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"(According to [1], only 1% of Americans are Muslim, and 60+% are Christian--and I would be shocked if 60+% of American film characters are identifiably Christian never mind [how they are portrayed][2])"

Yet both Muslims and Christians are in the news a lot, and there's a lot of political discussion about them.

It would be refreshing if more mainstream fictional media featured them in realistic, three-dimensional portrayals rather than as faceless stereotypes, wouldn't you agree?

for me, personally, absolutely not. I want thoughtful portrayal of character in media that I consume, but am in no way desiring yet more religious representation.

This seems like an odd take to me. What is the point of film and fiction if not to see and experience things you otherwise cannot or would not?

The question I have is what is being preserved by not having a diversity of backgrounds, ethnicities and belief systems in films?

The parent seems to be suggesting that he doesn't want the emphasis to be on diversity, but rather on quality of characters. This doesn't imply that the characters have to be homogeneous.

Having "diverse" characters does not automatically make a movie more interesting. In fact, if you are relying on demographics (religion, race, sexuality) alone to make a character interesting, there is a very good chance the characters are flat, boring, and lazily written.

Of course having diverse characters does not automatically make a movie more interesting.

But interesting movies can be made about diverse characters as they can about homogeneous characters.

Only depicting homogeneous societies furthers ignorance and demonization of people who are different.

Showing more diversity, in interesting, authentic, and deep ways is one an important way we have of striving towards a society where we better understand and value one another, and get along.

> Only depicting homogeneous societies furthers ignorance and demonization of people who are different.

I think you're arguing against a straw man. It seems pretty clear that no one is arguing for less diversity, but rather against diversity for its own sake or prioritizing it above all other concerns.

I haven’t seen a realistic Hollywood portrayal of an average American family in the last 20 years because the secular corporate culture is so willfully ignorant. This is argued as being a feature of interesting content though since ‘nothing average is interesting’.

It has skewed perception, but whether that matters is up for debate.

What would a realistic portrayal of an average American family look like to you?

>> It would be refreshing if more mainstream fictional media featured them in realistic, three-dimensional portrayals rather than as faceless stereotypes

Yes and no. First, so much media has fallen down when it comes to character development. Then there's the problem of big companies like Disney that are deliberately secular in their content.

> First, so much media has fallen down when it comes to character development.

That's the handy thing about essentialism, you don't need an individual character when you have pre-packaged narratives about their race, gender, etc. Rather than a complex character, we get a canned Black character or a canned White character or a canned Female character or a canned Male character. What do you need to know about a person that you can't infer from their immutable characteristics? (:

I recently read that the main character in "They Live" had an entire backstory that was never told in the movie. Someone (producer, director, ???) Told Roddy Piper to create a backstory for his character and he did, and he played that part even though it was never shared with anyone. I'd thought about that myself for writing - if you define each character ahead of time and keep their character in mind it will aid writing their parts so they are seamless and self-consistent.

> Yet both Muslims and Christians are in the news a lot, and there's a lot of political discussion about them.

I'm not sure what your point is? That Muslims and Christians should be grateful that the news media talks about them a bit more than the entertainment media? To be clear, I'm not arguing that any particular group should have more representation; I'm criticizing the media for its increasingly propagandist angles.

> It would be refreshing if more mainstream fictional media featured them in realistic, three-dimensional portrayals rather than as faceless stereotypes, wouldn't you agree?

In general, yes, but that doesn't justify misleading or agenda-driven news media. And in any case, every time people try to "fix" the entertainment media, we end up with awful content (e.g., the GhostBusters reboot) and frankly I don't want to sacrifice that much quality for sake of representation. My wife and I were just talking about how many really good pre-2015 films wouldn't be made today because they don't thrust the characters' race, gender, etc into the foreground.

"I'm not sure what your point is?"

My point is that religious people, whether Christian, Muslim, or whatever, have a serious impact on our lives, and it would benefit everyone if we engaged with them as real people rather than fantasy stereotypes.

Fictional media can help with this by giving us insight in to what people are really like. My contention is that this is more desirable than merely leaving them as faceless talking points in the news.

