Jimquisition: Diversity? LIEversity!

[Silvanus]

It's a symptom of people wanting gaming to be seen as a "grown-up" pasttime, rather than a child's indulgence as it has been. Many people seem to think that gaming will be taken seriously as a medium if it is seen to be "progressive" enough.

Wait. Why should video games be held to a lower standard than other media, exactly?

I don't think anybody here would genuinely argue that video games are solely "children's indulgences" any more, so I'm not sure why it would be a good thing to hold them to that standard.

 

[FriendlyFyre]

The worst thing about all this, is there are real feminist issues in the world, and reasonable feminist activists trying to make real progress, and all this manufactured controversy serves to do is paint them with a broad stroke as silly, and ridiculously demanding.

Does the word Feminazi sound familiar? because this kinda crap is the reason that degrading term exists.

No, that term was coined by Rush Limbaugh, and as such I think we should shun it whenever it makes an appearance.

 

[Silvanus]

A lower standard than other media? Uh, no. What would be the likelihood of outrage if a film about the French Revolution had a white male lead character?

The AC debacle is just a useful distraction here. It does not represent the entire diversity debate, or even a particularly significant episode of it.

Films may feature straight white men as the vast majority of protagonists, but they still feature more diversity than video game characters (by far).

Although you're right that nobody here would call games a children's indulgence, you'll find plenty in wider society who would (although less and less as the medium becomes more mainstream), and what better way to head off that accusation than to tackle Grown-Up Issues, right? Unfortunately the call to tackle grown-up issues is being made by people with, shall we say, a significantly less than grown-up understanding of the issues.

You haven't really well understood where I'm coming from, so I'm less inclined to accept that characterisation of their point of view.

Regardless, I don't really see the relevance of who made "the call". Improving the range of the medium is a better course than steering clear of mature themes.

 

[Silvanus]

That isn't the important difference though, especially given that the film industry produces vastly more movies than the games industry does games. The important difference is that when a film about the French Revolution is announced to have a white male lead character, you don't see the entire conversation dominated by SJWs hysterically screeching about patriarchy.

Firstly, this is pretty absurd hyperbole, now. Those saying there's no problem with the latest AC seem to vastly outnumber those complaining, from what I've seen.

Secondly, as I said before, this tangent is a useful distraction. It does not represent the debate. I have no wish to focus on a single, unrepresentative example.

I understand exactly where you're coming from, I just don't agree with you.
Addressing mature themes is fine, it's even laudable in some cases. When doing so, however, you should ensure that you actually have a mature understanding of the issues involved, and are not simply trying to appear as if you do because it's seen as the "in thing" currently.

This just sounds like a fairly easy method to take the intellectual high ground without actually addressing the issue under discussion.

We're talking about video games (or we should be), not our perceptions of the people arguing either side. We should be able to have our own discussion about themes and representation independently.

 

[Silvanus]

Not really, the majority of voices by volume may be sane ones, but the most heard ones are defintitely the SJW voices as they are shouting the loudest and seem to be reflected by the gaming "press".
What I'd like to know is why this doesn't represent the debate? It seems like a perfectly representative example, and I'm suspicious that you're just trying to handwave away an uncomfortable problem, so please explain.

Firstly, because a great number of people who want greater diversity see no problem with the AC franchise-- such as myself (from what I can tell, the AC franchise has had a very diverse cast overall). Secondly, because that particular debacle focused more on historical accuracy than most others. And, finally and most importantly, because no single example represents the entire debate.

I have addressed the issue at length in this thread already and have not seen anything even close to an adequate counterpoint. If you have one to make then I'd genuinely like to hear it.
The reason that I'm more interested in the motivations of the people arguing the other side (kind of, my view doesn't really fit either "side") is simple:
They've advanced no good reason for their demands and no backup for their assertions, and yet they are still making them.
This makes me wonder if the issue is ideological in nature, and if so what has led this ideology to be accepted.

Whether or not you've addressed it at length earlier in the thread, or in the past, the focus on the people rather than the point is still an ad hominem.

