Yes, I am aware conversations like this have already happened on The Escapist but given some recent discussions about "Jar-Jar Binks", and The new "Transformers" movie I feel a need to make some comments which are probably going to border on an essay. I also know a lot of people won't agree with me, but please keep the flames to a minimum.
It seems over the last few years, accusations of racism have become a method of garnering attention and little more. Everytime someone wants 5 minutes of fame or some attention they decide to call something, anything racist, using standards by which it's functionally impossible to NOT be racist (which is half the point). For example, if you make a game with few or any minorities, or one minority (like Blacks) are absent, then it's racist. If you make a game with a couple of minority characters, then it's racist due to under-represantation. If all else fails given characters can be called either too ethnic, or not ethnic enough for the same basic effect.
Attention can be garnered by either picking on something old, like say Jar Jar Binks (and honestly when the prequel triology was 'hot' the only race discussions revolved around the inclusion of Mace Windu. Nobody even remotely suggested racism in connection to Jar Jar), or by picking on given an urban minority personality to a couple of giant robots, when arguably had they not chosen to do this the same people would have turned around and said "what, why are there no Black transformers? All the other ones sound and act white". It's a no win scenario.
Bring in third world tribals in a video game set in the third world, like Resident Evil 5 and someone turns it into a contreversy. Create a multi-ethnic fighting roster for a game like Street Fight and people decide to pick on characters like Balrog/M. Bison because they box and seem like they are too black.
In the end it comes down to one single thing: attention. Whether a stereotype is even offensive largely depends on mood and what kind of attention can be garnered. Guys like Fifty Cent are walking racial stereotypes, not to mention animated features like "The Boondocks", yet nobody blinks an eye. You make a foul mouthed character who is heavily based on a "Samual L Jackson" kind of role, and next thing you know that suddenly becomes a racial stereotype.
Heck, it's not even about Black vs. White either. Have asians running a Laundrymat or a Chinese Resteraunt and people will find a way to complain about this too (think of the Law family in Tekken, which got some comments years ago).
Let me be painfully blunt. Decades ago racism was pervasive throughout American society, right now we are however lightweights compared to the rest of the world. Today at least in the US acts of racism are noteworthy, and isolated incidents. What's more dropping the "Race Card" gets attention because people care even in situations where they should laugh it off.
Right now, it's all about attention, and giving people something to blame for their problems. Bill Cosby said a lot about this at one time, even if it didn't go over very well. Jumping on a movie or video game gives the people involved a sense of self-validation because people pay attention to it as soon as "Race" enters into it when they should normally laugh off the stupidity.
Just the fact that you see people making fandom headlines by accusing Star Wars of racism via the Jar-Jar character is a sign of stupidity. People resort to stuff like this to keep racism alive because you aren't exactly going to find a lot of burning cruicifixs, or people being dragged to death behind trucks anymore. Sure stuff like that happens but it's isolated and you can't really make an accusation against society rather than the individuals involved, and it can be YEARS between clearcut incidents like that.
In general if "gangsta rap" and "urban personality" dudes develop a stereotype intentionally, it's not racist to use what they promoted. Tribals and primitives exist and using them as an inspiration for primitive tribals and fantasy only makes sense. Resident Evil 5 is a clear example, but also the whole "Gungan" accusation. Though honestly the "Gungans" is an example of rabble rousing since only one dude was really stupid (Jar-Jar, who as you might remember was exiled for being the way he was). The Gungans also might have used pack animals but also used energy based melee weapons, highly advanced force field technology, and built submarines/underwater transports. An overall tech level easily equal to the Trade Federation or humans on Naboo. Numbers seeming to have told in their doomed battle rather than any technological, military, or societal superiority. To even quote Jar-Jar when it was suggested the Gungans would be overun he more or less say "I don't think so, my people are warriors" and he had seen what they were up against at that time. He wasn't really a warrior, and was wrong but in the end they were pretty blood deadly. The sheer stupidity of the accusation to anyone who has seen the movie and throught about it should be obvious. Why is the accusation made? Well, people ARE paying attention to it.
The point here is that when it comes to accusations racism, the only solution when it comes to fandom is to basically ridicule it, and not give it any serious attention. When you can generate tons of traffic over someone implying racism in Star Wars, or talking about how there aren't many Blacks in "Soul Calibur IV" (the one dark skinned guy being an Arab), or ranting about how people dared to show tribals in a survival horror game... well people are going to exploit that for attention. It's up to the fandom community to confront it, and that means effectively yanking the platform out from anyone who tries to stand on it, and getting fairly assertive with companies that try and give people that platform to promote their own game (any attention is good attention in the minds of many, I suspect the whole Resident Evil 5 thing got out of hand because Capcom encouraged it in their own way so everyone would hear about the game and buy it to see what the big deal was).
Truthfully, I will go so far as to say that as a community fandom (which consists of science fiction/fantasy material in all of it's forms) is about as immune to racism as any group can be by it's very nature (it's all about making totally fantastic stuff up, and getting away from reality). We have simply allowed the intrusion of racial politics where we should never have done so.
