Quote from: Reckall on March 20, 2021, 11:21:41 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 18, 2021, 01:46:57 PM
Like you, I find a lot of the effort to be hypocritical and shallow trend following. That said, I'm a lot more charitable towards "Litany" than you are.

The easiest answer would be "I have no respect for people who build their work on someone else's life work while not respecting him."

Giving a different take to a famous character/milieu/trope is nothing new. Sherlock Holmes has been rewritten from a clueless bumble (Watson was the real genius) to someone living in modern times. Parodies are countless. I have no problem with that. I still wouldn't accept something written by someone who starts by declaring "Sherlock Holmes was an agent of an Imperialistic and Colonialists Power! Let's take him back!"

I would then point out the dangers of taking a horror/sci-fi story (possibly the genre most prone to symbolism along with fantasy), give to it one possible interpretation among many, and then condemning both the story and the author on the basis of your interpretation alone.

"The Shadow over Innsmouth" is an anti-miscegenation metaphor written by an avowed racist? Fine. Then James Cameron's "Aliens" is a "Anti-American" parable written by a notorious anti-American (JC is Canadian and openly said more than once how he hates to be defined as "American").

Proof?

Weyland-Yutani goes around "terraforming" alien worlds - a clear metaphor for the desire of the Americans to "americanise" wherever they go (I once was able to visit their base at Aviano and I literally entered into an Americanised bubble inside Italy). They poke their noses everywhere and even in places where they don't belong (the Derelict) all in name of profits. They are ruled by a Council of privilegiate White males and females who, when things go south in a corner of their Empire, send in the grunts (it is among these grunts, BTW, that you find the only black and hispanic characters).

So the American Arm... Er... The Colonial Marines descend on a planet that was originally inhabited by placid creatures (I mean, they normally sleep in their eggs for centuries); creatures who were forced to turn into warriors when their turf was disturbed. Nothing wrong in this, right? We would do the same. That they do react in this way, however, is presented as a bad thing.

The cocky Ame... Colonial Marines, badly led and informed, use superior firepower without really understanding their enemy or even the effects of their technology on unfamiliar environments (and thus creating an environmental, nuclear catastrophe - shades of "Agent Orange" here, or of the "Gulf War Syndrome", no doubt). The result is that their "low-tech, not more evolved than animals" enemy hands their asses to them even if trained only in hand-to-hand combat, forcing the few survivors to accept nuclear genocide as the only solution (something clearly spelled by Ripley as early as half into the movie; and we know that when the Americans, and only the Americans, use nuclear weapons it is not genocide; according to the Americans, at least).

Proof that at the end the Ame... human survivors think that they did the right thing after all? Well, after everything they did they sleep peacefully, so... And they are the heroes of the story anyway.

Before someone calls Guantanamo, I would like to make a couple of points:

- I wrote the above as a parody. As a way to show how, if you are really obsessed by something, you will be able to find that "something" everywhere if you look hard - to the point of ridiculousness. However...

- I can picture some places on Earth were, right now, "Let's take back 'Aliens' from the Americans!" could be a thing. In the right climate, a movie or a book with an "alternative view" based on my outline could be considered both "progressive" and an acclaimed way to tackle the "problematic" contents of the original "Aliens".

Which leads to: Yes, I too could have written "Winter Tide" exactly as it was published - as a parody of something written by an obsessed SJW. Pity that, in the right climate... 

Every Lovecraft scholar from before SJW's new burning times mentions HPL's unsubtle racism and how it colored his stories. It's recounted at length in his personal letters. He wrote this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Lovecraft/comments/14ee3n/til_lovecraft_wrote_a_poem_called_on_the_creation/

Considering how fears of miscegenation and cultural exchange feature in so many other HPL stories, it seems that The Shadow was informed likewise. If you take the story at face value, then you get the message that "mermaids are evil, they pollute our bloodlines, and should be exterminated."

I suppose you'd react more favorably to Call of the Sea? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_the_Sea_(video_game)

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 20, 2021, 03:32:39 PMEvery Lovecraft scholar from before SJW's new burning times mentions HPL's unsubtle racism and how it colored his stories.

The sad sad truth of reality is: Good art is good art whether it is racist or not . Whether its sexist, or profoundly unscientific, or whatever else good art can capture something universal even if it means not to be.
And in that sense, Lovecraft is really easy to extrapolate into any subject you want even if it really is based upon an underlining racist message.

For instance, SOI is generally paranoia about dem Irishmen polluting the blood. But because its not literally about irishmen, I found it really relatable to my time in college. Isolated and lonely with a weird new culture that seemed insistent on making me one of them, or stamping me out.

This idea to 'purify' art so that it's always politically correct is profoundly misguided and generally perverse. It often has only really any value in perverting what somebody did before and by its nature cannot standalone.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on March 20, 2021, 02:36:35 PM

The filmmaker himself went on to make the hugely sucessful Avatar, which I'd argue is very similar to your "progressive critique" version of Aliens.

