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

124

Posts

  • DratatooDratatoo Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    I think some people get way bent out of shape over this. Next time all characters in the comic are represented by geometric shapes with no features, just to offend no one. Honestly, sometimes you have to resort to some stereotypes so that a punchline works within 3 panels. And there are also varying degrees of sterotypes but not all are directed towards -> "Hey look, this is the low sub race".

    I think some people are trying to insinuate that the creators have some kind of prejudice where I honestly see none.

    Also racist - a dark pigemented man won a shitty job:
    770836278_VG7Cr-L.jpg

    And there was a comic about Gabe paying a man with asian heritage to play videogames. But I can't remeber the exact name of it.

    Dratatoo on
  • IvarIvar Oslo, NorwayRegistered User regular
    Dratatoo wrote: »
    I think some people get way bent out of shape other this. Next time all characters in the comic are represented by geometric shapes with no features, just to offend no one.

    As a dodecahedron, I resent that suggestion!

  • SabreMauSabreMau ネトゲしよう 판다리아Registered User regular
    Dratatoo wrote: »
    And there was a comic about Gabe paying a man with asian heritage to play videogames. But I can't remeber the exact name of it.

    One of these?

    215238794_7dwVg-L-2.jpg

    215543832_HdeCQ-L-2.jpg

  • james denoiljames denoil Registered User new member
    love this cOmic 1!

  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    Dratatoo wrote: »
    I think some people get way bent out of shape other this. Next time all characters in the comic are represented by geometric shapes with no features, just to offend no one. Honestly, sometimes you have to resort to some stereotypes so that a punchline works within 3 panels. And there are also varying degrees of sterotypes but not all are directed towards -> "Hey look, this is the low sub race".

    I think some people are trying to insinuate that the creators have some kind of prejudice where I honestly see none.
    No, definitely not. Mike's not prejudiced, he's just using a common stereotype to illustrate a scammer, and we're just saying that this is a bad thing.

    I think it's a little funny that of the two examples you could remember where a minority showed up in Penny Arcade, one of them was only black because the guy in real life is black (the actual winner from the show), and the other was many years ago. None of us have really been saying "Penny Arcade is racist." We're just saying "it used a stereotype in this instance and this is a bad stereotype, just like 'Jews are greedy' is a bad stereotype."

  • marsiliesmarsilies Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    I think it's a little funny that of the two examples you could remember where a minority showed up in Penny Arcade, one of them was only black because the guy in real life is black (the actual winner from the show)...
    Anthony Brown wasn't a winner of The Tester, he was a runner-up. Gabe and Tycho made the comic before show had even started airing, so they picked him from the list of finalists due to appear on the show. There's a 4th Panel that covers this (including their selection of Brown for the comic).

    http://penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/01/25
    http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/heres-your...-4th-panel
    http://twitter.com/#!/naucious
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tester

    marsilies on
  • notmetalenoughnotmetalenough Registered User regular
    YEAH, CHECKMATE.

    Samael the Radiant Faced-- Official Naming, Going Nuclear, Click on the Quest, Make She Run and Guild Measurements Officer - Clawshrimp & Co, Draenor-US
  • DratatooDratatoo Registered User regular
    Dratatoo wrote: »
    I think some people get way bent out of shape other this. Next time all characters in the comic are represented by geometric shapes with no features, just to offend no one. Honestly, sometimes you have to resort to some stereotypes so that a punchline works within 3 panels. And there are also varying degrees of sterotypes but not all are directed towards -> "Hey look, this is the low sub race".

    I think some people are trying to insinuate that the creators have some kind of prejudice where I honestly see none.
    No, definitely not. Mike's not prejudiced, he's just using a common stereotype to illustrate a scammer, and we're just saying that this is a bad thing.

    I think it's a little funny that of the two examples you could remember where a minority showed up in Penny Arcade, one of them was only black because the guy in real life is black (the actual winner from the show), and the other was many years ago. None of us have really been saying "Penny Arcade is racist." We're just saying "it used a stereotype in this instance and this is a bad stereotype, just like 'Jews are greedy' is a bad stereotype."

    I and and even several other people in this thread were struggeling to pin a race or a ethnical subculture on the guy in the last panel - thats why we have the entire page 3. There isn't much to argue about IMO. For me they guy represents only a "have nothing to do with videogames" stereotype. Okay granted, other people might see it a bit differently.

  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    "There isn't much to argue about?" What about the claim that a number of people have made that this guy represents a hurtful stereotype? Can you just ignore that because you've never heard of the stereotype? None of us are claiming that everyone will see it. Someone raised in Botswana would probably have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about if I say "don't draw Jews with huge noses who really like money" because they've never heard of that stereotype, so they'd just be like "uh whatever, I guess it's Jewish guy with a big nose who wants money, what's the big deal?" That's the situation you're in. Clearly you don't want to say that just because some people have never heard of a stereotype that it's totally okay to rely on it, right?

  • OptyOpty Registered User regular
    The way people brought up the stereotype was pretty harsh, putting people who didn't see/know about it on the defensive. If you're going to try to convince someone of being wrong about something, attacking and putting them on the defensive right off the bat is a bad idea because people generally lash back in response.

  • The Good Doctor TranThe Good Doctor Tran Registered User regular
    "There isn't much to argue about?" What about the claim that a number of people have made that this guy represents a hurtful stereotype? Can you just ignore that because you've never heard of the stereotype? None of us are claiming that everyone will see it. Someone raised in Botswana would probably have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about if I say "don't draw Jews with huge noses who really like money" because they've never heard of that stereotype, so they'd just be like "uh whatever, I guess it's Jewish guy with a big nose who wants money, what's the big deal?" That's the situation you're in. Clearly you don't want to say that just because some people have never heard of a stereotype that it's totally okay to rely on it, right?

    You keep asking if you, and the people who agree with you, are 'weird' as an increasing number of others come into the thread and point out, with logical arguments, that the things you are asserting are fallacious. Your consistent fallback position has never deviated from that. I think you've answered your own question.

    LoL & Spiral Knights & MC & SMNC: Carrington - Origin: CarringtonPlus - Steam: skdrtran
  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    OK. We're all wrong about a stereotype existing, and we have all independently made up, out of thin air, an entirely new stereotype that we just happened to find in this comic. That's super bizarre but... I guess that it happened... so... I'll shut up now because I'm just complaining about a thing that 5 people made up rather than a real thing.

