To the Team.
Comments
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I apologize. I sometimes understand not every word of a message. Probably because of the language barrier since english is not my mother language.
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The OP is on the first page.
The only reason to bring up TLOU2 in the context of his complaint is in regards to having non-binary characters as that is the only characteristic about that game that links it to his general complaint. Are you trying to tell me that he brings up TLOU2 in the context of a complaint about representation as a "bad game" for other, unrelated, reasons and it just coincidentally happens to have a non-binary protagonist? Right.
The only examples of representation "done wrong" provided in the OP are two TV shows who are "pushing an agenda." Whatever this 'agenda' consists of is never explained or demonstrated beyond the meme slogan which itself doesn't really have a bearing on anything except to criticize the concept of wider representation. Probably because the 'agenda' is, "hey guys, gay people exist and that's ok. Look, here's one don't be afraid." And I don't particularly care if people feel like that message is being forced on them, because it's important. LGBT people in real life don't get to loop around pallets when the monster is chasing them.
You have to either be extraordinarily charitable and/or not very good at reading for comprehension to ignore the bigotry in the OP - this "citation needed" nonsense is pedantic misdirection. Yeah, it's more "I'm not racist but...." than all out rabid foam at the mouth stuff but give me a break. Try this - imagine BVHR said "all of our characters are white so we are going to make an effort to introduce other races" or "all of our characters are dudes so we are going to make some female characters" and put the OP's argument in that context.
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Glad you understand, and while yes, people can be prideful for being LGBT and it can even contribute a little bit to their personalities, but being LGBT is not a personality (or at least it shouldn't be). I don't like it when people classify people as "the gay guy", or "the bisexual woman" etc. as there are much more to them than that.
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Hating a character, even someone just because his sexuality is to me the pure meaning of stupidity
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Tokenism is a real concern and if we were discussing an issue with how BVHR implemented wider representation and not whether they should, this would be a different conversation.
However it's also important to remember that we're dealing with a video game already pretty light on characterization whose whole deal is to capitalize on horror tropes. None of the characters are much more than vague stereotypes, really, and it seems odd to me that there's a sudden outpouring of concern that potential LGBT characters won't have depth and nuance when that isn't a requirement for anybody else.
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Going to try to make a point that has nothing to do with whether or not inclusiveness is good or bad.
In real life people are made up of their experiences. Everything that a person experiences from the moment they are born make them who they are. Real life people have a lifetime of experience to define them.
Created media like movies and games and television are completely different. These characters come onto the screen with their history already written (or not) and are introduced to the audience as is. Writers have to determine how to get the audience to like or dislike a character very quickly.
What has been happening in the last few years, is that writers have been relying on shallow personality traits rather than story. Batwomans whole deal was she was lesbian. It was such a huge part of her character, the actress playing makebeleive also had to be lesbian. The character had zero redeeming qualities. Had no sense of right or wrong. No hero journey throughout the series. She was gay. She was proud. You had to accept it. Many many Didnt. Not because she was lesbian, but because Thats all she was. Nothing else.
Ghostbusters remake. They were women. Thor was an idiot. That was the whole movie. It wasnt funny. They took a classic movie wrote a scrappy script. Made the lead characters women. And expected everyone to love it because of the brand name.
Black Panther. Was touted as the greatest film of all time. The first black superhero solo movie. It was neither great nor the first. It was a good movie. But it was sold as this amazing theatrical release and the main point. Wasnt story. Wasnt characterization. It was that he was black.
TLOU2. From what i understand, they retconned the relationship between Joel and ellie. Which the ending of 1 should have been the plot of 2. Between Joel and Ellie. Not someone else. Yes ellie was gay in the first dlc. No one cares about that. Why? Because she was a fully realized character and the whole of her being wasnt that she was lesbian. She felt like a person.
There are so many more examples. Look at the comic book industry. Its barely holding on. Mainly because they hired for inclusion rather than talent and the stories and characters are nothing more than shells of what they were.
I think what people are afraid of happening, is that DBD is going to become a game full of characters with no story other than their skin color, their sexuality, their gender, Instead of giving us just enough information to flesh out a personality and story in our minds.
Hope this doesnt offend as words are not my strong suit.
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@csandman1977 This isn't offensive but I do think you are considerably exaggerating. These new characters aren't any more or less shallow than the previous ones (in general, anyway - bad writing does exist of course) they just have personality traits and characterizations that are unfamiliar and unrelatable to you, so they feel shallow and you don't get the jokes.
Remember the first time you saw a movie that starred a straight white guy? For most people, that would be the first time they saw a movie and has pretty much been every movie since. For a white guy audience, there are so many assumptions and characterizations that don't have to be written because you already share that experience.
