Boycott Atlus

[Kim]

I'm perturbed that Drownball Champ thought it was okay to defend someone trivializing anti-gay violence.

Perhaps it is just me, but anti-gay violence isn't something that should ever, ever be trivialized. I've lived with the fear of anti-gay violence, so I take it kind of personally. By extension, it's really hard for me to not take someone defending it being made light of super personally.

Example:

Persona 4 Anime: "Hahaha, isn't the threat of anti-gay violence hilarious!"

Drownball Champ: "I see no problem with this!"

Me: "Fuck you!"

There was also the fact that he was defending a racist caricature, transphobia, has a history of defending transphobia, etc.

Doesn't mean I wasn't out of line in terms of the forum rules.

It does mean that I don't regret my behavior at all, except to the extent that it may or may not inconvenience people who are not Drownball Champ.

[CABAL49]

Them gays gunna make us all queers!

I feel the need to quote myself

Originally Posted by Me

Throwing Liz's history back in her face when she has openly regretted her temper at times is a shitty thing to do. Using that as a means to attack Liz, when Liz is usually right, also a shitty thing to do. I don't want to see, "Liz has a temper," becoming an excuse to ignore what Liz says. Liz has problems, I have problems, we all have problems.

This getting annoying as Liz as been incredibly civil. Drownball being the exception, but I told him to fuck off as well. I don't even know where you get, "Liz hates the straights" from this thread. I think that is enough off topic from me though.

Of course this isn't about banning sex from media. Sexuality is a part of who we are. This is about getting rid of insulting stereotypes. Acknowledging that transgenderism is more that just a man or woman who cross dresses. That there is legitimate proof that trans is a thing. It is about allowing people to be who they are, without the threat of physical or emotional violence. This starts with changing the media's perception of women, LBGT and other minorities. It starts with people speaking out, saying that oppression is shitty.

[Fenris]

Originally Posted by Grand Master Kickface

On a tangential note, I'm a bit perturbed that Liz can get away with calling someone an "idiot fuck" over and over again without so much as a warning, whereas I'm certain that if anyone were to do the same back to her it would result in an immediate permaban.

tbh I can't get too upset with Liz for her actions given that circumstance, 158 posts in this thread about an issue she's super passionate about and Drownball was clearly being an obstinate jerkwad for the sake of being an obstinate jerkwad/pissing off Liz. While one shouldn't rise to flamebait, Drownball kept on pushing and pushing with ever-increasing ridiculous bullshit until Liz finally snapped. Seriously, Liz has been a saint in this thread, but even saints have limits.

Given the rampant transphobia in the world today I'm pretty sure that Liz gets enough of that shit in real life and she doesn't need to be dealing with it here too. If I'm wrong in that assumption, Liz, please call me out on it.

[rpgdemon]

Incidentally, do you have a link to the clip of the anime where the threats were made? I'm not saying you're taking it out of context, but I can see how someone might think that the guy was threatened and that it was shown as a bad thing, and you're just saying that the threatening itself was bad.

Like, I think there could be significant good done by demonstrating threats of violence, if the main character was gay, for example, and threatened and berated, but it was shown as being harmful and terrible to do. I'm wondering if people are maybe assuming that's what happened?

Re: " If men were even a fraction as sexualized as women, I would not complain as much." I can see the argument behind that, but I don't think that saying such will actually help anyone. The problem ought to be tackled, not dodged around by being equally irresponsible.

Like, say there are a bajillion covers of dudes wearing thongs and, I don't know, holding something vaguely phallic shaped? This doesn't address the issue of irresponsible portrayal of women and transgender people in media. The companies would be saying, "We don't really need or want to correct our behavior! We won't give a more realistic portrayal of people from all walks of life, and our problem WASN'T unrealistic attitudes, it was that we weren't showing dem wimminz enough dongs."

