Once again ResetEra Banned me.....for not caring about all people being all white in Squadron 42?

[SweetShark]

So There is a Thread on ResetEra which a user complain that all the main characters/well-known actors are only white and there is no diversity between them.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/i-...k-of-diversity-depicted-in-squadron-42.74879/

Well, I made the mistake to say in general I don't care so much because I care mostly about the main core of the game: Get a Ship and Kill Aliens in Space.
Also I said that maybe if this is true, that the human race had been manipulated by White Supremacy like some other sci-fi games/movies/comics done in the past.
By any means, I don't support these ideas, but it would be interesting to see this in a fiction.

but it seems immediately others users get so offensive and got called insensitive, ignorant, and mostly I think racist? Jesus.

Of course when a Mod saw my replies, I got banned and the message was as follows:

User banned (duration pending): dismissing concerns about racism and representation in media

So I guess even I want to ignore that most people are white, that I don't care, I will get banned?
Jesus again.

Am I going crazy? Did we really need to be a hypocrite and say I care so I can not get Banned again?
Do I need to become a Positive Robot, without opinion at all?

 

[Hawki]

Am I going crazy? Did we really need to be a hypocrite and say I care so I can not get Banned again?
Do I need to become a Positive Robot, without opinion at all?

Nah, the world's gone pretty crazy.

You might think it weird me saying this when railing against the SQW crowd in the Total War thread, but this is the kind of insanity on the other side.

Quick question - is race still an issue for humanity in the 30th century? Assuming that the answer is no, then it shouldn't be an issue here. Same reason I don't give a rat's arse about Burnham and Georgiou being POCs in Star Trek, because by the 23rd century, race is a non-issue there as well.

 

[SweetShark]

Am I going crazy? Did we really need to be a hypocrite and say I care so I can not get Banned again?
Do I need to become a Positive Robot, without opinion at all?

Nah, the world's gone pretty crazy.

You might think it weird me saying this when railing against the SQW crowd in the Total War thread, but this is the kind of insanity on the other side.

Quick question - is race still an issue for humanity in the 30th century? Assuming that the answer is no, then it shouldn't be an issue here. Same reason I don't give a rat's arse about Burnham and Georgiou being POCs in Star Trek, because by the 23rd century, race is a non-issue there as well.

From the responses I gather I got from the other users, yes, it is a problem.
If you tell them you don't care, they baptism you a racist and a spawn of Satan I guess.

I am curious what is this you said about Total War and SQW in a Thread.

 

[Hawki]

I am curious what is this you said about Total War and SQW in a Thread.

Oh, various things - mainly that I think it's rediculous that people are up in arms about female generals being added to Total War, claiming issues of historical accuracy, while justifying every other historical liberty.

 

[SweetShark]

I am curious what is this you said about Total War and SQW in a Thread.

Oh, various things - mainly that I think it's rediculous that people are up in arms about female generals being added to Total War, claiming issues of historical accuracy, while justifying every other historical liberty.

Like the situation in Battlefield 1 then?
Can they just accept that it is fiction? No real?
I will get it if some people dislike the idea, but it seems you meant they created a crusade just to destroy the game as a whole.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

Of course when a Mod saw my replies, I got banned and the message was as follows:

User banned (duration pending): dismissing concerns about racism and representation in media

You nasty unbeliever! Filthy heretic!
You should repent your sins!

You don't need to understand them,
just flagellate yourself publicly hard enough.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Quick question - is race still an issue for humanity in the 30th century? Assuming that the answer is no, then it shouldn't be an issue here. Same reason I don't give a rat's arse about Burnham and Georgiou being POCs in Star Trek, because by the 23rd century, race is a non-issue there as well.

So, race may not be an issue for humanity in the 30th century. I don't know, because I don't live in the 30th century. I live in the 21st century, where race is an issue.

The 30th century doesn't exist yet. It exists only in the imaginations of people from the 21st century, and thus it serves as a reflection of those people in the 21st century who created it. The point of science fiction is ultimately to entertain and (sometimes) to provoke people who live in the present day, it's not an anthropological document from a far future society which really exists that somehow made it back a thousand years. It's a fictional product made by 21st century human beings.

So, if a 21st century human being sets out to bring their imaginary version of the 30th century to life in some form, what does it say that every single significant person in that imaginary version of the 30th century is white?

There are two answers, and neither is particularly palatable.

The first is that the person imagining (perhaps subconsciously) wants a future in which everyone is white, or is pandering to an audience which wants that. If they are white (which in this case they are) they may feel like the best possible future is one in which everyone resembles them, and they cannot imagine a non-white person resembling them to the required degree.

The second, which I think is the one which actually happened here, is that the casting director (or Chris Roberts) wanted a list of actors which would have impact or immediate recognition with the audience, and could be sold to them as an "event", and it just so happened that the actors who the target audience would get hyped for were miraculously all white.

