So what? We shouldn’t sacrifice a good story or game - or any bad “thing” - because some dumbass will think “wow he’s literally me!” They’ll always think that because conservatism prohibits thinking too hard about anything, otherwise you stray away from Purity.
My point is: that you can still try to mitigate this. Again with my example: I want to avoid an audience of conservatives who will miss the whole point of my work.
So I put in extra effort to avoid talking about race in a distasteful way. I probably will unironically use "n-word" in place of the actual word spelled out if I feel like it will complement whatever theme or point I'm making. Because using the full word is going to attract those people, and people that are interested in reading about race won't be off-put by that either (they might even prefer it).
You can enjoy problematic media, but it's important to call it out.
Consuming problematic media doesn't necessarily make you problematic.
Consuming problematic media doesn't necessarily make you problematic.
I never said it did nor do I believe that was your point. Your point is that we should avoid problematic things just because someone bad will be drawn to it which is absurd. I promise you some racist piece of shit isn't going to watch Atlanta, a show about poor black guys making rap music and calling each other the n word and dealing with white people shenanigans, which includes a lot of racism. Wow. It's almost as if there's a difference between the creators of South Park 'satirizing' a racist person and throwing around slurs about Jews while convincing people that "free speech" is more important than someone's feeling vs. someone with skill making art about the struggles of minorities and making problematic characters say problematic things that contribute to that struggle. Crazy.
I probably will unironically use "n-word" in place of the actual word spelled out if I feel like it will complement whatever theme or point I'm making.
This is an artistic choice and a fine one. But why should this be applied in every piece of fiction? And what if it doesn't complement your theme or point? You're just going to pretend it doesn't exist or completely change your story so that the event doesn't occur in your art?
and people that are interested in reading about race won't be off-put by that either (they might even prefer it).
They might. And they might not care. And they might think you're being a corny tryhard. People aren't a monolith. Sometimes you should take your intended audience into consideration, but what if you don't want to or if you don't care for a certain portion of the audience because that's not who you intend to consume your shit? The Soviets had "and you hang n-groes" propaganda poster that still pisses liberals off today. Maybe it made some black people uncomfortable, maybe it convinced some black people that american capitalism is against them. But their other audience was American government officials and white liberals who believed they were civil and nice to the black people they oppress alongside the conservative whites. And it clearly worked in making them uncomfortable because the only people talking about that today are white liberals who invoke "whataboutism" whenever you point out their crimes. The conservatives probably thought it was a good thing, but they already believed that and a poster made by the enemy with a slur on it won't change their behavior one way or the other.
Should we just get rid of Come and See because someone might watch it and simply think "wow, this is a terribly sad movie about war time violence." and nothing else? Maybe we should just ban it altogether because it might make victims of war crimes uncomfortable. Or banning Dune for attracting teenagers because they see it as a story about a kid becoming an epic ruler soldier? Or maybe you don't want to get rid of it, but maybe we should get rid of that line where the protagonist compares himself to Hitler you need to spoonfeed everyone? It seems like you unironically want to implement the meme of the protagonist staring directly at the camera and explaining what actions he'll perform off screen, why his actions are bad, and why the viewer shouldn't want to be him.
I'll give you this. The "And babies? And babies." anti-Vietnam war poster is just those two sentences in front of the picture of the victims of the My Lai massacre. It pisses me and disgusts me even though the message supports my beliefs, but not because it depicts my countrymen massacred for a white american audience to consume or that there are conservatives who jack off to it, but because said white american audience never learned from it. They were horrified by it and it fueled their resistance against the imperialists, but guess what? The victims of the massacres, and every other massacre committed by the Americans in Vietnam were essentially Jesus - they died so white Americans may be cleansed of their sins, so that they may continue with their massacres and atrocities without feeling bad about it because mass protests in the 60s are enough to save them from damnation. That's why I'm fucking pissed about it - it was wasted on assholes who never learned. But guess what, there are people out there who are smart enough see the message and they can no longer stomach the crimes of the empire. The poster itself likely played a minor role, or maybe it was the final straw, or maybe it did nothing but disgust people without any further thought. I wouldn't want to look at it again, but I'm not against its existence just because the audience failed to change their ways - in fact, the fact that they didn't makes it more powerful to me because it shows how truly evil this country is.
