"Mokoto Kusanagi can be white" Yeah okay, I'll let you have that...(Rant)

Gorrath

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The Almighty Aardvark said:
Gorrath said:
If 60-70% of your customer base is group X, then nearly 100% of your product is going to be aimed at group X. A much better way of attacking creative stagnation is to show that different creative paradigms can be commercially viable. The only way this can be done is through big companies taking risks or small companies making it big, I'll grant you that, but companies by their nature are risk averse creatures and rightfully so. You are right that the star power argument facilitates a continuation of the creative stagnation but one must also demonstrate that a break from that stagnation to be economically preferable. That's the hard part.

As to your analogy though, it's not a great one. You're conflating a macro situation(the whole economies of nations) with something micro (the ethics of individual hiring practices.) The ethics of "positive discrimination" are in no way comparable to macro-economic factors of nations because people aren't collectives and nations are.
I don't disagree with you here. Though it should be noted that what the higher up's in big companies think is economically viable isn't always what is. That's how movies like Deadpool can come out of nowhere and make a big splash, and how movies that they've sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into (Even those containing all the factors they believe will appeal to the majority demographic) can absolutely flop. One way to show different paradigms work is as you say, have something come out of nowhere and be a hit. Another is to have enough of a vocal support for a paradigm shift. Or through a combination of the two, to really drive it home.
Nor do I disagree with you here. The higher-ups can and do often have their heads up their backsides, especially when at odds with the creators below them, but you do generally have to be right more than wrong, especially if you're an executive dealing with huge sums of invested money, or else you're not going to last long either. I am totally behind diversification in art, just not for the same reasons most people seem to be. I don't view it as an ethical issue, I view it as a creative one. I can go into that more should you like but it's not necessary.

The point of my analogy wasn't to say that these two scenarios are equal. It's not hypocritical for more white countries to donate food to black countries, as the reality is that the only distinguishing factors are not just that one group is majority white, while the other is majority black. There's also the fact that black countries overall hold a lot less wealth than white countries, and this is why you can argue that the situation isn't hypocritical, on average black countries need more food.

Same with casting roles, there are far fewer roles for black actors than there are for white actors. Casting one of the rare black characters as a white actor will make it more difficult for black actors than casting one of the common white characters as a black actor will for white actors. For a more micro comparison (Although of obviously different scale), taking food from a starving person and giving it to someone who's full isn't morally equivalent to the reverse. It's disingenuous to reduce the only relevant differences to the color of their skin.
The problem with your first analogy is one of scale. You fix that in your second analogy but you've made another problem by creating a red herring. You are right that taking food from a rich person and giving it to a poor person isn't the same as the reverse, morally or ethically. I totally agree with that. The problem is that's not what's going on here. An analogy that actually encompasses what's going on is this. John is white and Sam is black; both are starving. You have food to give to one of them. You choose to give it to Sam because white people are more prosperous in general than black people in the society.

In light of that analogy, where both people are competing for a resource they both need, you aren't taking from a rich John and giving to a poor Sam, you are taking a limited resource and discriminating against John because he's white. The problem is that if you start with the premise that discriminating against people because of the color of the skin is wrong, then you have just done an injustice to John. Yes, white people on the whole might not be starving but John is and so the general success of white people should not be used as a reason to do him an injustice. John is not a nation, as in your first analogy, he's not rich, as in your second and he's not a collective, he's a person, an entity all to himself, who deserves to compete equally for work without regard to his skin color. The same is true with Sam.

This is why the notion that it's okay to make white characters black but not the reverse is hypocritical and unjust. You aren't simply taking from the haves and giving to the have-nots like the over-simplified version of the defense of this kind of policy suggests, you are taking from a person because of the color of their skin and giving to another person because of the color of their skin. That's where the hypocrisy is in all this. You can't say that discriminating against someone due to their skin color is unjust and then claim that discriminating against John because he's white is just; appealing to a collectivist view does nothing to moderate or assuage that fact because John isn't a collective or a nation.

All of that said I have no problem with the race of characters being changed. Idris Elba as Heimdall being one of my favorite examples of why, in most cases, this just does not matter. Changing Martin Luther King jr. to be white in a movie is obviously a huge problem though, so context is key. But in any case, appealing to collectivism to defend racist policies is deeply flawed and terribly unjust. Appealing to creative exploration and diversity for the sake of everyone is a much more sound position.
 
Sep 13, 2009
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Gorrath said:
The problem with your first analogy is one of scale. You fix that in your second analogy but you've made another problem by creating a red herring. You are right that taking food from a rich person and giving it to a poor person isn't the same as the reverse, morally or ethically. I totally agree with that. The problem is that's not what's going on here. An analogy that actually encompasses what's going on is this. John is white and Sam is black; both are starving. You have food to give to one of them. You choose to give it to Sam because white people are more prosperous in general than black people in the society.

In light of that analogy, where both people are competing for a resource they both need, you aren't taking from a rich John and giving to a poor Sam, you are taking a limited resource and discriminating against John because he's white. The problem is that if you start with the premise that discriminating against people because of the color of the skin is wrong, then you have just done an injustice to John. Yes, white people on the whole might not be starving but John is and so the general success of white people should not be used as a reason to do him an injustice. John is not a nation, as in your first analogy, he's not rich, as in your second and he's not a collective, he's a person, an entity all to himself, who deserves to compete equally for work without regard to his skin color. The same is true with Sam.

