If done well. That's the key - whether serious or silly. The GotG films are my least favorite of the MCU movies, not because I'm humorless but because I don't love the wink-wink, nudge-nudge kind of humor. I love Robert Downey Jr's humor, not so much the raccoon. But it was done well enough that I still liked the films, and I understand why people like it. If they can emulate GotG, sure. But its a fine line.
As you say, it needs to be done well regardless. Serious or silly if it is not done well it doesn't work.
And while you may not like
Guardians of the Galaxy a large part of WHY they work is the humour. Because having a talking raccoon carrying heavy artillery and a walking talking tree is inherently silly and if you just play it completely straight faced it just does not work.
People have to get past the desire to laugh at the absurdity. You need to give them an outlet. And if the movie doesn't give them a way to defuse that tension and laugh with the film, then they're going to laugh at the film.
You can't just throw a beholder or mind flayer on the screen and not have people laugh and the goofy looking monster. If you have such a scene played straight people will laugh at the wrong time.
You need to have the joke where the character give the audience an opportunity to laugh and break the tension before things can get serious again.
Also, again, this will be a commercial popcorn film. Show up, set brain aside, and be entertained. Humour is required.
Inherent means "existing in something as a permanent, essential, or characteristic attribute." By saying it is "inherently racist" you are saying that the mere idea of a dark-skinned evil race must be, always has to be, and is no matter what, a racist idea. That is simply illogical.
Problematic because of how people might interpret it based upon their associations and historical context? Absolutely.
The question then is "will it ever be okay to have an all white group of protagonists facing savage dark skinned opponents" without racism being invoked?
Will casting dark skinned people as "the other" not be racist?
Well, slavery has been over for 150 years in the USA. And 180 in the British Empire, which expanded from the slavery trade being somewhat banned 210 years ago.
And yet racism is still very much an issue.
So it will be problematic for the rest of my lifetime. And probably my son's lifetime. And very likely my son's son's lifetime.
So, yeah, it is functionally inherent. For all intents and purposes it IS inherent. While it may not actually be permanent in terms of human history, the idea of an evil dark-skinned race being racist will certainly outlast Western society as we know it. And probably tabletop gaming for that matter.
And...? First of all, you are judging GG in the 70s with an interpretive lens from 2018. Secondly, you are foisting your own value system onto it, as if one inherently must take a certain approach to such issues, or else be consigned to be racist.
What I find troubling is that you are implying that an artist must self-consciously adjust their art to fit whatever the current social-political outlook du jour is, or else be considered racist (or whatever).
I am not saying that one shouldn't be sensitive and aware. But I also worry when we start changing our art just to make sure we have all our boxes checked.
Do artists need to adjust to the "current social-political outlook du jour"? Yes. Or they have to get used to continually defending their work from critics.
People need to evolve and grow with society or they become the racist old relative who makes family dinners awkward.
The racism of casting orcs and other non-human monsters as dark hued savages is not a recent revelation. C.S. Lewis wrote on this a good decade before D&D was published. And prior to that, criticism the pulp fantasy of the '20s and '30s pointed out the heavy racist tones of much of that literature.
Even
not judging Gygax with a lens of 2018 standards it's pretty easy to see he viewed gamers and the hobby as the purview of white males.
Women and people of colour just don't really exist for most of 1st Edition. He was notably surprised to see female gamers at conventions. It's not that he was racist. It's just that he lived in a little white suburban bubble and didn't consider people not like him. That was outside his experience.
And because of that, he wrote and created things in his world that can be pretty clearly seen as racially insensitive or even intolerant. Even back in the day.
D&D is filled with white imperialism. The basic nature of the game (venture from civilization into the lands controlled by savage dark skinned inferiours that you kill and take their gold) has heavy shades of colonialism.
Keep on the Borderlands is basically the a miniature of the white conquest of North America.
To say nothing of the orientalism in
Pharaoh,
Rahasiai, or
Day of Al’Akbar.
I have no attachment to Gary as the Sacred Founder, and based upon what you say here I'm guessing he and I would not have been sympatico politically speaking. Who cares! But the problem here is that you take the "woke paradigm" as your default, unquestioned assumption. It is a paradigm, an outlook, based on academic social systems theory. It has value, but it is not objective fact and despite what many/most of its adherents (converts) think, it is not above criticism. And of course what is "woke" today will look myopic tomorrow. Hopefully!
So while I don't disagree with your take on Gary, I don't like the implication that any perspective varying from the "woke paradigm" equates with being "unaware." This is just another way of saying, "If you disagree with me, you're wrong" or worse yet, "If you disagree with me on matters of race and don't buy into the woke paradigm, you're a racist." This is an endemic attitude, I'm afraid.
Being "woke" means being aware of social issues. So, yes, being "not work" DOES equate with being "unaware".
And, no, not being woke does not make you a racist. But it does mean you might unintentionally say or do racist things. Or at the least continue to participate in existing systemic racism.
Gygax was very, very likely wholly unaware of most social issues. Despite coming to age in the '60s during the height of the civil rights movement all that likely passed him by.
Heck, this thread (and others likely it) always have more than a few people questioning why drow are effectively racist. If so many gamers in 2018 are still unaware of these problems, what chance would Gary have had in the 1970s? Very likely he'd join the numerous other pop culture icons of his age questioning #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter. Like Shatner was the other day...
