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Comment by Spivak | Hacker News Reader

So if representation is fine what do you want it to look like?

Because by your rules black people aren’t allowed to have fun fantasizing about being a pirate sailing the high seas in colonial England, a trans man can’t be in a WWII fiction fighting nazis, a woman can’t be in a medical drama about stopping the cholera outbreak.

So if they can’t be key roles (i.e. important at all to the plot) minorities should be relegated to background characters even in historical fiction?

Also what show has half the cast being trans or non-binary or whatever? I could use something interesting to watch.

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Historical fictions set in Africa and Asia?

Pre-Columbian Exchange historical fictions?

If you want fantasy, make fantasy worlds. Don't call it historical at all.

Signed, a fan of Japanese fictions where they put random races in the worlds as they like.

I agree with the other poster. It’s not relatable. No offence to the minorities. It feels like forced messaging to the rest of us. Why represent only minorities in race, ethnicity and sexuality? Why not represent people such as war widows, people with skin diseases, mental disabilities, people with above average heights, obese people, etc.? For those of us not living in the USA, it feels like cultural imperialism. “We think this is the most important thing, so everyone should also think this is the most important thing.”

Shows produced outside of the US are generally better on the diversity of appearance front. UK content particular is much more watchable for me, as actors are closer to regular people you'd see on the street vs the very thin, athletic, impossibly white toothed American casting ideal.

I approve of the use of talented non-white actors in British period dramas, such as David Copperfield. It is obvious that the person's skin colour is ahistorical for the role. But it doesn't matter. We the audience are tacitly invited to look past this detail. It seems a little incongruous for about ten seconds, then just disappears into their fine performance.

See also Chernobyl being full of actors with British accents ... jarring for about 30 seconds, and then you don't even realise for the rest of the show, because it's just that good.

I've seen a making of commentary of Chernobyl, and the reasoning behind having non-accent actors was that a) it was Western production with Western casting and b) they wanted to avoid the old habit of portraying Russians as speaking bad English. I get both points, and it helped the immersion, because I speak English without a Russian accent.

And yes, Chernobyl is among the best shows ever produced. Only exception is the last episode, they could have focused more on the international reaction to it, and the fact that everybody wanted the total cost and impact of the disaster to be low. It was a choice, so, to focus on the Soviet perspective. Taking the Soviet trial for the last episode made perfect sense.

UK produced shows are going the same way though. Inter-racial families, asian/black detectives and police chiefs, people living in million pound homes despite having average income jobs, etc.

Maybe it's me but this doesn't represent regular people I see on the street?

You can tell if someone’s spouse is another race just by looking at a single person on the street? This is amazing, tell me more!

I think you've over reached here. 'regular people I see on the street' is a general term and shouldn't be taken too literally.

Inter-ethnic relationships in England and Wales rose by two percentage points between 2001 and 2011 (7% in 2001 to 9% in 2011).

Ten years later, I expect the figure to be much higher but nowhere near as portrayed on TV. Let's be generous and say the increase has been 50% - and is still a minority.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...

I should clarify, I meant diversity of appearance in all aspects, not just race/orientation.

Casting in non-US tv shows, to my eyes, seems to give a better mix of ordinary looking people (fat, ugly, disabled, scarred, plain, old, teens-actually-cast-as-teens etc). This is just as important for representation, not everyone can be insta-perfect.

the ironic thing is that manga solved this problem decades ago by simply creating genres for every possible niche.

They increasingly do. As one very convenient fictional example ticking off most of those, Game of Thrones had a tall warrior woman, a dwarf, an overweight bookish sort, wheelchair-bound kid, dude missing an arm, a bastard or two, skin issues, etc. ;)

“Rest of us”

Who is “us” and who is not worthy to be represented?

You realize you’re free not to watch if seeing people that look or live differently than you is upsetting, right?

You seem triggered to me. Sorry about that. Not my intention.

Pointing out the triggering does not reduce the triggering. Nor does apologizing from a position of ethnotechnological privilege.

We are in a time when winning is enraging even to the winner https://mobile.twitter.com/ShannonTheDude/status/15230781188...

Everybody is triggered, all the time, including the unborn, who morn their forced births as sacrifices on the alter of rule of law.

What a bizarre response.

Funny enough there were black people on pirate ships and black people were around in Victorian England. Black people did serve in WWII as well. White people have a long history of white washing roles for Asian people e.g. in Kung Fu, Dr. Strange, Last Air Bender, etc. And inserting themselves in a ahistorical movies e.g. Last Samurai. Mocking black people in vaudeville minstrel roles (e.g. Mickey Mouse). I am not moved by these sudden appeals for accuracy in fiction.

tldr; I shed crocodile tears when I hear that white people are offended by race switching in modern period films.

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