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[PA Comic] Friday, May 4, 2012 - Incredibility

135

Posts

  • The Good Doctor TranThe Good Doctor Tran Registered User regular
    Lux wrote: »
    I didn't think of the guy as non-white at all, but I think the issue is that since PA is not a very diverse strip (background, one-off or "random bystander" characters are almost always white) that any hint of color sticks out to some readers as a racial indicator. Maybe there's something there in what aesthetic qualities society considers "untrustworthy" correlating with broad racial features, but that's not a PA thing...

    Thank you for your ability to think freely. I hope you have not been singled out as a side effect of participating in this discussion.

    If only the rest of us who don't agree with you hadn't been so thoroughly programmed by the Disney Swarthiness Conspiracy.

    Are you concerned Lux is going to be targeted for a hit by the anti-hairiness Gestapo?

    LoL & Spiral Knights & MC & SMNC: Carrington - Origin: CarringtonPlus - Steam: skdrtran
  • Sage_CatharsisSage_Catharsis Registered User regular
    Lux wrote: »
    I didn't think of the guy as non-white at all, but I think the issue is that since PA is not a very diverse strip (background, one-off or "random bystander" characters are almost always white) that any hint of color sticks out to some readers as a racial indicator. Maybe there's something there in what aesthetic qualities society considers "untrustworthy" correlating with broad racial features, but that's not a PA thing...

    Thank you for your ability to think freely. I hope you have not been singled out as a side effect of participating in this discussion.

    If only the rest of us who don't agree with you hadn't been so thoroughly programmed by the Disney Swarthiness Conspiracy.

    Are you concerned Lux is going to be targeted for a hit by the anti-hairiness Gestapo?

    Please stop you are hurting me.

  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    @TychoCelchuuu @Billy Chenowith
    Thank you.

    After reading online about some of the patterns in Disney villains over the years I better understand how American society has been trained to relate to and percieve me. It's great to not be alone here on tw threads. And thanks @Mare for your understanding as well.

    Thank you all.

    You mean Jafar?

    Because before Jafar Disney villains were typically white women or you know cartoon animals.
    And none of them were swarthy.

    But please enlighten me on how Pete is a Muslim caricature whatever lunacy you read "online"

    A list off the top of my head fails to enlighten:

    two evil queens
    bunch of sorceresses
    a giant whale
    an evil aunt
    an evil stepmother
    a wolf
    a crazy woman with a dogskin fetish
    Jafar, in a movie about Arabia (and say what you will about its depiction of the subject matter, I don't think a unique abundance of hair on the part of the villain was an issue)
    some English guy
    A Greek god who is clean shaven and also on fire
    A Cajun person? I don't know I didn't see the frog movie.
    a French priest
    an octopus woman, I guess she's kind of a sorceress
    A lion
    Gaston, who I guess has chest hair?
    Snake and a tiger, also maybe an orangutan? Is it the orangutan who's a swarthy villain?
    I think there was a rat at some point

    Oh yae and Pete, forgot about him.

    I think we can take from this that Disney isn't a huge fan of assertive women, but I'm not getting a real 'swarthy' vibe.

    You did forget Shan Yu from Mulan, but if I'm not mistaken he has a fairly large fan base of ladies who find him sexy. Though I don't know if that makes a difference. But in a film of bland character models, his is perhaps the most compelling.

    Cambiata on
    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    Lux wrote: »
    I didn't think of the guy as non-white at all, but I think the issue is that since PA is not a very diverse strip (background, one-off or "random bystander" characters are almost always white) that any hint of color sticks out to some readers as a racial indicator. Maybe there's something there in what aesthetic qualities society considers "untrustworthy" correlating with broad racial features, but that's not a PA thing...

    Thank you for your ability to think freely. I hope you have not been singled out as a side effect of participating in this discussion.

    If only the rest of us who don't agree with you hadn't been so thoroughly programmed by the Disney Swarthiness Conspiracy.

