War Room Lounge v53: Short Notice

[Fawlty]

Spoiler: Links to past lounge freds

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Mod Note: This thread is for general conversation and any other conversations to avoid derails in regular threads. If you find yourself going off topic in a thread, please quote the person's post, come in here, click insert quote, and continue on in here. This is also still the War Room. Do not expect OT/Bare Knuckles rules in here.


Odd Note:
"
I relinquish my freedom
for the benefit of others
"
― Anonymous Prolapsed Rectum


"Time to go down to the basement for some more hauntingly delicious...uh...umm...”
― Count Chocula

 

[luckyshot]

Oh, god.

I dislike Billy Joel's music more than maybe any popular music artist in history. It's Billy Joel and Pitbull.

I like Billy Joel. It may be the whitest of my many, many white qualities.

 

[Fedorable]

where's the poll I'll never vote on?

 

[Falsedawn]

You know I don't entirely buy this argument. The fantastic details are the selling point so when we see a movie about dragons we just implicitly accept that its possible in that world. But if someone in a movie with dragons acts really unbelievably, like doing something out of character or just really stupid, then that can hurt our suspension of disbelief more than seeing a dragon or orc or what have you.

In the case of POC that can also apply. If its a vaguely medieval Europe fantasy and there is a black character they can stick out in a bad way. Doesn't mean you shouldn't include them but there should be an internally consistent logic as to why they are there. So if there is a black character among the main cast there should be black extras in the background signaling the diversity of the setting or if there aren't black extras there should be some explanation for the lone one being there, like him being some kind of foreigner who settled there. Many premodern societies were diverse, even their elites, but that should be communicated in some way.

But that said its almost certainly the case that a significant portion of people who complain about this sort of thing are hypersensitive to minority characters in traditionally white dominated genres for the wrong reasons.

The problem is with the justifications imo. Take the meme little mermaid response about mermaids not being black because sunlight. So it can be accepted that fish people exist, that magic exists, that talking animals exist, Greek gods, Greek abominations, species-shifting, the totally overlooked topic of reproduction...but people of color are the line we draw?

If you want to make something with all white people, then make it. But if you're going to call back to history in defense of your argument and a fucking centaur walks across the screen, i'm going to ask questions. It's basically equating the appearance of a colored person as something approaching fantastic when the fantastic is clearly already in play.

In 2006 it was absurd, and in 2019 it's still absurd, even when presented in reverse.

 

[luckyshot]

Anyone want to listen to a Trump supporter talk for 25 minutes about getting his dome caved in five seconds?

If so, you are in luck...


Edit: Ben is cool about it, though. Hespec.

 

[Higus]

You actually like the rey character? I don't care that she is a woman, it's that she is absurdly powerful right from the start. She uses force mind control on a master sith like Kylo without any formal training. IF they had just eased her into it more it would have come out much better.

I don't think people hate women heroes or leads. Take Ripley from Alien and Aliens, she is fucking awesome.

I don't have strong feelings about Rey one way or another. I outgrew Star Wars a long time ago, tbh. I un-ironically enjoyed the prequels, though.
I'm not old enough to know if there was some misogynist push-back towards her back in the day. Having a strong female lead in an action movie was novel back then, whereas today it gets boiled down to a series of tropes. Take a movie like Fury Road for instance. The movie was really good, imo, and it subverts a lot of the common tropes with female characters in movies. Still, there was a lot of push-back from the red pill gang about Furiosa and some people being upset that Max was showed up by her several times

 

[BarryDillon]

Anyone want to listen to a Trump supporter talk for 25 minutes about getting his dome caved in five seconds?

If so, you are in luck...

I never knew Askren was a Trump supporter. Now I'm glad he got ethered.

 

[BarryDillon]

I don't have strong feelings about Rey one way or another. I outgrew Star Wars a long time ago, tbh. I un-ironically enjoyed the prequels, though.
I'm not old enough to know if there was some misogynist push-back towards her back in the day. Having a strong female lead in an action movie was novel back then, whereas today it gets boiled down to a series of tropes. Take a movie like Fury Road for instance. The movie was really good, imo, and it subverts a lot of the common tropes with female characters in movies. Still, there was a lot of push-back from the red pill gang about Furiosa and some people being upset that Max was showed up by her several times

Just take comfort knowing they'll never breed, because no woman would ever lay with them.

 

[Trotsky]

I'm a lifelong back sleeper, which I recently read online isn't that common. Only like 8% of people or some shit.

Ain't no one messing with my butthole when I'm snoozing.

 

[Cuauhtemoc]

Black Achilles is stupid and you know what's worse? There was an actual black hero in the Iliad/Troy

Memnon, and look he actually looks black lol unlike Egyptian statues. He was considered almost as strong as Achilles and he had an epic about him but it was lost. They could make a movie about him with the fragments we have and filling in the gaps.

