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You're saying it's annoying to see that when you want to relax and watch a movie. You cannot relax watching a movie where there's a mixed-race gay couple? Why?
For an international audience this is very obvious in your face propaganda. It's hard to miss it or ignore it, when you only see this in US shows and nowhere else.
You don't have 25% single mothers, 25% blacks, 50% gay Asian couple.
Looks like you're the one saying that, uh?
Look.
In the movie I mentioned, there are a handful of people that find themselves in the house.
- single mother who drinks while pregnant - gay, mixed-race couple #1 - black guy who ends up with single mother (mixed-race couple #2) - evil Trump supporter - bunch of bad white guys #1 (those two that make a mess) - bunch of bad white guys #2 (everyone else who tries to kill everyone)
The fact that every single minority MUST be represented in every single movie—despite the fact that this makes the story less believable or even weaker is what's annoying. Not to mention changing established characters (like Ghostbusters, Terminator, Little Mermaid) to make them black women.
Back when I grew up, we had Will Smith who was basically every kid's idiol in Europe, and he was black. We had Ripley from Alien who was a believable female role. We had Priscilla with trans protagonists. No one complained, all those characters worked. Now, every movie seems to be just an excuse to virtue signal. It's all politics. I want to watch a movie, not be indoctrinated by a corporation about whatever politics they're into.
In what way is that particular story less believable because it shows minorities? Is it showing minorities in a context (geographical and time) where you have 100% information that it's very different from the reality of that context? Is this particular movie supposed to show a factually based representation of that context?
If an owner of some IP decides to change the racial, ethnic, etc profile of some character as they were represented previously in said franchise it doesn't take away from the franchise (imagine that they didn't release anything new), you can still watch the older movies that you enjoy. Similarly to how if a new video game is released in a series which is very different (or simply bad, quality wise) from the previous games in the series, it doesn't take away from you the previous titles, you can still enjoy the previous games all you want.
> Back when I grew up, we had Will Smith who was basically every kid's idiol in Europe, and he was black. We had Ripley from Alien who was a believable female role. We had Priscilla with trans protagonists. No one complained, all those characters worked. Now, every movie seems to be just an excuse to virtue signal. It's all politics. I want to watch a movie, not be indoctrinated by a corporation about whatever politics they're into.
I find that as a very naive and simplistic view of said movies. There was politics back then too in said movies, you just didn't notice it or cared about it, you took those things for granted. This is the essential problem with this type of complains, you assume that what was before/you grew up with was the "gold standard" and so making drastic changes to that is somehow bad (and I'm not talking just about minority representation in media, I see this in almost every context with people over a certain age). You should probably see how people complained the first time a black person was on TV, the complains are very similar.
I'm not saying that now there isn't a more active effort around introducing more minority representation into media, it obviously is so, I'm only arguing against that being a bad thing on its own and/or saying that didn't happen before. If this is more important to the studios than making good quality movies then obviously the quality will suffer, but that's not special in any way to the minority representation push.
I did not happen before, at this scale. It's a new thing. And it's annoying.
> If this is more important to the studios than making good quality movies then obviously the quality will suffer, but that's not special in any way to the minority representation push.
Looks like it is. Look at the backslash with movies such as Star Wars, Ghostbusters, etc., where they take established characters and alienate fans by changing an established character that was a white male into a black woman (007, have you heard he's now a black woman?).
Feeling like you belong in the world is a core need of every human being. This recognition has a worth in itself; even if the company did nothing else (e.g. political lobbying, donations, supportive hiring practices, structural changes to the business), this is still something of value for this audience.
There's a weird paradox here. You object to entertainment getting too ideological, but then you indicate that companies should somehow reflect their ideologies (or lack thereof) in their output.
(I'm loath to use marketing cynicism, but the shorter version is: you're not the target audience.)
Why am I not the target audience of movies anymore?
The underlying assumption is that, when you (and characters you do not object to) were portrayed in mass media entertainment, everyone was covered too.
The target audience isn't just black people and gay couples: it's black people, gay couples, and those who do not object to the aforementioned groups.
They're just pandering to younger generations who are (as it's always been) more liberal, and right now have more disposable income—which is what companies are after.
The action of showing off how progressive these companies are while at the same time not giving a damn is what virtue signalling is (at least, to me).
I actually have similar ideas to the ones that are being pushed, ex., I don't oppose mixed-race couples, gay couples, etc. It's just annoying for everything to be about that nowadays.
Can you back that up? Since it's "obvious" it should be very easy.
I'm not familiar with Netflix's internal benefits but I am familiar with another big tech company's benefits and they go out of the way to guarantee equal benefits to same sex couples, beyond what the state/federal law provides (which results in the company spending more money out of pocket to provide those benefits so they match what state/federal provides to heterosexual couples). Or how in interviews it's very strongly emphasized to avoid any discussion, question, etc from which one can infer marital status, sexual orientation, parenthood, etc.
That shows to me that the contrary is valid and I suspect Netflix to not be far from that since it competes for the same talent pool in the same geographical location.
Corporations go make their products in countries where there are no labor laws, where they make people and even children work 16 hours/day, to make your shoes for 50c and then sell them back to you for $50.
Do they care about minorities? Why don't they open a factory in some depressed area in the States instead of going to China?
Do they care about gay rights? Why don't they denounce/boycott Muslim countries where they have the death penalty for being gay?
Do they care about women? Why do they support factories where women work 16 hours and are regularly harassed?
Companies are pandering to liberal kids with left-wing, progressive ideas because they want their money and they are the demographic most willing to give it to them. In the process, they annoy everyone else—including people who don't care about politics, or don't live with their parents and understand what actual problems people have. Unfortunately I'm in the second group.
Why have (they) not produced said content before, if indeed they cared about message?
Its because it was not profitable. Now thanks to a cadre of reeducated college grads entering the workforce with real $$$, adjustments have to be made...
Seniors dont go to the movies, still have cable, parents have adult things to worry about, midcareer professionals are hustling hard...
theres a very specific market for netflix and chill....