    Are you concerned Lux is going to be targeted for a hit by the anti-hairiness Gestapo?
    It's funny, because in a way, you have been programmed by the Disney Swarthiness Conspiracy. I'm not really sure what Disney has to do with it, and it's not really a conspiracy, but culture has programmed us to see people like this as sketchy scammers and it is an accepted stereotype that vaguely foreign looking men who have lots of hair are probably bad people who want to take things from you by tricking you and it is a hurtful, untrue, racist stereotype. It's hurtful not just because it's a stereotype that "X kind of person does Y sort of thing which is bad" but because people don't realize that it's a hurtful stereotype. The idea that anyone could ever be hurt by something is so completely foreign to you that you can joke about the Disney Swarthiness Conspiracy as if it's a bogus thing, but just try to tell me it's a coincidence that the scammer in this comic looks like a common stereotype about shifty scammers any more than it's a coincidence that Shylock happens to be a Jew.

  • FyndirFyndir Registered User regular
    You keep talking about it being a "common" stereotype, but I can't think of any examples of it from relatively recent popular culture.

    Can you provide some?

  • The Good Doctor TranThe Good Doctor Tran Registered User regular
    Lux wrote: »
    I didn't think of the guy as non-white at all, but I think the issue is that since PA is not a very diverse strip (background, one-off or "random bystander" characters are almost always white) that any hint of color sticks out to some readers as a racial indicator. Maybe there's something there in what aesthetic qualities society considers "untrustworthy" correlating with broad racial features, but that's not a PA thing...

    Thank you for your ability to think freely. I hope you have not been singled out as a side effect of participating in this discussion.

    If only the rest of us who don't agree with you hadn't been so thoroughly programmed by the Disney Swarthiness Conspiracy.

    Are you concerned Lux is going to be targeted for a hit by the anti-hairiness Gestapo?
    It's funny, because in a way, you have been programmed by the Disney Swarthiness Conspiracy. I'm not really sure what Disney has to do with it, and it's not really a conspiracy, but culture has programmed us to see people like this as sketchy scammers and it is an accepted stereotype that vaguely foreign looking men who have lots of hair are probably bad people who want to take things from you by tricking you and it is a hurtful, untrue, racist stereotype. It's hurtful not just because it's a stereotype that "X kind of person does Y sort of thing which is bad" but because people don't realize that it's a hurtful stereotype. The idea that anyone could ever be hurt by something is so completely foreign to you that you can joke about the Disney Swarthiness Conspiracy as if it's a bogus thing, but just try to tell me it's a coincidence that the scammer in this comic looks like a common stereotype about shifty scammers any more than it's a coincidence that Shylock happens to be a Jew.

    My complaint, which you adroitly ignored, is that no one has provided evidence of what the hell this Disney bullshit is about. All that Sage Catharsis - and now you - have been doing is setting up a lot of pretty weak strawmen. I invite you to provide a genuine argument and until then I reserve the completely rational right to make light of the entire matter. Suggesting that a thing is not bogus because someone argued that it's bogus isn't a valid rhetorical device.

    LoL & Spiral Knights & MC & SMNC: Carrington - Origin: CarringtonPlus - Steam: skdrtran
  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    Gaston, who I guess has chest hair?

    Don't sell the guy short, it was a line in his song!

    "...and every last inch of me's covered with HAIR!"

    Except his face. Also he's got nothing on the "hero" of that movie in the hair department.

  • GaslightGaslight Registered User regular
    Gaslight wrote: »
    He is barely darker than Gabe and Tycho. Actually if anything he is just pinker. {snip} "foreign" ethnicity.

    Traits that one can associate with ones heritage, homeland, genetic journey or ethnicity are more than skin deep. This is not a black white issue or even a color issue at all.

    Then exactly what traits do you see in Mr. Videogames that you identify with yourself, pray tell, if they are not ones of physical appearance? Because besides what he looks like, literally all we know about him is that is A) he knows jack shit about video games and B) he wants people to donate money to him on Kickstarter.

    What part of that resonates with your heritage, homeland, genetic journey, or ethnicity, exactly?

  • Big Red TieBig Red Tie beautiful clydesdale style feet too hot to trotRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    KalTorak wrote: »
    Gaston, who I guess has chest hair?

    Don't sell the guy short, it was a line in his song!

    "...and every last inch of me's covered with HAIR!"

    Except his face. Also he's got nothing on the "hero" of that movie in the hair department.

    oh yeah, the beast is mega swarthy. but I'm not sure if it counts if it's just dark fur color

    Big Red Tie on
    3926 4292 8829
    Beasteh wrote: »
    *おなら*
  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Lux wrote: »
    I didn't think of the guy as non-white at all, but I think the issue is that since PA is not a very diverse strip (background, one-off or "random bystander" characters are almost always white) that any hint of color sticks out to some readers as a racial indicator. Maybe there's something there in what aesthetic qualities society considers "untrustworthy" correlating with broad racial features, but that's not a PA thing...