The reason these are bad is because they indicate subconscious racial bias. That bias is not in the future, it's not in a thousand years, it's right now, which unfortunately also happens to be the time in which we all live and have to deal with racial bias.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

So There is a Thread on ResetEra which a user complain that all the main characters/well-known actors are only white and there is no diversity between them.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/i-...k-of-diversity-depicted-in-squadron-42.74879/

Well, I made the mistake to say in general I don't care so much because I care mostly about the main core of the game: Get a Ship and Kill Aliens in Space.

It sounds like it's a group of actual racists who want to push their racial ideals onto others. You're better off without associating with people like that...what was that famous Mark Twain quote [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/539027-never-argue-with-stupid-people-they-will-drag-you-down]: "Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."

What's happened in the current zeitgeist, these social-justice types have absurd notions of "diversity", "equity", "inclusivity" and some other buzzwords. They brand anything not meeting their standards sexist, racist, homophobic, bigoted, nazi, etc, etc. The reality is, they are the bigots who see the world thru a lens of skin colour, sex and the rest and claim any time something doesn't have equal men, women, white, black, whatever it's because of racism. These same racists tried the same thing with Witcher 3 and Kingdom Come Deliverance and got nowhere.

If you treat people fairly and equally without judging them based on skin colour or whatever arbitrary identifier, then you are not a racist and automatically better than the people described in the thread. Ignore them, let them froth.

 

[Jamcie Kerbizz]

Yeah, ok I laughed at your predicament but no malice intended. Just leave these people to fester.
Someone who blatantly punishes you for 'doubt' (regardless if that is actual or ascribed one) is beyond the pale of any semblance of reason.
Especially if they are in position of absolute power over you in this circumstance and don't mind to openly abuse it.

 

[Hawki]

So, race may not be an issue for humanity in the 30th century. I don't know, because I don't live in the 30th century. I live in the 21st century, where race is an issue.

The 30th century doesn't exist yet. It exists only in the imaginations of people from the 21st century, and thus it serves as a reflection of those people in the 21st century who created it. The point of science fiction is ultimately to entertain and (sometimes) to provoke people who live in the present day, it's not an anthropological document from a far future society which really exists that somehow made it back a thousand years. It's a fictional product made by 21st century human beings.

That's cute, but Star Citizen takes place in the 30th century. I'm more interested in judging a setting's worldbuilding by its own merits than how it relates to the present day.

Sci-fi can be elevated when it reflects issues of the current day, but Star Citizen has never sold itself as anything other than space opera/military sci-fi.

So, if a 21st century human being sets out to bring their imaginary version of the 30th century to life in some form, what does it say that every single significant person in that imaginary version of the 30th century is white?

Probably nothing.

Also, the characters in the trailer are white. There's nothing to suggest anything about the racial makeup of the UEE, or whether race exists as a concept in the same way it does now (that I'm aware of).

If it doesn't mean anything in the setting, it should barely mean anything here.

There are two answers, and neither is particularly palatable.

The first is that the person imagining (perhaps subconsciously) wants a future in which everyone is white, or is pandering to an audience which wants that. If they are white (which in this case they are) they may feel like the best possible future is one in which everyone resembles them, and they cannot imagine a non-white person resembling them to the required degree.

The second, which I think is the one which actually happened here, is that the casting director (or Chris Roberts) wanted a list of actors which would have impact or immediate recognition with the audience, and could be sold to them as an "event", and it just so happened that the actors who the target audience would get hyped for were miraculously all white.

The third possible answer is that they simply chose the best people for the job?

To answer your question, it's probably a bit of answers 2 and 3. At the least, it certainly makes sense to get Mark Hamill back given his role in the Wing Commander series.

The reason these are bad is because they indicate subconscious racial bias. That bias is not in the future, it's not in a thousand years, it's right now, which unfortunately also happens to be the time in which we all live and have to deal with racial bias.

Everyone has racial bias to some extent.

But your own post kind of outright states that "that bias is not in the future, it's right now." Since Star Citizen takes place in the future, it should be a moot point.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

That's cute, but Star Citizen takes place in the 30th century. I'm more interested in judging a setting's worldbuilding by its own merits than how it relates to the present day.

Plenty of sci-fi does this already ... Doctor Who does that by having self-contained arcs set within a specific time and place ... but the reasons why it's interesting often deal with a social contract between viewer and lived experience, and juxtaposing it by the time period and environment that these characters 'out of time' confront that.

Sci-fi can be elevated when it reflects issues of the current day, but Star Citizen has never sold itself as anything other than space opera/military sci-fi.

And? It's hollow culture schlock meant to merely be digested rather than at least lift its game.

Probably nothing.

Garbage.

Also, the characters in the trailer are white. There's nothing to suggest anything about the racial makeup of the UEE, or whether race exists as a concept in the same way it does now (that I'm aware of).

If it doesn't mean anything in the setting, it should barely mean anything here.

Right, but by underwriting all traditional representative forces of humanity, you are inherently making a statement.The reason why Uhura was such a big deal as Star Trek went out of the way to paint a socialist future of a united humanity and enlightened meritocracy exists to uplift mankind.

