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

245

Posts

  • Victory63Victory63 Registered User regular
    With all the projects which are up that appear to be just ideas and asking for money, there are a couple legitimate ones which might not reach their goal because of lack of advertisements or they remain undiscovered.

    There's one I've found by an ex-LucasArts developer called "Starlight Inception", a spiritual successor to the X-Wing series. It's a space sim which hopes to bring back the genre:
    http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/732317316/starlight-inceptiontm

    But thanks to John Videogames, we're least likely to see more coverage of this one because it's legitimate and not a newsworthy scam.

  • faitsfaits a panda eating cake seattleRegistered User regular
    I didn't realize that "swarthy" was a race now.

    Thanks for educating me.

    faits.png
  • AegeriAegeri Tiny wee bacteriums Plateau of LengRegistered User regular
    I find this comic to be racially insensitive.

    I suspect you'd be the only one.
    It hurts to see a comic I like so much perpetuate a stereotype that a swarthy male is a con-man or whatever.

    Personally, I think the fact this guy looks like a hobo and is clearly utterly unable to actually describe what he is selling makes far more of a difference. Frankly, any concept of race didn't even occur to me until you brought it up and I still can't see it. I in fact am not even sure what "Swarthy white male" is and it's not any race I've ever actually heard of.

    The Roleplayer's Guild: My blog for roleplaying games, advice and adventuring.
  • SlortexSlortex In my chairRegistered User regular
    I am an Indian (born in US, parents from Asia), and my wife is as white as you can get. After Sage_Catharsis mentioned it, I could see the race in the strip, but not before. Actually, I think on first glance, I assumed it was a mobbed up Italian-American dude. I'm not even sure that it still can't be... Sage, are you thinking the comic character is drawn to be middle-eastern? I'm pretty sure you only say "swarthy" which just means dark-skinned and can therefore imply any number of races. I just want to be clear on where you're coming from.

    In any case, I suggest you lighten up. I'm not sure if its still on, but there was a TV show called "Outsourced" that was about a call-center in India. I think it was on NBC. It played, near as I can tell from watching commercials, on several racial stereotypes. My wife was mortified when watching the commercials with me, feeling incredibly offended in general and for me in particular. Aside from thinking the commercials made the show look really bad, I didn't really care. A lot of comedy is rooted in some type of stereotype. How many TV shows play on the idea of the dim-witted husband or the controlling, neurotic wife? Or have a black character who is from "the hood" or playing up something similar? When I saw commercials for Outsourced, I didn't think to be offended... I just thought it was a show that I probably wouldn't find very funny. Who cares if its based on a racial stereotype? Comedy needs to have some baseline that we can recognize, otherwise there's no reason to think that the events depicted are unusual, and therefore funny. Stereotypes are a quick way to establish that baseline. Sometimes the stereotypes are about the type of person you happen to be. It really doesn't matter. The real humor comes from how the characters interact with the given stereotype.

  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    I find this comic to be racially insensitive.

    I am almost 100% sure that it wasn't done on purpose.

    I hope I don't get banned for this, with quotes like these I don't think I am going to find many friends here.

    Aegeri wrote: »
    There isn't a single chance John Videogames could possibly be lying with a face like that!
    Peter Ebel wrote: »
    Johnny Videogames looks like he got the shit beat out of him till his face deformed.


    I just tweeted and emailed @ tycho & gabe and asked them to use Randy Pinkstaff or their own characters.

    ...how is this not one of their own characters? Is John Videogames a real person? For some reason I doubt it.
    It hurts to see a comic I like so much perpetuate a stereotype that a swarthy male is a con-man or whatever.

    The fact thy the guy calls himself John Videogames or claims to have invented video games seems to get lost in just how ethnic/middle eastern/Mediterranean/ just over all swarth this guy looks.

    Did a swarthy guy offend one of these dudes?

    I mean I am sure they have black friends and Kiko has thick eye brows. I don't think Tycho and Gabe are bad people. I just wish they knew this is a hurtful stereotype and that perpetuating it isn't anymore funny then equating black face with happy servitude, simplicity or whatever.


    What is love, baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no mo'

    Sagittarius Adequate Catharsis


    ...what stereotype, exactly, do you think they're perpetuating? The only word you've used to describe it is "swarthy," which I've only ever heard used by either late 19th century novelists or people ironically assuming the persona of a late 19th century novelist.

