Black Widow is every bit as important an Avenger (in the MCU) as any other member of the team. She has more than adequately proven herself in Iron Man and Captain America movies as well as the Avengers movie. I don't pretend to know why the higher-ups at Marvel choose not to see that.
In the movie's world, the character has proven her worth to the team; the jury's out on whether she can support a franchise in real life. I'm not saying she couldn't--with the right script, director, and actors anything's possible--but I can think of a few reasons Marvel might be leery of pulling the trigger on a Black Widow movie.
1) The guy who runs Marvel is notoriously stingy (like, keep track of how many pencils the staff is using stingy, and this guy's a billionaire.) Scarlet Johanssen undoubtedly has a several movie contract, but we don't know how many movies that's for and in any event, renegotiating your contract midstream is fairly common practice in H'wood.
We know she's appearing in Civil War and there's a good chance she'll be in the next two Avengers films. If they want her for more films than her contract covers, that gives her a powerful bargaining position. Marvel Entertainment doesn't like people with powerful bargaining positions--the rumour mill is churning with how much the boss dislikes Robert Downey Jr., who's made himself pretty much indispensable to the studio (if the rumours are true, he's the only actor considered irreplaceable--Marvel's stance has long been that the talent, creative or acting, isn't the draw, the characters are. That's because, with the exceptions of X-Men, Fantastic Four, and maybe a few others, they exercise complete control of the characters).
Terrence Howard tried to get a better deal to appear in Iron Man 2; he was replaced with Don Cheadle. Why a Captain Marvel movie instead of a Black Widow one? My guess is Marvel would rather sign an actress without Johanssen's bargaining power.
2) Though the comics tend to follow the movies more than the other way around, the Carol Danvers Captain Marvel in comics has made a pretty noticeable impact on the comics culture the last few years, thanks largely to the work of the writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick (being replaced by Agent Carter's showrunners in the new series starting in September, I think.) In comics culture terms, even with Widow's movie presence, Captain Marvel has far more "heat" on her at the moment. So does the new version of Ms. Marvel, who's rumoured to have a TV show about her in development.
3) The prevailing belief in Hollywood, right or wrong (it's certainly morally wrong) is that women will pay to see movies with male leads but men are reluctant to pay to see films with female leads. That belief informs a crazy number of decisions. If Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel are both breakout hits--and I believe they're going to need better box office than their male counterpart characters to overcome this hurdle--then we may start seeing things swing in a more equitable direction.
So those are some possible reasons the higher-ups at Marvel don't see things the way fans might. Again, I'm not saying those assumptions are correct on either my or their part or that they aren't morally dubious at best. I'm just putting them out there.
Have I mentioned the time an editor told me not to make a lead character in a comic black because if I did the only actor they could get to star in the movie would be Will Smith? Yeah. Hollywood is a messed-up place.
Maybe comics simply have too much baggage, having being running near continuously for around the last eighty years, is it surprising that they are about as progressive as the average eighty year old? Maybe it's time movies and TV looked elsewhere for their heroic inspiration, or (heaven forbid) came up with some original characters?
Edit: And I wouldn't mind yet another Spider-Man movie if we could have one about Miles Morales. Now that he's getting his own comic line maybe there's a chance (way in the future. I think there are even fewer superhero movies with non-white leads than there are ones with women leads).
Actually, Miles Morales just lost his comic line. He's been a staple of Marvel's Ultimate Comics imprint for a few years in the Ultimate Spider-Man comic, where he replaced Peter Parker after Parker died. Marvel just killed the Ultimate line and is absorbing certain elements of it into its "main" universe. Miles Morales is the most notable of these elements, being one of the few Ultimate Comics success stories of the last few years. Miles gets the Spider-Man title, while Peter Parker, who's still alive and still Spider-Man, gets a different title, Some Adjective I Can't Remember Spider-Man.
The shift got some press when it was revealed Miles was going to be lead in a non-Ultimate, non-adjective Spider-Man book, but in some ways the character's arguably being diluted by not being the "real" Spider-Man in the universe he's going to officially be a part of in a couple months.
All that said, I think Marvel made a big mistake not making Miles the new cinematic Spider-Man, though they may have been constrained by their contract with Sony. who technically control the rights to Spider-Man in the movies.
On yet another hand, a lot of the Marvel Cinematic universe is based more on the UItimate line than the main Marvel U, so they may be setting up a situation where you get a Peter Parker Spider-Man for a few films, then he dies heroically and Miles takes over. That would be gutsy from a H'wood POV and make some comics fans happy, but I'd rather they did the progressive thing now rather than later.
I know women and non-pinks are under represented in stories, but pushing greater representation in this way drives me mad. It feels so artificial and backwards. It's contrary to my creative process? Characters should be painted on a whim... roll the dice... decide at random... decide on the familiar or nostalgia... let the character's appearance flicker in your mind and change it little, tweaking it if necessary by the setting's environment. I can't comprehend always starting with bumps or colours. -_- I could see using those things as a rudder (anything can be used as a rudder) to develop the rest of the character, but not all the time and certainly not for some external social or political reason. .
I can't agree. I don't work that way. I know many do but my creativity comes from me, my decisions. I can't fool myself into thinking it comes from some "other" mysterious source. All my life experiences and knowledge and decisions go into creating, and if I only create characters I'm familiar with and that look like me then I do my gift a disservice.
I know not all think the same way and I accept it. I can't subscribe to it, though. I think using my writing talents to paint a world I'd like to see, in response to the social and political pressures I feel, is one of the most important things I can do. They're not external to me, they're part of my life, and the lives of people I care about.
If the characters were coloured and gendered based on a die roll, the gender/race spread in media would be much more representative than is currently the case.