In Star Trek, you could buy the idea of an international socialist movement somewhere in the future (the setting's past) that allows such a diverse cast of characters to be selected for an exploration of the stars. Whenever I play games that oddly seem to ixnay any person that just so happens to look like me and then pretends as if that means nothing is fucking dubious.

All too often when you play games, it feels like the setting itself white people have committed a genocidal campaign of slavery, exploitation and enforced poverty that seems to happen just off stage. And by pretending as if that isn't exactly what Caucasians were doing in recent memory to date makes it a little bit on the nose when they then say; "Oh, but race doesn't matter."

Well clearly it does when there's no real argument to the contrary. Media is undemocratic. I don't get to magically input what I want ... but what I can do is critique what exists, and what exists is a pisspoor argument that 'race no longer matters'.

Hel;l ... I love Verhoeven, and his interpretation of Starship Troopers and Rico. Rico is meant to be Filipino... But I get the argument Verhoeven (let me remind people, someone who actually experienced a war unlike Heinlein and the militarism he was espousing for as if an answer to guaranteeing peace through collective military service as if a community of soldiers understanding war's desolation and thus the most likely not to wish to inflict it) was making by basically whitifying the entire main cast when critiquing Heinlein's work. It's often not even a case of representation alone, but what that representation means.

The third possible answer is that they simply chose the best people for the job?

To answer your question, it's probably a bit of answers 2 and 3. At the least, it certainly makes sense to get Mark Hamill back given his role in the Wing Commander series.

Everyone has racial bias to some extent.

And so people should interrogate instances of it more ... For starters, no one is born racist. Which kind of makes it an objective function to interrogate racism.

But your own post kind of outright states that "that bias is not in the future, it's right now." Since Star Citizen takes place in the future, it should be a moot point.

But the game has given us no reason to treat it as a moot point. I mean in Star Trek you can critique its representation still, why exatly shuld we not critique smething when it hasn't even bothered to interrogate its own biases? Surely that's why critical theory exists?

 

[Hawki]

Plenty of sci-fi does this already ...

Does what already? Relate to the present day?

Well, sure. What's your point? Sci-fi isn't obliged to represent the present day.

Doctor Who does that by having self-contained arcs set within a specific time and place ... but the reasons why it's interesting often deal with a social contract between viewer and lived experience, and juxtaposing it by the time period and environment that these characters 'out of time' confront that.

And plenty of other times Doctor Who (which I'd argue isn't sci-fi, but whatever) has episodes that have no relation to 20th/21st century Earth.

And? It's hollow culture schlock meant to merely be digested rather than at least lift its game.

You're kind of making my point for me.

Star Citizen is space opera/military sci-fi. It's under no obligation to engage in deeper themes.

Garbage.

Such a profound argument...

Right, but by underwriting all traditional representative forces of humanity, you are inherently making a statement.

No, you're not.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

The reason why Uhura was such a big deal as Star Trek went out of the way to paint a socialist future of a united humanity and enlightened meritocracy exists to uplift mankind.

Uhura was only a big deal in the terms of the time when Star Trek was written/aired. She isn't a big deal in the context of the setting itself. You can watch Star Trek TOS, see Uhura, and not even be aware of its context. Which is good writing. Same reason why it's so asinine to complain about Burnham and Georgiou in Discovery - no-one cares about their ethnicity in the setting, so neither should the audience.

In Star Trek, you could buy the idea of an international socialist movement somewhere in the future (the setting's past) that allows such a diverse cast of characters to be selected for an exploration of the stars.

Or, you could not read into it at all?

Seeing characters like Uhura and Chekov means far less today than it did then. That's actually a sign of good writing. TOS never wastes our time saying "look, look, we have a Russian! The 23rd century is so advanced!" It lets the story move on. A 1960s audience can read into it if they want to. So can a 2010s audience, even if it's far less relevent now.

All too often when you play games, it feels like the setting itself white people have committed a genocidal campaign of slavery, exploitation and enforced poverty that seems to happen just off stage.

Da fuq?

Can you name any actual examples?

Also, genocide, slavery, exploitation, and poverty aren't limited to one people in the history of the world. And if I'm watching something like Avatar, I don't think "where are all the white people" because it's an asinine train of thought.

Well clearly it does when there's no real argument to the contrary. Media is undemocratic. I don't get to magically input what I want ... but what I can do is critique what exists, and what exists is a pisspoor argument that 'race no longer matters'.

No-one gets to imput what they want. And I find it absurd that anyone would go onto something like Netflix, and want to filter by ethnicity.

Hel;l ... I love Verhoeven, and his interpretation of Starship Troopers and Rico. Rico is meant to be Filipino... But I get the argument Verhoeven (let me remind people, someone who actually experienced a war unlike Heinlein) was making by basically whitifying the entire main cast when critiquing Heinlein's work. It's often not even a case of representation alone, but what that representation means.

I highly doubt Starship Troopers is making any kind of statement in the profiling of its cast. Rico's Filipino in the book, but ethnicity is never relavant to the context of the story. About the only statement you could read into is that the world of the 23rd century (or roundabouts, forget when the film is set) is that nations (if they even exist) aren't defined by ethnic lines, since Buenos Aires looks the same as pretty much any city. But the film doesn't dwell on that. Humanity is humanity - race is never brought up.

