Gender Diversity / Politics in games (was Tropes Vs. Women)

[ZOK]

JG Ballard was always right about everything, so people had better watch what they say.

[Spacehost]

I thought Star Wars being criticised for being pretty lightweight as far as SciFi goes when it came out was common knowledge? There's still a while generation of tedious beardy fucks who don't forgive it for dumbing down the genre in the cinema after the 50s-early 70s.

[Alex W.]

While I was digging around on this I turned up a nice contemporary Washington Post piece about how Star Wars fit into a post-Vietnam America.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1977/12/11/the-politics-of-star-wars/e5e845ea-e843-48cd-bf93-5cc38fe3b2b4/

Also a piece in the New Republic which has a familiar pop at the movie for failing to engage with Big Political Ideas, and ends with something reminiscent of Gamers Are Over.

https://newrepublic.com/article/125424/innocences-star-wars-iv-a-new-hope-review-stanley-kauffmann

But I saw at last—after about, say, 20 minutes—that Star Wars wasn’t meant to be ingenious in any way; it was meant to be exactly what it is. From Lucas’s view it certainly has not failed. I kept looking for an “edge,” to peer around the corny, solemn comic-book strophes; he was facing them frontally and full. This picture was made for those (particularly males) who carry a portable shrine within them of their adolescence, a chalice of a Self that was Better Then, before the world’s affairs or—in any complex way—sex intruded. Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers and their peers guard the portals of American innocence, and Star Wars is an unabashed, jaw-clenched tribute to the chastity still sacred beneath the middle-aged spread.

People do think about these things.

[NEG]

There's probably a piece comparing Star Wars to Big Macs and Double Quarter Pounders with cheese.

[deerokus]

You can directly blame Star Wars for the success of Michael Bay.

[Alex W.]

Some days I blame baryogenesis for Michael Bay but I don't think either is actually culpable.

[TehStu]

Samuel Delany's review of it is pretty great too

http://samueldelany.tumblr.com/post/82806452407/samuel-delany-reviews-the-first-star-wars-movie

https://justpaste.it/kh1p

Cheers for that, I stand corrected. As an obsessive (of the whole thing), I hadn't read or heard of those comparisons before. Hard to disagree with it though, and it's always interesting going back to films that were a product of their time. Watched Mary Poppins recently, as the kids haven't seen it before. Aside from the military references which kids probably won't get these days, the whole scene at the start with the dad coming home, and the poor wife wanting him to help with selecting a good nanny this time. Don't know how you miss this stuff before, although if nothing else, this GG thing has made me considerably more aware.

Anyway, Star Wars is definitely sci fi lite of course, but that's not necessarily a bad thing (and "we" collectively shat on his attempts to make it more serious).

Edit- having also read the Ballard one,

The most one can hope, I think, is that the technical expertise now exists to make a really great s-f film. Star Wars, in this sense, is a huge test-card, a demonstration film of s-f movie possibilities.

I hope he enjoyed Blade Runner.

[Alex W.]

Anyway, Star Wars is definitely sci fi lite of course, but that's not necessarily a bad thing (and "we" collectively shat on his attempts to make it more serious).

Yes, the reasonableness of these observations doesn't really change the fact that they're missing the stylistic point of the movies. Although they do put them in the relevant context.

[Unofficial Who]

Some good stuff by Laurie Penny here about the changing face of pop culture.

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/film/2015/12/what-do-when-youre-not-hero-any-more

There's so much good stuff here but to grab the bit that I suddenly understood when seeing Poe the hero pilot in Force Awakens

The people who get angry that Hermione is black, that Rey is a woman, that Furiosa is more of a hero than Mad Max, I understand their anger. Anyone who has ever felt shut out of a story by virtue of their sex or skin colour has felt that anger. Imagine that anger multiplied a hundredfold, imagine feeling it every time you read or watched or heard or played through a story. Imagine how over time that rage would harden into bewilderment, and finally mute acceptance that people like you were never going to get to be the hero, not really.

Then imagine that suddenly starting to change. Imagine letting out a breath you’d held between your teeth so long you’d forgotten the taste of air.

[Danster]

Uhm... Hermione?

[Alex W.]

In one of the stage productions of Potter that's going on, Hermione is black. Apparently she was only ever described in the books as having frizzy dark hair and dark eyes.

