joystickjunki3 said:
Not exactly what I meant, but whatever gives you a mightier-than-thou feeling is fine by me.
[edit] I don't like getting into arguments on the forums, especially when a good number of people get way out of control w/ it. So I'll just say two things in my defense: you focused too much on the wrong parts of my post, and you don't know shit about what I'm like so don't go around presuming that you do. I don't know you, and you don't know me yet; so let's not go around assuming the worst about each other. If you can agree w/ that, then I really would like to get along. Thank you.
Personally I love getting into arguments on forums, but if you'd rather drop the subject that's fine. Surely you realize, though, that if you say something controversial,
someone's probably going to let you know that they disagree with you.
DirkGently said:
I won't mention that it's against the guidelines or whatever to split up a post into a bunch of quotes. But I did. Whatever.
Huh. I don't see why, oftentimes it's the only effective way to address arguments point by point.
DirkGently said:
Why does it really matter than the usual 'blank slate' for a character is a white male? It's simple enough, doesn't hurt anyone. Who should the blank slate be then? Why should it change? There's no magical person we can set ourselves to that won't bother somebody. Making a character hispanic for the sake of making him or her hispanic or so the character isn't is as racist as making him white so he's not hispanic.
The thing is, having the overwhelming majority of characters in popular media be of one group while the others are largely relegated to stereotypes and cannon fodder does hurt, if you're a member of one of those "other" groups. (I assume here that you're a white guy.) Imagine for a moment that while you were growing up, on all the television shows and in all the movies and videogames, the majority of characters and the vast majority of important characters were black men. The few times you saw white people, they were portrayed as "trailer trash" or "hicks", and were relegated to the role of goofy sidekicks or thugs waiting to be dispatched by the hero. Can you honestly tell me this wouldn't be damaging to your sense of identity or self-esteem?
The point is not to change the "tabula rasa" character to another demographic, the point is that there shouldn't be one, because there
is no default human being.
DirkGently said:
Cultures are different. That's what I was taught in school, from whenever the hell that shit came into popular favor until I graduated. Something I found ironic, for it's intent to bring us all together by highlighting our differences. However, this is not necessarily my own belief, but, rather, what I'm placing unto the faceless game writers. Whether it's accurate or not (and let's face it; various cultures bring unto people different upbringings, which makes them different people. It's what makes humanity humanity.), it's entirely possible that a writer may not feel comfortable writing a certain character because they don't know enough about that character's background, whether it be things they've done or the area and culture they've come out of. Whether they're mexican, indian, american, british, german, russian, chinese, korean, hawaiin, or icelandic.
While the assumption that the vast majority of game developers are white males is probably accurate, I find the argument that they can't be expected to construct characters that are anything other than white lacking. Interestingly enough, it seems to imply that all white people are alike, and that one white guy can understand and approximate the experiences and background of any other white guy, who may be from a completely different walk of life,
just because he's a white guy. Likewise, while most game developers are white men, apparently they've no problem approximating the experiences and backgrounds of women, since you see plenty of white women in video games.
I don't buy that argument. How many game developers in this country are Serbian immigrants, or Italian mobsters, or space marines from the future, or biological experiments gone wrong - all white, male characters whose experiences should by all rights be completely and utterly alien to a white male postgraduate who majored in game design or computer science? Somehow, through imagination and a willingness to take creative risks, they manage.
DirkGently said:
My point here is that they don't think that whether the PC is white, black, orange, yellow or blue is important to the story. They choose a white male because it's easiest for them to identify with, or, they feel like, or they hit a button for a new skin, and that's just what is popped out. Their concerned far more with making a fun, working game than offending some PC obsessed dick head, because of the main character's skin tone, name, and accent.
I don't think we're victims. I think people want to be victims. And I think people want something to get angry about. I don't think there is anything to change. Having a 'tabula rasa' character that is an elderly black woman would be just an issue as a young white male. Or young black man, or young chinese man.
It's the normal kind of apathy. They don't think the race is an important enough issue over the rest of the game. If you think race is more important, you've got your priorities wrong.
No, people want to be represented fairly. In the media that saturates all of our daily lives, that shapes impressionable young minds, we'd like to see ourselves every now and then. If you were in my shoes, I'd wager you
would think there's something to change - because if you were in my shoes, you couldn't afford to wrap yourself in a drape of convenient apathy.
Glefistus said:
This just in: gaming community doesn't care.
IF games ever become like the workplace, where they MUST be politically correct and represent everyone, I don't think I'd want to play them anymore.
Somehow, I think I could live with that.