    Thank you for your ability to think freely. I hope you have not been singled out as a side effect of participating in this discussion.

    If only the rest of us who don't agree with you hadn't been so thoroughly programmed by the Disney Swarthiness Conspiracy.

    Are you concerned Lux is going to be targeted for a hit by the anti-hairiness Gestapo?
    It's funny, because in a way, you have been programmed by the Disney Swarthiness Conspiracy. I'm not really sure what Disney has to do with it, and it's not really a conspiracy, but culture has programmed us to see people like this as sketchy scammers and it is an accepted stereotype that vaguely foreign looking men who have lots of hair are probably bad people who want to take things from you by tricking you and it is a hurtful, untrue, racist stereotype. It's hurtful not just because it's a stereotype that "X kind of person does Y sort of thing which is bad" but because people don't realize that it's a hurtful stereotype. The idea that anyone could ever be hurt by something is so completely foreign to you that you can joke about the Disney Swarthiness Conspiracy as if it's a bogus thing, but just try to tell me it's a coincidence that the scammer in this comic looks like a common stereotype about shifty scammers any more than it's a coincidence that Shylock happens to be a Jew.

    My complaint, which you adroitly ignored, is that no one has provided evidence of what the hell this Disney bullshit is about. All that Sage Catharsis - and now you - have been doing is setting up a lot of pretty weak strawmen. I invite you to provide a genuine argument and until then I reserve the completely rational right to make light of the entire matter. Suggesting that a thing is not bogus because someone argued that it's bogus isn't a valid rhetorical device.
    Here is my "genuine argument."

    1. The guy in this strip looks like a stereotypical scammer: hefty hairy guys of an indeterminate-but-definitely-not-American ethnicity are probably out to scam you.
    2. The stereotypical scammer is a hurtful stereotype because the idea that people who look like this are sketchy scammers is untrue and is also ingrained in our culture, such that when you see someone who looks like the guy in the PA comic, it brings the idea of scammers to mind (why else was he drawn like that?).
    3. It is bad to use hurtful stereotypes.
    ∴ This comic is bad. (In the moral sense, not in a humor sense. It's still hilarious, of course.)

    You can contest premise 1 and say that the guy in the comic just happened to be big-nosed, large, and hairy for some big coincidental reason and that nobody would ever think that this calls to mind the stereotype. I would say that's a very weird claim (that's a pretty big coincidence!) but feel free to argue for it.

    edit: I also just realized you could claim that the stereotype doesn't exist, although then the question is what the hell are Sage, Billy, and I bitching about? Have we all gone collectively insane? Or have perhaps we hit on a stereotype that is thankfully falling out of favor, such that only some of us have heard about it? I mean, clearly Mike has, because the guy ended up drawn into the comic, and clearly Sage, Billy, and I have heard of the stereotype, so if your argument hinges on the idea that the stereotype doesn't exist, I think the best course of action would be to say "whoops, sorry guys, I didn't realize this was a real thing, I was raised in a much more tolerant community that didn't teach me this sort of shit, if I had realized that this was actually a thing I wouldn't have been arguing with you."

    You can contest premise 2 and argue that although this is a stereotype, it's not one of those bad stereotypes. Maybe "Asians are good at math" and "Jews have large noses" are stereotypes that aren't bad, whereas "Chinamen can't be trusted" and "Jews are greedy" stereotypes, and this scammer stereotype is more like the former than the latter.

    You can contest premise 3 and argue that if Penny Arcade wants to draw a comic where a greedy person (say, a game executive thinking up new ways to charge for DLC) is a Jew with a giant nose and a yarmulke, that's totally fine, just like if Penny Arcade wants to draw a comic where a guy who just happens to look like the stereotype of a scammer tries to scam people, that's fine.

    And maybe there are other ways to contest my argument. Go ahead, I'm happy to have the dialog.

    TychoCelchuuu on
  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    Excessive hairiness adds to his "sketchiness", only because hairlessness is the fashion in this age. Back in the disco age, excessive hairiness was considered sexy. Give it a few decades and manly hairiness might come back in to style - heck, beards/moustaches are already achieving a new renaissance.