Black Panther may not have been the greatest superhero movie for you. But it was the first Marvel movie to star a non-white superhero and that does make a difference to a viewer who does not have "straight white guy" as their life experience when watching the movie. All of those unwritten and unconscious assumptions and characterizations were now open and available for a wider audience to appreciate. Yes, for you - just the same old same old Marvel stuff. But that's because every other Marvel movie was made for you. For people not like you, the vast majority of movies period might seem shallow, unfunny, or stale - just another show/game/movie about a white guy with straight white guy problems.
The reason it seems like these things are just about being a lesbian or being a woman or being black is because for you that's the thing that seems out of place.
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No worries, it's understandable. Walls of text get kind of confusing sometimes. :P
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Still waitin' on that quote. Otherwise I assume you're just trying to put words in the mouth of OP.
He says that there's other media that does it wrong, and lists those as examples. To assume what he means beyond that is nothing but your imagination, and unless you want to find me a quote where he's saying what you're telling me he's saying, you can just stop right there lmao
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talks about this should be calming down in a few days. This conversation started because June is pride month.
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Starting off. Don't presume to know what i am. Labeling people by opinion is not right. And often is completely wrong. Like when Joe Biden basically told people that if they voted for Trump, they weren't black. You have zero understanding of my thoughts on anything but this one post and my thoughts on DBD.
Next and these are in order of your points, Batwoman, and i will focus on this one due to its the most recent and aggregius example. Her character simply put was nothing more than her being lesbian. There was zero character development. The supporting cast was there to basically prop up Kate and tell her she had no flaws. Why? Because she was nothing more than a prop the writers used to idolize their beliefs. She wasn't 3 dimensional. She was lesbian girl power and nothing more. And no. I dont relate to a character when their is nothing to that character that is possible to relate to. For comparison lets look at Magna from walking dead. Shes lesbian. But her character while not focused on very much, shows growth, and history and yes shes lesbian but she is much more than just lesbian. Shes human. Not saying lesbians arent human. Dont take that out of context.
Movies. I dont watch many movies. But when i do I watch for the story. I skip all but the most mild of sex scenes. (Anything more than kissing i turn off) In my youth i was different of course. But the lesbian scenes always piqued my interest make of that what you will. Now when i watch a TV show, its for the story and the characters. I dont have to relate to a character to enjoy them. Raymond Reddington. One of the best characters on TV. Also going back to walking dead. Magna. Yumiko. Aaron. All gay. All good characters. Why? Because even though they are gay, they are fully realized characters. People are more than their sexuality. Take away those characters' sexuality and they are still whole people. Take away Kate kanes sexuality and she has nothing left. That is the difference.
Black panther. You are correct. I Didnt find it to be the best movie ever. My opinion. Others may disagree. What it wasn't was the first marvel movie starring a black character. Blade came before it. I would say in my opinion Blade is better. I enjoyed it more. Black Panther was more political. I watch movies for entertainment not politics. Dont get me wrong, I have nothing bad to say about it. My problem was with the hate that people received because they Didnt agree with the hype.
And while we are on the topic, marvel movies werent made for me. If they were, they never would have been made. Did i enjoy them? Sure. Mostly. Doctor Strange sucked. But the others were good. Some were really good. Why were they good? Because they dealt with entertainment. There goal was to entertain people and make money. And they did.
And lastly I will address the insults. People like me? What does that mean? Because I will tell you this right now. I dont give a rats ass what color someone is. What gender they are. What they choose to do with their bodies. None of that is how I choose to label people. Not how I choose who i like or not. I never insulted anyone. All i did was attempt to shed some light on a topic in an attempt to open discourse.
But you assume im a straight white male, screaming from the rafters of my privileged mansion. That I refuse to see anyone elses point of view. If you knew me you would know how wrong you are. Instead you see my opinion that doesnt match yours so im just a ciswhite male whos opinion is wrong because Im a bigot and a -phobe.
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Ya kno ellie was gay in the first game, yet ppl felt they should have played half the game as ellie, and half the game as joel. it has nothing to do with sexuality bud. It came down to them expecting us to take a liking to a character brutally murdering a character we actually cared about. And then the result of that was the other character we cared about (The gay one) suffered PTSD following that event. Not to mention. Abby is a straight female... Your whole argument is just kinda stupid tbh.
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I assumed you were a straight white dude because your post is an exact example of the perspective that doesn't understand why representation is important even if the media portrayal isn't perfect, deep, and complex, or the context of historical over-representation of straight white dudes.
