I don’t think you have made this case. TV, movies, novels, etc they have all been subject to this trend. I think anyone paying attention to the culture sees that. It doesn’t mean movies never depict difficult things. Some do. Some depict difficult things currently acceptable. But you clearly get the sense that there is a deep chilling effect on what is permissible. And plenty of people industries have commented on how this is the case.
Man. I must be utterly blind. According to you, I don't pay attention to games, books, movies, or television culture.
Instead of "plenty of people" how about you give examples. Heck, since we are now talking about movies and television, someone probably made a public statement. Give me that, since as a public statement you don't need to worry about anyone unfairly being drug through the mud.
I think it is very obvious media has grown more full and predictable in the past five to ten years. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some subjects that media has expanded its views on in a good way. But even then the prioritization if wholesomeness and radiating a message, I think has just made that content boring too.
Media has always been predictable. It follows tropes and patterns. It isn't more predictable know than it used to be.
Again I can’t comment on a medium I have zero experience with since the early 2000s (and even then I didn’t play much). But my view as a writer and as an appreciator if media, is let creatives explore topics, don’t leap to conclusions because it sounds awful, and if it is awful avoid it. I am not interested in deciding what should and should not be considered valid art or valid subject matter
And I am, because I am interested in making a better world. I'm interested in allowing people to express things that AREN'T just "we hate other people because they are different" and even to allow them to express that, even in fiction, "We hate others because they are different" is wrong, and not necessary.
First line never said you can’t say anything. I have been very clear I value free expression and that includes the right to critique. But I also don’t think we should set the bar inwhat is culturally permissible around preventing bad people from claiming artistic protection.
Why not? You can't use "but it is just art" as a protection for making something that promotes the ideals of hatred towards other people for their differences. Can you make that art? Sure. Can you sell that art? Sure. But you can't say "this is art, so I am beyond criticism!"
I think human rights are very important. And so think free expression is central to protecting the rights we have and expanding rights. And that’s why you should value artistic free expression because the tools (whether they be law or simple online trends) we establish for restriction art, will eventually be used by the people you don’t want using them to silence the people you want to protect.
Fear mongering and false. Sure, people try to use the "you won't let me be a bigot, so that's oppression too!" line, but it doesn't work. There is no threat that people will use our ability to criticize art for promoting hatred to turn around and remove our ability to create art expressing acceptance.
I think the whole culture war is sad. I don’t drink so I don’t care if the bud light spokesman is a trans person or Kid rock (personally I wish people drank less beer), but I think the culture war is out of control if people are firing guns to protest a beer commercial. Also free expression needs to go both ways. People calling for a beer commercial to be taken down are being censorious (and that is the thing since have been speaking against the whole thread). People shouldn’t be afraid of a beer commercial
See, the thing is though, I don't care if they call for it to be taken down. They are just exposing themselves in the process. "I hate this type of person so they shouldn't be allowed to do this thing" is a pretty clear message to me about the type of individuals they are. Protest away.
Where I get a problem with the "both sides" part of this, is that people like me are just being critical, while people like that are threatening violence and death. And sometimes people on my side cross that line, and I would call them out for it, because violence doesn't help. But it is our message of accepting people that is going too far, it is our message that gets constantly met with this barrage of "but what if you make it like the bad old days". And that is probably because those people on the other side are actually sad those "bad old days" stopped, so it wouldn't really be a vaguely threatening statement for them.
I am in an interracial marriage. It isn’t new to include interracial couples in media (I remember the Jefferson’s having such a couple gif example) but I am glad it is more common, however it is more complicated than you are saying. Like I said there have always been the right wing reactions to us, but more recently we’ve encountered more negative reactions from the left too. So I don’t think if you ask all interracial couples they are optimistic just because we appear in more commercials. Also look at things like Star Wars. They clearly intended Finn and Rose to be a couple. But they threw that story arc in the trash can (I assumed for fear of the global market but that was just my guess)
I don’t understand why you think I’d want to reverse course on this. My complaint isn’t about more interracial couples appearing in commercials
You can have progress in these areas and still have an issue because you aren’t allowing other things now deemed bad (even if they aren’t bad but just sometimes get mistaken for bad). And you can have a good message but a singular focus on that message can interfere with making work compelling. It can lead to things like putting your subject matter in a pedestal or making characters that are overly idealized. This happened to me with a game dealing in Christian themes. I tried too hard to maintain a message in keeping with the the theme and ended up with something vanilla and too message oriented. So took a break and returned to strip a lot of that out and restore rough edges to it.
My main complaint here has been about putting parameters on what is acceptable. It hasn’t been that so think there are too many diverse characters or something like that. Again, that stuff should be acceptable. Like I said before, if someone wants to make something like coyote and crow, great, I think that is cool. But I also think dark sun with slavery in it and half elves of evil orcs are also okay.
Edits for typos
Man, what kind of world we live in where "isn't a bigot" is making someone overly idealized. Because of course, I've never really seen any sort of arguments here about getting rid of violence, or anger, or greed, or selfishness or cowardliness, or really any individual flaws (remember, the racism in the game is all on the species-wide level).
But it gets back to this bizarre slippery slope. You think if we take out the racism, then the violence is next, and then the greed, and then there is no conflict. All because we dared to take out the racism and tumble down the slope. Of course, we took out the sexism (mostly) a long time ago... and it took near fifty years to get to the next thing. so, I mean I guess in two hundred years we might have completed that slope, but man I hope the world of two hundred years into the future isn't still dealing with much of the crap we are dealing with,