    I'm still wondering why Mike got so unlucky: the only time he used a character that looked like this, he just happened to use it in exactly the right way to conform to a made up nonexistent stereotype that multiple unrelated people simultaneously invented for no reason other than to have something to get upset about. I mean, this character could've appeared in any Penny Arcade comic filling any random role that non-characters fill, but he just had to (extremely unluckily) end up representing the one kind of person that fits our magical made up stereotype. What a huge coincidence! Oh well. I mean, it's not like there's any other explanation that might make a little more sense, something like "some people have not heard of the stereotype that we are talking about," but no. That's ridiculous. It's much more likely that we all invented this stereotype then got butthurt over it.

    But you do have to admit that it's a pretty crazy coincidence! Oh well. Life must just be like that! It's almost like if someone who had never even heard of racist stereotypes, who draws a comic that usually includes white people, just happened to draw a black guy one day when he needed a character who loved fried chicken and watermelon and stole television sets to sell for drug money. Of course, the difference there would be that he accidentally instantiated a real stereotype, and the people like me who would come out of the wordwork to complain (even though their arguments would sound exactly like mine) would actually have something legitimate to complain about, because they wouldn't have invented the stereotype the way I have. And the way a bunch of other people have, somehow.

    Super weird.

    ALTERNATIVE ANSWER: You've once before accused me of straw manning you and now you say that you have logical arguments that show that the things I'm asserting are fallacious. I laid out a logical argument myself, and even numbered all the premises, but I cannot for the life of me figure out which premise you want to refute and on what grounds you want to refute it. As far as I can tell your main "logical argument" has been "I don't believe any of you people whining about this stereotype, please find me an example of it, but not this comic's example, I need another one," and my response has been (1) it turns out to be super hard to search for certain vaguely racist things online (I simply don't know what to type into Google, honestly), and (2) if this stereotype doesn't exist, why have we all shown up in this thread complaining about it? I don't see your response to either of these things.

    ALTERNATIVE ANSWER #2: @Opty, I'm not sure that I've been any meaner than the people who claim the stereotype doesn't exist, and certainly others like Billy have been even nicer than me, and Sage has been a fucking saint considering he has feelings that are hurt about as easily as English royalty bleeds. And nothing about how we bring up the topic has anything to do with how right we are.

    TychoCelchuuu on
  • OptyOpty Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    ALTERNATIVE ANSWER #2: @Opty, I'm not sure that I've been any meaner than the people who claim the stereotype doesn't exist, and certainly others like Billy have been even nicer than me, and Sage has been a fucking saint considering he has feelings that are hurt about as easily as English royalty bleeds. And nothing about how we bring up the topic has anything to do with how right we are.

    The first line of Sage's post was "I find this comic to be racially insensitive" and by implying something they've enjoyed is racist people feel like you're implying they're racist. As such, they switched to a defensive stance and argued back.

    Here's where the disconnects are for the people arguing against Celchuu and co:
    1) People don't see the character as any race besides caucasian, so bringing race into it derailed things from the start.
    2) People see the stereotype as "unkempt and dirty person is untrustworthy" before they see it as "ethnic man is untrustworthy." The former is a stereotype that exists across basically all cultures and ethnicites. This is where people accusing you of making up the stereotype are coming from.
    3) People are reading the second panel as someone who is using terms they've heard of but don't know how to use properly rather than someone speaking broken English and thus evoking the "broken English = foreign" stereotype. The first panel having him speak perfectly supports him being able to speak properly but technically it doesn't prove anything either way. People using the idea of him speaking broken English as evidence to support him as foreign and thus a stereotype in that vein come up against those opposing as inventing things.

    Things would have been better if it was structured as a discussion about how this guy can be interpreted as that stereotype rather than starting off on the wrong foot with an accusation about how it is that stereotype.

    Opty on
  • DratatooDratatoo Registered User regular
    Opty wrote: »
    ALTERNATIVE ANSWER #2: @Opty, I'm not sure that I've been any meaner than the people who claim the stereotype doesn't exist, and certainly others like Billy have been even nicer than me, and Sage has been a fucking saint considering he has feelings that are hurt about as easily as English royalty bleeds. And nothing about how we bring up the topic has anything to do with how right we are.

    The first line of Sage's post was "I find this comic to be racially insensitive" and by implying something they've enjoyed is racist people feel like you're implying they're racist. As such, they switched to a defensive stance and argued back.

    Here's where the disconnects are for the people arguing against Celchuu and co:
    1) People don't see the character as any race besides caucasian, so bringing race into it derailed things from the start.
    2) People see the stereotype as "unkempt and dirty person is untrustworthy" before they see it as "ethnic man is untrustworthy." The former is a stereotype that exists across basically all cultures and ethnicites. This is where people accusing you of making up the stereotype are coming from.
    3) People are reading the second panel as someone who is using terms they've heard of but don't know how to use properly rather than someone speaking broken English and thus evoking the "broken English = foreign" stereotype. The first panel having him speak perfectly supports him being able to speak properly but technically it doesn't prove anything either way. People using the idea of him speaking broken English as evidence to support him as foreign and thus a stereotype in that vein come up against those opposing as inventing things.

    Things would have been better if it was structured as a discussion about how this guy can be interpreted as that stereotype rather than starting off on the wrong foot with an accusation about how it is that stereotype.

    I agree and would like to subscripe to your newsletter, good sir. Actually I thought we would have a discussion regarding Kickstarter + Kickstarter founded game projects in here and Kickstarter related scams. Sadly we didn't because the "race card" was played early on.

  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Opty wrote: »
    ALTERNATIVE ANSWER #2: @Opty, I'm not sure that I've been any meaner than the people who claim the stereotype doesn't exist, and certainly others like Billy have been even nicer than me, and Sage has been a fucking saint considering he has feelings that are hurt about as easily as English royalty bleeds. And nothing about how we bring up the topic has anything to do with how right we are.

    The first line of Sage's post was "I find this comic to be racially insensitive" and by implying something they've enjoyed is racist people feel like you're implying they're racist. As such, they switched to a defensive stance and argued back.

