Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on August 01, 2021, 11:13:32 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on August 01, 2021, 10:47:18 PM
Honestly? Fuck the sensitivity of those "others".

Agreed, but my principles are also about defending people I disagree with if I think they are not acting out of ill will.

In the modern day, I find him more a 'victim' of 'victim' politics, this sort of thing is drilled into kids heads by the millions. I am not assuming hangups or projection from him.

Whether a doctor injects me with arsenic because he wants to kill me, it's an accident, or he truly believes it will help me, I'll still be dead.  When your hangups poison the body politic...

Quote from: Reckall on August 01, 2021, 04:29:47 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 01, 2021, 11:34:41 AM
After all, only an extremely delusional racist would write an article complaining that H.R. Giger's penis-headed nightmares (and the Predator) are anti-black racist caricature. https://theconversation.com/amp/how-hollywoods-alien-and-predator-movies-reinforce-anti-black-racism-127088

"We are dealing with a culture of domination. It is a culture that thrives on the sexualized demonization of Black people. Two examples of this are Ridley Scott's Alien, which comports with the trope of Black women as alien breeders [that John Hurt was a black woman is the most stunning revelation in recent times] and Predator, written by brothers Jim and John Thomas, that riffs on images of Black men as dreadlocked, violent and superhuman."

I wonder if we shouldn't start with not even considering pieces written by people who clearly lost their grip with reality.

I wonder if this stems from how the actors for both the xenomorph and the Predator were both black (Bolaji Badejo and Kevin Peter Hall, respectively). Of course, they didn't get those roles because they were black; Badejo was from Nigeria and had a long, lanky build which let him fit into the suit, while Hall was over seven feet tall, making him perfect for the imposing Predator.

But yeah, some people are not even commuting to reality with their fascination for race.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on August 02, 2021, 08:11:12 AM

Quote from: Reckall on August 01, 2021, 04:29:47 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 01, 2021, 11:34:41 AM
After all, only an extremely delusional racist would write an article complaining that H.R. Giger's penis-headed nightmares (and the Predator) are anti-black racist caricature. https://theconversation.com/amp/how-hollywoods-alien-and-predator-movies-reinforce-anti-black-racism-127088

"We are dealing with a culture of domination. It is a culture that thrives on the sexualized demonization of Black people. Two examples of this are Ridley Scott's Alien, which comports with the trope of Black women as alien breeders [that John Hurt was a black woman is the most stunning revelation in recent times] and Predator, written by brothers Jim and John Thomas, that riffs on images of Black men as dreadlocked, violent and superhuman."

I wonder if we shouldn't start with not even considering pieces written by people who clearly lost their grip with reality.

I wonder if this stems from how the actors for both the xenomorph and the Predator were both black (Bolaji Badejo and Kevin Peter Hall, respectively). Of course, they didn't get those roles because they were black; Badejo was from Nigeria and had a long, lanky build which let him fit into the suit, while Hall was over seven feet tall, making him perfect for the imposing Predator.

I never thought about that, but the statement is still wrong: the Alien as portrayed by Bolaji Badejo is not a "breeder" (nor Badejo was female). In "Alien" you can give that title either to the facehugger or to the poor host (i.e. John Hurt).

I guess that the writer was confused and mistook "Alien" for "Aliens", where you have an egg-laying black Alien Queen (inspired, IIRC, by how ants reproduce). But I also guess that the writer is confused in a general sense.

Quote from: Reckall on August 02, 2021, 01:07:10 PM
But I also guess that the writer is confused in a general sense.

Is this one of those times when people are using "confused" to mean "barking moon-bat nuts"?  Or just "retarded"?

Predator was originally going to be played by Jean Claude Van Damme.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 02, 2021, 03:26:31 PM

Quote from: Reckall on August 02, 2021, 01:07:10 PM
But I also guess that the writer is confused in a general sense.

Is this one of those times when people are using "confused" to mean "barking moon-bat nuts"?  Or just "retarded"?

True 1:1 quote from this piece:



Image Caption: "Black women are seen as alien breeders in Ridley Scott's 'Alien' franchise."

