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Megaman's Jockstrap posted:I literally asked you to explain it to me and you told me to go gently caress myself and mumbled out some mealy-mouth vagueries about the oppression being "more real" to you. I mean it's an answer but it's a lovely one. No, dude, you posted some inflammatory bullshit. But you want an actual serious explanation and just said it in a really stupid way? Sure, fine. The 1950s were in living memory. We currently, in the real world, have politicians and public figures that hearken back to it as a better time, and they almost universally mean 'a time when I could be racist.' It is also immediately post-WW2, which has a lot of personal weight for me because I grew up learning a lot about the Holocaust, and immediately-post-Holocaust is a weighty time, but even without out, to me, the idealized 50s cannot be reclaimed because the idealized 50s are inexorably linked to a dog whistle. And this probably wouldn't be true if it were 300 years ago, because that would be much farther removed, more able to be looked at in a cooler and more academic air. The idea that all periods of history are treated equally in people's minds is asinine and ridiculous, which is why I responded so angrily to you - it looked like you were basically being a disingenuous rear end in a top hat, rather than just phrasing things incredibly poorly.
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Nov 1, 2018 21:51
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It's the weird fantasy angle that helps Americana to work for me. It has Fifties trappings, the same way that an SCA event or your average high fantasy novel makes gestures toward medieval and Renaissance history, but it's real obvious that comparisons to the real thing are going to show some pretty big gaps. An otherwise historically accurate game set in 1950s America that curiously elided any references to its serious systemic dysfunction would set off alarm bells for me. This one, at least, wears its unreality on its sleeve.
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Nov 1, 2018 21:55
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Mugaaz posted:Do fantasy games about exploration need to include the horrors of disease and technologically advanced cultures destroying others? Yes. If they don't, they need to at least acknowledge that these things happened in real life and address why the game is refusing to deal with them, otherwise they run the risk of unintentionally glorifying colonialism.
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Nov 1, 2018 21:56
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NTRabbit posted:Sounds like a job for the TG industry thread Hey remember that time you equated people rolling their eyes at dumb cheesecake miniatures of a lady groping herself with telling irl women that they should dress more conservatively, then yelled at everyone for being a bunch of sex-negative prudes?
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Nov 1, 2018 21:58
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Mors Rattus posted:No, dude, you posted some inflammatory bullshit. But you want an actual serious explanation and just said it in a really stupid way? Sure, fine. hot tip: this is not a game about either the holocaust or world war 2, it is grease with elf ears and also mecha. It's not inexorably linked, there's nothing directly about the 50s themselves that says "hey let's be racist!" If it was invoking the KKK or sundown towns sure, but the 50s themselves are a decade and that means a lot of different things. Your personal dislike doesn't mean that the concept is completely hosed, it just means you don't like it. The idealized 50s that Americana responds to is soda jerks and Grease and car culture and you can critique that - and hey, looking at it with more diversity and different socialization is pretty much "queering" as a critical concept, which the game is doing - but that doesn't mean it's a failure before it starts. Don't shame the creators or the buyers just because you don't think the game is woke enough for you, go play something else before you make it everyone else's problem.
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Nov 1, 2018 21:58
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I'm on board with the theory behind Americana and the explanation the creators have offered makes sense, but something about the actual visual aesthetic makes my skin crawl.
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Nov 1, 2018 22:07
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Lemon-Lime posted:Yes. If they don't, they need to at least acknowledge that these things happened in real life and address why the game is refusing to deal with them, otherwise they run the risk of unintentionally glorifying colonialism. I don't see where this concept comes from that fantasy entertainment should be held to the same standard as historical documents and history books. I just don't. By admitting your work is fantasy, you are allowed to take these liberties. I don't find it dishonest. I *want* fantasy to glorify the fun, exciting, novel, and/or good parts of any idea while mostly ignoring the opposite. When I'm killing bandits in Skyrim I want them to all be unquestionably evil bad guys that I am justified in murdering, and that my actions benefit the entire land. I'm not looking for a misery simulator where I need the game to deal with the fact the corpses are rotting in the sun and spreading disease, that many of the people I killed probably didn't deserve it, that my character is really just a murdering psychopath, etc. If you want to inject that stuff into a fantasy work, that is fine too, but it is not required.