>>>----Therumancer--->
It seems over the last few years, accusations of racism have become a method of garnering attention and little more. Everytime someone wants 5 minutes of fame or some attention they decide to call something, anything racist, using standards by which it's functionally impossible to NOT be racist (which is half the point). For example, if you make a game with few or any minorities, or one minority (like Blacks) are absent, then it's racist. If you make a game with a couple of minority characters, then it's racist due to under-represantation. If all else fails given characters can be called either too ethnic, or not ethnic enough for the same basic effect.
Attention can be garnered by either picking on something old, like say Jar Jar Binks (and honestly when the prequel triology was 'hot' the only race discussions revolved around the inclusion of Mace Windu. Nobody even remotely suggested racism in connection to Jar Jar), or by picking on given an urban minority personality to a couple of giant robots, when arguably had they not chosen to do this the same people would have turned around and said "what, why are there no Black transformers? All the other ones sound and act white". It's a no win scenario.
Bring in third world tribals in a video game set in the third world, like Resident Evil 5 and someone turns it into a contreversy. Create a multi-ethnic fighting roster for a game like Street Fight and people decide to pick on characters like Balrog/M. Bison because they box and seem like they are too black.
In the end it comes down to one single thing: attention. Whether a stereotype is even offensive largely depends on mood and what kind of attention can be garnered. Guys like Fifty Cent are walking racial stereotypes, not to mention animated features like "The Boondocks", yet nobody blinks an eye. You make a foul mouthed character who is heavily based on a "Samual L Jackson" kind of role, and next thing you know that suddenly becomes a racial stereotype.
Heck, it's not even about Black vs. White either. Have asians running a Laundrymat or a Chinese Resteraunt and people will find a way to complain about this too (think of the Law family in Tekken, which got some comments years ago).
Let me be painfully blunt. Decades ago racism was pervasive throughout American society, right now we are however lightweights compared to the rest of the world. Today at least in the US acts of racism are noteworthy, and isolated incidents. What's more dropping the "Race Card" gets attention because people care even in situations where they should laugh it off.
Right now, it's all about attention, and giving people something to blame for their problems. Bill Cosby said a lot about this at one time, even if it didn't go over very well. Jumping on a movie or video game gives the people involved a sense of self-validation because people pay attention to it as soon as "Race" enters into it when they should normally laugh off the stupidity.
Just the fact that you see people making fandom headlines by accusing Star Wars of racism via the Jar-Jar character is a sign of stupidity. People resort to stuff like this to keep racism alive because you aren't exactly going to find a lot of burning cruicifixs, or people being dragged to death behind trucks anymore. Sure stuff like that happens but it's isolated and you can't really make an accusation against society rather than the individuals involved, and it can be YEARS between clearcut incidents like that.
In general if "gangsta rap" and "urban personality" dudes develop a stereotype intentionally, it's not racist to use what they promoted. Tribals and primitives exist and using them as an inspiration for primitive tribals and fantasy only makes sense. Resident Evil 5 is a clear example, but also the whole "Gungan" accusation. Though honestly the "Gungans" is an example of rabble rousing since only one dude was really stupid (Jar-Jar, who as you might remember was exiled for being the way he was). The Gungans also might have used pack animals but also used energy based melee weapons, highly advanced force field technology, and built submarines/underwater transports. An overall tech level easily equal to the Trade Federation or humans on Naboo. Numbers seeming to have told in their doomed battle rather than any technological, military, or societal superiority. To even quote Jar-Jar when it was suggested the Gungans would be overun he more or less say "I don't think so, my people are warriors" and he had seen what they were up against at that time. He wasn't really a warrior, and was wrong but in the end they were pretty blood deadly. The sheer stupidity of the accusation to anyone who has seen the movie and throught about it should be obvious. Why is the accusation made? Well, people ARE paying attention to it.
The point here is that when it comes to accusations racism, the only solution when it comes to fandom is to basically ridicule it, and not give it any serious attention. When you can generate tons of traffic over someone implying racism in Star Wars, or talking about how there aren't many Blacks in "Soul Calibur IV" (the one dark skinned guy being an Arab), or ranting about how people dared to show tribals in a survival horror game... well people are going to exploit that for attention. It's up to the fandom community to confront it, and that means effectively yanking the platform out from anyone who tries to stand on it, and getting fairly assertive with companies that try and give people that platform to promote their own game (any attention is good attention in the minds of many, I suspect the whole Resident Evil 5 thing got out of hand because Capcom encouraged it in their own way so everyone would hear about the game and buy it to see what the big deal was).
Truthfully, I will go so far as to say that as a community fandom (which consists of science fiction/fantasy material in all of it's forms) is about as immune to racism as any group can be by it's very nature (it's all about making totally fantastic stuff up, and getting away from reality). We have simply allowed the intrusion of racial politics where we should never have done so.
>>>----Therumancer--->