This is why the notion that it's okay to make white characters black but not the reverse is hypocritical and unjust. You aren't simply taking from the haves and giving to the have-nots like the over-simplified version of the defense of this kind of policy suggests, you are taking from a person because of the color of their skin and giving to another person because of the color of their skin. That's where the hypocrisy is in all this. You can't say that discriminating against someone due to their skin color is unjust and then claim that discriminating against John because he's white is just; appealing to a collectivist view does nothing to moderate or assuage that fact because John isn't a collective or a nation.
I think this is once again taking away the scale, though I feel like this analogy is being ridden to death here.

It's absolutely true that every white person isn't better off than every black person. On top of that, actors have a really hard time getting roles in general so most people are going to be in at least some position of difficulty. It still comes down to a difference in opportunities though. Sure, John and Sam are both starving, but John has more opportunity to find food than Sam does. When you compensate for the under-representation, and everything else being equal, John has more than twice as good a chance of finding a speaking role as Sam does.

This isn't about discriminating against people for their skin, this is recognizing that a disparity exists, and favoring actions that work towards narrowing the gap, as opposed to those which widen it. Everything considered, even if it was a hard rule that roles for black characters can't be given to white people, you'd still be far better off being a white actor than a black actor. (Not recommending this this is made into a rule, for the record)

Really, neither analogy exactly mirrors the situation. This isn't something on the scope of the world, or on the scope of a single individual. It's somewhere inbetween. The whole reason I made the analogy was to show how just boiling the situation down to just the race strips away the nuances that justify the distinction. I wasn't intending either to validate treating the situations differently, just to show that you can't just automatically say it's hypocritical to have different standards for one race compared to another.

All of that said I have no problem with the race of characters being changed. Idris Elba as Heimdall being one of my favorite examples of why, in most cases, this just does not matter. Changing Martin Luther King jr. to be white in a movie is obviously a huge problem though, so context is key. But in any case, appealing to collectivism to defend racist policies is deeply flawed and terribly unjust. Appealing to creative exploration and diversity for the sake of everyone is a much more sound position.
As far as my own preferences go, I would rather actors look as much as their characters as possible. That being said, there's been a number of cases where the performance was good enough that I didn't care. I loved Michael Clarke Duncan as the Kingpin, and while David Tennant didn't look particularly like Kilgrave, he was an absolutely fantastic character. So it's more like I'd prefer that an actor looks like their character, but it's far from a dealbreaker if they don't.
 

Samtemdo8_v1legacy

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Lightknight said:
Samtemdo8 said:
Personally I find modern art styles of anime humans to look not asian at all (well if the characters are supposed to be japanese that is).

I mean especially when they make their eyes really wide and give them different colored hair and eyes.

I mean if Makokto was painted in the art style of say Lone Wolf and Cub then she will look more asian then now.
Mmm, another poster invokes the name of Lone Wolf and Cub... best friends forever...
I can thank Samurai Jack and Frank Miller's credit on the american covers for my exporsure to this brilliant manga.

I even posted a thread showing my appreciation for the manga and why there has not been an animated adaption for it :p
 

Gorrath

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The Almighty Aardvark said:
I think this is once again taking away the scale, though I feel like this analogy is being ridden to death here.

It's absolutely true that every white person isn't better off than every black person. On top of that, actors have a really hard time getting roles in general so most people are going to be in at least some position of difficulty. It still comes down to a difference in opportunities though. Sure, John and Sam are both starving, but John has more opportunity to find food than Sam does. When you compensate for the under-representation, and everything else being equal, John has more than twice as good a chance of finding a speaking role as Sam does.
While it's true that statistically John has a better chance of finding another role, that doesn't excuse the fact that he's being discriminated against in the first place. Now this does get sticky because movie roles are one of the few places that I think race discrimination, gender discrimination, ect. is actually justifiable. If you are casting Martin Luther King jr. and say that only black men need apply, you've a damned good reason to be discriminating for that role. Appealing to the statistical probability of John getting another role, so it's okay that he's been unjustly denied an opportunity for this one, doesn't help make the act just because it's still treating John as if his success or failure is predicated on his belonging to a collective. The success of other white actors does not equate to success for John.

This isn't about discriminating against people for their skin, this is recognizing that a disparity exists, and favoring actions that work towards narrowing the gap, as opposed to those which widen it. Everything considered, even if it was a hard rule that roles for black characters can't be given to white people, you'd still be far better off being a white actor than a black actor. (Not recommending this this is made into a rule, for the record)
It is about discrimination, that's exactly what this idea supports, that's exactly why the term "positive discrimination" exists. You can both recognize that a disparity exists and find ways to alleviate that disparity without also appealing to collectivism or using "positive discrimination" to try and alleviate it. The idea that systemic discrimination isn't discrimination if its being used to narrow a disparity is a non sequitur; it simply does not follow.