I'm going to agree with my colleagues here; in fact I'll go a step further and say that if as an artist you're not allowing your art to be informed in any way by who you are as an artist and what you want your art to do or say, then you're not creating art because you're not expressing anything.
That's not to say you couldn't use that expression to create a totally randomized piece. Jackson Pollock did that for years and it worked well, and there are plenty of artists who decide randomly what's going to happen in their stories, but those artists aren't doing that to remain neutral; they're doing it to demonstrate that life is chaotic and unpredictable.
That also doesn't mean that just because an artist has an agenda doesn't mean that artist can't create excellent and wonderful art as well. If I start my creative process by saying "I want this character to be black" or "I want this character to be a woman" or "I want this character to be transgender", that's not about bumps and colors; it's about wanting to give light to a group of people that is underrepresented. And as long as my creative process doesn't end with that decision, the art itself is uncompromized.
But, er, yeah, @Amber_Scott - way to derail the thread! Shame on you, and all that.
I think the misconception is that we're only looking at our characters from the perspective of "How can I make this character more diverse", when in practice it's more a case of being aware of diversity when planning a character concept. If you only ever create one type of diversity in your work, your work itself stops being diverse, which I think is the thing you're saying is a bad thing (and it isn't, necessarily; August Wilson's plays aren't bad just because they're always about black Americans, in fact they're all celebrated works of theatre).
For me, it's less about saying "All my characters are either LGBTQ, minority, or female" and more about saying, "I want to tell this story, and this time I want my main character to be female." Creativity is complex enough that deciding that one thing about the character can actually act as a launch pad for ideas, rather than a stumbling point. If it becomes the latter, then as an artist you have to decide whether your premise needs to change for that character. My female protagonist may start out transgender and then through the course of writing become bisexual, or cisgender, or both. Maybe she becomes a man, if that's what the story calls for.
But usually that doesn't happen, because if you're doing your job right, that one aspect of your character isn't their only trait, but it is essential.
Welp, I adore what this conversation is turning into. I do a lot of character design in my free time. I feel much more comfortable writing female characters than males, though, so a lot of the stuff I write ends up having a female protagonist. I'm too embarrassed to actually have other people read my stories but maybe someday I'll write the super long epic I've always wanted to write.
I've found, personally, the best way to write characters well is to not force anything on them. Let them naturally flow and stuffs.
In the movie's world, the character has proven her worth to the team; the jury's out on whether she can support a franchise in real life. I'm not saying she couldn't--with the right script, director, and actors anything's possible--but I can think of a few reasons Marvel might be leery of pulling the trigger on a Black Widow movie.
Any more so than Ant Man or Dr Strange? Either are competent characters, but they are 100% unknown elements in the Movie realm (in their current incarnations) whereas Scar-jo already has an established following. It seems to me that any future movie has more of a foundation in certainty (something that Hollywood actually relies heavily on these days) than the other two.
1) The guy who runs Marvel is notoriously stingy (like, keep track of how many pencils the staff is using stingy, and this guy's a billionaire.) Scarlet Johanssen undoubtedly has a several movie contract, but we don't know how many movies that's for and in any event, renegotiating your contract midstream is fairly common practice in H'wood.
We know she's appearing in Civil War and there's a good chance she'll be in the next two Avengers films. If they want her for more films than her contract covers, that gives her a powerful bargaining position. Marvel Entertainment doesn't like people with powerful bargaining positions--the rumour mill is churning with how much the boss dislikes Robert Downey Jr., who's made himself pretty much indispensable to the studio (if the rumours are true, he's the only actor considered irreplaceable--Marvel's stance has long been that the talent, creative or acting, isn't the draw, the characters are. That's because, with the exceptions of X-Men, Fantastic Four, and maybe a few others, they exercise complete control of the characters).
Terrence Howard tried to get a better deal to appear in Iron Man 2; he was replaced with Don Cheadle. Why a Captain Marvel movie instead of a Black Widow one? My guess is Marvel would rather sign an actress without Johanssen's bargaining power.
By this argument, they won't make any more franchise movies or cross overs. Scar-jo wouldn't have any more (or less) power than Chris Hemsworth or Chris Evans. Signing a big name to any multi-movie contract comes with a price tag, and them having power is part of the deal. Just as an aside, Hugh Jackman has stated he is stepping down as Wolverine. He's got at least as much following as Downey and can ask for anything he wants. They don't seem to have regretted his involvement. Yes, I know it is a different company, but at the end of the day, Hollywood is quite inbreed and even if it isn't the same people, it's the same money making these decisions.
As for Scar-jo's bargaining power due to her Star Status, I have two words. Bennedict Cumberbatch. Enough said.
2) Though the comics tend to follow the movies more than the other way around, the Carol Danvers Captain Marvel in comics has made a pretty noticeable impact on the comics culture the last few years, thanks largely to the work of the writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick (being replaced by Agent Carter's showrunners in the new series starting in September, I think.) In comics culture terms, even with Widow's movie presence, Captain Marvel has far more "heat" on her at the moment. So does the new version of Ms. Marvel, who's rumoured to have a TV show about her in development.
3) The prevailing belief in Hollywood, right or wrong (it's certainly morally wrong) is that women will pay to see movies with male leads but men are reluctant to pay to see films with female leads. That belief informs a crazy number of decisions. If Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel are both breakout hits--and I believe they're going to need better box office than their male counterpart characters to overcome this hurdle--then we may start seeing things swing in a more equitable direction.