And so people should interrogate instances of it more ... For starters, no one is born racist. Which kind of makes it an objective function to interrogate racism.

All for interrogating racism, but media is under no obligation to do so.

Star Citizen can examine it if it wants to. If it doesn't, no problem.

But the game has given us no reason to treat it as a moot point.

No, the game hasn't. The point's been generated when people saw a trailer.

The only way you can claim if the game is giving you reason to treat it as a point if there's production notes and/or in-universe context.

I mean in Star Trek you can critique its representation still, why exatly shuld we not critique smething when it hasn't even bothered to interrogate its own biases? Surely that's why critical theory exists?

Critiquing representation in Star Trek? You mean the morons who saw Discovery and yelled "white genocide?"

You can critique representation all you want, doesn't mean I find it any less silly. When examining the worth of a piece of literature, I'd have thought that we lived in a world where it could be judged by the quality of its writing and worldbuilding, along with the depth and pertinence of its themes. The skin colour of its characters shouldn't be of concern unless it's relevant.

There's a reason why race is important in a work like To Kill a Mockingbird, but not relevant in something like Farenheit 451 for instance.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Does what already? Relate to the present day?

Well, sure. What's your point? Sci-fi isn't obliged to represent the present day.

It's also not obliged to complain when people critique it.

And plenty of other times Doctor Who (which I'd argue isn't sci-fi, but whatever) has episodes that have no relation to 20th/21st century Earth.

Point being?

You're kind of making my point for me.

Star Citizen is space opera/military sci-fi. It's under no obligation to engage in deeper themes.

Then it shouldn't complain when people bring up glaring issues with it.

Such a profound argument...

Better than your replies to me in the other thread.

No, you're not.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Totally not my point. Or such a profound argument. Maybe why you cut out the rest of what I wrote.

Uhura was only a big deal in the terms of the time when Star Trek was written/aired. She isn't a big deal in the context of the setting itself. You can watch Star Trek TOS, see Uhura, and not even be aware of its context. Which is good writing. Same reason why it's so asinine to complain about Burnham and Georgiou in Discovery - no-one cares about their ethnicity in the setting, so neither should the audience.

And? Once again, if the cast of Discovery was entirely white people would talkabout it precisely by comparing it to Star Trek itself.

Or, you could not read into it at all?

Seeing characters like Uhura and Chekov means far less today than it did then. That's actually a sign of good writing. TOS never wastes our time saying "look, look, we have a Russian! The 23rd century is so advanced!" It lets the story move on. A 1960s audience can read into it if they want to. So can a 2010s audience, even if it's far less relevent now.

Means far less to whom?

Da fuq?

Can you name any actual examples?

Of general representation? Okay ... name me one game that has done LGBTQ representation well? Like one. Number of times you play as an East Asian protagonist? Indians alone make up 1 in 7 people one the planet and conspicuously I can't think of a single time I've seen something like a Hindu perspective in a sci-fi setting ... or maybe how many games that have non-descript Muslim targets denied of any nuance where as at least we have 'Nazis' and 'Russians' ... but when does such nuance get painted to the nameless, often literally faceless Muslim hordes you gun down?

Call of Duty 4 literally makes such enemies so often wear face occulting headwear simply to further disassociate from the people you're shooting at in comparison to U.S. and British soldiers beside you.

This often cuts bothways, mind. I mean there is precisely one Call of Duty game that deals extensively with the Japanese. The Imperial Japanese Forces committed the same extent of mass murder and active war crimes as the Nazis, but due to Cold War sensibilities these were ixnayed in popular media in the post-Pacific War period due to the fact that people like Prince Asaka were spared a firing squad solely because the U.S. wanted an ally to prosecute a campaign against the communists.

And ironically this is why the Japanese have such a fucked up cultural consumption of its own past and alliances. Like cute-i-fying Nazi uniforms precisely because there was a protracted social engineering campaign of publicly defanging perceptions of the Japanese through things like 'cute culture' that date back to the 50s in order to check rampant anti-Japanese sentiments in the West.

There is quite the extensive number of Japanese sociologists that write about this phenomena and critique it as a collective immaturity of confronting and making peace with the past and recognizing the horrors that the bedrock modern Japanese society cultivated and continues to try to whitewash, often with Western assistance both in the past and concurrently through media consumption and utterly ixnaying it out of history textbooks.

And talking about this shit, actually getting chin deep in it and feeling about its murky depths for a hypothetical drain plug to actually see what were walking on, is no less important now as it will be likely 100 years from now.

If you're literally painting nearly every authority figure in a game as white in a sci-fi setting, it should lead to uncomfortable questions about what that universe is trying to tell people.

Also, genocide, slavery, exploitation, and poverty aren't limited to one people in the history of the world. And if I'm watching something like Avatar, I don't think "where are all the white people" because it's an asinine train of thought.