    Here's where the disconnects are for the people arguing against Celchuu and co:
    1) People don't see the character as any race besides caucasian, so bringing race into it derailed things from the start.
    2) People see the stereotype as "unkempt and dirty person is untrustworthy" before they see it as "ethnic man is untrustworthy." The former is a stereotype that exists across basically all cultures and ethnicites. This is where people accusing you of making up the stereotype are coming from.
    3) People are reading the second panel as someone who is using terms they've heard of but don't know how to use properly rather than someone speaking broken English and thus evoking the "broken English = foreign" stereotype. The first panel having him speak perfectly supports him being able to speak properly but technically it doesn't prove anything either way. People using the idea of him speaking broken English as evidence to support him as foreign and thus a stereotype in that vein come up against those opposing as inventing things.

    Things would have been better if it was structured as a discussion about how this guy can be interpreted as that stereotype rather than starting off on the wrong foot with an accusation about how it is that stereotype.
    1) Yes, some people see the dude as nothing other than Caucasian, although to be fair, "Caucasian" describes "Eastern European" and "Italian" and "Mediterranean" and a lot of other people who are captured by the stereotype, so, yeah. And bringing race into it didn't "derail things from the start" unless the conversation is derailed by talking about the stereotype, which is already assuming that I and the others are wrong.
    2) Yeah, this sounds right.
    3) I don't think Sage, Billy, sticks, notmetalenough, or any of us have said anything about the broken English (which isn't there, I agree). If I have said something about that, please quote me so I can eat my words.

    So, yes, I totally agree that there are some things that may have caused people to misread this and not see the stereotype, especially if they have never heard of the stereotype.

    DOES ANY OF THIS MAKE ME WRONG? Does it make Billy or sage or sticks or notmetalenough incorrect? Are we still whining about nothing, or are we whining about an actual inappropriate use of a stereotype?

    TychoCelchuuu on
  • notmetalenoughnotmetalenough Registered User regular
    I like how a watered down version of "majority rules" is used as a defense to a minority saying they were hurt by something. That's the point. The fact that you didn't get it doesn't matter. The fact that a majority of you didn't get it, also doesn't matter.

    It's unrealistic to believe that Mike or Jerry would/should apologize for this. It's not unreasonable to desire that someone apologize for hurting your feelings. That's literally all Sage said before everyone jumped all the way down his throat. He didn't even expect anything from it. He was just saying how it made him feel.

    But all the people here in this thread, that are being directly rude to someone because they don't want to feel like they're racists... umm. ok. What's the harm in allowing his feelings to stand without challenge? What does it lose you? What do you gain by being rude or belittling his point of view?

    Let's cue the American flag flapping, eagle crying "BECUZ FREE SPEACH" responses.

    Samael the Radiant Faced-- Official Naming, Going Nuclear, Click on the Quest, Make She Run and Guild Measurements Officer - Clawshrimp & Co, Draenor-US
  • marsiliesmarsilies Registered User regular
    Dratatoo wrote: »
    I agree and would like to subscripe to your newsletter, good sir. Actually I thought we would have a discussion regarding Kickstarter + Kickstarter founded game projects in here and Kickstarter related scams. Sadly we didn't because the "race card" was played early on.
    Goodness knows I tried to talk about Kickstarter.

    3) I don't think Sage, Billy, sticks, notmetalenough, or any of us have said anything about the broken English (which isn't there, I agree). If I have said something about that, please quote me so I can eat my words.
    I think it came from here:
    When I finished reading today's comic I almost wept. I wondered if I was over sensitive but I realized that all my life I have had to de-emphasize my ethnicity. Over articulate my language. Shave my face and cut my hair short.
    Which generated this response:
    Sage_Catharsis, I actually didn't notice the looks of the guy the first time, but I do see what you're saying. However his speech, I believe, is not to indicate he is foreign, or speaks with an accent, or is a non native speaker. He's talking that way because he knows nothing about video games or what any of those terms actually mean. To reinforce for the reader that this is a scam.

  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    You're drawing conclusions from what Sage said that are not supported by what he said. There are certain things Sage feels he has to do in order to avoid being judged according to this common stereotype. One of them is to speak fancier than he would normally have to speak. This does not mean that the character in the comic was speaking in a manner consistent with the stereotype. In fact, the guy's speech is basically the only part of him that isn't 100% dead on in terms of the stereotype.

    It's like if someone drew a comic with a greedy Jew with a large nose, a yarmulke, and everything else that is typically seen as stereotypically "evil greedy Jew"ish, except they left out the little hair curls on either side, and then some Jewish guy comes along and says "this really hurts me, as a Jew I always feel like I have to deemphasize anything I say that might sound greedy and I feel bad wearing my yarmulke and my nose makes me feel self-conscious and I tuck my curls behind my ears so they're not as obvious" and blah blah blah and then you guys come along and say "what the fuck are you complaining about, the 'Jew' in this comic doesn't have side curls." It's like, yes, I'm glad you managed to find the one aspect of the stereotype that didn't make it in, but that doesn't mean the other 9 things aren't there.

    TychoCelchuuu on
  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    OK. We're all wrong about a stereotype existing, and we have all independently made up, out of thin air, an entirely new stereotype that we just happened to find in this comic. That's super bizarre but... I guess that it happened... so... I'll shut up now because I'm just complaining about a thing that 5 people made up rather than a real thing.

    I've answered this already, but I don't mind answering it again. It's not that you all magically know about the same stereotype and are responding to that singular image. It's that it's like a Rorshach test; a bland image is created to evoke "untrustworthiness", and because of a lifetime of dealing with racism in all it's forms, some people's minds are trained to think that in media "untrustworthiness = foreign/minority ethnicty" automatically, even with visuals to the contrary. So an artist can't just draw "a guy who needs a bath and a shave" because it will automatically be assumed to be "an ethnic/foreign guy." Basically in this scenario the artist would have to go out of his way to make sure there is nothing that could even be assumed to be attributable to an oppressed minority.

    See I have black hair, I have dark circles under my eyes and an overabundance of hair. I still wouldn't classify myself as a minority, and I'm pretty sure I'd be laughed at if I tried. So the guy basically looks like me, if I were a dude and in need of some maintence.

