It is a Hong Kong action genre so I haven't seen anything like that. There is one where they go to Vietnam from Hong Kong.
Obviously though, for the audience to get behind the main characters usually the violence will either need to be justified or humorous if isn't justified. In Heroic Bloodshed usually the main characters have a good reason for wanting revenge or wanting to wipe out a kingpin, but they also often aren't great people themselves.
I am not advocating for making a movie about a white racist fantasy of killing black people, so please let's at least focus on what I am saying. I am saying violence can be artful, and that content of a movie doesn't equal message (a movie might show a white character killing a black character, but that isn't necessarily glorifying it). It all depends on what the movie is trying to do. Take the violence in the Hateful Eight. That is pretty grim violence, but it also is riddled with humor and all the characters are despicable to some extent. Yet you find characters to root for in it.
Now if someone makes a movie that is essentially a racist diatribe, of course reacting to that is fair. I am saying let's be charitable and fair though in interpreting each work. Instead of "if it doesn't do it this way" or "If it does this" then "its bad" lets take each movie and work on its own and try to decipher what the creator's were seeking to accomplish. Again, as with Piss Christ. You could easily say as a rule artists should never show a sacred figure desecrated by human extrement. That is an argument that would probably be easy to make and people would be reluctant to speak against it. But if artists don't have the freedom to explore things in the way the piece demands, you don't end up with stuff like the Piss Christ.
Right, see you always say exactly the correct thing. Obviously the context matters, obviously we need to look through and judge the work not just lay down blanket rules... and we've done that. We've judged the work. We looked through what was trying to accomplish and said "... you know... that doesn't quite work anymore"
Why is violence against Orcs or Goblins okay? Because they are evil. Why are they evil? Because we wanted to commit violence against them so we made them evil. It is a circle. And it is an unneccessary circle. It doesn't accomplish what we want anymore. So we are moving past it to something that DOES accomplish what we want.
The problem with Racism against half-elves is multiplicative, but a segment of it is that no one is racist towards Aarcrockra, Dragonborn, Goliaths, Firbolgs, Centaurs, Tabaxi, Leonin, Satyrs, Genasi, Gith, Giff, Gnomes, Halflings, Harengons, the list goes on and on and on. And it is really weird to be perfectly fine with a cat-man, a hippo-man, and a bird-man, but see a half human, half elf and go "oh, they don't really belong here". So, the element is no longer doing what we want. And if your response is "but I could add racism against those people" then you can add it against half-elves, no problem.
Half-Orcs existed 85% simply because you couldn't have a playable Orc. No we do, so 85% of their purpose is gone.
And even with ALL of this... we are just saying it isn't going to be explicit in the core books. That's it. Not that we shall hunt you down and burn your dice if you DARED to do this at your own personal table... just that we don't want to see it in the core books. There is no universal rule suppressing your speech, just an agreement that these things are no longer needed.
Sure the needs of a movie are different than a game. RPGs benefit from a core activity because you need to have something to do each week at the table. Being able to throw orcs at the party is useful. Mixing it up is also useful.
It is always useful to have a scapegoat. Doesn't mean it is right.
I don't think action movies need to punch up. The first John Wick movie was barely doing that at all and it is my favorite. And he was killing people over a dog, so the rationale for his righteous anger was a little thin in my opinion. Also his quest for revenge resulted in the deaths of people who had nothing to do with the dog, and his continued escalation of things in the later movies resulted in people being killed who didn't need to be. Also he is a murderer. I think if you examine John Wick like he was a real person, the is a lot there to say his actions aren't justified, no matter how much punching up he is doing (he is still killing people). But that doesn't matter because it isn't real life, it is art. And John Wick is an example of how you can make violence beautiful and create a whole criminal underworld that feels deep and interesting around that violence.
1 man vs an entire criminal empire. Pretty sure the power dynamic was firmly against Wick.
Why not? I've seen plenty of movies about revenge against bandits that worked wonderfully. Lady Hermit is all about the quest for revenge against Black Claw Demon who murdered one of the protagonists friends and exploits the local population. Any group should be able to serve as villains in a movie, even the downtrodden.
