baseball. it's a white people interest

[Valmy]

tyr, black people don't like baseball. it's a white people interest

Oh FFS

[LaCroix]

tyr, black people don't like baseball. it's a white people interest

Oh FFS

? I wasn't saying no black person likes baseball, which of course isn't true

[Syt]

There were those back in time as a maybe crazy black writer episodes. But I always skipped those cause they were boring.

It was an homage to early sci-fi writings and the struggles for non-white or non-male writers at the time. Not entirely irrelevant to Star Trek itself. It took Dorothy Fontana changing her pen name to DC Fontana to make headway as a scriptwriter.

[Eddie Teach]

tyr, black people don't like baseball. it's a white people interest

Oh FFS

? I wasn't saying no black person likes baseball, which of course isn't true

They are proportionally represented.

[LaCroix]

tyr, black people don't like baseball. it's a white people interest

Oh FFS

? I wasn't saying no black person likes baseball, which of course isn't true

They are proportionally represented.

an atlantic article shows 9%, two percent higher than golf. compared to like 45% for basketball. if baseball is a black person sport, then so is golf. this convo began with tyr thinking baseball was a stereotypical interest for black people. that's very clearly not true, and I was telling tyr that he got that one wrong

[Josquius]

No. I know baseball isn't so popular with black people these days.
It seems pretty important for black history in the us though.

[viper37]

There were those back in time as a maybe crazy black writer episodes. But I always skipped those cause they were boring.

That was one episode.  And another one about the holosuit character set in 1962 Vegas, where he mentions he hates the program because it wasn't a welcoming place for black people then.

Aside that, he could have been white.  Just like Picard could have been British.  A French captain who doesn't like wine, drinks tea and loves shakespeare?  C'mon.

[Barrister]

Aside that, he could have been white.  Just like Picard could have been British.  A French captain who doesn't like wine, drinks tea and loves shakespeare?  C'mon.

That bugs me to this day.  I know Roddenberry initially wanted his captain to be French, but as soon as he cast Patrick Stewart in the part he should have immediately changed the character's background.

[Valmy]

I thought Mass Effect goofed on this when they made Captain Anderson, voiced by Keith David, from London.

[The Brain]

There's a surprisingly decent show beyond all the T&A in Spartacus.

[Eddie Teach]

tyr, black people don't like baseball. it's a white people interest

Oh FFS

? I wasn't saying no black person likes baseball, which of course isn't true

They are proportionally represented.

an atlantic article shows 9%, two percent higher than golf. compared to like 45% for basketball. if baseball is a black person sport, then so is golf. this convo began with tyr thinking baseball was a stereotypical interest for black people. that's very clearly not true, and I was telling tyr that he got that one wrong

9% for what? Attendance? That's not so bad for 13% of the population with less average income. Players? Number would be affected by all the foreigners in the majors.

At any rate the difference between 7 and 9 amounts to a 28% difference which is fairly significant.