For that, I apologize. I have no idea if you are actually a straight white guy. But that's exactly the perspective you shared, whatever your background is. Please don't take that as an insult, it's not intended to be. Straight white guys are totally cool, and those who aren't straight white guys but share their perspective are too. We can just call it the "privilege perspective" and not put the background connotation on it. No insult is intended.
What I was trying to say is that it's still important to have media representation even if it's not perfect. So you didn't like Batwoman because you thought her character was boiled down to lesbian and that's it. Well, how ######### complicated does Batwoman have to be, she's a comic book character. You've got 100 different one-note portraits of Batman/Superman/Iron Man/Thor/Spiderman/etc upon etc and I don't see anyone crying about how "ugh, Batman, right - it's allll about his privileged hetero masculinity amirite?" Yet the moment a hero turns gay or a woman or black, that's the big knock - "fine he/she's gay/female/black. We get it already stop shoving it down our throats." Sometimes, they're going to do it badly and have to be able to fail in the same ways that cisgendered media is allowed to fail.
When I said "people like you," I was only referring to people who share your perspective, which is fairly common. People like you who don't understand (or disagree) that representation at a basic level is important have plenty of non-representative media to fall back on. People like you who don't understand why it is a big deal that Black Panther is black and why that makes it a "better" movie aren't suffering because of the effort at diversity or that praise because of it.
Do you see what I mean? It's not that you can't see other points of view or that you're a jerk - far from it and I'm sorry that's the impression I left you with. It's that you're assigning the problem with these things as a result of their representative diversity, not that they're bad for the same reasons straight white guy media can be bad. Batwoman isn't very good. But it's not bad because she's a lesbian it's bad because it's poorly written and doesn't give the character(s) enough depth. Just like literally any other bad superhero show/comic/movie.
Post edited by JustCats on2 -
Not sure why everyone is so butt hurt over a character in this game being a member of the LGBTQ community... it’s not gonna take time out of bug fixing or implementing new content. It’s just representation, people pick a character that they like either for their cosmetics or their personality. It’s not gonna affect the game at all. You’re either gonna like it and pick the survivor thats LGBTQ, or you do nothing about it. If a character being gay doesn’t make you feel right, then I don’t know what to tell you other than cry about something more important and stop being homophobic
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You need me to read the OP back to you? Okie dokie.
"I made the choice to check on some DBD news knowing that the event was close and I discovered a letter from the team discussing "equal representation" and "giving sexual orientation" to the characters. Now IMO this is a poor move by the team because of the RPG element that this game currently has... "
OK, so here we go. Introducing greater representation is a bad move because this game has some unspecified RPG elements. Which means he does not want the Role of a gay person when he Plays this Game.
"maybe BHVR you can do this right but it has been done wrong many times before, the latest example is "The Last of Us 2", the players hate this game. "
The players hate TLOU2. We have not discussed any issues like writing, gameplay, etc, etc. We have only discussed representation and diversity as a general concept to be a potential problem. TLOU2 has a non-binary protagonist. The players hate it. The only reasonable conclusion to draw here is that OP thinks the players hate it because of that representation.
"Another example is "Batwoman" the tv series on CW. the batwoman tv series is an example of the saying "get woke, go broke", in just one season the show lost 1million viewers because of how hard they pushed the agenda."
How else does one read 'get woke, go broke' than to say if you prioritize representation, you're doomed to failure. Again, he is making the suggestion that the show failed because they pushed an unspecified agenda, which, considering nothing has been shared to be problematic except the general concept of representation, that the "agenda" is just that.
"I really don't want to see a game that I am trying to get back into become a "Batwoman" or "TLOU 2" and seeing that letter set off a red flare telling me not to play because of where this game could be going, neither batwoman or "TLOU2" show "equal representation" please don't be like them!"
Now, TLOU2 and Batwoman could not be any different in terms of critical and commercial success, style, and substance. The only real comparison or through note is the fact that they have non-binary protagonists. That's it. So don't be like them and have non-binary protagonists.
Nothing cherry picked, that's literally every sentence in order of the relevant section of the OP. I'm not putting words in his mouth, I'm taking them at face value. I'd ask you to provide a quote from the OP where he says something different, but that's everything he said.
Post edited by JustCats on2 -
"Now IMO this is a poor move by the team because..." = "I don't want to play the role of a gay person" in your mind.
"maybe BHVR you can do this right but it has been done wrong many times before..." = "TLOU2 has a non-binary protagonist. The players hate it. The only reasonable conclusion to draw here is that OP thinks the players hate it because of that representation" in your mind.
Are you starting to see the pattern here? If you don't, I don't know what to say to somebody like you.
I think it proves my point well enough.
