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Post by hopefulartist on Apr 12, 2014 0:52:25 GMT -6
This is going to be heated alright...
I noticed there has been a discussion how Pixar and other industries represent characters. So any issues? Discuss...
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Post by conteremo on Apr 12, 2014 11:33:21 GMT -6
It would be nice if they did include more diverse representation in the future, but after thinking about MI in particular, I decided that I don't really mind. MI and MU have already established three primary male characters that have been characterized throughout 2 movies and a lot of viewers have grown attached to them, so despite my agreement that there is a problem with female representation in particular (since it's relevant to an earlier discussion), I'd much rather see another movie about Mike, Sulley, and Randall since they have already been the mains and I care more about them than any new or side characters or such, regardless of gender.
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Post by hopefulartist on Apr 12, 2014 16:11:18 GMT -6
It would be nice if they did include more diverse representation in the future, but after thinking about MI in particular, I decided that I don't really mind. MI and MU have already established three primary male characters that have been characterized throughout 2 movies and a lot of viewers have grown attached to them, so despite my agreement that there is a problem with female representation in particular (since it's relevant to an earlier discussion), I'd much rather see another movie about Mike, Sulley, and Randall since they have already been the mains and I care more about them than any new or side characters or such, regardless of gender. I agree completely. I believe there should be diverse representation for a completely new movie with new characters so that we get to know and the audience will understand and appreciate diverse representation more. As you said, the Monsters movie has already been established with what kind of characters they made. It doesn't mean it's a BAD thing. I really like what they did with Hardscrabble, the badass FEMALE that founded the Scare Games, is the Dean of the college, AND is the professor of scaring along with Knight. (Yeah she was originally male, but at least the directors changed it and that alone shows that females can take charge and accomplish a lot as much as males can.) Yeah, that's not really enough, but appreciate the fact that there have been baby steps to progression rather than have them be stuck in the mud with the same tropes over and over. I would like it that Pixar would do more diverse representation for their future movies, but it has to be done right like treating characters as characters, not with their gender, race, sexuality or disability as stereotypes.
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Post by derringdont on Apr 14, 2014 4:28:54 GMT -6
Hi! I'm a little hesitant to join in this conversation since I feel like I did get a little out of line complaining about it in that other thread, but here goes.
Disney and Disney-Pixar are well-established enough and have enough money that they can take much more than just baby-steps. I don't think they should scrap pre-existing characters, because as conteremo said, we already know and care about them, but the writers at Pixar should keep in mind areas in which they've been lacking if they are to make a sequel.
Female-representation isn't the only area in which these movies have problems. For example, most of the monsters in the original film are coded white. Sullivan is an Irish surname, and Wazowski sounds Eastern-European (maybe Polish?). Obviously not everyone who's family is from Ireland or Eastern-Europe is automatically white, but it still implies that Pixar wanted the two protagonists to be members of ethnic minorities (Mike is also coded Jewish), as long as they were members of primarily white ethnic minorities. You could argue that Pixar took baby-steps because at least they didn't code the two protagonists as WASPs, but they still should have done a lot better. Most of the named monsters in MI also were played by white actors and had blue or green eyes, which is pretty suspicious. On the bright side, thankfully they didn't make Boo white (I think?), and in MU brown eyes and fictitiously colored eyes were more common and they had a speaking role played by a woman of color (Aubrey Plaza).
So I guess that if they were to make a sequel, I would want it to be about Boo because she was a major character in the original film, and Pixar has an opportunity to make a movie about a woman of color. They also have an opportunity to have more screen time for female characters who have appeared before, such as Celia, Hardscrabble, or Roz, and while I hope that Sulley, Mike, and Randall feature largely, I would really like to see more of the female characters, too.
There are a lot of ways that they could potentially have good representation in new ways without even needing new characters! One way I can think of off the top of my head is that most of the characters' orientations are unspecified so far, so there's plenty of room for queer representation if only Disney decides to stop being afraid of making homophobes uncomfortable. If a tiny studio like Laika can take that risk, then surely Disney can.
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Post by hopefulartist on Apr 14, 2014 15:41:19 GMT -6
It's alright. I believe Disney/Pixar will progress in terms of this topic in the future and still make the movies great and timeless.
Forgive me for asking this, but what's a WASP(s)?
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Post by derringdont on Apr 14, 2014 16:07:51 GMT -6
It's alright. I believe Disney/Pixar will progress in terms of this topic in the future and still make the movies great and timeless. Forgive me for asking this, but what's a WASP(s)? WASP is an acronym for White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. It's usually used disparagingly; pretty much no one calls themself a WASP. Basically it means someone of the most privileged ethnic and religious background imaginable, at least in America. It also has a connotation of class privilege, and generally refers to upper and sometimes middle-class people, so a working class person who is white, who's family comes from England, and is Protestant would still probably not be accused of being a WASP.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2014 4:57:44 GMT -6
My complain may seem odd but its over Percy Boleslaw. I don't like how some see him as a mirror image of Johnny Worthington the Third. It just feels so wrong for some people to think of him as the JOX equivalent of the ROR frat president.
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Post by derringdont on Apr 25, 2014 12:55:43 GMT -6
My complain may seem odd but its over Percy Boleslaw. I don't like how some see him as a mirror image of Johnny Worthington the Third. It just feels so wrong for some people to think of him as the JOX equivalent of the ROR frat president. I'm afraid I don't understand?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2014 3:21:51 GMT -6
My complain may seem odd but its over Percy Boleslaw. I don't like how some see him as a mirror image of Johnny Worthington the Third. It just feels so wrong for some people to think of him as the JOX equivalent of the ROR frat president. I'm afraid I don't understand? Percy and Johnny looks the same. It just makes me feel a little uncomfortable on how some sees Percy as Johnny over their character design looks the same.
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