    "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
    OK. There's not much I can say to that aside from pointing out that I'm typically the last person to see racism in what might otherwise be interpreted as benign situations. I also want to ask again why the only time a hefty hairy darker skinned bushy eyebrowed large nosed dark wiry haired heavily pigmented eye guy showed up in a Penny Arcade comic was as a scammer, which made it very convenient for all of us to do our crazy Rorschach racism thing to him, when he could've shown up in any of the other Penny Arcade comics without causing a peep from us, and similarly he could've been replaced by any of the much more common Penny Arcade generic white dudes (like the alternative Billy pointed out), again without having drawn any ire from us. I guess Mike just got extremely unlucky because he drew a racism Rorschach in the one situation where we would be liable to see it as a stereotype.

    To put it in a bit more perspective, if this guy had been doing anything other than scamming people/being generally but unspecifically sketchy, I would not be going "that's a stereotype!" If he were a murderer or a rapist or a greedy CEO or a stupid XBOX Live gamer or a mindless Sony fanboy or a male prostitute or WHATEVER the fuck you want, I wouldn't have gone all racism Rorschach on him. And I don't think Billy or Sage or notmetalenough or anyone else would've either. People who look like this never show up in PA comics, but if they did, I wouldn't be up in arms every time they were doing something evil/wrong/bad. I would only be complaining in circumstances where they were specifically trying to trick/scam someone, especially with a sketchy sounding scheme (I'm John Videogames) rather than straight up scamming (let's make our XBOX Live Marketplace items cost just enough to force you to buy another set of points that you don't need!).

    And it's very weird that your first reaction to a bunch of people showing up uninvited in a thread and saying "this seems like a hurtful racial stereotype to me" is to say "that's not a stereotype, you're all just reading the racism into Penny Arcade's perfectly innocent drawing of an inexplicably different looking person in the sea of the usual white people that PA uses as extras" rather than "oh, I've never heard of that stereotype but whatever." I mean, why does your response make more sense?

  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    I am still awaiting a defense of the "Disney villain stereotype" this is supposedly based off. As nobody has actually provided this evidence, I think it is safe to assume this argument is becoming increasingly dead in the water. Lots of claims are being made about this, but thus far any actual evidence to show this exists and that this comic is a grand example of it have yet to be provided. The only time someone tried, you couldn't even make a convincing case for this comic being especially stereotypical and most of the "conmen" you showed have some shared features, but aren't exactly completely similar to one another (except clothing). In fact all of them are wearing nice jackets and similar, while the example in the comic doesn't and has a "wife beater" (as we would call it in New Zealand). Except for being unkempt, he doesn't look much like them at all.

    Also Tycho, can you just drop the immensely fallacious and incredibly beyond daft argument of "If someone thinks X is true, X is therefore true because if X wasn't true then it would mean we're just being crazy, which we're obviously not so X is therefore true (and you just don't see it)". This is a really bad logical fallacy, bordering (may actually be) a tautological argument: A number of people think X, therefore X is true because X number of people believe it. If you cannot see why that is not a convincing argument to anyone and you should drop it, there is no further point to any discussion with you.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    You keep saying he's dark skinned. Do you know who Gabe has drawn recently, who he used a similar color tone (reddish) but used a darker pigment? Himself:

    i-HxFJmZ3-X2.jpg

    You see what I mean about reading in to things?

    Edit: (also he's drawn himself incredibly hairy, in case you didn't notice)

    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
    Aegeri wrote: »
    I am still awaiting a defense of the "Disney villain stereotype" this is supposedly based off. As nobody has actually provided this evidence, I think it is safe to assume this argument is becoming increasingly dead in the water. Lots of claims are being made about this, but thus far any actual evidence to show this exists and that this comic is a grand example of it have yet to be provided.
    Please read through my posts again.
    Cambiata wrote: »
    You keep saying he's dark skinned. Do you know who Gabe has drawn recently, who he used a similar color tone (reddish) but used a darker pigment? Himself:

    i-HxFJmZ3-X2.jpg

    You see what I mean about reading in to things?

    Edit: (also he's drawn himself incredibly hairy, in case you didn't notice)

    BILLY TO THE RESCUE:
    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."

    Gabe drew himself incredibly hairy with a similar skin tone because Gabe was drawing himself in real life, and people in real life look like that. Normally Gabe draws cartoon people. This cartoon person looks like a stereotypically dark skinned ethnic person, not because his skin is objectively dark but because it's darker than the typical PA skin tone. The same goes for the hair: for a Penny Arcade character drawn in the Penny Arcade style, dude is hairy as fuck.

  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Aegeri wrote: »
    I am still awaiting a defense of the "Disney villain stereotype" this is supposedly based off. As nobody has actually provided this evidence, I think it is safe to assume this argument is becoming increasingly dead in the water. Lots of claims are being made about this, but thus far any actual evidence to show this exists and that this comic is a grand example of it have yet to be provided.
    Please read through my posts again.

    I have. You still haven't provided it and in fact, you only crippled your own argument with the images that you posted earlier. Also your posts are mostly filled with an immensely laughable tautology in them, which makes them an incredibly poor argument that I have already rejected.

    Again, pony up actual evidence that shows what you're claiming: Not a tautology. I am not saying you are inherently wrong, I am pointing out I am less than convinced by the argument provided. I am especially less than convinced that the argument you are providing is convincing because you've put a tautology right at its bedrock (I can quote you making it multiple times this thread!).

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Aegeri wrote: »
    I am still awaiting a defense of the "Disney villain stereotype" this is supposedly based off. As nobody has actually provided this evidence, I think it is safe to assume this argument is becoming increasingly dead in the water. Lots of claims are being made about this, but thus far any actual evidence to show this exists and that this comic is a grand example of it have yet to be provided.
    Please read through my posts again.
    Cambiata wrote: »
    You keep saying he's dark skinned. Do you know who Gabe has drawn recently, who he used a similar color tone (reddish) but used a darker pigment? Himself:

    i-HxFJmZ3-X2.jpg

    You see what I mean about reading in to things?

    Edit: (also he's drawn himself incredibly hairy, in case you didn't notice)

    BILLY TO THE RESCUE:
    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."

    Gabe drew himself incredibly hairy with a similar skin tone because Gabe was drawing himself in real life, and people in real life look like that. Normally Gabe draws cartoon people. This cartoon person looks like a stereotypically dark skinned ethnic person, not because his skin is objectively dark but because it's darker than the typical PA skin tone. The same goes for the hair: for a Penny Arcade character drawn in the Penny Arcade style, dude is hairy as fuck.

