>> This is key. As long as there is little diversity in the creator positions, it almost feels like we're given a choice between stories with no diversity or stories with token diversity done badly.<<
Exactly. To have diverse stories, we need diverse creators and consumers. Preferably, we need gathering spots where they can all hang out together.
The latter is harder than it looks. I tried a Carl Sandburg party once. People got to talking about their "black story," the one all the writers of color have done with no white characters. Everyone could name theirs. Their one black story. I named one ... paused, named another ... and another ... and everyone was staring at me. "What?" I said. "Those are all stories set in places that don't have any white people. But I haven't got them sorted that way in my mind, I have to scroll through the list." Apparently nobody else did it that way. They'd written one story about blackness and moved on, instead of writing stories in places populated by black people. :/
Happily, I have a blog where people of all colors, shapes, abilities, orientations, and identities can mingle freely. This greatly improves both the amount and the quality of diversity.
>> (And in Hollywood in particular, if a film with prominent minority characters does badly, it's seen as proof that only white men sell at the box office, never as proof that bad storytelling results in bad films.) <<
Yeah, but that's because they've not studied storytelling. They think computer animation sells movies, too, and don't realize it's more about Pixar's excellent storytelling fostered by geek culture. They'd do better to hold paper airplane contests than splurge on new software.
Re: Individual solutions
Exactly. To have diverse stories, we need diverse creators and consumers. Preferably, we need gathering spots where they can all hang out together.
The latter is harder than it looks. I tried a Carl Sandburg party once. People got to talking about their "black story," the one all the writers of color have done with no white characters. Everyone could name theirs. Their one black story. I named one ... paused, named another ... and another ... and everyone was staring at me. "What?" I said. "Those are all stories set in places that don't have any white people. But I haven't got them sorted that way in my mind, I have to scroll through the list." Apparently nobody else did it that way. They'd written one story about blackness and moved on, instead of writing stories in places populated by black people. :/
Happily, I have a blog where people of all colors, shapes, abilities, orientations, and identities can mingle freely. This greatly improves both the amount and the quality of diversity.
>> (And in Hollywood in particular, if a film with prominent minority characters does badly, it's seen as proof that only white men sell at the box office, never as proof that bad storytelling results in bad films.) <<
Yeah, but that's because they've not studied storytelling. They think computer animation sells movies, too, and don't realize it's more about Pixar's excellent storytelling fostered by geek culture. They'd do better to hold paper airplane contests than splurge on new software.