Are Fandoms Against Diversity?

Fan spaces are amazing places where people who love the same think can come together and share the love that they have for a piece of media. That being said not all fans are of the same mind. In this post, I wanted to talk about the toxicity in some fandoms.

Certain fandoms are filled with gatekeepers and trolls who will harass people who don't conform to their view of a piece of media. In recent time, it is quite common to see online back clash about casting decisions in movies. Some recent examples that spring to mind are the live action Snow White, The Little Mermaid movies and most recently the casting of black actor Paapa Essiedu as Snape in HBO's Harry Potter series.

All these tried their hand at making their modern takes on classic movies much more diverse by casting people of colour in the roles of Snow White and Ariel. For Disney, this was another step forward in their continued effort to make their movies more diverse. On paper both these actions were destined to be a success as movie lovers have been calling for years for more diverse casting. However, to the dismay of everyone, both these decisions were faced with immense scrutiny. In the case of The Little Mermaid, #notmyariel started trending online and people used this hashtag to express their grievances about a historically white, fictitious mermaid being played by a black actress. These people argued that the new Ariel "looks nothing like the original", some people even argued that a black Ariel would take away from people with red hair.

This follows an unfortunate trend of racism in the media. It seems that fans hate to see the media they are a fan of do anything positive for inclusivity as any attempt of race-swapping characters is faced with immense backlash. This has meant that studios have chosen to play it safe and only casting white actors and making them straight if at all possible to avoid any backlash they might face. This takes away so much progress that has been make in the aspects of diversity over the years as studios do not want to take the risks that come with hiring non-white, non-cis actors.

Even worse that this any attempt to criticise these actions is met with even more resistance. For example, Matt Miller wrote an article for Esquire in 2018 about Star Wars: The Last Jedi where he criticised the Star Wars fandom for attacking the character of Finn after critics positively reviewed the movie. Reflecting on this a year later, Miller wrote 'I wrote a series of articles critical of what I called toxic Star Wars fandom and in the months since, my mentions have been a bizarre hellscape' .

I understand that people can be protective of their interests, if someone completely changed what I was a fan of I would also be annoyed, however, race-swapping characters doesn't change the piece of media, it is still the same with or without a race-swapped character. I also understand that it is not every fan in the fandom but if the minority of fans that do this aren't stopped then the problem will only get worse

People of Colour and LGBTQ+ people bring so many unique and interesting stories that in recent times would be ignored at best and condemned at worst. As a white cis man myself I would never know about the experience of being a POCs and LGBTQ+ person if not for media that includes those people.

Finally, fans need to stop being so overprotective and allow the creators of their favourites pieces of media to experiment with it. This might mean that they make decision that fans may not like but that doesn't give fans but that doesn't give people the right to harass actors who are trying to give viewers the best viewing experience they can.

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Bibliography

• M. Miller, (2022). I Was a Star Wars Super Fan, Until the Dark Side of Online Fandom Made Me Quit [Online]. Available at: https://www.menshealth.com/entertainment/a38735381/quitting-toxic-fandom/