    So basically your concern is that Gabe draw every white character with the same particular swatch from his pallette, and god help him if he tries any variation? Even among the strictly white dudes there has been some variation.Just look at this white dude from a few days ago. He's darker than the very pale that Billy picked for that comparison, but still very obviously white.

    For an example of a hairy (though shaved, because he is a professional) white dude with a crooked nose:

    http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2009/7/31/

    I get the impression that when Gabe has the chance to draw characters that are not real people or established characters in the strip, that he just likes to make them look interesting. And he seems to really like coming up with noses. Maybe it's just me.

    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
    Aegeri wrote: »
    Aegeri wrote: »
    I am still awaiting a defense of the "Disney villain stereotype" this is supposedly based off. As nobody has actually provided this evidence, I think it is safe to assume this argument is becoming increasingly dead in the water. Lots of claims are being made about this, but thus far any actual evidence to show this exists and that this comic is a grand example of it have yet to be provided.
    Please read through my posts again.

    I have. You still haven't provided it and in fact, you only crippled your own argument with the images that you posted earlier. Also your posts are mostly filled with an immensely laughable tautology in them, which makes them an incredibly poor argument that I have already rejected.

    Again, pony up actual evidence that shows what you're claiming: Not a tautology.
    I'll be more specific: please quote the post or posts in this thread where I claim that this is some sort of Disney villain stereotype.

    Cambiata: I guess I figured that a guy in a pink polo shirt and white pants with a hairstyle like that and facial hair like that and eyebrows like that is pretty obviously a different kind of archetype than the man in this comic. The guy in the pink shirt is an obvious (tanned, white) "bro" (he's even been in a comic before, basically) in the same way that the guy in the comic at hand is an obvious vaguely foreign sketchy man who wants to scam you. If you don't see that, it's totally fine, but I'm not arguing that people who have never heard of the stereotype in question will magically be struck by it in full force just by seeing someone who instantiates it, any more than seeing a greedy Jew with a big nose would mean anything to you unless you had heard of that stereotype.

    My claim is not "the only time people with this skin tone show up in the comic, they're playing the role of an ethnic minority." My claim is that when you put all the stuff Billy very clearly points out together into one dude, you get the stereotype. A big nose alone is not enough, nor is skin tone.

    I don't think Regal from Automata looks anything like our scammer in question, but whatever, I'll grant for the sake of the argument that they're both equally hairy and ethnic. Now we have two instances of a guy who looks like this in all of Penny Arcade history. In one case, he was a specifically designed character that Mike presumably put a lot of work into. The Automata comics are pretty stupendous: I don't think Mike just sat down and drew the first guy who came into his head for Detective Regal. He probably thought about it at least a little bit.

    So now let's take our scammer. There are two options. Either Mike sat down and really thought out what the scammer should look like (put a lot of thought into the bushy eyebrows, facial hair, hairy body, dark eye pigmentation, etc) or Mike just sat down and drew what a scammer looks like. The first option sounds a little implausible but whatever, maybe he specifically designed the guy to look like this. I think it would be strange to draw from this the conclusion that he must've just meant him to look like a normal person but he just got unlucky and made him look like a stereotype, but whatever. The second option is what I think is more likely: Mike just needed to draw a scammer, and he thought about what scammers looked like and drew one of those, just like in that comic you linked he needed to draw a "bro" who says things like "Let's crank this shit hose" and "Who's gonna be up in this cooch" and that's who he drew.

    BONUS POINT: There's more to skin tone than shade/hue/whatever. Different colors say different things. The guy in the comic you linked looks like a tan (white) bro to me. The guy in this comic also has a darker tone than the average white dude in a PA comic. Is he tanned? Does this guy tan? I'm thinking... no.

    TychoCelchuuu on
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    I'll be more specific: please quote the post or posts in this thread where I claim that this is some sort of Disney villain stereotype.

    The first part of my post was aimed at Sage's argument he posted initially, which you are actually defending by including him in the "Are we all seeing things that aren't there", so allow me to ask: Do you actually think Sage is wrong on that point? Do you think Sage might be seeing things that aren't there if you do think he's wrong? Do you see where I'll go with this argument if you concede that Sage is wrong on this point? On the other hand, continuing with my post, the second part was just general purpose (EG: No other evidence has really been presented). The last part at my post was directly addressing your argument about the tautology you are making.
    The second option is what I think is more likely: Mike just needed to draw a scammer, and he thought about what scammers looked like and drew one of those, just like in that comic you linked he needed to draw a "bro" who says things like "Let's crank this shit hose" and "Who's gonna be up in this cooch" and that's who he drew.

    Except as has been pointed out, numerous "scammers" have different features even from the images YOU posted this one lacks. You seem to over emphasize similarity while dismissing what doesn't suit your argument out of hand. How convenient for you! Compare your google image searched "con artists" to what the comic looks like: Numerous differences that I can see and some common features as well. Nothing to suggest some kind of overarching stereotype that you're claiming, let alone one that Gabe is deliberately trying to draw. That's the problem with your argument and why hardly anyone except a few people (which doesn't make you automatically wrong either, I should say) are agreeing there is racism in this comic.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    I don't know what Sage was talking about with the Disney villain stuff, maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong, I just haven't read whatever articles he's referencing. I don't really care where Sage heard about the stereotype, just like it doesn't really matter if you first realized that "Jews are greedy" is a thing when you saw The Merchant of Venice or when you read Oliver Twist. I don't think my argument turns on Sage being right or wrong, though: I think stuff like "how come the only guy who looks like this shows up as a scammer" works on its own no matter who chimes in to agree.