    Not to jump to quickly on the "YOU are the one who is the racist" tactic, but it's a bit weird how his "swarthiness" seems to completely overshadow (in your mind) everything about the character, including what he's saying. Also that Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and "ethnic" all apparently look the same to you.


    Why would this comic be improved by instead using Randy Pinkwood, a character defined by (a) his inexplicably secure news anchoring job, and (b) his penchant for inserting thinly veiled double entendres rather roughly into the news? Neither of Randy's defining characteristics fits the comic at all.

  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Dude looks like he could be a member of my family, on the Italian side. And I do not consider myself anything other than white, and would roll my eyes at any fellow Italians or half-Italians complaining about this comic as a racial stereotype. What the guy looks like is unshaven and dogy, he doesn't even look dark, he's pink as a shaved rabbit.

    Edit: You guys, I just realized who he reminds me of! Paul Christoforo.

    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
  • Billy ChenowithBilly Chenowith Registered User regular
    A character doesn't have to be immediately identifiable as a particular race to represent a stereotype. The Greedy Jew/Thieving Gypsy/Sinister Arab stereotypes are all more or less the same thing: Men with darker skin, big hooked noses, and wiry black hair are generally untrustworthy and of low moral character. They're classic villains, with bonus points for the moustache.

    Nobody's saying that Gabe is a closet Neo-Nazi secretly churning out subliminal messages to poison our minds against the mud races. This psychologist dude is arguably a positive representation of these physical traits, and if you went through the entire archives you'd probably find several that fall on both sides of the spectrum. But original characters that look like Mr. Videogames don't show up very often in Penny Arcade comics, and when one does show up and neatly fits into a negative stereotype, it's not that hard to see why someone might be offended.
    KalTorak wrote: »
    Not to jump to quickly on the "YOU are the one who is the racist" tactic, but it's a bit weird how his "swarthiness" seems to completely overshadow (in your mind) everything about the character, including what he's saying. Also that Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and "ethnic" all apparently look the same to you.

    That's because race is a social construct. Traits associated with any given race can usually be found scattered among all the other races, and when you have multiple races in close geographical proximity, you tend to see a lot of the same physical characteristics popping up.

  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    "You can online with friends... or your enemies" doesn't sound like pigdin English. It sounds like someone who doesn't know anything about what he's talking about. Again, like Paul Christoforo ("I wwebsite as on the internet").

    Guys, any time you see "big, dumb, guy with poor hygeine trying to steal from you" in a comic, it's not automatically a reference to some race. You need a little bit more to go on than that.

    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 the last person to call racist wolf or whatever the fable says, but I think I have to side with @Sage_Catharsis and @Billy Chenowith on this one. Just because you can't pick the one magical race of people that this guy is doesn't mean that "dark skinned dude with bushy eyebrows, mustache, and hair all over = sketchy" isn't a racial stereotype when the only time dark skinned dudes with hair all over turn up is to scam people on Kickstarter. Nobody is accusing Gabe of being in the KKK or hating foreigners or anything. We're just pointing out that the impulse to draw "dude who's trying to scam you" as "darker skinned hairy guy" is endemic of the sort of stereotyping that people (rightly) take to be harmful and hurtful.

  • SlortexSlortex In my chairRegistered User regular
    I'm the last person to call racist wolf or whatever the fable says, but I think I have to side with @Sage_Catharsis and @Billy Chenowith on this one. Just because you can't pick the one magical race of people that this guy is doesn't mean that "dark skinned dude with bushy eyebrows, mustache, and hair all over = sketchy" isn't a racial stereotype when the only time dark skinned dudes with hair all over turn up is to scam people on Kickstarter. Nobody is accusing Gabe of being in the KKK or hating foreigners or anything. We're just pointing out that the impulse to draw "dude who's trying to scam you" as "darker skinned hairy guy" is endemic of the sort of stereotyping that people (rightly) take to be harmful and hurtful.

    But there have been several "dude who's trying to scam you" in Penny-Arcade strips, and I'd bet most of them have been white. Now that one of them looks vaguely middle-eastern, its stereotyping and harmful and hurtful? Not character variation? I think people need to relax.