That's why I asked for a quote. You can't find me one where he's saying what you're saying. All you can manage is to pull up a quote and give me what you think he's saying. You are the exact type of divisive person I was referring to earlier that we don't need in this kind of conversation. You are a prime example of what people talk about when they say "pushing an agenda." All you know how to do is water things down to the most extreme degree so you can try to apply your dogma to it. That's what ruins media. That's what's being complained about here.
If you can't recognize how utterly disingenuous you're being, then I have no further reason to reply to you. Get real.
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Yeah man, it's not rabid foam at the mouth explicit bigotry but it also doesn't appear to be a ######### mystery what he's saying. He could probably do with a little more effort to writing with clarity but if you took something significantly different from what he is saying I'd love to hear it.
If you don't mind can you please tell me what agenda I'm divisively pushing? Or what my dogma is? If it's that I'm generally very encouraging of attempts to increase an awareness of representation and diversity in media, OK, guilty as charged and I'm sad that's somehow divisive - but I don't think I'm the problem. If it's something else though I'd like to know, especially if it is actually nefarious. I've always wanted to be part of a conspiracy.
Also, right back at ya as far as being the exact wrong person to be involved in this kind of conversation. This kind of pedantic "but he didn't say exactly this or explicitly that" is tiresome and just serves to distract from the actual conversation we should be having. It's awfully clear what the guy meant to say. He doesn't want chick Ghostbusters. I've heard the same argument a million different times said a million different ways. Getting nit-picky and parsing sentences so we can cut the issue down so specifically that the conversation's not about anything meaningful anymore just turns it into an argument over style rather than substance. I don't care about the ######### trees, dude, look at the damn forest. And yes, I know he never mentioned Ghostbusters anywhere.
Read for comprehension my man, and try to apply a little bit of sophistication to your analysis. You write intelligently enough to be better than this kind of toddler-esque "I didn't touch your arm, I touched your shoulder" kind of argumentation.
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Yo I somehow forgot to address the bit about me.. watering things down but also taking them to their most extreme at the same time somehow so I can apply my... dogma (?) to it and how I'm ruining media but honestly I do not have the tinfoil context to know how to respond to that. But just so you know I did read it and I do hear you. I just don't know what you're talking about.
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I bought FF7 remake and I hate it.
F***in ghosts ruining my nostalgia.
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tbh I'll never be able to understand people that gets upset because the official sexual orientation of a fictional character does not equal their own expectations/wishes.
Ever heard of AU? Or AO3? That's all I gotta say to this topic. But I never cared much about canon anway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And regarding your side note: I see your point, but I've never ever seen anyone use these cosmetics anyway. I don't even like them much and probably won't use them anyway, because I have better ones. But I think it is not a bad thing, because finally some people actually are using some of these cosmetics. I agree they could add them to the store instead of giving them for free, but then everyone would complain about the "money milking". Doesn't matter what they do, there will always be people complaining. And who am I to complain about free cosmetics?! Also, I didn't had a chance to get these cosmetics because I couldn't play during that time due to vacation and I'm happy that they made them available.
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So uhh refocusing, if they do decide to gay up a few characters, whats the best approach to this?
Dwight is hipster trash. He'd make a perfect gay. All his pride outfits can come out the same day he does.
How about Jake? Naw, too obvious making the Asian guy gay or trans.
Nea is big gay. She already has the **** haircutsssssss.
Latina Oprah needs her own version of Stedman.
Post edited by Tactless_Ninja on0 -
Lol. We are actually agreeing. Your last paragraph is exactly what im trying to say. There is nothing wrong with inclusion and representation. The issue that I and the vast majority (my opinion) of people have isnt the representation. Its the representation above everything else.
Why have Batman, superman, Spiderman, wonder woman, captain America, Thor etc been around so long? Because behind the powers. Behind the costumes, they are human. And yes there have been poorly made books and stories with all of them. And if you look at sales and ratings, those stories make less money.
With everyone of those characters, you can change gender, sexuality, race and the core of those characters dont change. They are still the same characters. THAT'S what makes a great character.
Kate Kane in the comicbooks was a lesbian. She was a well received character if im not mistaken. Kate Kane in her own show sucked. Why? Because the writers decided that the biggest and most important thing about her, wasnt her character. Wasnt her journey. Wasnt her flaws or weaknesses. It was she was lesbian. With that show, change the fact that shes lesbian and that character doesnt exist.
You are right. Im not lesbian. I dont look at characters and say hey theres a straight/gay/lesbian/whatever and decide whether i like that character or not. The story. The person. The whole of a story is what i like.
What i want, (and i beleive almost everybody else wants) is story with representation. NOT represntation above story.
Does any of this make sense?
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