Puckgaming

This is a spectacular strawman of the argument people are actually making about "representation" in books, movies, and video games. Nobody is seriously arguing that there are "too many chicks" or "Too many gays" or "too many Black people" in entertainment. At least, that's not the argument any of us are making. The problem is that publishers, studios, and game developers have become so obsessed with REPRESENTATION that they've seemingly forgotten the rather important business of MAKING GOOD STUFF. Somewhere along the way, the conversation went from "We should give talented people from different backgrounds a chance to tell their stories" to "BACK THAT DUMP TRUCK FULL OF MINORITY STORIES UP TO THE PRINTERS! WE'VE GOT DEMOGRAPHIC BOXES TO CHECK!" Did anybody read the manuscripts? Are the stories any good? Are the characters interesting? Does anybody actually WANT this stuff? WHO CARES? WE HAVE REPRESENTATION! So we get slop. Black slop. Female slop. Lesbian midget left-handed albino slop. (Thank you, Dead Milkmen.) Before somebody deliberately misunderstands me, the problem isn't that these stories are written by minorities. The problem is that being a minority isn't a substitute for being a good storyteller. A lousy story with boring characters doesn't magically become a masterpiece because the author checks the right demographic boxes. And there's another thing people seem determined to ignore: Different audiences have different interests. Generally speaking, boys and men are more likely to gravitate toward certain subjects, and girls and women toward others. There are exceptions everywhere, obviously. Some women love military science fiction and sports games. (I'm waving!) Some men love cozy games where you run a bakery and spend your afternoons matchmaking Mr. Bear and Mrs. Toad. GOOD FOR THEM! MAKE THOSE GAMES TOO! But pretending that audience preferences don't exist because acknowledging differences makes somebody uncomfortable is ridiculous. And here's the truly astonishing part: People can absolutely enjoy stories about characters who don't look like them. We've been doing it for centuries. Nobody needed a sociology degree to explain how that works. What matters is whether the story gives us something worth caring about. I don't need a protagonist who looks like me. I need a protagonist who's interesting enough that I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. Representation is not a replacement for quality. Diversity is not a literary genre. Demographics are not a substitute for talent. Write good books. Make good movies. Develop good games. And for the love of everything holy, MAKE SOMETHING PEOPLE ACTUALLY WANT TO READ, WATCH, OR PLAY.