A meditation on: homogenous fantasy races depicted by actors of various races

[Punp]

To be fair, I did purposefully leave out the "pussy" part in the hopes that it might be overlooked and we could carry on the conversation regardless.

Merica has a tendency to get caught up in moral panics that it finds bad about 20 years after the fact, with prominent examples including the Salem witch trials, movies in general in the 30's, the absolute gutting of American comic books in the 60's (I think, may have been late 50's), the Satanic panic of the 80's, McCarthyism in the 50's (he actually turned out to be mostly correct ironically). It almost happened to video games in the 90's, but after the aforementioned satanic panic people were starting to catch on that this really wasn't a good thing and recognized that they shouldn't do so again. Providing enough counter force to prevent it from happening to vidya. The only reason the current panic has managed to make it as far as it has is because it's coming from the left side of the political spectrum rather than the right like it has in the past. So you have a bunch of idiots with no self reflection unable to recognize that they are doing the exact same thing that has NEVER been looked upon favorably in retrospect.

So the pattern goes, maybe after this time we can finally stop having this happen, or it will be the lefts turn to take a crack at it every decade idk.

This is a great POV. I hadn't imagined it as a moral panic until you put it into those words. I think as "the uberleft" gets majority voice it's their turn to make the mistakes the conservatives did but in the opposite direction.

 

[Sketch Relics]

This is a great POV. I hadn't imagined it as a moral panic until you put it into those words. I think as "the uberleft" gets majority voice it's their turn to make the mistakes the conservatives did but in the opposite direction.

Interestingly, this isn't the lefts first one. That would belong to the anti-war moral panic of the 70's. I don't think it's widely recognized as one yet, but it has all of the hallmarks of one. Needless attacks on people involved (soldiers), that sort of odd negative mentality towards the subjects you see in other examples, actions that were actually harmful to the overall state of the things in focus seen upon retrospect. In particular on that last point, I actually saw a set of interviews about one of the wars from the time (Vietnam I think) were some commanders from both sides of the war were the American one thought that in a few months the other side was going to run out of supplies and be forced to surrender and then the dude from the other side flat out confirms that they would have only lasted like 2 more months at most. There was a lot of exaggeration of how poorly the USA was doing in the news media and that coupled with at home protest killed moral enough to "lose" the war.

I guess you can call the current one the "Representation and Portrayal" moral panic. It has all the same sorts of logical inconsistencies you see in prior panics related to fictional material with a healthy dose of double standards and people not thinking through the implications of their logic. God I can't wait for this to implode on itself I really hope it doesn't get replaced by something worse.

 

[Ross_Я]

That would belong to the anti-war moral panic of the 70's.

Hm. I've never saw an anti-war movement as moral panic. After all, aren't there anti-war movement for every war after the WWII? This one just seems like the biggest one in America, but other than that - for an outsider, at least - it looks like your typical anti-war movement.
Unless every anti-war movement is moral panic...

God I can't wait for this to implode on itself I really hope it doesn't get replaced by something worse.

The chance is always there, unfortunately.

 

[Sketch Relics]

Unless every anti-war movement is moral panic...

That's.... actually an interesting thought. Hmm they kind of are aren't they? I think the difference is the 70's anti war panic was against the concept of war itself in its entirety and as a result you had things like soldiers being mobbed by protesters when they were returning home, a hyper focus on the detrimental effects of war, mis-attribution of the reasoning behind the wars starting, and a bunch of mis-information on how the war was actually going for the combatants. Later protest for stuff like the second gulf war didn't really materialize until it became apparent that early USA actions were based on lies and that the war wasn't really doing what it said it set out to achieve.

 

[Vitnira]

Since others are interested in the question, I'll elaborate.

