Diversity and the Critic

One of the weirder problems with being a critic is the wokeness problem. The essential problem is that encouraging diversity is good, but there are times when diversity gets pushed to the point where it actually becomes a parody of itself, and there are even times when it distracts from the film itself. Worse are those times when the need to diversify character types creates some weird situations due to the change in race or sex of the characters. This makes life interesting for the critic because calling it out can call down a lot of fire on the critic, creating its own issues. There needs to be some way to navigate the problem.

The Importance of Representation

It should go without saying that everyone should be able to find some sort of representation in pop culture, regardless of how specific that group is: We all need heroes. This is why there was such an issue with the live-action version of "The Little Mermaid": Little black girls had someone on the screen who looked like them, and that was massive considering how few black girls make it to the screen. This applies just as much as to Captain Marvel, and why the LGBT community is willing to take any sign of non-binary status as proof thereof.

There are two major reasons for the lack of representation. The first is simply that there were plenty of historical reasons that encouraged white male heroes and other types to be villains; most of these have been dealt with, but there are vestiges of it around (such as executives who refuse to acknowledge that non-white non-male non-straight heroes can create money).

The second is that most minority creators tend to avoid the studio system and go the indie route; while hardly incomprehensible, it does create a lack of representation behind the camera and thus in front of it as well. Not only does this limit the number of minorities behind the cameras of big-budget productions, but it also limits representation behind the camera for a wide range of productions. In an era where it feels weird to have a person of color in front of the camera without having writers of that color, this also slows down representation. (The studios have not figured out a way to deal with the problem to the satisfaction of all parties.) \

[The Whitening of 1992 needs to be mentioned. Around 1990, the NAACP decided that if there was a black actor in something, it was only right that there was a black writer on staff. Other minority groups got wind of this and joined the effort, so by 1991 there was a coalition demanding equal representation behind the camera (actors of X group needed writers of X group). Studios scrambled to look for minority writers but they couldn't find any. This led to a decrease of minorities on network television (since they couldn't find writers for the groups, they couldn't use actors from said groups). The studios have made changes to deal with this, but those efforts have had debatable effects.]

When Bending Becomes The Solution

One of the solutions has been to change the sex/gender/race of characters major and minor. While this is usually a working solution, there have been some minor bumps in the road, especially when there need to be massive changes in the script to accommodate the change). It also makes wholesale changes (such as for the movie version of "The Last Airbender", when different groups were of different ethnicities, thus creating the problem of an "evil dark-skinned race." However, this has been a working solution, despite outcry by some groups.

[One of these side effects, the "Ginger Erasure" is somewhat ironic. Originally, Irish characters were used to simulate minorities in movies and other media (they weren't considered truly "white" but were considered light-skinned enough to allow them to be the token minority without offending "white sensibilities"). However, in modern media, it seems like the default character to change to a minority is the redhead. Fitting, perhaps, but also sort of ironic given that there are fewer redheads (less than two million worldwide) than the minority they are being replaced with creating its own representation issue.]

But Then It Got Weird

The first problem from the critic's perspective is when these movies hit the screen. The basic problem is that some of these movies, well, stink: The acting is wooden, the directing needed something, changes in the writing hurt the movie, and, in general, there are a lot of problems introduced by the bending. Worse, there is a certain level of preachiness that changed the movie from "fun" to "boring" (this was the problem with "Ghostbusters 2017"; ignoring all of the other issues, it needed to step up on its soapbox whenever it got a chance killed the scene it happened in, so a lot of scenes died).

For a critic, it creates a credibility versus popularity problem: If he slams the movie as it deserves to be, then he's likely to get roasted, losing popularity. However, if he praises the movie (helping his popularity) he loses credibility, especially if the movie is really horrible. Few people like their favorite child being called on their foolishness, and that applies even more when they have a vested interest in his success; now imagine when that applies to a movie. Some movies have thus become untouchable by some critics: It just isn't worth it to condemn a movie that needs it if the movie has enough support behind it. This was the problem with the live-action "The Little Mermaid": There were numerous issues with the movie, including some due to the race-bending, but its popularity made it hard to give an honest review.

[To be fair, this doesn't apply to most movies, but it does come up enough that some critics just don't critique every movie.]

The Mary Sue Redux

Then there's the Mary Sue problem. One of the problems with reviewing action movies is that you want the main character to be superhuman; however, we still want to see the character suffer a bit. This means that a character who never really has to struggle is going to get boring really quickly; there's no real question of success. Worse is when these characters outshine every other character in the movie or comic; what's the purpose of even mentioning those characters if they're just window-dressing?

This is the difference between Dominic Toretto and Rey Skywalker. We've seen Dominic suffer, adjust plans, and even allow that others were better at solving a problem than he was; Rey avoids suffering, has never really had to change her plans due to complications, and is always the best person for the job. When Dominic gets better at something, he has to struggle with it and there was something he had to overcome; Rey simply got better. The problem is that when you call out these Mary Sues, there's a severe backlash; if the media is to get better, critics need to be able to call them out without fear of reprisal.

[This isn't to say this is strictly a problem with female characters. It's just coming to a focus of late, especially as those the male versions (or Gary Stu) seem to be disappearing.]

The diversity problem is one that needs to be fine-tuned, but overall it's sort of nice to see that it is a major consideration both behind and in front of the camera. There will always be problems when something new is incorporated into the system, but here's hoping the problems are solved.