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Nov 1, 2018 22:09
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Mugaaz posted:I don't see where this concept comes from that fantasy entertainment should be held to the same standard as historical documents and history books. I just don't. By admitting your work is fantasy, you are allowed to take these liberties. I don't find it dishonest. I *want* fantasy to glorify the fun, exciting, novel, and/or good parts of any idea while mostly ignoring the opposite. When I'm killing bandits in Skyrim I want them to all be unquestionably evil bad guys that I am justified in murdering, and that my actions benefit the entire land. I'm not looking for a misery simulator where I need the game to deal with the fact the corpses are rotting in the sun and spreading disease, that many of the people I killed probably didn't deserve it, that my character is really just a murdering psychopath, etc. If you want to inject that stuff into a fantasy work, that is fine too, but it is not required. It's important to remember that these eras are not totally divorced from the present; both in that the oppression of the past is still being replicated, in many cases, in the present, and in that the oppression of the past has left scars that exist in the present. Glorification without recognizing the inglorious realities can often appear simply as recreating the original from a callous perspective, and moreover, helps inform the general sense of the era. Think about those assholes who get mad about the BBC accurately depicting the diversity of Roman Britain: They are acting, not on a historical image, but on the pop-cultural image of Rome as a supposed indomitable white empire, which is propagated through both fantasy and inaccurate images of history. It doesn't matter that a fantasy image of the past has dragons or wizards, it becomes part of how people imagine history, and it becomes self-reinforcing. As such, those images of history should deal with the actual events, either by explicitly dealing with them metatextually or representing and dealing with them textually. Or else, we easily develop pop-cultural images of empire as benevolent, monarchy as just, and the Other as a horde of swarthy orcs with no internality. These are not good images to let inform anything. In the case of Americana, it's clearly and aggressively taking a metatextual angle of critique on the historical subject; some people have reasonable discomfort with the method, but I think everyone's acting in good faith - critics and authors alike.
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Nov 1, 2018 22:22
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Side note, you picked the wrong series for wanting a character that's not a psychopath. Elder Scrolls has traditionally encouraged the player to do just about everything at once, no mutually exclusive quests and all that, and that usually involves 'okay and now I am going to make personal and friendly deals with the Daedric Princes, then go murder folks'. Like, I enjoy that aspect of the elder scrolls because it's loving ridiculous and insane and utterly divorced from reality, but it's there.
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Nov 1, 2018 22:25
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Arivia posted:Don't shame the creators or the buyers just because you don't think the game is woke enough for you, go play something else before you make it everyone else's problem. no one did this. my critical lens is that aesthetics have a political charge, which means that i am a little uncomfortable with a squeaky clean 50's. If there were a game that was a squeaky clean, lgbtq friendly and racially inclusive version of nazi germany with sweet costumes and iron crosses everywhere people would widely see that as holocast denial. For personal reasons, I don't find reclamation of the 50's aesthetic empowering. I see it as yet another stream of American revisionism + excpetionalism, however well-intended. I do not think the creators are bad people, and I don't think that the fans are somehow tainted by their interest in it, and I don't think it's Bad to Like. However, I am disappointed by the lack of critical engagement with the setting. In my opinion, a game like Dogs in the Vineyard is successful because of the way it directly interfaces with abusive and intolerant nature of faith generally, Christian faith specifically, and Mormon faith even more specifically. But I understand many did not like it precisely because it engaged with those issues. I think that we have different things that we want out of roleplaying games. Most people view roleplaying games as a way to indulge in escapism, and I understand that urge, even though I personally find it unsatisfying. I understand that there is another critical lens that sees these aesthetic re-appropriations by oppressed classes as valuable, but I disagree with it, hence my personal desire not to back the game. Making vague overtures in the direction of queer theory isn't gonna spook me.
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Nov 1, 2018 22:35
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Mugaaz posted:If you want to inject that stuff into a fantasy work, that is fine too, but it is not required. There is a reason I said "or at least acknowledge it." You don't need to make it textually explicit in the actual story, but you need to at least explicitly acknowledge the evils of colonialism somewhere (e.g. in a preface) and make sure that your choice to leave certain elements out doesn't result in unfortunate implications. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Nov 1, 2018 |
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Nov 1, 2018 22:39
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Joe Slowboat posted:It's important to remember that these eras are not totally divorced from the present; both in that the oppression of the past is still being replicated, in many cases, in the present, and in that the oppression of the past has left scars that exist in the present. I agree on most points except the following: An author of a fantastical work has no moral obligation to include the horrors of any subject he is creating a fantasy about. It is not their responsibility to inform people of the truth, and it is not their fault that people are ignorant of that truth. The author has to actually glorify the actual wrongdoing that took place, or willfully create a fiction that masquerades as reality to be guilty of any wrongdoing themselves. They are not authors of history or truth, they are authors of fantasy. It is not their duty to inform. They are not ignoring any responsibility they have or should have. If people want to willfully choose to believe that fantastical works are historically accurate, that is not the author's fault. Willful ignorance is a personal responsibility.
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Nov 1, 2018 22:44
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Like, I should say that I play Total War: Warhammer, a videogame based on a property that is pretty much nothing but ugly stereotypes and a glorification of empire and colonialism and white settlers because i find the game system interesting. Media policing, and focusing your political critique entirely about *what* you consume and not *how* you consume it, is extremely 2015. We should really have all moved on by now to running small maoist cells and critiquing media through the lens of class-based analysis on who funds it and why.