"A master swordswoman recruits two students to help her defeat the evil Black Demon." So, that sounds a lot like Wick. And looking at a trailer, I see multiple massive groups of well armed warriors, and multiple castles. Ah yes, these lowly bandits who are living in a CASTLE with an ARMY and matching uniforms.
I think the term you were looking for is Warlord. Which means that he wasn't exactly one of the downtrodden. I've certain never seen a man sitting on a throne, surrounded by a loyal army, and thought "wow, what a downtrodden individual"
You are absolutely free to say what you want about this stuff. But people are also free to call into question any criticisms you make. And if these kinds of criticisms start gaining traction in the culture and it leads to things beyond the critique that people don't like, they have a right to complain about it if they want to (particularly if it starts becoming about asking for products to be taken down, demanding certain things not appear in a setting, etc)
Okay fair, but this gives weight to my point
What product have we demanded to have taken down? I certainly can't think of anything that we demanded to be taken down. As for demanding certain things not appear in the setting... yes. Again, you are pointing to the goal of protest and saying "but this is bad!"
I don't protest to have racist language taken out of the books for it to not happen. I don't demand change so that everything can remain the same. You are basically saying "protest is fine as long as it doesn't lead to any changes" which is nonsense.
I know I tend to go to extreme examples, but a few years ago there was a politician who made a political ad basically calling for the murder of his political rival. People protested and it got taken down, he got removed from comittee seats and lost power and prestige. Should we wring our hands and say "b-but, we are censoring his freedom of speech! We are chilling the political conversation!" Or should we be glad that it turns out threatening your colleagues with death isn't something we always allow? That you can't just do that and face no repercussions?
And yes, I know none of these examples are as serious as a death threat, but the point should be obvious. We protest to enact change. Enacting change is not the enemy. No matter how hard-lined you want to be, making it unacceptable to say or do certain things is the entire point of society. It is not okay to make death threats. It is not okay to murder. It is not okay to steal. It is not okay to be bigoted. Is all change good? No, can't say it is. But you haven't demonstrated that this change is bad. You just assert it is bad, and that we should feel bad for leading to these changes.
Again, half elf isn't a racist slur. Sure some extreme content is still being made. In fact extreme content seems kind of easier to make than stuff that is nuanced and complex but veers into dangerous territory because the extreme releases will find an audience with people who are part of a backlash against the trend. But I would not say free expression is alive and well at all. I've seen different levels of it over my life and this is not a period I would describe as a good one for art and free expression.
I wouldn't say it is a great one either, lot of people being attacked for being more inclusive and open and taking down traditional ways or expressions of doing things for something fresh. But it is happening, and as long as it is happening, your fears of it not happening are fairly well unfounded.
And while I don't think they removed half-elf only because it had some racist overtones (which it did as you were shown earlier in the thread) but mostly because the half-orc was REALLY BADLY RACIST, in truly obvious ways, and now they were including the orc and didn't need the half-orc. And why just inlcude only the half-elf and nothing else? Especially since there has long been a question of why we don't include other mixed species. They gave us a way to do so, and it took away the need for a mechanical half-elf.
I think it is leading us there. This is somewhat subjective. But I find it hard to look at how things are in the RPG community how they are for media in general, and not say we are at least closer to something like we had in the 80s when parents groups and the religious right were outraged over media content they didn't like. Granted it isn't coming from those groups anymore, but I mean there hasn't been a shortage of controversy over movies people thought were awful, RPGs, etc. It is practically part of the marketing for these things now.
And I don't. But you keep beating that drum, and other than "but the 80's!" you don't provide any proof. And in fact you keep ignoring proof to the contrary. Heck, this isn't a newer phenomenon just because of the 80's, the Sistine Chapel was protested because it was seen as sacrilegious. And that doesn't improve your point about the dangers of protest, because those people LOST the argument.
There is always a discussion, there is always a debate, and having that debate doesn't mean the death knell of art and the removal of all beauty and interest. And if you agree with that, stop the doom saying about how we are trying to make everything bland and suppress art.
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