blogs_blog_1793

 

 

In terms of the Lego movie's genre, etc, its probably not going to hurt from having more female characters. But you also have to consider why they didn't have more female characters in the first film - there were reasons for that brought up in the topic as well. It really depends on the story you're telling.

Yeah I saw them. What I said earlier about it was directed to each and every one.

 

 

 

Also, more generally speaking; Literally no one is making the argument that all stories all the time need to be 1:1.No one. The argument for representation is this:

Write good women. Write strong women. Write vulnerable women. Write flawed women. Write evil women. Write incorruptible women. Just write more women.

+1,000 mega bonus points to Mak.

So I mostly skimmed this, apologies to those who made great arguments. A recurring theme I did notice, though, was a lot about being accurate to the real world and being accurate to real world gender ratios in various occupations. It's been replied to already but I simply had to get this off my chest;

 

The real world is irrelevant.

 

This comes with a clause; if you're going tout yourself on historical accuracy or somesuch then yeah probably probably is relevant. In your standard fiction, however, these things to not apply. Is the gender ratio 1:1 in an American big city police department, say, Chicago or Seattle? No, it isn't. If I go write a story about my own city, Wichita, and write about the WPD and introduce a 1:1 gender ratio in a department that certainly doesn't have it... yeah, I've messed with the real world. But it is fiction, and more often than not fiction is there to make some sort of point while being entertaining. Even if it is purely for entertainment purposes, the argument that depicting a police department with a 3:1 gender ratio or somesuch is alright because it's how it is in the real world is tenuous at best and simply false at worse. If you were writing a story about the hardships of a female officer in the force, then that ratio probably makes thematic sense. If you're just writing a cop story, then why not have a 1:1 ratio?

 

It's a theme I see springing up a lot in all of this. People desperately defending the current ratios because it's how the real world is. The real world is a pretty terrible place, war, famine, pestilence, all sorts of nasty stuff. Fiction can comment on this, or it can provide an escape from it. Commentary requires some level of realism, though a competent writer can insert commentary in practically any story. Escapism requires the consumer to be able to really connect with the character. Is it impossible for one gender to connect to another gender? No, and I hope to live to see the day where the differences between the genders are negligible or nonexistent in popular culture and everyday life. For the world we live in right now, however, we have girls being raised in a society that propagates its stereotypes on them. They need someone to connect with, strong characters, weak characters, confident characters, nervous characters. Most importantly, though, they need characters that are front and center, that are there in the public eye. Female characters simply do not occupy this role, or when they do, they represent some stereotypical image. This image is not bad, but when it is the only image for girls to see, it's very problematic.

 

There are exceptions, and in the modern day, progress is being made. Those exceptions are not the rule. The rule right now is that "woman" is its own character archetype. Having a female character is something special. It propagates the notion that while men are capable of being all these things, a woman being all these things is something odd, out of the ordinary. This idea is riddled all over the debate in this entry. Having a perfect ratio, advocating it, should not matter. This is not saying that the battle is meaningless, but that by simply being in opposition is meaningless. I do not mean to put words in others' mouths, but this functionally what the argument boils down to. We can run in circles all day long talking about the effects of media on society at large, realism in fiction, so on and so forth. The fact, though, that this debate exists at all represents the problem.

 

Hmm. I do need to work on getting my points across better. The tl;dr of this all is that writing more female characters is good simply because it should not matter if your character is male or female, they should simply be a character. As such the resistance to a 1:1 ratio is puzzling. Appeals to reality hold no place in fantastical movies. If the Avengers had a 1:1 gender ratio, it would seem very silly to be crying about reality while they're fighting alien invaders. Even in real-world movies, like my previously mentioned cop show, reality influences but reality does not have to be the end all to be all demographics-wise. Contemplate this; up until 2008, all American Presidents had been white males. If someone in 2004 had made a show with a female President, or a black President, then this very argument about realistic ratios would apply quite well here. The profession of President of the United States had been completely dominated by white dudes, much like how police departments are dominated by men right now. This is not a strawman argument, this is not a logical extreme. This is simply the argument about reality, transplanted over.

