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INTEREST: Aspiring Animation Creator Alleges Corporate Bias Against Diverse Creators

Brent Allison wrote:

Remember the old days when you paid X cents per text message? Someone should have a business where a user impulsively posts something off-the-cuff, but instead of it automatically posting to Twitter, FB, or wherever, it goes to a "social media filtering professional". This person could charge, I dunno, 50 cents to a dollar a message and then writes a more sanitized version, or simply advises the user to not let it appear at all. Think of the careers that will be saved! It could revolutionize the economy by providing more work-from-home jobs too! Just saying...

What's this got to do with the topic at hand? I think the user was very justified in sharing their experience.

But not the tone.

Regardless of tone, putting any group in animation on blast, particularly one as notable as Women In Animation is a one-way ticket to being blacklisted for life. I do genuinely hope that she got some catharsis from calling out Crunchyroll for swearing off Avatar clones and shows that use diversity as their main means of advertising after High Guardian Spice blew up in their faces, because her career is for all intents and purposes, dead. She needs to get another job in another field because her career is over.

As for Crunchyroll, after what happened with that show, and probably being sold a false bill of goods on it by its creator, it’s little wonder they tried to completely paint over the show with tons of Webtoon adaptations. And if it’s a choice between this and say, My Wife is a Demon Queen, it’s easy to see why they would choose the latter.

The fact CR and by extension AT&T Time Warner didn't expect the backlash and push through kinda surprises me to be honest, though,

Again, it remains to be seen once it’s fully released, especially after Onyx Equinox that’s getting some promo without the focus on diversity despite being made by a Latin woman.

I’ll say it again: execution is the key.

Someone might need to advise the 22 year old creator that it takes time to get to the top. Expecting that people and companies are going to roll out the red carpet for you because you're diverse and peddling diverse wares is unrealistic at best.

Any show that touts diversity or forces diversity down my throat is one that I won't watch. I feel like a lot of shows are going down the route of "Let's have a minority LBTQ+ couple because it's the in thing!" right now and are consistently creating pairings only to highlight said pairings. I honestly don't care what color or sexual preference any character has but regardless, I don't want it constantly pointed out unless it's an important plot point. I will never support a show just because the main character is a minority character. Come back to me with an awesome execution, storyline and animation and then we'll talk.

The reason why older shows featuring couples were successful was because they weren't constantly pointing out the racial make-ups of their couples. People loved "I Love Lucy" because it was a genuinely funny show (albeit with some humor that hasn't aged well) and not because it solely focused on the different racial backgrounds of its two main characters.

People loved "I Love Lucy" because it was a genuinely funny show (albeit with some humor that hasn't aged well) and not because it solely focused on the different racial backgrounds of its two main characters.

1. CBS DIDN’T THINK AMERICANS WOULD BUY THAT LUCY WAS MARRIED TO A “FOREIGN” MAN.
When CBS approached Lucille Ball with the offer of turning her popular radio show My Favorite Husband into a television show, she was agreeable with one condition: that her real-life husband, Desi Arnaz, would be cast in the role of her spouse (played on the radio by Richard Denning). The network balked—there was no way that American viewers would accept average housewife Liz Cooper (her character’s name on the radio series) being married to a “foreign” man with an indecipherable accent. Never mind the fact that Lucy and Desi had been married more than a decade; such a “mixed” marriage was unbelievable.

The show was groundbreaking in terms of a female taking the lead role, both on screen and behind the scenes. Some would say I Love Lucy paved the way for other sitcoms led by a female cast. And Lucille herself went on to break more ground as a comedienne, actress, television and film executive, producer and model.

Someone might need to advise the 22 year old creator that it takes time to get to the top.

Lynx Raven Raide wrote:

The fact CR and by extension AT&T Time Warner didn't expect the backlash and push through kinda surprises me to be honest, though,

Who says they didn't? Outrage farming is a common marketing tactic these days. Say something inflammatory in the marketing or PR articles and you're guaranteed to generate online discourse and discussion which is free advertising for your work. Companies do it all the time. The thing is I doubt it's actually effective, either for or against a product. You might get a few people who will watch a show or movie to "own the chuds/own the libs" but they're overall negligible numbers. Mainstream audiences don't care about this stuff. They'll either see something if it's something they're interested in, or they won't if it isn't.

Imagine having a take that characters can only be LGBT or of color so long as it’s important to the plot but every white and straight character can be straight and white without having plot relevance get out of here with that crap. You sound very ignorant by saying that, I’m guessing you don’t complain about the thousands of shows with straight relationships or the thousands of shows that have majority white cast. Mods of you want to delete this go ahead this is off topic but this person is showing their true colors.

ActuallyI Love Lucy was groundbreaking and controversial in many ways, including the interracial, multicultural starring couple and the amount of power Lucille Ball, a *gasp* woman had over the production.