The Big Picture: Correctitude

DeathWyrmNexus

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Oddly enough, I find Achmed the Dead Terrorist to be in the same vein of what Movie Bob defended in Four Lions. It is the defanging of terrorism as a scare tactics and portraying terrorists as morons. I find it odd to show that kind of hypocrisy without qualification of some sort.

Other than that, I don't have issue.

Also, fighting tribal zombies in Africa never seemed that off to me. They do have tribal folk out there still. The costume just seems like the usual fan wank that nobody would give a shit about if she wasn't black. *shrugs*

/inb4crucification
 

HyenaThePirate

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Father Time said:
The first reason I said was for the sake of consistency, so don't look at me.
Haha, okay my friend. I'll give you that much. This conversation has been enjoyable. Thank you. :)
 

Technicka

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Therumancer said:
I most certainly have listened to them, see the issue is that he reinforces his intent with specific examples. A good example here is when he claims that making Heimdall black in the recent Thor movie and similar things isn't "politically correct" but a matter of being in a progressive society. The idea being to dismiss people who object to established characters being changed into minorities, as opposed to creating new minority characters as the minority groups come up and influance this kind of popular culture more (as asians did with comics over a period of time) as a bunch of jerks. You don't need to be a member of the Westboro congregation to think that a Norse God, should look you know... Norse, or a supervillain like "The Kingpin" who is routinely called "cueball" due to his shiny white bald head
should be played by a white guy, yet that is EXACTLY the kind of thing that he's calling out.
Firstly, the Thor movie isn't a depiction of Norse mythology. It's a depiction of a bunch of advance space aliens that were thought of as gods. This movie isn't a retelling of another culture's beliefs. It's an adaptation of a comic book that plays fast and loose with the idea of what a god is, and just so happens to use the Norse pantheon as it's springboard. Notice there's no outrage over the Asian actor cast as an Asgardian. Ignore that the comics have made a point that the Asgardians can take on physical forms that aren't typically associated with them (Loki decided to be a massive troll and take on a female form, after all). No, the outrage is all about just the black guy. it's not about the integrity of preserving Norse mythos.

Cueball is not a term that is restricted to race. Bald people are typically referred to as that. And, again, the movies are not the comics. They are a separate world. An alternate dimension, if you must see them in connection to the comic-verse. So they aren't obliged to stay slavishly faithful to the comics. Marvel even said the movies were not the same world of the comics. So they don't have to play those rules. Did you get outraged when Final Crisis showed that another universe has a Black Superman. Do you protest against the so-called political correctness of Marvel saying Janet Van Dyne is Asian in Ultimates?

What's more his comments on the "equal time doctrine" did use some ridiculous examples, but also involved a far more down to earth commentary which of course fed into his leanings, the basic idea being that if he disagrees with something political, to the point of him feeling the other side is the equivilent of making a flat earth arguement, that it's right that it's not being given equal time.

Overall the disturbing part of this whole thing is the trend, you take both of these videos together, both being against the whole idea of equal time, and what he's considering to be ridiculous viewpoints, and it paints a pretty disturbing picture.
Firstly, he isn't a political journalist, he's a ranting guy on the internet. He doesn't have to be "fair". That jerky answer aside, if an opinion can be seen as wrong, there is no need to treat as if it has any validity compared to the truth. Your opinion can be that Obama is a Muslim. He self-identifies as a Christian, so guess what? Any other opinion as to his spirituality is invalid, and doesn't deserve to be debated as a pertinent issue.

Take big issues on things like gay rights, abortion, the rights (or lack thereof) of terrorists and those accused of terrorism, the exploitation of affirmitive action laws and the dual standards it creates, the education and adaption of various subcultures. On all of these things there is a massive divide with the nation being split pretty close to 50-50
down the middle that's why they are major issues. People on both sides of the fence are pretty vehement of their beliefs and think the other side are a bunch of idiots. Bob's
basic arguement amounts to justifying silencing the other side, both by argueing why they shouldn't be given the abillity to express it, and also because making arguements against political correctness "which is just being nice to people" generally makes people jerks.
Gay rights is more of a 70/30 thing. An overwhelming majority of people just don't care what two grown men, or women, do with one another. Abortion may be a hazy issue - but there can still be wrong opinions on the matter that don't warrant being legitimized. An extremist that goes around assaulting/murdering doctors, staff, and patients doesn't deserve the same credibility as doctors and theologists (if you want to debate it on moral grounds). Cries of ~reverse racism that talk of affirmative action almost always devolve too, are silly. And shouldn't be given the time of day because it always takes the topic away from reality. White people aren't losing their jobs because of affirmative action. They're losing their jobs to outsourcing, which has less to do with racial diversity, and more to do with corporate greed. But that issue never gets touched on, because it's easier for blowhards like Anne Coulter to point a finger at some phantom black guy and say it's all his fault. And like clockwork, white America caves to the fear of that scary boogeyman of the stereotypical black guy/Latino crypt walking into some Fortune 500 and literally taking their job from them. Are there issues with Affirmative Action? Sure. No system is without it's flaws an loopholes. But most of the work-arounds have been for the benefit of white people.


And once, again, you are more than capable of disagreeing with a person's beliefs, and not have to resort to hatespeech. Your posts prove that, which was the intent of PC. You spoke on your complaints with the casting of Heimdall - and you didn't have to use the N-word to communicate the fact that you didn't agree with the race switch. The over-reaching of PC is bad. Bob pointed that out when the super PC crowd get's trigger happy with trying to change words that are offensive, but serve a purpose beyond what the word represents. He was also using fairly public, and well-known examples that people would more than likely be able to recall. The sad reality is, far too often we're treated with the jerks who are offensive for no redeeming reasons. When Limbaugh goes on his tirades, he isn't trying to invoke deep thought, and discussion on social topics. He wants fear and anger. And how can a person tell this? Simple; because when an asshole is just talking out their ass for the sake of being an asshole, they never have a response to someone refuting their claim - it's automatically an attack on their freedoms to disagree, or to tell them to piss off. There are plenty of conservatives that can get their point across without have to be unnecessarily dickish. You don't have to call someone a w-back in order to say they're wrong. The notion, as another poster mentioned, that bigotry is a good thing is mindbogglingly stupid. There is, in no way, that a practice of being cruel, spiteful, and threatening to a group of people that you don't like for being different is ever a good thing. The person who claims that unjustified hate is a good thing is someone that's proclaiming that stance from the safety of their privilege. But that's what the asshole subgroup of the anti-PC crowd honestly thinks. And those people don't deserve to have their opinions treated as enlightened.
 

Therumancer

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Nov 28, 2007
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Technicka said:
[
Firstly, the Thor movie isn't a depiction of Norse mythology. It's a depiction of a bunch of advance space aliens that were thought of as gods. This movie isn't a retelling of another culture's beliefs. It's an adaptation of a comic book that plays fast and loose with the idea of what a god is, and just so happens to use the Norse pantheon as it's springboard. Notice there's no outrage over the Asian actor cast as an Asgardian. Ignore that the comics have made a point that the Asgardians can take on physical forms that aren't typically associated with them (Loki decided to be a massive troll and take on a female form, after all). No, the outrage is all about just the black guy. it's not about the integrity of preserving Norse mythos.

Cueball is not a term that is restricted to race. Bald people are typically referred to as that. And, again, the movies are not the comics. They are a separate world. An alternate dimension, if you must see them in connection to the comic-verse. So they aren't obliged to stay slavishly faithful to the comics. Marvel even said the movies were not the same world of the comics. So they don't have to play those rules. Did you get outraged when Final Crisis showed that another universe has a Black Superman. Do you protest against the so-called political correctness of Marvel saying Janet Van Dyne is Asian in Ultimates?

What's more his comments on the "equal time doctrine" did use some ridiculous examples, but also involved a far more down to earth commentary which of course fed into his leanings, the basic idea being that if he disagrees with something political, to the point of him feeling the other side is the equivilent of making a flat earth arguement, that it's right that it's not being given equal time.

Overall the disturbing part of this whole thing is the trend, you take both of these videos together, both being against the whole idea of equal time, and what he's considering to be ridiculous viewpoints, and it paints a pretty disturbing picture.
Firstly, he isn't a political journalist, he's a ranting guy on the internet. He doesn't have to be "fair". That jerky answer aside, if an opinion can be seen as wrong, there is no need to treat as if it has any validity compared to the truth. Your opinion can be that Obama is a Muslim. He self-identifies as a Christian, so guess what? Any other opinion as to his spirituality is invalid, and doesn't deserve to be debated as a pertinent issue.


