Whore of the Orient Title Deemed Racist by City Councilor

[Smooth Operator]

Orient just simply means east, and sadly spazzy people can get offended by any old stupid shit that comes their way.
But them getting offended doesn't mean anything needs to change, first she needs a critical mass of people to agree.

 

[Canadish]

I grew up out in Asia and I've NEVER heard anyone consider the term offensive. Where the hell she got that, comparing it to the use of "******" in American/Western culture, I'll never know.

Perhaps this is an Australian thing? Either way, I don't buy into censoring language because it hurts feelings, in this context at the very least. The intent is clearly to reflect the product/art in this case, not to intentionally upset or incite.

Also, good job giving them free press.

 

[Eternal_Lament]

Although I assume it would be offensive to call someone of Asian heritage "oriental" (mainly in the phrase "Those Oriental people work like dogs..." As said by our mayor Rob Ford...sigh) I assumed that the terms "orient" and "oriental" were perfectly fine if they weren't used to describe a person. Food products, festivals, even various Asian restaurants here in Toronto use those two terms with no one complaining. I'm pretty sure I've seen several Asian run convenience stores with orient or oriental somewhere in the title.

Maybe it's an extra sensitive topic in Australia, but even so this complaint just seems a bit ridiculous. Does the councilor just need to sit down and like the title like everyone else? Not necessarily, he's under no obligation to be nice and cheery with the game; at the same time the game hasn't come out yet, and for all we know it could deal with whatever it's subject matter is in a tasteful way that would at least indicate that the game's title is trying to be more historical than it is trying to be offensive. Besides which...it's a fucking title. Even if the title was remotely offensive like "Charlie the ***** and his Band of Gooks" it's still a damn title, a pretty stupid and inflammatory title to be sure, but a title none the less; is a title really worth the time and effort for the HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION, when they could, you know, actually deal with much more serious and pressing issues? Maybe you should just try a small petition or something like that to get the developer's attention rather than going to a government office.

As a slight off-topic:

That might surprise some who might naturally assume "whore" to be the word at issue.

Is this going to be an issue? I mean I know when the game first came out there were people who lambasted the game because it had whore in the title, but I haven't heard anything about it since then (although that could just be related to the fact that we haven't heard much about the game since then either) I would assume that people would be smart enough to realize the title's context and leave it at that, but then again seeing as how that didn't really happen the first time around I wouldn't be surprised if we heard more people complaining about the title

 

[Strazdas]

Wait, the word Orient is bad? Huh, I didn't know that. I hadn't heard of this game before but now I want to look it up.

yep. apperently its the asian equivalent of "******". many people, including myself from not lnog ago, dont know that. probably the gamemaker didnt too. because asians didnt have to revolt against their slavers and make a civil war, their name is forgotten and noone uses it. but they do get offended by it.
Though due to its little usage and not as pompuos history as that of word "******" it is often ignored as offense and thus its offensive power is pretty much none. the word is only as offensive as you let it be after all.

HIstoricity, while im all for it, would not work. "Whore of oriental" historical titling counterpart would be if Django Unchained would have been called "****** gunslinger". im sure you can see why they didnt choose that.

 

[Azahul]

As a huge fan of Edward Said, I can kind of see the problem. I knew the term oriental was a bit of a slur, but the problem it's presented always seemed to me to be more in the way of generalisation than targeted insult. After all, it wasn't just used for the Chinese. At times, it's been used for pretty much everywhere east of Europe. The most damaging aspect of it historically has been in this perception that all of Asia is the same.

Of course, anyone should be allowed to use whatever words they want for a creative project. Just so long as they're using it to deliberate effect with understanding of the word's history and connotations. The same should go for everyday conversation as well, mind you.

 

[Abomination]

The only 19th century racist term for a person of Asian descent that is no longer used that I can think of was "Celestial" and that was more of a religious insult, similar to "heathen" but being more specific for those of the Asian religions excluding Hinduism.

Orient? Er, no, it's a geographic term. It's pretty much all of South East Asia east of India.

And now I want some ramen.

