WotC Dungeons & Dragons Fans Seek Removal of Oriental Adventures From Online Marketplace

[Hussar]

Yeah, that image:

Pretty nicely encapsulates everything wrong with OA.

 

[Danzauker]

I get back in the discussion because i found this post interesting.

There is a part of me that gets worried though about people using the defense of "free speech" and "art" to defend things. Especially in a manner that seems so... sweeping and apathetic. And by that I mean, defending it and making no calls to do better in the future.

I was never for the banning of the book, but I was for an agreement that the content was bad and that the company needed to acknowledge that and the fact that they were still profiting from it. But, the very idea of asking them to do better in the future was met with resistance because I was infringing on art, freedom of expression and creativity.

I'm going to go out on a limb here with an admission that I read porn. Quite a bit of it. Some of it is trashy and simple and not really worth my time. Other works are ugly, horrible and disgusting and I wish I had never seen them. And still other works are beautiful and a bit transformative of my thoughts and feelings on certain subjects, because they were handled in such a compelling and interesting way for me to consider new thoughts in new ways.

And under certain sections of subject matter, I've read all three. It was not the content, but the handling of the content which elevated the work.

So, this idea that I can't tell an artist or a company "this isn't right, you aren't handling this subject matter well, please do better" because I am then going to open the doors to the death of art... I don't get it. Criticism has never killed art. Calls to improve ourselves should not be met with hostility and responses of inaction. Yes, some people will never be satisfied, but using that as an excuse to dig in our heels and never try and move forward... it seems to be the wrong approach to me.

I think the point here is that criticism is quite different from integralism. I read many people just say: you can't do this. Even if it's art and fiction (I guess we all agre that it would be a different matter if we were talking of a political speech).

Criticism is always due and welcome, and a wise author will surely listen to it. If he wants, of course. integralism does not leave you choices.

I'll male an hyperbole. years ago author Salman Rushdie wrote a book that was considered offensive in regards of Islam. A literal bounty was put on his head, because he offended someone's culture. Was it right? Weren't the people offended honest and passionate in defending their religion?

OK, I'm sure we all agree that the punisher they wanted delivered was excessive (to say an understatement), but, let's assume it was just removal from stores and destruction of the book. would it be good then? Where do we start to draw the line between controversial material and outright integralism?

You make an interesting analogy with porn. Porn is controversial. Some kind of porn go into subjects and tastes I would find outright disgusting. Still, you CAN make art with porn (cfr. Moore's "Lost Girls". I didn't personally like it, but it's highly rated by many people). If all porn were banned because it's offensive, nobody could.

Same with other offensive material, such as racism. Christoph Waltz's and Di Caprio's characters in Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained were racist as hell, but I think they were wondeful characters. And viewing the movies I don't really think made me any more racist than before. actually, quite the opposite.

Thats' why you have labels on movies and stuff. You do not want a kid watching porn, even if artful, because he's not a sufficient developed mindset to process it. Same with horror and violence and any mature content.

Of course he isn't the villain of his own story, of course he thinks what he said is correct. That doesn't mean that comparing the two people and their actions is anywhere close to the same thing.

I have no idea who this Fred Phelps guy is, but by the torture and burning comment I think I can take a good stab here at an analogy.

Comparing the two people as saying things you disagree with, in this manner, is similiar to comparing Al Capone to a man accused of jaywalking and littering. Heck, to a person accused of stealing a nice car, taking it for a joy ride, then parking in the persons driveway.

One is a brutal mobster who is likely responsible for a lot of death and terror. The other person committed a crime that is really more of an inconvenience than anything else. Both broke the law. Both went to jail. But saying they are the same sort of criminal really misses the point hard.

(I don't know who thus Phelps is, either)

I assumed the reasoning on the poster you are referring to is exactly that. There are shades in the real world. Capone is miles away from a car thief. Just as the level of offence of a fantasy book written decades ago is different from police brutality or segregatiion or beatings in real life.

But i'm just interpreting somone else's thought so I might be wrong and i don't want to go deeper.

 

[Hussar]

Same with other offensive material, such as racism. Christoph Waltz's and Di Caprio's characters in Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained were racist as hell, but I think they were wondeful characters. And viewing the movies I don't really think made me any more racist than before. actually, quite the opposite.

