Gorrath said:
Ragsnstitches said:
But does that mean that racism is determined by the "offender" or the those who are subject to the "offending" material (quotations to illustrate ambiguity)? It's well known that Japan had, historically, a very introverted culture and there isn't nearly as much racial mixing over there as is in America or central Europe. Consequently, much Japanese medias foreign interpretations can come across a little... indelicate. That's not a scathing criticism of Japans culture or anything of the sort. My stance has been and continues to be that intent does not always translate in execution.
Well, that really depends on what definition of racism you are using. I think of racism as being discrimination based on race. Thus, it is neither the offender or the offended who determine if a thing is racist or not, it is whether someone was discriminated against. I do not equate being offended with being discriminated against, though the two might go hand in hand depending on circumstance. I find this a preferable means of judging racism as it lends itself more towards an objective view than a subjective one. Whether the way foreigners are portrayed with indelicacy or not in Japanese media is also up for debate, as it seems to be culturally normal for all characters to be steeped in stereotypes. If this is something that is done to characters across the board, and not limited to specific races of people, it is not racially discriminatory and thus not racist.
That would be my definition too. However the determinant factor (discrimination) is context sensitive. Taking the OPs remark on Resident Evil 5 for example, many would argue the racist claims are people knee jerking in response to Black people being shot by a white man and ignoring the games context of zombie apocalypse and the fact there is a black character who mirrors this. But as someone on this topic already mentioned, with the added context of historical apartheid, the idea of a white (former) police man shooting "inhuman" blacks it's a tad more insensitive then just white men killing black men. Also, this isn't accounting the "tribal" sections or Shivas alternate "costume".
The developers didn't mean to draw those similarities. They wanted a different setting from Urban sprawls or Remote European villages and Africa (which at the time of development, had some mainstream interest as a result of movies like blood diamond) had a unique palette to offer that hadn't been exhausted in other games (only other game that comes to mind was Far Cry 2).
But people familiar with or affected by Apartheid can easily see these threads of thought, even if the intent wasn't there in reality. The feeling of discrimination is very real to them, despite the absence of intent.
So, do we judge whether Resident Evil is discriminatory by the Japanese developers who may not have the knowledge of apartheid consciously in mind when producing the game, or the people who upon playing the game see the similarities and draw conclusions from that? Unfortunately there is no middle ground. A 3rd party can "objectively" rule either way, saying that Capcoms (Japanese) developers did not intend for such similarities to be drawn and therefore are alleviated of "racist" accusations, or they can lean with the people affected by apartheid and say that Capcoms developers should have been more attentive with their research.
Or they can rule how I ruled, it was unintended but intention does not necessarily translate in execution.
Again, this does not account for the Tribal section and Shivas alternate "costume".
It's far from useless. The objective isn't to create a check list to say "don't do this", which I feel many feel this to be the case, hence accusations of nitpicking or cultural bias which often crop up, but to be critically aware of what things mean to different people, in different contexts, and with the addition of hindsight. It shouldn't negatively impact ones enjoyment of a production but unfortunately it often does.
I am unconvinced by the usefulness of the term "potentially offensive", not because it has some ramification in the form of a checklist, but simply because nearly everything is potentially offensive to someone. Some of the most benign media has been ridiculed to death by "offended" people. If a Christian author writes a book about a fictional rapture, I don't expect him to consider whether the book is going to offend an atheist. He might be very aware that some of his ideas are potentially offensive or he may have no idea, in either case I don't expect him to care. Nor do I think J.K. Rowling should give a rat's backside about the Christians who were claiming her books were offensive. Just to be clear, I'm not arguing that content creators should make no effort to be cognizant of people's reactions to their creations, good and bad. Rather than potentially offensive,
I'd ask myself if the work was discriminatory, whether it was well written, whether the characters were any good, whether it was sexist, ect.
Emphasis by me.
Discrimination, in a cultural sense, is inherently offensive. No matter how you swing it, the person who comes out of a discriminatory decision or action less favorably, won't feel to happy about it. So having "is it discriminatory" as a criteria to be judged leaves it open automatically to "is it offensive". You just can't separate the two.
For extra clarity, here is the definition of Discrimination I am using:
"make an unjust or prejudicial distinction in the treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of race, sex, or age." I hope we don't get into semantics on this point, because the alternative meaning (recognise a distinction) is a completely vapid definition under the context of this topic.
