UnderGlass said:
Therumancer said:
To be honest I'll also say that I think this issue, at least as far as it's come up on these forums is marred by ignorance, with statements being made based on a very narrow political position designed to empower specific people and representitives.
The issue we're increasingly seeing is less a matter of race, and more a matter of culture, and the problem is guys like MovieBob being unable to distinguish between the two enough to realize that racism pretty much doesn't exist in countries like the USA, but cultural conflicts do, and as cultures can be drawn along racial lines some confusion is possible.
I was wondering when someone would break out the 'Not racist but different colors and creeds are fundamentally different' argument.
I get what you're trying to say but an intelligent guy like you has to see the danger in the sort of conceptual segregation you're talking about.
The rest of your argument is the same as albino boo's and is actually a pretty interesting point. I don't really agree but either way it would be a difficult one to disprove.
albino boo said:
The problem with argument is that the ethnic makeup of the major gaming markets vary hugely. Hispanics make a large percentage of The US population but are practically non-existent in Europe and Japan. The largest ethnic minority in Japan is Koreans, in France its Arabs, in Germany its Turks and in the UK its South Asians. You can't reflect the ethnic breakdown in all the major gaming markets because its just too diverse. So if make the hero a Latino what's that going to mean to German man of Turkish origin or Dutch woman of Indonesian parentage? If you start making a point of not having a white guy with brown hair as your lead, you going to annoy the ethnicities that don't get to be the lead. You will have never ending campaign groups lobbying for there own respective group. For every Indian lead are you going to have a Pakistani one? You could quickly find yourself on a pogo stick, in the minefield of international politics without even knowing it. The truth be told, the 30s something white guy is the lowest common dominator and the safest politically of the Europe and North America gaming markets. Thats why they are so common.
The thing is that I *do* recognize the dangers involved, and really don't care. I feel that trying to avoid the unpleasantness of breaking down cultures due to all the violence and murder that would ultimatly be involved, actually leads to more problems as issues go unresolved. It's something I believe beyond video games.
Above and beyond any issues with subcultures in the USA, understand that globally I believe that the only real hope for humanity is for everyone to be unified into one goverment and culture, meaning all others will need to quietly merge into the main one, or be destroyed. Despite how this sounds I do believe that a lot of this will happen through the simple spread of ideas, and that we already see it happening to an extent, we're just not willing to speed up the process where nessicary. Of course there are entire civilizations that will ultimatly wind up needing to be exterminated as they will not join a global unity under any circumstances (and to be blunt, while everyone will say they would die before disbanding their nature to join a global goverment, the truth is that far more peoples would than you realize if it was ever presented as a viable option). The thing is that killing billions of people is horrible, but in the long run you have to look at how more people will benefit through future generations, and of course at the rest of the equasion which is simply that the current state of affairs can't continue and most people know this, which is why a lot of the merger would happen surprisingly peacefully. This is long enough so I won't go into why the current system won't work,
Thus in the US, you have to understand that with that overall perspective I am willing to be extremely ruthless when it comes to social order and getting our house in line. I would not push so far as to say we need to start in with the mass murder of subcultures and counter cultures immediatly or anything, but I do think that we need to dial back with the ideal of tolerance and work on forcing people to get with the program so to speak. That includes re-evaluating some of our policies involving free speech and the like, a point which I can defend by noting that the Founding Fathers themeselves felt that the constitution would need to be reviewd and revised every couple of decades. A lot of our problems exist by trying to hold to a set of guidelines and principles that are both out of context with the current state of affairs, and with the original intent of the people who wrote them by the guidelines listed. In the end my basic attitude is that as a society we need to be able to flat out tell subcultures and counter cultures that what they are doing in unacceptable, and to either get with the rest of society, get out, or expect to be treated as pariahs.