[Pip Boy]

Originally Posted by Liz

I don't have a problem with sexual content or het-male aimed content in and of itself. I hate that these things exist at the expense of content for anyone other than het-males.

Seriously at this point it really seems like you're complaining there isn't enough gay porn. Give Shyria and Flare like 5 minutes with some crayons and we can get this straightened out fixed for you.

More serious, isn't it also possible that the reason for this is something less malicious? Like maybe sexual advertising just isn't as effective on female audiences (at least the same kind of sexual advertising) and so different methods are employed to get their attention? I mean if I'm advertising with tits, I know I'll get a lot of men to look at what I'm advertising. If I instead advertise with pictures of erect cocks, I'm probably going to get more looks from the gay male audience than the straight female one. Its no big surprise that men are naturally horny. Even if you want to refute my admittedly weak evolutionary argument on why, there are like 10 billion shit-tons of modern societal evidence to indicate that men think with their dicks and advertisers know this.

Does this mean that if I look at porn it means I view girls as having no value outside of being an assisted masturbation device or pretty rock.

EDIT: While drownball champ did kind of seem like a douche so I can't 100% speak for him, its entirely possible that his point was merely that there is nothing wrong with media admitting to the realistic perception of things in the world. For example, if I wrote a book that had homophobic characters in it, that doesn't mean Im saying homophobia is fine, merely that I admit homophobia is a real thing that exists in society, so pretend it isn't there is unrealistic. I don't know the context on the particular scenario since I never played persona, so its hard to say.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Drownball-Champ

The Kanji example is actually how homophobic people would react. It isn't Atlus being that way. So anything that isn't Yu saying, "Gay people are cool!" is Atlus being homophobic. Thanks for clearing that up.

Liz already covered the 'justifiably angry emotional response' to this tidbit, but I'd just add that I'd be totally okay with displaying Yu and his friends reacting in a homophobic, uninformed and intolerant manner, if the game's story subsequently made it clear that Yu and his friends were lesser people for behaving that way.

In other words, yeah, part of a writer's responsibility is to write as characters who are nothing like themselves. So, sure, Atlus could write homophobic characters -- even homophobic protagonists -- and not be homophobic themselves, and not be propagating or supporting homophobia. But at one point or another, for this to 'work' and inspire a progressive theme, Yu needs to be seriously thrashed for it. There needs to be either a direct karmic comeuppance, or, at the very least, the game should make clear that Yu is not a shining beacon of love and tolerance but actually kind of an immature, uninformed, privileged jerk on some issues.

You see, the issue with the Anime's portrayal of Yu (it was, I'd argue, less an issue in the original game, though Golden and Arena seem to be headed more in the Anime's direction) isn't that "Yu is homophobic," it's that "Yu is homophobic and him being homophobic is treated like a compliment." Thematically speaking, Yu is universally adored -- he's popular, the ladies all are madly enraptured with him, Yosuke thinks he's the bestest best friend ever, Kanji thinks he's the bestest friend ever, his uncle and Nanako are thrilled he's in their lives, every acquaintance is made into a better person by virtue of knowing Yu.

When you have an avatar character and the message with that character is "Look at how amazing he is!" then yeah, you're going to be sending a message with that character's attitudes and beliefs as to what kinds of behavior should merit those commendations.

In the original P4 title -- which Liz readily attacked as an imperfect product back in the day, but which we also thoroughly enjoyed, and which probably would not have merited Liz leading a boycott absent from Atlus' multitude of other recent transgressions -- Yosuke was the only character who was actively and verbally homophobic in the Kanji sequences (and even Yosuke wasn't physically attacking Kanji's shadow unprovoked, which does make a difference.)

