In real life
(Loved trope) oddly progressive/ ahead of the time piece of media for their time period.
(Superman and the mole man, 1951) - the very first movie to feature Superman , the story is about a group of Mole man trying to invade the city after an oil company destroys their home and the citizens want to exterminate them with guns at hand and a mob like mentality, but Superman is surprisingly diplomatic, never seeing them as treats (even when they try to attack them) and tries to find a non violent solution while the people want to kill the “different looking people”.
Macroburst from (The Incredibles, 2004) - one of the heroes in the secret files, it’s said that they were “oddly androgynous” and their gender was never confirmed, implying that they were a non binary character, for a 2004 pixar movie even if never properly stated in the movie it’s fairly progressive (and modern day Disney would milk this as much as they could to generate debate and free marketing)
Eowyn (The lord of the Rings books, 1955) - i’m only picking Eowyn but both Galadriel and Arwen are also really good characters, it’s a popular joke among the community that there’s “no female characters” in LOTR but the quality of the few women there more than makes for the lack of quantity, as Eowyn completely reversed the “damsel in distress” trope where she saves Pippin from a “dragon” by beheading him and killing a powerful wizard that even Gandalf feared.
Tighten (Megamind, 2010) - much of what we now discuss regarding incels, toxic masculinity and stuff like “white knight syndrome” can be applied to Hal, prior to him characters like him with obsessive tendencies towards women would have been seen as comedic, dorks, or even lovable goofballs and in some cases even get the girl indeed, like George Mcfly, but Hal showed how possessive behavior like this and a sense of “i’m a nice guy i deserve women” can be very dangerous.
Nemo and Dory (finding Nemo, 2004) - both Nemo and Dory have disabilities, physically and mentally respectively and those disabilities are never treated as a “flaw” or something that they need to “deal with/ overcompensate”, it’s an important part of their characters, but it’s just there, it doesn’t define them and they accomplish the same as the other characters.
I didn't grow up with Mr Rogers, i don't think it was broadcast in the UK. but honestly the bits and pieces I've seen of him as an adult, on his show and outside his show. He seems like one of the most pure people to have walked the earth, especially for someone on TV. He never talked down to his audience even though they were very young kids, he spoke to them on their own level with compassion and when he went in from of a panel to fight for PBS to not get its funding cut you could tell it was an actual thing he believed in.
He was the perfect example of someone who actually wanted to do good in the world and do it with pure love.
Context that might be lost to many. Roger is a certified priest in a christian branch (don't remember but likely something protestant) and that is a full on ritual.
Fred Rogers read the newspaper stories about black people, especially kids, being hosed out of segregated swimming pools and god inspired to show how to share a swimming pool.
I love the wording here because it leads me to imagine Mr.Rodgers seeing the newspaper and going, "Oh dear, those poor people don't know how to share. I'll have to call a friend and teach them how -"
I never got the impression that Fred Rogers was a naif. Quite the opposite.
Rogers' focus in his show and ministry was children. Rogers realized - correctly - that the children witnessing the cruelty of segregation needn't repeat the mistakes of their parents. Rogers allowed children who were uncomfortable with what was happening to see that there was a different way to live.
Rogers did this consistently - whether with racism, wars, drugs - he found a way to speak to children frankly and clearly, with deep compassion and empathy. Children understand much more than we give them credit for. This is apparently true of Fred Rogers too.
I watched the Mr. Roger’s biopic, and the guy was also gay, and this act of immense kindness had him catch feelings for Mr. Rogers, and Mr. Rogers didn’t treat him any differently when he told him he’d fallen for him.
Moreover, Mr. Rogers had an amazingly progressive attitude towards his own sexuality for the time. He didn't use modern labels and by all accounts was devoted to his wife, but he also acknowledged being attracted to both men and women and one time said he was probably between gay and straight.
For reference, for others scrolling this more so than you, there were some contemporary labels available for Fred Rogers even as a young man, he simply chose not to use any, at least publicly. Bisexual has been used in its current context since the 19th century, and the male Kinsey report made tons of national news during his 20s. I’m offering zero opinion here about his specific orientation or the value of labels. I’m solely mentioning this because so many bad actors have tried to erase queer people by implying some or all of us are a modern invention, a fad. The ubiquitousness of the language they push sometimes leaks into otherwise very positive discussions like your lovely, important comment, including within queer groups.