Gay rights is more of a 70/30 thing. An overwhelming majority of people just don't care what two grown men, or women, do with one another. Abortion may be a hazy issue - but there can still be wrong opinions on the matter that don't warrant being legitimized. An extremist that goes around assaulting/murdering doctors, staff, and patients doesn't deserve the same credibility as doctors and theologists (if you want to debate it on moral grounds). Cries of ~reverse racism that talk of affirmative action almost always devolve too, are silly. And shouldn't be given the time of day because it always takes the topic away from reality. White people aren't losing their jobs because of affirmative action. They're losing their jobs to outsourcing, which has less to do with racial diversity, and more to do with corporate greed. But that issue never gets touched on, because it's easier for blowhards like Anne Coulter to point a finger at some phantom black guy and say it's all his fault. And like clockwork, white America caves to the fear of that scary boogeyman of the stereotypical black guy/Latino crypt walking into some Fortune 500 and literally taking their job from them. Are there issues with Affirmative Action? Sure. No system is without it's flaws an loopholes. But most of the work-arounds have been for the benefit of white people.


And once, again, you are more than capable of disagreeing with a person's beliefs, and not have to resort to hatespeech. Your posts prove that, which was the intent of PC. You spoke on your complaints with the casting of Heimdall - and you didn't have to use the N-word to communicate the fact that you didn't agree with the race switch. The over-reaching of PC is bad. Bob pointed that out when the super PC crowd get's trigger happy with trying to change words that are offensive, but serve a purpose beyond what the word represents. He was also using fairly public, and well-known examples that people would more than likely be able to recall. The sad reality is, far too often we're treated with the jerks who are offensive for no redeeming reasons. When Limbaugh goes on his tirades, he isn't trying to invoke deep thought, and discussion on social topics. He wants fear and anger. And how can a person tell this? Simple; because when an asshole is just talking out their ass for the sake of being an asshole, they never have a response to someone refuting their claim - it's automatically an attack on their freedoms to disagree, or to tell them to piss off. There are plenty of conservatives that can get their point across without have to be unnecessarily dickish. You don't have to call someone a w-back in order to say they're wrong. The notion, as another poster mentioned, that bigotry is a good thing is mindbogglingly stupid. There is, in no way, that a practice of being cruel, spiteful, and threatening to a group of people that you don't like for being different is ever a good thing. The person who claims that unjustified hate is a good thing is someone that's proclaiming that stance from the safety of their privilege. But that's what the asshole subgroup of the anti-PC crowd honestly thinks. And those people don't deserve to have their opinions treated as enlightened.

Okay for the easier one first, your entirely wrong about Thor. It's been suggested in the past that the various "gods" might be aliens, largely because there was some concern decades ago from Christian groups about the comics promoting paganism. This definition has been used in elseworlds-type stories like the whole Earth/Universe/Paradise X series, but has never remained in the canon very long as anything other than a theory. Indeed we had an entire event involving Ragnarok and the end of Asgard involving Thor where everyone died while he took a "homey don't play that" approach to the whole thing by refusing to participate in the prophecy and forcing the overgods hands leading to it being undone (long story). Not to mention the interrelation of the Asgardians with various supernatural/magical forces including demons. They are definatly a magical/supernatural group of deities.

What's more the origin of Thor was pretty straightforward with Doctor Donald Blake finding the hammer and becoming posssesed by the spirit of Thor. That's why he's blonde, it has to do with the host body. A lot of the later contreversy came about when they stopped doing the "power of" thing so much and had Thor walking around as a god all the time, claiming to be a god, etc... but it did die down.

Now you might ask "why couldn't Heimdall be possessing the body of a black guy", the answer to that is quite simply because it's one of Thor's unique tricks. It's been exploited several times over the years in cases where Thor has been transformed into a frog for example and managed to keep his power. Various very powerful norse gods can shapeshift or use illusions, Loki, and The Enchantress could appear as any ethnicity they wanted to, Karnilla (Asgard's Sorceress Supreme) could doubtlessly do it but I don't remember her ever assuming other human forms off the top of my head, and Odin can do pretty much anything, but gods like Heimdall, Fandral, Volstagg, Baldur, etc... don't have that kind of power. That's why it usually comes down to a celestrial slapfight between the more powerful gods, and the rest get casually mopped up whenever someone defeats Thor, Odin, and occasionally Sif if she's even around (tends to be forgotten).

I've gone on long rants about Thor in the past, both related and unrelated to this topic. I *DO* know what your talking about, and why it's been suggested, but it's not the general case in the canon.

If you want to get technical you could have a black Thor and justify it better than a black Heimdall because we've had Thor in the body of women and stuff before at various times. He was also using the body of an EMT guy for a while like during the "Worldengine" story arc Warren Ellis wrote. You might also remember part of the brawl during "Infinity Gauntlet" where Thor got reverted to a mortal and was floating through space dying, but then the host managed to again grasp the hammer, turn back into Thor, and re-enter the fight.

-

As far as the rest goes, let's just say that to address a lot of those specific points would make this post a LOT longer than it needs to be and get increasingly off topic as we'd start to talk about those points more than anything, and totally derail this discussion.

The problem with what Bob is saying is that he's saying that someone who believes that casting Heimdall as a black guy and claims it's political correctness is being a jerk. The use of the 'N' word or anything like that doesn't come into it. Bob is saying that the casting is a sign of being "progressive", and that anyone who claims it's politically correct is being a jerk and isn't worth being listened to. That's the entire problem with his attitude.

Now, I disagree with you about the split on gay rights and it's actual percentage. I think the situation is a lot closer to 50-50 than you'd like to believe, and the fact that the media presents your numbers as being close to the truth usually is one of the big arguements made for left wing media bias. HOWEVER let's say that you are right and that the issue *IS* divided 70-30, with the favor going to the pro-gay side. 30% of the population is a HUGE number of people and while they definatly aren't going to be setting policy, by the arguement being made they shouldn't be allowed to get any representation of their point of view?

I'll go one further by saying that in past decades most "liberal" issues had the overwhelming majority against them. During the turn of the last century what do you think the anti-gay sentiment would have been in the USA? 90% or so? What about the percentage of racists, or any other social group that has overcome massive pressure? By Bob's arguement and the one you seem to be making the people who spearheaded the reform should never have been allowed to get any kind of representation of their point of view at all because they were so hugely outnumbered. What's more they caused chaos in society, right up there with hate speech sine they were fighting to overturn what the majority of people wanted.

It's not a one way street, the basic arguement made by a lot of left wingers is that they are right in their own minds on the issues they support, and thus any alternative viewpoints need to be demonized and surpressed as hate speech. Even if they had the left-wing super majority that is being claimed (they don't) they still have no right to claim that the guys who disagree with them on any grounds are "jerks" and unworthy of having their points of view represented or given "equal time" just because they disagree with them.

Due to some recent issues I've come to question certain aspects of my own free speech ideas. However I still believe that "freedom of speech" does not mean the freedom of people to say only what you want to hear.

Please understand another thing as well, I am not saying that Bob does't have the right to these opinions or to express them. I just don't think they belong on THIS platform, because The Escapist is a platform for escapism and nerd culture, not for political rants. You might not believe it, but even if you brought out an "Anti-Bob" to argue exactly the opposite side of things in an "equal time" sense, I'd be against it because that isn't what this site is for. Bob is here to share his insights into geek culture and the hobbies of the wierd, that's the purpose of the site, not to grind his political axes, and that's pretty much what he's used "The Big Picture" for twice now.

When I call this site and check out these articles and videos, I do it to get away from crap like that, not to have it spoonfed to me. Sure we might talk about stuff like this in the forums from time to time, but that's not a product of The Escapist itself, and what Bob has in his videos is since they are hosting him as a draw.

We'll probably wind up having to agree to disagree on a lot of this (and I apologize if I misunderstood what you wrote), but understand that my problem isn't so much the content, though I have addressed it, as much as the fact that I don't think it belongs here as a feature. I think Escapist management should pretty much keep Bob on-topic, and I don't think that's exactly going to be a blow, because the guy has other platforms where he does other videos like "Game Overthinker" and such where he can go off on politics and stuff.
 

the clockmaker

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BobDobolina said:
44-sec, the only manner in which it exists is as a shield for jerks to defend themselves when people point out that they're jerks.

