To the Team.

I apologize. I sometimes understand not every word of a message. Probably because of the language barrier since english is not my mother language.

Tokenism is a real concern and if we were discussing an issue with how BVHR implemented wider representation and not whether they should, this would be a different conversation.

However it's also important to remember that we're dealing with a video game already pretty light on characterization whose whole deal is to capitalize on horror tropes. None of the characters are much more than vague stereotypes, really, and it seems odd to me that there's a sudden outpouring of concern that potential LGBT characters won't have depth and nuance when that isn't a requirement for anybody else.

@csandman1977 This isn't offensive but I do think you are considerably exaggerating. These new characters aren't any more or less shallow than the previous ones (in general, anyway - bad writing does exist of course) they just have personality traits and characterizations that are unfamiliar and unrelatable to you, so they feel shallow and you don't get the jokes.

Remember the first time you saw a movie that starred a straight white guy? For most people, that would be the first time they saw a movie and has pretty much been every movie since. For a white guy audience, there are so many assumptions and characterizations that don't have to be written because you already share that experience.

Black Panther may not have been the greatest superhero movie for you. But it was the first Marvel movie to star a non-white superhero and that does make a difference to a viewer who does not have "straight white guy" as their life experience when watching the movie. All of those unwritten and unconscious assumptions and characterizations were now open and available for a wider audience to appreciate. Yes, for you - just the same old same old Marvel stuff. But that's because every other Marvel movie was made for you. For people not like you, the vast majority of movies period might seem shallow, unfunny, or stale - just another show/game/movie about a white guy with straight white guy problems.

The reason it seems like these things are just about being a lesbian or being a woman or being black is because for you that's the thing that seems out of place.

Still waitin' on that quote. Otherwise I assume you're just trying to put words in the mouth of OP.

He says that there's other media that does it wrong, and lists those as examples. To assume what he means beyond that is nothing but your imagination, and unless you want to find me a quote where he's saying what you're telling me he's saying, you can just stop right there lmao

Starting off. Don't presume to know what i am. Labeling people by opinion is not right. And often is completely wrong. Like when Joe Biden basically told people that if they voted for Trump, they weren't black. You have zero understanding of my thoughts on anything but this one post and my thoughts on DBD.

Next and these are in order of your points, Batwoman, and i will focus on this one due to its the most recent and aggregius example. Her character simply put was nothing more than her being lesbian. There was zero character development. The supporting cast was there to basically prop up Kate and tell her she had no flaws. Why? Because she was nothing more than a prop the writers used to idolize their beliefs. She wasn't 3 dimensional. She was lesbian girl power and nothing more. And no. I dont relate to a character when their is nothing to that character that is possible to relate to. For comparison lets look at Magna from walking dead. Shes lesbian. But her character while not focused on very much, shows growth, and history and yes shes lesbian but she is much more than just lesbian. Shes human. Not saying lesbians arent human. Dont take that out of context.

Movies. I dont watch many movies. But when i do I watch for the story. I skip all but the most mild of sex scenes. (Anything more than kissing i turn off) In my youth i was different of course. But the lesbian scenes always piqued my interest make of that what you will. Now when i watch a TV show, its for the story and the characters. I dont have to relate to a character to enjoy them. Raymond Reddington. One of the best characters on TV. Also going back to walking dead. Magna. Yumiko. Aaron. All gay. All good characters. Why? Because even though they are gay, they are fully realized characters. People are more than their sexuality. Take away those characters' sexuality and they are still whole people. Take away Kate kanes sexuality and she has nothing left. That is the difference.

Black panther. You are correct. I Didnt find it to be the best movie ever. My opinion. Others may disagree. What it wasn't was the first marvel movie starring a black character. Blade came before it. I would say in my opinion Blade is better. I enjoyed it more. Black Panther was more political. I watch movies for entertainment not politics. Dont get me wrong, I have nothing bad to say about it. My problem was with the hate that people received because they Didnt agree with the hype.

And while we are on the topic, marvel movies werent made for me. If they were, they never would have been made. Did i enjoy them? Sure. Mostly. Doctor Strange sucked. But the others were good. Some were really good. Why were they good? Because they dealt with entertainment. There goal was to entertain people and make money. And they did.

And lastly I will address the insults. People like me? What does that mean? Because I will tell you this right now. I dont give a rats ass what color someone is. What gender they are. What they choose to do with their bodies. None of that is how I choose to label people. Not how I choose who i like or not. I never insulted anyone. All i did was attempt to shed some light on a topic in an attempt to open discourse.

But you assume im a straight white male, screaming from the rafters of my privileged mansion. That I refuse to see anyone elses point of view. If you knew me you would know how wrong you are. Instead you see my opinion that doesnt match yours so im just a ciswhite male whos opinion is wrong because Im a bigot and a -phobe.

I assumed you were a straight white dude because your post is an exact example of the perspective that doesn't understand why representation is important even if the media portrayal isn't perfect, deep, and complex, or the context of historical over-representation of straight white dudes.