I can almost see this point. However, as I stated earlier in the thread, Buffy had (still has) a massive following and people are talking about wanting a Big Screen movie for her. Xena had something similar. Orphan Black is developing the same. These are known money makers and on the popular rise in Hollywood. To say that the higher ups don't see that? If that were the case, Agent Carter would never have seen the light of day and would not now be getting a season 2. I know it has been a HUGE up hill fight for Agent Carter, but it showed its stuff and already has a fan following. If it can be done once, it can be done more than once. And with how many sites are posting this type of debate about Scar-jo's Black Widow, I find it hard to believe that the decisions are being made 'rationally' by anyone.
So those are some possible reasons the higher-ups at Marvel don't see things the way fans might. Again, I'm not saying those assumptions are correct on either my or their part or that they aren't morally dubious at best. I'm just putting them out there.
Have I mentioned the time an editor told me not to make a lead character in a comic black because if I did the only actor they could get to star in the movie would be Will Smith? Yeah. Hollywood is a messed-up place.
Diversity is important as well for the whole 'art' thing, as well as 'not the exact same ****ing thing I've seen 50 times already' aspect of media. Including a minority or disadvantaged character allows you to do things other more conventional characters can't. If every one of your movie heroes is white, able-bodied, good-looking, overly-fit men, you can only do so much before you're telling far too similar stories. People found out at some point adding real underdogs made for some interesting character developement.
In other words, even if you don't actually care about anyone but white American-esque male characters, you are running an incrementally uphill marathon creatively. You'll get considerably less artistic value from increasingly more work. Even if you add a non-white side-kick, you have new, and importantly, easy options.
Note, its like navigating a minefield blindfolded to try to include groups you don't care about and aren't well read about. Mind you, some people like really offensive stuff, but I doubt that demographic actually pays that well.
In the movie's world, the character has proven her worth to the team; the jury's out on whether she can support a franchise in real life. I'm not saying she couldn't--with the right script, director, and actors anything's possible--but I can think of a few reasons Marvel might be leery of pulling the trigger on a Black Widow movie.
Any more so than Ant Man or Dr Strange? Either are competent characters, but they are 100% unknown elements in the Movie realm (in their current incarnations)
That arguably makes them more desirable. They've already got several tough fisticuff heroes in play. Ant-Man establishes the Microverse, which is looking like a Major Thing for the MCU down the line while Strange will presumably establish real magic, as opposed to the Thor "we're aliens not actual gods" magic.
Black Widow's being previously established clearly isn't helping her get a solo movie made. For that matter, none of the main Avengers roster didn't previously have their own films got them after Avengers, for a variety of reasons, a big one being that new characters means new licensing opportunities.
whereas Scar-jo already has an established following. It seems to me that any future movie has more of a foundation in certainty (something that Hollywood actually relies heavily on these days) than the other two.
Marvel doesn't rely on established followings for the actors. It wants the focus to be the characters. I'd say it's more likely we get a Black Widow solo film after Scar-Jo leaves the role.
By this argument, they won't make any more franchise movies or cross overs.
No, by that argument they'll try to lock up smaller, less powerful actors in tighter, longer contracts, focus as much as possible on the character rather than the actor, and generally try to make Marvel the selling point rather than any other specific element.
Scar-jo wouldn't have any more (or less) power than Chris Hemsworth or Chris Evans.
She has significantly less than either of them, because both those actos have starred in their own successful (enough) Marvel movies and Marvel's committed to making additional films with both of those actors. After Infinity War is over, things are going to get interesting.
Signing a big name to any multi-movie contract comes with a price tag, and them having power is part of the deal.
This is why Marvel would avoid signing a legitimate big name actor, settling instead for a talented one. That way they get to say Thor made Hemsworth a movie star, Captain America made Evans a movie star, Guardians made Pratty a movie star, and Iron Man revitalized RDJ's career, restoring him to movie stardom.
Just as an aside, Hugh Jackman has stated he is stepping down as Wolverine. He's got at least as much following as Downey
That's debatable, certainly from a Hollywood perspective. Downey has a second successful franchise with Sherlock Holmes. Jackman's been in some interesting films and has a following, but I don't think he's getting 40 million for second billing in someone else's movie the way RDJ is in Civil War.
Yes, I know it is a different company, but at the end of the day, Hollywood is quite inbreed and even if it isn't the same people, it's the same money making these decisions.
People with money make the decisions, and they're different people. If they weren't every superhero film would be as successful as Marvel's have been.
As for Scar-jo's bargaining power due to her Star Status, I have two words. Bennedict Cumberbatch. Enough said.
Thanks to Lucy, Scarlet Johanssen's an action movie star independent of Black Widow. Benedict Cumberbatch, while he has a devoted fanbase, is nowhere near her level of stardom from Hollywood's perspective. He stars in a reasonably popular TV show, albeit one that isn't even American with less than a standard single American season of television's hour count, has nerd cred from Star Trek Into Darkness and The Hobbit, neither of which he was the star of, and has done several other projects that are probably of a very high quality but haven't generated the sort of audience or money Hollywood cares about. If/when Dr. Strange becomes a huge hit, he'll be another one Marvel will be able to say they turned into a movie star.
2) Though the comics tend to follow the movies more than the other way around, the Carol Danvers Captain Marvel in comics has made a pretty noticeable impact on the comics culture the last few years, thanks largely to the work of the writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick (being replaced by Agent Carter's showrunners in the new series starting in September, I think.) In comics culture terms, even with Widow's movie presence, Captain Marvel has far more "heat" on her at the moment. So does the new version of Ms. Marvel, who's rumoured to have a TV show about her in development.
Not sure your point here.
My point is that Marvel's film folks are more likely to pursue a project that has a natural, rabid fanbase built in on the comics side (Captain Marvel's "Carol Corps" and the Comic Shop Valkyries) than they are to put resources into a film with a character that, though she's been in the films for several years, doesn't have Marvel's natural fanbase (comics fans) supporting her.