As someone who personally grew up being discriminated against because of my skin color, the promise that I was a statistical outlier was of absolutely no comfort whatsoever. The idea that I was going to eventually probably not be discriminated against later because statistics say so doesn't do anything to diminish the injustice. I cannot properly express my own anger growing up, facing years of blatant, systemic racism and being told that it was okay because other people who weren't me but who had the same skin color as me had the privilege of not being discriminated against. But I really don't need anecdotes to show why such discrimination is wrong, we need only understand that racism is almost always unethical and that unethical practices do not create a more ethical or just society, even when they are supposedly being wielded for good. And it doesn't really matter if it's hard and fast codified rule or something that's just done and not codified, the effect is the same.

Really, neither analogy exactly mirrors the situation. This isn't something on the scope of the world, or on the scope of a single individual. It's somewhere inbetween. The whole reason I made the analogy was to show how just boiling the situation down to just the race strips away the nuances that justify the distinction. I wasn't intending either to validate treating the situations differently, just to show that you can't just automatically say it's hypocritical to have different standards for one race compared to another.
It is hypocritical to express that having rules in place that unfairly discriminate against a person because of their race is unethical and then advocate for rules that unfairly discriminate against a person because of their race; it's hypocritical by definition. This is something that is individual because individuals are the ones who will be discriminated against under the system. I understand that the point of such rules is to try and alleviate a problem that affects many people, I really, really do get that, but just because something is a solution to a problem does not mean it is a good or proper solution. We aren't merely trying to alleviate this gap because it's a gap, we are trying to alleviate this gap because it causes individual people unfair disadvantage. You cannot properly alleviate unfair individual disadvantage by creating a system of unfair individual disadvantage. You may close the statistical gap this way but you haven't alleviated the problem underlying the gap.

All of that said I have no problem with the race of characters being changed. Idris Elba as Heimdall being one of my favorite examples of why, in most cases, this just does not matter. Changing Martin Luther King jr. to be white in a movie is obviously a huge problem though, so context is key. But in any case, appealing to collectivism to defend racist policies is deeply flawed and terribly unjust. Appealing to creative exploration and diversity for the sake of everyone is a much more sound position.
As far as my own preferences go, I would rather actors look as much as their characters as possible. That being said, there's been a number of cases where the performance was good enough that I didn't care. I loved Michael Clarke Duncan as the Kingpin, and while David Tennant didn't look particularly like Kilgrave, he was an absolutely fantastic character. So it's more like I'd prefer that an actor looks like their character, but it's far from a dealbreaker if they don't.
I also loved Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin, and David Tennant was fantastic as Kilgrave. These different takes on the characters show how an existing character can be re-imagined and be a wonderful rendition. Hell, when I think Nick Fury now I think Samuel L. Jackson and I love it. I hardly ever even remember that Nick Fury used to be white because, from a creative standpoint, it's all gravy. I also love it when they get someone who looks so much like the character they're portraying that I go, "Wow!" See for example Wolverine! But that's why I go either way on this. Changed or not changed, black or white, gay or straight, whomever and whatever, give me good stories and great movies and I'll be happy no matter if the whitest character ever is suddenly being played by Idris "Inspiring Speech From Pacific Rim Here" Elba.

Also, I get passionate about this stuff and I hope my passion doesn't come off as aggression. I've no hate in my heart for those who just want to genuinely knock heads with me. Thanks for disagreeing and being awesome about it.
 
Sep 13, 2009
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Gorrath said:
As solutions go, positive discrimination is a bad one. The best solution would get rid of negative discrimination, but that is something that's next to impossible to address. How exactly do you judge when there's negative discrimination occuring in casting or hiring? If your method of determining it is based on screening the demographics of their employees, guess what? You've just instituted positive discrimination, because companies will make sure they don't fall below whatever percentage to avoid the disciplinary actions. Basically any way you screen for negative discrimination, you'll get positive discrimination as a byproduct.

The alternative is to do absolutely nothing, and wait it out until racism works itself out. There's a number of other issues with this approach. First and foremost, you're ignoring a widespread problem, and doing nothing to assist those affected by racism. Secondly, the effects of racism are self-reinforcing.

Racial stereotypes portray black people as stupid and violent -> Don't get hired as often-> Face more poverty -> Get worse education/Have more stressful home situations/Live in communities with more violence -> White people reaffirm stereotypes of black people -> Black people don't get hired as often.

Even without that, there's something called Stereotype threat, which is a really interesting phenomenon. It basically causes people who're aware of stereotypes to end up realizing them. There's an interesting study with asian american girls and math, where their grades fluctuate hugely based on which stereotype you prime them with. My point here being that racism is such a ***** to get rid of because the mere existence of racism gives rise to reasons to justify the racism. Because of that, the whole waiting out game is not particularly effective. It's really hard to get rid of the reasons for the economic disparity without first getting rid of the economic disparity.

To wrap back around to the beginning, positive discrimination is a bad solution (I could write a couple paragraphs on why it's bad), but there's not really any good alternative.

I don't know your personal situation, or how you've been discriminated against because of your skin color, but it's very likely that you're still a lot better off being white(?) than you were instead born as another race.