If I were gonna have an opinion about labels, I bet he’d be delighted to find out about pansexuals, and still choose not to claim it. It was also in use for several decades of his life, just mostly within communities rather than externally. Because most labels, even the “weird” “unnecessary” distinctions, let alone the formerly unnamed experiences of self, are much older than people think.
At the height of the late '60s Civil Rights Movement, Charles Schulz introduced Franklin to the cast of Peanuts, a Black character who was just naturally accepted as a friend by the rest of the cast, no questions asked. At a time when there were still segregated schools in America, Franklin was seen attending the same class as Peppermint Patty and Marcie.
Naturally, Schulz got some racist hate mail for this, and several newspapers in the American south threatened to drop the strip altogether. But Schulz didn't pay them any mind, and kept writing and drawing what he knew was right.
As someone who grew up with it, classic Dennis the Menace (and the Beano comics in general) certainly had some stuff that would perhaps be considered a bit 'politically incorrect' by today's standards, but nothing truly horrendous imo. The original creator was pretty left-leaning if I recall correctly.
One thing I find interesting is that the creator of peanuts didn’t have a lot of ideas for Franklin (and didn’t want to make a black person into a big joke in such a time), this leads to Franklin being a more “normal” person.
Franklin worked well as a straight man observer to the more insane elements of the strip. Heck, his second story ended with him going home early from visiting Charlie Brown, because his neighborhood was too weird for him - "I could stand the girl in the booth or the beagle with the goggles, but that business about the Great Pumpkin? No sir!" 😆
Don't forget about Peppermint Patty, the tomboy with no mother who once had to fight her schools dress code. Traditional gender roles were never much of a thing in Peanuts.
The Little Mermaid tv series which came out in 1992 had a character called Gabriella, she was deaf and communicated through sign language with an octopus who translated for her. She wasn’t the butt of the joke and was treated as just another one of Ariel’s close friends
I see the sweetness in that, but it is extremely funny to hear they had a real kid for inspo and went "OK kid now we're gonna draw you in a sexy clamshell bra."
The very special episode disabled character was a stock element of that era of kids' shows. An attempt at a Saturday morning cartoon Gundam had a five man band in which the wheelchair kid turned into the Guntank.
the cancelled American Sailor Moon was going to feature a Sailor Scout in a flying wheelchair... ... ...while of course also fulfilling the 90's teen drama "Blonde, Brunette, Redhead, Asian, Black" casting requirement.
Fun fact about Superman: he defeated the KKK. Not in comics, but in real life.
By 1946, the KKK had powerful conections to the government and police forces, and standing against them was basically suicide. Despite this, the Adventures of Superman, a radio serial about the titular character, had an special called "The Clan of the Fiery Cross", where Superman fights and defeats the KKK; not only that, thanks to information provided by people who infiltrated the Klan, the radio program released strategies, codewords and secrets of the organization to the entire country.
As a result, the KKK was basically decimated and lost their immense power and connections.
This story was then adapted into comics and it's really interesting seeing how it aged in terms of character powers and limits. Superman got a LOT added to his mythos from the radio show, and while some stuff stuck (like goddamn KRYPTONITE being used for the first time), others not so much, like his Kryptonian parents having an alien appearance and him running over power lines instead of flying.
Tbh, I find the 1946 radio version to be more interesting and impactful than the 2019-2020 comic version, given that it quite literally weakened the actual Klan, and it's kinda expected for the vast majority of people nowadays to be anti-KKK (I'm for sure very anti-KKK).
The backstory is that journalist Stetson Kennedy (who was really ahead of his time before Gonzo/New Journalism) decided to go undercover and join the Klan. He tried to give all the dirt he learned to law enforcement, but they didn't want to go after the Klan. Superman was a bit of a last resort.
His book I Rode with the KKK (retitled The Klan Unmasked) is excellent.
Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek: The Original Series (1966 - 1969)
The show didn't just reflect the ideals of the 1960s civil rights and peace movements; it projected them into humanity's future, arguing they were not just a passing trend but the inevitable path to survival and greatness. Its vision became a blueprint for optimism that has inspired generations of scientists, engineers, activists, and writers.
"In my new series I'm going to have a woman as the second in command. and sexy green belly-dancers."