Quote from: Omega on August 02, 2021, 03:35:45 PM
Predator was originally going to be played by Jean Claude Van Damme.

Condemning "The Color out of Space" would make more sense. The evil entity there is, by definition, "colored".

QuoteSo what if racists implant dog-whistles in their fiction?  The only people who will notice are other racists.  Everyone else will just read the fiction.  If you can hear the whistle, you're the dog.

That's utterly ridiculous notion. Anyone can hear god-damn whistle, as as all humans works basically on simmilar levels of perception, obviously you can notice foreign, enemy's indirect propaganda if you know their beliefs. So you don't have to be racist to hear racist dogwhistle - you just need to know how racist sounds. Same with any other idea - good or bad. If you know it - you can recognize it - doesn't matter whether you follow it or not.

The real question is: are given examples that/

QuoteTherefore, anybody who claims Rowling's goblins, Tolkien's dwarves, or Lucas' toydarians share any resemblance to racist stereotypes of Jews is a racist. Describing fictional species in exactly the same way that European colonizers described non-white people is not racist because it's fiction, and anybody who criticizes that kind of language is a racist.

Tolkien dwarves are of course inspired/themed after Hebrew and more widely Semitic people. In other two cases I'm not that convinced. Till last book goblins play no real role in HP world, and even then minor, their looks is well very much how various goblin like creatures were shown through ages and so on. And this boney long nosed form is way more universal than mere stereotypical Jew as it's meant to be sort of mimicing raptor birds of various kind. Uncle Sam in USSR propaganda is excellent example - he is not in any way coded as Jew yet still - long, hooked nose, emanciated features.
Also we should note that... greedy merchant is stereotype on itself. So there apparently  there always gonna be problem with it - show greedy merchants with big noses - OH THEY'RE JEWS, show greedy merchants with no-noses - oh they are Chinese, ah poor George, he should just leave banking of Galaxy in hands of Hutts. After all there are no more Phoenicians to whine about this.

QuoteOrc = bad/evil thing we must fight, that is representative of defeating the bad/evil within ourselves.

TBH that's very shitty metaphore. It would work well with some really corrupting demons, but slaying random mooks as representation of defeating evil within yourself. That's just bollocks.

QuoteI cannot agree more. And if you give them big noses, a secret language, their own isolated subculture, a penchant for kidnapping and eating children from outside their culture, evil schemes to corrupt the surrounding societies that including tricking the dominant ethnic group into marrying their disguised members... well, those are all hallmarks of antisemitic caricature/propaganda but as soon as you apply those traits to a fictional species then it ceases to be caricature because it's fiction. If any snowflake complains that you're writing thinly veiled antisemitic caricature and it ruins their escapism, well fuck them because they're racists. And snowflakes.

Ok but really no beings we talk about did this bullshit.
And even then yes - u can use straight up racist vision of some people from vision of racists, and use them for fantasy beings.

As one leftists Jew said on very leftist RPG groups on Facebook: All this antisemitic conspiracies could work really fine for RPG, though I'd probably cringe to much as Jew to use them.

Quoteand Predator, written by brothers Jim and John Thomas, that riffs on images of Black men as dreadlocked, violent and superhuman."

I must say Predator had always for some reason Asian feel for me. Like monster-samurai or smth.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on August 02, 2021, 03:26:31 PM

Quote from: Reckall on August 02, 2021, 01:07:10 PM
But I also guess that the writer is confused in a general sense.

Is this one of those times when people are using "confused" to mean "barking moon-bat nuts"?  Or just "retarded"?

:Old Tricorder sound
/Old Tricorder sound

:Attempt at a Lt. Chekov voice

Keptin, Dee rhetorical spectrometer eez peeking pp faint traces uv euphemisium dust in dee air.

/Attempt at a Lt. Chekov voice

Quote from: Wrath of God on August 02, 2021, 04:33:01 PM

QuoteTherefore, anybody who claims Rowling's goblins, Tolkien's dwarves, or Lucas' toydarians share any resemblance to racist stereotypes of Jews is a racist. Describing fictional species in exactly the same way that European colonizers described non-white people is not racist because it's fiction, and anybody who criticizes that kind of language is a racist.

