Are stereotype's "bad"?
| Author | Topic: Are stereotype's "bad"? |
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Warrior
Member # 3629
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written Thursday, June 23 2005 16:02
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More specifically, I mean its use in popular culture and video games. An example: in Knights of the Old Republic (and in the Star Wars universe in general), most of the game's bad guys are given English accents. Effective? I think so. Why? Not sure. Two ideas: perhaps the English represent the archtype Imperial power OR the accent is a sign of education and their defeat is a metaphor for the ultimate victory of the working class. So was it morally "wrong" for Bioware to play on this stereotype? If so, why are stereotypes so prevalent in video games and popular culture? Posts: 51 | Registered: Friday, October 31 2003 08:00 |
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E Equals MC What!!!!
Member # 5491
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written Thursday, June 23 2005 16:22
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Stereotype is shorthand. You don't need to spend time setting up all the details of the character. You simply give a couple of big, clear signifiers and audiences/players instantly recognise the character from all the millions of other places they've seen him/her. It's bad for major characters, I think, but can be useful for minor ones. School teacher, thin, middle aged, her hair in a bun, spectacles, doesn't smile. All that can be conveyed in a single picture, and you already can tell she's strict. No need to spend scenes setting it up, move on with the actual story. She puts our hero in detention for some trifling misdemeanor... where he meets the girl of his dreams. Another way stereotypes can be used is for humour, or an unexpected twist. The minimal, immediate information you're given paints the picture of one sort of character... then the suprise, which may spark a shock or a laugh, depending on context. In Brett Bixler's BoE scenario Quintessence, you encounter a massive snow monster called Grind. You expect him to be a dangerous threat or at best a lovable oaf... and he opens his mouth and you discover he is articulate, well-spoken, and very polite. Or the other way around. The amiable bumbling Englishman turns out to be a spy. Commercials use stereotypes constantly... they have 30 seconds, and can't waste time! So they give you characters you already know. So long as you're using stereotypes as a tool and not a crutch, it's all good. -------------------- Sex is easier than love. Posts: 1861 | Registered: Friday, February 11 2005 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Thursday, June 23 2005 19:31
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quote:HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA You think George Lucas cares about the working class? Heh, good funny. Need I remind you that everyone in that film speaks with an accent except for Haydenson and Palpatine? (And in that way, Lucas could be showing his reactionary hand of nonsense...) If anything, he's massively in support of cultural hegemony. -------------------- 私のバラドですそしてころしたいいらればころす Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 2238
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written Friday, June 24 2005 07:40
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Not to mention 90% of the not-quite-starring role actors are English... It just so happens that the Americans were casted as the Rebel characters, like Ford and Fisher. And never forget that the basic stormtrooper has the "American" accent. In my view, stereotypes are okay, because lets face it, they tend to be true. -------------------- The critics agree! Demonslayer is "a five star hit!" raves TIMES Weekly! "I've never heard such thoughtful comments. This man is a genious!" says two-time Nobel Prize winning physicist Erwin Rasputin! Posts: 1582 | Registered: Wednesday, November 13 2002 08:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, June 24 2005 08:08
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Ah, but every author dies once the last word is written, so George Lucas's intentions don't matter a damn. His oeuvre may have a perfectly good Marxist interpretation, no matter what he himself thought it might mean. By the same token, I bet even Capital could be given a consistent crypto-fascist reading. Now that would be a martyrdom. -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Friday, June 24 2005 11:42
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quote:If the internet were real life, you'd be face-deep in my fist. -------------------- 私のバラドですそしてころしたいいらればころす Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Friday, June 24 2005 11:50
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I apologize if I have been offensive, but whether the real meaning of Marxism is what Marx intended is a serious issue. I don't know enough about it to advance the argument seriously myself, but a lot of people have argued, in effect, that Lenin gave Marx a crypto-fascist reading, and made it stick for seventy years. I'm the wrong target, since this simply isn't my field, and I will neither advance nor accept arguments with any conviction either way; but if you want to defend Marx from more serious critics, you may want to come up with a more nuanced rebuttal to the suggestion. -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 2238
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written Friday, June 24 2005 12:31
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I just can't believe you said authors' words die when they die. That makes no sense, whatsoever. -------------------- The critics agree! Demonslayer is "a five star hit!" raves TIMES Weekly! "I've never heard such thoughtful comments. This man is a genious!" says two-time Nobel Prize winning physicist Erwin Rasputin! Posts: 1582 | Registered: Wednesday, November 13 2002 08:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Friday, June 24 2005 12:43
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quote: quote:Note the difference. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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BANNED
Member # 4
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written Friday, June 24 2005 13:16
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 When your currency is linguistic postmodernism, demanding nuances is like asking a Mexican proprietor to produce a currency with more value as a means of exchange than as its nutritional contents. -------------------- 私のバラドですそしてころしたいいらればころす Posts: 6936 | Registered: Tuesday, September 18 2001 07:00 |
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Law Bringer
Member # 335
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written Friday, June 24 2005 13:42
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Actually, authors don't die when the last word is written. They have been known to continue to write at great length about what they actually meant. We just don'ot have to listen. —Alorael, who knows that Das Kapital contains a blistering criticism of everyone who can't seem to learn proper table manners. Posts: 14579 | Registered: Saturday, December 1 2001 08:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 2238