Merica has a tendency to get caught up in moral panics that it finds bad about 20 years after the fact, with prominent examples including the Salem witch trials, movies in general in the 30's, the absolute gutting of American comic books in the 60's (I think, may have been late 50's), the Satanic panic of the 80's, McCarthyism in the 50's (he actually turned out to be mostly correct ironically). It almost happened to video games in the 90's, but after the aforementioned satanic panic people were starting to catch on that this really wasn't a good thing and recognized that they shouldn't do so again. Providing enough counter force to prevent it from happening to vidya. The only reason the current panic has managed to make it as far as it has is because it's coming from the left side of the political spectrum rather than the right like it has in the past. So you have a bunch of idiots with no self reflection unable to recognize that they are doing the exact same thing that has NEVER been looked upon favorably in retrospect.

So the pattern goes, maybe after this time we can finally stop having this happen, or it will be the lefts turn to take a crack at it every decade idk.

This is about 70% of my thoughts on the "20 years" deal, but unlike those I think this is a completely kind of moral panic and not just because it's coming from the left.

I think this trend is a deliberate response in media to Occupy Wall Street.

For those who don't remember, Occupy Wall Street was a (at the time laughed at - I remember being in college and laughing my ass off at these tards) movement that had a bunch of college kids sitting in the financial district of NYC being mad at rich people. The movement's slogan was "We are the 99%". Think about that as a statement - Most of America vs a small minority of wealthy people. It's a unifying statement. Black, white, hispanic, republican, democrat - if you don't make a shitton of money you're a part of that. It's colorblind. It's the closest to a truly communist movement in recent times. And it was finally targeted at the right people - the financial class controlling our economy and politics.

Even though it was a bunch of idiots, it hit too close to home. Wayyy too close to home. America finally had its eyes on the real prize, and that endangered the financial class far too much for their liking.

By pushing these dumb race-swaps it serves the purpose to make people race-conscious. It insidiously turned those most sympathetic to communism and unity against themselves by using the left's primary apparatus of fiction media. Look right now, the right does not make art or media. They never really have. They make like, talk shows. That's the critical dfiference between this and other moral panics, in that it was the non-creators forcing the morals on media rather than the media-creators doing it themselves.

But, I think in 20 years the left will finally figure out that they've been turned against their own interests to create an equal America by being lured with shiny carrots of black race swapped ginger superheroes, and be horrendously disgusted with the racism they themselves created. You can look at r/stupidpol where true red commies complain about identity politics. It's a minority right now, but it's growing. It's a matter of time. As the quoted post states, these are trends, and trends move even faster now than they did back then.

 

[Ross_Я]

That's.... actually an interesting thought. Hmm they kind of are aren't they?

That's what I came to as well.
And I can only add that the rest of your post pretty much applies to all the local anti-war movements indeed. Well, aside from "soldiers being mobbed by protesters when they were returning home" - that is indeed something special and I cannot really remember anything like that anywhere else.
The reasons behind the anti-war movements might be different, but it is kind of a fact that they appear earlier or later and their are big enough to be visible. I'm not sure why humanity suddenly attained such a pacifistic nature, but... that just what happened. Around this place, pretty much all wars in the past 40 years (which were somehow always "special operations") were opposed since the very start because of their rather dubious nature.
And as for the most recent example, I think it is evident that Israel-Gaza conflict has a huge opposition around the whole world, including Israel itself.
In the end of the day, once again, all the anti-war movements are indeed a kind of moral panic, but I also think maybe that's also means that "moral panic" is not always a bad thing, and America just had a very unlucky streak. In fact, I really hardly can remember a bad example of moral panic for Soviet Union/Russia. Maybe I am biased though, yet it all seems good and reasonable enough to me.

~snip~

So, if it is indeed a divide-and-conquer politics, I guess this is also really not the first one then? I think LGBT movement will be a good example of that (especially since they are into this current thing heavily).
You may say whatever you want about homosexulaity in general, but LGBT people specifically use a motherfuckin' flag. And, maybe it's just my opinion, but every flag is automatically like a border. Marchin' under a flag heavily implies your intolerance to everything that is not under that flag.
I'm not sure if LGBT has been "non-creators forcing the morals on media rather than the media-creators doing it themselves", but I'm pretty sure it was an example of divide-and-conquer stuff. Heck, might not have been originally, but definitely became that way quite quickly... or so it seems to me.