    Please don't equate "I have to shave my unibrow" with the oppression of racism. I'm a lady so I have to shave my legs and I am fine with this. If I wasn't, I just wouldn't do it, and who cares what anyone else thinks about it. But it's certainly not a terrible burden that makes me weep into my green tea. There is actual, painful, society-breaking racism going on, right now, and equating that with having to shave sometimes cheapens the real struggle.

    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • The Good Doctor TranThe Good Doctor Tran Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Lux wrote: »
    I didn't think of the guy as non-white at all, but I think the issue is that since PA is not a very diverse strip (background, one-off or "random bystander" characters are almost always white) that any hint of color sticks out to some readers as a racial indicator. Maybe there's something there in what aesthetic qualities society considers "untrustworthy" correlating with broad racial features, but that's not a PA thing...

    Thank you for your ability to think freely. I hope you have not been singled out as a side effect of participating in this discussion.

    If only the rest of us who don't agree with you hadn't been so thoroughly programmed by the Disney Swarthiness Conspiracy.

    Are you concerned Lux is going to be targeted for a hit by the anti-hairiness Gestapo?
    It's funny, because in a way, you have been programmed by the Disney Swarthiness Conspiracy. I'm not really sure what Disney has to do with it, and it's not really a conspiracy, but culture has programmed us to see people like this as sketchy scammers and it is an accepted stereotype that vaguely foreign looking men who have lots of hair are probably bad people who want to take things from you by tricking you and it is a hurtful, untrue, racist stereotype. It's hurtful not just because it's a stereotype that "X kind of person does Y sort of thing which is bad" but because people don't realize that it's a hurtful stereotype. The idea that anyone could ever be hurt by something is so completely foreign to you that you can joke about the Disney Swarthiness Conspiracy as if it's a bogus thing, but just try to tell me it's a coincidence that the scammer in this comic looks like a common stereotype about shifty scammers any more than it's a coincidence that Shylock happens to be a Jew.

    My complaint, which you adroitly ignored, is that no one has provided evidence of what the hell this Disney bullshit is about. All that Sage Catharsis - and now you - have been doing is setting up a lot of pretty weak strawmen. I invite you to provide a genuine argument and until then I reserve the completely rational right to make light of the entire matter. Suggesting that a thing is not bogus because someone argued that it's bogus isn't a valid rhetorical device.
    Here is my "genuine argument."

    1. The guy in this strip looks like a stereotypical scammer: hefty hairy guys of an indeterminate-but-definitely-not-American ethnicity are probably out to scam you.
    2. The stereotypical scammer is a hurtful stereotype because the idea that people who look like this are sketchy scammers is untrue and is also ingrained in our culture, such that when you see someone who looks like the guy in the PA comic, it brings the idea of scammers to mind (why else was he drawn like that?).
    3. It is bad to use hurtful stereotypes.
    ∴ This comic is bad. (In the moral sense, not in a humor sense. It's still hilarious, of course.)

    You can contest premise 1 and say that the guy in the comic just happened to be big-nosed, large, and hairy for some big coincidental reason and that nobody would ever think that this calls to mind the stereotype. I would say that's a very weird claim (that's a pretty big coincidence!) but feel free to argue for it.

    edit: I also just realized you could claim that the stereotype doesn't exist, although then the question is what the hell are Sage, Billy, and I bitching about? Have we all gone collectively insane? Or have perhaps we hit on a stereotype that is thankfully falling out of favor, such that only some of us have heard about it? I mean, clearly Jerry has, because the guy ended up drawn into the comic, and clearly Sage, Billy, and I have heard of the stereotype, so if your argument hinges on the idea that the stereotype doesn't exist, I think the best course of action would be to say "whoops, sorry guys, I didn't realize this was a real thing, I was raised in a much more tolerant community that didn't teach me this sort of shit, if I had realized that this was actually a thing I wouldn't have been arguing with you."

    You can contest premise 2 and argue that although this is a stereotype, it's not one of those bad stereotypes. Maybe "Asians are good at math" and "Jews have large noses" are stereotypes that aren't bad, whereas "Chinamen can't be trusted" and "Jews are greedy" stereotypes, and this scammer stereotype is more like the former than the latter.