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written Friday, June 24 2005 16:19
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Meh... I mixed two sentences into one. And it didn't come close to the meaning of either one. But what you could tell is that I disagree, and that's all that really matters since no one gives a damn about opinions anyway. -------------------- The critics agree! Demonslayer is "a five star hit!" raves TIMES Weekly! "I've never heard such thoughtful comments. This man is a genious!" says two-time Nobel Prize winning physicist Erwin Rasputin! Posts: 1582 | Registered: Wednesday, November 13 2002 08:00 |
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Triad Mage
Member # 7
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written Saturday, June 25 2005 01:17
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I agree with Trinity - it's all a matter of interpretation. -------------------- "At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool." - Menander ==== Drakefyre's Demesne - Happy Happy Joy Joy desperance.net - We're Everywhere ==== You can take my Mac when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the mouse! Posts: 9436 | Registered: Wednesday, September 19 2001 07:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, June 25 2005 04:13
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I have that same edition of Writing and Difference that TM posted. Totally baffled. I could recognize grammatically that it had been translated into English, but it wasn't all that far from "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." I sat down and started going through it very slowly, paraphrasing as I went, just trying to extract something coherent out of it, and worry later whether that was what Derridas meant. After a few pages of very hard work, what I had gotten seemed awfully banal, so I gave up. I keep it on my shelf with the fantasy of going through it someday as a retirement project. In the meantime it is good to frighten visitors nosy enough to discover it down there on the lower shelf. Apart from being inclined on principle to endorse Alan Sokal, just because he' s a physicist, I have no particular brief for or against po-mo. I do think that it's a shame that this radical and violently obscure movement seems to have stolen, at least for many people, what are really just basic ideas about criticism and interpretation. Asking whether Marx might have been an unconscious and accidental fascist is not necessarily a post-modernist question. -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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...b10010b...
Member # 869
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written Saturday, June 25 2005 04:37
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Don't mind TM; as you may have noticed, he's sometimes TM. He's really a very good person, he just isn't always very nice. quote:... would, of course, be asking two different questions; the former psychological, the latter historical. Is literary criticism a branch of psychology, of history, or both? (I'm not being facetious; it really does seem to me that literary critics aren't the people best placed to answer these questions. To a historian in particular, the actual content of a text is pretty much irrelevant in analysing how it's used.) [ Saturday, June 25, 2005 04:40: Message edited by: Thuryl ] -------------------- My BoE Page Bandwagons are fun! Roots Hunted! Posts: 9973 | Registered: Saturday, March 30 2002 08:00 |
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Off With Their Heads
Member # 4045
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written Saturday, June 25 2005 05:53
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quote:But you cannot deny that he is an unsellable trowel. -------------------- Arancaytar: Every time you ask people to compare TM and Kel, you endanger the poor, fluffy kittens. Kelandon's Pink and Pretty Page!!: the authorized location for all things by me The Archive of all released BoE scenarios ever Posts: 7968 | Registered: Saturday, February 28 2004 08:00 |
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Triad Mage
Member # 7
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written Saturday, June 25 2005 11:55
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Personally, I don't care what the author meant or was trying to say when I read something. I read for the story first, and then for what I get out the text. I don't bend over backwards to discover the author's meaning, I get my own things out of it, which is sometimes the same as the author's intention, and sometimes not. I also do not like being clubbed over the head with things. [ Saturday, June 25, 2005 11:55: Message edited by: Drakefyre ] -------------------- "At times discretion should be thrown aside, and with the foolish we should play the fool." - Menander ==== Drakefyre's Demesne - Happy Happy Joy Joy desperance.net - We're Everywhere ==== You can take my Mac when you pry my cold, dead fingers off the mouse! Posts: 9436 | Registered: Wednesday, September 19 2001 07:00 |
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Electric Sheep One
Member # 3431
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written Saturday, June 25 2005 16:04
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quote::eek: The T-bomb! JOO MUS B BAND! -------------------- It is not enough to discover how things seem to seem. We must discover how things really seem. Posts: 3335 | Registered: Thursday, September 4 2003 07:00 |
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Guardian
Member # 3521
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written Saturday, June 25 2005 19:51
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I only bother with philosophical writings in which the author's message is clear as day. I tend to despise subtlety in writing, as I'm very poor at catching non-explicit statements. When I'm reading a philosophical or religious text I tend to analyze on the fly, accepting or rejecting statements as they come. -------------------- Stughalf "Delusion arises from anger. The mind is bewildered by delusion. Reasoning is destroyed when the mind is bewildered. One falls down when reasoning is destroyed."- The Bhagavad Gita. Posts: 1798 | Registered: Sunday, October 5 2003 07:00 |
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Agent
Member # 4506
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written Monday, June 27 2005 03:24
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quote:There's hardly any subtelty in Philosophical texts. They're either complete nutter text, or smack in the face text. - Archmagi Micael -------------------- "You dare Trifle with Exile?" - Erika the Archmage -------------------- My Scenarios: Undead Valley : A small Undead problem, what could possibly go wrong? -------------------- Proof of Richard Black's existance: Richard Black - PROOF of his existance (the Infernal one's website). Posts: 1370 | Registered: Thursday, June 10 2004 07:00 |