Representation in media

[Kaining]

[Sampson]

[Sampson]

Not necessarily? Issues of sexuality and gender identity drive plenty of well-written shows.

In every show with characters basically ever, the characters all have gender identities and sexualities. Their relationships, often romantic or sexual, drive the plots. People just take it for granted that these characters will be cis/straight, and often you only hear people talk a lot about a character's sexuality when it breaks away from the norm.

[PLA]

That it showed up on television is more of a side-thing. What's going on behind the scenes is that humans like Bryan Konietzko, Mike DiMartino, and most of their human colleagues in a major american industry don't usually try to mention girl-girl couples, not because they don't want to, but because they already expect that the higher-ups won't allow it, but in this case eventually decided to chat with bosses about it, and found out that it's not an automatic dismissal anymore.
They then told anyone who would listen about it, and other producers have an example of when trying to convince the execs was not a wasted effort.

Is your complaint mostly that there is too much romance-stuff in too many shows? You're not wrong, then.
Movies ending with a big dumb kiss between the main boy and girl are very common, and it's both what people want to make and what people want to see. This thing ended with two girls holding hands, and it made a lot of people very angry.

[PLA]

^ Dude, people are weirdos. At least seven billions of them. You'll need to separate understanding why they want stuff from accepting that they want stuff.
The Avatar-audience has been doing shipping from the start of Last Airbender, and the makers are basically the same group of people as the audience, who happen to also be in charge.

Heterosexual romance is super accepted. It didn't need to be gay for that. But it was the favoured pairing for many, so they're happier with it. And of course the usual biblemin are angrier with it, conversely.
And a lot of people are just happy because the biblemin have been getting in their grill about it for decades or centuries.

You can't really relate to wanting this kind of lovey stuff in this story, correct? But you have reason to believe that people do want it?
People want the boy-girl version, people want the boy-boy version and people want the girl-girl version. They've always gotten as much of the boy-girl version as they could wish for. But the others are still rarer commodities. And it's often been artificial scarcity, with people deliberately getting in the way of deliveries. So the value is ramped up, and people get invested.