For the cissies out there: you’re not a bad person for buying / playing this game if you didn’t know.
That last sentence was entirely there to accommodate cis fragility. :cissues:
Go read that post. The game is bad.
For the cissies out there: you’re not a bad person for buying / playing this game if you didn’t know.
That last sentence was entirely there to accommodate cis fragility. :cissues:
Go read that post. The game is bad.
chasery tr*p memes are never okay.
https://hexbear.net/post/64330/comment/654312
I don't entirely disagree with some of that: I definitely think that, in general, the ads in the game (despite overwhelmingly being extremely sexualized for the most banal products possible) aren't excessive enough to make for effective commentary or actually even approach the level of intrusiveness, banality, and unpleasantness of real ads, but I also don't think that particularly one is unique in that regard. They pull their punches too often, and that is a distinct problem here, whether that comes from a fear of controversy, a lack of drive to really make a message about it, or just the simple fact that their art department couldn't spend even the smallest fraction as much time finding new ways to be utterly horrible as real marketing department do.
it's because the outrage cycle drives further sales so it pays to pull their punches (that, as the OP argues, they were never actually willing to throw in the first place).
my point is that this goes past mere hypersexualization. it's the dehumanization, trivialization of trans gender, chaser framing, and the dehumanization through juxtaposition with a man-eating beast that makes this a real problem. this game and this company are not worth defending.
I'm not really sure how portraying commodification of human bodies for even the most banal reasons can be done without portraying dehumanization and fetishization of the model. I personally believe the artist was genuine in her analysis of her work, if only because it lined up with my own attempt at analyzing the intent without starting from a position of assuming the worst the day before she did that interview, but I will agree that the game never goes beyond portraying commodification of not just human bodies (both figuratively and literally), but also their identities and experiences (also both figuratively and literally).
I think they overall did a good job with showing dehumanizing commodification, or at least a better job than media generally does, but they do the usual liberal thing of just showing things being realistically bad and that's it, they don't analyze it or propose solutions or have the courtesy to beat the viewer over the head and yell "you see this shit? this is bad and also how basically how things really are, this has to be fixed" because subtle critiques are genuinely bad and get lost on most people (although I will say that the Witcher 3 did have the courtesy to have the narrator basically beat the player over the head and explicitly yell "racism is bad, actually" over and over on the loading screens).
Barely related but it only just now clicked for me that chromanticore is probably supposed to be a Monster Energy Drink expy.
it has to feature actual criticism, not merely depict the commodification and dehumanization. on transphobia, the game unambiguously does not do that.
yes, it's diagetically about an energy drink. no, that does not excuse the juxtaposition in an already transphobic work of art, by a company that has repeatedly engaged in transphobia.
I keep going back over and reanalyzing it, but I keep coming to the same conclusion that in the context of the in-universe ads, the chromanticore one doesn't stand out from the others (featuring more normatively cis bodies, or heavily modified ones) in style or sexualization. Its failing is the same as theirs: that it's racy but mundane at the same time, like I could unironically see a real major brand making basically the same ad in the next five years, except because instead of a single artist throwing together a "good enough" facsimile of an ad it'll be the product of a full marketing team working overtime at being awful with enthusiasm matched only by blue-checkmarks on twitter it'll somehow be even worse, like it'll be fucking Pepsi and it'll involve a gross visual pun about a can of soda or something and they'll find a way to then also put their foot in their mouth with whatever narration or dialogue they add to it.
In the overall worldbuilding and narrative they don't engage with or include transphobia at all (or in-universe bigotry of any sort, apart from Johny's self-centered, chauvinist bullshit - oh fuck I just realized he's an on-point caricature of the old online left from before gamergate made most guys like that either go full fash, reform into a better person, or at least try to pretend not to be such a piece of shit in public), even to attack it, and where there are LGBT characters (as in actual characters with names and stories, rather than models on a billboard or vending machine) they're normalized to the point of being completely mundane with there being no conflict over their existence or sexuality, and I really can't find fault with that because even if it were deconstructed, refuted, or even just immediately punished with extreme violence I really don't want to have to witness or be reminded of actual transphobia when playing a game. Like, for example, the fact that when an NPC in GTA: Online screams transphobic slurs at my character they're less than a second away from being turned into a fine mist by a rocket or a car traveling at over 100 mph doesn't change the fact that I don't want to hear them screaming slurs at me in the first place.
The way you explain the ad thing I understand and I agree with. If it was just the ad, I understand it, it's kind of a common trope of the dystopian genre to have ugly ads like that to satirize or subtly criticize something. I am also reminded of Starship Troopers and Robocop. But what I think makes it worse is how they used it in merch and even did a whole cosplay competition around it which makes me think that there's something more to this, like the company intentionally stirring shit to make more people talking about it and to pander to angry gamers.
my reaction to the first time I saw that image was shock and disgust. I absolutely found it triggering.
And my reaction as a non-op trans woman was "cool, I unironically hope I can make my character look like that too, but I'm not gonna hold my breath" followed almost immediately by exasperation at the first wave of discourse as it kicked up. Like I get some people are super dysphoric and touchy about that sort of thing, hell I was too eight years ago and I still don't quite know how that changed for me since it seems it usually goes the other way instead, but that's not everyone's experience and I don't really like the implication that art portraying a non-op trans woman who's sexualized in any way is inherently problematic - like I'm a little uncomfortable with it coming from a cis person, even a cis woman who can clearly articulate a trans-positive and feminist critique of how human bodies are commodified, but certainly not enough to decide on the spot that it's an attack on my identity.
I don't want to be hostile, cause I know this is getting to a topic that seems kind of a split in the broader trans community, but it's also a kind of sore spot for me on account of old conflicts and, I'll admit, the sense of sort of alienation that ending up at a point where I'm both done transitioning and'll still never really be done with it leaves me with.
I'm not saying the sexualization of a non-op trans woman is the problem! reread my original quoted post. I'm very clearly pointing to the framing, the manticore bit (seriously, do you know how often they compare us to beasts?), and the grody "mix it up" language that really seals it as chaser shit.