Avatar has a metric fuckton of problems, what are you talking about?

No-one gets to imput what they want. And I find it absurd that anyone would go onto something like Netflix, and want to filter by ethnicity.

But that's not what people want from good representation. Kind of like how something like Netflix' Bright is incredibly fucked up when you break it down.

I highly doubt Starship Troopers is making any kind of statement in the profiling of its cast.

Really? Why?

Rico's Filipino in the book, but ethnicity is never relavant to the context of the story. About the only statement you could read into is that the world of the 23rd century (or roundabouts, forget when the film is set) is that nations (if they even exist) aren't defined by ethnic lines, since Buenos Aires looks the same as pretty much any city. But the film doesn't dwell on that. Humanity is humanity - race is never brought up.

That's right ... in the book it doesn't really matter. In the movie Verhoeven makes it a point that the militarism that Heinlein thinks is the key way to diminish war's desolation due to an idea that only soldiers understand the true horror of war, thus a society of warriors will be the most peaceful answer to humanity's cohesion, was thus contrasted by the militarism of humanity's past that Verhoeven experienced as a kid in occupied Netherlands.

All for interrogating racism, but media is under no obligation to do so.

So we'll do it for them.

Star Citizen can examine it if it wants to. If it doesn't, no problem.

But the game has given us no reason to treat it as a moot point.

But it doesn't make it a moot point. Star Trek tries to show us a future where it's a moot point.

No, the game hasn't. The point's been generated when people saw a trailer. The only way you can claim if the game is giving you reason to treat it as a point if there's production notes and/or in-universe context.

I agree, for what it's worth ... but then again I'm not going to be surprised by the finished product.

You can critique representation all you want, doesn't mean I find it any less silly. When examining the worth of a piece of literature, I'd have thought that we lived in a world where it could be judged by the quality of its writing and worldbuilding, along with the depth and pertinence of its themes. The skin colour of its characters shouldn't be of concern unless it's relevant.

Intellectual dishonesty is still intellectual dishonesty. Nobody is legitimately asking for one in four people to be East Asian. Whatthey're asking for is why there just so happens to be a creepy culling of various ethnicities in sci-fi media and games. For the same reason that representation of LGBTQ themes and women in videogames and sci-fi is pretty fucked up on a whole.

There's a reason why race is important in a work like To Kill a Mockingbird, but not relevant in something like Farenheit 451 for instance.

Because these products were made by people, funded by a capitalist society, and by analyzing them as a whole we can draw inferences to the culture industry and its structuralist formations that are indicative of core sociological aspects of the lived conditins of humans on the planet?

 

[Terminal Blue]

That's cute, but Star Citizen takes place in the 30th century. I'm more interested in judging a setting's worldbuilding by its own merits than how it relates to the present day.

Sci-fi can be elevated when it reflects issues of the current day, but Star Citizen has never sold itself as anything other than space opera/military sci-fi.

Right, but this space opera/military sci fi is being created in the present day. If its development doesn't bomb horribly, it will be consumed and, one would hope, enjoyed by people in something approximating the present day (insert predictable joke about Star Citizen maybe being out of alpha by the 30th century). This trailer was created in the present day, to be watched by people in the present day and to build hype in the present day. The cast are all present day actors, selected by a casting agent in the present day, who are recording their lines and doing motion capture in the present day so that you can watch their likeness (which they have legally given permission to use in the present day) appear in a trailer in the present day.

Star Citizen is a piece of media. When we criticise it, we are not criticising a real and functioning universe that actually exists, we are criticising a piece of media. One way of criticising media is to point out that it's internal logic is inconsistent. Plenty of careers on youtube have been born from that kind of tedious nitpicking and pointing out "plot holes". But that is not the only level on which criticism of a piece of media is possible. We can also criticise how a piece of media is produced, we can criticise the themes and message it conveys (both intentionally and unintentionally). Because ultimately, all media reflects something about the period in which it exists, or about the people which produced it and consumed it.

Probably nothing.

Then why does it happen.

Just because something is not setting out to convey a deliberate or intentional message does not mean it is conveying no message whatsoever. A piece of media can set out to convey one meaning, but in fact end up conveying a completely different meaning. A lot of people find The Room funny, but Tommy Wiseau (despite his later protestations) never intended it to be funny. That doesn't mean the people who found it funny were "wrong" about the film, in fact, I would say that they actually understand the film better than Tommy, which is why Tommy later changed his mind and tried to be "in on the joke". They see something in the film which the principal creator missed. This isn't something that is just limited to "bad" media, we can all do it, and it's a valid form of criticism.

If someone "accidentally" casts every significant member of a 30th century pan-human society as a white person, that doesn't have to be intentional to be meaningful. It happened.

The third possible answer is that they simply chose the best people for the job?

So, option 2..

If "choosing the best people for the job" magically results in a white cast, then it raises the obvious question as to whether part of what makes someone "the best person for the job" is that they are white. Again, if we assume that the target audience for the game would subconsciously prefer and get more excited for white actors, then that would, technically, make a white actor more likely to be "the best person for the job", but if true that's a very sad indictment of the society we live in and one which is worth talking about.

