My View:

Throughout the duration of my short blog I made my attempt at discussing what I perceive as the most significant problems of ethnic diversity representation in Hollywood as of now. The pretentiousness and hypocrisy of the industry are evidently a large detriment to the aim, consequently ending up with a badly infused political and economic agenda with what should be a work of art. In this short essay, however I would like to discuss a certain example of what the writing of ‘diversity’ should be in my view.

 

In my blog, I mentioned a couple of times certain characteristics that are pertained by the token characters, which primarily include lack of dimension, further development and relevance to the plot. One of many such examples could be the character of Lukas Sinclair in Stranger Things, who was allegedly disliked by the fandom not only due to his particularly unlikable character traits, e.g. his aggressive dislike for Eleven, which ultimately festered some hate towards the actor himself, as people evidently have a hard time differentiating fiction from reality (Willis, 2017), but also the treatment of his character by the directors. As P. L. Thomas (2021) mentions in his article, that the cast of the show is predominantly white, with Lucas being the only black character who gets little to no development throughout the duration of four seasons of the show. While we dive deep into the most of the white characters’ background and motivations, we never really quite receive the same amount of detail about Lucas’ life. With the arrival of another white character in season two, he does receive his love interest arc, however that does not necessarily grant any more dimension to his persona.

 

The newly released animated series Arcane (2021) can be seen as piece of work that addresses all of the mentioned faults. Arcane’s narrative is highly multilayered, which may be seen both through the complexity of the plots and characters’ development (however I would have to write a whole new essay to unpack all of the intricacies) and received a substantial amount of praise with their diversity. However, the key point lies in the fact that the story is not centered around that political issue. What Arcane succeeded at is making the story very organic. We meet characters of many ethnical backgrounds, Jayce, who is according to the fans of Mexican-American origin, is one of the main characters within the series and in many ways a driving force of the plot together with Mel, a black lady who is immediately introduced to us from the position of power but was certainly further developed and shown to be a talented leader and an excellent diplomat, however some of her ambitions may also appear questionable, and this ambiguity helps to make her persona realistic. The list may go on however all of these characters are not well written because they are of a certain race, but they are well written because of their character itself. To my understanding, this is what should be promoted, because equality entails seeing one as everybody else.

 

As soon as race or gender becomes definitive in portrayal of one’s personality, that character’s fate is often severed. 

 

Resources: 

Willis, K. (2017, November 16). ‘Stranger Things’ Fans Defend Caleb McLaughlin from ‘Fantasy Land’ Fans. Atlanta Black Star. Retrieved from: https://atlantablackstar.com/2017/11/16/stranger-things-fans-defend-caleb-mclaughlin-fantasy-land-fans/

 

Thomas, P. L. (2021, August 11). Stranger Things: The Eternal Whiteness of the Pop Culture Mind. Radical Scholarship. Retrieved from: https://radicalscholarship.com/2021/08/11/stranger-things-the-eternal-whiteness-of-the-pop-culture-mind/