This ignores the very real issues faced by the inevitable clash of differant cultures as they try to merge into something that can coexist, the struggle to find points of compramise whcich are acceptable to both sides or indeed the multitude of sides and the inevitable missteps that occur. Its tone is also very insulting, it does not leave room for, 'oh this is only if you have nothing else to say' It is clear, unambigous and more importantly, opes the bloody video.

Imagine if the opening to my post was 'the only people who agree with bob are jerks who cannot cope with the real world' despite being blatantly false, it does nullify any attempt at reconcillation I make in the same post.

46-its like some sort of satanic rhetorical judo.
Yep, still piling on the hate, and no qualifier yet in sight, lets keep on truckin (do you yanks still say that?)

47-say something bigoted and hurtful- Well that could be a qualifier, if he bothered to point out that not all non-PC comments are bigoted and hurtful.

2:06-A tiny minority took it to redicoulous extreames,-Recognition that all was not well with the concept, but still the language implies that it is an issue the same way taht being killed in an elevator is an issue. The tone pretty dishonestly plays down the whole thing and, since it is followed by a picture that claims the ninetees sucked, it implies that the whole thing is in the past and that PC has evolved beyond them.

2:12-Since it was the ninetees, that nice ambivalent happy spot-I have to agree that the ninetees was the last time that we had nothing to worry about but the use of the WTF is unessecarily dismissive. As of yet, I am still not seeing the part where you claim it to be only directed at real racists and sexists.

2:33-displaying anyone who opposes PC (remember, we have still to gain any qualifier on who this is based against) as an old racist, claiming that anyone who disagrees has bought into a 'media driven mythology'. Cue Glen Beck, becuase hey, its not a spectrum of differant views, you either agree with bob or you agree with that guy.

3:24-Words mean things and most of what being said is just being nice- A bit condescending there, ignores that fact that simple disagreement that PC is simply being nice is possible.

To my mind, most of what drives political correctness (and note that bob ignores all non-language forms of this) is a value judgement made by others with regards to what is and is not culturally acceptable. In my country, several councils have banned ham at meetings as the consumption of ham has been deemed to be culturally unacceptable to Jewish and Muslim people and therefore politically incorrect. There are designated days where all men are banned from swimming pools because men swimming with women is deemed culturally unacceptable and thus politically incorrect. There are children suffering abuse who are ignored because to help them would be culturally unacceptable and thus politically incorrect.

That, to my mind is the issue with politcal correctness and thus far, this video, and indeed your posts have been geared not towards differentiating my moderate views from the extreame, but rather lumping us all together and claiming that none of us even have a point worth discussing, that our views are nothing more than a sheild to troll from. No one here is defending racism, no one here is defending sexism (at least I don't think so, this is a long thread) what many of us are trying to point out that it is offensive to make value judgements on the mores of one culture compared to the mores of another, and then to force the mores of the minority upon the rest of us.

Also, the best way to rob these words of their stigma, is to use them in a light hearted context with the friends that are supposed to be offended by them, I remember being out camping a while back witht he cadets, when me and a turkish bloke were making cracks about each other, him about how lazy I was and me about how his country was backward and why hadn't he had a puch up with the greek kid yet. In this situation, both of us were comfertable enough with each other to make comments of that nature in jest, and yet I was placed in a great deal of trouble over being racist, even though the only turkish person there was in on the joke with me. That is my problem with politcal correctness, in insists on mollycoddling us.


3:33-Hooray, some qualifier, only most people who disagree with him are racist, sexist jerkwads, not all of them, wanna pave the way for some concilliation with the moderate bob... bob...


3:46- Now I understand the rational for not putting in that sheva costume, people legitimatly are offended by it, but I don't really understand where that offense comes from, I mean, do scandinavian people complain about viking imagery, do italian people complain about roman costumes, I mean, Italy of today has slightly less corruption than rome did, and all in all is not a whole lot like its ancestor.

4:19-I wouldn't quite say that it is an acknowledgement that this is the twenty first century, mostly because in the settings discussed (thor doesn't count because valhalla is not a real historical setting) people of other ethnicities weren't present. There weren't black doctors during the korean war, WWII units weren't intergrated etc. I mean its like John Wayne playing ghengis khan, sure it was inclusive of anglo saxons, but it was also really really stupid.

4:20- On second viewing, he does claim that his use of the 'meathead voice' was aimed only at actuall sexists, so I appologise, that's on me. However, that is the only time that non-PC views are given a word in, so it doesn't really help his case

Closing seconds-Uses 'for the most part' which is a step forward, but still gives no recognition to either the 'we do this so that language can become more inclusive through de-stigmatizing offesensive language in genial circumstances' or 'I disagree with making cultural value judgments' groups, leaving those groups with the impression, as conveyed by the tone and props, that at least some of the hate was directed at them.

See, none of this would be an issue if this was just the OP of a thread, bob could clarify, issue concilliatory responses, move towards a healthy consensus so that everybody can get back on the track of beating up the real racists. But as this is a video, it exists almost in a vacuum, and any response from bob in video form would be just as insulting as his responses to the furor over his being 'out of touch' and the anger over his comments about the expendables. The meathead voice would be included.

Also, I would like an appology for your claim that I was 'obviously a troll who hid behind a PC shield', I pride myself of how inclusive I am, and how I regard everybody as equal until proven otherwise.
 

the clockmaker

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BobDobolina said:
I think you have misinterpreted both of the examples that I put forward.

One, it is not that jewish people/Muslim people are forced to eat ham at council meetings, it is that eating of ham is banned. I would have just as much issue if the consumption of alchohol was banned to make way for baptists, or if taking the lords name in vain was banned to make way for catholics. It is a value judgement being made over which culture is acceptable and which one isn't.

SHowing courtesy to Muslim people would be to provide certified halal food at meetings, showing courtesy to Jewish people would be to provide kosher food at meetings, showing courtesy to the vaguely agnostic/ culturally indifferant mishmash of Australians would be to allow them to eat foods which are a part of their culture. Most Australians, especially those of the groups in question, are not in favour of this impossiton, but it occurs due to the wel intentioned miss steps of people like you, who insist that people be treated differantly due to their race/skin colour/beliefs. It is similar to the fact that we provide a vegitarian option, but do not ban meat.

In the situation with my friend, he made a joke about steriotypical aspects of Australians that he thought existed (that is, the steriotype exists, not that we are like that). I made a joke about steriotypical aspects about his culture that I thought existed (that is the steriotype, not that turkish people are like that) a third party, the adult officer, who was an anglo saxon, took offence and I got in trouble. I frankly don't see how that is anything more than two mates dicking about.

I am not demanding 100% assimilation, from either side, but in a multi-cultural society, as the differant cultures come to the point where they can co-exist as a semi-unified amalgamation, there will be miss steps as well intentioned decsions to accomodate one side or the other cause offence. Consider, the white Australia policy, that which determined who could and could not enter the nation, in order to facillitate a more open and tolerant society, that was dropped, and rightly so, anyone who wants to work and who wants to be Australian can be, that's how it works. And so we made a step towards an acceptable, semi-unified amalgamation as a people and thousands of immigrants from asia and south east asia poured in, bringing new, hard working citizens.

Then consider the allowance of Shiek Taj-din-al-Hilali into the nation, he overstayed his visa, retained his egyptian citizenship and preached that it was the fault of women who were raped for not wearning concealing clothing. Most Muslims in Australia, the ones who identified as Austrlian, were not in favour of this man, but he was allowed to stay due to the well intention miss step of people who thought that Australian politics required a stronger muslim voice.

Consider the vote to allow abborigonals vote. Obviously the right descision, so we take a step forward.

Then consider the requirement to thank the tradional owners before every public event, creating a chasm between the fifth-fourth-third-second and first generation immigrants and the land that is their home. Forcing upon them a disconnect and a feeling that they don't really belong here. Again, not a moral mistake, but a well intentioned error to include those who were wronged in the past.

No, despite what you assume I do not favor assimiliation, I favour accomodation, the provision of options for all to live as they want without forcing that way of life upon others. The Jewish people of Australia, the Muslims, the catholics, the abborigonals, the masses of kiwis, the communities of Indians, pakistanis, Chinese people, yanks, poms, germans italians, all of the ones I've met have at least been mostly tolerant of each other. The ones who are not are those well intentioned people in canberra and Melbourne who insist on defining us by our differances.

And trust me mate, on that, there is still a reasonable, multi-sided debate.
 

lastjustice

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I'm sure similar stuff eben said, but since I made a perfectly good rant I'll post it here regardless.