James Cameron stated more than once that "Aliens" was partially inspired by the Vietnam War. Once you start there, the sky is the limit 

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on March 20, 2021, 04:58:38 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 20, 2021, 03:32:39 PMEvery Lovecraft scholar from before SJW's new burning times mentions HPL's unsubtle racism and how it colored his stories.

The sad sad truth of reality is: Good art is good art whether it is racist or not . Whether its sexist, or profoundly unscientific, or whatever else good art can capture something universal even if it means not to be.
And in that sense, Lovecraft is really easy to extrapolate into any subject you want even if it really is based upon an underlining racist message.

For instance, SOI is generally paranoia about dem Irishmen polluting the blood. But because its not literally about irishmen, I found it really relatable to my time in college. Isolated and lonely with a weird new culture that seemed insistent on making me one of them, or stamping me out.

This idea to 'purify' art so that it's always politically correct is profoundly misguided and generally perverse. It often has only really any value in perverting what somebody did before and by its nature cannot standalone.

Yeah.

I don't like the SJW stories because they're trauma porn and about as unsubtle as falling pianos.

You can't simply have a deep one character dealing with plot, he has to be a queer Jewish boy too or a girl from a backwoods town her college friends are surprised popped her into existence.

I'm tired of trauma porn. I don't want to hear about the protagonist being an oppressed minority suffering from constant oppression under the evil homophobic white people and white-adjacent people.

I read the Vang books by Christopher Rowley from the 1980s. The second and third books have non-white* female protagonists. They don't suffer any discrimination or prejudice on the basis of their race or sex, nor do they complain about being oppressed. They're too busy with the "high intelligence omni parasitic life forms" of the title.

*Well, Asian Indian and Chinese. I suppose nowadays they're considered white-adjacent and therefore don't count.

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 19, 2021, 12:50:16 PM

Quote from: Gagarth on March 19, 2021, 12:36:55 PM
How about some Black Supremacist Space Opera gaming. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/350467/ORUN-PostApotheosis-Space-Opera-RPG

Afrocentric is the term they use. It doesn't mean the same thing as Black Supremacist.

Yet

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 20, 2021, 03:32:39 PMEvery Lovecraft scholar from before SJW's new burning times mentions HPL's unsubtle racism and how it colored his stories. It's recounted at length in his personal letters. He wrote this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Lovecraft/comments/14ee3n/til_lovecraft_wrote_a_poem_called_on_the_creation/

Considering how fears of miscegenation and cultural exchange feature in so many other HPL stories, it seems that The Shadow was informed likewise. If you take the story at face value, then you get the message that "mermaids are evil, they pollute our bloodlines, and should be exterminated."

I suppose you'd react more favorably to Call of the Sea? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_of_the_Sea_(video_game)

1: Except they did not. This whole "HPL was a Wacist!" is semi new. Sure there were claims before by the uninformed. But thats nothing new. This latest batch of cultists just parrot and magnify that misinformation ad nausium.

2: They actually do not feature that often. But the outrage cult loves to claim its all true! EVERY story DRIPPING,OOOOZING, with HOWARDS CONTEMPT for the OTHERRRRRRRRRR!". ad nausium. When in some of the stories its the immigrants he holds up as the ones who actually have the brains to stand against the horrors in ways big or small and its fairly often the white man who is not only blindly ignorant bordering a few times on willfull ignorance, but the ones who make things worse.

3: Theres been plenty of those by authors over the decades. Some humorous, some mundane and some still rather grotesque. There likely is not a single work with a villain that someone has not written essentially a fan-fic showing them in a different light. Or one showing a hero in a less than flattering one. Or some other odd reveal. Even Cthulhu got a good twin to counter his evil ways. Lovecraft himself set the stage for things like Call of the Sea as Shadow over Innmouth ends with the hero learning he himself is one of these hybrids and embraces it. Derleth I believe wrote a sequel even playing off that.

Prior to the social justice fad, nobody really said anything because anyone who had three functioning neurons knew HPL was a bigot. But his bigotry was rooted in the zeitgeist (the fear of the unknown, as well as the burgeoning concepts of eugenics and manipulation of such), and as racists go HPL was pretty damned tame. It's hard to work people up about an agoraphobic shut-in who died of stomach cancer before he turned 50. He didn't burn crosses, he didn't engage in politics, and he actually recanted a lot of his behavior. There's also a strong implication that his racism was the result of mental illness (seriously, what kind of agoraphobic bigot moves to New York City in that time period? That's like being allergic to hipsters and moving to Seattle).

But he's an easy target, as he's dead and most people aren't going to outright defend his views, so he gets stones slung at him by the social justice zealots regularly.

