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clairvoyantxatu · 5 years

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On Pokémon and Insensitive Portrayals

WARNING! LEAKED CONTENT FOR POKEMON SWORD AND SHIELD AHEAD! AS WELL AS DISCUSSION ABOUT CONTROVERSIAL TOPICS! AND PLEASE, DON’T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS UNTIL YOU FINISH READING THE TEXT, I TRIED MY BEST NOT TO DEMONIZE ANY OF THE PARTIES INVOLVED IN THIS DEBATE!

So, I’ve just found out that some Jewish fans have condemning the design of Impidimp’s final evolution, Grimmsnarl, for being eerily similar to antisemitic caricatures from Nazi propaganda.

They claim his green complexion, curly dark hair and long, pointy nose is pretty close to Third Reich-era depictions of Jewish people. The issue is similar to the controversy surruounding Jynx that happened when the series first came to the West. I decided to write this in order to expose my opinions on the matter, and maybe prevent further conflicts between defenders and accusers. Keep in mind, I can’t speak for Jewish people since I’m not one of them, but I personally believe anyone can share their opinions about controversial topics as long as they don’t commit the mistake of thinking they know more about a group they don’t belong to than themselves. Here goes my thoughts:

I personally DON’T believe Game Freak, as a company at least, is actively discriminatory against any group in particular; the majority of their employees, even the main members of its staff, might hold some biases coming from the still pretty conservative Japanese culture they’re inserted in. But they’ve already shown thorugh their actions throughout the years they’re not trying to perpetuate hatred towards any group in particular, even taking some measures - some of them, even too drastic, IMO - to secure that, like changing Jynx’ color palette starting from Gen III, temporarily replacing Brock in the anime with Tracey and slightly altering Gym Leader Lenora’s default design to please the fans concerned with their possible racist implications. But I think the biggest proof of that is how, starting from Gen V, they’ve been making an effort to include more diversity among their human cast, including more and more characters with different cultural and ethnic backgrounds with each passing generation, and even alluding to sexual diversity from time to time - if only through subtext, in the latter’s case (save for that post-op trans woman in the Battle Chateau, which got slightly less explicit in the English localization). Of course, not everything is perfect in that department, as can be attested by their reluctancy to depict the Player Characters in their more dark-skinned variations, as of X and Y, (and before that, the complete absence of that possibility in-game) in promotional art and spinoff media outside of screenshots of main series games designed specifically to showcase character customization, but I’d like to think this had more to do with the Japanese market - still their main target audience, despite the franchise’s success over the entire globe - being hesitant to accept character designs outside certain “standards” for their PC’s even to this day, to a lesser extent than in the past, of course. But one thing that people need to understand is that companies are complex entities encompassing many individual minds; them having flaws and making mistakes from time to time does not necessarily mean they are rotten to the core, even if, in the end, their main priority is making money for themselves (altruism is NOT a strong point in capitalist societies, sadly, but I digress).

With all that said, I’d like to point out as well, that sometimes, good intentions are not enough to perform a good deed; in fact, they can lead to grave consequences! And it’s not different with representation; sometimes, one can intend to portray a character from a certain group in a positive light and end up being tremendously insensitive, usually due to their own ignorance towards that group. I believe that’s the case with Jynx and other examples from Pokémon; while I’m one of the fans who prefer to believe Jynx is based on the Youkai Yama-Uba (refer to this link for more info on that: https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Jynx_(Pok%C3%A9mon)#Origin), I cannot deny there is a strong similarity between Jynx’ original design and blackface caricatures, specially since the Yama-Uba is usually portrayed in Noh theatre by performers wearing blackface - even if without the intention to emulate actual black people. It doesn’t help that the anime chose to portray this species as Pokémon’s equivalent of Santa Claus’ usual elf assistants, possibly linking Jynx to Zwarte Peit, a infamous folklore figure heavily associated with Santa as well. In regards to the substantially smaller Lenora controversy, I personally believe it was the case of GF misinterpreting some depictions of black women from less-enlightened times, in particular those borrowing from the mammy stereotype, as something more positive than they actually were, possibly connecting them to traditional Japanese ideals of femininity and motherhood, but that’s just a wild guess, I admit. What I’m sure, however, is that while Lenora’s apron could be excused as a means to carry her archeological tools, even if I’ve never seen an actual archeologist wearing aprons to do so, her original Gym Leader Title in the Japanese version of the Gen V games, “Natural-born Mama” raises a lot of suspicion against the intent behind her design, specially since she’s not known to have children, have a particularly “motherly” personality, act as a mother figure towards any character in-game or have an occupation that could be interpreted as being akin to a mother’s role; the best I can think of is Lenora and her husband referring to each other as “mama” and “papa”, but considering other Gym Leader titles refer more to their main character features, and Lenora’s relationship with Hawes is more of side note in comparison to her role as Nacrene Museum’s director... the fact the rest of her characterization is pretty straightforward, lacking any racial elements to it, however, lends credency to the idea GF didn’t intend her to be a caricature of black women.