3) The prevailing belief in Hollywood, right or wrong (it's certainly morally wrong) is that women will pay to see movies with male leads but men are reluctant to pay to see films with female leads. That belief informs a crazy number of decisions. If Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel are both breakout hits--and I believe they're going to need better box office than their male counterpart characters to overcome this hurdle--then we may start seeing things swing in a more equitable direction.
I can almost see this point. However, as I stated earlier in the thread, Buffy had (still has) a massive following and people are talking about wanting a Big Screen movie for her.
Buffy was originally a movie that didn't do that well (because it wasn't that good) that managed to transition into a TV show that, while it was pretty good, was perpetually on the bubble and would have been cancelled by season 3 if it was on any networks but the ones that aired it.
That said, Buffy does have a rabid, pre-existing fanbase, which Hollywood loves, so yeah, they've been trying to get a film made. Unfortunately, they look like they're trying to get it made without Joss Whedon's active participation, which could cause a lot of problems. I'd like nothing better than for a Buffy movie to get made, to be good, and to be financially successful (those last two are not necessarily related.) Last I heard the film was stalled in development.
Xena had something similar. Orphan Black is developing the same.
They're great TV shows. The track record of turning great TV shows which people watch for free into great movies people will pay to see is not great. I'm blanking on examples, the only two I have are X-Files and Entourage, neither of which did fabulous in their last cinema outing. Twin Peaks too.
These are known money makers and on the popular rise in Hollywood. To say that the higher ups don't see that?
In Hollywood, TV success "matters" less to the people at the top than movie success, by a huge degree. Thanks to licensing opportunities, big budget tentpole films bring in mountains more cash much more quickly than even the most popular TV show, even though the TV show is probably being watched by more people.
If that were the case, Agent Carter would never have seen the light of day and would not now be getting a season 2. I know it has been a HUGE up hill fight for Agent Carter, but it showed its stuff and already has a fan following. If it can be done once, it can be done more than once.
Sure it can be done, with TV shows. Daredevil's another success story. I expect AKA Jessica Jones will do quite well (I hope it does, I quite like the comic version of the character). I think the Agents of SHIELD spin-off starring Mockingbird would probably have been vastly superior to AoS if they'd made it (they elected to keep Adrianne Palicki and Nick Blood in the original show, which is the smartest thing they could have done for it, IMO.) If Ms. Marvel gets made and they don't screw it up, I see no reason it can't be the sensation that the comic has become on a wider cultural stage.
But if Agent Carter had been made by someone other than Marvel (owned by Disney) and aired on a channel other than ABC (owned by Disney), it's highly unlikely it would've gotten the original series run, much less a second season. Same for the second and third seasons of Agents of SHIELD. Those things are being propped up as a way to keep the MCU in the public consciousness between films. Ratings and popularity become less important when they're part of a Grand Scheme as successful as Kevin Feige's has been so far.
And with how many sites are posting this type of debate about Scar-jo's Black Widow, I find it hard to believe that the decisions are being made 'rationally' by anyone.
Hollywood places little value on online chatter, certainly chatter that isn't heavily organized with noticeable results (see Capt. Marvel's Carol Corps as an example of what it takes to maybe move the exec's dial a fraction.) Things that seem like a big deal online don't always translate that way in the real world. Studios (games and movies) have what they consider more reliable metrics to measure success; most of them involve money.
The only way to get Marvel to make a Black Widow movie before they're good and ready is to refuse to pay for other Marvel movies and convince enough people to do the same, while letting Marvel know they're doing it and why in sufficient numbers that Marvel will have to say "Not doing this is actively losing us money." But that's not going to happen at this point. People will keep going to see Marvel movies (I'm betting even Ant-Man will pull Captain America 1 numbers at the box office) because they're usually pretty entertaining. Why risk millions trying to "fix" something that they don't perceive as broken?
Also women play Baldur's Gate because they're largely allowed to create the character they want to play, Viconia, Jaheira, and Safana kick ass, and Imoen, Neera, and Alora are fun, among other reasons.
Yes! Shift it, move this, change that... very cool. c:
It depends on the context: sometimes change does nothing. In Fallout 2, it was neat to make an older Chosen One, even though it had no bearing on the game.
But at other times, even little trait changes can open up interesting doors. It would be neat to see an older group of adventurers rather than the teen-early 20s character thrown into a dangerous world.
Ageism is BRUTAL in Hollywood if you're a woman; I'm assuming not every woman likes to retire or take only roles as a matron after turning 35. If you want to watch a bunch of older men adventure, isn't that the plot of The Expendables?
Actually, watching a gaggle of guys that actually look +60 going on an adventure might be strangely entertaining. I could be biased though; I've always been what you'd call 'old at heart'... tired, gloomy, grumpy and wwwaaayyy too bitter for a seven year old!
@typo_tilly I greatly enjoy making many of my characters be in their late 20's to early 40's. It's just more fun and makes more sense when you have a character with a good head on their shoulders who knows the world. Some sixteen year old who's NOT incredibly naive makes people feel a bit incredulous at times.
Making a character a certain way simply to increase diversity within a pool of unrelated stories and media is silly to me, especially if a primary motivation. Wanting others to increase such diversity is selfish: let the rest decide what they wish to create.
If you think me and my beliefs are silly and/or selfish, then I don't think I have anything else to say to you. We're speaking different languages.
@AndrewFoley - I apologize that I simply did not read all of your comments. Just too long and things got a bit mired somewhere in the translation between us both. Suffice to say, I think we see things differently.
In any event, I think that a Black Widow movie would be awesome and I personally would be in line to see it opening night.
Making a character a certain way simply to increase diversity within a pool of unrelated stories and media is silly to me, especially if a primary motivation. Wanting others to increase such diversity is selfish: let the rest decide what they wish to create.