I found your argument Bob for the video correctitude to be a bit of a sweeping overgeneralization. Particularly on the whole Thor casting bit. It?s actually the epitome of being Politically correct.(oh look one nonwhite in the movie?see we?re being fair and just.) So wait, since it's the 21st century there's so now affirmative action for the entertainment industry even if the source material , historic accuracy(let?s put Jet Li in the kings speech, that would been a movie worth seeing.) , or mythos don't fit it if it has to do with white people because their background doesn?t count apparently? Anyone who is opposed to it is just racist and being jerk, not because there?s several well thought out reasons to being opposed to it?

So it's perfectly ok to steam roll and crow bar in any secondary character's background if they re white but changes to minorities aren't? I?m sorry that's bunk. I mean makes it seems like there's something wrong if everyone in a story is white.(sure there's plenty of stories where it happens still.) Which in real life it's highly common for there to be a ton of people of the same race flock together.( I live in Chicago land area, one of the most segregated cities in the US.) Why can't we just have characters be what they are for them being compelling first and for most, if they happen to be diverse secondary?

I come up with characters for stories and games, and being a white male majority of them are white.(in terms of gender I'm probably about 50/50.) I don't see as racism , so I can understand comic book writers writing what they know. To automatically say all done out of racism is not quite the case. I feel comfortable writing what I know, as most the character I come up with are based off people I know. I don't have that many black friends(mostly White, and Hispanic.), so I don't have as many sources to draw inspiration from. Does that somehow make me a bad person? I don't think so.

I wouldn?t dare accuse Jack Kirby and Stan Lee as racist when they created the characters for Thor?s cast.(given your VGO video 23 you?d figure you?d have a pretty grasp on this whole system.) Given it?s a norse myth in a heavily white land it?s easy to understand how they arrived at that conclusion. It?d be like casting Sam Jackson in crouching Tiger hidden dragon, though it might be kind of awesome admittedly; it?s completely out of place.
My thoughts are if you really wanted to make a alter version of a character with similar powers, Why not create a brand new character? Say if you wanted to character a black superman, we saw this a bit with Hancock.(which during the middle of the movie when he saves the bank he really came across as a geniune super hero, as he was damn heroic. Something I could have really got behind.) In the case of we didn't see them beat us over the head with the fact Will Smith is black all film. It was an aspect of his character, but he was still a 3 dimensional character not a sterotype to the end. It suffered from some hang ups from a disjointed story but it had nothing to do with race.

It's not that I even care about Heimdell(or when they cast Michael Clarke Duncan as the Kingpin.) being change to a black actor, as it will likely have zero impact on the movie. It's the sentiment of the only way to get a successful black character is to hollow out a successful white one for them to replace. So basically every new comic film/show we should expect the Smallville treatment and some secondary or less important character will be offered up to the altar of diversity and everyone who isn?t white will somehow fall in love with comics. I mean it?s kind of insulting for a lot of reasons to all sides of the issue.

From the white stand point, being white is a blank slate and not considered the least bit defining or important to a character when in reality it is as important as any other group. And from the minority stand point, hey we gave you the equivalent of giving a girl a get well card 3 days after our anniversary and standing you up on our date, showing what an afterthought they are. Don?t expect us to actually try and get a minority lead any time soon.

I think everyone should have a character they can identify with too, and feel like who they can be the hero of a story. I can understand people wanting to see more diverse characters, but change isn?t something you can just force feed upon people and expect them to like it at any cost.(or you?re evil for caring about continuity or valuing source material.) The best solution, create brand new characters steadily over time that are compelling not sterotypes. That?s the hard route, but It is a far more elegant solution and actually adds new continuity rather than just paving over the old and pretending it doesn't exist. Yes, racism is bad. Pretending a person?s race doesn't influence who they are is worse.
 

Technicka

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Therumancer said:
Okay for the easier one first, your entirely wrong about Thor. It's been suggested in the past that the various "gods" might be aliens, largely because there was some concern decades ago from Christian groups about the comics promoting paganism. This definition has been used in elseworlds-type stories like the whole Earth/Universe/Paradise X series, but has never remained in the canon very long as anything other than a theory. Indeed we had an entire event involving Ragnarok and the end of Asgard involving Thor where everyone died while he took a "homey don't play that" approach to the whole thing by refusing to participate in the prophecy and forcing the overgods hands leading to it being undone (long story). Not to mention the interrelation of the Asgardians with various supernatural/magical forces including demons. They are definatly a magical/supernatural group of deities.

What's more the origin of Thor was pretty straightforward with Doctor Donald Blake finding the hammer and becoming posssesed by the spirit of Thor. That's why he's blonde, it has to do with the host body. A lot of the later contreversy came about when they stopped doing the "power of" thing so much and had Thor walking around as a god all the time, claiming to be a god, etc... but it did die down.

Now you might ask "why couldn't Heimdall be possessing the body of a black guy", the answer to that is quite simply because it's one of Thor's unique tricks. It's been exploited several times over the years in cases where Thor has been transformed into a frog for example and managed to keep his power. Various very powerful norse gods can shapeshift or use illusions, Loki, and The Enchantress could appear as any ethnicity they wanted to, Karnilla (Asgard's Sorceress Supreme) could doubtlessly do it but I don't remember her ever assuming other human forms off the top of my head, and Odin can do pretty much anything, but gods like Heimdall, Fandral, Volstagg, Baldur, etc... don't have that kind of power. That's why it usually comes down to a celestrial slapfight between the more powerful gods, and the rest get casually mopped up whenever someone defeats Thor, Odin, and occasionally Sif if she's even around (tends to be forgotten).

I've gone on long rants about Thor in the past, both related and unrelated to this topic. I *DO* know what your talking about, and why it's been suggested, but it's not the general case in the canon.

If you want to get technical you could have a black Thor and justify it better than a black Heimdall because we've had Thor in the body of women and stuff before at various times. He was also using the body of an EMT guy for a while like during the "Worldengine" story arc Warren Ellis wrote. You might also remember part of the brawl during "Infinity Gauntlet" where Thor got reverted to a mortal and was floating through space dying, but then the host managed to again grasp the hammer, turn back into Thor, and re-enter the fight.

-

As far as the rest goes, let's just say that to address a lot of those specific points would make this post a LOT longer than it needs to be and get increasingly off topic as we'd start to talk about those points more than anything, and totally derail this discussion.

The problem with what Bob is saying is that he's saying that someone who believes that casting Heimdall as a black guy and claims it's political correctness is being a jerk. The use of the 'N' word or anything like that doesn't come into it. Bob is saying that the casting is a sign of being "progressive", and that anyone who claims it's politically correct is being a jerk and isn't worth being listened to. That's the entire problem with his attitude.

Now, I disagree with you about the split on gay rights and it's actual percentage. I think the situation is a lot closer to 50-50 than you'd like to believe, and the fact that the media presents your numbers as being close to the truth usually is one of the big arguements made for left wing media bias. HOWEVER let's say that you are right and that the issue *IS* divided 70-30, with the favor going to the pro-gay side. 30% of the population is a HUGE number of people and while they definatly aren't going to be setting policy, by the arguement being made they shouldn't be allowed to get any representation of their point of view?

I'll go one further by saying that in past decades most "liberal" issues had the overwhelming majority against them. During the turn of the last century what do you think the anti-gay sentiment would have been in the USA? 90% or so? What about the percentage of racists, or any other social group that has overcome massive pressure? By Bob's arguement and the one you seem to be making the people who spearheaded the reform should never have been allowed to get any kind of representation of their point of view at all because they were so hugely outnumbered. What's more they caused chaos in society, right up there with hate speech sine they were fighting to overturn what the majority of people wanted.

It's not a one way street, the basic arguement made by a lot of left wingers is that they are right in their own minds on the issues they support, and thus any alternative viewpoints need to be demonized and surpressed as hate speech. Even if they had the left-wing super majority that is being claimed (they don't) they still have no right to claim that the guys who disagree with them on any grounds are "jerks" and unworthy of having their points of view represented or given "equal time" just because they disagree with them.

Due to some recent issues I've come to question certain aspects of my own free speech ideas. However I still believe that "freedom of speech" does not mean the freedom of people to say only what you want to hear.

Please understand another thing as well, I am not saying that Bob does't have the right to these opinions or to express them. I just don't think they belong on THIS platform, because The Escapist is a platform for escapism and nerd culture, not for political rants. You might not believe it, but even if you brought out an "Anti-Bob" to argue exactly the opposite side of things in an "equal time" sense, I'd be against it because that isn't what this site is for. Bob is here to share his insights into geek culture and the hobbies of the wierd, that's the purpose of the site, not to grind his political axes, and that's pretty much what he's used "The Big Picture" for twice now.