Also, I get passionate about this stuff and I hope my passion doesn't come off as aggression. I've no hate in my heart for those who just want to genuinely knock heads with me. Thanks for disagreeing and being awesome about it.
Nah, it didn't come across as aggression at all. Frankly it's nice to have an argument here and not be left thoroughly frustrated over the whole thing. I'm glad that you decided to butt heads with me
 

ThereIsNoSanta

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Revnak said:
Fappy said:
Paragon Fury said:
Motoko isn't trans.

In ANY series she appears in.

Bi-sexual (or just not picky), yes. But trans? No.

Her origins stories all share the same basic themes; young girl in terrible accident > gets cybernetic body > becomes member of counter-terrorism unit.

Some series are a little clearer on the origins than others (SAC, the movies), but she isn't a male in any of them.
I could be remembering wrong, but do they ever straight out say this in the original film? I don't remember her past really being clearly explored, but it's been awhile since I have seen it.
That's her origin story in SAC. I don't think any other version of her has a backstory, though some versions do have people speculate about whether the Major was born a man or a woman. I'm pretty sure that comes up in a season of SAC as well.
I distinctly remember Batou mockingly suggesting she should 'ditch the fem body and be honest' or something like that, but again, it was a joke. Leaving it ambiguous is better, in my mind. The themes of the relationship between body and mind is the whole damn point of the show, so some things like that should be open to interpretation.
 

Lightknight

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Gorrath said:
Lightknight said:
Gorrath said:
They look closer to western people from the point of view of western people. To western people, Marge Simpson looks white because we identify the character as culturally white but I would be very interested to know if Asian people looking at Marge Simpson would think she looks white. What I can say is that I have heard that Asian people view anime characters as looking Asian. It's a view of artistic expression through the lens of our own culture, which isn't itself a problem so long as we understand that the cultural view of others are likely to lead them to a wholly different conclusion. In other words, assuming that because we think a character has Caucasian looking features doesn't mean the creator intended that or thinks that themselves.
Oh, you found that article too, huh?
Actually no, it's just something that popped into my head as an artistic representation of people that could be culturally/racially confusing. I tend to avoid Kotaku like the plague it is. I may have to make an exception here though.
Well, it was actually a link to the article of an external site: http://kotaku.com/5627268/why-do-japanese-characters-look-white

How it literally makes the argument of perception and then foils the concept with Marge.

Right, she doesn't, but that was my point. She doesn't look white at all, we just perceive her as white because of the culture portrayed in the show. We see the Simpsons as white because they are portrayed culturally as being white Americans. That's precisely what I was saying about anime. The characters don't look like actual humans of any race any more than the Simpsons do. If you look at characters which are explicitly supposed to be American in anime, they can get pretty out there compared to the non-white, non-american characters, just like how the Simpsons don't look white but they don't look Asian either, especially in comparison to the characters in the show which are explicitly Asian.
No, what I'm saying is that this isn't equivalent. People aren't saying that Marge looks white. People are saying that Anime characters frequently do even when they're supposed to be Japanese. See the difference there? The assumption is that Marge is white because of the context but not because she looks that way whereas people see some anime characters and think they look aesthetically white.

This is the fault of the artist. You can make a drawing look like a thing. There totally are Asian anime characters that look Asian.

I would never have guessed they were meant to be Japanese people either. Then again, if you showed me a picture of the Simpsons, sans any context, I'd also have no idea they were supposed to be white Americans. Cultural context in the shows is where we get our clues as to the artist's intention, not the aesthetic of the characters themselves, which was exactly the point I was making. In light of a totally alien looking character, we perceive their race based on culture, not aesthetics. You seem to agree with this based on what you said about the Simpsons.
No, I disagree that we perceive them as anything just because of culture. If literally every Simpsons character was the same color Yellow I wouldn't think of them as any race. Just Cartoon characters. I don't watch Gumball or Aqua Teen Hunger force and think "white". The concept of race doesn't even come up unless the attempt to make them a race is apparent.

The assumption thing only makes sense when the idea is unknown. For example, assuming an English speaking character is American when they are actually Canadian. But if they have a deep southern accent then you aren't making the assumption based on culture you are making the conclusion based off of observed data. The same is true for people who think a non-trivial number of Anime characters look like Western demographics.

I think doing an empirical comparison is quite moot because we are talking about subjective interpretations of art. The eyes of anime characters don't look like what many western people might think of as Asian looking but to me, they sure don't look like Western people either. They are hugely exaggerated for effect. Even being affected, clearly and historically, by western art doesn't mean that people should or do think the characters in said art are of any specific race or ethnicity.
Looking like a certain race or ethnicity isn't just subjective. We're talking biologically expressed alleles here. Phenotypes that you can see and distinguish from other phenotypes. Sure, there are some white kids that just have narrower eyes and sure, there are Japanese people with less slanted eyes. But overall we can visually distinguish objectively based on a range of traits.

No, not everyone is a perfect individual flower. I have a red beard and dark brown, almost black hair and hazel eyes because of my ancestry. You're not going to confuse me with an Indian or African or a Japanese individual. The same is true in reverse. As bloodlines mix that will change, sure. But by and large we still have pretty clear and distinctly different phenotypes. One group's isn't better than another, but they are different.