    You're also right that I don't have any evidence. I honestly don't know what to Google. I swear to god that if I knew how to describe/search for the stereotype, I would do so and come back with evidence. I'm halfway ready to register an account on Stormfront, post the comic, and ask other people for examples of this sort of shit by pretending to be a racist who wants to convince other people to be racist or whatever.
    Except as has been pointed out, numerous "scammers" have different features even from the images YOU posted this one lacks. You seem to over emphasize similarity while dismissing what doesn't suit your argument out of hand. How convenient for you! Compare your google image searched "con artists" to what the comic looks like: Numerous differences that I can see and some common features as well. Nothing to suggest some kind of overarching stereotype that you're claiming, let alone one that Gabe is deliberately trying to draw. That's the problem with your argument and why hardly anyone except a few people (which doesn't make you automatically wrong either, I should say) are agreeing there is racism in this comic.
    I should've been more careful in my phrasing: instead of saying "Mike thought about what a scammer looks like and drew him" I should've said "Mike thought about what a certain stereotype about scammers says that scammers look like, and he drew that stereotype." Of course you could think scammers might look like something else (like a guy on the street corner trying to get you to play three card monty, or a Microsoft CEO figuring out precisely how much to charge for XBOX Live stuff in order to make you constantly have to buy more points in odd amounts). I just meant to claim that there is a stereotype about a certain type of person who is not to be trusted, and someone who looks like this person has shown up in a PA comic in a situation where he is not to be trusted. That is a very big coincidence unless he's actually an instantiation of the stereotype.

  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    I don't know what Sage was talking about with the Disney villain stuff, maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong, I just haven't read whatever articles he's referencing. I don't really care where Sage heard about the stereotype, just like it doesn't really matter if you first realized that "Jews are greedy" is a thing when you saw The Merchant of Venice or when you read Oliver Twist. I don't think my argument turns on Sage being right or wrong, though: I think stuff like "how come the only guy who looks like this shows up as a scammer" works on its own no matter who chimes in to agree.

    Actually here you are completely and utterly wrong. Your entire argument you've been making repeatedly is a tautology as I've explained, that relies on three premises. You have written repeatedly this sort of thing:
    OK. We're all wrong about a stereotype existing, and we have all independently made up, out of thin air, an entirely new stereotype that we just happened to find in this comic. That's super bizarre but... I guess that it happened... so... I'll shut up now because I'm just complaining about a thing that 5 people made up rather than a real thing.

    Effectively you've claimed that because Y see's X as a stereotype, therefore X is true as otherwise Y would be crazy or incorrect (which you're trying to claim isn't possible). This is inherently classic circular logic: X is true because Y thinks it is true because Y wouldn't be wrong about X. Essentially: Y thinks X is true, therefore it is true. You then express sarcasm like the above that nobody is buying your argument, despite having a bedrock for your arguments on a logical fallacy. Poor form Tycho.

    Moving on, the point of my question that you've just completely dodged is that it's pretty clear Sage is full of crap on the disney villain point. Disney villains come from all kinds of different races, backgrounds and similar - they aren't especially racist. I mean one is a tiger and anjother is a lion. I mean yeah, they're damn hairy but that's because they are damned animals. Not to mention I can't think of many Disney villains that are actually anything like the comic, given that some of them are tentacle octopus witches, an evil queen who can turn into a dragon and your classic evil advisor (who looks middle eastern, because, you know Aladdin is middle eastern). His argument on this point simply put doesn't exist, hence why nobody has tried to even remotely defend that claim the entire thread.

    So let me utterly annihilate your tautology with this:

    Sage believes that Disney villains promote a "swarthy" stereotype, that doesn't actually exist when you do even a cursory examination of the majority of Disney villains (especially the classic ones). Therefore it is entirely possible that those arguing about this stereotype are entirely wrong. So because Sage thinks this is a stereotype Disney promotes, doesn't actually mean that is a real stereotype.

    In effect, because X thinks Y is true, it does not mean Y is true. This is a really important distinction in this argument, because you've been basically presenting the opposite for numerous posts now. It's taken me some time to really figure out what has been bugging me about your argument, but that is it in a nutshell. What this means is your tautological argument is now firmly dead and I would appreciate it if you didn't actually use it. This does not mean Sage, yourself and others are wrong on any other point: Merely your tautology. This just means that the ridiculously bad argument you've been espousing above isn't valid: Yes, multiple people can think something and be entirely wrong as a group about it. Otherwise your exact argument used in this thread could be used to prove utterly anything you wanted.

    This doesn't mean that the comic isn't a stereotype of some sort that I just haven't seen before (or that apparently, many in this thread have seen before it would seem), but your evidence on that point is lacking.
    I swear to god that if I knew how to describe/search for the stereotype, I would do so and come back with evidence.

    Really, this says more about your argument than anything anyone has said in this entire trainwreck of a thread.

    What's amazing, is that you don't see that.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • joshofalltradesjoshofalltrades Class Traitor Smoke-filled roomRegistered User regular
    The closest thing I can think of to being an actual "race" this might discriminate against is gypsies.

    But the guy doesn't look like a gypsy to me.

  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    I'm not saying "If someone sees X as a stereotype, then X is a stereotype." I'm simply asserting that this is a stereotype, not because I see it as one but because it is one. My evidence is just that I see it as one, and that other people do, and if you need more evidence than that, my argument is "why have we all made up this stereotype out of thin air."

    Fine, the Disney villain stuff is crap. I don't caaaare.

    Here's your argument as I see it:

    "If someone cannot describe X, and cannot provide any evidence of X aside from their own assertion that X is the case (and the assertions of some other people), then X is not the case."

    Does that sound right? I hope not, because it's just as wrong as the argument you ascribe to me.

    My argument is about relative likelihoods. I'm saying it's more likely that a stereotype ACTUALLY EXISTS and that it's what's drawing people like me to make these statements, than the alternative, which is that we're all making something up for some reason. I'm not saying I have rock hard iron clad solid indisputable proof beyond a shadow of a doubt. I'm saying that if I'm wrong, it would be super weird, and it would at least be good to have a better explanation that "racist Rorschach," which I don't find convincing because I rarely ever think I see racism in cases where it could go either way.

    edit: another reason I think my relative likelihoods argument is correct is because people who look like this dude never turn up in PA comics, so for your scenario to be the right one, you also have to explain how PA got so unlucky as to stick this guy into the one role that makes him fit the stereotype.

    TychoCelchuuu on
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    I'm not saying "If someone sees X as a stereotype, then X is a stereotype."

    Yes you are. This has been literally the entire point of several of your posts. You've wrote, numerous times this sort of statement:
    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?

    You are trying to establish a tautological argument. You're trying to make it seem like "If we all think X, then X has to be true because otherwise we would be all crazy? That's just not possible right?!" and I've got sick of it and called you out on it.
    Fine, the Disney villain stuff is crap. I don't caaaare.