 

So yeah. A bit lengthier than I was hoping for. If I repeated previous dead arguments, my apologies. I just really needed to talk about this for a bit.

 

Incidentally a 1:1 avengers casting would have been godly. I have a list right here of the roles.

 

Also might be slightly counterproductive to the argument but yeah MakBoss, I argue for 1:1 ratios a lot.

Rez - Nothing. It's just an internet expression. Too bad, Razcal. Go home.

 

Roablin - You're right. +400 MBP.

 

Makaru - You're also right. Have another +400 MBP, courtesy of my ever-expanding account.

 

Humva - But if the real world is irrelevant, why would this whole representation argument matter in the first place? Couldn't writers write whatever gender ratios they wanted, since the real world didn't matter?

I just did a bit of research on the wage difference between males and females in the acting industry. Until today, I wasn't aware that female actors made so much less than males. I consider myself more informed now, and I would completely agree that that should stop...

 

except that they are paid ridiculously high amounts anyways. The articles I found only described actors and actresses that earn tens of millions. I would be inclined to reduce the wages of male actors to lessen the wage gap, but I don't really want to ask that someone be payed less than they are just to even a score.

 

Does anyone know if there is a significant wage gap between lesser known actors and actresses? If it exists among people who actually struggle to make a living, than reducing that would be a cause I could get behind, especially because I know several girls who are going into acting.

 

 

Write good women. Write strong women. Write vulnerable women. Write flawed women. Write evil women. Write incorruptible women. Just write more women.

 

I totally agree with you there. I just think it's important that we don't treat traditional roles like they are a bad thing, even though they result in fewer women taking a limelight in the media.

 

@Humva

You make some interesting points. But the reverse of your argument holds true by the same logic, and I think your metaphor with the president clarifies this. If a character is a good character regardless of gender, than it doesn't matter at all what the ratio is. Most great books that I read follow this logic, which is why I am a bit puzzled by efforts to provoke change where it is not necessary. For example, before our current president, I would have made any president in a fictional story a white male unless I had a specific reason not to. If making the president a black women would add something tangible to the narrative, be it amusement, intrigue, drama or whatever, then of course I would give him those attributes. Otherwise, my natural preference is to make him standard in ways that audiences would expect. You can consider this a difference in tastes, but I usually build stories from the ground up, changing only one or two things in reality to make it my own universe but then discovering where the story naturally flows from there.

 

And because I believe that women are just as important as men, I don't object to putting genders where they would logically find themselves. I just don't find a universe without women in the direct limelight to be a universe without important women. Perhaps this is because I myself do not wish to be in the limelight of our universe. I get what you are saying about total escapism, but that is just a difference in tastes, with me preferring the the meticulously calculated fantasy of Tolkien. I am not against changing more, I am just puzzled by the need for it.

Humva - But if the real world is irrelevant, why would this whole representation argument matter in the first place? Couldn't writers write whatever gender ratios they wanted, since the real world didn't matter?

 

Just a tiny bit misconstruing the argument there. You seem to think I said that since the real world does not have to dictate what stories are about and do, that I was arguing it does not matter at all. I did not. Fiction affects the real world, one way or the other. The real world does not have to affect fiction. Imagine, if you would, two one-way highways. One is going into from city A to city B. The A-to-B highway is always open, in this case, fiction to the real world. The B-to-A highway, however, is only occasionally open, maybe from 7am to 9am; in this case, the real world to fiction.

 

 

 

 

And because I believe that women are just as important as men, I don't object to putting genders where they would logically find themselves. I just don't find a universe without women in the direct limelight to be a universe without important women. Perhaps this is because I myself do not wish to be in the limelight of our universe. I get what you are saying about total escapism, but that is just a difference in tastes, with me preferring the the meticulously calculated fantasy of Tolkien. I am not against changing more, I am just puzzled by the need for it.

