Representation in media is important, nobody in their right mind is going to deny that. We all want to see people like us. It struck me today that what we find representation in is not always obvious. I am wearing my Slow Poke Rodriguez shirt as I type. I don't match any of his demographics, so it may seen strange that I latched onto Slow Poke as a child.
Because the sloth from Zootopia did not yet exist, you see. Nowadays I get a lot of sloth jokes.
I move slowly. If you sneak up behind me and yell, there is a noticeable delay before I jump out of my skin. I usually miss (by that much) when I try to catch something that's falling or thrown to me. I'm not male, Mexican, or a mouse, but boy did I identify with Slow Poke Rodriguez.
I've opined in the past about whether or not Slow Poke and his cousin Speedy Gonzalez are negative stereotypes. I've opined about stereotypes in general. None of that is what I'm talking about today. At least not directly.
All of this has got me musing on representation. It's easy to see that we need to see heroes that meet our demographics. There's a reason Spock has been arguably the most popular Star Trek character in the franchise's history when none of us are Vulcan. We see something of ourselves below the surface. And we need that.
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