  • TychoCelchuuuTychoCelchuuu PIGEON Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Slortex wrote: »
    I'm the last person to call racist wolf or whatever the fable says, but I think I have to side with @Sage_Catharsis and @Billy Chenowith on this one. Just because you can't pick the one magical race of people that this guy is doesn't mean that "dark skinned dude with bushy eyebrows, mustache, and hair all over = sketchy" isn't a racial stereotype when the only time dark skinned dudes with hair all over turn up is to scam people on Kickstarter. Nobody is accusing Gabe of being in the KKK or hating foreigners or anything. We're just pointing out that the impulse to draw "dude who's trying to scam you" as "darker skinned hairy guy" is endemic of the sort of stereotyping that people (rightly) take to be harmful and hurtful.

    But there have been several "dude who's trying to scam you" in Penny-Arcade strips, and I'd bet most of them have been white. Now that one of them looks vaguely middle-eastern, its stereotyping and harmful and hurtful? Not character variation? I think people need to relax.
    So I'm not sure anyone has said "every time a bad person shows up in a Penny Arcade strip they look like a stereotype of a typical dirty shifty foreigner." I also don't think anyone has said "anytime someone shows up as a scammer in a Penny Arcade strip they look like the stereotype of the typical dirty scamming foreigner." I'm saying that when people who look like the stereotype of a dirty, untrustworthy foreigner show up in PA strips, they're trying to scam someone.

    Now, one thing you might reply is that this is totally OK: Penny Arcade isn't saying that hairy foreigners actually are all scammers. It's just (unconsciously?) playing off a common stereotype, and there's nothing wrong with that unless they're somehow going further and specifically trying to insult hairy swarthy dark skinned people or something like that.

    You can certainly claim that, and I and Sage and Billy and maybe other people will be happy to have that discussion and talk about how it's not OK, but you have to start from there rather than arguing against something we haven't been claiming, I don't think.

    TychoCelchuuu on
  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    I'm the last person to call racist wolf or whatever the fable says, but I think I have to side with @Sage_Catharsis and @Billy Chenowith on this one. Just because you can't pick the one magical race of people that this guy is doesn't mean that "dark skinned dude with bushy eyebrows, mustache, and hair all over = sketchy" isn't a racial stereotype when the only time dark skinned dudes with hair all over turn up is to scam people on Kickstarter. Nobody is accusing Gabe of being in the KKK or hating foreigners or anything. We're just pointing out that the impulse to draw "dude who's trying to scam you" as "darker skinned hairy guy" is endemic of the sort of stereotyping that people (rightly) take to be harmful and hurtful.

    Well, you'd all have a point, if the guys skin was dark. Thing is, his skin is pink. He doesn't look like a dark-skinned ethnicity, he looks like he's sunburned. It's not like Gabe doesn't know how to draw middle-eastern skin tone or something.

    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
  • WUAWUA Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    Guys, guys, someone portrayed as bad wasn't drawn as a blonde-haired blue-eyed white guy. I think that's racist. I don't know which race it's racist against, but I have it narrowed down to some ethnicity from somewhere south of Norway and west of China.

    Dur hur dur.

    I thought he looked French, personally, what with the scruffy beard and pencil mustache.

    WUA on
  • Big Red TieBig Red Tie beautiful clydesdale style feet too hot to trotRegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    i thought he was italian

    i can kind of see the french thing

    Big Red Tie on
    3926 4292 8829
    Beasteh wrote: »
    *おなら*
  • GR_ZombieGR_Zombie Krillin It Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    My first thought was Carl from ATHF, followed by Chuck Jones.

    GR_Zombie on
    04xkcuvaav19.png
  • DratatooDratatoo Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    IMO, the biggest 3 videogame projects aren't much better, except for the bolded part (and the second part is only bolded because I want to play these games).

    "Hey we are totally cool dutes from the industry. We are making an awesome game. Please, give us you money"

    Wasteland 2 for example didn't have any details when it launched its kickstarter project. No plans how they are handling the money or the development - heck even a "guestimate" would be fine. Gee, they didn't even have mockup how the game is supposed to look (isometric RPG/view could be anything - is the camara fixed, rotateable, zoomable?). - Yes i know some of these projects started in some kind of "brainstorming phase" without much fixed features. But that makes it less desireable for me and other people to throw money at them.

    If I would start a project I would include the nitty, gritty details upfront. Peple who don't want to read about these details can skip it.

    Don't get me wrong I wish that the projects do well.

    But there will be much rage if:
    - one of the projects crashes and burns
    - the developer realize they have to start a second kickstartet run
    - the game doesn't turn out to be good or the wish fulfillment some people want it to be, or if features get cut.