Well, other than the cultural and societal implications and ramifications of a lack of important women around in a story, the fact is that this argument, as you said, can go both ways. When such a thing happens, we have to look at the burden of proof. It is the responsibility of the defenders of a system to have the burden of proof as to why it should remain this way. They must present arguments as to why this system deserves to continue on. So far, I've seen no arguments here that have not been successfully rebutted by those before me. The need for change is because the old system has proven itself ineffective at standing up to debate, by people more skilled than I at doing these things. If something cannot validate itself, then it's time to find something else.

 

For example, before our current president, I would have made any president in a fictional story a white male unless I had a specific reason not to. If making the president a black women would add something tangible to the narrative, be it amusement, intrigue, drama or whatever, then of course I would give him those attributes. Otherwise, my natural preference is to make him standard in ways that audiences would expect. You can consider this a difference in tastes, but I usually build stories from the ground up, changing only one or two things in reality to make it my own universe but then discovering where the story naturally flows from there.

 

I wouldn't really call it taste, I would just call it bigoted.

 

-Tyler

I wouldn't really call it taste, I would just call it bigoted.

 

-Tyler

 

Oh please. We were having a polite discussion until now. But perhaps I made myself unclear. In reality I hold no preference as to race, gender, etc. in the presidency. And actually, if I was to make a story in the future, I would probably make a woman president just to spice things up. But if I was to write a fictional story set in our current time (and I added the qualifier, before our current president), then I would have had a white male president. This is NOT because I prefer white males in the presidency, but because fiction that I read and write tends to mirror reality in all things but specific things with a purpose. It's basically a desire to suspend the reader's disbelief about even the smallest details (and I do believe that race or gender is a very small detail in the president considering that it should impact none of his decisions or actions). I did not intend to offend anyone in any way and I will give you the benefit of doubt since I probably did not make myself clear.

 

Well, other than the cultural and societal implications and ramifications of a lack of important women around in a story, the fact is that this argument, as you said, can go both ways. When such a thing happens, we have to look at the burden of proof. It is the responsibility of the defenders of a system to have the burden of proof as to why it should remain this way. They must present arguments as to why this system deserves to continue on. So far, I've seen no arguments here that have not been successfully rebutted by those before me. The need for change is because the old system has proven itself ineffective at standing up to debate, by people more skilled than I at doing these things. If something cannot validate itself, then it's time to find something else.

 

 

I must have missed something. What exactly is the old system that you speak of and how is it ineffective in debate? The section of my argument that you quoted speaks of Tolkien's system of writing a universe from scratch or my system of only changing a few things and preserving logical consistency. I haven't seen anyone argue against this, and I don't think any argument against it could hold water because writing is a free pursuit and the works I have spoken of are absolutely beautiful in terms of conveying the truth of the human experience and in terms of providing an entertaining story.

 

Also, I'd like to thank Fisher and everyone else who posted for the interesting discussion.

My Response

 

-Tyler

Word of advisement: I am reading this blog entry's comments. At this point, I'm not aware of anyone being disrespectful of each other (and I appreciate the attitude of respect so far), but if it does happen such comments will be edited or deleted, and if I get a lot of it this is going to be locked.

 

With that said, Tyler, your comment was toeing the borderline. I understand at this point that you were calling Roablin's idea "bigoted", not Roablin himself, but please be more careful when using such language in the future, as that may offend some people and be interpreted in ways that you didn't intend.

 

Thanks. Carry on.

I'm sorry I told the truth. I promise to be more careful next time : (

 

-Tyler

I'm sorry I told the truth. I promise to be more careful next time : (

 

-Tyler

 

Quite frankly this kind of attitude is unnecessary. We were having a perfectly civilized debate until you started calling people bigoted. Not only that, but just because you call someone a bigot does not make it an accurate statement. I don't agree, therefore I don't think you told the truth. Kind of a fallacious statement if you ask me...

 

-Rez

My Response

 

-Tyler

 

retweet

 

-Tyler

Alright guys, that's enough. If anyone wants to further discuss Tyler's comment, they can do so in the blog entry he has provided.

 

Entry locked.