The Protag lost a couple progressive points for silently expressing mild discomfort, I suppose, but it wasn't nearly as badly mishandled. The girls, who were clearly homophobic to the point of initiating violence in the Anime, weren't homophobic at all in the original title. In that context, Yosuke's homophobia was approached relatively well because Atlus clearly depicts him as an imperfect, immature and at times unlikable individual (unlike Yu), Yosuke is effectively 'overruled' by a contrary opinion from the majority of his allies, and karma repeatedly bites Yosuke in the ass throughout the game. If you're going to write a homophobic character, that's the way to write it, because in writing that character that way you're actually sending a message to the audience to NOT be homophobic ('don't be like Yosuke.')

As for Naoto, yeah, even the original game badly botched that. No excuses there.
And I'm not saying the original P4 didn't have serious issues; if anything, in trying to paint the original P4 as less offensive, I'm pointing out that Atlus has apparently been regressing lately; they seem far less progressive these days.

Anyway, all I'm trying to say is: Storytelling doesn't require us to pretend that homophobia doesn't exist, or even that otherwise 'good' people can't be homophobic. Lord knows I've met a few wonderful people who, due to conservatism, age or many other factors, are homophobic, transphobic, etc. I was once that person myself.
I'm pretty sure my grandmother, who is one of the sweetest and most endearing people I've ever met, would completely disown me and recoil in disgust if I were gay or trans. Real life is just complicated like that. There's no 'black and white', just millions of shades of grey.

But the key is that storytelling should present homophobia and transphobia as a character FLAW, *not* a respectable, socially beneficial or desirable trait.

[Ryong]

But Cabal, no one ever lives down their history in NPF!

Naw, just kidding. I kind of agreed with like, some of drownball's very first post in this thread, but then he went out of the way to be an ass so screw that.

[Pip Boy]

Originally Posted by Solid Snake

Liz already covered the 'justifiably angry emotional response' to this tidbit, but I'd just add that I'd be totally okay with displaying Yu and his friends reacting in a homophobic, uninformed and intolerant manner, if the game's story subsequently made it clear that Yu and his friends were lesser people for behaving that way.

So my proposed hypothetical homophobic story characters are only acceptable if I also include a soap-box PSA about it? Nope. Realism is realism. Its not everybody's job to be Aesop in all places and all things and all times. I've read plenty of stories that took place in an older America where there was abundant racism and never a deliberate slap on the wrist about it. Doesn't mean I think racism is just peachy, it just means that this particular author would rather deliver a realistic narrative than be preachy.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Pip Boy

So my proposed hypothetical homophobic story characters are only acceptable if I also include a soap-box PSA about it? Nope. Realism is realism. Its not everybody's job to be Aesop in all places and all things and all times. I've read plenty of stories that took place in an older America where there was abundant racism and never a deliberate slap on the wrist about it. Doesn't mean I think racism is just peachy, it just means that this particular author would rather deliver a realistic narrative than be preachy.

Displaying homophobia as a character flaw =/= making the story into an Aesop fable.
Hell, I'm pretty sure Mark Twain of all writers was prescient enough, even in his era, to portray racism as a character flaw in Huckleberry Finn, and Finn didn't read like an Aesop fable.

...I'm not convinced you're remotely understanding what I'm actually saying.

EDIT: Pip Boy logic: "How dare stories have themes or messages in them! I want my stories to attempt to teach readers absolutely nothing!!!"

[Sifright]

Originally Posted by Pip Boy

So my proposed hypothetical homophobic story characters are only acceptable if I also include a soap-box PSA about it? Nope. Realism is realism. Its not everybody's job to be Aesop in all places and all things and all times. I've read plenty of stories that took place in an older America where there was abundant racism and never a deliberate slap on the wrist about it. Doesn't mean I think racism is just peachy, it just means that this particular author would rather deliver a realistic narrative than be preachy.

Seriously we are going to bring fucking realism into this shit in a story about magical tv murder where the characters get to literally fight their 'inner fears and insecurities'

You really couldn't reach any harder to excuse this shit, because that is what you are trying to do excuse the fact that the game is transphobic and pretend it's okay due to a veneer of realism when it really isn't.