Burn wrote:Sabrblade wrote:Though, sadly, Burn retired some time ago. He's not on forum staff anymore.
Cheers
Regardless, that wouldn't exclude me from simply laying down the lay and not expressing my opinion, that was one thing that frustrated me a lot about being Admin, I had to enforce the rules and keep my own opinion to myself.
And I'm absolutely sick to death of people running their mouth off about "political correctness", "social justice" "keyboard warriors" "SJW's" etc etc etc so you'll have to forgive me for taking a stance.
This whole "the main human characters are black so clearly Hasbro is doing the WOKE thing hur hur hur" is blatant BULLSHIT and RACIST and it's time it was called out for that.
That is a MAJOR oversimplification, and also flat-out wrong. The problem isn't "Black characters in my TF cartoon!" (again- Animated and even, as much as I disliked the pacing and story, Prime did representation SUPER well). The problem is "Every single main human character is black with the sole exception of ONE Filipino character (who is so poorly designed it's hard to tell he is) and the white villain. My biggest gripe (aside from the fact I cannot see this thing selling well, which ultimately doesn't affect me) is if this was the other way around it'd be torn apart as white supremacy or something. An entirely white family (with one token minority) and the only black character being a villain would set off alarm bells, and for good reason. So why should we excuse it when it's the other way around? It's just lazy.
Who cares what ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or whatever the human characters are? Why is that even an issue? It's not to me, as long as there's a good story and good characters then that's all you should need.
Generally I agree. I just think the people behind this have more on their mind than "telling a good story". It might be something as innocent as "I think this will be good representation" and a genuine desire to do "good". I just don't think it works.
But no, there are certain members of this website who disguise their blatant racism and at times sexism behind the "GO WOKE GO BROKE" argument because they believe they're the majority and will garner sympathy for it.
I mean TBF, genuine "woke" politics are rancid; the mindset that gives birth to stuff like bonafide EXTRAORDINARILY racist black supremacist Tariq Nasheed's, uh, unique creative output. I'm not saying Earthspark is falling down that rabbit hole but given the trend towards it in recent years, I can certainly understand paranoia about it.
That **** needs to be called out.
So I did.
And I will not apologise for doing so either.
Then expect to be called out without apologies yourself, because what you said was completely out of line.
I want this topic on track as much as First-Aid does, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let bigots have their say and not be called out on it.
And here we go. "If I have a tantrum and harass people, it's because they're bigots and are evil and I'm right." Believe me when I say this: I have fallen into similar versions of this trap SO many times it isn't funny. But it doesn't get anyone anywhere. Let's assume the people you're arguing with are ACTUALLY bigots and not just regular people who hold a point contrary to yours: Do you think "calling them out" like that is going to change their or anyone else's minds? Because it's not. It's just going to cement their opinions on you, and possibly turn people against you- either neutral onlookers or even people on your side.
A "bigot" is someone who holds strong and often uninformed opinions, will not accept any kind of challenge to their worldview and will decry anyone that doesn't conform to their world view as somehow lesser or wrong. Which is, ironically, exactly the behaviour a lot of people accusing others of racism are exhibiting. They don't consider for one MOMENT they might be wrong, that they have the wrong end of the stick, that the other person might have a perfectly valid reason for their stance. In my case, my stance against "wokeness" (because honestly I can't think of a better term off the top of my head, much as I hate the phrase) is that it's usually got nothing to do with making things better for, well, anyone and is usually motivated by at best petty spite and at worst someone with an ulterior motive for the sole purpose of fostering division.
Also, regardless of politics, most "woke" products are usually pretty terrible, putting either their message before the story or the consistent members of their creative crew before any actual quality or talent (see: High Guardian Spice, teased for YEARS, mostly with its supposedly diverse creators- including infamous man-hater and general lunatic Kate Leth- and finally crapped out a not very good end product featuring wonky storytelling, terrible direction and animation that would make even the draft phase of a fan animation look like Macross: Do You Remember Love). Either that or they let their worldview deform the core message or themes of a work. For example, Robocop couldn't be remade today because one of the main points was that the police department were one of the few genuine forces for good in Detroit, but limited in their effectiveness by underfunding, the criminals they faced having access to overwhelming resources, and OCP's blatant corruption (which exacerbated the former problems and created even more)- in the age of ACAB, can you imagine the stink that would kick up with certain small but vocal groups?
