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OF GAMES, REPRESENTATION, AND WOMEN'S CHEEKBONES
Posts
suzy_cheesedreams
1480
suzy_cheesedreams
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CloseOh, I was addressing the implication of condescension and thinking you know what is best for a group of which you have no understanding of their experiences, if you're privileged obviously, and well-meaning rather than plainly bigoted.
I may be missing something incredibly obvious here, but if we agree that the media has the power to shape consumers' thought processes, why don't we represent minority characters as not being treated differently to the majorities? That way, surely the majorities would learn to appreciate minorities as equals?
author=Sooz
If you're not good at communicating effectively in a particular language, you probably shouldn't try to get into complicated discussions in that language.
Also if it's about an insistence on generally accepted grammar rules... Portuguese has p. much the same rules as English about things like capitalization.
I am good at communicating things effectively. But, we have very little common ground, and that makes it far harder to, rather than simplify, write things you can parse. Also, capitalization is an stylistic choice, and one i'm entitled to accept and reject - i'll capitalize within this conversation for convenience, but that's it.
author=Yellow Magic
I may be missing something incredibly obvious here, but if we agree that the media has the power to shape consumers' thought processes, why don't we represent minority characters as not being treated differently to the majorities? That way, surely the majorities would learn to appreciate minorities as equals?
Because some of us have thought about that, tried that, and reached the conclusion than the common narratives are problematic in themselves. That, and given the present social context, they do not account for our differences, and tend to create biased perspectives on our experiences.
author=Yellow Magic
I may be missing something incredibly obvious here, but if we agree that the media has the power to shape consumers' thought processes, why don't we represent minority characters as not being treated differently to the majorities? That way, surely the majorities would learn to appreciate minorities as equals?
Because it is also a reflection of society, and if people see television where gay and trans people are treated as totally equal and never have problems in their life caused by their identity, that shapes peoples' thoughts too. It might perpetuate the myth that everyone actually already is equal, and that anyone who makes a case that their demographic isn't treated fairly is just whining and wants special treatment.
Again, just my take. I'm trying not to contribute too many of my own thoughts into this discussion, as their are people around with more experience with this kind of thing than me.
Alichains
637
author=Soozauthor=LibertyETA:
Honestly, you don't have to write x thing.author=Alichains
It's not even that. It's pretty a naked attempt by bigots to shut down any discussion of bigotry.
OK guys, seriously. Don't do this. If you wanna talk shit about other people in the discussion, do it in PMs or something. Don't stage whisper this shit like you're some cliche mean girls clique. NOBODY is going to change their attitude about you and what you're saying if you're acting like a bald-faced douche.
I apologize. I wasn't aiming that at anyone specific. A nicer way to say it is that the hashtag was meant for dodging discussion and often wasn't as well meaning as many of the people using it might have made it seem.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
Also, capitalization is an stylistic choice, and one i'm entitled to accept and reject-...
Nope.
ifcapitalizationisastylisticchoicethensoisleavingspaces.butweallknowthat'snotokay.notonlydoesitmakeyoulooklessintelligentbutitalso
makesitveryhardtoreadwhatyou'retryingtosay.ifyouwantustoreadeverythingyoupostthentaketheeffortthepresstheshiftkeysowecanreadyourwallsoftexteasier.
If you had a hard time reading the above sentence, then that's my point proven. I want to read your stuff, Mattos, and I'm trying to, so I'm glad you're capitalizing.
EDIT: Oh geez, I found a bug. I guess I'll have to leave some spaces in that sentence, but you still get my point, yes?
author=Solitayreauthor=Yellow MagicBecause it is also a reflection of society, and if people see television where gay and trans people are treated as totally equal and never have problems in their life caused by their identity, that shapes peoples' thoughts to. It might perpetuate the myth that everyone actually already is equal, and that anyone who makes a case that their demographic isn't treated fairly is just whining and wants special treatment.
I may be missing something incredibly obvious here, but if we agree that the media has the power to shape consumers' thought processes, why don't we represent minority characters as not being treated differently to the majorities? That way, surely the majorities would learn to appreciate minorities as equals?
Again, just my take. I'm trying not to contribute too many of my own thoughts into this discussion, as their are people around with more experience with this kind of thing than me.
Worry not, you're on point. In Brazil, for example, we call this the myth of racial democracy. In the US, i believe they call this "But there's already a black president, why are you rioting?"
author=Red_NovaAlso, capitalization is an stylistic choice, and one i'm entitled to accept and reject-...Nope.
ifcapitalizationisastylisticchoicethensoisleavingspaces.butweallknowthat'snotokay.notonlydoesitmakeyoulooklessintelligentbutitalso
makesitveryhardtoreadwhatyou'retryingtosay.ifyouwantustoreadeverythingyoupostthentaketheeffortthepresstheshiftkeysowecanreadyourwallsoftexteasier.