 

[Abomination]

Wait, the word Orient is bad? Huh, I didn't know that. I hadn't heard of this game before but now I want to look it up.

yep. apperently its the asian equivalent of "******". many people, including myself from not lnog ago, dont know that. probably the gamemaker didnt too. because asians didnt have to revolt against their slavers and make a civil war, their name is forgotten and noone uses it. but they do get offended by it.
Though due to its little usage and not as pompuos history as that of word "******" it is often ignored as offense and thus its offensive power is pretty much none. the word is only as offensive as you let it be after all.

HIstoricity, while im all for it, would not work. "Whore of oriental" historical titling counterpart would be if Django Unchained would have been called "****** gunslinger". im sure you can see why they didnt choose that.

I would think "Saharan Gunslinger" would have been more accurate as the Orient is a geographic region.

Now if you wanted something that'd be the same as "****** Gunslinger" there are many more offensive terms for Asian one could apply over "Oriental".

To name a few "squint-eyes", "chinks", "nips", "yellow".

Speaking of "yellow" I heard a fun term recently at work from my Asian colleagues: "banana". Apparently it's picked up some steam for an Asian who is just yellow on the outside but has converted to white/western culture... I find it quite endearing.

 

[Piorn]

That must be a pretty skilled whore if she serves an entire continent. Or is that like a Miss America thing?


Also, I always thought Orient was an abstract, romanticized idea with specific tropes and themes, not an actual place.
Are we burning Disney's Alladin DVDs now because they're "insulting"?

 

[Royas]

In all of my years, despite the amazingly PC culture that has developed in the United States, I have never once heard anyone refer to Oriental or Orient as being offensive or racist. It's not a commonly used term, having been replaced more or less by the more modern term "Asian", but it was never considered offensive, not by anyone I know. Perhaps there is a small number of people who find it so, but that's pretty much true for any word or term used to describe a region or a people. There's always someone with an axe to grind.

With all due respect to the councilor, I think that he is making this up for publicity purposes. Is there, by chance, an election going on this year or next year for his position?

 

[Sixcess]

Called it.

Whore of the Orient?

Well that title seems certain to get changed before release. Leaving aside the obvious, 'Orient' is a somewhat archaic term, and regarded as mildly offensive by some these days.

If I knew it two years ago then sure as shit so did the developer, and if he didn't... well, he should have and he does now. Let's not mount our hobby horses for another round of the Free Speech Crusade. He knew this was going to cause offense.

 

[plugav]

The complaint may be exaggerated, but the title is still in very poor taste. Hopefully they can make up for it by honestly exploring and explaining Shanghai's plight, rather than exploiting the "exotic" setting to make another tale of man and his gun*.

[small]*I'm not saing LA Noire was a game like that - I haven't played it.[/small]

 

[Weaver]

So decided to check Wiki about the word Orient:

Australian English
In Australian English, the term "Asian" generally refers to people of East Asian or Southeast Asian descent, such as those of Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, or Filipino descent. Persons of Indian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, and most other South Asian descent are referred to by their respective demonym, but without explicit knowledge, those people are indeterminately inferred as "Indian."
The word Oriental, in place of Asian, is seldom used in colloquial conversation in Australia and is understood, but considered anachronistic rather than offensive.

Honestly something has to have offensive intent to be considered offensive to begin with, if this game is set in a date where this word was used in normal conversation or a derogatory term for that time period that is required to creative as close as possible replica of that time period, it's no way considered offensive because it's where it belongs; in the past.
It's a poor form for a cry of censorship from someone who probably doesn't even know anything past the title, and if he/she does his/her opinion is of poor intent because if this were a movie, he/she wouldn't bat a fucking eyelid.

But the word is "Orient" not "Oriental". It's referring to the location, not a people.
I've never in my life heard of the word orient (as opposed to calling someone an oriental) offending people and like 65% of my friends are Chinese. This seems to be an Australian thing.

 

[bug_of_war]

Why does my country just kinda suck right now? Like, we have a shit Prime Minister, an over sensitive game classification board, terrible internet, and now we have someone saying that the word Orient is now on par with "******". FUCK, next I guess Slav will be an offensive term, or Anglo, or Middle Eastern.

You know this whole "certain words cannot be used" shit is starting to get a little pedantic.

