I would like to see...

[Smapti]

I want to see a fantasy or science fiction story where an ancient prophecy foretells that a hero will rise up to save the cosmos from ancient evil, which turns out to be complete bullshit and the main character is in no way a fulfillment of it.

[Jragon]

@Smapti

I want to see a fantasy or science fiction story where an ancient prophecy foretells that a hero will rise up to save the cosmos from ancient evil, which turns out to be complete bullshit and the main character is in no way a fulfillment of it.

There was SOME fantasy story, though I can’t remember the medium or title, where while the hero as the chosen one succeeds, the prophet flat out tells them that there’s been dozens of chosen ones for the exact same task and that they all died or otherwise failed.

[handsomeharry]

I would like to see the white guy go native, fall in love with the chief’s daughter, who never even realizes that he’s on the face of the earth. The tribe would make him the refuse disposal member of the tribe, digging the pits, emptying them out. And, at all of the tribal parties, ceremonies, usually forget about him. He marries the tribal witch doctor’s daughter who is fat, toothless, and the tribal slut.

[Dave_Hartwick]

I’d like to see a game where the Luck characteristic has an impact on events. It’s common in history, myth, and fiction for people to be famous for being lucky. In all the games I can remember playing that had a luck statistic it was either useless or gave a bonus in combat. I’ve never known it to, say, make the difference between being driven off course by a storm and finding Vineland.

[handsomeharry]

@Acsenray

There have been plenty of such depictions. There was a period in which gay people didn’t appear in movies at all unless they were either swishy designers or deviant serial killers. The difference now is that producers have realized that it harms minorities to portray them only in negative stereotypes. In an ongoing development, they have decided to portray homosexuals and other minorities in more positive lights, but the problem is that they still haven’t been mainstreamed.

So long as the default assumption is that the “hero” or the “regular guy” is a straight, white, Anglo-American man, most attempts to depict people who don’t fit this rubric are going to become tokens. Every gay guy becomes “THE gay character.” Every black woman becomes "THE black woman character.

The same is true of depictions of “primitive” societies. There was a centuries-long period in which they were always depicted as superstitious, cruel, etc. Now there is some recognition that these are harmful stereotypes. If there is a tendency to create a positive stereotype, that’s a step in the right direction towards mainstreaming. But either way, what the best situation would be would be to admit to complexity in all societies. People are generally still people, regardless of their social setting, and as a group they will have the same levels of stupidity and cruelty as any other group.

And even then, your complaint about gay characters seems misplaced to me. I can think of many gay characters who aren’t perfect. Cam and Mitchell on Modern Family, for example, have lots of flaws. Then there was the depiction of Prince Edward in Braveheart as an effect coward whose boyfriend gets summarily tossed out a window.

It seems to me that your perception is very narrow. Bullying of gay kids is focused on right now because of a series of high-profile incidents that resulted in deaths. There has been an effort to raise awareness about bullying of gay kids. But that doesn’t mean that society as a whole has historically ignored bullying of others. After Columbine, there was indeed a focus on bullying of misfits or outsiders. There have been highlights of girl-on-girl bullying that has nothing to do with sexuality.

There are tons of movies in which the hero is a military character.

You’re comparing a serious story like Maus with mass entertainment? If complexity is what you’re looking for, you should be watching more serious movies, rather than Hollywood-style mass entertainment.

This will become more common as interracial relationships become less remarkable in real life. When black actors can get roles that weren’t specifically written as black characters, you’ll see a step in the right direction.

Is this a whoosh?

[Acsenray]

Why would you think so?

[Scumpup]

@Dave_Hartwick

I’d like to see a game where the Luck characteristic has an impact on events. It’s common in history, myth, and fiction for people to be famous for being lucky. In all the games I can remember playing that had a luck statistic it was either useless or gave a bonus in combat. I’ve never known it to, say, make the difference between being driven off course by a storm and finding Vineland.

In Fallout New Vegas, your luck statistic will directly influence your success in gambling. It also influences all your other statistics. Having low luck can sometimes make the game frustrating.