    But it does demolish your argument. When you write the above and grouping yourself in with the one making the whacky utterly unsupported argument of the lot, I look at it and think "Why yes, you are just weird and being immensely over sensitive about nothing". That's exactly the problem you now have.
    Here's your argument as I see it:

    Good to see you're not reading my posts.
    Aegeri wrote:
    In effect, because X thinks Y is true, it does not mean Y is true. This is a really important distinction in this argument, because you've been basically presenting the opposite for numerous posts now. It's taken me some time to really figure out what has been bugging me about your argument, but that is it in a nutshell. What this means is your tautological argument is now firmly dead and I would appreciate it if you didn't actually use it. This does not mean Sage, yourself and others are wrong on any other point: Merely your tautology. This just means that the ridiculously bad argument you've been espousing above isn't valid: Yes, multiple people can think something and be entirely wrong as a group about it. Otherwise your exact argument used in this thread could be used to prove utterly anything you wanted.

    I've merely annihilated your logical fallacy: Not the argument if this is actually racist or not. I disagree with you there because you've presented no evidence.
    "If someone cannot describe X, and cannot provide any evidence of X aside from their own assertion that X is the case, then X is not the case."

    That's actually... pretty reasonable? It's not really my argument about your tautology, which was on a different point but this is supposed to make me sound unreasonable or something? I actually can't find anything disagreeable about that. Like you've mentioned the classic Jewish stereotype everyone is familiar with several times, but we can easily find what that looks like (easily described), it's common (you can find clear examples in many obvious places) and has a long and very miserable history behind it. You can't do any of that for this "stereotype", which by definition are a set image of a group of people. That you cannot describe this and then claim it's a stereotype is utterly hilarious: This in itself bulldozes your entire argument.

    But again, you don't seem to actually be receptive to the fact you've now demolished your entirely argument three separate times.
    Does that sound right? I hope not, because it's just as wrong as the argument you ascribe to me.

    Um, because you can't provide evidence of something you're claiming, then I say "You aren't proving your point with evidence" and you say "Nuh-uh, my assertion should be good enough" and I am wrong to say "You don't have convincing evidence to support your point".

    Are you saying I should be taking anyones bullshit assertions on no evidence as truth? Well, I guess I should head down to the local flat earth society and announce I'm a convert then! I'm done with this argument because I'll be handing out pamplets on how the earth is flat for the rest of the afternoon.

    Toodles!

    BTW you just restated your tautology I just demolished again, proving that you have learned absolutely nothing from this discussion. That is the real reason I am now done with this.

    Aegeri on
    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    I'm not saying "If someone sees X as a stereotype, then X is a stereotype." I'm simply asserting that this is a stereotype, not because I see it as one but because it is one. My evidence is just that I see it as one, and that other people do, and if you need more evidence than that, my argument is "why have we all made up this stereotype out of thin air."

    Fine, the Disney villain stuff is crap. I don't caaaare.

    But don't you see that if you *don't* ascribe to the "Disney Villian Stereotype" that Sage sees as clear as day, that you are not seeing the same stereotype in Gabe's image?

    You're claiming that it's incredibly unlikely that if you are all aware of the same stereotype then it can't be something you just made up. But the point is that you're not all seeing the same stereotype. Thus my use of the word "rorschach" which you take exception to. But I only use the word because there's no other shortened way to say, "You are all seeing different things, and have actually all described different things in this very thread, because the image you are offended at is in your mind, not on the page."

    Also, "I never see racism in images that could go either way!" is meaningless.

    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • BoomShakeBoomShake The Engineer Columbia, MDRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    I think the problem here stems from the fact that the characteristics of John Videogames which are being used to define this claimed stereotype are not are not very closely related to a specific set of people, unlike the yarmulke or little hair curls in your analogy.

    Hairy, bushy eyebrows, and unkempt appearance show up in more groups of men than not. Before the relatively recent body-grooming movement, the stereotypical man had a chest forest, 5 o'clock shadow, and depending on position and habits, strong - even bushy - eyebrows. Mr. Videogames here looks as much like Burt Reynolds as he does anything else. The only solid stereotype the comic portrays is either a "not-business-man" or a general lower economic "trash" (accented by the wife-beater).

    BoomShake on
  • OptyOpty Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    The stereotype being brought up definitely exists in some form, but I think it's really more a combination of two related stereotypes. The first is the "shady salesman" stereotype, a person who will scam you by tricking you into paying more than you should or by selling you a piece of crap with a pretty bow. The second is that Middle Eastern/East Asian men are generally portrayed as being shopkeepers and/or low level salesmen (and/or taxi drivers, but that's not relevant right now). For example Apu from the Simpsons works as both, but then there's other characters in the series who are just one or the other, such as shady car salesmen who are white (yellow to be precise) and honest salesmen who are obviously foreign. The thing is all of the examples of the latter stereotype being invoked I can think of across all of media involves basically hammering you over the head with how foreign they are by either using broken English and/or thick accents and/or being dressed in stereotypical clothes from their region and/or having them speak in their native tongue. That's why I thought people brought up the whole broken speech thing; if you believed that was broken speech then it'd make it much easier to imagine the guy (who in my opinion doesn't look much like any Middle Eastern charicature I've ever seen) as being Middle Eastern. Without that last piece though, the whole argument that this is invoking that stereotype kinda falls flat for me, I'm not gonna lie.

    And really the only Disney movie/series that can be said to invoke this stuff is Aladdin. It's pretty much localized to that series and though I bet you could probably find an example in another Disney movie, none come to mind offhand. Al starts off with a dude who matches both stereotypes as outlined above which might be why some people think of both combined as a stereotype in and of itself rather than the combination of two related ones.

    Opty on
  • The Good Doctor TranThe Good Doctor Tran Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    I'm not saying "If someone sees X as a stereotype, then X is a stereotype." I'm simply asserting that this is a stereotype, not because I see it as one but because it is one. My evidence is just that I see it as one, and that other people do, and if you need more evidence than that, my argument is "why have we all made up this stereotype out of thin air."

    Fine, the Disney villain stuff is crap. I don't caaaare.

    Here's your argument as I see it:

    "If someone cannot describe X, and cannot provide any evidence of X aside from their own assertion that X is the case (and the assertions of some other people), then X is not the case."