Agreed that opinions of how the characters look don't affect the history of the influences but I'm not sure why that matters. The fact of historical influence is also moot with regard to subjective views of what race a person might think a character resembles.
Pre-WWII, very Asian specific art. Post-WWII, the characters start looking Western. I'm saying that we can see a fairly demonstrable impact of Western aesthetics and art on Japanese art and one of those things are more Western looking characters with round eyes.

I think it's fair to say that artists will have their own ideas about what makes a character look like a certain ethnicity and that it will vary from artist to artist, though we will also see some strong trends across a broad style like anime. The human characters in Gate may look more or less Japanese depending on the perception of the viewer but toss in the characters that are explicitly not Asian and you can see how the artist is differentiating between the two.
My point here is that it doesn't matter what the artist's thoughts are. If their goal was to draw someone who is ethnically Japanese and they came up with someone like the brother's from Full Metal Alchemist (I believe they were actually supposed to be the equivalent of German), then the artist 'dun fucked up'. Not the people who see it and think the character is western. The mass is usually right here and right now the mass generally thinks that anime characters frequently look Western and white rather than Eastern and Japanese. They're not wrong.

<youtube=Qus34ySIbyI>

I think the youtuber makes a good point. The problem here lies on the shoulders of the animators and not on the masses. You can draw a thing to look like a thing. If people think it looks like a different thing then that's your problem, not theirs.
Agreed totally! Though I'd say it's not even really a "problem" as such. Is it really a big deal if we think anime characters look white and Japanese people think they look Asian? I don't think it's a problem, I'd just caution against asserting that our interpretation of the character's looks is the correct interpretation. I sort of get the feeling you might have read more into my original statements than I actually meant.[/quote] Westerners would be empirically correct in several circumstances in claiming that anime characters have more phenotypes in common with Westerners than Asians. This isn't a relative truth bit. Genes are a thing and phenotypes are a thing and those things differ from region to region in a way that makes people from one region distinguishable from people from another region.

Do Westerners have Giant-ass big round eyes? No, but they do have eyes that are rounder than the Japanese to the point where that's a slur they through our way. Are WASPs whiter than Japanese people? Yes. Do Westerners more frequently have blonde or brown hair with blue or green eyes? Yes.

Tell me, for all the tea in China, what ethnicity would you bet Naruto is?

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/naruto/images/3/36/Naruto_Uzumaki.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/300?cb=20160107083821

Because he actually IS Japanese. According to the Author. But the Author claims he just decided to add Western features to him, despite him being Japanese. Herein lies the reason why people are claiming these characters that are supposed to be Japanese look Western. Because artists are making them look that way. Either on purpose or because western looking Anime characters is now a tradition they grew up with.

It is unfair to dismiss someone like me looking at Naruto and seeing "white kid" as somehow being culturally informed. It's not like the same artists don't know how to make a character look Asian or Japanese specifically.

http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/34300000/itachi-naruto-shippuuden-34355045-640-480.png

They are making a willful choice to do this. To make some characters look clearly Western and other characters look more Eastern. A lot of times they fall somewhere in between where a person has darker eyes and black/dark brown hair but their eyes are still round, skin is still pale, and no other traditional phenotypes of the ethnicity.

There is nothing wrong with this. It's just trite to call people out who see a drawing of a character that has all Western phenotypes and say they look Western. It is dismissive to claim that they're just seeing that because of their culture and not actually making judgments we make every day.
 

Burnsidhe

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Motoko Kusanagi is bisexual. In the manga where she was introduced, there is a scene of her at home after doing what is implied to be a 'camgirl' show; the two women in bed with her are her girlfriends. Earlier in the manga, there is mention that she had to break off a relationship with a male police officer because she was headed one way in her career and he was headed another.

Of course you're going to see Motoko being cool and distant in the anime; the anime is almost 100% about her work and she's a professional; you don't fuck co-workers or subordinates when you're the person responsible for their lives in combat operations.

It's likely that the live-action adaptation will be much more like the anime than the manga, focusing on Section Nine and its activities and not on Motoko's sex life.
 

Lightknight

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Burnsidhe said:
Motoko Kusanagi is bisexual. In the manga where she was introduced, there is a scene of her at home after doing what is implied to be a 'camgirl' show; the two women in bed with her are her girlfriends. Earlier in the manga, there is mention that she had to break off a relationship with a male police officer because she was headed one way in her career and he was headed another.
Are they listed as her girlfriends or are they just fellow performers on the cam show? Straight women will engage in that sort of stuff to make money.
 

Gorrath

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Lightknight said:
Gorrath said:
Right, she doesn't, but that was my point. She doesn't look white at all, we just perceive her as white because of the culture portrayed in the show. We see the Simpsons as white because they are portrayed culturally as being white Americans. That's precisely what I was saying about anime. The characters don't look like actual humans of any race any more than the Simpsons do. If you look at characters which are explicitly supposed to be American in anime, they can get pretty out there compared to the non-white, non-american characters, just like how the Simpsons don't look white but they don't look Asian either, especially in comparison to the characters in the show which are explicitly Asian.
No, what I'm saying is that this isn't equivalent. People aren't saying that Marge looks white. People are saying that Anime characters frequently do even when they're supposed to be Japanese. See the difference there? The assumption is that Marge is white because of the context but not because she looks that way whereas people see some anime characters and think they look aesthetically white.
And yet there's also lots of people who say that they look aesthetically Japanese too. This is why I'm saying that from a purely aesthetic point of view, sans any context, the characters may simply be of an indistinguishable race, in which case we get an idea about what they are supposed to represent from the culture portrayed in the show or from their own culture. I don't think anime characters look like white people any more than I think Marge looks like a white person, other people will say they look like white people and still others will say they look Japanese or Asian in general. This merely points to the conclusion that it's a subjective response.