I am not sure the context here, and I would tend towards @Amber_Scott and her point of view. However, I do think there is something here.
"Creating diversity for no other reason than to create diversity" does appear to be problematic in my humble opinion. Don't throw in a minority simply because there isn't one. By all means add them in if they enhance or enrich the story. Write beautiful stories that show that diversity and how it enhances and enriches both the cinematic experience and our lives. I would personally love to see any sort of story so long as it was well written and coherent. And I have huge respect for the writers of these stories and KNOW that they can have meaning and substance to any ideas they come up with.
But to simply add diversity just to be "politically correct" seems a waste to me. Yes, to diversity. No to pointless and random diversity merely to please a certain segment.
Adding diversity for its own sake can lead to a very forced story, and an awkward one.
Mind you, if you really think about it, if you don't completely phone it in, diversity by default HAS to add to the story. Could you imagine how crummy Pokemon would be if it had only 6 pokemon? Yeah, sure, you can only use 6 at a time, but that'd be a boring game with just enough diversity to meet the bare minimum.
Can diversity be handled badly? Certainly, just like everything else. But its harder to screw up imho than most things.
I've been on so many diversity in writing/gaming panels that I may be jumping all over the place based on things I've said in the past. I'm going to step back a bit and just make a few unrelated points.
1. All decisions a writer makes are artificial. If you choose to make all your characters white, that's no different than deciding to make one or more Black, or Asian, or another non-white type. Making completely white casts all the time is artificial and lazy.
2. The idea that all casts are white/cis/het by default and then you have to consciously decide to ADD different types of characters on top of that is hugely disturbing. White people are not the norm from which we decide whether or not to branch off.
3. Deciding to include and represent characters who look like your audience does not mean you're writing a morality tale. Every time I talk about making conscious decisions regarding the makeup of a cast, someone brings up "shoving in characters that don't belong there" "political correctness" and "artificial writing." So? Even if you can come up with an example of a book you read that was bad because it had a Black person in it and they seemed tacked-on, that's hardly a crime and I can't imagine it's the norm. If you're worried that YOUR writing will be artificial and wooden if you include non-white characters, I can only say practice makes perfect.
4. Inevitably someone brings up "historical accuracy" which is the worst bogeyman of all. History has been so radically whitewashed in the media that viewers think it's "not realistic" to show non-white people or women in positions of power in other time periods. Pretty much any other time period. There are so many great articles on the internet about the fallacy of "historical accuracy = all white" that I won't bother to recap them here. If you're a writer interested in publishing or improving your work and you care about representation in the media, hit Google for "diverse characters historical accuracy" and you'll find a lot of information.
It's horrifying because it leads to a catch-22 where creators don't want to put legitimate historical diversity in shows and books because consumers won't believe the truth.
5. If a writer wants to write all white straight men, all the time, I don't care. Knock yourself out. Write the Straight White Man Saga volumes I through XV. I'm happy for you. I'm throwing confetti right now.
If an entire society disposes itself to writing the straight white man saga and that is considered normal and inevitable, I have a huge problem. Large companies like Marvel who have the clout and the budget to change the way people are represented in art, and so I focus on them. I'll ask for a Black Widow movie and research statistics and make a fuss on social media because they have the power to make a beneficial change in society.
Individual writers who don't include diversity, well, I don't care for it and I probably won't read their stuff but I'm not going to kick down their door and throw pies at them because of it.
AND YET when I say one of my principles is to consider inclusiveness in my writing, I get insulted and told that I'm a bad artist. Not on this forum, I mean, but in larger conversations about diversity in gaming/writing. Charges of political correctness and pandering come up at every single panel I'm on, as if answering the call of some mystical "artiness" where fully-formed white characters drift out of the ether is more important than representing real people who are marginalized and stereotyped by popular culture.
When I wrote "The Worldwound Incursion," two of the NPCs in the book were a lesbian couple: a female half-orc and a human trans woman. The letters of thanks I got broke my heart. People told me that they cried when they realized they were seeing themselves in a book, called friends to tell them about the adventure, and then took the time to write to me. I was even interviewed over two NPCs that are optional to include on the adventure path.
I consider it an enormous privilege and responsibility to represent different types of people in my art. It's the highest calling I have. I won't say it's easy, because I have research all the more carefully because of it. But if I'm willing to research fantasy worlds and historical bread-making methods, surely I have the time to research the people I'm writing about.
4. Inevitably someone brings up "historical accuracy" which is the worst bogeyman of all. History has been so radically whitewashed in the media that viewers think it's "not realistic" to show non-white people or women in positions of power in other time periods. Pretty much any other time period. There are so many great articles on the internet about the fallacy of "historical accuracy = all white" that I won't bother to recap them here. If you're a writer interested in publishing or improving your work and you care about representation in the media, hit Google for "diverse characters historical accuracy" and you'll find a lot of information.
Honestly googling gave me a few blog posts and depressing articles like this
I would recommend instead for people who are really interested in improving their writing and being more conscious of this area of historical study to go to any local public library (ideally a public university library since it will likely have more varied material) they have near them and see what they can search on the computers and stacks there on it. Certainly in Canada these are places that are open to the public, though people in other countries may have different experiences. The risk of reading something online is that anyone can publish any claim (without needing to back it up). I'd recommend looking into skimming through a book on the topic or even attending any events at your local library that discuss this over looking on the internet.
I've never really thought about the adding of characters of a different race/orientation purely for diversity. If they're a good character i'll like them and if they're a bad character I'll dismiss them as a pointless character but I never really think about if they were added "just because" or if if it was a meaningful part of the character that the writer was using to create a picture of the character.