I'll mention a few of my own reasons, though, if you're interested. Firstly, I'd say that there's a wealth of evidence in literature and film that art forms benefit from presenting their audience with a wider range (of characters, of storylines, of themes). Characters of different backgrounds allow the art forms to explore differing experiences and different characterisation.

Some of the most seminal works have explored themes and experiences that were made possible by the characters' experiences, which are deeply linked to their diverse backgrounds. Think of Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, and The Colour Purple, and The City and the Pillar, and Delores Claiborne, and The Merchant of Venice, and even Magneto of the X-Men. We've been given some fantastic characters. Had we simply folded our collective arms, and said that we just don't need any of these minorities in our literature, we would have seriously damaged the art.

I should also mention that sometimes, it's nice to be able to play a character (or read a character, or see a character on television) who is like you. Many people get to experience that all the time. Others don't.

 

[Silvanus]

Actually literature and film tend to suffer if they present their audience with a wider range of characters, storylines, and themes because the story becomes convoluted and difficult to understand. An example is Game of Thrones which has a huge range of characters but most people can only remember who a few of the characters are.

Let's not forget that unless these books and films appeal to the general public they won't sell, so exploring differing experiences and different characterisation often leads to things that lack an audience.

A Song of Ice and Fire is an example of a series with a huge number of characters, period. There is relatively little racial diversity (as it's based on historical England/ Europe to some degree), and only a smattering of non-straight characters (among a cast of hundreds upon hundreds), most of whose sexualities are only alluded to.

Most people remember who the salient characters are. It is also wildly popular.

Of the stories you mentioned I'd only heard of Delores Claiborne (written by Stephen King), The Merchant of Venice (written by Shakespeare), and Magneto (I watched cartoons he was in). So of these books the only two I've heard of were written by famous authors who just happened to write about something you thought was interesting.

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit: story about the life of a lesbian.
The Color Purple: black woman experiences racism.
The City and the Pillar: story about the life of a male homosexual.
Dolores Claiborne: woman kills her husband for molesting her daughter.
The Merchant of Venice: Jew lends money to a Christian. Jew gets tricked out of his money, a pound of flesh, and is forced to become a Christian.
Magneto: depending on the time period his wife and children/mother and father died during the holocaust, and he wants to kill/subjugate all non-mutants.

How exactly did any of these stories change anything? Did they even sell well because of their topics?

My point was made quite simply in my previous post-- that they were compelling narratives and compelling examples of characterisation, deeply connected to the backgrounds of their characters.

Whether you've heard of them or not is irrelevant. Each is tremendously well-known, and they are (quite obviously) not the sole examples.

How exactly would art have been damaged without these characters? Would the world really be any worse off if Dolores Claiborne had been another story about the supernatural, such as Bag of Bones?

It would be worse off if we made art forms more and more homogeneous, yes. Why would you want less choice in art?

Similarly, the world would be worse off if, instead of all his Science Fiction contributions, Asimov had elected instead to simply write 'Lord of the Rings' again. And, too, had Philip K. Dick chosen that rather than creating mind-bending alternate-reality fiction, he should simply write 'Lord of the Rings' for a third time. And, following that, had Neil Gaiman and Franz Kafka and Virginia Woolfe come to a joint decision that their talents would be better spent producing three more re-writes of 'Lord of the Rings'.

I fail to see how anybody could see innovation as a bad thing in art.

That's because some characters don't work well on TV or other mediums. The character who pays attention in school and in the evening does his homework will always be less usable than the class clown who has wacky adventures. The character who's gay won't be interesting if being gay is his only characteristic.

Who said anything about his sexuality being his "only characteristic"? This is just an attempt to shift the debate.

 

[Silvanus]

The Dothraki are based on the Mongols, while all the Free Cities Daenerys visits are based on the Middle East. So this is racial diversity.

Well, not really-- they're far from directly analogous. Plus, of course, Daenerys' arc is one amongst a huge number, and the protagonist of it is still of the western, "European" type.

I wouldn't describe any of these stories as being tremendously well-known as they're not Harry Potter, Twilight, or Lord of the Rings famous. While some people may have heard of these stories it's unlikely that most people know what any of these stories are about or why the characters are meant to be compelling.