Nevertheless, the closeness between those depictions and real world racist depictions of minority groups is still unsettling, at least to some. And just because the author’s intention wasn’t to offend a certain group, it doesn’t mean people don’t have the right to dislike their work for that. After all, so many people hate Palkia’s design for resembling male genitalia despite that obviously not being the intention! What if they coloured Cloyster light pink instead? Would you blame people for associating it (even more) with a vagina? I’m not saying we should storm off GF’s office demanding they change Grimmsnarl’s design while accusing them of being bigots, specially since I don’t believe it’s the case at all; all Im saying is that there’s a strong point of favour of those discontent with the characters’ design, despite all claims that it’s not meant to represent something they despise. I don’t know if GF should feel impelled to change Grimmsnarl’s colouring to solely please those people, but I’m sure I’d also hate if they created, even unintentionally, a character who bore too much resemblance to a particularly negative depicition from a group I belong to, say, some Fuu Manchuu-esque Evil Team Leader or the like. If they simply made a new Pokémon with a Chinese-inspired aesthetic, even if some elements were a bit cliché, like Ludicolo is for Mexican people, I wouldn’t mind nearly as much.

And I don’t think anyone should dismiss those concerns, much less with weak arguments such as “if you see racism in that, then you’re the real bigot” like I’ve seen out there, just because they don’t grasp the ideas I exposed above. Neither do I approve the attitude of people who react with too much intensity to opposition towards their accusations or jump the gun and accuse GF of being prejudiced towards a specific group without enough evidence or incite violence of any kind towards them because of those unfortunate depictions. Remember, they come from a culture far away from our Western issues, so it’s more likely than not that they aren’t even aware of them, specially more relatively obscure elements like old Nazi propaganda. Having a British man as one of their main designers can help, but even Western people aren’t aware of all Western problems, so...

#pokemon #pokemon sword and shield #pokemon leak #pokemon leaks #pokemon swsh #swsh spoilers #racism #game freak #grimmsnarl

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truemedian · 4 years

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Now Playing Nightly on Instagram: Sketch Comedy’s Newest Star

On Comedy Names big and small are pivoting to online humor, but the standouts are the character-driven performers who were there all along, especially Meg Stalter.

Stalter as Cameile Orgasm, “the richest person in Beverly Hills.”Credit...Meg Stalter