If you cannot see media for what it is, as a product which was produced by human beings to sell to people and to achieve particular goals in the present, then you fundamentally can't understand it. Noone cares about the 30th century. The 30th century doesn't exist. These characters don't exist. There is no real, living universe in the Squadron 42 trailer beyond what we literally see on the screen. But, back here in the real living universe that actually does exist, there are non-white actors who missed out on the possibility of a job because for some magical, unexplainable reason CIG decided to bring in an almost entirely white cast. That is hugely, hugely more important than the internal consistency of whether Mark Hamill's character's uniform is correct to the lore, and if you think it's not, if you think the only relevant grounds for criticising a piece of media is in terms of the consistency of its universe, then you've missed the point.

 

[Hawki]

It's also not obliged to complain when people critique it.

"It's also not obliged to complain."

It? You mean the show? How does a show complain?

Also, this entire thread started was started when Shark mentioned being banned for wondering why people were complaining and/or not complaining enough, so, yes, I think people can complain when people are complaining for others not complaining enough.

Point being?

That you can easily have speculative fiction separated from the present day, reinforcing the fact that speculative fiction (or fiction in general) is under no obligation to have deeper meaning and/or reference to contemporary issues.

Better than your replies to me in the other thread.

No, my responses were more than one word long.

Totally not my point. Or such a profound argument. Maybe why you cut out the rest of what I wrote.

I addressed Uhura further down. I don't need to quote the entirety of a statement to respond to it.

And? Once again, if the cast of Discovery was entirely white people would talkabout it precisely by comparing it to Star Trek itself.

They've the right to do so. Doesn't make it less stupid.

Means far less to whom?

To people who've grown up in a world where inter-racial ships/romance isn't an issue, and for whom weren't alive in the Cold War.

Of general representation? Okay ... name me one game that has done LGBTQ representation well?

Off the top of my head?

-The Last of Us

-Mass Effect

-Overwatch

-The Walking Dead

Number of times you play as an East Asian protagonist?

Off the top of my head, and confining it to real-world settings (as opposed to fantasy settings with Asian equivalents):

-Assassin's Creed Chronicles

-House of the Dead: Overkill

-Resident Evil series

-True Crime: Streets of LA

-Yakuza series

Indians alone make up 1 in 7 people one the planet and conspicuously I can't think of a single time I've seen something like a Hindu perspective in a sci-fi setting ...

Nor can I.

Then again, I can't think of any times I've played with any kind of religious perspective in a sci-fi setting, like, ever, so...

or maybe how many games that have non-descript Muslim targets denied of any nuance where as at least we have 'Nazis' and 'Russians' ... but when does such nuance get painted to the nameless, often literally faceless Muslim hordes you gun down?

"Nazis" and "Russians" are stock villains in the same ways as "Muslims," and you'll probably find that there's a lot more of them.

Call of Duty 4 literally makes such enemies so often wear face occulting headware simply to further disassociate from the people you're shooting at in comparison to U.S. and British soldiers beside you.

Never played CoD 4, so can't comment

Avatar has a metric fuckton of problems, what are you talking about?

Such as?

Really? Why?

-Because race is never relavant to the setting.

-Because fascism isn't grouped by ethnicity.

You can draw parallels to Nazi uniforms in the film, but that's about it as far as specifics go.

That's right ... in the book it doesn't really matter. In the movie Verhoeven makes it a point that the militarism that Heinlein thinks is the key way to diminish war's desolation due to an idea that only soldiers understand the true horror of war, thus a society of warriors will be the most peaceful answer to humanity's cohesion, was thus contrasted by the militarism of humanity's past that Verhoeven experienced as a kid in occupied Netherlands.

None of which is based on race.

The Germans pursued fascism. So did the Spanish, the Italians, and the Japanese. Dictatorships are alive and well today still.

Nazism has elements of racism, fascism itself? Not so much.

So we'll do it for them.

But why?

That's a terrible way of evaluating media. There's plenty of works of fiction that never address race, racism, or anything like that. There's no reason to evaluate them on points or themes that they're never trying to address.

But it doesn't make it a moot point. Star Trek tries to show us a future where it's a moot point.

And Star Citizen shows a different future.

Anything else is trying to force in sub-text that doesn't exist.

Intellectual dishonesty is still intellectual dishonesty. Nobody is legitimately asking for one in four people to be East Asian. Whatthey're asking for is why there just so happens to be a creepy culling of various ethnicities in sci-fi media and games.

If anything, representation has gotten better, not worse.

For the same reason that representation of LGBTQ themes and women in videogames and sci-fi is pretty fucked up on a whole.

Again, I'd say they've improved.

Because these products were made by people, funded by a capitalist society, and by analyzing them as a whole we can draw inferences to the culture industry and its structuralist formations that are indicative of core sociological aspects of the lived conditins of humans on the planet?

No, because To Kill a Mockingbird is set in the 30s and deals with racism directly. Farenheit 451 is set in the future where its themes and ideas (mass media, dumbing down of society, totalitarianism) have nothing to do with race.

