"The Audience Needs To See Themselves..."

The statement in the title is an oft stated claim made by producers of film, TV and written media in recent years. The intentions behind the statement may be good, but as the saying goes, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

There have been a number of efforts taken to increase things like diversity and representation in the field of fiction, and it's an honorable effort to make. The more voices that can be heard, the more stories there will be that can be told. However, one of the flaws with the argument that these efforts must be forced upon the audience in order for them to be able to "see themselves" is that it is an argument inherently based on superficiality.

The idea that, in order for someone to be able to relate to a character or "see themselves" in a character, the character must look just like them, grossly underestimates the audience. It operates on the assumption that the audience is incapable of relating to a character who doesn't look like them, which is false. You don't need to be straight to relate to a straight character. You don't need to be Asian to relate to an Asian character. You don't need to be a woman to relate to a female character. Those innate characteristics are just a single element of an individual. And being innate characteristics, meaning traits that one has no control over or ability to change, such as skin color, race, sex or age, they generally have very little to do with what makes a character relatable. It's a character's beliefs, actions, behaviors or experiences that most people relate to. They see themselves in a character because, if they were in that character's position, the would probably do the same thing, or feel the same way, or think the same thing that the character thinks. That's why readers and viewers are able to identify with or "see themselves" even in non-human characters.

It's one of the reasons why race-swapping, sex-swapping of characters or general diversity that comes across as nonsensical within a particular setting is often not seen as anything but condescending to most readers/viewers. Inserting a black character in a story about 8th century Vikings so that black viewers can "see themselves" is seen as nonsensical. It's why a story about a small isolated village with little to no communication with the outside world being populated by a racially diverse group of people is seen as nonsensical. The casual reader/viewer may ask, "Why should it matter?", but the fan notices that something is off, because the fan invests in the property, whether it be an original property or an established property. Unless it is explained in some rational way (like a village that was made up by refugees or travelers from different lands for generations that eventually grew isolated due to being made up of such a diverse group), it brings the reader/viewer out of the story. It interrupts the suspension of disbelief. Not all diversity is equal. Diversity, when done right, is a marvelous thing. It gives the reader/viewer multiple perspectives. When done wrong, just shoehorned in so your reader/viewer is able to "see themselves"? Not so much.