[Nava]

@Acsenray

Sitcoms use unbelievable floorplans because they’re essentially built as theater sets with no fourth wall and no ceiling. They’re not built as actual free-standing structures.

OK, but would it kill them to have a hallway? Keep the set as the living room/entrance, but don’t stick two doors in every wall except the one occupied by the cameras, and put a window someplace.

[Nava]

@Dendarii_Dame

This is Disney’s Mulan.

I would like to see a fictional movie or TV show about ants or bees in which the main character isn’t male.

La abeja Maya… yep, apparently she’s called Maya the Bee in English, who’da thought.

[Acsenray]

@Nava

OK, but would it kill them to have a hallway? Keep the set as the living room/entrance, but don’t stick two doors in every wall except the one occupied by the cameras, and put a window someplace.

Well, a lot of small apartments don’t have hallways. The bedrooms are right off the living room. That’s fairly realistic.

I haven’t much noticed the absence of windows. In Friends there is a window leading to a large balcony. And in Seinfeld the windows are on the non-existent fourth wall.

[Tom_Scud]

@Smapti

I want to see a fantasy or science fiction story where an ancient prophecy foretells that a hero will rise up to save the cosmos from ancient evil, which turns out to be complete bullshit and the main character is in no way a fulfillment of it.

Not quite what you are looking for, but the TV show Angel had at least one ancient prophecy that turned out to be a forgery.

[Nava]

@Acsenray

Well, a lot of small apartments don’t have hallways. The bedrooms are right off the living room. That’s fairly realistic.

I haven’t much noticed the absence of windows. In Friends there is a window leading to a large balcony. And in Seinfeld the windows are on the non-existent fourth wall.

The first setup is not realistic in Spain at all. A flat large enough for 4 or 5 adults each with an individual bedroom (as these sitcoms have) will have a hallway. There’s flats whose door is in the living room, but ones where everything opens into the entranceway/living room and where “everything” > 2, no. And in many of these, there is simply no mention of windows. Ever. These folk live in the only flat in Spain where Iberdrola foots the electrical bill.

[Acsenray]

@Nava

The first setup is not realistic in Spain at all. A flat large enough for 4 or 5 adults each with an individual bedroom (as these sitcoms have) will have a hallway. There’s flats whose door is in the living room, but ones where everything opens into the entranceway/living room and where “everything” > 2, no. And in many of these, there is simply no mention of windows. Ever. These folk live in the only flat in Spain where Iberdrola foots the electrical bill.

Okay, well, I would say that an apartment with four bedrooms is not small and even in America it would be unusual for them all to open on the living room.

Even then, I can understand why a sitcom would avoid having a set with a hallway. It would interfere with the theatrical flow of the action. As I said before, sitcoms are commonly filmed as theater rather than as cinema.

[Gundy]

@Sampiro

-I would like to see depictions of gays who are not victims, perfect, sophisticated, gym-bodied, or basically “the absolutely perfect guy next door who finds time to do squats when he’s not singing along with opera, volunteering at a soup kitchen, holding down a six figure job, and enriching the lives of every person around him between groomings”

The ABC ensemble sitcom Happy Endings has a gay character who’s a slob, loves sports, and is kind of a schmuck.

It also has an interracial couple but rarely refers to their races – except one joke that I loved, where the husband (who is black) started talking about his (white) wife’s past boyfriends, and they were all names like Jamal and Malik.

[Christopher_Robin_Davies]

@Jilaad

I would like to see a movie where once the dweeb proves he’s awesome, and the girl who he’s been pining for but has acted nothing but bitchy towards him suddenly starts throwing herself at him because of his newly discovered awesomeness (see: How To Train Your Dragon), I’d like to see the ex-dweeb kick her ass to the curb. It doesn’t have to be rude. Just something simple like “You’ve treated me like slime for years, and now that [condition X has happened] suddenly you’re into me? No. I’m the same person now as I was before, and I see who you are now. Good bye”.

I would LOVE that.