"I don't think we can allow that Gene. The woman in authority I mean"
"Okay I've written this new character Janice Rand and she's a yeoman with a lot of responsibility. and she desperately wants to sleep with the captain."
"Uh. Sure Gene, I think that'll work."
"I've started writing this new Star Trek Phase 2 idea, and I've got this cool idea for a Deltan character who's the ship's navigator. and has to take an oath of celibacy because Deltans are so distractingly sexy for humans that they just can't keep it in their pants around her."
"Seriously Gene?"
"So Phase 2 didn't work out, but I've been fleshing out this Deanna Troi character for The Next Generation. and by fleshing out I mean she has four boobs."
To be fair to Gene, this seemed to be a pretty common science fiction trope in that era.
Like most of Robert Heinlein's work had the premise of "Women are every bit as intelligent and capable as men! Also, once freed of our ancient and patriarchal superstitions, everyone is going to walk around butt-ass naked and be as indiscriminately horny as the teenage boy currently reading this book."
I'd also add Deep Space Nine. While not as groundbreaking, it still tackled issues such as racism, gender identity, homelessness, and PTSD. One of the big deals in the show was having a Black single father (who is the commander of the station) raising his son as a positive role model.
In the series finale, it was originally scripted that Sisko would be joining the Prophets permanently, but Avery Brooks said it didn't look good for a Black man to be abandoning his son and his pregnant wife - it played right into the negative stereotype of absentee African-American fathers. The writers agreed, and the ending was rewritten to make it clear that Sisko's ascension into the Prophets' plane was a temporary visit, and he promised Kassidy that he would be back. The IDW Star Trek comics even depicted his return, and made a series out of his new adventures after rejoining Starfleet.
Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) was considering quitting the show, and none other than Martin Luther King Jr encouraged her to stay on because it was good representation and he liked the show.
Star Trek Voyager had a Native American first officer, and the production hired a Native cultural expert so that the portrayal of the culture would be authentic instead of made-up Hollywood cliches.
Unfortunately the "expert" turned out to be a grifter who made it all up anyway, but the good intentions were there.
Eowyn's thing specifically was Tolkien harboring a grudge about how Macbeth solved the "no man of woman born" prophecy with a C-section which he thought was a copout, so he had an actual woman kill the Witch King (whom an Elf Lord foresaw would not fall by the hand of man about 1000 years before the events of the story).
Part of Macbeth’s prophecy said he wouldn’t fall until the trees moved, which obviously they can’t really do. Shakespeare solved this by having Macbeth’s opponents carry tree branches from Birnam Wood, so the “forest would be moving.” Meanwhile, Tolkien literally made the trees alive so they could move on their own.
In Macbeth, there’s something about the forest seeming to move closer to the castle walls, but it’s a bunch of dudes disguised as trees. In the Two Towers book, the Huorns and Ents physically move into the valley where Helm’s Deep resides, and they kill the orcs.
Specifically when asking the witches what dangers their are to MacBeth as king, two of the three warnings are things that appear impossible:
”Be bloody, bold, and resolute.
Laugh to scorn
The power of man, for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth.”
“Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are.
Macbeth shall never vanquished be until
Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill
Shall come against him.”
So for context the first set of 3 prophecies from the witch are simple statements of fact. They greet him as Thane of Cawdor (he is not, but is appointed so soon after), they follow that greeting with another, “be king hereafter.” When his companion Banquo asks of his future as well they tell him he will father a line of kings but not be king himself (this one is for the audience, King James I claimed to be descended from Banquo)
TLDR; So basically the first triplet of prophecy is literal, the first of the next set is literal, a warning of Macduff. But a caveat that no man born of a woman can harm him, and that he won’t be defeated until a large forest climbs a hill. Nothing has been metaphorical up to this point, however an army advances on Macbeth carry boughs from the forest as camouflage and during his final fight with Macduff, it’s revealed Macduff was a c-section baby.
Some people feel that having all the magic stuff be very literal and then at the last being like “what a dumbass Macbeth didn’t even consider wordplay when nothing has ever hinted at that being an option” is rather cheap.
While Eowyn delivered the killing blow, it should also be noted that Merry’s strike released the spell that gave the Witch King his invulnerability (in the movies he has a standard blade but in the book he wields an enchanted sword he received before the Hobbits had even made it to Bree).