Very few things are Harry Potter, Twilight, or Lord-of-the-Rings. If you want to set that particular (arbitrary) measure, you'll be discounting almost all literature and film, including the extremely-influential. Hell, you'll be discounting the entirety of theatre and poetry.

You'd also be discounting most of video-gaming, aside from CoD and a handful of others.

How would we be worse off it art was more homogeneous? The fact that the same types of stories remain popular while "original" ideas are ignored indicates that people do not want diversity, they want more of what they enjoy.

You're aware that films other than Transformers attract critical acclaim and popularity, of course. If you genuinely believe art and creativity thrive in an atmosphere which discourages difference, then... I'm not going to pursue that line, I'm afraid.

Asimov's contribution was thinking about what it meant to be human, so if he chose to write 'Lord of the Rings' it would be much the same issues except with orcs instead of robots....

Well if you replace defeating the Authority with defeating Sauron and setting the story in a world ruled by the followers of Sauron ......

The Franz Kafka Lord of the Rings could be good. The story of a hobbit trying to survive Sauron's bureaucracy.

Pretty amusing ideas, I must admit, but entirely missing the point. You've even been describing each writer giving a unique insight and focusing on different themes and facets-- that would be innovative.

Since when has innovation involved writing stories that most people don't want to read. Surely it's only innovation if you create something that most people find interesting.

Those examples I mentioned were not things that nobody read. They attracted audiences-- some of them considerable ones... but why does it matter? What's wrong with creating art to be enjoyed by non-massive audiences? What's wrong with catering to a group that isn't the majority, since the majority has so damn much already?

I fail to see why it's "only innovation" if it's super-popular. That simply doesn't seem to follow.

Your attempts to ignore my point is shifting the debate. I'm saying that a character needs to be more than gay in order to be interesting. After all no one would find a story interesting if the protagonist's only characteristic was being straight, yet some people seem to believe that as long as there's a gay person in the story it doesn't matter if the gay character is uninteresting.

Nobody is arguing that a character's only trait should be his/her sexuality. I have seen nobody make the argument you just described.

 

[Silvanus]

The Seven Kingdoms aren't directly analogues with Europe either, so by your logic there aren't any European cultures either. The Dothraki are as close to the Mongols as the Seven Kingdoms are to Europeans. The Free Cities are also very close to the Middle East as they has warrior eunuchs and openly sold slaves.

So your initial point that Game of Thrones was only about Europeans is still incorrect.

Well, your mileage may vary. The Mongols and the Dothraki are both raiding, warrior-societies, but that's about where the similarities end. The Dothraki have no government of note, unlike the Mongols; their religion and attitudes are miles apart.

That aside, remember, I never said it was only about Europeans, but primarily. Even when the focus is on Essos, the protagonists of those sections are still of the Western, European equivalent.

Your claim that all the works you mentioned were well tremendously well known is still wrong.

They were read by hundreds of thousands, millions of people.

Being as popular as Harry Potter is a fairly useless gauge.

What is your point? You've still failed to explain why diversity is important when people have clearly shown that they do not want more diversity.

People have not shown that. Just because a piece of art does not sell as well as the very largest examples (those you mentioned) does not mean it doesn't attract an audience. To say that, because Theatre does not sell as well as Film indicates that "people have clearly shown that they do not want" theatre is... well, patently absurd.

I never claimed that nobody read your examples, just that they weren't popular with the average person. Also the only one that attracted considerable audience was Merchant of Venice, a story that doesn't deal with any issues and has had over 400 years to find its audience.

"Doesn't deal with any issues"?! Have you even read it?

There are audiences other than the "average" consumer. Hundreds of thousands and millions. Not everything must be marketed solely to the majority to be a success.

Well for one it indicates that what you're writing about isn't important, that's why so few people care about it.

An innovation is a better way of doing something. So the fact that something isn't super-popular indicates that's it's not an innovation because if it was people would want to read/watch/copy it.

"Not super-popular" does not equal "so few". It still spans huge numbers of people. Just because it isn't important to you means bugger all; I daresay that if you value repetition and a lack of creativity in your art, then I'm going to consider your art to be pretty damn uninteresting, too. Hell, even those who watch Transformers and read Twilight often occasionally watch/ read better fare.