Ok, so are we in agreement? Your original response sounded like you were expressing disagreement.

IMO it takes serious anthropological commitment to have a non-idiot understanding of a people. I feel this shouldn't be an individual job. Either your entire community has deep, embedded relations with another community or it doesn't.

Otherwise it's like asking for better sources to read about Chinese culture, or like visiting China once a year for vacation. You can't read your way into being culturally competent. You might even move your entire family to China, but it may only be your children who truly begin the road to integration. Anyone who is part of an immigrant community will have a story of the trajectory of cultural competency. It is an optimism which must be fulfilled by your next generation.

You can, however, follow generic protocols of kindness whilst in ignorance.

Of course, seeing a movie on the Himalayas is no substitute for visiting the Himalayas, and that's no substitute to living in the Himalayas.

But I'd rather have there be movies on the Himalayas than not, even when we are aware it's not a perfect substitute for the real thing.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

The standard here is being barely adequate, not perfect. Anyone who is part of an immigrant community knows how hard it is to be adequate. That's why you pass on this optimism to the next generation while you blindly chase cultural fads, hoping your kids will fit in.

You smile and nod your way through.

Anyways, the call here is for community integration, not for individual action.

Are you saying fictional media are incapable of having a barely adequate portrayal of immigrants?

Are you integrated into an immigrant community? Are you part of a church that deals with immigration? Or an ethnic business community that is part of the immigration chain? Or is your community well integrated with those you seek to understand?

Why go it alone?

Is one's clarity on community affairs the difference between choosing WION and India Times? Or The World Journal?

The problem is that movies influence what we think the truth is. Is Tokyo like the Godzilla movies? I would hope that everything not obviously related to the fictional attack is realistic to how the people actually live, because like it or not movies influence us.

If your only view of Tokyo is what you get through Godzilla movies then you definitely have a problem.

The solution is better movies on Tokyo, not no movies on Tokyo.

You're in luck, though, because there are plenty of great movies on Tokyo -- movies that even people living in Tokyo find give great insights in to their own society.

> It would be refreshing if

I'm more interested in them making more of an effort at a good story.

Interestingly Mormons are 2% of the US population (twice the Muslim %), and I can't think of a single openly Mormon character in any TV show I've ever seen.

Aside from HBO’s ‘Big Love’ I can’t think of any non-comedy fictions shows featuring Mormons.

Starship Troopers but they were more of a "Black man dies first in horror movie" type role.

Gary on South Park. Of course, that was 18 years ago. There's also a few very minor Mormon characters on The Expanse.

The Mormon characters are minor, for sure, but their mission plays a huge plot role. The Nauvoo!

Yeah, there's also a lot of Mormon-themed artwork and symbolism on the Nauvoo as well.

There have been movies, such as The Other Side of Heaven.

But as a former Mormon myself I think entertainment is more interesting if it focuses on what we have in common despite our differences, rather than focusing solely on amplifying differences.

Cole on House, Big Love?

They have a whole state to themselves and they're pre-dominantly white. Mormons also produce their own media, they're in the middle of making a multi-part Book of Mormon series. They're an insuluar sect much like Jehovah's Witnesses, so they're not _demanding_ mainstream representation on principle, much like the Amish.

Not to say you're not touching on the question of _why_ we're so enthusiastic in media representation for those of the Islamic faith however, but the Mormons are a pretty open and shut case

Mitt Romney shows up in all kinds of tv shows on fox news

The Expanse had a generation ship for Mormons and a main character has a conversation with a Mormon on a transport ship.

Good catch. As someone who works with data for a living I know that just about all stats need context to be meaningful. I notice a lot of stats in news given without context as you have noted.

When analyzing data typically the first thing you do is take out the outliers and then focus on the remaining data. News outlets do the opposite, the take the outlier and make it the headline story and ignore the other 99% of the data.

American media is a global industry and is serving a customer base of much more than the US population.

True, but they're making most of their money from western whiter countries. Which is reflected in their actors/stars. However this is already changing and will get better as the global market continues to expand.