This is the fault of the artist. You can make a drawing look like a thing. There totally are Asian anime characters that look Asian.
Well again, fault seems to assume there's some worthwhile problem to be solved, and I don't think there is. So what if some Western people think anime characters look white?

I would never have guessed they were meant to be Japanese people either. Then again, if you showed me a picture of the Simpsons, sans any context, I'd also have no idea they were supposed to be white Americans. Cultural context in the shows is where we get our clues as to the artist's intention, not the aesthetic of the characters themselves, which was exactly the point I was making. In light of a totally alien looking character, we perceive their race based on culture, not aesthetics. You seem to agree with this based on what you said about the Simpsons.
No, I disagree that we perceive them as anything just because of culture. If literally every Simpsons character was the same color Yellow I wouldn't think of them as any race. Just Cartoon characters. I don't watch Gumball or Aqua Teen Hunger force and think "white". The concept of race doesn't even come up unless the attempt to make them a race is apparent.
I've never watched Gumball but there's some apples and oranges going on in your comparison with Aqua Teen. People don't assume those characters represent people of any race because those characters don't even represent people. Marge may look a bit alien compared to an actual human but she doesn't resemble a giant talking box of fries either lol. I respect you too much to think you're bullshitting me so I take your word that if the characters from the Simpsons were all the same shade of yellow you'd think of them as no race. I have big doubts as to whether others wouldn't assume, based on the context of what's in the show, or their own culture in comparison, that they are meant to be white people. I remember seeing them back when they first came out on the Tracy Ullman show. I thought they were white people even back then before there were any other characters to contrast them with. Which means either it's a subjective phenomenon or I'm some kind of crazy outlier. I'm inclined to think the former is true.

The assumption thing only makes sense when the idea is unknown. For example, assuming an English speaking character is American when they are actually Canadian. But if they have a deep southern accent then you aren't making the assumption based on culture you are making the conclusion based off of observed data. The same is true for people who think a non-trivial number of Anime characters look like Western demographics.
But accent and dialect are a part of culture. I don't see how you are differentiating between "making the conclusion off of observed data" and "making the assumption off of culture" when the culture being presented is a subset of observed data. The former is by definition a part of the latter.

I think doing an empirical comparison is quite moot because we are talking about subjective interpretations of art. The eyes of anime characters don't look like what many western people might think of as Asian looking but to me, they sure don't look like Western people either. They are hugely exaggerated for effect. Even being affected, clearly and historically, by western art doesn't mean that people should or do think the characters in said art are of any specific race or ethnicity.
Looking like a certain race or ethnicity isn't just subjective. We're talking biologically expressed alleles here. Phenotypes that you can see and distinguish from other phenotypes. Sure, there are some white kids that just have narrower eyes and sure, there are Japanese people with less slanted eyes. But overall we can visually distinguish objectively based on a range of traits.
Sorry but I'm also not seeing the distinguishing factor here either. There are biological reasons why many people very much prefer the color green but that doesn't mean color choice isn't a subjective thing. You may be right in saying it isn't just subjective but so what, in the sense you're suggesting, literally nothing is just subjective. That so many Japanese people see the characters as Asian suggests that it is quite subjective. That I don't see them, sans context, as any race at all also suggests that. Am I immune to the biological clarion call of the phenotype?

No, not everyone is a perfect individual flower. I have a red beard and dark brown, almost black hair and hazel eyes because of my ancestry. You're not going to confuse me with an Indian or African or a Japanese individual. The same is true in reverse. As bloodlines mix that will change, sure. But by and large we still have pretty clear and distinctly different phenotypes. One group's isn't better than another, but they are different.
Sure, I agree, it'd be silly for me not to and if Japanese people consistently thought the anime characters looked like Western people too, I'd be heavily inclined to believe that this is a compelling argument.

Agreed that opinions of how the characters look don't affect the history of the influences but I'm not sure why that matters. The fact of historical influence is also moot with regard to subjective views of what race a person might think a character resembles.
Pre-WWII, very Asian specific art. Post-WWII, the characters start looking Western. I'm saying that we can see a fairly demonstrable impact of Western aesthetics and art on Japanese art and one of those things are more Western looking characters with round eyes.
Yeah, again, but so what. As I pointed out with armor in fantasy anime, the stuff is obviously inspired by European armor but is also distinctly and in many ways nothing like European armor. Yes, you can see the obvious influences on the art from western art but that doesn't mean those influences mean that the people or objects portrayed in the anime look western either.