So you’ve never seen Better Off Dead?

[Spoke]

@Sampiro

-A movie where a (usually great looking) woman realizes the guy she spurned because he wasn’t cool/good looking/rich/whatever the guy she spurned him for who turned out to be a jerk is that he isn’t, so she goes back to ordinary guy at the end, and he tells her “Fuck you, I’ve moved on” and walks away with his less movie-star good looking new girlfriend
ETA: Or, what Jilaad said before I did above. (And why is the guy never seen as vapid even though he’s overweight and plain but the girl is a total babe?)

That’s more or less what happened in October Sky, but without all the vitriol.

[Anaamika]

@Acsenray

Okay, well, I would say that an apartment with four bedrooms is not small and even in America it would be unusual for them all to open on the living room.

Even then, I can understand why a sitcom would avoid having a set with a hallway. It would interfere with the theatrical flow of the action. As I said before, sitcoms are commonly filmed as theater rather than as cinema.

Please take your logic and sensibility elsewhere; there’s no room for it here.

[brittekland]

I would like to see a movie that starts with the main character backing out of his driveway, gets t-boned, killed and the movies ends.

[YogSothoth]

• A movie where the woman (its always the women in these films) doesn’t leave her pretty decent but boring husband/boyfriend for a chance at adventure and romance in an exotic location with a handsome stranger, where she realizes that most people settle in some small way and there is no perfect significant other for her out there, and she’s happy about it and is fine staying home and caring for the kids and working her 9-5 job. But the rest of the movie has to have explosions because this would be a terrible movie

• A rom-com where a person’s quirks isn’t exaggerated to unrealistic proportions leading to a breakup. They accept that everyone has some quirks and the best way to deal with that sometimes is to accept it and ignore it

• A scene in a show where, when the characters have to look up something using a computer, it takes a lot of clicking and waiting on the stuff to load before it appears, and they use actual programs like Word or Excel or Google, and when the website or document opens, they don’t immediately scroll down to where the information is, but they have to do a CTRL-F and type in what they are looking for and then sort through a lot of BS to find what they need.

• Also, a scene where stealing something from a computer using a flash drive is more than just sticking it in and clicking a few buttons. They’d have to put the flash drive in, open up My Computer, open up the flash drive, then find the folder where the information they want is located, drag it to the flash drive, wait for it to download, then close all the windows first before they just leave the computer

• A horror movie where NOBODY investigates the mysterious sound in the attic or in the basement or outside. If its in the house, they immediately run outside into the street, giving the murderer no cover to sneak up behind them, then go directly to a police station.

• Also a horror movie where cops believe that a person is being chased by a maniac instead of dismissing their claims, and try to protect the person, but still get killed anyway.

• And another thing, a horror movie where, when you shoot the monster or murderer and they fall down, the protagonist doesn’t let down their guard immediately. Instead, keep stabbing them in the face, hands, and neck, cut off the head, or smash his skull in with a heavy object so that they are sure the person is dead, or if he’s alive, he’d be hobbled and unable to chase after them

@Alessan

A movie or a TV show where the Jewish guy isn’t the smart one. I’m not saying he should be dumb, just that someone else should be the smart and sensitive guy. The Jewish character can be the tough guy or the ladies’ man.

How about making the Asian guy the smart one?

@Jragon

There was SOME fantasy story, though I can’t remember the medium or title, where while the hero as the chosen one succeeds, the prophet flat out tells them that there’s been dozens of chosen ones for the exact same task and that they all died or otherwise failed.

The Matrix?

[The_Other_Waldo_Pepper]

@Alessan

A movie or a TV show where the Jewish guy isn’t the smart one.

The guy from Gundy’s HAPPY ENDINGS example isn’t just a heavyish, sloppy, laid-back-to-the-point-of-laziness-unless-he-can-act-like-a-frat-boy sports fan who happens to be gay; he also happens to be Jewish, without happening to be at all brainy. (For bonus points, he’s even got a Hebrew tattoo on his comically-too-often-bared chest.)