It is a problem when the creator aims to realistiocally portray modern or historical society for audience over ten years old. I've read far too many novels set in pre war period where Jewish kids are friends with goische kids and everything is just peachy, they probably have a Black friend too! I hate those sugar-coated fantasies pretending to be realistic. Anyways, my main problem is stories giving the roles of cishet WASPy men to characters who aren't, but still writing them as they would have wrote cishet WASPy men. Let's take Voltron, because it's a good subject for this type of analysis. Excluding the disastrous s8 totally, we learn nothing about how being Cuban influences Lance, what Italian culture means to Pidge and Matt, what does it mean to be mixed Polynesian and Black for Hunk, even IF Keith is a part-Native living in a reserve (popular fandom theory) or part-Asian (another fandom theory), what parts of Japanese culture does Shiro hold particularly dear - hell, we aren't even shown Shiro as a gay man beyond a brief scene that establishes him as a gay man! Meanwhile, invented Altean culture gets plenty of focus, and being mixed half-galra (bad aliens) half something else is a big source of angst for Keith and Lotor! This would have been a good moment to talk with Hunk, who similarly has experience as a mixed person, but nope. What are the good examples? Steven Universe, obviously, with its lesbian, nonbinary, and Desi characters being explicitly lesbian, nonbinary or Desi while starring in a scifi cartoon. Ms Marvel, where the character's ethnicity and religion is unalienable from her stories. Hazbin Hotel, which paradoxically in one episode established more queer characters than any animated series that is not anime safe for Steven Universe. New She-Ra looks like going there.
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Anyways, my main problem is stories giving the roles of cishet WASPy men to characters who aren't, but still writing them as they would have wrote cishet WASPy men. Let's take Voltron, because it's a good subject for this type of analysis. Excluding the disastrous s8 totally, we learn nothing about how being Cuban influences Lance, what Italian culture means to Pidge and Matt, what does it mean to be mixed Polynesian and Black for Hunk, even IF Keith is a part-Native living in a reserve (popular fandom theory) or part-Asian (another fandom theory), what parts of Japanese culture does Shiro hold particularly dear - hell, we aren't even shown Shiro as a gay man beyond a brief scene that establishes him as a gay man! Meanwhile, invented Altean culture gets plenty of focus, and being mixed half-galra (bad aliens) half something else is a big source of angst for Keith and Lotor! This would have been a good moment to talk with Hunk, who similarly has experience as a mixed person, but nope.
What are the good examples? Steven Universe, obviously, with its lesbian, nonbinary, and Desi characters being explicitly lesbian, nonbinary or Desi while starring in a scifi cartoon. Ms Marvel, where the character's ethnicity and religion is unalienable from her stories. Hazbin Hotel, which paradoxically in one episode established more queer characters than any animated series that is not anime safe for Steven Universe. New She-Ra looks like going there.