When I call this site and check out these articles and videos, I do it to get away from crap like that, not to have it spoonfed to me. Sure we might talk about stuff like this in the forums from time to time, but that's not a product of The Escapist itself, and what Bob has in his videos is since they are hosting him as a draw.

We'll probably wind up having to agree to disagree on a lot of this (and I apologize if I misunderstood what you wrote), but understand that my problem isn't so much the content, though I have addressed it, as much as the fact that I don't think it belongs here as a feature. I think Escapist management should pretty much keep Bob on-topic, and I don't think that's exactly going to be a blow, because the guy has other platforms where he does other videos like "Game Overthinker" and such where he can go off on politics and stuff.
But don't you see? The idea of the Asgardians body hopping is hardly a new one as you mention that alternate universe within the comics have done so. And since the movie are their own separate continuity from 616, why should they have to adhere to those rules, when other universes get to mix it up? The defense of keeping Heimdall white is either borne of an inability to see non-white actors as anything but the cliche roles we've kept them too (which, in itself is a form of prejudice, whether we like to admit it or not), or the tired and true cry of "Not my canon!" And both are ignoring the reality that times are changing, and movies need to catch up, and the this movie isn't a direct adaptation of the comics. You may not like it for purism sake, but you can't honestly argue that it's wrong. And as such, the casting becomes a matter of taste - and as that's subjective, there's no clear winner until the movie comes out. And even then, opinions aren't required to change...

The viewpoint you're arguing of left-wingers is just as strong in right-winger. No one likes to think their wrong. But it happens.

I'm not saying the 70/30 on gay rights is actually full-blown support and acceptance by the people. It's that a majority of people that are 'for' the rights are a mixed group of the actually cheer squad for gay rights, and people who just don't give a flying fuck. My mom sees no issue that gays shouldn't be allowed to marry; but she's still sure they're going to hell. I support that a terrorist has the same legal rights as any other criminal we arrest. Doesn't mean I support terrorists. I just realize that it would set a dangerous precedent to declare that people who are "really bad" don't have rights. It'd be a countdown until we started applying that logic on any group we didn't like (as we already are doing in some of these case, as we're discovering).

And yes, a lot of liberal ideas, in the past, were hugely unpopular. And guess what? The nay-sayers were, eventually ignored, and progress was made. Integrating schools and the military was not at all a popular idea. The public was pretty up front with how much they didn't want that. But that didn't make them right in their opinions. Why? Because they claimed to support the principles of freedom and equality that America stood for, and then turned around and kept entire pockets of their own people beneath them. The law called them on their hypocrisy and made these unpopular ideas law. But your argument is that we should just sit around and wait for everyone to full-out agree before we make any moves. Even if one side holds views that are wrong, because it's only "fair". In an issue like abortion, then yes, both sides deserve equal time because there is no black and white stance that will be full proof. But on the issue of gay rights? We'll have to agree to disagree. You can't proclaim yourself a citizen of a nation the celebrates freedom, when you're stepping on the rights of your own people because you think they're gross. No where did I say an unpopular opinion is automatically wrong, and should be ignored. But an irrefutably wrong opinion should be. If an opinion can be shown as wrong through facts? Then it doesn't need to be treated as a legitimate school of thought - and that goes for both sides. Liberals quited down pretty quick when the current Pope was sworn in, and the talk of him being a Nazi sympathizer was stirred up. They cried all over that the Church had screwed up something spectacular with this pick. But they got slapped with the truth of his childhood in the Hitler Youth program did not mean he was a Nazi - because that was a mandate for children in Nazi controlled areas. And the reasonable liberals shut up and sulked over it. You're not seeing that on issues with the right. Again, I'll use the subject of Obama's religion. An overwhelming majority still hold to the notion that he's a Muslim. They hold that view in the face of hard truths: the controversy over his Christian preacher saying racist remarks, and Obama's own word. But, the truth isn't good enough. And this isn't just the fringes of that side of the spectrum doing that. It's public figures, elected officials, and so on. If a journalist refuses to listen to one of their guests when s/he start in on that issue - they don't have to. They don't have to entertain a blatantly wrong thing. Fair Game would demand that the journalist do just that, however. It promotes false equivalence.

I think a lot of this annoyance/outrage coming from many (whom I'm assuming identify as conservate/right) is born of the big difference between the right and left and how they self identify within their social 'tribe'. Conservatives lock ranks and support one another no matter what - such solidarity is an admirable trait, but it does have the nasty drawback that the more extreme members are inadvertently given the position of being a representative of all. I've always asked of my more right-minded friends why they put up with goofs like Beck and Palin being their public voices, and the response is usually something like "We back our own."

And not to say the left is a bastion of awesomness. I've seen how damn hard it is to get liberals to rally together to be a focused force on many an issues. The right's flaw is an almost blind devotion, but the left suffers from being easily distracted like a group of squirrels. A real lack of drive is their biggest issue. My liberal friends will have a strong opinion on an issue, but they fizz out pretty fast. They don't expect to get the same level of fervor by their fellows, as a conservative battle cry does.



At the core of your complaint that you didn't want to have to deal with this on the site...but you were given fair warning that Big Picture was Escapist giving Bob an avenue to do whatever he wanted. And he did say that he was going to use it as a soapbox. He's been pretty up front with where his views on things with sly remarks and tangential remarks in his movie reviews. Which reminds me, you can't really argue that he's all for the PC crowd when his Black Swan review was him calling out the PC crowd on the whole "hot lesbian" scene.

I do understand where you're coming from, though. I just wonder if it warrants the anger (or disappointment) at Bob because of something he has no idea of. He got an extra segment, and he was given a blank slate, he just happened to pick an idea that isn't universally loved. You can always take the extra minute to check the forum responses after he posts to see if it'll be a subject that you care to listen to him go on about? And now that you've got an even better gauge of his views, you can make an even more informed decision as to whether you want to click play.
 

Oedipus 3000

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Apr 1, 2010
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--Yeah, sure looks like it's Chipman who's got the guilt issues. You keep telling yourself that, champ. (EDIT: Oh excellent, your edit of that post got even more nakedly stupid and racist. Nice work!)

:/ Listen, I would give you a far far FAR more intelligent eloquent argument about racial standings, racial blindness and other positions on it. I could delve into the psychological reasoning and argue with by verbatim on this internet forum in long long walls of text basically screaming out loud I have no life but the point basically stands. there's no real reason for me to articulate any better then that because, hell, it's the truth.

these arguments are 90% of the time made by white boys with mega pounds of white guilt to show how much they aren't racist (which is impossible, everyone is racist.). Not only that but history is then rewritten to shape itself to what is perceived as the more acceptable history and other horrible tragedies are never mentioned because they were white folk. we are creating an entire society where the only tragedy is inflicted upon the minorities and the only way you can be a racist bigot is if you are a white man. If a black guy was making racial comments about white people, it wouldn't even be a issue, actually it isn't an issue, it's just accepted as a funny little quilp. isn't that a little fucked up?

now, before you go and have more gargantuan walls of text arguing about such trivial stupid arguments about how much your internet cock is bigger then others with insults; how many times have you heard about the suffering in the Appalachian mountains? there are a whole bunch of children right now starving to death right now up there and no ones says a goddamn thing about it 75% of the time, why is that?

P.S. seriously, if your rebuttle is any less then five paragraphs, I know you've never had sex in your entire life there boy. god that's enough to make a book my good man.
 

the clockmaker

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BobDobolina said:
1. It is a ceremony that refers to one group as owners of a land. All people that are born in Australia, no matter their background, are austrlian. It is just as much my land as it is any abborigonal person, or indeed just as much as it is anybody who came over from India, Pakistan, China etc. If you were talking to captain cook, yeah, you might have a point

2. It is a minor thing, yes, that is why I am say, discussing it on an internet forum and not say, protesting in the streets. But in any case, it is emblematic of the root problem with the breed of political correctness that we have in Australia, and perhaps it is different in the United States, it that more often than not, it is a value judgement on which mores are more important. I also like the 'its not like their getting their land back' the solution to which would be for me to 'go back where I came from'.

And I notice that you slip in the 'The forces of Islam have not won some grand and terrifying cultural victory that will be celebrated in song and story for centuries to come.' in spite of the fact that I have said repeatedly that it is not Australian Muslims who are the cause of this. And besides, I really don't like going to the pool and being told to piss off because my prescence is offensive to the societal mores of others, it grates.

