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Strange World
- Thread starter Jazzy
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It's often hard to know just where the truth is in among all the shouting.
Obviously I'm looking at the subject as an adult who is well aware that gay people are out there, which is a different perspective to that enjoyed by a child who doesn't necessarily have the faintest idea yet about the birds and the bees.
That said I often wonder what some of these movies are trying to achieve. In production aimed at an older audience there's no reason not to include a wide variety of characters and build a storyline with them in it. But when I get the growing sense that things are being forced into the storyline to make a pont rather than to enhance the storyline it makes me wonder what value an artificially created diversity brings.
If you set a drama in a high school in modern day Philadelphia you'd expect a large number of the characters to be non-white. Anything less fails to capture the reality. You'd expect at least some of the teachers to be single, some to be married, some to be gay, and so on.
If you set a drama in a 16th century stately home in rural England you'd expect people to be white. If anyone was fooling around with someone they shouldn't be you'd expect it to be kept very quiet. If someone was gay you wouldn't expect them to be open about it except with their partner, who would be just as invested in keeping their dalliance secret. Modern expectations of diversity might see a black face or two forced in but that just make the series less realistic. Having a bunch of black faces in that setting is just as unrealistic as an all-white cast in a modern urban high school.
In a Disney style scenario once the hero has saved the princess they go away and.... live happily ever after. Kids don't need to know the intricacies. It's a dream world, it doesn't really need sexuality to come into the storyline at all. It's little more than a glorified version of a stronger person (male or female) helping a weaker person (male or female) with heavy luggage.
To loosely Disney-ify a simple story that features yours truly as the star. Years ago my wife and I took the train to another town for a few days (we didn't have a car at the time). To get off the platform at the destination you had to climb a flight of stairs to get to a bridge, then cross the bridge, then go down another flight of stairs to leave the station. Now the scene is set, the cameras can roll. Damsel in distress, with heavy bag she can barely lift. Oh no, what is she going to do? This impossible obstacle confronts her and there's no way forward. Enter the hero, a young man who is strong enough to pull the case from the stone. Damsel gratefully accepts the hero's help, the hero lifts her luggage away (not the damsel, this isn't really Disney after all) and carries it away. And they all lived happily ever after. The extra details were that my wife was easily able to carry her small bag, my bag was a backpack, and as we left the station I handed the damsel's luggage to her husband and we went our separate ways. But that doesn't matter in a Disney movie. I'm white and the damsel was black - doesn't matter. There was nothing romantic between us at any point - doesn't matter. Kids can enjoy the fantasy of being the hero or the princess or whatever else and don't need to know what might be happening behind closed doors at night during "happily ever after" until they are older.
Obviously I'm looking at the subject as an adult who is well aware that gay people are out there, which is a different perspective to that enjoyed by a child who doesn't necessarily have the faintest idea yet about the birds and the bees.
That said I often wonder what some of these movies are trying to achieve. In production aimed at an older audience there's no reason not to include a wide variety of characters and build a storyline with them in it. But when I get the growing sense that things are being forced into the storyline to make a pont rather than to enhance the storyline it makes me wonder what value an artificially created diversity brings.
If you set a drama in a high school in modern day Philadelphia you'd expect a large number of the characters to be non-white. Anything less fails to capture the reality. You'd expect at least some of the teachers to be single, some to be married, some to be gay, and so on.
If you set a drama in a 16th century stately home in rural England you'd expect people to be white. If anyone was fooling around with someone they shouldn't be you'd expect it to be kept very quiet. If someone was gay you wouldn't expect them to be open about it except with their partner, who would be just as invested in keeping their dalliance secret. Modern expectations of diversity might see a black face or two forced in but that just make the series less realistic. Having a bunch of black faces in that setting is just as unrealistic as an all-white cast in a modern urban high school.
In a Disney style scenario once the hero has saved the princess they go away and.... live happily ever after. Kids don't need to know the intricacies. It's a dream world, it doesn't really need sexuality to come into the storyline at all. It's little more than a glorified version of a stronger person (male or female) helping a weaker person (male or female) with heavy luggage.
To loosely Disney-ify a simple story that features yours truly as the star. Years ago my wife and I took the train to another town for a few days (we didn't have a car at the time). To get off the platform at the destination you had to climb a flight of stairs to get to a bridge, then cross the bridge, then go down another flight of stairs to leave the station. Now the scene is set, the cameras can roll. Damsel in distress, with heavy bag she can barely lift. Oh no, what is she going to do? This impossible obstacle confronts her and there's no way forward. Enter the hero, a young man who is strong enough to pull the case from the stone. Damsel gratefully accepts the hero's help, the hero lifts her luggage away (not the damsel, this isn't really Disney after all) and carries it away. And they all lived happily ever after. The extra details were that my wife was easily able to carry her small bag, my bag was a backpack, and as we left the station I handed the damsel's luggage to her husband and we went our separate ways. But that doesn't matter in a Disney movie. I'm white and the damsel was black - doesn't matter. There was nothing romantic between us at any point - doesn't matter. Kids can enjoy the fantasy of being the hero or the princess or whatever else and don't need to know what might be happening behind closed doors at night during "happily ever after" until they are older.
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An article I read was that the teacher was teaching the class about the earth...so why show a Disney movie? I don't get it.