The Importance of Diversity

Diversity within your group of creators is important, for many reasons. First, truthfully, as a white, cis-gendered, straight man, born in the US, I’m pretty certain (owing to 75 years of cultural dominance in the TV and film industries) that anyone reading this paragraph could credibly tell my story if they wanted to up to a point. I am the central character of modern entertainment. Anyone from a different background telling my story is likely to add new depth and interesting angles to it that I might miss, myself. 

Diversity is important because perspective matters and people need and want to see themselves represented in fiction, but in addition to that, new stories are interesting stories. If you hear the same joke more than once, it’s no longer funny. The same horror story and it’s no longer scary. 

Yet we keep telling the same stories again and again, with the same sort of hero. Joseph Conrad has a lot to answer for with regards to this idea of the hero’s journey, but he’s dead, and it’s time to focus on other possibilities. 

So it’s important to get people who do not have similar lives involved together in this sort of project. Because in a limited time such as this, the only way to ensure the story doesn’t fall into cliche is to ensure that as many people with different experiences and perspectives as possible are involved.

The Dangers of Symbolism

Additionally, there is no time in a project like this to plan symbolism. Anything symbolic that happens is going to be accidental, and potentially will be offensive and not at all what anyone in the project would want or intend. 

More people, with more perspectives, give an opportunity to catch that. This is not to say it is their job – everyone is there to create comics. But more eyes on potential issues is always going to be a good thing.