 

[Gregolian]

I don't have strong feelings about Rey one way or another. I outgrew Star Wars a long time ago, tbh. I un-ironically enjoyed the prequels, though.
I'm not old enough to know if there was some misogynist push-back towards her back in the day. Having a strong female lead in an action movie was novel back then, whereas today it gets boiled down to a series of tropes. Take a movie like Fury Road for instance. The movie was really good, imo, and it subverts a lot of the common tropes with female characters in movies. Still, there was a lot of push-back from the red pill gang about Furiosa and some people being upset that Max was showed up by her several times

The thing I never got about the annoyance with Furiosa was that narrative going around that Max wasn't the main character. Max was 100% the fucking main character. Movie starts with him, him being silent is a huge driving force in Furiosa needing to trust this silent psychopath and an issue in their ability to work together. He's the one that suggests going BACK to the settlement.

The only time Furiosa really outshines him is the fighting against Bullet Farmer cause Max can't apparently shoot for shit and then at the end when he quietly leaves.



I need to watch that movie again. Can't do it while there is a fucking 3 year old running around where I have my TV set up though.

 

[Prokofievian]

Fish have melanin, jus' sayin'.

 

[Jesus H. Sherdog]

Imperial and Orc.

@Falsedawn @Sketch

 

[Falsedawn]

Imperial and Orc.

@Falsedawn @Sketch

So shitty elves basically

 

[Gregolian]

Black Achilles is stupid and you know what's worse? There was an actual black hero in the Iliad/Troy

Memnon, and look he actually looks black lol unlike Egyptian statues. He was considered almost as strong as Achilles and he had an epic about him but it was lost. They could make a movie about him with the fragments we have and filling in the gaps.

Yeah, on the lists of re-casted ethnicity this is the one that makes the least sense to me.

 

[HockeyBjj]

Black Achilles is stupid and you know what's worse? There was an actual black hero in the Iliad/Troy

Memnon, and look he actually looks black lol unlike Egyptian statues. He was considered almost as strong as Achilles and he had an epic about him but it was lost. They could make a movie about him with the fragments we have and filling in the gaps.

Dang. Didn't know that about Iliad

And having some source material for a foundation yet having gaps for creativity that people can't bash for not staying true to the source sounds like a script writer's wet dream

Brand it as the greatest epic never told, and you get historically accurate minority power? Don't kill it by relying on cgi battles and this could do very, very well.

 

[Islam Imamate]

This is why when people complain about the new Star Wars movies, I can dismiss them without a second thought. A saga about space wizards, robots and aliens in outer space, but having a woman fighting a man on equal footing is beyond your ability to suspend disbelief? smh

If Rey was twelve would you feel the same way? Can't be too hard to believe a twelve year old can keep up with an adult male because of space magic right? But still, wouldn't those fight scenes look like shit with a twelve year old actor?

The problem with the justifications. Take the meme little mermaid response about mermaids not being black because sunlight. So it can be accepted that fish people exist, that magic exists, that talking animals exist, Greek gods, Greek abominations, species-shifting, the totally overlooked topic of reproduction...but people of color are the line we draw?

If you want to make something with all white people, then make it. But if you're going to call back to history in defense of your argument and a fucking centaur walks across the screen, i'm going to ask questions. It's basically equating the appearance of a colored person as something approaching fantastic when the fantastic is clearly already in play.

In 2006 it was absurd, and in 2019 it's still absurd, even when presented in reverse.

Centaurs and dragons in fantasy generally have an internally consistent logic for their existence. The same should apply to human populations. You shouldn't make half your cast under 4'11" without an internally consistent explanation.

Even if you have an internally consistent reason it can still stand out. A good example of this with white people would be having Matt Damon star in a movie about the Great Wall of China or having Tom Cruise star in The Last Samurai. Even if there is an explanation in the film as to why that is its still obviously done so as to make the films palatable to a general audience in America. So seeing them pulls you out of the film and makes you aware of the meta concerns of the film studio. Another example are random Chinese actors in Hollywood blockbusters like King King; more discerning film goers will immediately be aware of their presence as part of the studio's strategy to appeal to the Chinese audience.

But again to be fair I acknowledge that some people make these kinds of objections for the wrong reasons. If you get bothered by a POC in a medieval European setting but not white characters in Oriental settings that suggests something to me.

 

[Gregolian]

Another example are random Chinese actors in Hollywood blockbusters like King King; more discerning film goers will immediately be aware of their presence as part of the studio's strategy to appeal to the Chinese audience.

The most blatant example:

 

[Limbo Pete]

Dang. Didn't know that about Iliad

And having some source material for a foundation yet having gaps for creativity that people can't bash for not staying true to the source sounds like a script writer's wet dream

I was at an exhibit on Pompeii a while back, and some of the recovered artifacts included sculptures/artwork of very obviously African people. It was pretty interesting.

 

[Gregolian]

Keanu Reeves in 7 Samurai was BBBAAADDDD too nevermind the studio/producers took an awesome real life story and turned it into a Japanese/Chinese smash up of this:


The whitewashing of this was bad too:


You have Jaime Lannister fighting fucking Law Abiding Citizen..... as Egyptian Gods.... like... wtf