    Regarding Johnny Videogames - I think its partially based on this guy:
    http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/120873716/your-world?ref=history

    Dratatoo on
  • WUAWUA Registered User regular
    Dratatoo wrote: »
    Regarding Johnny Videogames - I think its partially based on this guy:
    http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/120873716/your-world?ref=history

    Jesus Christ that's awesome. A goldmine. My favorite quote so far:

    "Are you tired of games that do not have everything you want? I know I am."

  • TubeTube Registered User admin
    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

  • DratatooDratatoo Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    WUA wrote: »
    Dratatoo wrote: »
    Regarding Johnny Videogames - I think its partially based on this guy:
    http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/120873716/your-world?ref=history

    Jesus Christ that's awesome. A goldmine. My favorite quote so far:

    "Are you tired of games that do not have everything you want? I know I am."

    A better one:
    I am an idea man. I think of what I want and I try to make it happen.

    Who isn't?

    edit: We still need to make this happen:

    i-FKNNKxh-L.jpg

    Dratatoo on
  • mRahmanimRahmani DetroitRegistered User regular
    I find this comic to be racially insensitive.

    I am almost 100% sure that it wasn't done on purpose.

    I hope I don't get banned for this, with quotes like these I don't think I am going to find many friends here.

    Aegeri wrote: »
    There isn't a single chance John Videogames could possibly be lying with a face like that!
    Peter Ebel wrote: »
    Johnny Videogames looks like he got the shit beat out of him till his face deformed.


    I just tweeted and emailed @ tycho & gabe and asked them to use Randy Pinkstaff or their own characters.

    It hurts to see a comic I like so much perpetuate a stereotype that a swarthy male is a con-man or whatever.

    The fact thy the guy calls himself John Videogames or claims to have invented video games seems to get lost in just how ethnic/middle eastern/Mediterranean/ just over all swarth this guy looks.

    Did a swarthy guy offend one of these dudes?

    I mean I am sure they have black friends and Kiko has thick eye brows. I don't think Tycho and Gabe are bad people. I just wish they knew this is a hurtful stereotype and that perpetuating it isn't anymore funny then equating black face with happy servitude, simplicity or whatever.


    What is love, baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no mo'

    Sagittarius Adequate Catharsis


    Uh

    When I think "con man" I think Nicholas Cage in Matchstick Men.

    I'm Iranian (Middle Eastern) and as far as I'm concerned this is just some disheveled dude. I couldn't pin a race to it if I tried.

  • FyndirFyndir Registered User regular
    I guess maybe the conman in the strip looks darker compared to the relatively pasty skin tone used for G&T, and this might be confusing to people who have never actually seen human beings?

  • A Half Eaten OreoA Half Eaten Oreo Registered User regular
    GR_Zombie wrote: »
    My first thought was Carl from ATHF, followed by Chuck Jones.

    Carl was the first guy that came to my mind too. Never thought the guy was anything other that 'white' until I read this thread.

  • IncenjucarIncenjucar VChatter Seattle, WARegistered User regular
    edited May 2012
    i thought he was italian

    i can kind of see the french thing

    As a French man who has been mistaken for a Mediterranean man by a Mediterranean man I demand an apology and a hug that is slightly too long to be comfortable.

    Incenjucar on
  • Sage_CatharsisSage_Catharsis Registered User regular
    @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.

  • WUAWUA Registered User regular
    Man it's like you wish you were a real minority so you could feel oppressed, but instead you're just kinda hairy, but hey you'll take what you can get.

  • HoleHole Registered User regular
    I might be a horrible person, but that stereotype made me laugh. Precisely because it's so deliberately stereotyped, in such an out-dated way. Videogames just looks like a south-european guy from the 1920s, he

    1) looks like a stereotypical con-man right out of a silent movie, and the point isn't that such stereotypes are valid or devoid of racism, but that they exist, they act as mythological archetypes, they scream "ooh it is the bad con-man of the movie", and that naive obviousness is what makes the joke work. Like a martian happening to be small and green with a big head and antennas. Or like a enlightened Bill Bailey appearing in front of jehova witnesses. The symbolism itself, because it is shared, and even though it may be ridicule and illegitimate, still functions enough fr the joke. You can laugh, just like you could laugh in a real case of a (even honest) person asking your trust while resembling too much to some popular stereotype of dishonesty - while simultaneously overcoming that first impression.

