I personally find that identity politics is far too often used as a shield against genuine criticism. Some corporate types create something bland, or just outright terrible, and add a whole lot of tokenism. Someone points out that the story is terrible, the characters are terrible, and that it seems to do nothing but pander, and they’re immediately likened to some of the worst people on Earth.
Surely only the most militant alt-right extremist would criticise these committee curated progressive consumable products!
Short answer is “yes”, although it’s much less of a tribe and more just the average person.
Do you have an example? I’m cynical, I believe companies would add diverse but two-dimensional characters to pander to an audience.
But then I thought only actual bigots were called out, like if they’re screeching that some “anachronistic” black character exists in a game that also contains magic spells and dragons. I thought normal complaints like “story is awful and characters have no depth” are generally received without an antagonistic response.
The issue is not that a good character is black. It’s that “hey, let’s make a token black guy and inject it into this story to show how diverse we are!”
No one care about good characters, but companies are being fed a load of crap that almost feels like sabotage about having “inject this minority” being a lead design principle. It’s not, make a good character first.
Oh but that’s the fun part; people criticise that a game or a series or a movie prioritises D.E.I. over telling a good story and then they get lumped together with the few who are actual bigots. It’s easy to pretend that all the failings of something is because of nasty people rather than it just sucking.
So, examples?
NuTrek, especially Discovery and Picard. The Acolyte. Rings of Power. The Marvels. Black Panther 2. She Hulk. Wish.
I feel like the Ghostbusters reboot was the first big example of this. It was rightly criticized for being an actually bad movie, and Sony dismissed it and doubled down on the misogyny angle.
Eyup. That was a really big one. Birds of Prey came after. All those outlets crying everyone was a woman hating asshole were mysteriously silent when loads of people liked Wonder Woman.
Remember what the news was all about when Baldur’s Gate 3 came out?
I personally find that identity politics is far too often used as a shield against genuine criticism. Some corporate types create something bland, or just outright terrible, and add a whole lot of tokenism. Someone points out that the story is terrible, the characters are terrible, and that it seems to do nothing but pander, and they’re immediately likened to some of the worst people on Earth.
Surely only the most militant alt-right extremist would criticise these committee curated progressive consumable products!
Short answer is “yes”, although it’s much less of a tribe and more just the average person.
Do you have an example? I’m cynical, I believe companies would add diverse but two-dimensional characters to pander to an audience.
But then I thought only actual bigots were called out, like if they’re screeching that some “anachronistic” black character exists in a game that also contains magic spells and dragons. I thought normal complaints like “story is awful and characters have no depth” are generally received without an antagonistic response.
The issue is not that a good character is black. It’s that “hey, let’s make a token black guy and inject it into this story to show how diverse we are!”
No one care about good characters, but companies are being fed a load of crap that almost feels like sabotage about having “inject this minority” being a lead design principle. It’s not, make a good character first.
Oh but that’s the fun part; people criticise that a game or a series or a movie prioritises D.E.I. over telling a good story and then they get lumped together with the few who are actual bigots. It’s easy to pretend that all the failings of something is because of nasty people rather than it just sucking.
So, examples?
NuTrek, especially Discovery and Picard. The Acolyte. Rings of Power. The Marvels. Black Panther 2. She Hulk. Wish.
I feel like the Ghostbusters reboot was the first big example of this. It was rightly criticized for being an actually bad movie, and Sony dismissed it and doubled down on the misogyny angle.
I so badly wanted that movie to be great and prove the haters wrong. But ugh, it was so fucking bad. Insultingly bad.
Eyup. That was a really big one. Birds of Prey came after. All those outlets crying everyone was a woman hating asshole were mysteriously silent when loads of people liked Wonder Woman.
Remember what the news was all about when Baldur’s Gate 3 came out?
Late to the party, but this is super relevant…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJS4JHYgj50
Corporations using political wars as sheilds against criticism is the major issue, totally agreed.