    You can contest premise 3 and argue that if Penny Arcade wants to draw a comic where a greedy person (say, a game executive thinking up new ways to charge for DLC) is a Jew with a giant nose and a yarmulke, that's totally fine, just like if Penny Arcade wants to draw a comic where a guy who just happens to look like the stereotype of a scammer tries to scam people, that's fine.

    And maybe there are other ways to contest my argument. Go ahead, I'm happy to have the dialog.

    And again, no one's provided an actual instance of this stereotype beyond the comic in question, or evidence of how Disney's related. I guess just keep crying wolf? I'll put my energy and sympathy with people who have legitimate beef with the way society portrays them.

    The Good Doctor Tran on
    LoL & Spiral Knights & MC & SMNC: Carrington - Origin: CarringtonPlus - Steam: skdrtran
  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    1. The guy in this strip looks like a stereotypical scammer: hefty hairy guys of an indeterminate-but-definitely-not-American ethnicity are probably out to scam you.

    I think this is the crux of where everyone is disagreeing with you. Because when I saw this guy, I saw "obviously American." Especially because of how unkempt he was, and the wife beater (like some white trash criminal on Cops). What are the cues that he's not American? The pencil moustache? Pencil moustache doesn't read to me as foriegn, it reads to me as "really old fashioned." Like everything about this guy reads as someone who doesn't understand what other people like, doesn't understand video games, doesn't understand anything. If we saw below his waist, I'd expect to see his pants pulled up past his belly button.

    Cambiata on
    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Yes, being hairy like this dude was once sexy and will once again be sexy at some point. Being hairy and having a foreign looking nose and darker skin than everyone else in the Penny Arcade universe* and having bushy eyebrows and a mustache that screams "foreigner" is different from just being hairy.

    *Guess how far back in the archives you have to go to find someone with a skin tone this dark or darker who isn't an established character from a videogame/real life already? Aside from the bronzed Draw Something model, I think you have to go back to October 7 2011 to find the black prostitute.

    edit: and are you trying to say that the only reason this guy is hairy is because hairiness is unfashionable and being unfashionable suggests sketchy scammers? Really? Would it have worked just as well if he were wearing parachute pants or a pink mohawk or the suits that Gabe and Tycho wear in the Downton Abbey strip? Being unfashionable doesn't make you look like a scammer. Looking exactly like the stereotype of a scammer makes you look like a scammer. That's why he was drawn this way in the comic and that's why he's a stereotype.

    TychoCelchuuu on
  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    To be unfashionable, in the "makes people uncomfortable" sense, you can't just go back a century and call it good, because that's no longer "unfashionable", that is now a costume. You have to go to a semi-recent era of bad taste, and pick up the cues that have not been reintroduced into the public consciousness as being fasionable once again.

    So for example, flares are acceptable right now, but a dude in a 70's style jump suit is going to have a veeeery hard time pulling it off without making everyone around him uncomfortable.

    Additionally, just by having the guy in a wifebeater, you make the guy appear sketchy. A wifebeater is the stereotype of a criminal because no professional business man is going to make his pitch in a wifebeater.

    I mean you're saying he's the stereotype of a con man. Sure he is - he's disheveled and he doesn't seem to know what he's talking about. That's the stereotype right there. What I don't get is how you drag race or foreigness in to that.

    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    At this point it seems like you and Tran are claiming that the stereotype is not a thing, so I guess I'll just go with the "why have people complained about it" line. Have we all individually invented the same stereotype somehow, even though it doesn't exist, or is it possible that you and Tran and others have not been exposed to the stereotype before? Which is more likely?

    If you want proof that we're not making this shit up, here are some results from page 1 of a Google image search for "con artist" which I think capture the idea:

    scam-artist.jpg

    2253.ConArtist.jpg

    iphone-con-artist.jpg

    con_artist.jpg

    con-artist-2.jpg

    Huckster.jpg

    Here's are one from "Snake Oil Salesman," one of the the only ones from page 1 who isn't one of those old timey literal snake oil salesmen:

    snake-oil-salesman.jpg

    TychoCelchuuu on
  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Every one of those guys is obviously white and American.

    Which is what I'm actually saying. If you read above, you'll see I did agree that it's a stereotype of white Americans.

    Cambiata on
    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    I'm sorry I couldn't find images sufficiently racist on page 1 of Google image search, but in lieu of hitting up Stormfront or something to find some really choice examples of dirty Jewish scammers or dirty Italian scammers or dirty Egyptian scammers I'm just going to go with my original point, which is how come Sage, Billy, and I all think there's something going on here? Is it just a coincidence that Mike's idea of what a scammer looks like fits our idea of the stereotypical scammer to a T?

