LogFAQs > #954738309

ParanoidObsessive posted...

I'd argue it might be, honestly.

Even if you're gay, the idea of heterosexual couples is utterly normalized in nearly every form of media. It's almost a given that no matter what genre of movie you're watching, there's going to be a romance subplot somewhere in there (unless the genre IS Romance, in which case it's going to be a romance superplot). And those romances are almost always going to be straight male-female pairings.

After a while, you're going to grow somewhere desensitized to the idea of male-female relationships in entertainment media. You may not relate to the relationship as much as you would one that more accurately reflects your own preferences, but you can more easily accept it as just another example of what you constantly see in films, on TV, and in pretty much everything else.

For straight people, most media is constantly reinforcing their own world-view, so gay relationships in media can feel much more transgressive (or at least unusual). It's something they're not used to at all, and in some cases, may feel uncomfortable with.

This is one of the ideas behind why there needs to be more representation in media in general. The more you normalize a behavior, the more people become accepting of it.

Not incorrect, though I was sort of speaking in the sense of a hypothetical future scenario where gay relationships have been normalized. There's no reason role-playing a gay relationship should feel any more uncomfortable for a straight person than role-playing a straight relationship does for a gay person. That it does is more a consequence of broader social and cultural issues than it is anything that's inherent in the media itself.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The problem is, a lot of the time when the pandering argument gets brought out, it's because a game (or movie, or TV show, etc) feels like it's cashing in on exceptionalism for the sake of "progressive credit" or are otherwise treating it more as exploitation than a sincere attempt to represent other races, preferences, cultures, or world-views.

There is a fine line, and pandering definitely does happen. There is still a lot of demand for artists to justify using any characters other than the "default" of a white male, though, as opposed to just accepting "that's just the character I felt like making." At least part of that issue is that there's no way for a single character to represent a demographic. Hypothetically, ~5-10% of main characters should be homosexual, if media were to accurately represent the general population, but if a game's main character is gay, that's a rate of 100%. No single game can (without taking ridiculous measures to ensure diverse representation that would definitely qualify as deliberate pandering/marketing) accurately represent the general population's demographics, simply due to the bias inherent in small sample sizes.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

There's a yardstick for this (similar to how some people use the "Bechdel Test" to gauge female representation). Simply ask yourself, "Is this character black/Asian/gay/trans/etc because it is intrinsic to the character's arc, or does it feel like it was simply tacked on after the fact to seem progressive or for the sake of identity politics? Is this an interesting character because of/in spite of/regardless of their established identity, or does it feel like the creator simply wanted a [INSERT MINORITY HERE] character, and they come across as a shallow, one-note character whose identity revolves almost entirely around their minority status?"

I generally just look at how much attention is called to it. Borderlands 2 did quite well there: There were several instances where minor characters referenced their same-sex relationship, but it was never treated any differently than if it had been a heterosexual one. Just casually mentioned as part of their experiences, and the game continued as normal. That, I think, is the way to do it: If it's relevant, don't shy away from mentioning it as much as is relevant, but also don't harp on it any longer than that. Treat it as though it's normal.

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