Come on, books, movies, games, or comics are full of underwritten, undeveloped, superfluous characters. But I´ve never seen that people ask for a compelling backstory and character development about the male guy in a suit in a bar, the muscled man working out in the gym, the bored cashier in the hotel lobby, or the bikini girl skating in the beach.
But if in the scene there´s a gay, black-asian-spanish, Muslim, etc... character and suddenly you have to justify your presence there, you need to have a compelling backstory, character development and a plot justification to be there, just because.
There were, are, and will always be scenery, background characters, and nobody complains about not knowing the motivations of the bikini girl or workout boy character but, if it´s from a minority, you suddenly need to justify your presence in there. Because if not, you´re just a gay/black/asian/spanish character that it´s only there to fulfill some imaginary minority integration quote and it´s all about politics.
So, All background characters could only be hetero, white, Christian, and male and if not, you have to explain why? For what reason?
It´s really tiresome reading the same "When a character is only there because it´s gay and no other reason" line over and over. Its an f... background character. It needs no other reason to be there more than add color to the world around, it´s part of the scenery. Like workout man and bikini girl. they are only there because it´s a beach (and they possibly have an amazing six-pack on camera) the cashier is gay or have eight fingers or have a large moustache. No political reason. It´s simply a cashier that likes to sleep with men. That´s it. No more plot reasons needed because it´s an unimportant background character.
Let´s use a scene as an example. A meteor comes crashing into the city. Two unnamed characters appear on the screen and one embraces and kisses the other and says "It´s gonna be ok, babe" the screenwriter and director want to show the dramatic scene, the desperation of the people and that the human spirit always tries to find hope in the most desperate circumstances. So, we use two caucasian actors, one male, one female. No problem Now we use two women, one caucasian the other Afro-American -> Same scene, we convey the same message to the viewer.
If there´s a huge meteor crashing into the city and there are two desperate people trying to find shelter in her lover´s embrace in the scene and you are fixated in only seeing two interracial women kissing each other on-screen maybe its because it annoys you that there are two women kissing on the scene, not because any "political statement"
