Boycott Atlus

[Krylo]

Top: Main Protag.
Middle Right: Funky Student's nose/cheeks
Middle Left: Eddie Murphy's Forehead
Bottom: Obama's Cheek.

Funky Student: Darker than all three, still not dark enough to be black.

[rpgdemon]

So, I decided to look up the term blaxploition.

It lead me to an exploition film: "Exploitation film is an informal label which may be applied to any film which is generally considered to be both low budget and of low moral or artistic merit, and therefore apparently attempting to gain financial success by "exploiting" a current trend or a niche genre or a base desire for lurid subject matter."

So, that's what an exploition film is. A blaxplotion film is that, but based around black people.

Is that criticism worthy?

"The genre's role in exploring and shaping race relations in the US has been controversial. While some held that the Blaxploitation trend was a token of black empowerment, the movies were accused by others of perpetuating common white stereotypes about black people. As a result, many called for the end of the genre. The NAACP, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and National Urban League joined together to form the Coalition Against Blaxploitation. Through their influence, during the late 1970s, they contributed to the demise of the genre."

Hmm. So, these are propagating negative stereotypes about black people. And various non-black characters are acting in line with these "blaxplotion" films, to yuck it up about how funny they are, that they're so weird and black and ethnic? Yeah, that'd be racist.

[rpgdemon]

Like, I know what you're saying. "It's a comedy thing that they do over there! They have characters who aren't black pretending to be by acting stereotypically black, and it's totally not racist, it's just a cultural thing of theirs!"

And, yeah, that is racist. Even if it's a cultural thing. Maybe ESPECIALLY if it's an engrained cultural thing. They're specifically targeting a group of people who are different than themselves, and saying, "Look at how funny these people act, because it's just RIDICULOUS! Look at how silly it'd look if they weren't black people, and were us instead! Good thing they're black, because otherwise we'd laugh at them."

And then it turns out that the people don't even act like they're describing.

[stefan]

Originally Posted by Krylo

Top: Main Protag.
Middle Right: Funky Student's nose/cheeks
Middle Left: Eddie Murphy's Forehead
Bottom: Obama's Cheek.

Funky Student: Darker than all three, still not dark enough to be black.

and yet when I did the same test, he turned out to be whiter then the MC with more caucasian tone than either of the other examples you gave! would you like to try again?

(for reference: back of my hand, eddie murphy, protagonist, funky student, obama)


@RPG: no, the point of the humor is juxtaposition of one stereotype against another, which serves to highlight how ridiculous the underpinnings of each stereotype is. Juxtaposition, you see, is this amazing act of placing one thing alongside another to contrast them both and highlight both their differences and similarities! It's a very common tool in storytelling, art, humor, and a varietiy of other mediums, and I assure you that if you continue to act like a condescending SJW muppet then I will respond in kind. So why don't you cut the tumblrfuck bullshit and approach each argument as an adult, rather than acting as if I'm just some sort of silly ignorant child who doesn't know what racisms is.

[rpgdemon]

I don't even know what you're saying. I outlined my adventure researching this, and it's apparently condescending tumblrfuck or whatever? And SJW is...? San Jose Water Corp? Like, I honestly cannot find a definition. Dude, just step off. I get that you think Liz is wrong, I'm totally up for Liz being wrong. I think Liz is wrong on a semi-regular basis. But I researched everything you were saying, so that we were super-clear here, and you're just incorrect. Everything that you have said is literally that these people are racistly stereotyping black people. You are NOW, for the first time, saying that it's to juxtapose the stereotypes against each other.

[rpgdemon]

And, just to be triple clear, I actually watched a bunch of scenes of Nabeshin and looked him up on Wikipedia. He's a parody of director self-inserts making themselves look cool, there's nothing racially related about him at all, from what I've seen.

Like, unless this is a stereotype?



He's meant to be an over the top self-insert of the director.

[stefan]

Originally Posted by rpgdemon

You are NOW, for the first time, saying that it's to juxtapose the stereotypes against each other.

because its fucking obvious and I didn't imagine it needed to be said. Tell me, When you see a humorous image of a cat acting in an unfeline fashion, is your only thought that "cat's can't play piano, this image is silly"? When you see that someone has photoshopped the faces of spartans onto the heads of business executives in a meeting, do you wonder why the body language does not match up to the facial expressions?(the correct thought is "what kind of sad sack still does 300 edits these days, what the cock") when you saw the trailer for Django unchained, was your only thought "this is not a very accurate representation of slavery in the southern united states"?

the humor of the archetype doesn't come from "non-black acting like what I think black people act like," its "person acting entirely outside of the stereotype I expect of them."

He's meant to be an over the top self-insert of the director.

He's the director's self-insert that started as a direct parody of Shaft and drifted over the course of several years. also, he acts like this in real life.

[rpgdemon]

Plus, even assuming that EVERYTHING that you said is true, and that in Japan it's a way of showing how wrong and silly the stereotypes are, it's the responsibility of the localization department to adjust for the culture difference and make sure that the character comes across properly to American cultures, which they apparently didn't do.

I don't have enough knowledge of the character to know if it's racist or not. I mean, are the Boondocks racist, for showing characters who are modeled stereotypically? I don't think anyone makes that argument, but to be fair it's also something that I have very little knowledge of. I've just seen the strip in the newspaper a few times. The arguments presented haven't necessarily told me that the character is racist (I've only seen that he has an afro, and there was a line about a black classroom? Like, that was pretty racist, if it means what I think it does, but I'm not sure.), but the arguments that you've presented are pretty much saying that it totally is racist, but that's okay and we ought to allow it because of cultural differences.

[rpgdemon]

Your description of the humor though REQUIRES racist stereotypes to work. If you expect black people to act like white people who act like Asians, there's no humor there, but if you see an Asian and go, "That's funny! The Asian's acting like a black dude!", that is actually literally racism.

You need two distinct things that are very different for all of your examples to work. Like, Cat and Person. They are totally different, so when you see a cat acting like a person, you're like, "That's funny, cats are nothing like people, but this one is acting like one."

To follow that logic, for this humor to be funny, you need to honestly believe, as much as a cat is unlike a person, a black person is unlike any other person.

[stefan]

Originally Posted by rpgdemon

Your description of the humor though REQUIRES racist stereotypes to work. If you expect black people to act like white people who act like Asians, there's no humor there, but if you see an Asian and go, "That's funny! The Asian's acting like a black dude!", that is actually literally racism.

right, fuck this, you are either legitimately incapable of understanding what I am saying or are being deliberately obtuse. I'm out.

ps liz: good luck actually having any legitimate persuasive effect on atlus when your pedestal is on tumblr, the biggest shitstain of faux-activism and self-aggrandizing victimblaming on the internet.