As a non-american, it's not getting better, it's just getting weird. Like this parallel fantasy reality that americans have come up with and convinced themselves that it's what the world outside looks like, that actually has nothing to do with anywhere on earth.

It's funny when somewhere in your country is portrayed in an american movie or series.

This is how Americans who aren't from LA or NYC feel as well.

not sure this is correct. We may need to get actual numbers or divide up 'film / media' into different segments..

I recall seeing news about big movies, eg transformers and others where in order to satisfy the global market, ie China, decisions needed to be made.. and given that many of those markets appear to be more racist/anti-muslim, (obv not 100, but majority I believe)

and your comment seems to be suggesting [hope] that things above "will get better as the global market continues to expand." -

I'm not chiming in to say this or that is a good or bad thing, just trying to clarify that some things may make one think catering to broader global markets may not make "western whiter countries" more anti-racist or whatever is being suggested as 'changing and will get better' - if that is the perspective being considered for 'get better'.

There are studies showing "diversity" on movie posters hurt sales abroad - and of course there has been local pushback for whitewashing things for increased sales -

Unless we are talking about gov funded wokeness spreading where making money is not a goal. But I did not get that impression from the thread here.

As a non-american, american media does a terrible job of representing anything outside america, so if that's the reason I would really appreciate if they could stop it...

What are you talking about - We have tons of coverage of the following countries in our movies: Genovia, Aldovia AND Belgravia

And don't forget my favourite: Macedonia.

Wakanda looks so nice people were trying to book vacations to go visit!

I thought Black Panther's portrayal of Wakanda was pretty accurate...

They generally do a terrible job representing anything inside America as well.

Isn’t all feature film global at this point? Are there producers in Japan or China who’d say, no I do not want my film exported.

When they present those percentages does that apply only to Hollywood films, or films world-wide? And do foreign films represent their own populations proportionally, should we and they calculate national proportions or global proportions?

Indeed.

If one goes to the desert, they should not expect to see maple trees.

christianity, islam, hinduism, along with the eastern constellation of buddhism/confucianism are the 4 world religions. people of color are roughly 4/5 of the world population. even while christianity and white folks are the majority in the US, it makes sense numerically to have these other aspects of humanity well represented, in addition to white and/or christian. what's puzzling is the outsized representation of jews/judaism (also roughly 1%) in american media considering the stark underrepresentation of black, brown, and asian folks, who account for nearly half of the population (and growing).

> even while christianity and white folks are the majority in the US, it makes sense numerically to have these other aspects of humanity well represented, in addition to white and/or christian.

I’m not white, Christian, or Jewish, and this sentence does not make sense to me. Making entertaining is a business, and it has nothing to do with what percent of people worldwide have what skin color or tribal affiliations.

If people making entertainment predict that they will earn the most money by targeting white, Christian, or Jewish populations, then they should if making the most money is their goal. Have you noticed how every big movie of the last 10+ years has a Chinese character? And a scene in Hong Kong or Shanghai? Many have Latin American characters as well, and Indian, and so on.

ah yes, the token characters, there to either not alienate a foreign market or to meet some superficial diversity quota.

the point is that in a world without significant bias, we'd expect to see many more people of color and of other religions (to name just two aspects) being represented because of sheer numbers and because talents are distributed widely.

but that doesn't happen in this world.

The only world without a bias might be one where everyone is a clone and has the same bank balance.

In the real world, there will always be bias. Height, voice, gender, political affiliations. Forget about bias in US media, there are multiple Hollywood within India itself. And there is nothing wrong with that. They cater to different audiences.

And it does not “make sense” for to expect a group of Tamil film makers to add a couple white, black, Chinese, and Latin American characters of their movie is about people who speak Tamil.

didn't say no bias, but rather without significant bias. instead, we have the narrative peddled about how inclusive and diverse hollywood is, when the stats speak for themselves.

this narrative is one facet of one echo chamber, tying back to the original article.

The last Transformers movie was literally targeted at audiences in China. So maybe it's just market forces...

If you indicated that you want to see more minorities cast - then you have the option of going to see Moonlight, over La-la-land.

Please don't read HuffPo, they're as reliable as The Daily Stormer.