 

[Strazdas]

Wait, the word Orient is bad? Huh, I didn't know that. I hadn't heard of this game before but now I want to look it up.

yep. apperently its the asian equivalent of "******". many people, including myself from not lnog ago, dont know that. probably the gamemaker didnt too. because asians didnt have to revolt against their slavers and make a civil war, their name is forgotten and noone uses it. but they do get offended by it.
Though due to its little usage and not as pompuos history as that of word "******" it is often ignored as offense and thus its offensive power is pretty much none. the word is only as offensive as you let it be after all.

HIstoricity, while im all for it, would not work. "Whore of oriental" historical titling counterpart would be if Django Unchained would have been called "****** gunslinger". im sure you can see why they didnt choose that.

I would think "Saharan Gunslinger" would have been more accurate as the Orient is a geographic region.

Now if you wanted something that'd be the same as "****** Gunslinger" there are many more offensive terms for Asian one could apply over "Oriental".

To name a few "squint-eyes", "chinks", "nips", "yellow".

Speaking of "yellow" I heard a fun term recently at work from my Asian colleagues: "banana". Apparently it's picked up some steam for an Asian who is just yellow on the outside but has converted to white/western culture... I find it quite endearing.

Oriental is as much a geographical region as a "black country". Oriental is kind of forgotten word since its usage has dissapeared with what people hoped would be the end of racism slurs, but "******" persisted. While yes the terms you listed are indeed often used as offensive words, so was oriental. you know the whole "fuck me sideways" expression came from the fact that we used to insult asians as "Having sexual organs sideways". which was obviuosly a lie, but an effective insult nonetheless.
We often call orselves (eastern europe) banan country because we are in european union and yet most of our statistics are worse than african dictatorship states. Even our flag is similarto african ones.
Words can be used in interesting ways.

 

[Denamic]

So 'Orient' is now the 'O-word', and is pretty much like saying the 'N-word'. Yeah, sure, that sounds completely reasonable and what the actual fuck is going on?! What words are we going to ban next? 'European' is a word used to refer to a whole slew of very different people, so it's probably offensive somehow. Let's call that the 'E-word'. So don't call me 'European'. It's pretty much the same as calling us all niggers.

Let's ban more words!

 

[Albino Boo]

The woman needs to educate herself a little more. Orient is not insulting or offensive. It's simply a modernization of Dioecesis Orientis. This is the name of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Over the years it eventually became a blanket term for the East as used by western cultures. To even pretend that it has the same connotation as the word "******" is ridiculous. *****, gook, Charlie, Chinaman, lemon, Bodie, nip, nipper, yolkie, etc. But Orient? Grow up.

I've never heard of anyone getting their panties in a wad over the use of the term.

~signed, some random person living in Taiwan

Perhaps you ought to educate yourself a little. The N word is itself is an anglicisation of the latin word for black via Spanish and Portuguese. I wouldn't suggest calling a black person that and then trying to say its OK because its latin. The origin of the word is somewhat unimportant to the current pejorative, or otherwise, use of the word.

 

[MatsVS]

A minority object to the use of an offensive word and a bunch of white people start wailing about censorship and blah blah blah like sullen children. Nothing new under the sun, in other words.

 

[CriticalMiss]

How can you be racist about a place? Also, I've seen plenty of Chinese takeaways that either have 'Orient' or 'Oriental' in the name or on the menu somewhere and there are supermarkets that stock products with the same terms on the packaging. Plus check out how many human rights violations are going on in London alone:

http://www.yell.com/ucs/UcsSearchAction.do?keywords=oriental&location=London&scrambleSeed=236663633

Fuck!

Captcha: Collaborate and listen. No captcha, be offended and sue. That's how you make progress.

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

The woman needs to educate herself a little more. Orient is not insulting or offensive. It's simply a modernization of Dioecesis Orientis. This is the name of the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Over the years it eventually became a blanket term for the East as used by western cultures. To even pretend that it has the same connotation as the word "******" is ridiculous. *****, gook, Charlie, Chinaman, lemon, Bodie, nip, nipper, yolkie, etc. But Orient? Grow up.

I've never heard of anyone getting their panties in a wad over the use of the term.

~signed, some random person living in Taiwan

I heard that it was called the Orient becasue explored would use Asia to "orient" themselves on maps.