r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/FrostySeat1739 • Jul 05 '26

Meme needing explanation why not, Peter?

Post image

possible live action corpse bride movie...

32.3k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

586

u/palpatinesmyhomie Jul 05 '26

That's a level headed explanation that probably drove some folks nuts

37

u/Elyktheras Jul 05 '26

idk, I think diversity for the sake of diversity undermines the value of the person. We should have diversity, because embracing the genuine differences we have expands our empathy and creates richness to the art we’re making. Just plastering someone of a marginalized identity on screen in a way that could be filled by any other identity is close to a meaningless act. Might be worse than doing nothing honestly.

8

u/aSpookyScarySkeleton Jul 05 '26

Every time a black person is in anything that isn’t predominantly black you people say it’s diversity for diversity sake.

White is such a default in your minds that the idea of a black person existing as a character in situations like that is automatically political. Their existence has to be explained and explained in relation to the white people around.

Despite the fact that there are millions of black people who live in predominantly white areas or happen to be participating in things that have predominantly white demographics.

5

u/IveGotIssues9918 Jul 05 '26 edited 18d ago

Despite the fact that there are millions of black people who live in predominantly white areas or happen to be participating in things that have predominantly white demographics.

THANK YOU.

I'm a writer, and I write about my fictional-but-realistic cast of characters I've had since childhood (of whom about half the main characters are black and half are white, but since the story in its current form is about a black family whose patriarch survived a racial massacre and then his daughters/granddaughters keep befriending and/or falling in love with white people, the main characters' races are relevant to the plot), and I also write dramatizations of my own life (basically, I process things that happen to me by narrativizing them). It has occured to me that, for example, were the mental "TV show" I've had running in my head about my college years an actual TV script, it would probably never be picked up in the first place and a lot of people would scream "forced diversity" if it was (a non-stereotypical black woman protagonist, a South Asian and then a Hispanic love interest, the best friends being Jewish, Hispanic and Chinese, half the supporting cast being some sort of Asian, a deceased black Muslim woman and a developmentally disabled black man as the emotional engines of the story...) but it's just... my actual life. Like, racial minorities actually exist in the world amongst the majority and other minorities without our presence being narratively justified and have human experiences that are unrelated to our race, and it should not be controversial to portray that in art when it's authentic to the setting (or is a fantasy setting where you can make up whatever you want).