For that, I apologize. I have no idea if you are actually a straight white guy. But that's exactly the perspective you shared, whatever your background is. Please don't take that as an insult, it's not intended to be. Straight white guys are totally cool, and those who aren't straight white guys but share their perspective are too. We can just call it the "privilege perspective" and not put the background connotation on it. No insult is intended.

What I was trying to say is that it's still important to have media representation even if it's not perfect. So you didn't like Batwoman because you thought her character was boiled down to lesbian and that's it. Well, how ######### complicated does Batwoman have to be, she's a comic book character. You've got 100 different one-note portraits of Batman/Superman/Iron Man/Thor/Spiderman/etc upon etc and I don't see anyone crying about how "ugh, Batman, right - it's allll about his privileged hetero masculinity amirite?" Yet the moment a hero turns gay or a woman or black, that's the big knock - "fine he/she's gay/female/black. We get it already stop shoving it down our throats." Sometimes, they're going to do it badly and have to be able to fail in the same ways that cisgendered media is allowed to fail.

When I said "people like you," I was only referring to people who share your perspective, which is fairly common. People like you who don't understand (or disagree) that representation at a basic level is important have plenty of non-representative media to fall back on. People like you who don't understand why it is a big deal that Black Panther is black and why that makes it a "better" movie aren't suffering because of the effort at diversity or that praise because of it.

Do you see what I mean? It's not that you can't see other points of view or that you're a jerk - far from it and I'm sorry that's the impression I left you with. It's that you're assigning the problem with these things as a result of their representative diversity, not that they're bad for the same reasons straight white guy media can be bad. Batwoman isn't very good. But it's not bad because she's a lesbian it's bad because it's poorly written and doesn't give the character(s) enough depth. Just like literally any other bad superhero show/comic/movie.

You need me to read the OP back to you? Okie dokie.

"I made the choice to check on some DBD news knowing that the event was close and I discovered a letter from the team discussing "equal representation" and "giving sexual orientation" to the characters. Now IMO this is a poor move by the team because of the RPG element that this game currently has... "

OK, so here we go. Introducing greater representation is a bad move because this game has some unspecified RPG elements. Which means he does not want the Role of a gay person when he Plays this Game.

"maybe BHVR you can do this right but it has been done wrong many times before, the latest example is "The Last of Us 2", the players hate this game. "

The players hate TLOU2. We have not discussed any issues like writing, gameplay, etc, etc. We have only discussed representation and diversity as a general concept to be a potential problem. TLOU2 has a non-binary protagonist. The players hate it. The only reasonable conclusion to draw here is that OP thinks the players hate it because of that representation.

"Another example is "Batwoman" the tv series on CW. the batwoman tv series is an example of the saying "get woke, go broke", in just one season the show lost 1million viewers because of how hard they pushed the agenda."

How else does one read 'get woke, go broke' than to say if you prioritize representation, you're doomed to failure. Again, he is making the suggestion that the show failed because they pushed an unspecified agenda, which, considering nothing has been shared to be problematic except the general concept of representation, that the "agenda" is just that.

"I really don't want to see a game that I am trying to get back into become a "Batwoman" or "TLOU 2" and seeing that letter set off a red flare telling me not to play because of where this game could be going, neither batwoman or "TLOU2" show "equal representation" please don't be like them!"

Now, TLOU2 and Batwoman could not be any different in terms of critical and commercial success, style, and substance. The only real comparison or through note is the fact that they have non-binary protagonists. That's it. So don't be like them and have non-binary protagonists.

Nothing cherry picked, that's literally every sentence in order of the relevant section of the OP. I'm not putting words in his mouth, I'm taking them at face value. I'd ask you to provide a quote from the OP where he says something different, but that's everything he said.

Yeah man, it's not rabid foam at the mouth explicit bigotry but it also doesn't appear to be a ######### mystery what he's saying. He could probably do with a little more effort to writing with clarity but if you took something significantly different from what he is saying I'd love to hear it.

If you don't mind can you please tell me what agenda I'm divisively pushing? Or what my dogma is? If it's that I'm generally very encouraging of attempts to increase an awareness of representation and diversity in media, OK, guilty as charged and I'm sad that's somehow divisive - but I don't think I'm the problem. If it's something else though I'd like to know, especially if it is actually nefarious. I've always wanted to be part of a conspiracy.

Also, right back at ya as far as being the exact wrong person to be involved in this kind of conversation. This kind of pedantic "but he didn't say exactly this or explicitly that" is tiresome and just serves to distract from the actual conversation we should be having. It's awfully clear what the guy meant to say. He doesn't want chick Ghostbusters. I've heard the same argument a million different times said a million different ways. Getting nit-picky and parsing sentences so we can cut the issue down so specifically that the conversation's not about anything meaningful anymore just turns it into an argument over style rather than substance. I don't care about the ######### trees, dude, look at the damn forest. And yes, I know he never mentioned Ghostbusters anywhere.

Read for comprehension my man, and try to apply a little bit of sophistication to your analysis. You write intelligently enough to be better than this kind of toddler-esque "I didn't touch your arm, I touched your shoulder" kind of argumentation.