She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I think they do--if the main character on a popular show is X, then X becomes more acceptable to the kids. Also, there's a tendency in our society to consider LGBT issues "adult", which is why breaking that down and pointing out that gay kids have the same, say, romantic issues as straight kids, stuff like that, will help equalize society.

I'd add on this: seeing yourself on screen matters. A lot. And while young young children generally don't have a concept of attraction yet, having stories in their memories to draw upon can help immensely in contextualizing those feelings when they do emerge.

And let's be real, the busy bodies pushing against such representation know it. If a kid has words and language and stories for their experiences as they grow up, makes it impossible for them to convince them it's somehow weird or sinful or unnatural, however it gets phrased that day.
(Heck, this is true for *adults* too. Spend about 15 minutes in the queer parts of twitter for example, you'll find a dozen stories of people who knew something was different but they could only figure it out and explore it once they had words to describe it. Language and stories are foundational for human thought.)

Well said.

That's why I think that we should flood media with LGBT characters, to correct the imbalance, before we go back to edit. I mean, it took HOW long for "The Incredibles 2" to accurately portray a realistic family dynamic (superpowers aside) in the movies, after decades of cartoon stereotypes? Get the representation first, then refine down to the good stuff.

Flood the media with LGBT characters? You do know that only 4.5% of Americans identify as LGBT right? Even if we account for those that have not yet come out and thus would not show up on any study, it would be disingenuous to suggest that the figure would go above 10% without further evidence to the contrary. Going too far in the opposite direction is just as wrong as having no homosexuals on television and film at all because it comes off as pandering. And it isn't just me that says that, any decent Google search will reveal plenty of LGBT folks that consider the approach that you are suggesting to be offensive. Most want representation, not saturation.

You have never talked to a queer person offline in your blessed life, have you?

[Yukaphile]

Or perhaps even those who support the LGBT community and queer people?

[Madner Kami]

You can't right one wrong by comitting a new wrong. If representation is supposed to represent everyone, then everyone needs to be represented. If your only choice for protagonists are non-heterosexuals, then you missed your own basic point.

[clearspira]

I think they do--if the main character on a popular show is X, then X becomes more acceptable to the kids. Also, there's a tendency in our society to consider LGBT issues "adult", which is why breaking that down and pointing out that gay kids have the same, say, romantic issues as straight kids, stuff like that, will help equalize society.

I'd add on this: seeing yourself on screen matters. A lot. And while young young children generally don't have a concept of attraction yet, having stories in their memories to draw upon can help immensely in contextualizing those feelings when they do emerge.

And let's be real, the busy bodies pushing against such representation know it. If a kid has words and language and stories for their experiences as they grow up, makes it impossible for them to convince them it's somehow weird or sinful or unnatural, however it gets phrased that day.
(Heck, this is true for *adults* too. Spend about 15 minutes in the queer parts of twitter for example, you'll find a dozen stories of people who knew something was different but they could only figure it out and explore it once they had words to describe it. Language and stories are foundational for human thought.)

Well said.

That's why I think that we should flood media with LGBT characters, to correct the imbalance, before we go back to edit. I mean, it took HOW long for "The Incredibles 2" to accurately portray a realistic family dynamic (superpowers aside) in the movies, after decades of cartoon stereotypes? Get the representation first, then refine down to the good stuff.

Flood the media with LGBT characters? You do know that only 4.5% of Americans identify as LGBT right? Even if we account for those that have not yet come out and thus would not show up on any study, it would be disingenuous to suggest that the figure would go above 10% without further evidence to the contrary. Going too far in the opposite direction is just as wrong as having no homosexuals on television and film at all because it comes off as pandering. And it isn't just me that says that, any decent Google search will reveal plenty of LGBT folks that consider the approach that you are suggesting to be offensive. Most want representation, not saturation.

You have never talked to a queer person offline in your blessed life, have you?

Have you looked up the definition of strawman yet?

[clearspira]

You can't right one wrong by comitting a new wrong. If representation is supposed to represent everyone, then everyone needs to be represented. If your only choice for protagonists are non-heterosexuals, then you missed your own basic point.

Exactly.

[MissKittyFantastico]

Just for context, for anyone reading who hasn't watched the show, there's plenty of straight among the main cast of She-Ra as well.

[Karha of Honor]

With respect, even if every creator who wanted to flood the market with LGBT representation got an automatic funding deal no questions asked, the market's still going to have plenty of dry land. Maybe at some point in the future the baseline will have moved far enough for oversaturation to be a concern, but barring some massive societal shift, not in my lifetime.

Dry land in the past or the future.