If you had a hard time reading the above sentence, then that's my point proven. I want to read your stuff, Mattos, and I'm trying to, so I'm glad you're capitalizing.
EDIT: Oh geez, I found a bug. I guess I'll have to leave some spaces in that sentence, but you still get my point, yes?
Yes, i do, and yes, it is.
I can capitalize to make it easier to read. If my train of thought is confusing, i can even bold the parts i'd normally emphatize when speaking - i've found that it helps both me and people who read me. But, that doesn't mean that capitalizing isn't, linguistically speaking, a stylistic choice, and that there aren't spaces where i can avoid it. Here, unfortunately for me, i can't. But i can deal with that.
@Sooz: Offshoots are part of a discussion. As long as they don't go on for pages there's no issue. It was brought up in the course of discussion about writing in general and I was addressing the point.
Also, WetMattos, we don't allow double posts in the forums. In future keep in mind that the edit button is there to use in order to add more to a post, okay? ^.^
"But, we have very little common ground, and that makes it far harder to, rather than simplify, write things you can parse."
You don't know that. You can't judge whether have any common ground with someone based on one discussion on an internet forum. That's just silly talk. For all you know others may have faced similar challenges to you in their lives.
Also, WetMattos, we don't allow double posts in the forums. In future keep in mind that the edit button is there to use in order to add more to a post, okay? ^.^
"But, we have very little common ground, and that makes it far harder to, rather than simplify, write things you can parse."
You don't know that. You can't judge whether have any common ground with someone based on one discussion on an internet forum. That's just silly talk. For all you know others may have faced similar challenges to you in their lives.
author=Liberty
Also, WetMattos, we don't allow double posts in the forums. In future keep in mind that the edit button is there to use in order to add more to a post, okay? ^.^
Oh, i attempted to answer too many things too fast, and did not add them all at a same message. sorry, gonna pay more attention to it.
author=Liberty
You don't know that. You can't judge whether have any common ground with someone based on one discussion on an internet forum. That's just silly talk. For all you know others may have faced similar challenges to you in their lives.
People haven't been understanding my vocabulary. This means we do not share the same cultural environment. Ergo, we have very little common ground, in this field. That is a judgement i think i can make.
Ah, that's what you meant. I thought you meant in general, as in "we have nothing on common!!! We shall never see eye to eye!!! ALAS, WE ARE DOOMED TO BATTLE TO THE DEATH FOREVER!!" XD
And don't worry, it's not a serious infraction, just something to watch out for in the future.
And don't worry, it's not a serious infraction, just something to watch out for in the future.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
All of written language is a choice. All of any kind of communication is a choice.
Thing is, within groups, we tend to have mutually agreed-upon ways of communication for ease of understanding.
Stylistically, tumblrspeak is as valid as, say, Standard English, but if I tried writing a newspaper article in tumblrspeak I would look like an asshole because a good chunk of my intended audience can't tell what the hell.
Similarly, if I join in on an excited fannish discussion sounding like Dan Rather* or something, I look like an asshole there because I'm refusing to communicate in the appropriate form.
tl;dr It's not that hard to slightly alter how you express yourself for the sake of propriety.
*I'm old, do kids these days know who Dan Rather is?
Thing is, within groups, we tend to have mutually agreed-upon ways of communication for ease of understanding.
Stylistically, tumblrspeak is as valid as, say, Standard English, but if I tried writing a newspaper article in tumblrspeak I would look like an asshole because a good chunk of my intended audience can't tell what the hell.
Similarly, if I join in on an excited fannish discussion sounding like Dan Rather* or something, I look like an asshole there because I'm refusing to communicate in the appropriate form.
tl;dr It's not that hard to slightly alter how you express yourself for the sake of propriety.
*I'm old, do kids these days know who Dan Rather is?
author=Liberty
Ah, that's what you meant. I thought you meant in general, as in "we have nothing on common!!! We shall never see eye to eye!!! ALAS, WE ARE DOOMED TO BATTLE TO THE DEATH FOREVER!!" XD
And don't worry, it's not a serious infraction, just something to watch out for in the future.
The only people i antagonize are people who have done so to me, be it in content or in discourse. If i thought that we wouldn't get anywhere, i wouldn't be here anymore. Like, i did offer to make a glossary of terms right at my first answer to my thread, i'm still baffled some people feel like i'm not trying to make myself understood.