See, though, here's the kicker. The characters were not justified were they? They were the BAD GUYS.

The issue that's being discussed is that there are elements in the publication history of D&D where racist elements are not cast in that light. They are seen as justified and good. To use the OA example, it's perfectly acceptable to depict an East Asia where the only culture that matters is Japanese culture. Like our Panda Samurai above, it's incredibly tone deaf and wildly inaccurate. It reduces a rich and very, very long history down to one tiny corner and then presents that corner as the whole.

It's like saying that Sicily is the entirety of European history and culture. If it's not part of Sicily, it's not important.

 

[Danzauker]

Yeah, that image:

Pretty nicely encapsulates everything wrong with OA.

If this image really represent everything that's wrong in OA then we can pretty much remove the warning advice from the PDF and be done with it.

Because, frankly, I don't see ANYTHING wrong about it.

There are pandas. Dressed in Japanese attire. Seriously?

I guess we all know that pandas aren't autoctonous animals in japan, but, still, seriously?

It's a fantasy picture representing (I guess) a fantasy world with 2 antropomorphic and presumibily sentient characters? And we want to nitpick about the fact that pandas are animals that in the real world live in China?

That's exactly the kind of overreacting behaviour I'm frightened of.

 

[Danzauker]

See, though, here's the kicker. The characters were not justified were they? They were the BAD GUYS.

The issue that's being discussed is that there are elements in the publication history of D&D where racist elements are not cast in that light. They are seen as justified and good. To use the OA example, it's perfectly acceptable to depict an East Asia where the only culture that matters is Japanese culture. Like our Panda Samurai above, it's incredibly tone deaf and wildly inaccurate. It reduces a rich and very, very long history down to one tiny corner and then presents that corner as the whole.

It's like saying that Sicily is the entirety of European history and culture. If it's not part of Sicily, it's not important.

In art you don't really need justification. There are many examples in all kind of literature of interesting characters that are the bad guys. If you can't discern yourself what's good or bad in a fictional book without someone telling the problem is on you, IMO.

 

[Aldarc]

In art you don't really need justification. There are many examples in all kind of literature of interesting characters that are the bad guys. If you can't discern yourself what's good or bad in a fictional book without someone telling the problem is on you, IMO.

How familiar are you with the discourse in the fine arts?

 

[Danzauker]

I've found it interesting while promoting our latest book, Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters, I've seen a noticeable overlap in people who (a) complain about the concept of cultural appropriation and (b) were really concerned that we might try to stat Jesus in our book (we don't, BTW). It's almost like cultural appropriation is OK until it's one's own culture and then suddenly it's a problem. I'm sure if I "misused" an American flag, they'd be all up in arms.

Since Jesus was jew and with all probability dark skinned, and the majority of classical depictions has him blondish and caucasian, well that might constitute the number 1 case of cultural appropriation in history.

Jokes aside, my stance is exactly this. All cultures, all people are equal. Same rights, same duties. If you think it's ok to fictionalize cultures, you must be ok for your culture too.

 

[GreyLord]

I've found it interesting while promoting our latest book, Mythological Figures & Maleficent Monsters, I've seen a noticeable overlap in people who (a) complain about the concept of cultural appropriation and (b) were really concerned that we might try to stat Jesus in our book (we don't, BTW). It's almost like cultural appropriation is OK until it's one's own culture and then suddenly it's a problem. I'm sure if I "misused" an American flag, they'd be all up in arms.

I see people encouraging you to do so in the thread.

I'll say instead, you made a wise move from what I've seen in not including certain things. This is probably NOT the time to stir up controversies (just my personal opinion...of course).

Certain mythological figures are going to be difficult (for example, the one cited could both be seen from a European Christian perspective, but it also has deep Jewish implications of culture and appropriation in many regards, which I would consider to be a possible minefield at present). Unfortunately, there are many creatures that fall into mythology that cross cultural barriers and could also create difficulties in writing them in a way that are inoffensive (for example, Ogre Magi in their general representation in D&D and such).

Good Luck with the Book.

 

[Danzauker]

I don't think you are accurately describing gangster movies.

