This always been a main complaint about fantasy, and speculative fiction in general. There's a trope name for it call Humans Are White lol. The lack of PoC isn't inherently racist, but it's annoying as hell. Black people existed in the middle ages. What's the problem. But yeah things like that can get kinda tricky in art and entertainment.
For example there's not a snowball chance in hell Bernie Mac's standup routine would fly today.....unfortunately. I miss Bernie
Would Richard Pryor's?
I was going to ignore this conversation, but decided, par usual, to throw in my 2 cents (and that generally morphs into a quarter or fifty cents). First off portraying misogyny, racism, etc. does not mean the material is such nor does it mean it isn't. The problem is, and in some cases it ends up not being important, that it's very difficult to ascertain the writers intent which, to me anyway, is where most criticism should be pointed. Even then, reckless or malintent "can" actually serve to enlighten people. To be clear, I'm not arguing to have a bunch of bonehead bigots write a bunch of shows because they just might accomplish, by accident, something positive.
I think many times, people confuse artistic intent with "their" reaction to it. All of this is interesting to me because, on one hand, something that goes against social norms is going to make some of us uncomfortable. On the other hand, social norms are constantly changing. In a large part, they change "because" some people are pushing boundaries (think Lenny Bruce for example). I think it's okay to be uncomfortable with any form of art. If boundaries aren't pushed in that area, where the hell WILL they be pushed? When I say something controversial, and, believe me, I do it all the time, I "expect" a certain amount of push back or criticism. I just expect it to be civil and be given a chance to explain myself in more detail without being, at least at first, labeled stupid, lazy, bigoted, etc.
I think throwing out words to people like shallow or other pejoratives doesn't generally help the discussion. Think about the particular medium we're using right now. By its nature, it lends itself to a somewhat shallow analysis; so does email, texting, etc. and generally makes it difficult to determine the intent of others. I'm not saying that everything written on the SHH will be shallow or misunderstood, but what we tend to do is throw out our basic ideas about something and refrain from writing a treatise on any particular subject. Before I wander too far into the novella territory, I'll stop now.