Frankly, for me, as an outsider, recent american history is quite alien. Considering black people, I've only saw, like, three in my entire life. For me the whole problem is that US quite aggressively pushes their rather dubious views worldwide. And, probably, that's why I see LGBT as an example of divide-and-conquer politics - they certainly are here, pushed obviously from the outside of the country and used to divide the society.

 

[Punp]

Since others are interested in the question, I'll elaborate.

This is about 70% of my thoughts on the "20 years" deal, but unlike those I think this is a completely kind of moral panic and not just because it's coming from the left.

I think this trend is a deliberate response in media to Occupy Wall Street.

For those who don't remember, Occupy Wall Street was a (at the time laughed at - I remember being in college and laughing my ass off at these tards) movement that had a bunch of college kids sitting in the financial district of NYC being mad at rich people. The movement's slogan was "We are the 99%". Think about that as a statement - Most of America vs a small minority of wealthy people. It's a unifying statement. Black, white, hispanic, republican, democrat - if you don't make a shitton of money you're a part of that. It's colorblind. It's the closest to a truly communist movement in recent times. And it was finally targeted at the right people - the financial class controlling our economy and politics.

Even though it was a bunch of idiots, it hit too close to home. Wayyy too close to home. America finally had its eyes on the real prize, and that endangered the financial class far too much for their liking.

By pushing these dumb race-swaps it serves the purpose to make people race-conscious. It insidiously turned those most sympathetic to communism and unity against themselves by using the left's primary apparatus of fiction media. Look right now, the right does not make art or media. They never really have. They make like, talk shows. That's the critical dfiference between this and other moral panics, in that it was the non-creators forcing the morals on media rather than the media-creators doing it themselves.

But, I think in 20 years the left will finally figure out that they've been turned against their own interests to create an equal America by being lured with shiny carrots of black race swapped ginger superheroes, and be horrendously disgusted with the racism they themselves created. You can look at r/stupidpol where true red commies complain about identity politics. It's a minority right now, but it's growing. It's a matter of time. As the quoted post states, these are trends, and trends move even faster now than they did back then.

This was a really pleasant read, thanks Vit. At the start I was like "damn, how is this a response to Occupy Wall Street"? and then it all fell into place. I feel like this idea of divide and conquer has been a tactical strat since Greece.

 

[Ross_Я]

I feel like this idea of divide and conquer has been a tactical strat since Greece.

Society and its ways in general have not changed much for the past 2000 years. If not for the past 5000 years. Technological level changes much faster, but the evolution is a much more slow, stubborn thing.
Kind of make sense technology eventually will take over natural evolution in the... human area when you think about it like that. Since the industrial revolution, technology progresses so fast - we, like, simply can't wait anymore.

This talk immediately makes me think about my stance on the theory of the "bicameral mentality", which is kind of off-topic, but we've touched it in another thread here on Agora (and you was there), but, in two words: natural evolution is simply too slow.

 

[Vitnira]

This was a really pleasant read, thanks Vit. At the start I was like "damn, how is this a response to Occupy Wall Street"? and then it all fell into place. I feel like this idea of divide and conquer has been a tactical strat since Greece.

Yep, it's a long standing strategy because it works.

I'm open to others' thoughts on the topic, like if the timeline doesn't line up for instance. It's hard to google the first race-swap that happened and I think it only really came into force after 2016. I think that's why the Harambe timeline jokes are so popular because time-wise it does seem to be the harbinger of media doom.

I know there was an increase in racial tensions after Obama was elected in 2008 (3 years before Occupy), but my thought is it wasn't that bad until the media figured out it was the most pop culture leverage they could use to divide. The only other available divide was LGBT but that isn't enough of the population even now. However "BIPOC" (Black and Indigenous People of Color - basically, not jews or asians) are a growing population to split on - enough to distract. It's also obviously harder to gay-swap existing characters.

 

[Ross_Я]

It's also obviously harder to gay-swap existing characters.