March 29, 2020, 11:00 a.m. ET Everyone in comedy is now either an internet star or an aspiring one. More so than any other artists, comics adjusted quickly to the new normal, with theaters reinventing themselves as online portals, clubs producing virtual stand-up sets and just about everyone performing on Instagram Live. Jim Gaffigan put his family dinners on YouTube, and Mike Birbiglia live-streamed the development of new jokes with Maria Bamford and John Mulaney. In one of the best pivots, Sam Morril and Taylor Tomlinson, who both recently released stand-up specials, started shooting quick funny videos chronicling a new couple cooped up together in quarantine, and it has grown into a very funny series. But the comedians doing the most assured work online didn’t need to adjust because they were already there, particularly those in the growing genre of “front-facing camera comedy”: short character sketches played directly to the camera. Owing a debt to the hectic editing of Tim and Eric and the influence of the defunct six-second-or-less platform Vine, these videos have gone viral for years, but with comedians and audiences stuck at home, they have replaced the special as the dominant comedy form of the Covid-19 crisis. In the constantly shifting ecosystem of young performers on Twitter and Instagram, the most vital voice to emerge during this anxious, isolating moment is that of Meg Stalter. Stalter, 29, has become essential escapist entertainment, an oasis of invigorating silliness in feeds dominated by wearying tragedy. Part of the reason is her staggering productivity. In the last two weeks alone, she started a new podcast, “Confronting Demons,” and performed nearly nightly hours on IG Live, including comic versions of a cooking show, a magic show, a motivational seminar and a master class on the art of seduction. She has also produced more than a dozen flamboyant new characters, from Cameile Orgasm, the self-described richest person in Beverly Hills, to your aunt who just realized she should be in quarantine — along with a bunch of random experiments like recreating a segment from “Sex and the City” and narrating a scene from a Marilyn Monroe movie. While live in-person comedy has vanished, the Meg Stalter Industrial Complex has filled the vacuum. And though producing such a titanic volume of material from her Brooklyn apartment will inevitably produce uneven results, there is an aesthetic through-line to her comedy, such a signature style that you see online comments refer to people as a Meg Stalter character. So who exactly is that? She tends to be verbose, oddly theatrical, preposterously can-do, the kind of person described as a bit much. Her characters are ordinary eccentrics who drop unusually funny names (like Hannikah) and find epiphanies in the mundane, like the artsy mom who takes up drawing again. She becomes so inspired that she develops a new resentment for her children, despairing that she can’t make anything beautiful since she produced such an ugly son. As ridiculous as her characters can be, Stalter approaches them with warmth. For a satirist, she has a big heart, jabbing her subjects without really going for the kill. There’s even a poignancy to how clueless they are. Think Catherine O’Hara in “Schitt’s Creek.” Typically accompanied by vivid eye makeup and subtle but pitch-perfect background music, her characters have an unexpected glamour, like the Parisian influencer who finds herself endlessly irresistible. “My morning routine is to make love to myself and then break an egg to celebrate,” she says in a buttery French accent. “After that, I like to fill up my bath with milk and look at it. I like to sit on a wooden chair for no reason.” Such absurd riffs tumble out of her mouth as quickly as Robin Williams erupted impressions. Comics tend to be either meticulously careful with language or freewheeling and improvisational, but Stalter somehow manages to be both at once. She often mispronounces words, but then commits to the mistake, making it amusing. Other times, she delights in the goofiest word choice. One of her extravagant characters, a grandly self-regarding femme fatale in her own mind, flirtatiously tells a man on a date: “There’s just one little problem: You were looking even more delicious than the rigatoni.” Then there’s this classic terrible wedding toast gone wrong: “Ezmerelda, you are hot, magic and did I mention hot?” she says, then returning to pasta comedy to address the groom. “Tortellini, you are average, brain-dead and more of a curse than magic. But opposites attract.” On her podcast, Stalter plays a version of herself that’s harsher than any of her characters, a fame-hungry nobody who keeps calling up comics, asking them to appear on her show, and when they turn her down, erupting in hostility. (Chelsea Peretti and Chris Gethard sent themselves up beautifully by insisting on their niceness.) Stalter does some more straightforward parodies like a satire of rom-com clichés, but what distinguishes her from her peers is an unpredictable surreal streak. Her videos start and end abruptly, and don’t build so much as evolve into a series of tangents with pivots that veer off into delightful lunacy. In a sketch about a woman who, in a misguided seduction, invited only one man to her birthday party, she gesticulates to her labored flirtation, then seems to be so delighted by her own waving arms that she makes them the main focus, transforming a conventional premise into deliriously abstract physical comedy. With an exception or two, Stalter has steered clear of focusing on the pandemic, though on Twitter and Instagram, where you can see comments right by her face, fans often say she helps them deal with isolation or even the virus itself. On Wednesday night on IG Live, with her hair in a bun surrounded by a beaded necklace, she played a loony psychic (“I followed an owl here and the rest is history”) who invited people to appear on a split-screen and have their futures told. One woman talked about losing her job and another slightly shaken teenager expressed worry about how the current chaos would change her college prospects. Stalter assured both that things would work out, that we’re in this together, and appeared increasingly aware of the cathartic purpose of her comedy. In one psychic reading, she seemed to get emotional comforting a girl, breaking character and saying: “I know this is a funny character but it’s more than that,” she said, adding. “People need magic right now.” In that moment, Meg Stalter sounded a bit like a Meg Stalter character. She also was speaking a truth. But she returned to artifice quickly, shifting into the inherent optimism of the voice of a mystical figure who believes enough in the future to read it on tarot cards.

Six More to Watch

These funny men and women are especially good at “front-facing camera comedy” on social media.

Eva Victor

With more than 300,000 followers on Twitter, she’s arguably the biggest star of this form, a magnetic performer whose motormouth characters evoke the comic anxiety of Roz Chast cartoons. Find her here on Twitter and here on Instagram.

Alyssa Limperis

Gifted at accents and impressions, she has been hilarious recently as herself, capturing the hostility of a couple cooped up in at home and the difficulty of conversation over FaceTime, a crossover collaboration with Eva Victor that went viral. Find her here on Instagram.

Noah Findling

A rising star with a knack for finding the right detail, particularly in beta male character types: the needy boyfriend, the younger sibling in a fight. Find him here on Instagram and here on Twitter.

Carmen Christopher

A standout in New York’s weird comedy scene, he posted two very funny videos this month, satirizing Vice News and the life of a comic in quarantine. Find him here on Instagram and here on Twitter.

Chris Calogero

His cliché movie types (every expert hacker, the brutally meta character inserted into every horror film for a decade after “Scream”) are hilarious sketches that double as sharp movie criticism. Find him here on Instagram and here on Twitter.

