Ripple Effect of D&D's Statement on the Rest of the RPG Industry?

[Tun Kai Poh]

Also, Verhoeven's films.

I'll buy that.

For a dollar.

 

[teitan]

WotC is trailing Paizo on this.

I was about to say the same thing though WOTC isn't going to the same lengths as Paizo. To do so would require a complete overhaul of the core rulebooks.

 

[teitan]

Maybe. Even in the fairly ideal world of Star Trek, the various versions of the Enterprise and crew still discovered and/or battled with plenty of alien species that were not as advanced in thinking/culture/peacefulness/etc as the Federation. Just look at the Klingons as an example and how they changed over the decades of shows and movies. As open-minded and everything that Roddenberry was, do you think the Klingons weren't a stand-in for any real-life Earth cultures or peoples?

They were the Russians and the Romulans were the Chinese. Star Trek was as much a Cold War analogy as it was a Utopian ideal.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

They were the Russians and the Romulans were the Chinese. Star Trek was as much a Cold War analogy as it was a Utopian ideal.

Except they seemed to have a thing for casting black actors as Klingons, or darkening the skin of white actors for the parts. Which one is worse in that circumstance, I do not know. I dread the day some of these people with nothing better to do catch some of those episodes from the original series.

 

[teitan]

Except they seemed to have a thing for casting black actors as Klingons, or darkening the skin of white actors for the parts. Which one is worse in that circumstance, I do not know. I dread the day some of these people with nothing better to do catch some of those episodes from the original series.

I would say neither because its a portrayal of an alien species.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

I would say neither because its a portrayal of an alien species.

That won't mean anything here in the US, where the current thing is to find anything that looks like blackface and try to have it removed. An episode of The Golden Girls has been removed because two of the women are wearing mud masks, not even actual blackface.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Except they seemed to have a thing for casting black actors as Klingons, or darkening the skin of white actors for the parts. Which one is worse in that circumstance, I do not know. I dread the day some of these people with nothing better to do catch some of those episodes from the original series.

and

That won't mean anything here in the US, where the current thing is to find anything that looks like blackface and try to have it removed. An episode of The Golden Girls has been removed because two of the women are wearing mud masks, not even actual blackface.

It’s not really a grassroots thing. Are there some people protesting these? Sure. But a lot of what is going on there is entertainment executives trying to get out ahead of potential controversy...and screwing it up because it isn’t what most people are asking for.

Part of THAT is because the American Entertainment industry has done a very poor job of listening to people asking them to address the long (and continuing) history of whitewashing minority characters AND actual instances of black/brown/red/yellowface. I mean, it’s better than it was, but there’s still work to be done.

Ideally, I’d hope that minority entertainers who’ve done whiteface- Eddie Murphy, Dave Chappelle, etc.- would speak up and point out the very real differences between real, problematic instances of blackface and what some are mistakenly looking at.

 

[teitan]

That won't mean anything here in the US, where the current thing is to find anything that looks like blackface and try to have it removed. An episode of The Golden Girls has been removed because two of the women are wearing mud masks, not even actual blackface.

Yeah it's been a bit extreme I agree. Most people consider it way over the top and it's just trying to prevent controversy until everything settles down. I believe, unlike Song of the South, that these things will be restored in a few months time. I pray eventually we get to a point where we learn what's appropriate (Slavery memorials) and inappropriate (confederate statues of questionable providence). Also learning that a subject should be understood as a part of its time and context and what made some men remarkable like Washington and others. Even something as blatantly racist as Song of the South is important culturally to understanding and has a place, within the proper context and educational purposes beyond "don't do this".

 

[teitan]

and


It’s not really a grassroots thing. Are there some people protesting these? Sure. But a lot of what is going on there is entertainment executives trying to get out ahead of potential controversy...and screwing it up because it isn’t what most people are asking for.

Part of THAT is because the American Entertainment industry has done a very poor job of listening to people asking them to address the long (and continuing) history of whitewashing minority characters AND actual instances of black/brown/red/yellowface. I mean, it’s better than it was, but there’s still work to be done,

It's people of primarily European descent still not listening. I get the feeling, I have had Christians, upon discovering I was once Jewish, heap praise on "your people" and how without "Jews" we wouldn't have Jesus in some sort of apology for centuries of being blamed for the crucifiction of Christ.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Yeah it's been a bit extreme I agree. Most people consider it way over the top and it's just trying to prevent controversy until everything settles down. I believe, unlike Song of the South, that these things will be restored in a few months time. I pray eventually we get to a point where we learn what's appropriate (Slavery memorials) and inappropriate (confederate statues of questionable providence). Also learning that a subject should be understood as a part of its time and context and what made some men remarkable like Washington and others. Even something as blatantly racist as Song of the South is important culturally to understanding and has a place, within the proper context and educational purposes beyond "don't do this".

There are better ways to teach those lessons than airing Song of the South, though. Without going too deeply into it, a goodly amount of American History as taught simply glosses over the bad. Even with Black History Month being a thing for decades, some people (of all ethnicities) are only this year hearing about the Tulsa Massacre...not to mention the literal dozens of other massacres and similar events, like the levee bombings of 1927, the killing of black politicians after the a Civil War, or the defrauding of Black farmers and GIs (and the stuff that happened to other minorities as well).*

Personally, I‘d rather see less emphasis on putting film, music, sculpture, etc, in their proper context and more emphasis in actually teaching the context. Most non-bigots will agree that things were bad and got better. But currently most people don’t understand HOW bad things were, nor that some truly nasty things haven’t ended yet. IOW, most people are only looking at the surfaces of the issues- until you start digging deep, those wounds aren’t going to heal well.




* And I bet you’d find a similar downplaying of the bad in most countries’ scolding schooling history curricula.)
Edit: “scolding“ was a typo!