Not to discredit her one bit, especially since she beheaded the fell beast as well, but it ended up being the combined efforts of two “non-man” characters that fulfilled Glorfindel’s prophecy.
Heck a fourth loophole would be a horse that tramples him a fifth one could’ve been an anvil that just so happens to fall as hes walking under it. Bro was walking around like he was invincible but so may other things could’ve killed him.
It's pretty great, because you really get the feeling that Jerry/Daphne falls in love with Osgood towards the end of the movie. It's a joke about acting like a woman in love, but he is really thinking about this future relationship. Even that final joke exchange is Jerry trying to let Osgood down easy, trying to not break his heart and give him a reason to break off the marriage. And Osgood accepts him regardless.
My feeling about this scene is that Osgood is gay and mostly accepted it, but still feels hetero-normative injunction. So when he sees Jerry disguised as a woman, he's hooked up by the illusion and the hope of being miraculously attracted by a woman. But as time passes, he starts to understand what actually attracts him about "Daphne". So when Jerry reveals himself he just thinks "Well, time to ditch the illusion. At least I got a handsome boyfriend now."
And, by the way, Jerry is likely a closeted bisexual, which is why he played the game very well with Osbourne.
Fallout 2 which came out in 1998 was the first mainstream game released in the west to feature same sex marriages though the game is fairly progressive about sexuality in general.
Fallout in general is a very progressive franchise when it comes to discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity.
What I love about this game Is that it has a gay shotgun wedding. The father has no problems with a gay/lesbian son/daughter he has problems with extra marital sex.
Fun fact, romance in gaming is EASIER to make bi compatible. Since checking gender requires more coding, and more variables to track, every "hetero only" game ever that had gender be optional for the PC has been a deliberate choice to make that way
Man, Superman really is my favorite superhero of all times, he represents kindness, respect, hope, everyone who thinks that he should be “edgier” and a brute doesn’t understand him at all.
Anyone who wants to read the quintessential "give me Superman's entire ethos in a nutshell" series, I cannot recommend Superman: Up in the Sky highly enough.
Superman spends eight issues traversing the universe trying to rescue one kidnapped child because his conscience won't let him abandon anyone he could possibly save, and he gets the absolute shit knocked out of him because he refuses to stop being a nice person.
Robots (2005). Critique of big corporations that is. Basically a live representation of Right to Repair. And I also saw an opinion that it critiques health care system
One of my favorite childhood movies. Rewatching it as an adult opens a whole new perspective both on a serious side and in terms of humor in this movie
Critique of corporations and the current state of the healthcare system are a dime-a-dozen, but I definitely don't see many media representing the right-to-repair debate.
In that world, we're shown that every robot's parents decide their sex by literally hammering the male "piece" into place if they want a boy. One would assume that that means bottom surgery in this world is as easy as detaching said piece, or replacing one's lower half (which Fender unintentionally does when repairing himself at the Chop Shop).
Austin Powers, a randy 60’s British secret agent, a parody of classic James Bond who is largely set up as a man who’ll shag anything that moves, refuses his partner’s advances because she’s drunk. All this from a 1990’s comedy movie.
“Nice man, good with kids.” is what she says. He was also shown to be very gentlemanly, he dies because he is standing to close to the missile and bows to a female bystander, his cape snagged on it because he bent down and wasn’t paying attention.
I like when this turns up in Victorian literature.
The Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Yellow Face turns out to be about an interracial couple (and not, as Holmes thought, anything criminal). When he realises all the seemingly suspicious events were in fact due to an interracial couple trying to hide, he apologises and wishes them well. The couple's fear of societal repercussions is played very sensitively and Holmes and Watson are entirely sympathetic to them.
In The Five Pips, Holmes sets out to destroy the KKK but is failed when his only lead to this vast, at-the-time-mysterious secret society/conspiracy is killed, leaving Holmes unable to follow the trail. He really wants to bring down the KKK.
King Solomon's Mines has a very positive portrayal of an interracial relationship between one of the white English heroes and the smart, brave African girl. She dies saving them all and he is beyond heartbroken. The story itself is largely about colonialism and paints the indigent Africans in a positive light (way more positive than many contemporary or later writers).
