|
The MisterBibs of racism.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2016 00:44
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 2, 2024 11:30 |
|
|
Tender Bender posted:The next step is to keep being an abrasive dick who can't comprehend anything outside of his own experiences, I guess. Oh yeah? Is that the next step? Cuz if that's the best you got I guess that's what I'll keep doing. If you actually come up with a real next step let me know.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2016 00:50
|
|
|
HorseRenoir posted:Blizzard's studio spends all year making 30-second cutscenes, there's no way they could make a full movie. Still, I don't get why they couldn't have just given the license to an animation studio like Dreamworks instead of putting way more effort into making a live-action film that looks like poo poo. Thrall with a Dreamworks face. I guess that would just be Shrek.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2016 01:13
|
|
|
Applewhite posted:I didn't say we shouldn't acknowledge it. But having acknowledged it, what's the next step? Like, I'm making a note here "Herge portrayed Africans in a racist way." Now I'm filing the note in a filing cabinet. In it goes. All done. The next step is understanding that just because someone isn't consciously racist doesn't mean that their creative work will not have racist elements and being able to discuss that without getting defensive about the label.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2016 01:23
|
|
|
Hodgepodge posted:The next step is understanding that just because someone isn't consciously racist doesn't mean that their creative work will not have racist elements and being able to discuss that without getting defensive about the label. That sounds like part of the first step. I guess we can split it into two steps.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2016 01:26
|
|
|
Hodgepodge posted:The next step is understanding that just because someone isn't consciously racist doesn't mean that their creative work will not have racist elements and being able to discuss that without getting defensive about the label.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2016 15:08
|
|
|
Picklepuss posted:I'm curious, what exactly would there be to discuss beyond acknowledging he was? I mean I'm a huge fangirl of Lovecraft's stories, even though I suspect he would have disliked me for multiple reasons. Hell, for that matter I think C.S. Lewis would have disliked me too. That said, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do about these things beyond, well, what Applewhite does. Step one: consume a art Step two: poo poo out a art Step three: definitely don't discuss the art or what it means Step four: tell people how good the art tasted
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2016 23:10
|
|
|
Well to be fair, HP Lovecraft was a deeply racist individual but as far as I can tell it had no effect on his writing!
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2016 23:16
|
|
|
HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Well to be fair, HP Lovecraft was a deeply racist individual but as far as I can tell it had no effect on his writing! There was that one story where the horrifying twist is that someone's ancestor was black.
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2016 23:32
|
|
HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Well to be fair, HP Lovecraft was a deeply racist individual but as far as I can tell it had no effect on his writing! I've been on the internet too long and can't tell if this is a joke or not. Just in case: On the Creation of Niggers, by HP Lovecraft posted:When, long ago, the gods created Earth
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 30, 2016 23:44
|
|
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 00:06
|
|
|
computer parts posted:There was that one story where the horrifying twist is that someone's ancestor was black.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 00:20
|
|
|
It's the absolute foundation of big chunks of his work. Good, modern Europeans getting corrupted by foreign savagery.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 00:29
|
|
|
Lovecraft protagonists can't walk 10 feet without stumbling into a ghetto full of ugly immigrants.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 01:00
|
|
|
HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Well to be fair, HP Lovecraft was a deeply racist individual but as far as I can tell it had no effect on his writing! I wish I had SMG's post on Lovecraft protags discovering they're apes or blacks or lizards or fish on hand, it was a great post but I have no idea where it came from.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 01:05
|
|
|
Toady posted:Lovecraft protagonists can't walk 10 feet without stumbling into a ghetto full of ugly immigrants. Funnily enough he got married to a Jewish Ukrainian immigrant and when he moved to New York to live with her he became involved with the Kalem Club and made friends with anarchist, anti-racist and feminist activist James Ferdinand Morton and Samuel Loveman, who was both Jewish and openly gay. Lovecraft was however reportedly pretty freaked out by being constantly surrounded by immigrants and black people in Brooklyn.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 01:19
|
|
|
Not reportedly, self-reportedly. The guy has August Derleth first and eye-popping racism second to thank for not being totally obscure.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 01:38
|
|
|
I give Lovecraft a pass since he was almost certainly mentally ill. I'm saying this despite being part of one of the groups he hates.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 01:46
|
|
|
Sylvia Plath was mentally ill, people don't skirt around her severe depression and self loathing because it informed what she wrote.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 01:49
|
|
|
Most historically famous authors were deeply troubled, you didn't make money off it, you wrote to excise the demons.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 03:36
|
|
FreudianSlippers posted:Funnily enough he got married to a Jewish Ukrainian immigrant and when he moved to New York to live with her he became involved with the Kalem Club and made friends with anarchist, anti-racist and feminist activist James Ferdinand Morton and Samuel Loveman, who was both Jewish and openly gay. By all reports his racism got less all-consuming as he got older due to poo poo like this but he was probably still pretty racist when he died. He was friends with Robert E. Howard, who was really fascinated by the ideas of eugenics and races having inherent traits and that manifested itself in his writing a lot, sometimes in really awful ways, and even that texas racist was like "Hey H.P., settle down aight?"