Still using "super popularity" as the only measure of success.

Care to name some of the traits the gay/lesbian character have in your examples possess and examples of when they demonstrated these traits. If you can't then you're praising works where the protagonist's main trait is being homosexual.

That's a pretty reductionist question, seeing as only two of the examples I gave actually featured gay/lesbian characters.

Anyway, to reply; the protagonist of TCaTP exhibits... an inability to emotionally relate; disillusionment with those he perceives as vacuous, particularly his family and the partners he meets; intelligence and strength of will, but a certain incapability to self-evaluate; reclusiveness; emotional immaturity, leading to his fixatedness. Some, but not all, of these traits are connected with his experience as a gay man interacting with a society that encourages denial.

Why would you assume that a work that you've never actually read provides characters whose only traits are their sexuality? You have literally no experience of the work.

 

[Silvanus]

What government did the Mongols have? Genghis Khan became their leader because he defeated other chieftains, not because he was a king or was elected.

The Mongol and Dothraki attitudes are also similar as they went around raiding cities.

Sort of. The Dothraki are mentioned to set up their camps by the Slaver or Free Cities and receive money to leave, but the Mongols took part in protracted sieges, which the Dothraki never did. They have no siege weaponry or anything of the sort.

As for government, the Mongols instituted laws, taxes, trade routes, local governing bodies. The Dothraki would never dream of any of that.

You have repeatedly failed to provide any evidence to back up this claim. Do you have any figures showing that any book other than Merchant of Venice sold millions of copies (Merchant of Venice is discounted due to it having 400 years to sell book and being required reading for some GCSE students).

I'll do my best, though remember that exact sales figures are privileged data. The Colour Purple has sold five million [http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/jun/23/featuresreviews.guardianreview23], and been translated into 25 languages. Dolores Claiborne attained 1.5 million [http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/11/the-great-stephen-king-reread-dolores-claiborne] on its first printing alone-- it reached number one [http://www.hawes.com/no1_f_t.htm] on the New York Times Best-Seller list. Try as I might, I can't find sales information on the others. As I mentioned, it's privileged information.

Books far lesser known than they routinely sell in the hundreds-of-thousands.

It does however prove that the majority of people don't want this piece of art. So you're still wrong.

Never in all of history have the majority of people read/watched/played a piece of art. By that reasoning, there should be none at all.

Given that people going to theatre has been in decline while people buying films is rising people have clearly shown that they prefer films to theatres. It would also be accurate to say that the majority of people do not want to go to theatres to explain why so few go to theatres.

No, it shows that more people prefer film to theatre. Theatre still pulls millions upon millions of people, and makes billions of pounds. If you're after a purely material justification, that should suffice. They make money.

Care to name some of these issues. If you can't then this proves my point that it doesn't deal with any issues.

One good speech by Shylock does not mean the entire play is about issues of any real importance.

It doesn't prove a damn thing. Anybody who has any experience of the play knows it deals with "issues". My refusal to engage with this tangent indicates only that it would be pointless for both of us.

Yet again you claim that these audiences exist, yet you've never been able to prove it. Care to back up your claim by naming some successful works that appeal to millions but somehow haven't appealed to the majority.

My "claim"? It should be obvious. Look at this [http://www.boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm?page=7&p=.htm], the 601st-700th best-grossing films. None of them appealing to "the majority". All of them drawing an audience of millions.

To go back to the Theatre example; Theatre has never appealed to "the majority", yet The Lion King has drawn 70 million [http://www.thelionking.co.uk/about-the-show/]. The Book of Mormon brings in £19 million a month [http://www.forbes.com/sites/dorothypomerantz/2013/01/14/book-of-mormon-brings-in-19-million-per-month/].

Then there are video games [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games]. Games such as Brain Age 2 and Namco Museum-- which do not appeal to the "majority"-- sold well over a million.

I'll remind you again that no piece of art has ever appealed to "the majority". A single piece of art has never appealed to 51% of people.