3.So my mate cracks a joke about me and the correct response to your mind would be what, appologise and claim that it would be insensitive for me to pursue this line of jokes with him, and I don't want to risk inflaming racial tensions? Though it does give me a kickarse response next time he beats me and I can't think of anything to say, 'I know from personal experience that what's going on emotionally beneath the surface' You're crying on the inside *****! I WIN! (note, that is a joke)(i never loose) (okay sometimes) (okay often) (shut up!)

4.I don't know where you are from, so I may be telling you how to suck eggs here, but back in the day, lots of abborigonal children were removed from their families in a attempt to anglecize them, this is reffered to as the stolen generation and is a big issue in Australia.

Nowadays, it is a large stigma for social workers to remove children from their parents in abborigonal settlements, mostly because if the media gets a hold of it, they might as well kiss their career goodbye. It simply doesn't look good on the news to see kids being taken away from abborigonal families. However, in the aborigonal settlements, especially in the territory, there is very little work, even less medical care, no education and rampant alchoholism. These people live in a disconnect between their traditional way of life (like some tribes in Vic and SA) and the modern western way that most Australians live in. Inside this disconnect there is no real attachment to either culture.

This is no idictment of abborigonals or their culture, only the situation that these people are raised in, since there is no work, there is no reason to get out of bed besides to drink. In this situation, there is rampant child abuse, in terms of neglect, sexual abuse and assualt.

However, due to the stigma of the stolen generation, social workers will not stick their necks out to save these kids (social work in Australia is pretty dodgy overall, but it is worst here) and so it simply carries on, year after year. Any attempt at fixing the root cause, at removing the alchohol and slapping an economy in place, either end up failing or getting torn apart as too interventionist. Or indeed as racist. It is a shitty situation and I'm not going to be so crass as to claim that pollitical correctness was the cause or that the colonisation wasn't, but people who cry racism without actually examining the situation are exacerbating it. I used to live up there and I still can't help but shiver when I hear the words 'secret women's buisness'.

But hey, if you think it would be easier to simply think that I am a racist who says herp derp, knock yourself out.

5.You will note that the very first mention of PC in the video is that it A) doesn't exist and B) is used only by racist jerks. Which of course leads me back into the whole tone thing, becuase if I opened with 'the only people who agree with bob are guilty white douches who don't understand the real world' you would be rightly offended.

6. And again, it is not only this video that offends me, but the consistent arrogant tone that is put forward against everyone that bob disagrees with. Most notably in the expendables debacle and his response to claims that he was out of touch.
 

Therumancer

Citation Needed
Nov 28, 2007
9,909
0
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Technicka said:
[
But don't you see? The idea of the Asgardians body hopping is hardly a new one as you mention that alternate universe within the comics have done so. And since the movie are their own separate continuity from 616, why should they have to adhere to those rules, when other universes get to mix it up? The defense of keeping Heimdall white is either borne of an inability to see non-white actors as anything but the cliche roles we've kept them too (which, in itself is a form of prejudice, whether we like to admit it or not), or the tired and true cry of "Not my canon!" And both are ignoring the reality that times are changing, and movies need to catch up, and the this movie isn't a direct adaptation of the comics. You may not like it for purism sake, but you can't honestly argue that it's wrong. And as such, the casting becomes a matter of taste - and as that's subjective, there's no clear winner until the movie comes out. And even then, opinions aren't required to change...

The viewpoint you're arguing of left-wingers is just as strong in right-winger. No one likes to think their wrong. But it happens.

I'm not saying the 70/30 on gay rights is actually full-blown support and acceptance by the people. It's that a majority of people that are 'for' the rights are a mixed group of the actually cheer squad for gay rights, and people who just don't give a flying fuck. My mom sees no issue that gays shouldn't be allowed to marry; but she's still sure they're going to hell. I support that a terrorist has the same legal rights as any other criminal we arrest. Doesn't mean I support terrorists. I just realize that it would set a dangerous precedent to declare that people who are "really bad" don't have rights. It'd be a countdown until we started applying that logic on any group we didn't like (as we already are doing in some of these case, as we're discovering).

And yes, a lot of liberal ideas, in the past, were hugely unpopular. And guess what? The nay-sayers were, eventually ignored, and progress was made. Integrating schools and the military was not at all a popular idea. The public was pretty up front with how much they didn't want that. But that didn't make them right in their opinions. Why? Because they claimed to support the principles of freedom and equality that America stood for, and then turned around and kept entire pockets of their own people beneath them. The law called them on their hypocrisy and made these unpopular ideas law. But your argument is that we should just sit around and wait for everyone to full-out agree before we make any moves. Even if one side holds views that are wrong, because it's only "fair". In an issue like abortion, then yes, both sides deserve equal time because there is no black and white stance that will be full proof. But on the issue of gay rights? We'll have to agree to disagree. You can't proclaim yourself a citizen of a nation the celebrates freedom, when you're stepping on the rights of your own people because you think they're gross. No where did I say an unpopular opinion is automatically wrong, and should be ignored. But an irrefutably wrong opinion should be. If an opinion can be shown as wrong through facts? Then it doesn't need to be treated as a legitimate school of thought - and that goes for both sides. Liberals quited down pretty quick when the current Pope was sworn in, and the talk of him being a Nazi sympathizer was stirred up. They cried all over that the Church had screwed up something spectacular with this pick. But they got slapped with the truth of his childhood in the Hitler Youth program did not mean he was a Nazi - because that was a mandate for children in Nazi controlled areas. And the reasonable liberals shut up and sulked over it. You're not seeing that on issues with the right. Again, I'll use the subject of Obama's religion. An overwhelming majority still hold to the notion that he's a Muslim. They hold that view in the face of hard truths: the controversy over his Christian preacher saying racist remarks, and Obama's own word. But, the truth isn't good enough. And this isn't just the fringes of that side of the spectrum doing that. It's public figures, elected officials, and so on. If a journalist refuses to listen to one of their guests when s/he start in on that issue - they don't have to. They don't have to entertain a blatantly wrong thing. Fair Game would demand that the journalist do just that, however. It promotes false equivalence.

I think a lot of this annoyance/outrage coming from many (whom I'm assuming identify as conservate/right) is born of the big difference between the right and left and how they self identify within their social 'tribe'. Conservatives lock ranks and support one another no matter what - such solidarity is an admirable trait, but it does have the nasty drawback that the more extreme members are inadvertently given the position of being a representative of all. I've always asked of my more right-minded friends why they put up with goofs like Beck and Palin being their public voices, and the response is usually something like "We back our own."

And not to say the left is a bastion of awesomness. I've seen how damn hard it is to get liberals to rally together to be a focused force on many an issues. The right's flaw is an almost blind devotion, but the left suffers from being easily distracted like a group of squirrels. A real lack of drive is their biggest issue. My liberal friends will have a strong opinion on an issue, but they fizz out pretty fast. They don't expect to get the same level of fervor by their fellows, as a conservative battle cry does.



At the core of your complaint that you didn't want to have to deal with this on the site...but you were given fair warning that Big Picture was Escapist giving Bob an avenue to do whatever he wanted. And he did say that he was going to use it as a soapbox. He's been pretty up front with where his views on things with sly remarks and tangential remarks in his movie reviews. Which reminds me, you can't really argue that he's all for the PC crowd when his Black Swan review was him calling out the PC crowd on the whole "hot lesbian" scene.

I do understand where you're coming from, though. I just wonder if it warrants the anger (or disappointment) at Bob because of something he has no idea of. He got an extra segment, and he was given a blank slate, he just happened to pick an idea that isn't universally loved. You can always take the extra minute to check the forum responses after he posts to see if it'll be a subject that you care to listen to him go on about? And now that you've got an even better gauge of his views, you can make an even more informed decision as to whether you want to click play.
The movies are however using established characters, and the fundemental issue is that they should be hiring actors that look similar to the characters. Bob is pretty much dismissing anyone with that kind of viewpoint as being a jerk by accuratly labeling political correctness as what it is.

