"Diverse" works that aren't woke - when diversity does not fuck a movie/game/book/show up

[Shidoen]

Star Wars The Old Republic before the shitty updates that started with Onslaught. Making Mandalore a black man especially with a good voice actor was pretty cool.

 

[keeptheshitshowgoing]

Exactly.

Another episode I remembered was when Broadway toyed around with Elisa's gun, and ended up shooting her in the gut by accident. Nowadays it would be the perfect excuse to do an anti-gun diatribe, but instead they went with a perfectly reasonable gun safety angle. The point of the episode was very much "Guns are not toys, and they should not be left around unsafe".
I'm still not conformed that Greg Weisman bent the knee to the woke crowd. But I guess he already had a propension for that shit.

The man was wholly prepared to just redeem Demona even after she basically killed people like the rest of the Manhattan clan were in 998. (Save coldstone, Demona, Angela and whoever followed the princess and the Mage to Avalon.)

 

[Mr. Zed da Robot Poon Fed]

Killer7 has a diverse set of assassins. Does that count?

 

[Woke Blue Muttlema]

Fargo. I was actually writing down all the instances of representation that isn’t shite and realized there are so many I was lowkey spoiling the show. So I’ll leave some out of context.

> 2 out of 4 protagonists are women that ended their respective series in a higher standing than they started due to their hard work. Both were mothers.
> The remaining protags are fathers and one is black.
> Series 1 features an enforcer duo composed of a deaf hit man and an interpreter hit man.
> Series 2’s main threat is a Sioux Nam vet that is painfully overqualified in comparison with his employers. The secondary threat is a snubbed black mobster who earns the trust of his organization.
> Series 2’s main leads are two women in different circumstances struggling against social expectations on being women.
> There are two gay couples in two seasons. One of them setup in the 50s between a black woman and a Amerindian-Chinese cross dresser.
> Series 4 is all about the prejudice non-whites faced and how they build communities. Non-white as in black, Italian, Irish, Jewish, etc.

All of this and more in a show that has featured law enforcement in a largely neutral light and has only once taken a jab at the GOP.

 

[Super-Chevy454]

Could we include some tv commercials as well? I think the Burger King Kids clubs would fit that category.

 

[Life is Hell...]

I think Disney's Amphibia, Hamster and Gretel and The Ghost and Molly McGee are pretty entertaining, and offer diversity that's not constantly hammered into your face like Owl House, Craig of The Creek or Dead End: Paranormal Park....

 

[Pokemon Conquistador]

Obscure example: Daughter of the Dragon, a Fu Manchu movie from the 1930s that features Anna May Wong, (an actual Asian woman) playing the daughter of Sax Rohmer's stereotypical yellow peril villain, Fu Manchu. During a time when most Fu Manchu movies were exploitative schlock (albeit fun, exploitative schlock,) this is a movie that actually portrayed Asian characters sympathetically. It also featured a serious love triangle between the daughter of Fu Manchu, a Chinese detective, and a white man. Compared to other yellow peril movies of the time, it was downright progressive.

Blakes 7, a British science fiction series from the 70s that turned the utopian vision of Star Trek on its ear and portrayed Earth as an oppressive colonizer. It featured several prominent women in the cast, one of them black, and one of them portraying the main villain of the series, Servalan. It also wasn't afraid to make its characters morally ambiguous. Avon, a thief who joined with the rebels, was frequently okay with endangering others to further his goals, while the main character Blake, was a bit of a Boy Scout. So you have diversity of opinion as well as diversity of identity. This series also wasn't afraid to kill off main characters. Long before people were soyjacking over Game of Thrones' willingness to throw main characters to the wolves, Blakes 7 was killing them onscreen and offscreen (although this was largely due to production troubles and actors leaving the production between seasons.)

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I think Games Workshop managed to toe that line in its media even in recent years. 40K can have blacks and women as main/side characters without devolving into putting them on a pedestal, and it stayed out of framing modern politics in its settings.

 

[huecoffs02]

Recently saw Matilda the Musical. It had a theatrical run despite being a Netflix thing, so I saw it in the theater.

A lot of characters were race-swapped, like Miss Honey and Mrs Phelps. It seemed like that they were trying to fill some kind of race quota, but other than that, it wasn't all that woke.

Still kept some politically incorrect things in there, like the fact that the Trunchbull is quite clearly a closeted lesbian, a psychotic one at that. My mom also thought that the opening song was very pro-life in nature.

