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This TV season many shows, not just in the Arrowverse, experimented with increased diversity in its casts as well as more stories involving women and minority groups. To me, I've been noticing Hollywood and TV execs think all you need to have in order to make a good show nowadays is diversity and representation. I wanted to make a post here because the Arrowverse is a perfect example of why this is not true. I watch Arrow, Flash, Legends, Stargirl, and S&L. I mainly want to focus on The Flash for this discussion. Anyone who's been keeping up with season 7 of Flash knows that most viewers, like myself, despise the current season (look up recent reviews if you don't believe me). Its horribly written, has cringey dialogue, misused characters, and a plot written by a 6th grader. However, Eric Wallace, the current showrunner of Flash doesn't seem to care about how bad its gotten, and instead props the show up because of diversity. See these two interviews:
https://www.insider.com/the-flash-diversity-representation-showrunner-cast-interview-2021-6
https://comicbook.com/dc/news/the-suicide-squad-x-secrets-we-learned-on-explosive-set/#3
I'm all for diversity and representation, but it shouldn't come at the cost of a well-written show. This season of Flash frustrates me because I feel that the writers think "Oh well if we just put the characters from minority groups in it more and give them something to do, then we don't have to do really anything else to make the show good". A perfect example of this issue was S7E14 Rayo de Luz, one of the lowest rated episodes of Flash. This episode decided to focus on Allegra, who has a mixed ethnic/racial background. I'm fine with focusing on side characters, but the writing was awful in that episode. The plot was horrible (why would ultraviolet team up with the doctor who took away her vocal chords??), the VFX were marginal at best, and overall everything was so campy. I can also recall many of the same problems with S7E13 (also low rated) from that season. Again an episode that focused on a character from a minority group, this time Cecile, but horribly done and all filler. Nobody cared about these episodes and were just put here for representation. Why??????
Episodes like these not only make me dislike the characters that are getting represented, but also makes me lose respect for the show. The CW has been doing things like this for ages and it's frustrating. For example, I don't watch Supergirl and Batwoman because it's very clear those shows don't care about being good, only to represent women. I watched 2 seasons of Supergirl, and the show shoves it down your throat that Kara is a girl every single episode. Rather than showing you she's strong, they just tell you. Supergirl also had cringy writing, terrible VFX, and a liberal agenda that smacks you in the face every chance it gets. How come the fact that Supergirl has diversity excuse all of these other problems? It's hard to have respect for Supergirl when her show is so poorly done. Other female characters from the Arrowverse like Thea from Arrow or Lois from Superman and Lois are written so that they don't have to tell you they're strong, they show it. Batwoman I barely gave it a chance, especially after the "The suit is already perfect. It will be. . . when it fits a woman" promo. From what I've heard and seen, I'm not missing much.
It frustrates me to see networks toss out great writing and just plop in diversity. I watch a couple of other shows (Legends of Tomorrow, Nancy Drew, A Million Little Things) that have done the same thing. Having diversity shouldn't be the only thing required to have a good show. Rather, it should just be one piece of the puzzle. You should have diversity, but you should need solid writing, a gripping story, good VFX (when needed), and strong characters to make a good show. I watched the pilot for Kung Fu which is another show on the CW. This show tries to represent Asian Americans, but wow is it terrible! Again, the show's not terrible because it has Asians in it, but because it doesn't have any of the other components that make a great show. It makes me feel bad for Asian Americans since the one show they get is a complete joke.
TV producers like Eric Wallace need to step it up and realize you need more than diversity to make a good show. Arrow and the early seasons of Flash and Legends of Tomorrow had diversity and were also great shows. Why can't we go back to that quality?
tl;dr Lots of TV shows this past season seem to only care about diversity and think that's all you need to make a good show.
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