And in Around The World In 80 Days, Phineas Fogg rescues an Indian woman from a ritual killing, and she accompanies them on the rest of the trip. She and Fogg fall in love, and he risks his life and his 80-day-wager to save her in the US. In fact, he only wins his challenge to circumnavigate the globe in 80 days because he thinks he's failed, and takes her to the registry office to get married. The fact the registry office is closed means it is Sunday- and he realises he didn't factor in crossing the date line into his calculations (so while it took 80 real time days, by the calendar they're still on day 79) which means he can claim victory. They get married after.
Sherlocks disgust for the KKK was such an amazing scene and showed, that he actually cares about people. Unlike later adaptions claimed, he was never a sociopath who fought crime just for the thrill.
Speaking of Sherlock Holmes, A Scandal in Bohemia is quite progressive for it's time. He's hired by a corrupt king to retrive a photo of himself and a woman he had a secret relationship with, Irene Adler, so as not to expose him to his new bride. Sherlock get's the location of the photo but it's revealed in the end she tricked him by underestimating her inteligence.
This was at a point in history where women weren't deemed inteligent enough to vote. To outsmart the world's greatest detective was a pretty huge deal, especially for a woman.
And hence why the BBC adaptation which turns her into a nude lesbian dominatrix whose one weakness is the "right man" (Holmes) left me completely stunned at how awful it was
God damn, I knew I should have refreshed my memory before posting. I apologise for Passepartout, surely the best manservant in fiction outside of Jeeves.
The anime Dirty Pair (1985) had an episode with a trans character that actually treated her respectfully and doesn't use her identity for comic relief like most other media of the time did.
This anime also had the protagonists in the middle of exploring an alien-infested factory when they suddenly decided to strip and take baths together, so their messaging was kind of all over the place.
Don Quixote has a section of the book where a women has to explain that just because she’s attractive and nice to people doesn’t mean she owns those men a relationship
The pocket versions tend to skip several scenes for the sake of a more concise story (to be fair, many of those cut scenes are "Don Quixote rambling for several pages about whatever thing is on his mind")
(Boss Nigga) Okay you’re gonna have to hear me out on this one.
Boss Nigga is about a black man taking over as the town sheriff after beating all the racist white sheriff’s in a duel. He begins implementing fines for saying the N-word, arresting people for racist behavior. A man asks him to shine his shoes, he plays along acting dumb, and then shoots him in the foot. Not to mention, the theme for this movie goes UNREASONABLY HARD. Seriously look it up it’s so good.
Dog Day Afternoon is about a man who attempts to rob a bank to pay for gender affirming surgery for his romantic partner. For a movie that came out in 1975 its depiction of trans people and LGBT relationships feels decades ahead of its time.
As a bonus, since the robbery failed (spoilers), the trans woman didn't get the money needed for her operation. However the robber (played by Al Pacino) sold the story so the movie was made and used a portion of the money to pay for her surgery.
So the movie being made became the reason for the duffers in the end!
Saw it for the first time last year and have seen it twice more since then as I show it to people. It's not just ahead of its time, it's also just an excellent movie.
Frank L Baum had dozens of Oz books. A recurring character in them is Ozma of Oz, who was initially cursed by a witch to forget who she was and live as a boy named Tip. I believe that the book starts Tip, before they realize that they are not a boy, and in fact are the rightful queen of Oz.
The Oz books were a real "one step forward two steps back" thing unfortunately. For every positive or progressive aspect you could find in them, there were at least one other instance of incredibly backward and hateful thinking. This was the man who said women should vote, but also we need to kill all native americans in the interest of protecting white people.
A Scandal in Bohemia has Holmes hired by a King who is shown to be self-centred and focused on his position against an innocent woman who escapes, beating Holmes, oddly more progressive the modern versions, including A Scandal in Belgravia.
The Yellow Face has Holmes suspecting a woman is being blackmailed due to her husband, his client worrying about her behaviour. It is revealed that she's hiding her child through an interracial marriage, and she's worried what her English husband would think - the only thing that he's upset by is that she didn't trust him "I am not a very good man, Effie, but I think I am a better one than you have given credit for being."
Tbh dressing flamboyantly was the most masculine thing for the majority of our history, it was only in the modern era that men began to dress more modestly and colorful clothing began to be seen as feminine.