Note: This might come across as gibberish as I'm quite tired and text is a poor format for conveying emotions etc. or at least it is when you have no talent for writing
Comments
1) The guy who runs Marvel is notoriously stingy (like, keep track of how many pencils the staff is using stingy, and this guy's a billionaire.) Scarlet Johanssen undoubtedly has a several movie contract, but we don't know how many movies that's for and in any event, renegotiating your contract midstream is fairly common practice in H'wood.
We know she's appearing in Civil War and there's a good chance she'll be in the next two Avengers films. If they want her for more films than her contract covers, that gives her a powerful bargaining position. Marvel Entertainment doesn't like people with powerful bargaining positions--the rumour mill is churning with how much the boss dislikes Robert Downey Jr., who's made himself pretty much indispensable to the studio (if the rumours are true, he's the only actor considered irreplaceable--Marvel's stance has long been that the talent, creative or acting, isn't the draw, the characters are. That's because, with the exceptions of X-Men, Fantastic Four, and maybe a few others, they exercise complete control of the characters).
Terrence Howard tried to get a better deal to appear in Iron Man 2; he was replaced with Don Cheadle. Why a Captain Marvel movie instead of a Black Widow one? My guess is Marvel would rather sign an actress without Johanssen's bargaining power.
2) Though the comics tend to follow the movies more than the other way around, the Carol Danvers Captain Marvel in comics has made a pretty noticeable impact on the comics culture the last few years, thanks largely to the work of the writer, Kelly Sue DeConnick (being replaced by Agent Carter's showrunners in the new series starting in September, I think.) In comics culture terms, even with Widow's movie presence, Captain Marvel has far more "heat" on her at the moment. So does the new version of Ms. Marvel, who's rumoured to have a TV show about her in development.
3) The prevailing belief in Hollywood, right or wrong (it's certainly morally wrong) is that women will pay to see movies with male leads but men are reluctant to pay to see films with female leads. That belief informs a crazy number of decisions. If Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel are both breakout hits--and I believe they're going to need better box office than their male counterpart characters to overcome this hurdle--then we may start seeing things swing in a more equitable direction.
So those are some possible reasons the higher-ups at Marvel don't see things the way fans might. Again, I'm not saying those assumptions are correct on either my or their part or that they aren't morally dubious at best. I'm just putting them out there.
Have I mentioned the time an editor told me not to make a lead character in a comic black because if I did the only actor they could get to star in the movie would be Will Smith? Yeah. Hollywood is a messed-up place.
The shift got some press when it was revealed Miles was going to be lead in a non-Ultimate, non-adjective Spider-Man book, but in some ways the character's arguably being diluted by not being the "real" Spider-Man in the universe he's going to officially be a part of in a couple months.
All that said, I think Marvel made a big mistake not making Miles the new cinematic Spider-Man, though they may have been constrained by their contract with Sony. who technically control the rights to Spider-Man in the movies.
On yet another hand, a lot of the Marvel Cinematic universe is based more on the UItimate line than the main Marvel U, so they may be setting up a situation where you get a Peter Parker Spider-Man for a few films, then he dies heroically and Miles takes over. That would be gutsy from a H'wood POV and make some comics fans happy, but I'd rather they did the progressive thing now rather than later.
I know not all think the same way and I accept it. I can't subscribe to it, though. I think using my writing talents to paint a world I'd like to see, in response to the social and political pressures I feel, is one of the most important things I can do. They're not external to me, they're part of my life, and the lives of people I care about.
That's not to say you couldn't use that expression to create a totally randomized piece. Jackson Pollock did that for years and it worked well, and there are plenty of artists who decide randomly what's going to happen in their stories, but those artists aren't doing that to remain neutral; they're doing it to demonstrate that life is chaotic and unpredictable.
That also doesn't mean that just because an artist has an agenda doesn't mean that artist can't create excellent and wonderful art as well. If I start my creative process by saying "I want this character to be black" or "I want this character to be a woman" or "I want this character to be transgender", that's not about bumps and colors; it's about wanting to give light to a group of people that is underrepresented. And as long as my creative process doesn't end with that decision, the art itself is uncompromized.
But, er, yeah, @Amber_Scott - way to derail the thread! Shame on you, and all that.
For me, it's less about saying "All my characters are either LGBTQ, minority, or female" and more about saying, "I want to tell this story, and this time I want my main character to be female." Creativity is complex enough that deciding that one thing about the character can actually act as a launch pad for ideas, rather than a stumbling point. If it becomes the latter, then as an artist you have to decide whether your premise needs to change for that character. My female protagonist may start out transgender and then through the course of writing become bisexual, or cisgender, or both. Maybe she becomes a man, if that's what the story calls for.
But usually that doesn't happen, because if you're doing your job right, that one aspect of your character isn't their only trait, but it is essential.
I've found, personally, the best way to write characters well is to not force anything on them. Let them naturally flow and stuffs.
By this argument, they won't make any more franchise movies or cross overs. Scar-jo wouldn't have any more (or less) power than Chris Hemsworth or Chris Evans. Signing a big name to any multi-movie contract comes with a price tag, and them having power is part of the deal. Just as an aside, Hugh Jackman has stated he is stepping down as Wolverine. He's got at least as much following as Downey and can ask for anything he wants. They don't seem to have regretted his involvement. Yes, I know it is a different company, but at the end of the day, Hollywood is quite inbreed and even if it isn't the same people, it's the same money making these decisions.