[b00dles]

In one of the stage productions of Potter that's going on, Hermione is black. Apparently she was only ever described in the books as having frizzy dark hair and dark eyes.

Although this is true, it's quite clearly balls that JK didn't intend her to be a swotty english 'rose' type character, the name itself is very upper middle england and considering the almost singular asian person in the book has a name that might as well be 'token' in that she's called Cho Chang, I still think she was 'written' as a white girl.

Not that it matters a jot and why not cast her as a black girl, I just think it's giving JK too much credit to assume she intentionally wrote the character as "race less"

[Uncle Mike]

I don't think anyone's particularly ascribing raceless intentions to JK here. I think they're just pointing out that it's not made explicit anywhere. Not that that should prevent it either, mind you.

[PaB]

Although this is true, it's quite clearly balls that JK didn't intend her to be a swotty english 'rose' type character, the name itself is very upper middle england and considering the almost singular asian person in the book has a name that might as well be 'token' in that she's called Cho Chang, I still think she was 'written' as a white girl.

Not that it matters a jot and why not cast her as a black girl, I just think it's giving JK too much credit to assume she intentionally wrote the character as "race less"

I don;t think Rowling has claimed any such thing has she? Only that she approved of the casting and thought it was "clever" to take advantage of the fact that no description beyond hair and eyes was given.

[b00dles]

Oh right, that may well be true, I heard about it third hand and chinese whispers made it out as though she was claiming that it was intentional.

After reading this thread I shouldn't have imagined that someone had turned a no doubt quite innocuous comment from a woman into being some sort of "I'm considerably better than yow" type statement.

Apologies.

[Dudley]

Not that it matters but people tracked down descriptions of her being white pretty quick in the books that apparently JK Rowling forgot about.

Doesn't mean you can't change that for the stage quite happily of course, it was never part of the character except of course for the fact pointed out above that Hermione is an incredibly "white" name,

[Mr Cochese]

Maybe she was born black, but now identifies as white.

[PaB]

it was never part of the character except of course for the fact pointed out above that Hermione is an incredibly "white" name,

I'm not sure that's true. That would insinuate than there is a typical "black" name. Which I think may be true for some parts of the US, but in the UK I don't think we have quite the same level of ghettoisation

[Harsin]

Did they ever explicitly state Ron's skin colour.

What I'm saying is that I want a Weasley who looks like Simon Phoenix.

Even better if they can get Wesley Snipes.

[Camel]

Weasley Snipes.

[b00dles]

I don't remember loads of troll, orc and goblin slaughter in the books myself.

Let alone at a planet level.

Or that might have been a gag... Although I do think that the films skipped out on a lot of the very good friendship/ relationship/ teen angst stuff that was in the books but I imagine a lot of that was due to running time and the fact she seemingly was being paid by the word as the books went on and she started wittering on about all sorts of stuff.

[Festoon]

Harry Potter never really gives the audience time to reflect on the loss of life and morality (or lack thereof) of murdering all those trolls, orcs and goblins. They're just background scenery to the characters who really matter: Harry, Ron and Hermione.

This doesn't even work. If it was LoTR it might.

What a numpty.

[Mr Cochese]

You might be thinking of Lord Of The Rings there. Harry Potter is not that murder heavy until the last one, when it inexplicably turns into Gears of Wand.

[Rev]

Harry Potter never really gives the audience time to reflect on the loss of life and morality (or lack thereof) of murdering all those trolls, orcs and goblins. They're just background scenery to the characters who really matter: Harry, Ron and Hermione.

There's a very fine line between posting utter bollocks and trolling.

[PaB]

I don't think they murder anyone throughout the entire series of books, or films for that matter.

[John0]

What about Fred/George? (I can't remember which one)

[Fry Crayola]

That was bungled.

[Danster]

They zipped it up pretty quick.

[PaB]

What about Fred/George? (I can't remember which one)

Oh the "baddies" murder people for sure. But the heroes don't . Except one, but that's more of a pre-arranged killing as opposed to a murder.

In any event I think HP is one of the few franchises that has action sequences and battles and goes through an entire series whereby the actual killing of someone is really quite rare

[John0]

Oh the "baddies" murder people for sure. But the heroes don't . Except one, but that's more of a pre-arranged killing as opposed to a murder.

In any event I think HP is one of the few franchises that has action sequences and battles and goes through an entire series whereby the actual killing of someone is really quite rare

Ah right yeah, I see what you mean.