evilthecat said:
Why not?
Like, if I was a non-white person looking at whether to buy into this game, do you think I should be forced to ignore the fact that someone seems to have made a specific decision to ensure that there are no people who look like me in it merely because that decision is unintentional? They've still sent a clear message to the audience that this is a game about (and therefore for) for white people.
I'd like to think that if a non-white person went to buy the game, their level of interest wouldn't be predicated on the skin colour of its protagonists. Same reason why if a white person went to buy a game with a non-white cast, their level of interest would seemingly be un-predicated.
This is why Hollywood has learned to avoid all-white casts, incidentally. It's not because the "SJWs" got to them, it's because they figured out that a film with only white people in it can come across as exclusionary to audiences who might otherwise enjoy it.
Or, because they want as big a portion of the pie as possible.
What artists do or don't do is irrelevant. Going back to your list, if there was whitewashing of Black Panther or CRA, then that would be an issue. In contrast, an all-white cast in Quiet Place means nothing, because far as I'm aware, race is irrelevant to the story.
If you literally can't stand to have non-white people exist within your narrative, then that can convey the impression that you don't want non-white people to buy into your product.
Except there's no evidence that RSI "can't stand to have non-white people" bar your own projections.
How do you measure the "failure" of a story?
A story can fail to communicate the information the author intended, or it can fail to be entertaining, or it can fail to make money.. but it can't just "fail" on a magical, transcendental level.
You've kind of just answered your question. However, it's much easier to measure the failure of a story based on writing, worldbuilding, and characters, than on a "transcendental level."
Also, how can you "convey narrative outside of the story". Narrative and story are the same thing.
Narrative: "A spoken or written account of connected events; a story."
Story: "An account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment."
Narrative and story are the same thing. A distinction that does exist is the distinction between plot and storytelling.
Anything that is conveying narrative is part of the story. That can include thins like colour, shot-composition, non-diegetic music or authorial tone which aren't part of the self-contained universe in which the narrative takes place. It can also include metanarrative information (which is especially important in genre media, like science fiction) like pop culture references, or tropes. Squadron 42 probably won't spend half an hour explaining to you why spaceships can travel faster than light even though this is probably impossible. It's a genre convention in science fiction, but you wouldn't know that unless you were exposed to other science fiction.
Metanarrative is far less important when compared to the actual narrative. One doesn't need to know the conventions of a genre or the context of its creation to form a judgement based on it.
Right, but we're both making claims.
Except burden of proof lies in your court.
For example:
Bob: "X is guilty of fraud."
Bill: "X isn't guilty of fraud."
Burden of proof still lies with Bob.
The question, if you want to phrase this in terms of burden of proof, is which question requires the fewest contingencies. If you believe that race is irrelevant in this setting, if that's something you want to assume, then why does the casting and appearance of the characters not reflect this colour-blind attitude to race in the future? Why has this space fleet magically ended up full of white people?
Okay, you want to talk about the fewest contingencies? Then what's more likely? That:
a) The UEE is racist, and enforces that policy of racial segregation, that RSI is a bunch of closest racists, and we've somehow missed all this up to this point?
b) That the "all white cast" is just a combination of production factors, ranging from trying to get back Hamill, to subconcious bias, to meritocracy?
Again, you've already pretty much admitted that b is the more likely outcome. Arguing for option a requires evidence that so far, you, and everyone else, have failed to provide.
Star Trek set out to present a vision of the world in which race was irrelevant, and low and behold that was reflected in the casting by having a black woman and an Asian man appear on the bridge. At the time, there was a semi-official policy of discrimination and censorship which dictated what non-white actors could be seen doing on television, so Gene Roddenberry had to fight for that, and he did because he knew it was important, because he knew that if he was going to sell this idea of a post-racial future then he had to show that, not just rely on the audience to assume it. It wasn't a default assumption then, and it isn't today.
Except it is an assumption today. You and some people look at Star Citizen and appear it isn't. I and a lot of other people appear it is. When I watch a show set in the future, I don't spend my time keeping a tally of characters' skin colour.
Another key difference you're neglecting to mention is that Star Trek and Star Citizen have different visions. Gene Rodenberry wanted his perfect future and everything that entails. Chris Roberts wanted to make a space sim in the vein of games like Wing Commander. Star Trek is interested in one thing, Star Citizen another.
The UEEN doesn't exist. None of its fleets exist. To exist in any form, they need to be shown to us through the story.
Jesus Christ...
I've no idea why you're even interested in fiction if the basis of it is "none of it's real, none of it matters, all that matters is what the designers do."
Again, the fact that all important characters in this story are white.
Again, ex post facto.
If the intention was that the UEE isn't racial segregated and is a colourblind meritocracy, then whoever cast this game has fucked up because they haven't shown that, in fact they've shown the complete opposite. The fact that noone at RSI noticed this is kind of indicative, given how easy it was for Gene Roddenberry to see this in the 1960s.
And if they did fuck up? So what?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWsuokWmEZI
You keep going on about Star Trek, but remember The Omega Glory? Y'know, that episode? Fucked up as that is, it doesn't autoamtically drag down Star Trek with it.
