Real-Life Decision Making
You're ready to ship off a new CD-ROM title that you've been
working on for months. You're happy with the work the animators have
done. The characters, a mob of young boys and one girl, are drawn
superbly. The writing is well done. The boys are sugar-sweet, and the girl,
who is the villain in the story, is truly despicable. You couldn't help
but hate her!
That might just be the problem. Another producer, Hans, is looking over
the story with you. He wonders why there is only one female in the story and
why only she is a villain.
"This is a remake of an older story," you explain. "It was written about
a tree-house gang of boys and a girl villain. It just wouldn't make sense
if the villain wasn't female."
Inwardly, though, you sigh. Hans might be right. There's a big chance
that people will be offended if the story has only one female character and
she's a villain. People like to see boys and girls treated equally in
a story.
You have some choices to make. You could take your chances and leave the
CD-ROM the way it is. At least it would remain true to the original story.
Or you could rewrite the script, replacing the girl with a male villain.
A third option would be to keep your female villain, but create another character,
a male, to be her partner in crime.
Whatever you decide, you better make up your mind quickly. Time is money
in this business! What are you going to do?