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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Malmuria" data-source="post: 8500026" data-attributes="member: 7030755">Culture changes slowly and unevenly.  It's not the case that racism is either super intentional white supremacy or not; there's a vast middle ground where most of culture operates, where certain language, tropes, or representations are taken for granted as permissible until people do the slow, careful work of unpacking their meaning and history (the trope of the "savage, primitive native," for example).  Fantasy, by virtue of its fantastical nature, further insulates itself from change.  You still see this line of reasoning today--'It's just fantasy, and just a game'--as a way of deflecting criticism.Hate crimes against minorities still happen in these days, actually!  And, at least in the US and UK, are increasing.  But the fact that there is such explicit violence going on around us doesn't mean we aren't also concerned about representation in popular media.  Culture is layered and complex in that way.  Further, there is a connection between the low-grade, everyday implicit (and sometimes unconscious) discrimination that you might face and those more extreme hate crimes.Personal reflection: this conversation is interesting for me because I grew up in the 80s, a child of south asian immigrants.  We loved the same things you loved, for example Indiana Jones.  But we didn't watch Temple of Doom more than once; you can tell when your culture is being caricatured, you just don't have the ability to do anything about it because no one cares.  Similarly, I loved the Simpsons.  I was Bart one year for halloween.  But even being little, I turned my brain off during the Apu sections.  It's easy to know when you are being mocked.  Was Temple of Doom or Apu the worst of our problems?  Certainly not!  But it doesn't mean we didn't notice.</blockquote>

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