  • Sage_CatharsisSage_Catharsis Registered User regular
    I think the point is that some people would rather fight tooth and nail rather that give one little bit of compassion towards a pain that they can't relate to feeling or causing.

    Any point can be argued. I am not sure if anyone here believes in any truth outside of their own perception. For me, someone says ouch, I say sorry. No muss no fuss.

  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    Every one of the images you picked - every one! - was a stereotypical slimy white guy in a 70's leisure suit! And you picked them thinking that they proved your point about "foreignness." Could you consider the possibility that you are seeing something that is not there?

    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Every one of the images you picked - every one! - was a stereotypical slimy white guy in a 70's leisure suit! And you picked them thinking that they proved your point about "foreignness." Could you consider the possibility that you are seeing something that is not there?
    Yes. Could you consider the possibility that multiple people are seeing something that is there, and that unfortunately 5 minutes on Google image search was not enough to turn up people who are sufficiently foreign to illustrate the stereotype we're talking about? And could you now tell me which of the two situations is more likely to be the case? Either me, Sage, and Billy have all independently of each other invented a stereotype that happens to match perfectly the person that was draw in a Penny Arcade comic, or it's an actual stereotype that you have not heard of because you were lucky enough to be raised by/around people who aren't as racist as us. Which is more likely?

  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Every one of the images you picked - every one! - was a stereotypical slimy white guy in a 70's leisure suit! And you picked them thinking that they proved your point about "foreignness." Could you consider the possibility that you are seeing something that is not there?
    Yes. Could you consider the possibility that multiple people are seeing something that is there, and that unfortunately 5 minutes on Google image search was not enough to turn up people who are sufficiently foreign to illustrate the stereotype we're talking about? And could you now tell me which of the two situations is more likely to be the case? Either me, Sage, and Billy have all independently of each other invented a stereotype that happens to match perfectly the person that was draw in a Penny Arcade comic, or it's an actual stereotype that you have not heard of because you were lucky enough to be raised by/around people who aren't as racist as us. Which is more likely?

    The thing is, you and Sage at least have different ideas of what is being displayed. Sage was sure that this absolutely white character is "swarthy" and is portraying a dark-skinned stereotype. You're certain it's a Jewish stereotype. The character is obviously the villain of the piece; it's like a Rorschach test, everyone is seeing the thing that most offends them.

    I mean the one thing you could possibly hang your had on is the nose, if it weren't for the fact that Gabe apparently likes to draw exaggerated noses.

    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • Big Red TieBig Red Tie beautiful clydesdale style feet too hot to trotRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Every one of the images you picked - every one! - was a stereotypical slimy white guy in a 70's leisure suit! And you picked them thinking that they proved your point about "foreignness." Could you consider the possibility that you are seeing something that is not there?
    Yes. Could you consider the possibility that multiple people are seeing something that is there, and that unfortunately 5 minutes on Google image search was not enough to turn up people who are sufficiently foreign to illustrate the stereotype we're talking about? And could you now tell me which of the two situations is more likely to be the case? Either me, Sage, and Billy have all independently of each other invented a stereotype that happens to match perfectly the person that was draw in a Penny Arcade comic, or it's an actual stereotype that you have not heard of because you were lucky enough to be raised by/around people who aren't as racist as us. Which is more likely?

    then spend more time on google search and find evidence that actually supports your position

    all the guys you did find were unkempt and had questionable fashion, but weren't of some mythical stereotype that you're creating

    moreover, the fact that more people than you, sage and billy see a different race/none at all kind of points to the fact that yes, it is pretty much something you three are all simultaneously reading into the comic that wasn't intended

    Big Red Tie on
    3926 4292 8829
    Beasteh wrote: »
    *おなら*
  • SticksSticks I'd rather be in bed.Registered User regular
    FWIW, the guy looks eastern European to me. I read his lines in my head with a heavy accent. In that light, I can see why some people might be upset about the portrayal. I can also see why people that didn't make that connection (i.e. saw him as just a con artist, without any racial/cultural overtones), would be pretty confused by the accusation.