A side note: You mentioned a Christian writing a book about the rapture. Religious dogma occupies a special area that seriously needs addressing, but not here. It doesn't just talk about things that MAY offend some people, but many writers actively propagate hate against specific groups and are, inherently, of supremacist mindsets (a devout believer who thinks that their faith is the one true faith, can't possibly "respect" another faith... it's a complete clash of ideals and an utter failure in logic). They can butter it up all they want with words of warmth, tolerance and forgiveness, but it all adds up to some seriously frustrating double think.
I'm not saying that we should hold world media to any particular countries political standards. But just like we can critique a game for having janky/cumbersome mechanics to us but, conversely, is vastly preferred by the Japanese (or other) market, we can also constructively,assess the implications of a foreign world view on our culture (whatever culture that may be).
I'm not sure your comparison to game mechanics works well here. There isn't much cultural relevance or historical context for any specific game mechanic. I think the closest you might get is the JRPG, but there is no specific cultural difference that I can think of that would make Japanese people like JRPGs and Americans not like JRPGs. Not in the same way we might look at black face and see huge red flags and racial issues and they look at black face and wonder what all the fuss is about.
I think you misunderstand, I must have conferred it poorly. I didn't mean to say game mechanics are culturally or historically significant, but rather that there is a distinct difference between preferred systems between different countries, specifically when it comes to North American/European preferences compared to most of Asia. That certainly has some cultural context, but that wasn't my point. My point is we don't just say "well it's made by the Japanese and that's what they like", we (in a very general sense) are often very critical of Japanese game design based off of what we are more comfortable with. In the same sense, we shouldn't just go "ah well, they are Japanese and therefore they are culturally different to us so any cultural commentary on their games from a western viewpoint is invalid" (I know that's not what you are saying).
Also, let me clarify, this goes BOTH ways. I feel like I'm starting to rail on Japan when I really don't intend to.
This isn't exclusive to us looking at media coming our way, but what we put out too. I mean, I'm pretty sure at least some Russian gamers are tired of shooting Russians in FPS games from the states (over simplification of a vastly complex problem).
I'm going to come off like an insensitive ass here, but I don't much care if Russian gamers get tired of shooting at Russians in games. Russians are just as free to make a game about shooting up Americans in thirty iterations of a bad FPS as far as I'm aware. I don't know why anyone expects the media in their own country to pander to their specific desires, let alone the media produced in a different country. What's more there are a metric ton of FPS that having nothing to do with Russians at all. I know we like to use it as an example because there seem to be a lot of bad-guy Russians in FPS games, but I've played lots of FPS games that never mentioned Russia or Russians.
I get the feeling though that your objection might more be along the lines of how Russians might feel about constantly being portrayed as bad-guys by the West. Now that part does have historical context and cultural issues wrapped up in it. But there is a difference between expecting a content creator in the U.S. to understand the shared cultural context of U.S.-Russian relations, and expecting a Japanese studio to understand the implications of black face in an American context. Even with that said, there's no reason U.S. studios shouldn't use Russians as bad guys, even if they should consider whether the game they are making just uses a bunch of half-assed tropes and demonizes Russians as a people.
Just want to catch this as it could snowball:
"there's no reason U.S. studios shouldn't use Russians as bad guys"
I never meant to claim otherwise. The only thing I'm advocating is critical awareness and critical thought. I would say the freedom of the artist/creators trumps all else. Even a horrendous bigot could make the most disgusting crap and I won't clamor for censorship. However, I will comment on it in a very unflattering way (no consideration towards others means no consideration from me).
But yeah, I agree. I like it when this conversations are discussed. Unfortunately I'm noticing all to often an attempt to shut down discussions rather then progress them, on this site at least. Apparently if no side "concedes" then nothing of value is made... I find that remarkably disheartening.
To be somewhat more dismissive, I'm finding many of the people claiming that certain criticism are "overly sensitive", are they themselves overly sensitive.
My goal isn't so much to convince the person I'm speaking with to concede any given point, but just to create a dialog anyone can read and come to their own conclusions. I'm also happy to be wrong about things, as being shown to be wrong is one of the best methods for me to improve my thinking. I don't have a lot of ego wrapped up in being correct, and I find that particular issue to be one of mankind's greatest flaws.
I know, I was making a minor commentary on how these topics play out on these forums (and the web in general really). It was by no means directed towards you. Now that I think about it, it was a completely asinine comment. It was venting, pure and simple.
Note for @Gorrath: It's getting late here and I likely won't be on here for much longer. I'll read your response, but depending on what I have to do tomorrow I may not get around to responding to it (at least not comprehensively). If I don't get back to it, don't feel dismayed like I'm abandoning the discussion. I have a very short attention span when it comes to forum discussions and I might have lost my train of thought. Good talk otherwise.
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