As for Scar-jo's bargaining power due to her Star Status, I have two words. Bennedict Cumberbatch. Enough said. Not sure your point here. I can almost see this point. However, as I stated earlier in the thread, Buffy had (still has) a massive following and people are talking about wanting a Big Screen movie for her. Xena had something similar. Orphan Black is developing the same. These are known money makers and on the popular rise in Hollywood. To say that the higher ups don't see that? If that were the case, Agent Carter would never have seen the light of day and would not now be getting a season 2. I know it has been a HUGE up hill fight for Agent Carter, but it showed its stuff and already has a fan following. If it can be done once, it can be done more than once. And with how many sites are posting this type of debate about Scar-jo's Black Widow, I find it hard to believe that the decisions are being made 'rationally' by anyone. 100% agree. Hollywood is messed-up. Full stop.
In other words, even if you don't actually care about anyone but white American-esque male characters, you are running an incrementally uphill marathon creatively. You'll get considerably less artistic value from increasingly more work. Even if you add a non-white side-kick, you have new, and importantly, easy options.
Note, its like navigating a minefield blindfolded to try to include groups you don't care about and aren't well read about. Mind you, some people like really offensive stuff, but I doubt that demographic actually pays that well.
Black Widow's being previously established clearly isn't helping her get a solo movie made. For that matter, none of the main Avengers roster didn't previously have their own films got them after Avengers, for a variety of reasons, a big one being that new characters means new licensing opportunities. Marvel doesn't rely on established followings for the actors. It wants the focus to be the characters. I'd say it's more likely we get a Black Widow solo film after Scar-Jo leaves the role. No, by that argument they'll try to lock up smaller, less powerful actors in tighter, longer contracts, focus as much as possible on the character rather than the actor, and generally try to make Marvel the selling point rather than any other specific element. She has significantly less than either of them, because both those actos have starred in their own successful (enough) Marvel movies and Marvel's committed to making additional films with both of those actors. After Infinity War is over, things are going to get interesting. This is why Marvel would avoid signing a legitimate big name actor, settling instead for a talented one. That way they get to say Thor made Hemsworth a movie star, Captain America made Evans a movie star, Guardians made Pratty a movie star, and Iron Man revitalized RDJ's career, restoring him to movie stardom. That's debatable, certainly from a Hollywood perspective. Downey has a second successful franchise with Sherlock Holmes. Jackman's been in some interesting films and has a following, but I don't think he's getting 40 million for second billing in someone else's movie the way RDJ is in Civil War. People with money make the decisions, and they're different people. If they weren't every superhero film would be as successful as Marvel's have been. Thanks to Lucy, Scarlet Johanssen's an action movie star independent of Black Widow. Benedict Cumberbatch, while he has a devoted fanbase, is nowhere near her level of stardom from Hollywood's perspective. He stars in a reasonably popular TV show, albeit one that isn't even American with less than a standard single American season of television's hour count, has nerd cred from Star Trek Into Darkness and The Hobbit, neither of which he was the star of, and has done several other projects that are probably of a very high quality but haven't generated the sort of audience or money Hollywood cares about. If/when Dr. Strange becomes a huge hit, he'll be another one Marvel will be able to say they turned into a movie star. My point is that Marvel's film folks are more likely to pursue a project that has a natural, rabid fanbase built in on the comics side (Captain Marvel's "Carol Corps" and the Comic Shop Valkyries) than they are to put resources into a film with a character that, though she's been in the films for several years, doesn't have Marvel's natural fanbase (comics fans) supporting her. Buffy was originally a movie that didn't do that well (because it wasn't that good) that managed to transition into a TV show that, while it was pretty good, was perpetually on the bubble and would have been cancelled by season 3 if it was on any networks but the ones that aired it.
That said, Buffy does have a rabid, pre-existing fanbase, which Hollywood loves, so yeah, they've been trying to get a film made. Unfortunately, they look like they're trying to get it made without Joss Whedon's active participation, which could cause a lot of problems. I'd like nothing better than for a Buffy movie to get made, to be good, and to be financially successful (those last two are not necessarily related.) Last I heard the film was stalled in development. They're great TV shows. The track record of turning great TV shows which people watch for free into great movies people will pay to see is not great. I'm blanking on examples, the only two I have are X-Files and Entourage, neither of which did fabulous in their last cinema outing. Twin Peaks too. In Hollywood, TV success "matters" less to the people at the top than movie success, by a huge degree. Thanks to licensing opportunities, big budget tentpole films bring in mountains more cash much more quickly than even the most popular TV show, even though the TV show is probably being watched by more people. Sure it can be done, with TV shows. Daredevil's another success story. I expect AKA Jessica Jones will do quite well (I hope it does, I quite like the comic version of the character). I think the Agents of SHIELD spin-off starring Mockingbird would probably have been vastly superior to AoS if they'd made it (they elected to keep Adrianne Palicki and Nick Blood in the original show, which is the smartest thing they could have done for it, IMO.) If Ms. Marvel gets made and they don't screw it up, I see no reason it can't be the sensation that the comic has become on a wider cultural stage.
But if Agent Carter had been made by someone other than Marvel (owned by Disney) and aired on a channel other than ABC (owned by Disney), it's highly unlikely it would've gotten the original series run, much less a second season. Same for the second and third seasons of Agents of SHIELD. Those things are being propped up as a way to keep the MCU in the public consciousness between films. Ratings and popularity become less important when they're part of a Grand Scheme as successful as Kevin Feige's has been so far. Hollywood places little value on online chatter, certainly chatter that isn't heavily organized with noticeable results (see Capt. Marvel's Carol Corps as an example of what it takes to maybe move the exec's dial a fraction.) Things that seem like a big deal online don't always translate that way in the real world. Studios (games and movies) have what they consider more reliable metrics to measure success; most of them involve money.
