Yet both Muslims and Christians are in the news a lot, and there's a lot of political discussion about them.

It would be refreshing if more mainstream fictional media featured them in realistic, three-dimensional portrayals rather than as faceless stereotypes, wouldn't you agree?

I'm not sure what your point is? That Muslims and Christians should be grateful that the news media talks about them a bit more than the entertainment media? To be clear, I'm not arguing that any particular group should have more representation; I'm criticizing the media for its increasingly propagandist angles.

> It would be refreshing if more mainstream fictional media featured them in realistic, three-dimensional portrayals rather than as faceless stereotypes, wouldn't you agree?

In general, yes, but that doesn't justify misleading or agenda-driven news media. And in any case, every time people try to "fix" the entertainment media, we end up with awful content (e.g., the GhostBusters reboot) and frankly I don't want to sacrifice that much quality for sake of representation. My wife and I were just talking about how many really good pre-2015 films wouldn't be made today because they don't thrust the characters' race, gender, etc into the foreground.

My point is that religious people, whether Christian, Muslim, or whatever, have a serious impact on our lives, and it would benefit everyone if we engaged with them as real people rather than fantasy stereotypes.

Fictional media can help with this by giving us insight in to what people are really like. My contention is that this is more desirable than merely leaving them as faceless talking points in the news.

Otherwise it's like asking for better sources to read about Chinese culture, or like visiting China once a year for vacation. You can't read your way into being culturally competent. You might even move your entire family to China, but it may only be your children who truly begin the road to integration. Anyone who is part of an immigrant community will have a story of the trajectory of cultural competency. It is an optimism which must be fulfilled by your next generation.

You can, however, follow generic protocols of kindness whilst in ignorance.

But I'd rather have there be movies on the Himalayas than not, even when we are aware it's not a perfect substitute for the real thing.

The perfect is the enemy of the good.

You smile and nod your way through.

Anyways, the call here is for community integration, not for individual action.

Why go it alone?

Is one's clarity on community affairs the difference between choosing WION and India Times? Or The World Journal?

The solution is better movies on Tokyo, not no movies on Tokyo.

You're in luck, though, because there are plenty of great movies on Tokyo -- movies that even people living in Tokyo find give great insights in to their own society.

Yes and no. First, so much media has fallen down when it comes to character development. Then there's the problem of big companies like Disney that are deliberately secular in their content.

That's the handy thing about essentialism, you don't need an individual character when you have pre-packaged narratives about their race, gender, etc. Rather than a complex character, we get a canned Black character or a canned White character or a canned Female character or a canned Male character. What do you need to know about a person that you can't infer from their immutable characteristics? (:

I'm more interested in them making more of an effort at a good story.

It has skewed perception, but whether that matters is up for debate.

The question I have is what is being preserved by not having a diversity of backgrounds, ethnicities and belief systems in films?

But interesting movies can be made about diverse characters as they can about homogeneous characters.

Only depicting homogeneous societies furthers ignorance and demonization of people who are different.

Showing more diversity, in interesting, authentic, and deep ways is one an important way we have of striving towards a society where we better understand and value one another, and get along.

I think you're arguing against a straw man. It seems pretty clear that no one is arguing for less diversity, but rather against diversity for its own sake or prioritizing it above all other concerns.

Not to say you're not touching on the question of _why_ we're so enthusiastic in media representation for those of the Islamic faith however, but the Mormons are a pretty open and shut case

But as a former Mormon myself I think entertainment is more interesting if it focuses on what we have in common despite our differences, rather than focusing solely on amplifying differences.

When analyzing data typically the first thing you do is take out the outliers and then focus on the remaining data. News outlets do the opposite, the take the outlier and make it the headline story and ignore the other 99% of the data.

I recall seeing news about big movies, eg transformers and others where in order to satisfy the global market, ie China, decisions needed to be made.. and given that many of those markets appear to be more racist/anti-muslim, (obv not 100, but majority I believe)

and your comment seems to be suggesting [hope] that things above "will get better as the global market continues to expand." -

I'm not chiming in to say this or that is a good or bad thing, just trying to clarify that some things may make one think catering to broader global markets may not make "western whiter countries" more anti-racist or whatever is being suggested as 'changing and will get better' - if that is the perspective being considered for 'get better'.

There are studies showing "diversity" on movie posters hurt sales abroad - and of course there has been local pushback for whitewashing things for increased sales -

Unless we are talking about gov funded wokeness spreading where making money is not a goal. But I did not get that impression from the thread here.

If one goes to the desert, they should not expect to see maple trees.

If you indicated that you want to see more minorities cast - then you have the option of going to see Moonlight, over La-la-land.

I’m not white, Christian, or Jewish, and this sentence does not make sense to me. Making entertaining is a business, and it has nothing to do with what percent of people worldwide have what skin color or tribal affiliations.

If people making entertainment predict that they will earn the most money by targeting white, Christian, or Jewish populations, then they should if making the most money is their goal. Have you noticed how every big movie of the last 10+ years has a Chinese character? And a scene in Hong Kong or Shanghai? Many have Latin American characters as well, and Indian, and so on.

the point is that in a world without significant bias, we'd expect to see many more people of color and of other religions (to name just two aspects) being represented because of sheer numbers and because talents are distributed widely.

but that doesn't happen in this world.

In the real world, there will always be bias. Height, voice, gender, political affiliations. Forget about bias in US media, there are multiple Hollywood within India itself. And there is nothing wrong with that. They cater to different audiences.

And it does not “make sense” for to expect a group of Tamil film makers to add a couple white, black, Chinese, and Latin American characters of their movie is about people who speak Tamil.

this narrative is one facet of one echo chamber, tying back to the original article.