I think it's fair to say that artists will have their own ideas about what makes a character look like a certain ethnicity and that it will vary from artist to artist, though we will also see some strong trends across a broad style like anime. The human characters in Gate may look more or less Japanese depending on the perception of the viewer but toss in the characters that are explicitly not Asian and you can see how the artist is differentiating between the two.
My point here is that it doesn't matter what the artist's thoughts are. If their goal was to draw someone who is ethnically Japanese and they came up with someone like the brother's from Full Metal Alchemist (I believe they were actually supposed to be the equivalent of German), then the artist 'dun fucked up'. Not the people who see it and think the character is western. The mass is usually right here and right now the mass generally thinks that anime characters frequently look Western and white rather than Eastern and Japanese. They're not wrong.
Of course they're not wrong, because it's subjective! If the artist is creating a bunch of characters for a primarily Japanese audience and the Japanese audience thinks the characters look Japanese, the artist has not dun' fucked up. The fact that you and a mass of other Western people think the characters look Western should be of no great concern to the artist since they aren't the target audience of the anime. I know you've already covered that you think this is merely because the Japanese folks are watching a Japanese production aimed at Japanese people, so of course they think they look Japanese to them but unless you could demonstrate this, I can only accept that the Japanese audience really does think the characters look Japanese. Why should I accept that Westerners are seeing Western traits in the character's designs and therefore saying the characters look like white people but not accept that Japanese people who say they see traits in the characters that make them look Japanese just don't know what they are talking about or somehow have tainted opinions? Is it not wholly possible for a Japanese person to see a character with blonde hair and still think they look Japanese? If not then we should have dumped hair dye on Hiroshima and let them descend into civil war. (I kid, I kid!)

<youtube=Qus34ySIbyI>

I think the youtuber makes a good point. The problem here lies on the shoulders of the animators and not on the masses. You can draw a thing to look like a thing. If people think it looks like a different thing then that's your problem, not theirs.
Agreed totally! Though I'd say it's not even really a "problem" as such. Is it really a big deal if we think anime characters look white and Japanese people think they look Asian? I don't think it's a problem, I'd just caution against asserting that our interpretation of the character's looks is the correct interpretation. I sort of get the feeling you might have read more into my original statements than I actually meant.
Westerners would be empirically correct in several circumstances in claiming that anime characters have more phenotypes in common with Westerners than Asians. This isn't a relative truth bit. Genes are a thing and phenotypes are a thing and those things differ from region to region in a way that makes people from one region distinguishable from people from another region.

Do Westerners have Giant-ass big round eyes? No, but they do have eyes that are rounder than the Japanese to the point where that's a slur they through our way. Are WASPs whiter than Japanese people? Yes. Do Westerners more frequently have blonde or brown hair with blue or green eyes? Yes.
And calling Asians yellow people is a slur but that doesn't mean a Japanese person looking at Marge should think that she's meant to be an Asian character because she has yellow skin. There's also a lot of Japanese people that have pale skin, paler than even a lot of "white" westerners so asserting the paleness of the character's skin as being more like "white" people than Japanese people seems a big stretch. Hell, just google Japanese people and look at the pictures, the skin tone there seems to generally fall into the same range as your typical German-American to your typical Italian-American. If all you had was a close up picture of skin, I have little doubt most people would not be able to distinguish between a Japanese person and a white American just from that. They might do better with someone from, say, Vietnam or Thailand but lots of Japanese people are every bit as white as we are.

As for hair color, hair dye is a big, big thing, especially in a culture where a boat ton of people dye their hair. You see lots and lots of anime characters with blue or green hair along side that blonde or red. You also see things like violet or red eyes along side that blue or green. If a Western person is assuming that an anime character is meant to look western because she has blue eyes, what assumptions are they making about the one with blue hair and red eyes? These are all colors not typically seen naturally in the Japanese population and are used for artistic effect. Are Japanese people who dye their hair blonde trying to look like white western people or are they just trying to dye their hair a color because they think it looks cool?

Tell me, for all the tea in China, what ethnicity would you bet Naruto is?

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/naruto/images/3/36/Naruto_Uzumaki.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/300?cb=20160107083821

Because he actually IS Japanese. According to the Author. But the Author claims he just decided to add Western features to him, despite him being Japanese. Herein lies the reason why people are claiming these characters that are supposed to be Japanese look Western. Because artists are making them look that way. Either on purpose or because western looking Anime characters is now a tradition they grew up with.
I get that that's the reason people are saying the characters look western. I've not anywhere claimed anything different, I've only claimed that the fact that a mass of Western people saying they look like Western white people and a mass of Japanese people saying they look Japanese suggests that this is a subjective matter informed by culture. For all the tea in China (and stand on me, do I love my tea) I would say he looks like a white guy. But so what, that's just like, my opinion man. If a Japanese guy looks at Naruto and says he looks Japanese, who am I to tell him he's wrong?


It is unfair to dismiss someone like me looking at Naruto and seeing "white kid" as somehow being culturally informed. It's not like the same artists don't know how to make a character look Asian or Japanese specifically.
No no no, I think you've got me all wrong and are crossing up some of my points. You wouldn't look at Naruto and say that his looking like a white kid is informed because of YOUR culture. My whole argument about telling a character's intended race being informed by culture is from the culture of the character, not the viewer. That's why I mentioned the Simpsons. If you sat me down and said, "What race are these characters" with no context, I'd have no idea. Give me a few episodes of the show and I would say they are intended to be white Americans because of the way the culture they are showed having in the show not because of my culture.