One doesn't look at TKaM, sees Hitler being mentioned, and declares "this work is a failure because it fails to dissect fascism." Similarly, one doesn't look at F451 and declare "this work doesn't delve into racism, and is therefore a failure."

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Maybe just...don't go there?

Like, seriously, you obviously aren't fitting in. Why invite cross-board drama?

 

[Hawki]

Star Citizen is a piece of media. When we criticise it, we are not criticising a real and functioning universe that actually exists, we are criticising a piece of media. One way of criticising media is to point out that it's internal logic is inconsistent. Plenty of careers on youtube have been born from that kind of tedious nitpicking and pointing out "plot holes". But that is not the only level on which criticism of a piece of media is possible. We can also criticise how a piece of media is produced, we can criticise the themes and message it conveys (both intentionally and unintentionally). Because ultimately, all media reflects something about the period in which it exists, or about the people which produced it and consumed it.

Okay, but what themes or messages is Star Citizen conveying? Because the only ones I can see is that "unity is good." Because the UEE does have friendly relationships with other species, and it's the vandul (sp?) that are the aliens, whose culture doesn't seem to go beyond "Space Vikings."

We can start discussing the themes of Star Citizen when there's actual something to discuss. Anything else is inserting projections onto it. Maybe the ethnicity of its cast might be of interest, but answer me this:

-Is race important in the setting?

-Is race important to the producers/writers/directors/whatever?

If the answer to either of these is "yes," then that gives us something to talk about. If the answer is "no," then it doesn't bar inference and cultural context, which is a far less productive line of thought.

Just because something is not setting out to convey a deliberate or intentional message does not mean it is conveying no message whatsoever.

And is it? Because so far people seem to be reading into a message that by their own admission, likely isn't even there.

A piece of media can set out to convey one meaning, but in fact end up conveying a completely different meaning. A lot of people find The Room funny, but Tommy Wiseau (despite his later protestations) never intended it to be funny. That doesn't mean the people who found it funny were "wrong" about the film, in fact, I would say that they actually understand the film better than Tommy, which is why Tommy later changed his mind and tried to be "in on the joke".

Or, the Room is a terrible film that is unintentionally hilarious, and Wiseau tried to cover his arse?

If someone "accidentally" casts every significant member of a 30th century pan-human society as a white person, that doesn't have to be intentional to be meaningful. It happened.

It happened, but it doesn't mean anything by itself.

You ever heard of authoratorial intent?

If "choosing the best people for the job" magically results in a white cast, then it raises the obvious question as to whether part of what makes someone "the best person for the job" is that they are white.

Because RSI is an American company

Whites are the dominant ethnic group in the US, both in terms of population and economic status

Ergo, most actors would be white

You can have this result without attributing it to malice. You can rail against this reality, but the people at RSI aren't the ones running the country.

Again, if we assume that the target audience for the game would subconsciously prefer and get more excited for white actors, then that would, technically, make a white actor more likely to be "the best person for the job", but if true that's a very sad indictment of the society we live in and one which is worth talking about.

Key word "assume." Is there any actual evidence of this?

If you cannot see media for what it is, as a product which was produced by human beings to sell to people and to achieve particular goals in the present, then you fundamentally can't understand it.

I'm well aware of how media works. What I think you don't understand is that not every piece of media has some kind of deeper meaning behind it.

Noone cares about the 30th century.

I'm going to go out on a limb that the people sinking up to tens of thousands of dollars into this game do.

The 30th century doesn't exist. These characters don't exist.

Yes, and?

That's more impetus to not project the nature of the 21st century onto the hypothetical 30th.

There is no real, living universe in the Squadron 42 trailer beyond what we literally see on the screen. But, back here in the real living universe that actually does exist, there are non-white actors who missed out on the possibility of a job because for some magical, unexplainable reason CIG decided to bring in an almost entirely white cast.

And your proof for this is?

That is hugely, hugely more important than the internal consistency of whether Mark Hamill's character's uniform is correct to the lore,

In the context of the real world? Yes. Real-world concerns trump that of fiction.

In the context of Star Citizen in isolation? No. For it to be so, you'd need to either:

-Compile proof of racial bias in the casting.

-Cite in-universe sources that acknowledge that race is relavant to the setting.

If you can't do either of that, anything else is just projection.

and if you think it's not, if you think the only relevant grounds for criticising a piece of media is in terms of the consistency of its universe, then you've missed the point.

No, that's not what I think. But what you seem to be under the impression of is that every piece of media contains inherent meaning and/or relevance to the present day.

If you want to insist that every piece of fiction must/should reflect the issues of the modern day, then I can only disagree.

 

[Mcgeezaks]

Maybe they just hired their favorite actors who they thought fit the roles they wrote. It's not magic, racial bias, racism, subconsciously racial bias etc. Should they just fill some kind of stupid backward racial quota? Forced diversity is dumb.

OP, why would you even hang out at a fascist cesspool that is ResetEra?