What's more one of the reasons why I am not going to get into specific arguements on most of the political points, is simply because there is no decisive right or wrong on a lot of these issues. What's more on most of them the reality is that the population is divided right down the middle. The left wing would like to believe that on issues like gay rights you have support or people who "don't care" but that's hardly the case in reality. When you get into things like gay marriage that's a whole differant cup of tea, and an issue seperate from gay rights itself despite attempts to lump it together with the general cause. The reason being that nothing ever prevented gays from getting married by any institution that wants to accept them, the issue is one of goverment recognition, and the point of goverment recognition is to draw benefits in the form of tax breaks and the like. I'm not going to get into the whole issue of what the intent of those tax breaks were or anything else, but simply to point out that it's not as simple as the left wing oftentime presents it. One of the reasons why you see states waffling on it is that even with left wingers it becomes noticible when the bill comes in (so to speak). While mentioned, the media tends to stay away from that whole aspect of the debate for a reason.

The point being is that one cannot say that even in cases where we have a majority from either the left or right wing saying something is progress, that wind can change. The problem with raging against things like the political correctness accusation, and argueing about the absurdity of equal time arguements is that it's one side of the issues trying to silence the other side to prevent the pendelum from ever going back the other way. Oh sure a lot of the people involved think they are right so it's justified, but that's not true in any absolute sense.

I could take every one of the examples you mentioned, and defend the opposite side whether I agreed with you or not (playing devil's advocate where nessicary) and we would get absolutly nowhere. In many cases it comes down to "progress" being judged entirely from a subjective moral standpoint, or on how various needs of society should be balanced. Anyone who thinks there is an absolute "right" answer to issues of freedom versus security is incredibly naive especially seeing as situations change and any society that wants to survive needs to be able to adapt to conditions.

As far as Bob's platform goes, I disagree there also. He was given a platform for a free reign in talking about geek culture, as that is the purpose of the site. The idea being (as I seem to recall it being presented) to give him a venue to explore some of his tangents on things like comic books or video games in more detail, rather than staying dedicated to
movie reviews. Basically The Escapist seemed to want a dedicated movie review section, but realized Bob had more to offer in the knowlege of escapism department, and figured that a feature focused soley on say comic books would be a little too limited.

The Escapist is not a political site, if Bob was putting this stuff up on something like Moveon.org that would be one thing, but really it has no place within the general theme of The Escapist.

Now granted, in the end I could be wrong here, and it ultimatly comes down to the Escapist management, and whether they agree with me. Any way it goes, I don't expect Bob to be told to reign in the dedicated political rants in anything resembling a public fashion, that would be unprofessional. Time will ultimatly tell what happens, if anything, with the feature. In the end all I can do is express my opinion that I think Bob's feature has been going off topic for the site. My opinion in of itself is meaningless... especially seeing as while I rarely get in any kind of trouble, I sometimes get the impression that I'm hardly the favorite person of a lot of the staff.

As I've said many times, in the end we're going to have to agree to disagree here.
 

the clockmaker

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Jun 11, 2010
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BobDobolina said:
1.So If I tell a joke its xenophobia, but if I get told that I don't belong in my own homeland than its a triviality. Imagine if imigrants were forced to thank the currant citizens every time there is a ceremony. You complain about words and then decide that it has to have a 100% conctrete cost.

2.A) they do not book it, the council designates it for them for the day and B) I am being barred from the use of a supposedly open, public facility because of my gender and beliefs. That is not a good thing,

3.Nah, my spelling and grammar are just shitty, Aborigonal is just one of those words I have trouble with, like aquimen. Besides it would probably be better to refer to them by their language grouping, or nation, but basically noone actually knows who, for example the Tongarong are. My point is this,
-Do you believe that it is right to refuse to remove at-risk children due to their ethnicity?

-Therefore, do you agree that the politcical correctness that is the currant issue in the refusal to remove them is damageing, in this situation at least?

-Therefore, do you agree that political correctness, though well intentioned can miss step?

-Therefore, would you attempt to correct this miss step?

-Therefore, would you be understand the frustration caused whenever someone simply labels a person a racist for trying to help?

-Therefore, do you understand my offense at the tone, specifically the opening of this video, especially at the notion that 'political corectness does not exist, except in the mind of the extreame right'.

4.We must be realistic about these situations, the root cause was racism, but any attempt to fix it is going to look bad, so we must get past this culture of obsessing over seeming good rather than doing good.

An anecdote, I am 1/32 aborigonal, Tongarong if memory serves (its not a big part of my life, because, come on 1/32nd) ( me great great, however many great gran dad worked for me great great grand mum) funnily enough, in some parts of the nation, that is the cut of for the reciept of benifits, (not that anyone checks). So one day, in some bit of paperwork or another, I checked the box that said tha tI was part Aborigonal. One of the teachers came later to congratulate me on my achievement, aside from the fact that I didn't do anything differant and I am very, very white (seriously, I get sunburnt at night). That is one of the types of dangerous political correctness that I was talking about, the idea that races require special care because they're not good enough on their own, that they are too weak to deal with the everyday parts of life and need to be protected.
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Well the differnce between me and my mate and bob is intent, we are mucking about, he is being serious, observe

situation one,
I enter my workplace and my boss, who is Italian laughs and says 'you're on time, that's stange for a fucking skip' I laugh and say, 'if you wogs were paying attention, you would see that we are always on time'.

Situation two,
I enter my workplace and my boss says, 'you are fucking late, that's what I hate about fucking skips, you never want to fucking work. Just sit on th efucking dole' and then the threatens to fire me.

Which one is worse, both use racial slurs, both use swearing, but one's intent is mucking about and the other's is to make a harsh, unjustified point.

You see where I'm coming from here?
 

Technicka

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Therumancer said:
The movies are however using established characters, and the fundemental issue is that they should be hiring actors that look similar to the characters. Bob is pretty much dismissing anyone with that kind of viewpoint as being a jerk by accuratly labeling political correctness as what it is.

What's more one of the reasons why I am not going to get into specific arguements on most of the political points, is simply because there is no decisive right or wrong on a lot of these issues. What's more on most of them the reality is that the population is divided right down the middle. The left wing would like to believe that on issues like gay rights you have support or people who "don't care" but that's hardly the case in reality. When you get into things like gay marriage that's a whole differant cup of tea, and an issue seperate from gay rights itself despite attempts to lump it together with the general cause. The reason being that nothing ever prevented gays from getting married by any institution that wants to accept them, the issue is one of goverment recognition, and the point of goverment recognition is to draw benefits in the form of tax breaks and the like. I'm not going to get into the whole issue of what the intent of those tax breaks were or anything else, but simply to point out that it's not as simple as the left wing oftentime presents it. One of the reasons why you see states waffling on it is that even with left wingers it becomes noticible when the bill comes in (so to speak). While mentioned, the media tends to stay away from that whole aspect of the debate for a reason.

The point being is that one cannot say that even in cases where we have a majority from either the left or right wing saying something is progress, that wind can change. The problem with raging against things like the political correctness accusation, and argueing about the absurdity of equal time arguements is that it's one side of the issues trying to silence the other side to prevent the pendelum from ever going back the other way. Oh sure a lot of the people involved think they are right so it's justified, but that's not true in any absolute sense.

I could take every one of the examples you mentioned, and defend the opposite side whether I agreed with you or not (playing devil's advocate where nessicary) and we would get absolutly nowhere. In many cases it comes down to "progress" being judged entirely from a subjective moral standpoint, or on how various needs of society should be balanced. Anyone who thinks there is an absolute "right" answer to issues of freedom versus security is incredibly naive especially seeing as situations change and any society that wants to survive needs to be able to adapt to conditions.

As far as Bob's platform goes, I disagree there also. He was given a platform for a free reign in talking about geek culture, as that is the purpose of the site. The idea being (as I seem to recall it being presented) to give him a venue to explore some of his tangents on things like comic books or video games in more detail, rather than staying dedicated to
movie reviews. Basically The Escapist seemed to want a dedicated movie review section, but realized Bob had more to offer in the knowlege of escapism department, and figured that a feature focused soley on say comic books would be a little too limited.

The Escapist is not a political site, if Bob was putting this stuff up on something like Moveon.org that would be one thing, but really it has no place within the general theme of The Escapist.

Now granted, in the end I could be wrong here, and it ultimatly comes down to the Escapist management, and whether they agree with me. Any way it goes, I don't expect Bob to be told to reign in the dedicated political rants in anything resembling a public fashion, that would be unprofessional. Time will ultimatly tell what happens, if anything, with the feature. In the end all I can do is express my opinion that I think Bob's feature has been going off topic for the site. My opinion in of itself is meaningless... especially seeing as while I rarely get in any kind of trouble, I sometimes get the impression that I'm hardly the favorite person of a lot of the staff.

