Dreamwork's Voltron Legendary Defender's Queer representation including Asian representation and Men of Color is half-baked and lacking.
Edit: Minors do not reblog,comment or like on my posts or I will block you.
On the topic of Dreamwork's criticism aside from films, even if I'm a fan of VLD in the past but I wanted to put my opinions out regarding this controversial show, let's talk about the queer representation and how men of color who are love interests to Shiro are treated first, Adam who is Shiro's love interest has less screen time in S7, most of his scenes revolved around his argument with his partner related to Shiro's well-being of his body but Shiro protests of wanting to continue going on the mission to which the couple ended on bad terms, his last scene where he was sent out to fight Sendak as being one the pilots to fight against the Galra ships and he died during the war, and Shiro never once get to meet him again in person only to visit his grave.
It's even worse with the lack of screen time that he's barely even a character nor we get to spend time bonding with him before his death. He feels more of a disposable POC character than an actual character. Next is Curtis, who I might describe is a background character, yet we never seen him ever interacting more with Shiro yet I'm surprised he got married with Shiro at the end despite the two barely interacting or ever have on screen chemistry.
Even if it's the first MLM kiss in cartoon, the payoff was unsatisfying. I get that the show was rushed in production issues and may have to appeal to a worldwide audiences considering there are still conservatives who are against gay relationships and might get attacked due to censorship but it doesn't mean it excuses the lackluster writing. I recommend to watch this video that goes into depth about the issues of Voltron's queer representation and one the writers calling Shiro a "Straight Man." Whether intentionally or unintentionally by accident just says a lot about the effort on writing gay characters in media.
Just think about it, two of the men who are both brown skinned, the other is tan and one is darker skinned are only men who are basically love interests to Shiro, they're barely even memorable characters or have narrative impact in the story, they're just love interests with barely any strong characterizations to them that the fandom has to fill in the gaps with their headcanons to make them feel like actual characters. It's kind of strange to me that DW decided to not give two men who are POC their own story arcs or develop a strong relationship with Shiro to just be instead "love interests." Kind of problematic if you ask me and considering they did Allura the Black Girlfriends Disposable Trope at the end doesn't make it better.
Now lastly let's talk about race, I watched VLD back in 2018 after the show ended, and it's my only introduction and exposure to Voltron, and what I wasn't aware of until recently is that most of the main casts are raceswapped from the originals most especially Allura was originally blonde until they made her a black woman in the remake. But considering there are other Voltron shows that are not accurate to the originals so VLD might be it's own AU version of it. The reason I want to discuss about it is regarding Keith who among the main casts who has no established race despite being half-galra, and it's implied by DW of the AAPI Heritage from the wiki that he might be Asian.
Just think about it, most of the main casts have established races yet Keith was not, sure he might be implied to be Asian, but Asian people are vast, we have Southeast and Eastern Asian people and I was one of the Southeast Asian people who are Filipinos, yet DW couldn't bothered to give him an actual race only implied to be Asian even tho he was voiced by an Asian VA? With the only exception of Shiro Takeshi who is voiced by an American VA. It's even worse that he's biracial, and I thought Kogane was his actual surname until I realized it was the fandom who gave him that bc DW couldn't bothered to give him a official Surname, despite that Keith is fine as a character, as for Shiro the same can be said about him except his romantic relationships surrounding his story is underdeveloped and Sheith as a ship has more chemistry than Shiro's 2 love interests was quite ironic honestly. Considering that Dreamworks was hyping up their queer representation only to turn Adam into a disposable gay man at his tragic demise while a background character with less screentime and lines managed to be married with an Asian disabled man without onscreen chemistry and development. Just bc Dreamworks may not be as pandering like Disney and Pixar or any other companies when it comes to representation that it feels forced sometimes that it makes anti SJWs or anti woke people call these companies woke, does not mean Dreamworks should be given a slap on the wrist for their poor and half-assed representation and just willingly accept it even if from what I've seen about the She-ra The Princesses of Power reboot and I have not fully watched it but got spoiled by the critical fandom in Tumblr who voiced out their complaints about the queer or lesbian representation being abusive and romanticized that even if DW gave lesbians more screentime than VLD ever did with it's gay characters considering it's a trend in Western Media who have more love for lesbians than gay men. Still does not mean it's great representation.
That being said, Queer and Asian representation including Men of Color and Allura deserved better than this.