@sooz, yeah and no? I had a bit of an expectation on how much vocabulary we'd been sharing here, so yeah, probably next time i can start with less complex approaches. But i'm not that into explaining anything to people that disagree without trying to understand? I can't interpret that as anything other than plain antagonism and entitlement, and i don't play that game, period. I mean, i actually had someone invalidating an entire field that they admitely had no real, internal knowledge off in an effort to disprove my point. I've had people talking about the 'reality' in a discussion of social sciences. If this is the approach people are going to take, i'll be going full academic.
EDIT: Also, pardon my language, what in frozen hell is tumblrspeak? As in, you suggesting that that gigantic and heterogeneous collection of people actually have a common dialect? In my dash only, which is a quite small part of the whole, i tend to see at least a dozen of different codes, some of them pretty academic, by the way.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
You don't need to get so defensive. I'm a tumblrite myself. My point is, you can't carry over a "code" from one group to another and expect people to find it acceptable. Particularly in a setting where you're addressing a serious and complicated subject.
IME, it's better to engage people on their own level if you're trying to persuade them. Rather than just repeating what you talk about with the SJ crowd, rephrase it so that your audience understands what's going on, and don't get hostile when they have trouble with it- grasping privilege is a difficult undertaking, since it requires that someone basically accept that everything they understand about life is wrong, PLUS that they have probably unwittingly contributed to a lot of suffering. This, in addition to the fact that even those in a position of privilege in one area have their own problems. (Max McGee, for example, has some pretty serious disability stuff going on.) If you approach by talking about how bad other people have it, all it looks like is "Your problems don't matter, only these other people matter." In such a case, it's no wonder they react with hostility!
If you sense that the discussion isn't going well and your audience is responding poorly, it's generally better to cut your losses and disengage. You're not going to win ANYONE over by escalating.
It's not necessary or helpful to engage in every single argument. It's a lot better to learn to pick where you'll be most effective, and stick with that.
...and on that note, I think I've said all I need to for that subject. I babble too much about meta shit, so I'll wait for more talk about actual character depiction.
IME, it's better to engage people on their own level if you're trying to persuade them. Rather than just repeating what you talk about with the SJ crowd, rephrase it so that your audience understands what's going on, and don't get hostile when they have trouble with it- grasping privilege is a difficult undertaking, since it requires that someone basically accept that everything they understand about life is wrong, PLUS that they have probably unwittingly contributed to a lot of suffering. This, in addition to the fact that even those in a position of privilege in one area have their own problems. (Max McGee, for example, has some pretty serious disability stuff going on.) If you approach by talking about how bad other people have it, all it looks like is "Your problems don't matter, only these other people matter." In such a case, it's no wonder they react with hostility!
If you sense that the discussion isn't going well and your audience is responding poorly, it's generally better to cut your losses and disengage. You're not going to win ANYONE over by escalating.
It's not necessary or helpful to engage in every single argument. It's a lot better to learn to pick where you'll be most effective, and stick with that.
...and on that note, I think I've said all I need to for that subject. I babble too much about meta shit, so I'll wait for more talk about actual character depiction.
I can't contribute too much to this discussion because I don't feel I am knowledgeable enough on many subjects that you talk about here. Also, I really don't have enough time or energy to write down everything I would have liked to point out right now.
There's one thing I want to ask about specifically, though:
You keep expressing this viewpoint frequently in different discussions. Where did you get this idea? Because I at least think it is absolutely untrue. Or, more precisely, it may be true for you, but generalising that idea to draw conclusions about art and artists in general seems like a logical error to me. Why do you think there are so many tragedies, dystopian novels and horror stories out there?
I do not think stories are necessarily expressions of wish fulfilment. As far as I can see, people mostly write about what they find interesting. And I find a story set in a world where there are problems and issues comparable to those we have in reality much more compelling, because I can relate to that and perhaps even gather a new perspective on reality from it. Problems, as annoying and disgusting as they may often be, can be interesting in a fictional context, because they are something we are or should be confronted with every day.
And I think we agree things like poverty, xenophobia and discrimination really suck in reality. But pretending they don't exist in a fictional setting and never mentioning them even in places where one would expect these issues is likely to make your story come across as naive, rather than as aware of those issues. At least, that's how I see it.
There's one thing I want to ask about specifically, though:
author=Liberty
See, the thing is that there is a difference between real life and the world of a book/game. Books/games are, largely, wish fulfilment.
You keep expressing this viewpoint frequently in different discussions. Where did you get this idea? Because I at least think it is absolutely untrue. Or, more precisely, it may be true for you, but generalising that idea to draw conclusions about art and artists in general seems like a logical error to me. Why do you think there are so many tragedies, dystopian novels and horror stories out there?