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

"It's also not obliged to complain."

It? You mean the show? How does a show complain?

Also, this entire thread started was started when Shark mentioned being banned for wondering why people were complaining and/or not complaining enough, so, yes, I think people can complain when people are complaining for others not complaining enough.

I was debating your words, not theirs

That you can easily have speculative fiction separated from the present day, reinforcing the fact that speculative fiction (or fiction in general) is under no obligation to have deeper meaning and/or reference to contemporary issues.

Not when every authority figure in a detailed media just so happens to be white in a setting where 'race does not matter'. Quite clearly race does matter if you seemingly can't get a decent job without being white.

No, my responses were more than one word long.

So have mine ... point being?

They've the right to do so. Doesn't make it less stupid.

No less meandering than your commentary here.

To people who've grown up in a world where inter-racial ships/romance isn't an issue, and for whom weren't alive in the Cold War.

That's quite a few people. Being in your 30s isn't exactly a fantastic margin of the demographic. Not to mention we're critiquing media now, and let's notpretend that unconscious biases have ended.

Off the top of my head?

-The Last of Us

Have played it, wasn't impressed.

-Mass Effect

Where? It doesn't do relationships well full stop.

-Overwatch

Where?

-The Walking Dead

Haven't played it.

Off the top of my head, and confining it to real-world settings (as opposed to fantasy settings with Asian equivalents):

We're talking sci-fi. Stay on target.

Nor can I.

Then again, I can't think of any times I've played with any kind of religious perspective in a sci-fi setting, like, ever, so...

Really? Homeworld? Bioshock Infinite? Dead Space? Halo? Command & Conquer? Doom? Deus Ex? Messiah? All of them big ticket items currently or in the past that directly lift Judeo-Christian themes partly or entirely. Give me more than a minute and I'll think of twenty more.

While not a videogame, original BSG is basically 'Mormons in Space'. So we got Mormon before Hindu religious themes in sci-fi.

"Nazis" and "Russians" are stock villains in the same ways as "Muslims," and you'll probably find that there's a lot more of them.

You're missing the definition of 'stock villain'. 'Russian' isn't a stock villain, it's a nationality. 'Islamic militant' is a stock archetype, because even when a show or videogame is being self-aware they'll simply invent a country that is best decribed as 'Somewhere Middle-Eastie' ... Yet how many games or shows have even bothered to tackle and outline something as basic as the Shia-Sunni conflict?

Hell, Indonesia is the most populous Muslim nation in the world, and yet 'Islamic militant' has very racist dimensions on its own as it is portrayed. Not just religious...

Such as?

Really? Like, say, the misrepresentation of native communities akin to those during the Columbian Exchange were somehow backward savages without an appreciation for technological sophistication? Despite the fact that native communities that first met groups like British explorers were quite keen on adopting horses and rifles, and became incredibly proficient at their usage?

The artificial eroticization and Western gaze of groups of people that ignores the fact that they were actually quite practical people (like most people are) and aren't just a homogenized group without individual identities. They in fact had a diversity of languages, hierarchies, political systems, castes, visual and performining artistry and social stratification... and they recognized a good thing when they saw it (such as big, easily domesticable draft animals like horses)...

If Avatar wanted a realistic sci-fi reimagination of colonization, then least they could have done is shown the natives repurposing the mecha and flying ships, and learning incredibly quickly how to use them as per the reality of something like rifles and horses were to native communities facing settler society colonization. By making them literal aliens, while also echoing the same Western gaze exoticization of their culture and politics ala the 'Noble Savage' of the past by other settle society '''allies''' of the colonized, it flies in the face of the moral argument it is putting forward.

After all ... Avatar had something to say about a history of colonization ... all while failing to transcend basic critical theory about why these dated 'noble savage' """appreciations""" of colonized peoples facing settler societies were awful on their own.

Like the native communities settler societies thought of as perpetual children, so does Avatar treat the natives of those facing a settler society of humans in the face of their mecha and flying craft. An exoticization of the alien as if romantic perceptions of the white man mingling with the noble savage as opposed to, you know, people incredibly diverse, practical and intelligent.

No less capable of raising themselves up to technological proficiency akin to any in a settler society if given the means and access to new technologies and resources they didn't prior have access to.

And yeah ... these attitudes persist today. They're no less insulting, extant and imperialistic now as they were back then.

-Because race is never relavant to the setting.

Clearly it's not. Clearly bias is there.

You can draw parallels to Nazi uniforms in the film, but that's about it as far as specifics go.

But that wasn't Verhoeven's argument. So .... bzzzt?

None of which is based on race.

Verhoeven is making the argument that Heinlein's militrarism only creates the social and dialectical difference of in groups and out groups. At best whatever militarism is at core is propaganda when promoted (hence why the entire movie, not just its 'Would you like to know more?' bits feel like propaganda. That ultimately such a society is going to be riven and consumed by things like racial dimensions. In-groups and out-groups.

In his example, using the rise of fascism in Europe and it channelling the worst aspects akin to the inherently racist European societies of his youth.