  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Cambiata wrote: »
    Every one of the images you picked - every one! - was a stereotypical slimy white guy in a 70's leisure suit! And you picked them thinking that they proved your point about "foreignness." Could you consider the possibility that you are seeing something that is not there?
    Yes. Could you consider the possibility that multiple people are seeing something that is there, and that unfortunately 5 minutes on Google image search was not enough to turn up people who are sufficiently foreign to illustrate the stereotype we're talking about? And could you now tell me which of the two situations is more likely to be the case? Either me, Sage, and Billy have all independently of each other invented a stereotype that happens to match perfectly the person that was draw in a Penny Arcade comic, or it's an actual stereotype that you have not heard of because you were lucky enough to be raised by/around people who aren't as racist as us. Which is more likely?

    The thing is, you and Sage at least have different ideas of what is being displayed. Sage was sure that this absolutely white character is "swarthy" and is portraying a dark-skinned stereotype. You're certain it's a Jewish stereotype. The character is obviously the villain of the piece; it's like a Rorschach test, everyone is seeing the thing that most offends them.

    I mean the one thing you could possibly hang your had on is the nose, if it weren't for the fact that Gabe apparently likes to draw exaggerated noses.
    No, I'm using the Jewish stereotype as another example of the kind of hurtful stereotype that's not okay. Like Sticks (and Sage) pointed out, it's just a vaguely foreign stereotype.

  • FyndirFyndir Registered User regular
    Fyndir wrote: »
    You keep talking about it being a "common" stereotype, but I can't think of any examples of it from relatively recent popular culture.

    Can you provide some?

  • jackaljackal Fuck Yes. That is an orderly anal warehouse. Registered User regular
    As a hairy white guy with no fashion sense I find this entire argument offensive.

  • notmetalenoughnotmetalenough Registered User regular
    Sticks wrote: »
    FWIW, the guy looks eastern European to me. I read his lines in my head with a heavy accent. In that light, I can see why some people might be upset about the portrayal. I can also see why people that didn't make that connection (i.e. saw him as just a con artist, without any racial/cultural overtones), would be pretty confused by the accusation.

    Just throwing my hat in the ring. I also read this into the comic. I was not personally offended but that's not really the point, is it? Sage, you're not crazy.

    Samael the Radiant Faced-- Official Naming, Going Nuclear, Click on the Quest, Make She Run and Guild Measurements Officer - Clawshrimp & Co, Draenor-US
  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    Sage, you're not crazy.
    When I finished reading today's comic I almost wept. I wondered if I was over sensitive

    Allow me to clear this up for you; you are over sensitive to a psychotic degree

    Yeah, gonna have to side with Tube on this one!

    It's one thing if your "people" really do have a "plight" where weeping would be a normal response. I don't doubt that some people look at an overly-hairy dude in a wifebeater and say, "Hm, that fellow looks untrustworthy!" because they're stereotyping or whatever. I'm a 140 lbs., 6'0" skinny white dude with glasses and little musculature. I get stereotyped as a dork or a nerd all the time, and people are always asking me to fix their computers/do their math homework/whatever. I also get the, "Whoa there killer, don't go showing off those guns in here, the ladies won't be able to hold themselves back." I'm not going to cry about it.

    Everybody gets pigeonholed a little bit. Unless you're talking about a specific racial persecution, weeping is way over the top.

  • notmetalenoughnotmetalenough Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    OK, so you're "saying" if his people had a plight that would make weeping a normal response it would be "okay"?

    He is saying that his people have a plight that made weeping his response.

    Sorted.

    Edit: forgot the "goosey" quotes to make it "seem" completely "disingenuous"

    notmetalenough on
    Samael the Radiant Faced-- Official Naming, Going Nuclear, Click on the Quest, Make She Run and Guild Measurements Officer - Clawshrimp & Co, Draenor-US
  • The Good Doctor TranThe Good Doctor Tran Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    OK, so you're "saying" if his people had a plight that would make weeping a normal response it would be "okay"?

    He is saying that his people have a plight that made weeping his response.

    Sorted.

    Edit: forgot the "goosey" quotes to make it "seem" completely "disingenuous"

    No, he's saying if weeping was a remotely reasonable response for a majority of humans, it would be okay. Weeping, in this case, is not a reasonable response. A fictitious character in a webcomic was drawn in such a way that it bothered a guy. Thus far that's about all that's going on here, vis a vis the plight industry. On the plight scale it is below Weeping Alert.