As I've said many times, in the end we're going to have to agree to disagree here.
But the movies are a separate universe, and they are sticking to the core of the Asgardians being viewed as gods... whether the movie will do that whole debate justice is a whole 'nother can of worms. And, again, where is the outrage that everyone has for Heimdall, but not the Asian actor cast? Why were purists not frothing at the mouth when Ra's Al Ghul was suddenly white? I see nothing wrong with being upset at the casting from a purist POV - but it has to run the full gamut of the movie. Rage that Thor speaks modern English. Everyone is okay with those tweaks/updates, but not this one. It comes of as hypocritical in many cases, and depending on the words use, racists. That was what I got from what Bob was saying. You were more than able to articulate your issues with the casting, not because you don't want to see a black person in the movie, but because you wanted the movie to be faithful to the source almost emphatically so. Your argument wasn't an issue of race - but of respecting source material.

The gay issue can be debated in two different arenas: morally and legally. Morally, it's a minefield. But legally? It's a much clearer. If your entire nation's premise is that all your citizens are equal (so long as they abide by the laws) and cannot have their rights revoked..then all this fighting is really a wrong vs right debate. If you believe that equality is an automatic right, you can't then tell another person, "Oh, but not you." What happens is that we've let religion merge so heavily with our politics that the issue is suddenly muddled. (But that's another issue altogether, and is hardly the thread to get started in...)


And you're absolutely right, you could devil's advocate it up - but that doesn't mean that those views (or even some of mine, maybe) are supported by hard facts. Like the Pope and 'Is he a Muslim' examples I gave. Those were issue were both sides were screaming at each other that the other was wrong, but facts did support one side. And I don't think there's an absolute "right" in freedom vs security, but it'd also be painfully naive to fully trust those in power to not abuse their newfound abilities to encroach further on those that the don't care for, as well as those it swear to take care of. And we saw that with the Patriot Act, we gave up freedoms to stop our enemy and discovered our protectors were spend more time digging into us.

I'm inclined to disagree that political talk/social commentary has no place on a game site. I don't think there needs to be a CNN-esque splash page of breaking news on everything, but pertinent stuff? Sure, why the hell not? Games don't exist in a vacuum. Games are a regular target of conservative groups to showcase the evil of modern society. And many of the issues that Bob does bring up, do carry over into gaming. Censorship, the old 'Sex n' Violence' debate, copyright, wages, energy, all of these can effect gaming, so it's not nearly as much of a reach for Big Picture to be here. Extra Credit also tackles a lot of social/political points within the world of the medium. So Bob isn't exactly the only one doing this...he just not as pleasant.



All that aside, don't let a few grumps scare you off from posting your thoughts (your count does seem to show that you're not too bothered with not being the apple of a lot of the staff's eye). Hell, I'd love the chance to run into in some random other thread and see if we agree/disagree or what have you.


And so, to quote Big O: "We have come to terms."
 

Dogstar060763

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Jul 28, 2008
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Bob, that's nice and all, but your kind of hectoring is just as irritating and offensive as those you target in your rant.

I doubt you were living in Great Britain during the 'New Labour' years under 'The Dear Leader' Tony Blair or his (undemocratically) appointed heir, the inept and disastrous Gordon Brown. The New Labour 'experiment' for the UK delivered a kind of politically-correct state - over a decade of misrule (and foreign misadventure) in which Britain's historical traditions of free speech and individual liberty were increasingly sniped at, during which over 3500 new laws were introduced by a run away State intent on legislating away personal freedoms and increasing the power of the State - all in the name, of course, of equality and multiculturalism.

See, I know racism is not cool. I understand homophobia is moronic and I've always seen the point of sexual equality. What I didn't understand, until New Labour fell from power at the last General Election here in the UK, is just how much some governments are prepared to use these concept of equality and 'fairness' as their Trojan Horses to sneak in entire political agendas, often completely under the public radar. It's been a harsh lesson to learn - and one this country is still reeling from (only very recently Britain's new Prime Minister was forced to admit publicly that 'multiculturalism', as a political idea, has not worked - indeed, it appears to have been very harmful and divisive for race-relations in the UK. Under New Labour, to have said this in public would not just have been 'politically incorrect' it would have been tantamount to a heresy).

The problem is, Bob, that you sound as extreme and dictatorial in your grand pronouncements and utter contempt for anyone not buying into your concept of 'correct thinking' as many a tin-pot dictator or hawk-right militant. This is what happens when we take an idea and turn it into an absolute: people start name-calling, the insults fly and slow resentments begin to simmer and ferment.

I'm surprised to have to say this to you (as an Englishman to an American), but free speech - as ugly as it can often get - should actually mean just that. You won't always like what you hear, but when you begin to legislate against hearing certain things just because you might find them offensive or egregious, I'm afraid you've taken the first steps down that slippery slope towards government-approved notions of 'correct' speech (and thoughts).

I can't - and will never - defend the sentiments of racists, but I would like to think I'd defend their right to think and say what they will. The alternative is a world not unlike the one you describe, Bob: an absolutists paradise, where those who disagree with your world-view and are foolish enough to go public with such thoughts are subject to vilification, humiliation and public haranguing for daring to cross you.

Just my thoughts on the matter, for whatever they are worth.
 

Sakon

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Sep 18, 2008
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I think the issue (in part) with the people who decry Political Correctness (This is in America mind you) is that they themselves are not part of a minority group or marginalized group themselves so are entirely unaware of what it is like to be on a daily basis reminded that you're 'different' or 'lesser'.

Its much easier to notice when you are of that group. I'm female myself and on a daily basis I'm reminded of what that means and what society says about it. Either implicitly or explicitly. I imagine its a similar situation with people of other ethnicities.

I'll make some quick examples.

If a woman dresses too provocatively she's called a slut. If she's dressed too formally she's called a frigid prude. There is no middle ground. Either you get ragged on for your tight jeans and low cut shirt or you get mocked for wearing pant-suits. Look at how the media reacted to Hillary in the last election cycle. I freakin' hate the woman for her policies but it often wasn't her POLICIES that were being attacked but her appearance.

Or how about this experiment. Watch TV for a day and specifically look for a few things. How many female characters are there shown vs male characters, in movies, cartoons and tv shows. Women make up 50+% of the worlds population yet in media they are under represented. Ok, now try the The Bechdel Test ( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheBechdelTest ). Which goes like this: Are there two female characters, do they talk to each other, and about someone NOT a man. Generally speaking in many movies, cartoons and tv shows this flat out doesn't happen.

On the ethnic front turn on Fox news. I dare you to find five non white people who aren't guests and are a regular part of the shows on the channel. There are 0 non white people with shows on fox news and I can only think of 2 people who aren't white who regularly contribute to the different programs. On the gender front look and see how many women have their own shoes vs men. Last I saw 2 women have their own shows, the rest are all very white men. And look at how the women are presented vs how the men are. The age gaps, the fact most are blond and attractive (no one could accuse Beck or O'Reily of being pretty!!). I can only think of one woman who doesn't fit the mold and she is constantly mocked for her looks (Greta Van Susteren, who actually got plastic surgery before appearing on the network.)

White straight males seem to forget that in America every day is 'white straight male day'. Its easier to see the flaws in something when they are specifically directed at you.

So please. Folks. Never say that 'things aren't that bad' when speaking about someone outside of your gender, religion, race or sexual orientation. You flat out don't know and will never know so the best you can do is be sympathetic and not add to the problem.


Oh on the Heimdal being black thing. Grow up people. He's a god, he can look however the heck he wants and given he's a mythical figure no one has the final say on his appearance. Frankly I would adore it if more people of different colors were given roles that were less defined by their skin color. Why does it even matter if he's black anyway? Is anything in the story damaged by that? Detracted from?
 

Sakon

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Sep 18, 2008
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Dogstar060763 said:
I'm surprised to have to say this to you (as an Englishman to an American), but free speech - as ugly as it can often get - should actually mean just that. You won't always like what you hear, but when you begin to legislate against hearing certain things just because you might find them offensive or egregious, I'm afraid you've taken the first steps down that slippery slope towards government-approved notions of 'correct' speech (and thoughts).
Asking someone not to speak in a certain matter in now way infringes on their free speech. In fact the whole First Amendment of the US Constitution is about the Government being unable to restrict what people say. Says nothing about private citizens and asking someone not to say something gives you no control over their ability to say it so bringing this point up is entirely silly.


Granted I largely agree with the rest of your post AS IT PERTAINS TO BRITAN. America is an entirely different creature and I imagine he's speaking strictly as an American from his own American perspective.