There are some things I didn't like from this version, but the diversity was fine. It wasn't "in your face" and actually used it as a foreshadowing moment when Matilda sees herself in the basement in her story.

 

[Mr. ShadowCreek]

Pleasantville is a good movie. It's about two 90s teens getting sucked into a black and white 50s sitcom. Everything there is perfect like you see in any real sitcom from the 50s like I Love Lucy or Leave It To Beaver and nothing ever changes. The teens then show that change isn't bad and the town and people start to turn color. It's also pretty funny. Ine one scene a tree catches on fire and they don't know what a fire is. The male teen tried to warn them leading to this.

 

[Stanley Ipkiss]

This show wasn't trying to say anything about diversity, but it sticks in my head as something I saw as a wee lad that sort of normalized that people just look different sometimes:
Dexter's laboratory
1. Deedee's friends

I remember the first time I saw this episode I just thought "Huh. That's really neat". I'm not white, and I never saw different races being friends like this in my everyday life up to that point, so this opened my eyes a bit. Funny thing is I didn't need anyone preaching to me about it. As a developing child with some level of thinking ability, I just figured that people look different and that doesn't stop them from being friends.

2. Mandark/Susan.

Looking back on it now I know he's not white, but at the time, I just knew him as Dexter's arrogant rival who hides his loneliness with his lab and tech, only finding meaning in antagonizing (or "playing with") his best friend arch nemesis Dexter and his crush on Deedee. He got his heart crushed by Deedee and struggled to find his own identity amidst heavy smothering from his hippie parents. I thought of all of this before I ever wondered what race he was, and I honestly wouldn't have cared if he and every member of the show's cast was white, because it was a really entertaining show and I didn't need to see people of my race in an American cartoon to feel good about myself.

I feel like if you like or even vaguely remember a character and then later remember "oh right she's Asian", that's a really well done character.

Old one but MTV Downtown was a solid diverse cast. Urban young adult (other then Goat) and teens with their NYC shennigans. I miss that show so much.
View attachment 3293142

An odd one is commericals from the 90 and earlier. I put on retro holiday commerical montages during the holidays to play in the background (don't judge, its wholesome!) And they tend to be surprisingly diverse.

Is that show somehow related to Megas XLR? It can't be a coincidence that the Goats in both shows look so similar.

 

[Jimjamflimflam]

Is that show somehow related to Megas XLR? It can't be a coincidence that the Goats in both shows look so similar.

Yep, same creators. It's why the POP TV (where POP looked like a M. Downtown was on MTV at the time) property would get destroyed in every episode.

Goat was a fun character but it was a bit weird seeing him in a children's cartoon when he was a shifty druggie horndog loser in Downtown. Though its nice to see that he's doing better in life and become a junkyard owner.

Still remember him in the comic con episode.

"Check this out man, underage midget porn. They are small and misproportioned, yet still sexy!"

I cant recommend Downtown enough. It was a fantastic show that didn't get to live long enough.

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

Death in Paradise. A BBC crime series set filmed on the French-Caribbean island of Guadeloupe (the actual setting is a fictional island) meaning that it is entirely logical the main cast look like this.



White boy there is not actually the highest ranking officer. That would be the commissioner.


(this expression does not convey the excellent comedic delivery Don Warrington has. I would watch this man in anything)

Non-recurring cast splits fairly evenly in terms of ethnicity, you're as likely to have a group of tourists visiting the island being the murder suspects of the week as a bunch of natives. I believe the majority of the murders end up as white folk but that's more a case of the BBC having easier access to pasty folk willing to head out somewhere sunny for a guest role than any sort of bias.

Fairly by the numbers show but a collection of solid actors over the show's run has provided some darn good episodes. The first iteration of cast are the best but a number of subsequent episodes are still all right even if I have stopped keeping up with it.

I'm also suspicious that the more recent series Almost Paradise starring Christian Kane might have lifted some ideas from the show.

 

[4ChanWarrior1488]

Kids Next Door was fire. Courage the Cowardly Dog too. Both had a pretty wacky range of characters from all backgrounds without making it look like it was forced into the story line.

 

[Thiletonomics]

The premade families in the first three Sims games, were all based on various cultural backgrounds, but it never felt like it was forcefully done. Some examples include:

-The Caliente Family in Sims 2, which appear to be a Latino family, with some Arabic and even alien DNA mixed within.

-The Lothario Family (although the games only have Don Lothario as playable, and he's one of the most well-known Sims in the franchise), appears to be an Italian family, or the Sim equivalent of one.