You don't need to be transgressive in your art to make your point. But if you're smart, and you try to cultivate a smart audience, then there's merit to it.
So what? We shouldn’t sacrifice a good story or game - or any bad “thing” - because some dumbass will think “wow he’s literally me!” They’ll always think that because conservatism prohibits thinking too hard about anything, otherwise you stray away from Purity.
My point is: that you can still try to mitigate this. Again with my example: I want to avoid an audience of conservatives who will miss the whole point of my work.
So I put in extra effort to avoid talking about race in a distasteful way. I probably will unironically use "n-word" in place of the actual word spelled out if I feel like it will complement whatever theme or point I'm making. Because using the full word is going to attract those people, and people that are interested in reading about race won't be off-put by that either (they might even prefer it).
You can enjoy problematic media, but it's important to call it out.
Consuming problematic media doesn't necessarily make you problematic.
I never said it did nor do I believe that was your point. Your point is that we should avoid problematic things just because someone bad will be drawn to it which is absurd. I promise you some racist piece of shit isn't going to watch Atlanta, a show about poor black guys making rap music and calling each other the n word and dealing with white people shenanigans, which includes a lot of racism. Wow. It's almost as if there's a difference between the creators of South Park 'satirizing' a racist person and throwing around slurs about Jews while convincing people that "free speech" is more important than someone's feeling vs. someone with skill making art about the struggles of minorities and making problematic characters say problematic things that contribute to that struggle. Crazy.
This is an artistic choice and a fine one. But why should this be applied in every piece of fiction? And what if it doesn't complement your theme or point? You're just going to pretend it doesn't exist or completely change your story so that the event doesn't occur in your art?
They might. And they might not care. And they might think you're being a corny tryhard. People aren't a monolith. Sometimes you should take your intended audience into consideration, but what if you don't want to or if you don't care for a certain portion of the audience because that's not who you intend to consume your shit? The Soviets had "and you hang n-groes" propaganda poster that still pisses liberals off today. Maybe it made some black people uncomfortable, maybe it convinced some black people that american capitalism is against them. But their other audience was American government officials and white liberals who believed they were civil and nice to the black people they oppress alongside the conservative whites. And it clearly worked in making them uncomfortable because the only people talking about that today are white liberals who invoke "whataboutism" whenever you point out their crimes. The conservatives probably thought it was a good thing, but they already believed that and a poster made by the enemy with a slur on it won't change their behavior one way or the other.
Should we just get rid of Come and See because someone might watch it and simply think "wow, this is a terribly sad movie about war time violence." and nothing else? Maybe we should just ban it altogether because it might make victims of war crimes uncomfortable. Or banning Dune for attracting teenagers because they see it as a story about a kid becoming an epic ruler soldier? Or maybe you don't want to get rid of it, but maybe we should get rid of that line where the protagonist compares himself to Hitler you need to spoonfeed everyone? It seems like you unironically want to implement the meme of the protagonist staring directly at the camera and explaining what actions he'll perform off screen, why his actions are bad, and why the viewer shouldn't want to be him.
I'll give you this. The "And babies? And babies." anti-Vietnam war poster is just those two sentences in front of the picture of the victims of the My Lai massacre. It pisses me and disgusts me even though the message supports my beliefs, but not because it depicts my countrymen massacred for a white american audience to consume or that there are conservatives who jack off to it, but because said white american audience never learned from it. They were horrified by it and it fueled their resistance against the imperialists, but guess what? The victims of the massacres, and every other massacre committed by the Americans in Vietnam were essentially Jesus - they died so white Americans may be cleansed of their sins, so that they may continue with their massacres and atrocities without feeling bad about it because mass protests in the 60s are enough to save them from damnation. That's why I'm fucking pissed about it - it was wasted on assholes who never learned. But guess what, there are people out there who are smart enough see the message and they can no longer stomach the crimes of the empire. The poster itself likely played a minor role, or maybe it was the final straw, or maybe it did nothing but disgust people without any further thought. I wouldn't want to look at it again, but I'm not against its existence just because the audience failed to change their ways - in fact, the fact that they didn't makes it more powerful to me because it shows how truly evil this country is.
You don't need to be transgressive in your art to make your point. But if you're smart, and you try to cultivate a smart audience, then there's merit to it.