And really, how could you think I would dismiss your statement that the character looks white when my position is that the answers are subjective? Surely if I think it's a subjective matter I won't be dismissing opinions as wrong, will I?


http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/34300000/itachi-naruto-shippuuden-34355045-640-480.png

They are making a willful choice to do this. To make some characters look clearly Western and other characters look more Eastern. A lot of times they fall somewhere in between where a person has darker eyes and black/dark brown hair but their eyes are still round, skin is still pale, and no other traditional phenotypes of the ethnicity.

There is nothing wrong with this. It's just trite to call people out who see a drawing of a character that has all Western phenotypes and say they look Western. It is dismissive to claim that they're just seeing that because of their culture and not actually making judgments we make every day.
I didn't call anyone out or dismiss anyone's opinion. I merely stated that different cultures will perceive the characters in different ways. Many people in our Western culture see the characters as looking like white people and many people in Eastern cultures see them as looking Asian. Hell, I explicitly stated to the guy I originally responded to that my statements were not a takedown of what he was saying. Does that not suggest that I am in no way dismissing people's opinions or calling them out?

It is not at all dismissive to suggest that people see things in a way that's informed by their culture. In our culture, we see people all the time with natural blonde hair, so it's no surprise that if we see an anime character with blonde hair, we'll see them as looking like us. It's also not dismissive to suggest that a Japanese person seeing a character with blonde hair will still see them as Japanese because of their culture, a culture in which there's lots of changing of hair colors, blonde being a rather popular choice.

Lastly, I want to draw your attention to two things you've said:

"Anime is so common to the Japanese culture that of course the Japanese will view them as Japanese."

"It is dismissive to claim that they're just seeing that because of their culture and not actually making judgments we make every day."

Can you square those two statements? Are you not, by your own standard, being dismissive of Japanese people who claim that the characters look Japanese by claiming that they are only saying that because of their culture? Because I actually agree with your first statement, that culture influences how we see the ethnicity of the people in the show (Not to be confused with my other statement that one might draw a conclusion about a character's race/ethnicity from the culture of the character in the show.)

I say again though that I really do think you've read a lot into my statements that I did not intend to convey, especially since you seem to think I'm being dismissive of you. I promise that is not in any way the case.
 

Darmani

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Apr 26, 2010
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Lightknight said:
Oooh, this is the main character from Ghost in the Shell. Scarlet is a weird choice in my opinion but I don't really like her acting in these kinds of roles. I've always found it baffling when they make her some ass kicking super spy or whatever. But that's my opinion and she is clearly popular in this kind of role since they keep casting her in it. I basically feel like Hollywood just picks any actress they want and just figure the action scenes a double does will make them look tough. At least with the Major it doesn't really matter if the actress has a fighter's physique since it's a shell anyways.

The race and orientation bit is just silly. Not only is the character's shell ethnic/racially-neutral and could be literally anything, but we also don't know anything about the orientation of the character. Even if she's depicted as straight, who cares? Being gay or whatever doesn't make you a more interesting person. It's just one possible permutation of humanity that is already being depicted the hell out of in Hollywood (not that that's bad, the goal is normalization anyways, it's just incredibly common now). It's almost as trite as a motorcyclist taking off their helmet to reveal that it's a girl. At this point I'd almost be surprised if the black leathered opaque helmeted biker was a guy... We get it, girls can do things too, guys can be in love with guys, girls can be in love with girls and some guys/girls feel like they were born in the wrong bodies. It isn't shocking anymore, it's just life.
Sometimes a thing isn't a statement or a lesson to teach you but a story or character aspect. The Major's sexcapades are partially fanservice BUT also a unique trait about her. She's altered herself so all other aspects of being a woman, even the form of address/name, are gone but still looks like one. She's also taken on a different sexuality. A large part of her character if not intended references/plays with body and identity modification noted for playing with gender which is a sizable part of japanese stuff.

Her being bisexual is.. well her being bisexual because she's bisexual. Just like Touga is a family man. Batou is a pervert holding a torch for the major and Aramaki is something of a fuddydud who has let ethics and work cloud over every OTHER aspect of his life including friends, family, and lovers. These are statements of the idea, the people involved, and the story. But they aren't "you should be a family man like Touga" so much as examinations of these characters and reflections on them and their setting and setup.
 

Kolby Jack

Come at me scrublord, I'm ripped
Apr 29, 2011
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Admittedly I haven't seen all of the various GitS works, but what I have seen is an intense, thought-provoking political drama/supercop action cyberpunk semi-dystopian police procedural thriller involving government conspiracies, terrorism, state corruption, the question of humanity in a future where we can download our brains into artificial bodies, and the tight-knit teamwork of Public Security Section Nine as they confront all these issues with a strong sense of justice and a lack of regard for the red tape.

But sure, the REAL sticking point is the Major's sexual orientation. A thing that doesn't even qualify as a plot point in any part I've seen, just a small background detail that only occasionally comes up. Okay.
 

SweetShark

Shark Girls are my Waifus
Jan 9, 2012
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Does this argument have any short of impact in the movie?
Plus I though she was always a "normal" girl. But I digress, I saw only the first original movie.