I do not think stories are necessarily expressions of wish fulfilment. As far as I can see, people mostly write about what they find interesting. And I find a story set in a world where there are problems and issues comparable to those we have in reality much more compelling, because I can relate to that and perhaps even gather a new perspective on reality from it. Problems, as annoying and disgusting as they may often be, can be interesting in a fictional context, because they are something we are or should be confronted with every day.
And I think we agree things like poverty, xenophobia and discrimination really suck in reality. But pretending they don't exist in a fictional setting and never mentioning them even in places where one would expect these issues is likely to make your story come across as naive, rather than as aware of those issues. At least, that's how I see it.
@sooz
Yeah, and no. As in, yup, i do actually agree with most of what you've been pointing out. That said, someone's stance when entering the conversation will determine how i play it out. And i have a very low tolerance for some very specific things - the one about not understanding and yet trying to control the discourse, for example, is a pet peeve.
That aside, did you read the article on that porpentine game? I'm under the impression you haven't finished it, which is okay, but there's a lot of symbolism on that seemlingly erratic piece of work. Like, @liberty suggested downtrodden narratives doesn't help a lot - mostly because it's not us who are doing them, i argue - but nothing had ever touched me more than that game, because it was so much like me. That was a frightening precise depiction of my own reality, and i felt validated because, gaming doesn't have to be only about wish fulfilment, it can also be about walking a mile or two on someone's shoes. It can be about questioning our perception of the world, and learning something new. Gaming can be about whatever we wish them to be, and not all wish fulfilment is the same.
I mean...
@neversilent, this is really a great way to put it. one i wish i had thought of myself? thanks for the contribution :3
Yeah, and no. As in, yup, i do actually agree with most of what you've been pointing out. That said, someone's stance when entering the conversation will determine how i play it out. And i have a very low tolerance for some very specific things - the one about not understanding and yet trying to control the discourse, for example, is a pet peeve.
That aside, did you read the article on that porpentine game? I'm under the impression you haven't finished it, which is okay, but there's a lot of symbolism on that seemlingly erratic piece of work. Like, @liberty suggested downtrodden narratives doesn't help a lot - mostly because it's not us who are doing them, i argue - but nothing had ever touched me more than that game, because it was so much like me. That was a frightening precise depiction of my own reality, and i felt validated because, gaming doesn't have to be only about wish fulfilment, it can also be about walking a mile or two on someone's shoes. It can be about questioning our perception of the world, and learning something new. Gaming can be about whatever we wish them to be, and not all wish fulfilment is the same.
I mean...
@neversilent, this is really a great way to put it. one i wish i had thought of myself? thanks for the contribution :3
Just to add to you, Neversilent.
Aside from your portrayel and the fact that issues are interesting, I for one especially enjoy stories not only portraying problems, but also focus on coping and dealing with them in a healthy manner. I find stories about recovery and growing stronger (not all problems have to be experienced grimly) much more uplifting than any wish fulfillment.
Wish fulfillment is a nice distraction, no question there. But variety is the spice of life, as they say.
Aside from your portrayel and the fact that issues are interesting, I for one especially enjoy stories not only portraying problems, but also focus on coping and dealing with them in a healthy manner. I find stories about recovery and growing stronger (not all problems have to be experienced grimly) much more uplifting than any wish fulfillment.
Wish fulfillment is a nice distraction, no question there. But variety is the spice of life, as they say.
author=Kylaila
Just to add to you, Neversilent.
Aside from your portrayel and the fact that issues are interesting, I for one especially enjoy stories not only portraying problems, but also focusing on coping and dealing with them. I find stories about recovery and growing stronger (not all problems have to be experienced grimly) much more uplifting than any wish fulfillment.
Wish fulfillment is a nice distraction, no question there. But variety is the spice of life, as they say.
I'd argue that, in itself, is also wish fulfillment, for people who live it. Which, in turn, plays in what i've said before: it's not enough to make us 'normal' in the common narrative. You must also address the narrative - in this example, how recovering from trauma and dealing with it isn't seen as an interesting narrative, even though its one we've been aching for.
Possibly. But it also a daily occurence, not just negative impacts. Both sides are interesting.
But not sure what you mean with the "it isn't seen as an interesting narrative" .. why would it not be interesting? Coping with problems is by no means an easy feast. Nor do you just magically feel better afterwards (as it happens so often in games, though)
Seeing shifts in thinking and behavior patterns are interesting to observe, at least to me.
But not sure what you mean with the "it isn't seen as an interesting narrative" .. why would it not be interesting? Coping with problems is by no means an easy feast. Nor do you just magically feel better afterwards (as it happens so often in games, though)
Seeing shifts in thinking and behavior patterns are interesting to observe, at least to me.