    2) looks dishonest because his look is completely out-of-place in that context. As stereotypes go, that one is the opposite of the stereotype of the genious videogame inventor geek. He is covered with little "social identity flags" that hint at a very different background, history, and activity (and his anachronical style alone may play a big role in it). In reality, nothing technically prevents a software developper to wear a singlet, a mole and a tiny oiled moustache. It's just unlikely, especially when related to the origin of the videogame industry, and to the presentation standards in that field. And we are in a comic strip, where such looks are not random, and people tend to be caricatured as their official "identity looks", that is, you would expect a founder of computer gaming to look like a stereotyped programmer instead. So, it's not even the "con-man" stereotype that warns the reader of a scam, but the "obviously not a 1970s programmer" stereotype.

    I don't see a big issue with that. You could have a strip about a humanitarian organisation, lead by a Fu-Manchu figure. The Fu-Manchu figure is a racist stereotype, out of a series of extremely racist and colonialist novels. But it's also recognised as a "bad guy" figure, so the joke would work. And would still work with the distance the readers would take from this caricature. It would recall an out-dated bad guy figure, use it as an "obvious bad guy" figure, without necessarily strenghtening it. Or strenghtening the idea that chinese are evil especially when they dress in mandarine robes.

    But maybe I'm biased by the context, of Penny Arcade being mostly about intelligent readers and intelligent writers. On another website, I might have interpreted things differently...

  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    WUA wrote: »
    Man it's like you wish you were a real minority so you could feel oppressed, but instead you're just kinda hairy, but hey you'll take what you can get.

    Those oppressed minorities really have it made...

  • King RiptorKing Riptor Registered User regular
    @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"

    I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    Yeah I mean, check out the swarthiness on this guy

    Governor_Ratcliffe_1.jpg

  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    KalTorak wrote: »
    Yeah I mean, check out the swarthiness on this guy

    Governor_Ratcliffe_1.jpg

    He has black hair and a pencil mustache, he's obviously a minority race, you swine!

    "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
    Hole wrote: »
    I might be a horrible person, but that stereotype made me laugh. Precisely because it's so deliberately stereotyped, in such an out-dated way. Videogames just looks like a south-european guy from the 1920s, he

    1) looks like a stereotypical con-man right out of a silent movie, and the point isn't that such stereotypes are valid or devoid of racism, but that they exist, they act as mythological archetypes, they scream "ooh it is the bad con-man of the movie", and that naive obviousness is what makes the joke work. Like a martian happening to be small and green with a big head and antennas. Or like a enlightened Bill Bailey appearing in front of jehova witnesses. The symbolism itself, because it is shared, and even though it may be ridicule and illegitimate, still functions enough fr the joke. You can laugh, just like you could laugh in a real case of a (even honest) person asking your trust while resembling too much to some popular stereotype of dishonesty - while simultaneously overcoming that first impression.

    2) looks dishonest because his look is completely out-of-place in that context. As stereotypes go, that one is the opposite of the stereotype of the genious videogame inventor geek. He is covered with little "social identity flags" that hint at a very different background, history, and activity (and his anachronical style alone may play a big role in it). In reality, nothing technically prevents a software developper to wear a singlet, a mole and a tiny oiled moustache. It's just unlikely, especially when related to the origin of the videogame industry, and to the presentation standards in that field. And we are in a comic strip, where such looks are not random, and people tend to be caricatured as their official "identity looks", that is, you would expect a founder of computer gaming to look like a stereotyped programmer instead. So, it's not even the "con-man" stereotype that warns the reader of a scam, but the "obviously not a 1970s programmer" stereotype.

    I don't see a big issue with that. You could have a strip about a humanitarian organisation, lead by a Fu-Manchu figure. The Fu-Manchu figure is a racist stereotype, out of a series of extremely racist and colonialist novels. But it's also recognised as a "bad guy" figure, so the joke would work. And would still work with the distance the readers would take from this caricature. It would recall an out-dated bad guy figure, use it as an "obvious bad guy" figure, without necessarily strenghtening it. Or strenghtening the idea that chinese are evil especially when they dress in mandarine robes.