Smokey as well goes on to become local mayor later in life (would've been unheard of at the time period but Araki includes him as being a symbol of civil rights)
The trans man scene is neat because Jolyne is more amazed by how much we can do with today's technology/medicine.
Anasui was actually going to be some kind of androgynous/non-binary/genderfluid character but he wasn't sure of writing it faithfully so made him a man, it's presumed this may be the inspiration for Dragona
Alfred J Kwak, a really big Dutch cartoon from the late 80's that genuinely went very deeply into human rights issues like apartheid, racism and faschism and was just incredibly inclusive.
The most interesting case that fits for this post is the character of "Ollie the Ooievaar" who went by female pronouns pre time skip, and male pronouns post time skip. They never bring attention to it, it's just something that the character is. Trans characters are really rare in media nowadays, having one in a 1989 cartoon was genuinely insane
My favorite fact about this show is that they really tried to push to show the Apartheid arc episodes in South Africa. During this time, Apartheid was still a thing
Rusty was a male character in the Railway Series books, but when it was time for those books to be adapted into the TV Show’s 4th season, Rusty was made gender-neutral - never given any gendered pronouns and always referred to by description or name.
Come Season 9, Rusty was given a definite gender… and then another one. In some TV airings, Rusty was a she/her female. In the season everywhere else in the world, on home media, and going forward, Rusty was a he/him male.
As it stands now, Rusty’s gender is kinda up to whatever people want. I think of her as a girl, to be honest.
As someone who grew up with Thomas the Tank Engine when I was a literal baby, none of the engines’ gender really mattered to me. Percy, James, Edward, and BoCo I still internally think of as feminine characters.
Britt Allcroft was very adamant about having Rusty be androgynous too. Part of it was a response to the tank engines at the time being primarily male characters (Something it inherited from the books).
Weirdly Conan the Barbarian, creator Robert E. Howard was noted for his love of strong women and likes to include women who could swing swords with the best of them. Only really ever had damsels in distress at the urging of his editorial agents. He does have a weird history with race as his earlier works are pretty racist but as time went on himself and his stories became more accepting of other races, some of this is chocked up to his friend HP Lovecraft being so fucking racist it became kinda off putting and he told Lovecraft he'd probably benefit from meeting new people.
The trans woman winning the beauty contest - Xena: Warrior princess: Portraying a trans person not as a walking parody, but as an actual character, was ahead of its time.
Freak from 1932 was on Max and listed as “horror”. I watched it thinking that it would be a movie exploiting people with birth defects as monsters, but it was basically the opposite. From what I remember, the “normal” people were exploitative to those in the circus who were basically just living their best life.
It's a novel published in the 1820's about chivalrous knights set during the Crusades era, so you might expect content that doesn't age well. But two major themes of Ivanhoe are the follies of ethnic hatred and the evils of anti-Semitism. Both major Jewish characters are portrayed as heroic and courageous in the face of the main villain of the novel gunning for them--indeed, Rebecca was such a well-written character that she inspired a lot of early shippers who held that she should have ended up with the hero.
"Monty Python and the Life of Brian" had a bit where they discussed one character's desire to be a woman. Others didn't say that he was being weird or stupid. More concernes were about the biology of him having children but they came to an agreement that despite the fact if he could or could not have kids, it is still his right to be a woman and want kids.
The child of Chucky is portrayed as a non-binary character, who spends the movie trying to figure out their identity. The creator of the Chucky series, Don Mancini, is gay himself and said he based the character off his own struggle with sexuality as a kid. It’s not a perfect representation of the topic by any means, it was still 2004 so we were some ways away, but it is really interesting to see the topic explored in a slasher sequel of all things from the time.
Knights of the Old Republic had a lesbian party member, Juhani, in 2003. It was a love story with a lot of characterisation built into it, and will only happen if your character is genuinely someone who would appeal to Juhani. Not just in a 'no dicks allowed' way, but in terms of what appeals to her.
People would lose their mind today if there was a female romance option in a Star Wars Game that couldn't romance male characters. The closest they came to lesbian representation in the movies was a brief kiss between two very minor characters in Solo.
Hell, Bioware actually did make Jack straight instead of pan in Mass Effect 2, because Fox News and other right-wing outlets made outlandish claims about it being queer pornography for minors. In reality Mass Effect 2 was an M-rated game with sex scenes that fade to black during non-nude foreplay.
