Oh, they have by now, as two male characters are disappearing for a female refugee locomotive in the new video linked. Yet you are right, this has not yet been affecting sales. While I believe broadening the range will be helpful to sales, I expect Thomas to go down even further due to their new PC messages.

Remember how the PC- indoctrinated "Ghost buster" movie tanked. Not so much because of an all-female staff, but because every other conversation was male-bashing and the only male character being presented as an idiot.

Now the new "Thomas" presents Gordon as an arrogant idiot as well as the new female refugee locomotive as the most sympathetic character.

Producers can of course try to generate new customers by broadening the range offered, but if that fails or does not work out as hoped, it would be a good idea not have the existing customers treated like a dying out unnecessary species and still expecting their money. The customers and especially the unpaid volunteers of the future will remain mostly male; we should know this by now after billions of state money spent on equality for many years did not augment the interest in STEM fields as much as expected.

Mike

well I guess SJWs aka PC crowd want to ruin any film, video game, TV franchises everywhere and ruin entertainment for everyone. The 2016 Ghostbusters movie was terrible and treated Chris Hemsworth aka Thor an idiot and the movie has originality. Anyway the new female engines are just terrible in fact Thomas the Tank Engine has been in decline since ever since Britt Allcroft and David Mitton left and also after the death of Rev. W. Awdry. Sad thing is every franchise and every story has an ending that is a part of life. I watch these new episodes just to see how much money you can throw into a dumpster fire. Every est. franchise wants to pander an fan base and fandom that doesn't exist because of SJWs. In order to save Thomas is to get rid of SJWs and go to real railroaders that knows railroading that's the only way. period.

Once they got rid of the models it all went downhill.

Family friend owns a christmas tree farm and I worked there during peak season every year. It was a good job for a kid to have (they hired every kid who would show up and work at least an hour). I remember making $10 an hour (early 2000s) and got a .50 cents each year you went back. Prices were $15-$100 for a tree that could fit on your car, higher if you wanted something bigger plus our shipping/delivery fee.

Looking back id say 100-150 trees a day was a normal day depending on weather and a busy day could be near 1000 (farm is centrally located to 1 large city and its major suburbs to the north). The cut your own tree is way more popular out where I live so most of the labor was spent walking people to where certain species were planted, helping them get trees onto the cars, cashing people out, and sharpening saws. They also made a good cut selling coco, tea, coffee, and the like.

Amen.

Guilty of what?

It tanked because it was a bad movie, not because of "male bashing".



He already was super arrogant so no change there.

That was just me being cheeky. My point was that despite me being a white guy on the north side of middle age, I appreciate that museums/TV shows/etc... have a future beyond my own demographic, preferences or beliefs.


Not related to Ron’s question, but I am going to tap out of these TTE threads. It was interesting for awhile, but it seems the conversation now spinning back into an unproductive place.

Rob

PS: Thinking about these threads in general, I would like to see the bottom-line results of the museum or heritage road that puts up a sign explaining the SJW’s, PC crap believers, girls, etc... are not welcome and don’t deserve to have their interests represented. I don’t think that would hurt ticket sales one bit. ;-) Nothing will help a dying interest like old trains by making outcasts of potential visitors.

Exactly!

As well I would like to see the bottom-line results of the museum or heritage road that puts up a sign explaining boys or old white men are not welcome and don’t deserve to have their interests represented.

This is why I object to politics or PC included into this.

Mike

Except NOBODY is saying that's what should be done.

What they're saying is that others should too.

If saying that everyone should be included, not just one type of person, feels like persecution to you, well, you need to get some perspective. The world simply is not zero sum like that.

Nobody should be criticized for saying that just one type of person should be included-- unless they actually believe that, and are enforcing such a policy. There seems to be a fundamental presumption here that because certain types of people are under represented in an organization, that organization must be working to keep them out. It is unfair to make this charge just on the basis of the makeup of the organization members. The people on the receiving end of this unfair charge may feel persecuted by it, and rightly so.

I was walking by a business recently and saw a help wanted sign that said, "white men need not apply". I couldn't resist and walked inside and asked how they'd feel if they went by a place with such a sign against their demographic, and that's wrong either way. They didn't get my point at all.

Yeah, but very few men went to go see it (some in part due to how men were portrayed, even some of the reviews were specific on that point). Say what you will about girls embracing 'geek culture' but it's still a male-dominated genre.

Thanks Ed and Rob. Nice to see some others out there with open minds to new things. I still have yet to see anyone make a valid argument about how adding a few characters to make the case more representative of society is going to ruin anything. Writing will make or break it, not the social makeup of which engines came from where or whether they're male or female. Cartoons have been teaching lessons as long as I can remember. Anyone else remember the days of GI Joe and it's lesson at the end of the episode? Nothing new here.

Absolutely not. People SHOULD be criticized for being exclusionary.

If people think that being critiqued for being exclusionary is being "persecuted" then they need to learn a little bit about the world around them and see what persecution ACTUALLY is.

If an organization tends to attract a certain cohort in numbers larger than their statistical representation in society as a whole, then maybe there's something in the behavior of that cohort that may be quietly driving others away. Sometimes it might be something intrinsic (I don't see very many white dudes at step competitions) in the activity, or it might be something that might feel invisible to the people involved but is actually putting up "X need not apply" signals.

Think about it like this. Do you think an enthusiastic young black guy is going to come volunteer if the first thing he sees in the parking lot is a bunch of cars with confederate flags or "Jeff Davis is MY president" stickers all over them? Do you an Indian family will want to bring their kids to that museum?

Hell, do you think most enthusiastic young white guys will feel like he's found a place he wants to volunteer?

Sure, those old racists have a legal right to display their "heritage" but that doesn't mean it's a good thing for an organization they're associated with.

In this case, it might make a bit of sense for a smart marketing person to ask them to maybe park around back. If they think being asked to do that qualifies as persecution, well, maybe someone needs to talk to them about their paper thin skin too.

I don't think I made my point clearly enough. I am referring to a person who is not exclusionary being accused of being exclusionary simply because he runs an organization that does not have a representative balance of gender and race in the members of his organization. The example I used of a person who says that just one type of person should be included was meant to be an example of a person who did not actually say that, but is accused of it because of the mix of people in his organization. I am referring to a mix of people that developed naturally just based on the people who happened to have come to the organization because of their personal interest in doing so. I don't see any reason to feel guilty if that mix is not a representative balance of gender, race, age, etc. I don't think that is being exclusionary.