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 03:42
|
|
|
Invalid Validation posted:Most historically famous authors were deeply troubled, you didn't make money off it, you wrote to excise the demons. What I mean is, why try to skirt it or excuse it? It's one of the primary reasons his work is interesting at all.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 03:44
|
|
|
Yeah, in one way, Lovecraft's writing was a great way of answering the question "What is it about non-whites you find frightening?" You read a couple of his stories and it's like OOOOH I understand how he felt despite not sharing his views. It's kinda what art is about. But seriously the guy was mondo racist, like insanely.
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 03:45
|
|
|
Lurdiak posted:He was friends with Robert E. Howard, who was really fascinated by the ideas of eugenics and races having inherent traits and that manifested itself in his writing a lot, sometimes in really awful ways, and even that texas racist was like "Hey H.P., settle down aight?" There's a Conan story where he encounters giant, black bipeds. He specifies that they are not 'black men' as we/he would use it, then spends the rest of the book alternately referring to them as 'blacks' and 'black men' It's kind of amazing.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 04:23
|
|
Snowman_McK posted:There's a Conan story where he encounters giant, black bipeds. He specifies that they are not 'black men' as we/he would use it, then spends the rest of the book alternately referring to them as 'blacks' and 'black men' There is a bunch of Solomon Kane stories about him interacting with Africans and it's just the most insane poo poo. It's violently racist but at the same time it feels like it's well-meaning and trying to make a point about tolerance.
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 04:34
|
|
|
FreudianSlippers posted:Funnily enough he got married to a Jewish Ukrainian immigrant and when he moved to New York to live with her he became involved with the Kalem Club and made friends with anarchist, anti-racist and feminist activist James Ferdinand Morton and Samuel Loveman, who was both Jewish and openly gay. That's the thing. The cosmic horror in Lovecraft is that his worldview is doomed, that he is on the wrong side of history and isn't strong enough to change. You can't talk about Lovecraft without talking about racism because that's what he was writing about.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 04:55
|
|
|
Warcraft movie thread: Lovecraft not Warcraft.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 05:13
|
|
|
Doctor Spaceman posted:Warcraft movie thread: Lovecraft not Warcraft. I'm not sure if this is , but everything in Warcraft is the Old Gods' fault these days anyhow.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 05:15
|
|
|
IShallRiseAgain posted:I give Lovecraft a pass since he was almost certainly mentally ill. I'm saying this despite being part of one of the groups he hates. IShallRiseAgain confirmed for fishman
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 05:16
|
|
|
Lurdiak posted:There is a bunch of Solomon Kane stories about him interacting with Africans and it's just the most insane poo poo. It's violently racist but at the same time it feels like it's well-meaning and trying to make a point about tolerance. The most genuinely non-racist story of that era is probably a Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of the Yellow Face. In it, a woman married an American who turned out to be a black man, but he died and she moved back to England to marry a gentleman. The twist - she had a child with this black man, and hid the child on an adjoining property (also the child is like super black). The gentleman finds this out and welcomes the baby girl into his home. 
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 05:19
|
|
computer parts posted:The most genuinely non-racist story of that era is probably a Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of the Yellow Face. In it, a woman married an American who turned out to be a black man, but he died and she moved back to England to marry a gentleman. The twist - she had a child with this black man, and hid the child on an adjoining property (also the child is like super black). The gentleman finds this out and welcomes the baby girl into his home. While it was undoubtedly a very racist time, I feel like I have to reiterate that even for the time, Lovecraft was racist to a ridiculous extreme. I know that's not your point but it cannot be overstated.