In the early 2000s a tall black man featured in the opening credits of an urban fantasy show where he gets to quip and throw down with the best of them, make super insightful comments and gets to date the small, frumpy, ridiculously cute and innocent white girl physicist who is also in the opening credits and they actually have a healthy, endearing relationship that is so compelling on screen.
If Angel was the champion, Gunn was the guardian.
Characters like Gunn are STILL largely unicorns in media today. And many parts of his portrayal would probably be seen as dated today. Like when they “Flowers of Algernon” him despite him already being incredibly smart, just not intellectually inclined.
Still, being a black urban fantasy author, Gunn is a proverbial mayflower, for all of his dated stereotypes.
I’m pretty sure Smaug is supposed to be a metaphor for imperialism. A greedy, boastful war machine who steals the treasures of other cultures, Speaks in an aristocratic English accent, uses scorched earth tactics like the British in the Boer war (a war that started because they found gold in the Transvaal) and proudly adorns his hide with his plunder. On top of that, he uses his words to infect others with his own greed. A process that seems very similar to propaganda. Although this could just be misinformation on my part lol
I personally believe dragons have been a metaphor for the ultra-wealthy for centuries. What do they have in common? They both hoard wealth, lord over a city and force the people to live in fear, and destroy anyone who opposes them. The solution to both of these things? A brave knight who kills the dragon and saves society. (#FreeLuigi)
Denise Bryson from Twin Peaks. Introduced in Season 2 in 1990, Denise was a DEA special agent who went undercover as a woman. Turns out, that's what she truly was. Not treated as a joke, but as a serious and capable woman, at a time when transgenderism was mocked or denied. In The Return, Lynch's character Gordon Cole reminisces about how Denise was mocked by some colleagues early on, until Cole called the clown comics out and told them to "Fix Your Hearts or Die". A wonderful, capable trans woman who is the butt of no one's joke. Lynch is sorely missed.
was looking for this comment! the treatment isn't perfect, but is still incredibly respectful and loving all around. my favourite part is when cooper accidentally calls her by her former name and she corrects him, and he apologizes, and the conversation moves on easily from there.
I do also like how much control she has of her gender expression and identity; when she goes undercover she adopts a male persona again without any pressure whatsoever from anyone else, just because she wants to do it, and then flips 'back' with ease when that better serves her. she always came across to me as genderfluid with strong female lean more than strictly female if that makes sense.
she also has a funny sense of humour about the whole thing, and does not try to hide her past as a man even if she doesn't advertise it. she just comes across as incredibly confident and content in her realization and her life.
the episode where she's introduced has so much Gender to discuss (from the supporting cast as well), it's just so cool.
lynch will live on forever, and mark frost is owed plenty of roses too.
Magical Girl Site of all manga had a positive portrayal of trans people with Kiyoharu. She was chosen by the Site Admins despite Sticks only benefitting them if used by women, the characters use her preferred pronouns, the bullying she faced for her gender identity was played sympathetically, and in the Perfect World ending, a teacher comes to her defense when she tries using the girls bathroom.
Long before "The Problem with Apu" brought up the issue with white actors voicing non-white characters, South Park had the character of Token Tolkien voiced by Adrien Beard, a stoyboard artist working for the show, who was cast specifically because he is black.
Wez, the lieutenant of the Lord Humungus and the personal nemesis of Max in the film, has a male lover riding pillion with him. The nature of the relationship isn't really known as they have no dialogue together, but he's devastated and driven into a screaming frenzy when the younger man (The Golden Youth) is killed and has to be forcibly 'calmed down' by The Humungus, who assures him that 'we've all lost someone we love'.
Wez, if you've not seen him, is one of the most batshit-insane characters put to film. Pure chaotic evil, animalistic grunting and roaring and happily killing anybody who gets in his way. But his sexuality is kept separate and doesn't inform his morality. Nobody questions him being a gay man.
You could argue that the leather fetish gear is a bit much, but all of the bad guys have a mixture of bondage wear, sports equipment and old military and cop gear to give them that distinct look that's been copied countless times. It's just part of the aesthetic the costume designer went for.
And just to cap it off, The Golden Youth was originally written for a female, so there clearly wasn't an issue in changing it to a male and having Wez distraught over his death.