1) Before the godfather a lot of media about the mafia wasn't made by or even starred Italian people. And there were plenty of mob movies after the Godfather, where the writers or the stars were not Italian (even in the Sopranos, some of the actors playing Italian mafioso are Jewish for example). And even in the Godfather a large bulk of the cast isn't Italian (including Brando himself who played the title role, and James Caan, who played Sonny).

2) A lot of negative tropes are grounded in real life events. That doesn't make associating Italian people with the mafia any potentially less negative (which is why there is a reliable minority of italian americans who decry Sopranos and games about the mafia).

3) I think your point that "stories about Italian American crime families never assume that every Italian American is a criminal", has a number of problems. For starters media featuring asian characters doesn't do this sort of thing either, but in both instances the genre tends to focus on the stereotype. But still, if you watch a movie like Goodfellas (which is my favorite of the lot), pretty much all the Italian characters in that film are involved in crime, associated with the mafia in some way, or benefiting from it). If one used movies like Goodfellas and The Godfather to form their understand of Italian Americans, it wouldn't be good. I think the position most of the pro-gangster film folk would take is that the Godfather and Goodfellas are not the problem, the problem is people thinking that a movie should form their understanding of something like that, or people who just think what they see in the movies is a model for real life.

This: "The goodguy Italian Americans are both informative, and a narrative contrast to heighten the strangeness of the criminality" simply isn't true. That is a trope from older gangster movies (you see it way more in films made by non-Italians where the gangsters needed to get their just deserts in the end for their bad behavior, or where the moral message of the film needed to be crystal clear. By the 70s though, you have a lot more moral gray. Who are the Italian good guys in the Godfather? Their people like Vito Corleone, who is still a mobster, still kills people, but just doesn't traffic narcotics (the bad Italians in that movie are trying to bring in the drug trade), and Michael Corleone, who kills his own brother in part 2. The first movie, and the book, basically just appropriates the war in heaven and Satan's fall, and brings it to a mobster landscape. But the 'good guys' are not at all your traditional good guys. And the same goes for a film like Goodfellas. Henry Hill is just the least sociopathic of the gangsters in that movie. The best thing we can say about him is he never actually kills anyone. But if you watch the movie enough, you also realize that he is an unreliable narrator and probably has in fact killed people (that is my reading at least at this point). And in the Sopranos even the good Italians are caught up in the criminal life of Tony and his crew. Artie Bucco isn't exactly someone to look up to (he is mostly depicted as a powerless and pathetic). The respectable Italians, like Tony's golfing buddies, are all snobs who find entertainment in things like mafia hits (which is why they even want to interact with Tony in the first place). When you are watching a gangster movie, you are there to get a glimpse into this strange and interesting underworld of criminals, and escape from the monotony of a more stable life. But you are not there to root for the good guys, and few viewers need the guy Italians in there to contrast with the bad ones.

I agree.

Some posts (well, pages now) ago I was told it was not so good to associate Aztecs with ritual sacrifices. Yet it's a negative trope that's grounded in real life events. The rationale should work for everyone.

 

[Hussar]

If this image really represent everything that's wrong in OA then we can pretty much remove the warning advice from the PDF and be done with it.

Because, frankly, I don't see ANYTHING wrong about it.

There are pandas. Dressed in Japanese attire. Seriously?

I guess we all know that pandas aren't autoctonous animals in japan, but, still, seriously?

It's a fantasy picture representing (I guess) a fantasy world with 2 antropomorphic and presumibily sentient characters? And we want to nitpick about the fact that pandas are animals that in the real world live in China?

That's exactly the kind of overreacting behaviour I'm frightened of.

The fact that you see nothing wrong with this is probably the source of the issue.

Hrm, the national animal of China, long the symbol of China and things Chinese, being paired with weapons and paraphernalia from a culture that, well, historically, has been someone at odds with China. Fifty years of forced labour, millions of deaths, a shopping list of crimes against humanity, tends to leave the population with something of a negative view of their oppressors. And, having some American come along and cluelessly glue the two together, well, it might be somewhat of an issue.

Kind of like dressing up bald eagles with swastikas and jackboots and then claiming that there's nothing to worry about here.