Can you relate these traits more to the story, for example in Welcome to the NHK the protagonist (Satou) is shown to be reclusive as they're a hikimori (shut-in) who spends most of the anime in their room and they only talk to a small group of people. A sentence about the main traits and when they're shown in the story will be sufficient.

That's fair, okay. He exhibits his disillusionment and cynicism when he's dragged to various actor-parties in the second half of the novel, and dwells more and more on the falseness of those around him. It seems a fair response; they do seem false. It stands in contrast to his expectations and naivete nearer the beginning (expecting to be able to meet up and pick up where he left off with the man he spent a single night with as a teenager, for example).

His withdrawed nature is shown throughout the novel, really; it describes his thoughts often, but he speaks relatively little in social situations. This is somewhat linked to his sexuality-- he's an intelligent, athletic man with every reason to be outgoing, but seems to have withdrawn as a result of being unable to explain or relate to his parents, who have traditional expectations of him.

My experience with token characters in other works leads me to be sceptical of other works. Quite often authors will try to disguise a weak story by pretending that it's about an issue simply because the protagonist is in a minority.

I said nothing about "token" characters. Diversity does not automatically mean tokenism.

 

[Silvanus]

The Mongols only did this in regions that they conquered that already had these systems in place. So while the Mongol made laws, taxes, and trade routes in Persia they couldn't implement these as easily in the Eurasian steppe. Once the Mongol empire collapsed and all the tribes went back to self rule the Mongols couldn't implement any of these things.

Yes, I'd say that's quite accurate. It all fell away in their absence (though the same could be said of numerous invaders and their proxy-governments). Nevertheless, they aimed to conquer and to rule. The Dothraki did not.

While these books have sold well as there are books that have sold many time more copies I wouldn't describe them as being some of the most famous books ever written.

What? Neither would I. My point all along has been that that doesn't always matter, and creating the new Twilight doesn't have to be every creator's goal.

Famous books are those that are read by the majority of people who read books, famous movies are those watched by the majority of people who watch movies. The things you listed are neither which is why the majority is not interested in them.

That's moving the goalposts from "majority", to "majority of people who take part in the media". Even so, my point stands. Twilight was not read by the majority of people who read books; neither was Harry Potter, or LOTR. No book has captured 51% of prospective book-readers.

I doubt that theatres make billions of pounds. Movies can make millions in their opening week, theatres cannot.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/lion-king-is-broadways-first-648455

It can, but yes, it's rarer. Note also that the Lion King took £2.7 million [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_King#Reception] in its first weekend.

The others mentioned here [http://www.newyork.com/articles/broadway/broadways-top-five-grossing-shows-of-all-time-63258/] have also grossed well into the hundreds-of-millions. The estimated worldwide [http://www.thephantomoftheopera.com/the-show/facts-figures] gross for Phantom is in the billions.

Nevertheless, it shouldn't matter. Why is millions upon millions not good enough to justify the existence of a piece of art-- if profit is the only compelling reason?

Also regarding material justification those that make the most money are considered the best. So if a theatre show makes £50 million and a movie of the same play makes £500 million the film wins because it made more money (mainly because people prefer to invest in something that will make £500 million than £50 million).

"Wins"? According to whom? Transformers is generally not considered better than Casablanca or It's A Wonderful Life, but either way, it's not a competition. Some people enjoy creating art on its merit.

Your inability to name any of these issues simply reinforces my position that it doesn't deal with any issues. This story isn't about how badly the Jews were treated, it's about Christians who trick a Jew out of the money he lent them.

You'll need better bait.

You've also strayed from your original point. You originally claimed that there was an audience for stories about issues, now you're claiming that some of the lesser known films sold millions of copies. If these films and shows you used as examples are generic films and show then they reinforce my point that people don't want diversity and they're happy with people producing the same types of things they previously enjoyed.

I brought those examples up specifically because you opined that media could not sell millions while not appealing to the majority.

I have already provided evidence that Dolores Claiborne and The Colour Purple sold well over a million, and appeared on the NYT best-seller list. If you take a look through the Wiki's list of high-grossing films, you'll notice that the films are not all carbon-copies of one another; they include diverse examples.

Okay thanks.

I've enjoyed this little oasis of civility, anyway.