What I'm saying applies to this situation because of things like black culture in the US (which is one example) and how it affects things like the media, and why you see so few black heroes in the media... I mention it because of someone (before me) invoking Will Smith and the differances. That's because you have blacks being taught that the whole "angry black man" schtick is acceptable, and a policy of tolerance towards a subculture that frequently glorifies crime while villifying the rest of society and the authorities. The so called "git rich or die trying" mentality. Bill Cosby who has a PHD in Children's Education has also pointed out that black culture tends to associate things like education with selling out. Over the years you've literally had people lining up to give blacks things in terms of computers, books, nd other things, it's a popualr charity, but all of that stuff is destroyed or treated with scorn partially as a social statement. It's noteworthy also that this kind of angry populance that is encouraged to keep itself ignorant represents a powerful voting block and a lot of those black leaders intentionally want things this way so they can guide the populance and themselves become wealthy and powerful.At any rate, this leads to a situation where this culture produces very few people who are going to be able to step into the mainstream as actors and examples, the ones that do are those who have largely stepped outside of that culture, and as a result wind up being scorned as sell outs by "their" people in most cases.
The solution? Well it's not pleasant in some of the incidents it might cause, but you do things like make it so that blacks cannot choose to drop out of school as a right at 16, and have to finish High School (period). You also embrace a zero tolerance policy throughout society towards that subculture glorifying crime. Making a song like "Copkilla" or glorifying selling drugs, or brutalizing people or whatever should be flat out illegal specifically for those people. This DOES violate all kinds of excepted rights and morality, ans is going to lead to backlash which will get violent and very nasty in some cases. Stick to these kinds of tactics and over a few generations (and with current lifespans we're talking a century or so, it's not somehting we're able to say we'll be able to judge the results of within our lifespans... the children of our grandkids might though) your going to probably see results.
See, you have to weigh things like this in the long term as opposed to the short term. Sure, your pretty much making a group of people second class citizens on some levels, but it can be argued that they already make themselves second class citizens due to perpetuating this culture, as seen by how they wind up being ostricized from the media because of those points of view.
To some extent, a lot of the problems go back to guys like 'ol Honest Abe, you don't take a huge population of slaves and simply free them and turn them loose into society, and not expect anger, backlash, and counter cultures. This should have happened gradually with care being taken to slowly assimilate blacks into society rather than just dropping them into the country as free men and wondering why a divide and counter culture appeared. In the end we've created a problem that could be argued is harder and more morally ambigious to solve than actual slavery was.
Now understand, that I just use that as ONE example, the same thing could be applied to numerous other subcultures, even if that is one of the ones with the most baggage. See, when you get down to it, I tend to feel any subculture in the US where going into a neighborhood where those people live and it's like walking into another country represents a problem. Chinatown, Little Seuol, Little Italy, and numerous other names used for such districts. Of course depending on what your dealing with there might be less baggage involved than with the blacks. Truthfully I think a lot of these regions can be dealt with by just applying existing laws. Right now things like "chinatown disctricts" remain "chinatown" due to the people owning the property refusing to sell to people outside of their own ethnicity. Something that is overlooked for minorities, yet happens to be illegal (ie refusing to sell to someone just because they are black). Start enforcing the laws and watching property transactions and simple social inertia means that a lot of businesses are going to close and the shopfronts be sold to people of differant ethnicities who were shut out, and your gradually going to see the people in the region disperse into the rest of society over a period of time.
This is increasingly irrelvent to the point though, and I'm sure we're going to have to agree to disagree because what I am saying is doubtlessly anathema to you. In my case I put a lot of thought into it, and realize a lot of what I'm saying sucks and questions the very foundation of our society on some levels, however I believe we're looking at a situation where our society is already having problems and it's better to control the nessicary changes than see it fall apart. You already see issues like counter-cultures effectively excluding thesmelves from the media through their own beliefs causing problems with the same principles within our society. The big question is do you let things continue and grow increasingly worse and harder to solve, or bit the bullet, pay the horrofic price, and have a better tomorrow? There are no perfect solutions to issues like this.
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On the other point I will say there is proof of sorts to the trend of international acceptance. For good or ill China has been rising to prominance and along with it has come the acceptance of Chinese media, with Hong Kong movies rising from bizzare cult things to almost mainstream acceptance where just about everyone knows the tropes, and actors like Jackie Chan, Jet-Li, and Chow Yun Fat headlining movies intetnationally much like an American.