Pretty sure markets can work really slow and i saw that dirt cheap Roseanne show get murdered and she was not even a true Right Winger.

The Left still has a veto over what right wing bigger budget entertainment gets made.

[CmdrKing]

You can't right one wrong by comitting a new wrong. If representation is supposed to represent everyone, then everyone needs to be represented. If your only choice for protagonists are non-heterosexuals, then you missed your own basic point.

Let's pretend for a moment this is a real or achievable goal. Every new show is all queer all the time.
Still wouldn't have too big an impact on the representation of straight people in culture.

1) the thousands of existing articles of media that are disproportionately straight? They still exist. That's how dominant culture works, its artifacts are ubiquitous and lasting.
1a) Are you adding some hidden assumption of the deletion of existing cultural products? Aside from being even more impossible, there's a hilarious irony to that given the heroic lengths generations of scholars have gone to to erase as much queer history as possible. Oh hey wait we love all this Greek culture, gotta scrub Plato and Aristotle and Sparta and Alexander the Great of all that pesky man on man action.
2) the vast, vast majority of children would have straight role models in an all-queer-media environment. Those people what donated half their DNA and all their time and money to their creation, whatchacallit... parents! That's it.
3) The fact that a non-zero number of queer people exist in media has caused the creation of a cottage industry of 'independent' 'family values' media. Like PureFlix already exists now, thinking such things wouldn't gain strength in such a scenario goes beyond conspiracy theory into literal magic.

Oh, yes.

4) It would probably be better at this point for straight folk if they did have to go out looking for answers to how "being straight" works. Like gotta say, the degree to which we say "welp, you're straight, this is just how it is, you got this figured out!" when people are very obviously extremely confused on dating, relationships, sex, and basic human interaction in general between people of other genders is downright irresponsible. If this sort of extreme measure is what it takes to get people to actually talk to their goddamned kids about life and relationships, welp, finally something did.

Seriously, the LGBTQ community seizing total control of media would still pale before the oppression inflicted on them during the 20th century, and protesting the increase of queer representation or creation in media out of fairness is absurd. In the purest sense doing such a thing would ultimately not be a net gain, but it'd also be wholly impossible to start with, so y'know what? Absurd statements designed to vent frustration are a pretty dumb way to attack the overall point.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I think they do--if the main character on a popular show is X, then X becomes more acceptable to the kids. Also, there's a tendency in our society to consider LGBT issues "adult", which is why breaking that down and pointing out that gay kids have the same, say, romantic issues as straight kids, stuff like that, will help equalize society.

I'd add on this: seeing yourself on screen matters. A lot. And while young young children generally don't have a concept of attraction yet, having stories in their memories to draw upon can help immensely in contextualizing those feelings when they do emerge.

And let's be real, the busy bodies pushing against such representation know it. If a kid has words and language and stories for their experiences as they grow up, makes it impossible for them to convince them it's somehow weird or sinful or unnatural, however it gets phrased that day.
(Heck, this is true for *adults* too. Spend about 15 minutes in the queer parts of twitter for example, you'll find a dozen stories of people who knew something was different but they could only figure it out and explore it once they had words to describe it. Language and stories are foundational for human thought.)

Well said.

That's why I think that we should flood media with LGBT characters, to correct the imbalance, before we go back to edit. I mean, it took HOW long for "The Incredibles 2" to accurately portray a realistic family dynamic (superpowers aside) in the movies, after decades of cartoon stereotypes? Get the representation first, then refine down to the good stuff.

Flood the media with LGBT characters? You do know that only 4.5% of Americans identify as LGBT right? Even if we account for those that have not yet come out and thus would not show up on any study, it would be disingenuous to suggest that the figure would go above 10% without further evidence to the contrary. Going too far in the opposite direction is just as wrong as having no homosexuals on television and film at all because it comes off as pandering. And it isn't just me that says that, any decent Google search will reveal plenty of LGBT folks that consider the approach that you are suggesting to be offensive. Most want representation, not saturation.

You have never talked to a queer person offline in your blessed life, have you?

Have you looked up the definition of strawman yet?

First answer my question.

[MissKittyFantastico]

Dry land in the past or the future.

Eh? Without the Waterworld analogy then - I don't see any way, in my lifetime, for the quantity of LGBT representation in media to reach a point where straight representation could be considered threatened. Ain't gonna happen. Worrying about straight representation is on the level of worrying about us turning out to be too good at reversing climate change - we're still, as a whole, stampeding so fast the wrong way that us ending up having to deal with a Snowpiercer accidentally-froze-the-world scenario would probably still be a net positive result.

So apparently there has to be a sci-fi analogy, can't help it.