Star Citizen is (presumably) more than just the colour of its people's skin. Likewise, one bad episode in TOS (well, more than one, but whatever) doesn't automatically drag down the rest of it.
Are you ready for this, because I'm getting tired of having to point it out.
The. Setting. Of. Star. Citizen. Is. Not. Real.
No shit Sherlock.
You can rant and rave about a fictional setting not being real, that doesn't change anything.
This isn't a criticism of the "worldbuilding" though, it's a criticism of the piece of media itself, its production, casting and presentation to us as a piece of media. Gethsemani made an effort to explain it earlier, and I'd suggest reading her post as it might help you to understand the difference.
I have read it. You're being an extreme Doyalist.
I think you're the one who's having trouble understanding the difference.
Because if you're going to keep treating a fictional universe as if it's real and real people in the real world can be defended using its internal logic, then this discussion is pointless.
Of course any setting can.
If it's pointless, then go away. I was tired of debating this ages ago.
Every important character featured in the trailer is white[/b]. That is something that actually appears in the trailer, and is featured in the marketing. From the very beginning of this discussion, I have pointed out that there are two possible explanations for this:
1) It is an intentional "in universe" feature of the setting that white people are disproportionately represented within important roles within this particular fleet.
2) It is an unintentional result of casting choices and marketing decisions made outside of the setting.
Now, you can see in the trailer that there all the important or featured characters are white. That's obvious, isn't it? You also seem to expect people to "assume" that race doesn't matter in this setting. Therefore, I assume that you believe this is the result of option two, and I agree with you. That should have been where the discussion on the universe and its internal logic ended, because it doesn't matter. We have dismissed the idea that this is a deliberate feature of the universe being depicted.
Oh, thank God, it's over!
But, there are two problems with this.
Christ...
1) There is a conflict or dissonance between the idea that race doesn't matter in this universe and the fact that this has resulted in the important people all being white. It would actually make more sense if we were to follow option 1, and believe that there is some form of in-universe racial discrimination which prevents non-white people from achieving positions of importance. Thus trailer has actually conveyed the opposite impression to the one I believe was intended, which is a failure.
2) The fact that casting choices and marketing decisions have unintentionally resulted in an overwhelmingly white cast indicates that whatever priorities have motivated those decisions are suffering from some kind of (likely unconscious) racial bias. This may be due to whoever cast the movie only liking or being a fan of white actors, or it may be due to an insidious assumption (possibly even true) that the game's target audience will be more "hyped" for white actors. Neither of these things is above criticism because both indicate the presence of racism either within the game's creators or its fanbase. This is important not just because it's ideologically distasteful or offensive, but because it leads to a material deprivation of non-white actors who have effectively missed out on roles because they weren't white enough to appeal to the game's fans or casting directors.
I was wrong about Jesus Christ. He and God have left us.
Fine. I'm going to skip option 1 because your response to it would just be "but it ain't real!"
Option 2...okay, you start off reasonable, but you go from "likely unconcious racial bias" to suggesting that the game's creators and fanbase are inherently racist, to suggesting that non-white actors were "deprived." Since you're so fond of Star Trek, I'll quote Picard and say "The road from legitimate suspicion to rampant paranoia is very much shorter than we think."
Hawki said:
It's already cost something close to $200 million. Trust me, it's already had a cultural impact, that's why we're talking about it.
The amount of money something costs to make says nothing about its level of impact.
Also, two forums? That's hardly "cultural impact."
You think if/when Star Citizen is released people are going to care about this little deviation?
Star Wars isn't just a "setting". It's a franchise worth nearly a billion dollars. We can appraise it as such, and when we do race is definately important.
Except race shouldn't be important. When we judge Star Wars, we should judge it by stuff like quality of writing, directing, etc.
Remember The Last Jedi? Remember how morons claimed it was "SJWing" the setting? Those people were, and are, morons. But similarly, it's asinine to praise TLJ purely by the diversity of its cast. The ethnicity of the cast has no relevance in-universe, and has no relavance in the standard of good filmaking/storytelling.
There's no evidence that it isn't
Sigh...
Specter Von Baren said:
I really hate this argument going around in this thread that the Cold War logic from the American government is what we should apply to everything in our daily lives.
"We see that these people are friends with X so they MIGHT be a communist! We need to break the laws of the government and monitor their private lives!"
"But they haven't actually done anything. You need actual evidence first"
"No! They might not be communists but they could BECOME communists, we need to do this!"
I don't care what side you're on, what you're arguing for, the ends do not justify the means because the means can undercut the ends.
This reminds me of what happened a couple of years ago with the Puppeteer game where someone complained about the main character being X as if it was required that they be Y, it's a bad argument.
If you want to argue that this is racism then you need MORE. Are the creators of the game racist? Have they shown any such leaning before this? What do they themselves say about the main character cast? You can say "It might, they could, what if" all you want but you all that gives you is a reason to look into it more, you can not make any conclusions based on just this alone.
Yeah, what the anime avatar said.
Star Citizen is not being created for the benefit of its characters, setting or story. They won't get to play it, because they don't exist.
So basically you sidestep the point entirely. I never claimed it was for their benefit, I claimed it was irrelevant to them.
