Trumps up for the thread.

You left out consumer/worker units.

I think it's an over simplified fallacy and that this kind of thinking is IMHO definitely dangerous for the creative process.

Just because you own vision of the world and you own political bias might impact how you write a story, it doesn't necessarily mean that everything you write, every story you create has to be or even is remotely a representation of your own personal political belief.

If you write a story where the main character is homophobic (or whatever ...phobic or ...ist you want), regardless if he/she is one of the "good guys" or not, it doesn't necessarily mean that you are secretly homophobic yourself or that you support homophobia that you try to normalize it or anything like that; it might just be a story and not some political statement.

The problem is when some peoples starts analyzing everything you write and start finding political statement in everything, and start attributing your characters/world actions or belief to yourself.

It can create a dangerous climate where creators becomes frighten to touch some subjects, frighten to create some worlds because if they do some angry nut-jobs will get offended, starts calling them all sort of names and create an overblown controversy.

On the other side, and it is a consequence of the first, you also have a pandering, where other creators might feel to need to include some characters, needs touch some subject, not because they really want's too, not because it will add to or improve anything in their stories, but simply because they think that if they don't do it the same peoples will start screaming that there is not enough "..." in their games, movies, book or that it doesn't have a strong enough political message (i.e. political message they agree with).

In my opinion both are equally bad.

????????

If the story has a main character who is homophobic, and the game presents that character in a positive light (like making the character a hero, for example), then the story is presenting homophobia as a good thing.

Baldur's Gate 2 has an issue of this sort; some of the characters who are good-aligned (including a paladin) seem to not want a certain dark elf joining the party solely on account of her race. (Yes, her character sheet says she's evil, but she doesn't seem to act that way.)

In any case, you can't make a character homophobic, present that character in a good light, and claim that you don't support homophobia.

(On the other hand, a protagonist who is struggling to overcome their homophobia is not an indicator of the author supporting homophobia.)

There's already a pandering to straight people in way too many works. In Baldur's Gate 2 (classic edition), for example, there are 4 romances; 3 with women that are only available to male protagonists, and 1 witn a man that is only available to female protagonists. With these gender restrictions, the game is, in effect, pandering to straight people at the expense of gay people. Where's the same sex romance option, especially since there are *multiple* romance options for straight male characters? (We see a bit of sexism here, with male characters having triple the options of female characters, and the one option for female characters isn't the most likable character.)

(Also, we can see this sort of pandering in many works throughout history, including Romeo and Juliet, for example.)

Those pesky straignt people again! They don't deserve so much pandering! XD

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I'm sorry, Fairfox. I want to answer you, I really do. But I'm struggling to understand what are you saying. And note that it's not easy for rational mind to understand SJW ideology in the first place. And considering that any mistake, any slightest misinterpretation on my part will invoke tonns of accusations of me "derailing" or "strawmanning" the argument, I simply can't risk making an answer that has some fallacy on my part.
Again, sorry.

It really doesn't work like that. This is not analysis. Good history novels usually reflect the prejudices of their times, with, ideally, protagonists being understandably prisoner of them (to some extent, because every historical society also had its own inner critics). But there's a difference between showing and glorifying, even between explaining, excusing and justifying. A difference between describing a character (or society) and describing the objective realities of the world. A character or society can be described as believing that all jews/blacks/homosexuals are subhumans, or jews/blacks/homosexuals can be described as subhumans. Inbetween, you can have descriptive discourses that are framed as insightful (epic speeches of the flawless hero, badass sarcasm of super ownage, etc) or flawed (contradicted by the background world, validly questionned by other characters, doubt cast by the protagonists' known flaws, etc) or part of an evolution ark, etc. The fallacy is in the lowbrow assumption that meaning can be derived from isolated elements. It's the system that matters, in communication.

And more than a fallacy, it's a rhetorical tool, used with false outrage by racists who point out "double standards" of the form "hey, their character is allowed to say this, but when ours say the same thing we're racist ?". The answer being "their character is presented as being wrong, yours is presented as being right". And this stems from the work as a whole.

As for the pandering thing, also pointed out by Rjbuffchix, it's very subjective. Firstly because nothing is universally obvious or universally established in our globalized world (I used to have very little patience in front of productions with heavy-handed obvious moral discourses, but since then I've measured -including on these very boards- how little this supposed basics are shared). Secondly because the very reason why some values seem subculturally obvious is precisely that they keep being hammered by such unsubtle stories (starting with childhood tales and mythologies). Thirdly because, as I said, a discourse is all the more salient as it contrasts with your own views, so what is "pandering" to some may often be "neutral" to others : see how shocking it gets to conservative when a franchise starts featuring female, black or homosexual protagonists. It's seen as "a thing" (in contrast with normality), while the "thing" for the authors would be an all-white all-male cast (and diversity seems more natural in contrast). "Pandering" is a questionable notion. Not to mention all the "pandering" that would then apply to the glorification of consensual values, everytime the baddie is presented as a baddie for transgressing other taboos (murder, theft, regicide, rape, etc). Many values others (and even more "already agreed upon") than antiracism get openly encouraged in our tales, by the hero's qualities or the plot's antagonisms. By the "pandering" logic, these would sound all the more redundant, useless, cheap and easy ("oh, yet again the so-called baddie wants to dominate the planet ? we get it we get it, dominating the planet is bad, sheesh"). But paradoxically, the least consensual the theme, the more it's deemed "pandering", and "preaching the obvious". Again, because visibility.

Yes, they would. And they are.
There is no paradox here. The least consensual the theme is, the more it means that pandering to it's supporters is made at the expense by angering it's opponents. Which means, authors deliberately alienate certain part of audience, however instead of admitting it, they attack that part with accusations of racism, sexism, etc.

Why always so one-dimensional? I would agree that if the character was a hero because he's homophobic - the story would be indeed homophobic. Otherwise there could be several reasons why a character could be a hero although he's homophobic:

Imagine someone who grew up in a very conservative, maybe even fundamentally religious environment and got all the prejudices fed with his mother's milk and never really came across a situation that forced him to reconsider his "values". The same man can still be a hero who with disregard for his life storms into a burning house saving as many people as he can possibly dying in the attempt.

Now imagine this character not only saves "some people", but also the well known "town-pansy" from that house - because regardless how much he detest that person on a personal level for being gay, the value of human life is still the most precious thing.

Life is complicated and complex - and trying to reduce these complexities to "pure good" and "pure evil" achieves nothing but adding another layer of distortion - makes even more difficult to see things as they are and take them at face value.

This particular train of thought fuels infinite outrage, because it enables people to feel insulted by entirely common media criticism. But it's of course a wholly oversimplistic reactionary interpretation that an author would automatically be labelled racist or homophobic just because he fails to integrate minorities and minoritized people in his work, or draws on common stereotypes (If, of course, the author's actual behaviour and political statements fit the same bill, then ouch).

All of us – the minorities and minoritized well included – who attempt to create a narrative work of art, must deal with their own bias, sometimes the bias against themselves. If an author chooses to work with stereotypes and concentrates on a world of whites, heterosexual, young males, his work of art is just as much political propaganda as a work that shows a lot of diversity, whether the authors intend it to be or not, whether they want to make a statement or not.

It's just that one dares not challenge our preconceptions and the other does.

An important distinction to make: Does the author present the main character's homophobia in a positive light? That, to me, is the deciding factor here.

What exactly do you mean by "positive"? Everyone has own taste. Including taste in people.