Not that they don't do it anyway though.

 

[Punp]

BIPOC

Does the term BIPOC feel racist to anybody else? I know it's meant to be some kind of "term of empowerment", but it feels like "empowerment" in the same way that onlyfans is marketed as being "empowering" for women.

BIPOC just feels like a new way of saying "coloured", "not-white" or "exotic".

 

[handoferis]

Does the term BIPOC feel racist to anybody else? I know it's meant to be some kind of "term of empowerment", but it feels like "empowerment" in the same way that onlyfans is marketed as being "empowering" for women.

BIPOC just feels like a new way of saying "coloured", "not-white" or "exotic".

i've only just realised the "BI" part of BIPOC doesn't mean bisexual

 

[stonehead]

Interestingly, this isn't the lefts first one. That would belong to the anti-war moral panic of the 70's. I don't think it's widely recognized as one yet, but it has all of the hallmarks of one.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't an important aspect of a moral panic the fact that it's unsubstantiated? There weren't actually any witches in Salem, and Satanists weren't actually recruiting kids through Dungeons and Dragons. There was actually a war in the 70s.

You could argue that the panic that inspired the Comics Code Authority's creation was founded on reality. There did exist lots of violent comics that kids read. Even then though, the panic was more about the potential side-effects of such content, which just weren't real.

 

[Punp]

Correcty me if I'm wrong, but isn't an important aspect of a moral panic the fact that it's unsubstantiated? There weren't actually any witches in Salem, and Satanists weren't actually recruiting kids through Dungeons and Dragons. There was actually a war in the 70s.

You could argue that the panic that inspired the Comics Code Authority's creation was founded on reality. There did exist lots of violent comics that kids read. Even then though, the panic was more about the potential side-effects of such content, which just weren't real.

The definition of moral panic is: "an instance of public anxiety or alarm in response to a problem regarded as threatening the moral standards of society". For example, if we discovered that plants are sentient, that could create a moral panic.

The revelation that killing people in a distant country was maybe not furthering the powers of the American Good™ would be a cause for a moral panic.

Moral panic relates more to the resulting symptoms of an event and the effect on the public discourse than it does to the cause.

 

[wearyinternettraveler]

Even if normies can't articulate it, that's why it bothers them. At some point every fantasy will explain how their magic system works, or you have years of trope-definitions to do so. With this recent race-bending shit it's brand new and left for you to figure out. That is why wizards are believable within a fantasy settin and random diversity isn't. There is no attempt to explain it, because they don't want you to think about it.

A good example of this not being an issue is last year's Hogwarts Legacy, wherein Hogwarts had a diverse student body, and prominently featured an African character. There was a good in-universe explanation -- British colony subjects who were gifted in magic would be able to study in British schools. Makes sense to me and is actually what happens at Cambridge. I don't hate diversity, I just need a harmonious explanation, otherwise it just looks like a cynical cash grab (I'm sure it was a cynical cash grab in this case too, but I can suspend my disbelief)

 

[Punp]

A good example of this not being an issue is last year's Hogwarts Legacy, wherein Hogwarts had a diverse student body, and prominently featured an African character. There was a good in-universe explanation -- British colony subjects who were gifted in magic would be able to study in British schools. Makes sense to me and is actually what happens at Cambridge. I don't hate diversity, I just need a harmonious explanation, otherwise it just looks like a cynical cash grab (I'm sure it was a cynical cash grab in this case too, but I can suspend my disbelief)

Considering that Hogwarts Legacy made a big effort to distance themselves from "that evil Terf JK Rowling" I can only assume this is massive virtue signalling, but it's nice that they had the decency to lampshade it.

I agree that diversity itself is not a problem. I like having characters which are new and interesting. I dislike when those characters are stereotypes of what they think the wokies want to see. The BBC is an excellent example of that. See the recent Dr Who where they have "a black one, a wheelchair one and a mentally disabled one". It gets so tiresome.

 

[LostintheCycle]

I agree that diversity itself is not a problem.

The BBC is an excellent example of that.