    But maybe I'm biased by the context, of Penny Arcade being mostly about intelligent readers and intelligent writers. On another website, I might have interpreted things differently...
    This is the best kind of response, I think. It acknowledges that there's a stereotype doing some of the humorous work here, and contests the idea that this is a bad thing. I have to get some work done before Tube starts livestreaming Hitman 2 in an hour and shuts down all my productivity, but a few quick points:

    1) You're right that the stereotype exists enough for a joke. I don't think stereotypes are always bad, but when they're racist ones like this one, I think they are bad, and that unless you're making a meta-joke about how the stereotype is itself ridiculous, it's racist to use the stereotype. For instance, if I make a joke in my comic about a greedy person, and just to drive the point home I make him Jewish (big nose etc.) I don't think this would be a good thing. So unless PA is making a meta-joke about how this scammer stereotype/mythical archetype is bullshit, then the joke is just straight up racist.

    2) Are they making a meta-joke about how these sorts of people aren't actually scammers, and about how society is racist when it sees someone who looks like this and thinks "scammer?" No. PA is using this guy because he looks like a scammer. You're right that the fact that "stereotypical scammer" looks completely different from "stereotypical computer programmer" definitely makes it funnier, but at its heart, why was this non-programmer guy chosen rather than any of the millions of other people who look nothing like a stereotypical programmer? He was chosen because he's the stereotypical scammer, just like if I depicted a greedy person as the stereotypical greedy Jew, even if in the context he looks entirely different from who he's pretending to be, I'd be doing this solely in order to tap into the greedy Jew stereotype, and I don't think that's okay.

    Is it okay to use a Fu-Manchu dude as short-hand for "obvious bad guy" in the same way that it's okay to use "hairy fat man with foreign facial features" as short-hand for "obvious scammer?" Well, I don't know. Is it okay to use "obvious Jew" as short-hand for "greedy," or "black guy with big lips and a slice of watermelon" as short-hand for whatever complex fucking character America has got attached to black guys, unless you're making some sort of commentary about how these stereotypes are bad? Where you fall on this question is where you ought to fall on the PA comic question. I for one think we've moved past the point where using "Jew" as shorthand for "greedy" is an OK basis for a joke, but if that works for you, then I guess you can be fine with the comic.

    I would urge you not to be okay with it, though, because it's super racist. Jews aren't greedy, black men aren't like the stereotype of black men, swarthy foreigners aren't a bunch of scammers, Asian people barely even look like Fu Manchu, and so on. If "group X is Y" is the basis of your joke, and group X isn't Y, you have to ask yourself if the only reason "group X is Y" helps your joke is because it's racist to think group X is Y. Is it racist to think that swarthy foreigners are looking to rip you off, or that Jews just want money?

  • Gigazombie CybermageGigazombie Cybermage Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    I don't see what the big deal is. I just assumed it was a "Saudi Arabian Prince" who found a new scam.

  • LuxLux Registered User regular
    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...

  • GaslightGaslight Registered User regular
    Get a grip. He is barely darker than Gabe and Tycho. Actually if anything he is just pinker. The joke is that he looks unprofessional and unkempt (unibrow, stubble, wife-beater) and sounds as though he is completely clueless about games. It is these factors which are supposed to make him completely untrustworthy and somebody no thinking person would give their money to, not any imagined stereotypical qualities of some vaguely-defined "foreign" ethnicity.

  • Form of Monkey!Form of Monkey! Registered User regular
    I don't see what the big deal is. I just assumed it was a "Saudi Arabian Prince" who found a new scam.

    Let's walk this back a little. I'm not even sure what all this talk is about a "scam" is about.

    If the guy weren't legitimate, then why would he be holding cards, dice, and an Atari 2600 joystick?

    That's what I thought. I rest my case.

    :(|) :(|) :(|)

  • IvarIvar Oslo, NorwayRegistered User regular
    grindhousefu.jpg

  • The Good Doctor TranThe Good Doctor Tran Registered User regular
    @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.

    LoL & Spiral Knights & MC & SMNC: Carrington - Origin: CarringtonPlus - Steam: skdrtran
  • southwicksouthwick Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    He reminds of the guys always trying to sell me strange things at mall kiosks.

    southwick on
  • SticksSticks I'd rather be in bed.Registered User regular
    edited May 2012
    southwick wrote: »
    He reminds of the guys always trying to sell me strange things at mall kiosks.

    edit: bleh, you already changed it.

    Sticks on
  • Sage_CatharsisSage_Catharsis 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.


    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.

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