    Does that sound right? I hope not, because it's just as wrong as the argument you ascribe to me.

    My argument is about relative likelihoods. I'm saying it's more likely that a stereotype ACTUALLY EXISTS and that it's what's drawing people like me to make these statements, than the alternative, which is that we're all making something up for some reason. I'm not saying I have rock hard iron clad solid indisputable proof beyond a shadow of a doubt. I'm saying that if I'm wrong, it would be super weird, and it would at least be good to have a better explanation that "racist Rorschach," which I don't find convincing because I rarely ever think I see racism in cases where it could go either way.

    edit: another reason I think my relative likelihoods argument is correct is because people who look like this dude never turn up in PA comics, so for your scenario to be the right one, you also have to explain how PA got so unlucky as to stick this guy into the one role that makes him fit the stereotype.


    If your argument is about relative likelihoods then it's a ridiculous argument. Issues of power application and discursive repression deal with facts. Anecdotal facts are more suspect than others, but at least they derive from experience - everything you've applied here has lacked even that much. Your conclusions have been the most specious kind of rhetorical bullshit. 'What's more likely, that some people take offense at something innocuous or that it's really vile? It's really vile, obviously!' - that's basically your entire argument throughout the thread, and it's nonsense. A group of three people could very well be simultaneously insane in any number of ways, or simply liable to assert offense regardless of rationale. You need to provide legitimate arguments if you want people to take you seriously. If I'm somehow misinterpreting or missing your key pieces of evidence, feel free to restate them here. I invite you to be as clear as possible, as I'm pretty stupid.

    The Good Doctor Tran on
    LoL & Spiral Knights & MC & SMNC: Carrington - Origin: CarringtonPlus - Steam: skdrtran
  • SageinaRageSageinaRage Registered User regular
    Racism aside, I'm kind of stunned that people could look at this guy and think that he's not mediterranean/middle eastern, because he obviously is. He's got the curly black hair, the bushy eyebrows, the pencil mustache which isn't really worn by any other group, and the hairy back. That's pretty much it.

    sig.gif
  • SageinaRageSageinaRage Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    BoomShake wrote: »
    I think the problem here stems from the fact that the characteristics of John Videogames which are being used to define this claimed stereotype are not are not very closely related to a specific set of people, unlike the yarmulke or little hair curls in your analogy.

    Hairy, bushy eyebrows, and unkempt appearance show up in more groups of men than not. Before the relatively recent body-grooming movement, the stereotypical man had a chest forest, 5 o'clock shadow, and depending on position and habits, strong - even bushy - eyebrows. Mr. Videogames here looks as much like Burt Reynolds as he does anything else. The only solid stereotype the comic portrays is either a "not-business-man" or a general lower economic "trash" (accented by the wife-beater).

    Yeah, he could be mistaken for Burt Reynolds, if he were drawn whiter, without the back hair, without his hair being as curly, and if this were the 70's. As none of this is true, he's obviously middle eastern or greek.


    edit::
    which, in re: racism, both of these groups have stereotypes for being cheap, haggling a lot, and trying to scam people. I don't think Mike and Jerry were intentionally trying to use a stereotype, but I do think that one resulted.

    SageinaRage on
    sig.gif
  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    BoomShake wrote: »
    I think the problem here stems from the fact that the characteristics of John Videogames which are being used to define this claimed stereotype are not are not very closely related to a specific set of people, unlike the yarmulke or little hair curls in your analogy.

    Hairy, bushy eyebrows, and unkempt appearance show up in more groups of men than not. Before the relatively recent body-grooming movement, the stereotypical man had a chest forest, 5 o'clock shadow, and depending on position and habits, strong - even bushy - eyebrows. Mr. Videogames here looks as much like Burt Reynolds as he does anything else. The only solid stereotype the comic portrays is either a "not-business-man" or a general lower economic "trash" (accented by the wife-beater).

    Yeah, he could be mistaken for Burt Reynolds, if he were drawn whiter, without the back hair, without his hair being as curly, and if this were the 70's. As none of this is true, he's obviously middle eastern or greek.


    edit::
    which, in re: racism, both of these groups have stereotypes for being cheap, haggling a lot, and trying to scam people. I don't think Mike and Jerry were intentionally trying to use a stereotype, but I do think that one resulted.
    You silly person! You're inventing a stereotype out of whole cloth! You're in fairly good company, I guess, because a lot of people in this thread including myself appear to have done the same thing, but still, you're nuts. Stop seeing racism in what is clearly just a totally benign comic, where a man who happens to look entirely different from the usual PA generic character just happened to turn up in a role where he's scamming people, which just happens to match up perfectly to this stereotype that totally doesn't exist and that we're all inventing just so we can get bent out of shape about nothing.

  • Sage_CatharsisSage_Catharsis Registered User regular
    I think this thread just proves that there can be nothing gained from talking with people who who refuse to have compassion. As their refusal twists them into ever further obtuse arguments instead of language being used to form a mutual understanding.

    I think this thread shows that some people can afford to participate in conversations like this while some cannot.

    A long time ago I would stay in this tread trying and trying to have a heart to heart with arguers feeling rejection with every dissection of my statement when even am attempt to relate to my statement and a "don't worry we don't hate you" response.

    Even this post could get parsed, each statement removed from its over all context and refuted. Really, when all it boils down to is ouch.
    And really all their actions result in is a twisting of the knife or a cold shoulder or a mocking.

    The people who are arguing with me, I am refusing to argue with them since they don't care to relate or connect with me, don't really respond to anything. They are just stalling until their victim makes a spelling mistake or grammar mistake or let slip in something that might take some extra explaining.

    The truth is anyone arguing instead being open to trials of another human being are their own punishment.

    Correct them 3 times and them be done.

    Thank you all who defended not me but my premise.

    Thank you so much because it accomplished it's goal which to help me feel less alone, less accused in this world ruled by theft murder destruction.

    Between Accusation and Healing you came up on the side of healing. Thank you.

    The longer you argue anything here the more exhausted you may become and I wouldn't want you leaving this nieghborhood. I don't call it a community. Obviously. Though it is a common misunderstanding. Mistaking a bunch of people near eachother for a community.

    Too many words.

    Forgive.

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