Grace Kuhlenshmidt

Leaning less on quick cuts than taut, maniacal monologues, she has a gift for hilarious snapshots of the unhinged, the deluded and the startlingly vengeful. Find her here on Twitter and to a lesser extent, here on Instagram. Read More Read the full article

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ramajmedia · 5 years

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Why Carnival Row's Reviews Are So Negative | Screen Rant

Amazon's ambitious new fantasy series Carnival Row features a murder mystery, a troubled romance, and a fantasy world rich with neo-noir and steampunk aesthetics - but it's also attracted a significant number of negative reviews. Why has a TV show that seemed to have so much promise left so many critics dissatisfied?

Carnival Row stars Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne as estranged lovers Rycroft Philostrate and Vignette Stonemoss. Philo was a soldier who fought in a war in Vignette's homeland of Tirnanoc, until the human forces of The Burgue decided to pull out of the war and leave the fae defenceless against their invaders. Vignette and Philo met in the war and fell in love, but got separated in a battle that left Vignette believing Philo was dead. They're reunited when Vignette joins her fellow fae refugees in The Burgue and discovers that Philo is alive, well, and serving as an inspector with the city's constabulary.

Related: Amazon's Carnival Row Cast & Character Guide

Those who have already fallen in love with the world of Carnival Row have no need to fear that the negative reviews will end it after one season. Amazon announced Carnival Row season 2 alongside the release of the first season, so we can expect to see Vignette and Philo return no matter what. Currently the show has a "Rotten" score of 51% on Rotten Tomatoes, and here are some of the reasons why reviewers were less than impressed - in their own words:

New York Times:

"Reanimates bits and pieces from different branches of the fantasy genre into a glum and lumbering beast that only occasionally sparks into life... The energy left over from this exercise in world assembly doesn't appear to have gone into creating vivid characters or an involving mystery or romance."

Variety:

"Bloom, pitching his voice low as a human detective, does little at all while trying to solve various uncompelling mysteries. However much narrative energy spent ginning up an alternate universe in which divine creatures exist seems wasted as Bloom plods through cases that are either uninspired or inspired by every Jack the Ripper copycat in history."

Slant:

"Not an episode goes by that doesn’t make one wonder what Carnival Row could have been had it not bitten off far more than it can chew. There’s much to like here—mostly the kaleidoscopic genre-mixing—but not enough to overcome the show’s confused handling of the socio-political allegory at its core. Would that this beast were more thoughtfully stitched together."

CNN:

"World building is hard enough, but as circus acts go, Carnival Row is like a juggler on a unicycle. It's kind of interesting to watch, but nobody really needs it. Nor does the prejudice directed at the mythological races really come alive, as allegorical as it might feel."

The Week:

"Carnival Row leans heavily on ornamentation to distract from shallow tropes and cliché plots. But whimsical sets do not make a show inherently interesting. Neither do fancy-sounding names like 'Vignette,' which only serve to gussy up the one-dimensional characters underneath."

Carnival Row uses the influx of fae into The Burgue as a transparent allegory for real-life issues such as immigration and racism, but a lot of critics said that this aspect of the show falls flat - either because it's too clumsily inserted, or because its an element that feels like it's been done too many times before. The show can also be somewhat alienating to those who aren't already enthusiastic fantasy fans, with its rapid-fire world-building and cast of characters with names like "Tourmaline Larou" and "Agreus Astrayon." However, Carnival Row is already finding an enthusiastic fanbase among viewers, and some reviews are considerably warmer towards the new series:

Hollywood Reporter:

"It takes a few episodes for the series to introduce and spin out this cobbled mythology — and that will undoubtedly lose some people — but ultimately it works when it gets going. Carnival Row has a strong cast and if you're in the open-minded mood to see how humans, fairies and inter-species creations fight to get along in a dark world of magical realism and Jack the Ripper-era British police tactics — replete with political machinations, an otherworldly serial killing spree and disparate tribes of combatants — then this is precisely your stew."

Entertainment Weekly:

"If a group of hardcore genre fans got together and wrote a TV show, and then somebody’s rich Uncle Jeff (Bezos) Venmo’d them several million dollars to produce it, the result might be something like Carnival Row... At times, the mythology can feel needlessly complex, but there is something truly endearing about Carnival’s earnest, irony-free storytelling."

Sydney Morning Herald:

"As a piece of fantasy fiction, this is rich and engaging... The visual touches are stunning, an intoxicating blend of Victorian grime and gilded age polish, where mansions and slums clash, sliced in two by monorails of clanking steam trains overhead."

Ultimately, it seems like Carnival Row is a show where you'll have to watch for yourself to find out if its your cup of tea. And it's worth at least giving it a chance - after all, there aren't a lot of steampunk fantasy shows that feature Jack the Ripper-esque murder mysteries and puppet shows starring tiny kobolds dressed up in costumes on TV right now.

More: Read Screen Rant's Review of Carnival Row

source https://screenrant.com/carnival-row-amazon-reviews-bad/

#screenrant

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