-The Alvi Family in Sims 3 appears to be Pakistani.

-The Sombre household, in one of the TS3 DLC worlds, appears to be a Korean industrial band. And I don't think Korea is known for that genre of music, with K-Pop being forcefully shoved in people's faces all of the time.

-The Shear family, in the TS3 DLC world Roaring Heights, is a lesbian couple that has a son that was "created by science", which could be a reference to the feature where two Sims (regardless of gender pairing), can engineer a child with the Into the Future expansion pack.

Sadly, with The Sims 4, the devs pushed the diversity deal way too hard, and seemingly at the expense of other game features, and that game itself launched in a VERY barebones state. TS4 had things such as troon sims, non-binary sims, gender customization (which was added before toddlers were re-added to the game), pronouns, sexual preferences (which cannot be disabled, since according to the devs, it is a part of life that cannot be "turned off"), and the Home redecorating stuff pack trailer featured a trans flag in a child's bedroom.

 

[IDanceonTrannyGraves]

Death in Paradise. A BBC crime series set filmed on the French-Caribbean island of Guadeloupe (the actual setting is a fictional island) meaning that it is entirely logical the main cast look like this.

View attachment 4207372

White boy there is not actually the highest ranking officer. That would be the commissioner.

View attachment 4207380
(this expression does not convey the excellent comedic delivery Don Warrington has. I would watch this man in anything)

Non-recurring cast splits fairly evenly in terms of ethnicity, you're as likely to have a group of tourists visiting the island being the murder suspects of the week as a bunch of natives. I believe the majority of the murders end up as white folk but that's more a case of the BBC having easier access to pasty folk willing to head out somewhere sunny for a guest role than any sort of bias.

Fairly by the numbers show but a collection of solid actors over the show's run has provided some darn good episodes. The first iteration of cast are the best but a number of subsequent episodes are still all right even if I have stopped keeping up with it.

I'm also suspicious that the more recent series Almost Paradise starring Christian Kane might have lifted some ideas from the show.

I dropped out for a while but the most recent white boy they have is pretty good and the Christmas special they just aired was entertaining.

 

[Gorillion others]

Early Edition.

 

[Gorillion others]

Rugrats. Chaz and Kira are an interracial couple and the show doesn't blow it's own horn about that. The Carmichaels are black and that's never touted as something extraordinary. Suzie is a good character, being able to stand up to Angelica. Mr. and Mrs. Carmichael also have excellent jobs (tv writer and doctor respectively) and only Stu draws attention to it because he's a huge fanboy of the show Mr. Carmichael works on; not because Mr. Carmichael is a black man who works in show business. The Carmichaels are also far and away the best parents on the show because they actually supervise their kids and don't let them get in to and out of life-threatening situations constantly.

When Susie's oldest sister is an adult in All Grown Up, she's responsible and planning to settle down with her long time boyfriend (or husband). You remember the episode that Susie was conned by a "talent scout"? Yeah, that's where she shined, and didn't have to be hamfisted.

 

[SpiderBitch]

Not sure if youtube content counts, but Vivinos is an animator/director on youtube who I'm pretty sure is a Korean lesbian working together with mainly her girlfriend.
Because of this, most of her short animations include lesbians, but not only are the shorts very good besides that, and not only is she also capable of telling stories about regular female friendship, she also has a fair amount of videos where the (or one of the) lesbian character(s) is actually the bad guy, and surprisingly homophobia doesn't seem to be the bad guy in any of the animations.

This one is quite unsettling, and if anyone but a lesbian made it they would probably be accused of homophobia lol:

And for children's media, I thought the early/original Winx club did a pretty good job at having a diverse cast without being obnoxious about it, especially for a show made in 92% white Italy.
The characters were afaik not all that stereotypical either, with the latina being a softspoken hippie, the asian being a spunky music lover and not the nerd, and the black girl is athletic and opinionated but she's also a well-educted, sensitive and caring princess, and the show had a very big focus on friendship.

Also the main character has both adopted parents and biological parents who get along well with eachother, another one has divorced parents, another one has a dead mom etc, they all come from quite different family situations.
And all of them got their own romantic plolines, and the poc characters were just normal characters and their relationships just normal (serious) relationships.
Show also had some wild but fun plots like the main love interest having a fake identity to avoid being murderered by terrorists.

Way better on that front than many modern Western magical girl cartoons, especially compared to nuSheRa, which doesn't even appeal to kids and is watched exclusively by immature teenagers and womanchildren.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Predator 2.