    The Good Doctor Tran on
    LoL & Spiral Knights & MC & SMNC: Carrington - Origin: CarringtonPlus - Steam: skdrtran
  • Billy ChenowithBilly Chenowith Registered User regular
    YyHuG.jpg

    You've got (relatively) darker skin tone, black hair, hyperpigmentation around the eyes, and a moustache combined with grossly exaggerated eyebrows and nose. Together, they seem like pretty clear indicators of a Mediterranean or Middle Eastern ethnicity to me. The nose and eyebrows in particular look like a caricature.

    Of course, there's plenty of overlap between Mediterranean and "White American."

  • jackaljackal Fuck Yes. That is an orderly anal warehouse. Registered User regular
    We've just reached peak... whatever this is.

  • Sage_CatharsisSage_Catharsis Registered User regular
    YyHuG.jpg

    You've got (relatively) darker skin tone, black hair, hyperpigmentation around the eyes, and a moustache combined with grossly exaggerated eyebrows and nose. Together, they seem like pretty clear indicators of a Mediterranean or Middle Eastern ethnicity to me. The nose and eyebrows in particular look like a caricature.

    Of course, there's plenty of overlap between Mediterranean and "White American."

    I really appreciate your contribution here.

  • notmetalenoughnotmetalenough Registered User regular
    OK, so you're "saying" if his people had a plight that would make weeping a normal response it would be "okay"?

    He is saying that his people have a plight that made weeping his response.

    Sorted.

    Edit: forgot the "goosey" quotes to make it "seem" completely "disingenuous"

    No, he's saying if weeping was a remotely reasonable response for a majority of humans, it would be okay. Weeping, in this case, is not a reasonable response. A fictitious character in a webcomic was drawn in such a way that it bothered a guy. Thus far that's about all that's going on here, vis a vis the plight industry. On the plight scale it is below Weeping Alert.

    Oh, you mean that well-known, universal scale by which his reaction shall be judged? Do you think he was lying? If not, it was above Weeping Alert, because that's what happened. I don't know why everyone has to shit on his reaction. He's been very polite about it while getting a lot pile-on from everyone in the "i laughed, therefore not racist" crowd.

    Samael the Radiant Faced-- Official Naming, Going Nuclear, Click on the Quest, Make She Run and Guild Measurements Officer - Clawshrimp & Co, Draenor-US
  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Fyndir wrote: »
    Fyndir wrote: »
    You keep talking about it being a "common" stereotype, but I can't think of any examples of it from relatively recent popular culture.

    Can you provide some?
    None really come to mind aside from this comic, although I don't watch TV and I've seen like 6 movies that have come out in the last few years so I'm not really RECENT POP CULTURE MAN with the SUPER POWER to REFERENCE RELATIVELY RECENT POPULAR CULTURE AT A MOMENT'S NOTICE. I guess I'm at the point where I don't think I need to go track down examples of the stereotype (how the fuck do you even Google for something like that?) when we have a thread full of people confirming that it exists. Are we all lying? Why would we do that?

    TychoCelchuuu on
  • FyndirFyndir Registered User regular
    Then maybe it's not a common stereotype in the slightest?

    My point was that I have never come across this stereotype before, and it is entirely possible that neither has the artist, it doesn't appear to be terribly common at all since you can't think of any examples, and your attempt at googling for con man provided no examples that matched the stereotype.

  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    Sure, it's not a common stereotype, but clearly Mike didn't just accidentally draw a perfect stereotype of a sketchy guy when he needed to draw a sketchy guy. I mean, when is the last time a guy who looked like this turned up in Penny Arcade? What do random characters in Penny Arcade comics usually look like? Why did this guy just happen to end up with darker skin, dark wiry hair, bushy eyebrows, and darker eyes? Plus the nose. Is it a huge coincidence? Or is it more likely that the comic's tapping into a stereotype you have never heard of?

  • FyndirFyndir Registered User regular
    A stereotype that I've never heard of, and doesn't seem to exist in popular culture or google results for con man?

    It just feels a lot like you're reaching for this stereotype to exist in the form you suggest, to me, and it's really weird.

  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Is it just me that is reaching, or are the other people in this thread who agree (Billy, Sage, Sticks, notmetalenough) also reaching? Are we all super weird people?

    TychoCelchuuu on
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