There's an old story from Japan. Two monks walking down a path, and they come to a river with a shallow ford. Beside the river is a young woman dressed in a nice kimono, obviously a bit distressed because she can't cross without mucking up her clothing. Without a word, one of the monks goes over, and carries her piggyback across the ford. He sets her down on the opposite bank, and the two monks continue on their way.

After a short time, the other monk begins hectoring his companion. 'You know our order forbids contact with women, why did you do that?' This goes on for an hour until the first monk looks at his brother, exasperated, and says, 'I left that girl by the river an hour ago; why are you still carrying her?'.

The SJWs are still carrying the burden; we've wisely put it behind us.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 27, 2021, 12:58:29 PM
The SJWs are still carrying the burden; we've wisely put it behind us.

The huge numbers of threads and posts spent "carrying it" here show that you're second clause just isn't true.

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 27, 2021, 01:34:24 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 27, 2021, 12:58:29 PM
The SJWs are still carrying the burden; we've wisely put it behind us.

The huge numbers of threads and posts spent "carrying it" here show that you're second clause just isn't true.

Goddamnit! I know that there is a forest around here somewhere, but we can't see it because all of these trees are in the way!

Quote from: jeff37923 on March 27, 2021, 02:10:42 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on March 27, 2021, 01:34:24 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on March 27, 2021, 12:58:29 PM
The SJWs are still carrying the burden; we've wisely put it behind us.

The huge numbers of threads and posts spent "carrying it" here show that you're second clause just isn't true.

Goddamnit! I know that there is a forest around here somewhere, but we can't see it because all of these trees are in the way!

>compares our complaints about SJWs crapping in our hobby to the racism of a man dead for almost a century and why people shouldn't obsess over it

Man, every time I regret putting HD on mute, he gives me a good reason to keep his ass there.

There was a petition to replace his likeness in the World Fantasy Award with Octavia Butler. It ultimately became a tree holding a disk. Smart choice. I imagine that if Octavia's likeness had replaced HPL's, then it would have only been a matter of time until SJWs demanded her likeness be replaced because she was guilty of thoughtcrime.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 27, 2021, 05:38:05 PM
There was a petition to replace his likeness in the World Fantasy Award with Octavia Butler. It ultimately became a tree holding a disk. Smart choice. I imagine that if Octavia's likeness had replaced HPL's, then it would have only been a matter of time until SJWs demanded her likeness be replaced because she was guilty of thoughtcrime.

This is the perfect example of lunatics who are totally oblivious to the dangers they pose to their own cause. In brief, the WFA was a statuette with Lovecraft's face on it. In 2016 a successful campaign forced the organisers to change it. The following excerpt from "The Atlantic" is enough to show how delusional these people are:

Not everyone agreed with this sentiment. In a letter to the co-chair of the WFC board, the Lovecraft biographer and author S.T. Joshi called the decision "a craven yielding to the worst sort of political correctness." He argued that using the writer's image on the award was simply an acknowledgment of the impact his work had on the genre—not an endorsement of his personal beliefs. He also noted that "social-justice warriors" haven't aimed their ire equally at awards named after Bram Stoker or John W. Campbell Jr.

On some level, Joshi's frustration is understandable. The nebulous field of weird fiction wouldn't be the same if it weren't imbued with the spirit of Lovecraft's strange, dark creations. And the question of how much to separate a cultural figure from his or her personal beliefs has always been an uneasy one. But Joshi's claims are myopic. Lovecraft's removal is about more than just the writer himself; it's not an indictment of his entire oeuvre. The change is symbolic but powerful—it's a message to the next generation of writers, artists, and editors that they belong in the genre of science fiction and fantasy.

Hmmm... No. First, everybody already "belonged" in the genre. As S.T. Joshi pointed out, the award was an acknowledgement of the impact Lovecraft had on the genre, not of any racial ideas he had.

More importantly - and insidiously - you know what I would have done were I an old, racist, regressive old white man? I would have been the very first campaigning for the remotion of Lovecraft's face from the award. Every time someone claims that the status quo is still the same, I'll now answer "No. It changed! We even ditched Lovecraft!"

With a pen stroke the WFG turned an award tied for decades to the quality of one's work (as even The Atlantic itself admitted) - no question about sex/gender/race asked - into the illusion that the award will be "more inclusive" - thus making, if anything, easier for the award to be less inclusive.

Great, uh?

The human race continues to tenaciously try to devolve itself.

Quote from: Omega on March 28, 2021, 07:03:23 AM
The human race continues to tenaciously try to devolve itself.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics is inescapable...

Quote from: Reckall on March 28, 2021, 05:52:08 AMThe change is symbolic but powerful—it's a message to the next generation of writers, artists, and editors

Its amusing because it is a powerful but symbolic message:
'We will tear you down no matter your status. Be afraid.'

War is Peace and Hate is love and all that.