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 05:23
|
|
|
computer parts posted:The most genuinely non-racist story of that era is probably a Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of the Yellow Face. In it, a woman married an American who turned out to be a black man, but he died and she moved back to England to marry a gentleman. The twist - she had a child with this black man, and hid the child on an adjoining property (also the child is like super black). The gentleman finds this out and welcomes the baby girl into his home. By the time Lovecraft was writing, there were also writers like Baum, whose Oz stories were written from a vocally feminist standpoint. I'd say it was kind of an interesting time culturally, but I don't think we've really left it yet.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 05:24
|
|
|
Lurdiak posted:There is a bunch of Solomon Kane stories about him interacting with Africans and it's just the most insane poo poo. It's violently racist but at the same time it feels like it's well-meaning and trying to make a point about tolerance. I need to read those. Howard's an interesting guy and his books are fascinating as cultural artifacts and they're really well written too. If you haven't read it, "The Iron Man" novella about a boxer is well worth reading, and comes with way less cultural baggage. Just while we're on him (and sort of thread appropriate) reading him showed me something weird about fantasy. A lot of fantasy that's popular nowadays (specifially stuff like ASoIaF or Joe Abercrombie's books) is praised and structured as a deconstruction or inversion or subversion of fantasy cliches. Heroic warriors are actually psychos, noble princes are all pawns, heroes (if they exist) die stupid deaths, etc. The weird thing about it is, that cliche has been being upturned since at least Howard's writing, where rescuing princess' was more often about ransoming them afterwards. Conan was anything but a noble hero, even if he often did noble, heroic things for his own reasons, and that was in the 30s. It predates Lord of the Rings. So we're still, now, reacting to cliches that haven't been the norm for nearly a century. poo poo, even in the great chivalric stories (which are very much Fantasy's antecedent) you had plenty of 'subversion' where knights were as much about getting laid and rewarded as anything else. King Arthur kicks off with his dad sneaking in to bone someone else's wife.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 05:24
|
|
|
Lurdiak posted:There is a bunch of Solomon Kane stories about him interacting with Africans and it's just the most insane poo poo. It's violently racist but at the same time it feels like it's well-meaning and trying to make a point about tolerance. Yeah, I was going to mention those earlier because even though Howard was a big time 1930's small town Texas racist he still did a story where there was at least one black character with positive traits (Kanes friend N'Longa), and even that would have been completely unthinkable for Lovecraft.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 05:26
|
|
|
Snowman_McK posted:
The reaction is from the post-Tolkien works, not the ones that predate it. There's been plenty of stuff between the 30s and 90s that's full of genre cliches. One might even argue it's cyclical.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 05:36
|
|
|
Bob Quixote posted:Yeah, I was going to mention those earlier because even though Howard was a big time 1930's small town Texas racist he still did a story where there was at least one black character with positive traits (Kanes friend N'Longa), and even that would have been completely unthinkable for Lovecraft. One of Howard's big themes was about civilization vs savagery, with his Conan being an argument for the superiority of the latter. In Lovecraft the savage perspective of Conan is too alien to be comprehended. Partly because Lovecraft had issues with his masculinity. Like, Lovecraft is racist, but he agrees that this isn't okay. His protagonists aren't even manly enough to exist in the same world at Conan. Since he and Howard were friends, you can be sure that he was aware of this. Conan, of course, did exist in the same world with several borrowed Elder Gods.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 05:36
|
|
|
computer parts posted:The reaction is from the post-Tolkien works, not the ones that predate it. quote:There's been plenty of stuff between the 30s and 90s that's full of genre cliches. One might even argue it's cyclical. Hodgepodge posted:One of Howard's big themes was about civilization vs savagery, with his Conan being an argument for the superiority of the latter. Snowman_McK fucked around with this message at 05:52 on Mar 31, 2016 |
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 05:45
|
|
|
Snowman_McK posted:While whatever flaws Howard had, he had no lack of confidence in his masculinity. I've never seen a picture of him with a shirt on. He's like if Mark Wahlberg knew how to spell. Which is precisely the thing. Lovecraft was very repressed (hetero)sexually, was too sickly for sports, and lacked male influences in his early life. He was a person who fundamentally felt too weak to survive in a chaotic world. It's notable that Lovecraft died not long after Howard's suicide. They were really close friends. A lot of his most popular work was written towards the end of his life as well, as his money ran out.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 06:17
|
|
|
Hodgepodge posted:I'm not sure if this is Retcon v5 is out, and now the Old Gods are just minions of some mysterious Void baddies. It was more a comment on the discussion being entirely unrelated to Warcraft anyway.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 06:39
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 2, 2024 11:30 |
|
|
Hodgepodge posted:Which is precisely the thing. Lovecraft was very repressed (hetero)sexually, was too sickly for sports, and lacked male influences in his early life. He was a person who fundamentally felt too weak to survive in a chaotic world. God, so much of his work just made a lot more sense.
|
|
#
?
Mar 31, 2016 06:40
|
|