DAE notice how bad guys are made neurodivergent in media?

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Puddle of Water
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24 Sep 2024, 2:03 pm

The OCD Nazi eugenicist with obsessions about dirt and contamination is a particularly jarring trope. It also isn't really accurate to OCD.

Sometimes, the self-hating bigot is a real thing.
And the irony of a bigot with fears of contamination himself targeting people with sensory issues or obsessions is narratively powerful.
But I think a lot of media uses these tropes very lazily.
Neurodivergence is too often lazily used as a red right hand marking one as evil.
In a different way, self-hatred and trauma are sometimes also pathologized in a victim-blaming kind of way.



BillyTree
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25 Sep 2024, 3:15 pm

Stereotypically good looking white, straight Americans that talk without a forreign accent are rarely the bad guys in Hollywood movies.


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lostonearth35
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06 Oct 2024, 12:55 pm

Hollywood is racist, sexist and abelist and relies heavily on stereotypes. For that is a sad and sorry part of being a human being.

Look at pirate movies, the "good" pirates that are supposed to be dashing lovable rogues usually have all their limbs still attached while the "bad" pirates are usually missing at least one limb or an eye and are uglier.

They also make characters in books that were supposed to be homely-looking more pleasant to look at in their movie adaptations. Just look at Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies. In the book he was described as having greasy hair and "A face only a mother could love", which meant he was ugly. But Hollywood doesn't normally hire people who aren't superficially good-looking.

Also a person who is supposed to be ugly or obese in media would usually just be average-looking or maybe only slightly overweight in real life. Like I said before, Hollywood is a teensy bit reluctant to hire people who aren't thin or good-looking.



cyberdad
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06 Oct 2024, 10:54 pm

to be fair to Hollywood, all movie companies around the world hire attractive people as actors.
Universally ugly/weird people are either for comic relief or bad guys or victims in some horror film who die in the first 5 minutes.