See, ethnicity is only part of it, the big issue is that it can be associated with specific cultures. In making a movie everyone knows that the US is the dominant global super power, thus having Americans be the ones who save the world, or fight off the invading aliens, or whatever else makes a degree of sense, as it would probably be decided by us as the most advanced and enlightened society on the planet (even if most people will deny this when it's said directly like that). The UK and France have gotten away with some success in the international media because both are world powers who have been dominant global super powers in the past, having literally battled each other for control of the earth. They can still be accepted in this role since it wasn't that long ago. China has had a huge empire but one that has generally gotten pwned by these other powers, yet it's rising to global dominance and might very well be replacing the western powers, and as a result it's media is becoming better known, and people are beginning to accept the idea of a Chinese hero, or how China might have a chance to save the world or whatever a bit more, though the nature of their culture has presented a bit of a barrier for reasons I won't go into. China is generally not known as being a benevolent nation, just one that is increasingly powerful and has to be dealt with. People tend to remember all the stuff about the Olympics (both the contreversy over the ages of their athletes and the cover up, and how they treated people in preparing for it) even if they tend to not pay attention to the robber economy, military build up, saber ratting, and other things. If china was a bit more enlightened overall it would probably be an even bigger force in the media right now.
The point is that the trends are there.
It should also be noted that even if the US does fall from being generally accepted as #1 (all anti-US rhetoric aside), the media is not likely to change overnight, largely because we're still probably going to be seen as more benevolent overall as the guys likely to replace us, and having BEEN #1 we're still going to be a major world power and one known to have held the fate of the world in it's hands. An American saving the world would become sort of like a Brit doing it (The Avengers, James Bond, etc...), perhaps not even that differant if the culture that winds up just doesn't have principles that make it well liked. Whether we always meet the ideal or not (and how viable it is) the US at least preaches tolerance, and makes an effort. A nation like China is kind of racist (in an actual sense) and tends to be pretty oppressive, the basic conceptional hype that justifies a character like "Captain America" at least as a theoretical ideal just doesn't exist there.
Oh and as a final point, while made fun of to an extent, you'll notice Bollywood (India) comeing onto the scene, being roughly where HK Action Cinema was a few decades ago. At the same time you'll notice it coincides with India's growing importance in world affairs, but at the same time they aren't yet at the point where the globe can universally accept an Indian hero, because India doesn't even make the same pretensions the US does.
To use the whole "Captain America" example (though Superman can work to, too an extent)... a movie which went over fairly well internationally by the reports I'm reading, an American ideal is quite heroic as even if he's into cowboy heroics the American ideal is to try and make the world better for everyone even if it comes at great cost sometimes. He's pretty much the (fictionally) ideal citizen of the country he calls home. You take Chinese culture to the same degree, and their ideal is going to wind up with some kind of militant ultra-racist out to avenge the "trivialization" of his home country. Needless to say it doesn't matter what country your from, that's a hard sell to put it mildly. As fantasy Captain America is all about the pro-humanity and defense of the weak rhetoric (and to be fair he sort of represents the US in the world's eyes, as we are viewed as being a group of cowboys who try and do the right thing even if we wind up messing other things up worse in the process... being an ideal everything comes up Aces for Cap though). The Indian version of their ideal citizen becomes touchy as soon as you realize they are heavily theocratic and have cities where monkeys and considered sacred and allowed to roam the streets and such, not to mention how much of the culture is based around being at war with Islam given that it's been going on for a very long time. Their "ideal citizen" is not something people can empathize with. Yet both India and China with their extremes could empathize with Cap to an extent because his motivation of coming to anyone's aid "because it's the right thing to do" works, he would step in front of a Chinese or Indian person to defend them... where it's not a given that the Chinese or Indian versions would have much investment in being willing to risk their lives for each other or anyone else outside of their own culture and it's idealogy.