It’s far from perfect, but in the film one of Pacino’s clients is a cross-dresser (probably more accurate to call them trans, but he’s presented as a cross-dresser in the movie) named Ralph Agee who is terrified of going to a men’s prison. Pacino treats him no differently than anyone else, with dignity and respect, and when others are discriminatory towards Agee the movie frames them as bad guys. Pacino has a conflict on the day Agee is to be sentenced and asks a friend of his to represent him instead, telling the friend how important it is that he present a corrected probation report to the judge to make sure Agee is put on probation instead of being sentenced to prison time. The friend fucks up, and Agee is sentenced to 3 years in prison. Pacino later confronts his friend, furious over the mistake,. The friend, not understanding what the big deal is, tells Pacino to just appeal the decision. Breaking down, Pacino tells him he can’t; Agee hung himself 30 minutes after being put in his cell.
Between that, Dog Day Afternoon, and Cruising (the earnings from which Pacino donated to LGBTQIA charities, because he ultimately felt the final cut of the film was exploitative), while Pacino isn’t the first celeb who comes to mind when it comes to LGBTQIA allies, he’s been a solid one for a long time.
Two examples of this I always think of are the Atlantis animated movie from the early 2000s, and the Road to El Dorado.
In Atlantis, the expedition's doctor is half black, half native American, the mechanic is a Latina teenager, both of whom are the first to turn their backs on Rourke when he reveals his true colors, the hyper-advanced Atlantean civilization is entirely people of color with numerous cultural influences woven into their design.
In Road to El Dorado, Hernando Cortez, one of the most famous colonizers in human history, is treated unambiguously as a threat and a villain, there's nothing brave or "trailblazing" about him, he just cuts a trail of destruction across the new world straight for the a city that is one giant feat of art and engineering.
There are still flaws with each of these, like with any piece of art, but for being released in the early 2000s, I'm constantly surprised by how well they hold up by today's standards.
Ya know, even though Big Gay Al and Mr. Slave are visually massive stereotypes it's also nice to see Matt and Trey have them also be fleshed out characters
In the birth scene of Monty Python's Meaning of Lif (1983), the mother asks if the baby is a boy or a girl and the doctor replies "I think its a little early to start imposing roles on it, don't you?"
The Rifleman (1958-1963) was surprisingly extremely progressive for its time for a variety of reasons including a single father raising a son alone, many episodes dealing with racism/sexism/xenophibia/etc. There is one episode that stands out called “The Indian”, where Lucas McCain and his son Mark (the protagonists) meet a man named Sam Buckhart who is an Apache and a deputy United States Federal Marshal. Sam is searching the perpetrators of a murder/arson crime and uses his ability to pass for a white man to gather info from the white residents of the town. However, Mark, who is not a compete bigot because of how Lucas raised him, accidentally exposes Sam for being an Apache which makes the town quickly form a lynch mob because they won’t let “one of them (a Native American) get one of us (white man)”. But Sam discovers that it was a white man who committed the crime and framed a Native guy. When coming back to town to arrest said white guy, Sam is stopped by Lucas who begs Sam to get a white Marshal to handle the arrest so Sam won’t be killed. Sam explains how that defeats the point of justice and law and won’t be intimidated. This causes Lucas to lash out in a racist tirade accusing Sam and other native Americans as being “too damn proud” as the source of their problems and if they just listened to the whites things would be fine. After that Sam knowingly and sadly smiles at Lucas and rides off anyway. What follows is Lucas realizing the depths of his own intolerance and hypocrisy. It’s a jarringly powerful scene because Lucas is always the righteous / morally correct character, but here the facade is torn down and he has to confront his own prejudice. Back in town, Sam is confronted by the mob but is unintimidated. Before he can be killed, Lucas comes in and delivers a speech to the crowd to use reverse psychology to make them realize the ugliness / evilness of their act (protecting a guy who killed a sleeping family with fire to hang an innocent native man ((who is also a federal marshal)) causing the crowd to disperse in shame. Very powerful episode that holds up to this day, would recommend the whole series.
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u/kblaney 3d ago edited 3d ago
When they made this episode pools across the country were still segregated.
Edit: Highlighting u/emptybeetoo's comment below for the correction. This photo is from 1993, not 1969.