Tolkien dwarves are of course inspired/themed after Hebrew and more widely Semitic people. In other two cases I'm not that convinced. Till last book goblins play no real role in HP world, and even then minor, their looks is well very much how various goblin like creatures were shown through ages and so on. And this boney long nosed form is way more universal than mere stereotypical Jew as it's meant to be sort of mimicing raptor birds of various kind. Uncle Sam in USSR propaganda is excellent example - he is not in any way coded as Jew yet still - long, hooked nose, emanciated features.
Also we should note that... greedy merchant is stereotype on itself. So there apparently  there always gonna be problem with it - show greedy merchants with big noses - OH THEY'RE JEWS, show greedy merchants with no-noses - oh they are Chinese, ah poor George, he should just leave banking of Galaxy in hands of Hutts. After all there are no more Phoenicians to whine about this.

Please, Tolkiens Dwarves are inspired/themed around Scottish people:  They love to fight, they love gold, they love riding on battle pigs and they speak with scottish accents.

Would a jewish dwarf ride on a battle pig?  Thats just not kosher.

QuotePlease, Tolkiens Dwarves are inspired/themed around Scottish people:  They love to fight, they love gold, they love riding on battle pigs and they speak with scottish accents.

Would a jewish dwarf ride on a battle pig?  Thats just not kosher.

Those are all Peter Jackson's heresies and lies

Quote from: Wrath of God on August 02, 2021, 06:41:00 PM

QuotePlease, Tolkiens Dwarves are inspired/themed around Scottish people:  They love to fight, they love gold, they love riding on battle pigs and they speak with scottish accents.

Would a jewish dwarf ride on a battle pig?  Thats just not kosher.

Those are all Peter Jackson's heresies and lies

Now thats racist!

No filthy Kiwis in my Mercian fantasy

I don't believe critical theory.

That said, I've been seeing compelling arguments from both sides. I genuinely don't know what is the right and proper answer.

My gut instinct is that stuff like Volo's Guide's description of orcs using similar language to 19th century colonizers is... well, it's creepy colonialist language. It was originally devised by people who didn't think that certain other people deserved equal rights, or saw them as subhuman because of their skin color. Aka "othering."

In fantasy, you're potentially creating a world in which othering is in fact a true appraisal of reality rather than racist nonsense. There's nothing wrong with creating such a world, but my gut instinct is that it's still really creepy and gross.

I have this same feeling for pre-D&D fiction that depicts colonialist attitudes, such as a lot of pulp fiction. It comes across as creepy.

I'm not saying you can't have monsters. But there's a nuanced difference between "monster" and "other." The other has human qualities, but is arbitrarily denied personhood. The monster lacks human qualities.

On a related note, Here's an article citing multiple points of similarity between the design of the Martian cockroaches in Terra Formars and caricatures of African Americans, as well as other questionable references in the text: https://thekenpire.com/2015/03/17/terra-formars-is-an-obscenely-racist-manga-and-anime-series-but-its-sort-of-hilarious/ This is the kind of extreme example I talked about before. It's so extreme that I can't be sure the comic book isn't satire. Do you think this article makes a compelling argument about the comic, or do you disagree with it? Why or why not?

If these distinctions are lost on you as critical theory gobbledegook... whatever. I'm not invested enough to keep arguing. My prior posts were satirical anyway.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on August 02, 2021, 09:38:40 PM

My gut instinct is that stuff like Volo's Guide's description of orcs using similar language to 19th century colonizers is... well, it's creepy colonialist language. It was originally devised by people who didn't think that certain other people deserved equal rights, or saw them as subhuman because of their skin color. Aka "othering."

In fantasy, you're potentially creating a world in which othering is in fact a true appraisal of reality rather than racist nonsense. There's nothing wrong with creating such a world, but my gut instinct is that it's still really creepy and gross.

Then historical roleplaying is out, and anything based on historical roleplaying is out, meaning you're left with fictional creations that lack any real grounding. They'll tend to be superficial reflections of the modern world. So your choice is between creepy and vapid.