The only way to get Marvel to make a Black Widow movie before they're good and ready is to refuse to pay for other Marvel movies and convince enough people to do the same, while letting Marvel know they're doing it and why in sufficient numbers that Marvel will have to say "Not doing this is actively losing us money." But that's not going to happen at this point. People will keep going to see Marvel movies (I'm betting even Ant-Man will pull Captain America 1 numbers at the box office) because they're usually pretty entertaining. Why risk millions trying to "fix" something that they don't perceive as broken?
Also women play Baldur's Gate because they're largely allowed to create the character they want to play, Viconia, Jaheira, and Safana kick ass, and Imoen, Neera, and Alora are fun, among other reasons.
Actually, watching a gaggle of guys that actually look +60 going on an adventure might be strangely entertaining. I could be biased though; I've always been what you'd call 'old at heart'... tired, gloomy, grumpy and wwwaaayyy too bitter for a seven year old!
In any event, I think that a Black Widow movie would be awesome and I personally would be in line to see it opening night. I am not sure the context here, and I would tend towards @Amber_Scott and her point of view. However, I do think there is something here.
"Creating diversity for no other reason than to create diversity" does appear to be problematic in my humble opinion. Don't throw in a minority simply because there isn't one. By all means add them in if they enhance or enrich the story. Write beautiful stories that show that diversity and how it enhances and enriches both the cinematic experience and our lives. I would personally love to see any sort of story so long as it was well written and coherent. And I have huge respect for the writers of these stories and KNOW that they can have meaning and substance to any ideas they come up with.
But to simply add diversity just to be "politically correct" seems a waste to me. Yes, to diversity. No to pointless and random diversity merely to please a certain segment.
and now back to our regularly scheduled program.
Mind you, if you really think about it, if you don't completely phone it in, diversity by default HAS to add to the story. Could you imagine how crummy Pokemon would be if it had only 6 pokemon? Yeah, sure, you can only use 6 at a time, but that'd be a boring game with just enough diversity to meet the bare minimum.
Can diversity be handled badly? Certainly, just like everything else. But its harder to screw up imho than most things.
1. All decisions a writer makes are artificial. If you choose to make all your characters white, that's no different than deciding to make one or more Black, or Asian, or another non-white type. Making completely white casts all the time is artificial and lazy.
2. The idea that all casts are white/cis/het by default and then you have to consciously decide to ADD different types of characters on top of that is hugely disturbing. White people are not the norm from which we decide whether or not to branch off.
3. Deciding to include and represent characters who look like your audience does not mean you're writing a morality tale. Every time I talk about making conscious decisions regarding the makeup of a cast, someone brings up "shoving in characters that don't belong there" "political correctness" and "artificial writing." So? Even if you can come up with an example of a book you read that was bad because it had a Black person in it and they seemed tacked-on, that's hardly a crime and I can't imagine it's the norm. If you're worried that YOUR writing will be artificial and wooden if you include non-white characters, I can only say practice makes perfect.
4. Inevitably someone brings up "historical accuracy" which is the worst bogeyman of all. History has been so radically whitewashed in the media that viewers think it's "not realistic" to show non-white people or women in positions of power in other time periods. Pretty much any other time period. There are so many great articles on the internet about the fallacy of "historical accuracy = all white" that I won't bother to recap them here. If you're a writer interested in publishing or improving your work and you care about representation in the media, hit Google for "diverse characters historical accuracy" and you'll find a lot of information.
It's horrifying because it leads to a catch-22 where creators don't want to put legitimate historical diversity in shows and books because consumers won't believe the truth.
5. If a writer wants to write all white straight men, all the time, I don't care. Knock yourself out. Write the Straight White Man Saga volumes I through XV. I'm happy for you. I'm throwing confetti right now.
If an entire society disposes itself to writing the straight white man saga and that is considered normal and inevitable, I have a huge problem. Large companies like Marvel who have the clout and the budget to change the way people are represented in art, and so I focus on them. I'll ask for a Black Widow movie and research statistics and make a fuss on social media because they have the power to make a beneficial change in society.
Individual writers who don't include diversity, well, I don't care for it and I probably won't read their stuff but I'm not going to kick down their door and throw pies at them because of it.
AND YET when I say one of my principles is to consider inclusiveness in my writing, I get insulted and told that I'm a bad artist. Not on this forum, I mean, but in larger conversations about diversity in gaming/writing. Charges of political correctness and pandering come up at every single panel I'm on, as if answering the call of some mystical "artiness" where fully-formed white characters drift out of the ether is more important than representing real people who are marginalized and stereotyped by popular culture.
When I wrote "The Worldwound Incursion," two of the NPCs in the book were a lesbian couple: a female half-orc and a human trans woman. The letters of thanks I got broke my heart. People told me that they cried when they realized they were seeing themselves in a book, called friends to tell them about the adventure, and then took the time to write to me. I was even interviewed over two NPCs that are optional to include on the adventure path.
I consider it an enormous privilege and responsibility to represent different types of people in my art. It's the highest calling I have. I won't say it's easy, because I have research all the more carefully because of it. But if I'm willing to research fantasy worlds and historical bread-making methods, surely I have the time to research the people I'm writing about.
http://kotaku.com/idiots-fight-to-keep-a-medieval-game-white-1516970808
I would recommend instead for people who are really interested in improving their writing and being more conscious of this area of historical study to go to any local public library (ideally a public university library since it will likely have more varied material) they have near them and see what they can search on the computers and stacks there on it. Certainly in Canada these are places that are open to the public, though people in other countries may have different experiences. The risk of reading something online is that anyone can publish any claim (without needing to back it up). I'd recommend looking into skimming through a book on the topic or even attending any events at your local library that discuss this over looking on the internet.
Note: This might come across as gibberish as I'm quite tired and text is a poor format for conveying emotions etc. or at least it is when you have no talent for writing