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Nov 1, 2018 22:47
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I know it's not super-popular around here, but a new edition of Savage Worlds is being kickstarted. Sadly, it looks like they're not doing the $10 price point anymore.
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Nov 1, 2018 23:15
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On a different subject, Kamigakari just posted kind of a weird update regarding the stretch goals to bring in expansions to the main game:quote:The next stretch goal is a doozy, but I'm sure we'll achieve it! At $35,000, we'll be able to immediately begin work on Expansion One: Requiem for the God Soul! This book contains new setting information, new Ancestries, new Styles, new GM tools, and so much more! That said, I need to give the usual disclaimer: Despite the lowest goals insisting that digital stretch goal content will be included with your pledge, the expansions will not be part of it. I'm trying to figure out exactly what the timeline here is. So the initial response was so overwhelming that they decided to add the expansions as stretch goals after the fact, but then it turns out that they can't offer them without an additional charge as part of the licensing agreement?
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Nov 1, 2018 23:43
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Welcome To... looks awesome but holy poo poo guys calm it on the emails pleaaaaase.
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Nov 2, 2018 00:08
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Kai Tave posted:I'm trying to figure out exactly what the timeline here is. So the initial response was so overwhelming that they decided to add the expansions as stretch goals after the fact, but then it turns out that they can't offer them without an additional charge as part of the licensing agreement? Honestly that seems exactly right. It went from "boy, people are excited let's offer these things!' to 'whoa wait we can't.'
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Nov 2, 2018 00:14
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Kai Tave posted:I'm trying to figure out exactly what the timeline here is. So the initial response was so overwhelming that they decided to add the expansions as stretch goals after the fact, but then it turns out that they can't offer them without an additional charge as part of the licensing agreement? They actually did explain it when they announced the expansion stretch goals but I guess people are so used to just getting free stretch goals that it didn't twig? The expansion stretch goals aren't actually stretch goals to give free copies of the expansions to backers, they're thresholds at which they'll have enough money left over that they can afford to fund translating each expansion book to then be able to sell them later. What's new is that they've clarified why the stretch goals aren't just free poo poo (they have to pay the licence holders for each copy redeemed). The discrepancy is between what the tiers (which were set up before the campaign started, when they thought it would barely reach its goal in a month, so they didn't think that funding the expansions' translation was remotely possible) say, and what the stretch goal announcement said. They're just reiterating it so it's extra clear. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Nov 2, 2018 |
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Nov 2, 2018 00:47
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Whoever said that the setting doesn't critically engage with the time period nailed why Americana was not for me. I'm not (and I'm don't think anyone is) saying that everything has to critically engage with the subject matter. It's just that some people enjoy or prefer that in games. A great example is Pendragon. You can play straight Malory, if you like (and that's the default mode). Stafford gives detailed rules how to play a Lady or various types of foreigners. However, in his section on female knights, he offers the advice that it will do no harm to allow women to be knights and suggests a playstyle where female knights are not unknown but generally greeted with a patronizing and disdainful attitude - a reality that mirrors recent attitudes in business. In this way, he gives you the opportunity to engage with the chauvinism of the setting in a familiar manner without restricting women to wives/heir-machines. I just want to reiterate that I think Americana is a Good Game created by a rad team and these are just my personal criticisms. I hope everyone enjoys playing it as much as Nemesis seems to enjoy creating it.
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Nov 2, 2018 00:49
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The Empyreal Spells & Steam minis are looking pretty good.  In other news https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ebaraf/skulk-hollow-an-asymmetric-2-player-game-with-epic This showed up in my recommended feed and I don't really have a good reason for linking it here other than the fact that I don't like the artwork but I'm having trouble placing why I don't like it. I also don't like the video but that's because their pitch video has audio issues so the person explaining the game keeps getting overpowered by the sound effects going on at the same time.   I also don't like how the big enemy things all look the same. Like, they're different shapes, but they all just look like they're made out of bits of rock and boulder and it seems kinda uninspired.
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Nov 2, 2018 01:30
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Memnaelar posted:Any additional thoughts on Street Masters? I'm a sucker for co-ops. SU&SD will be doing a playthrough livestream (w/ Youtube VOD the next day) next Thursday, the 8th. I'm waiting for that to finalize my decision, myself. But I suspect I'll probably be all-in.
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Nov 2, 2018 01:42
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Evil Mastermind posted:I know it's not super-popular around here, but a new edition of Savage Worlds is being kickstarted. Sadly, it looks like they're not doing the $10 price point anymore. I really like Savage Worlds but I'm not sure why they went this route and I'm pretty surprised it has pulled in as much as it did. It's a charming RPG for ten or twenty bucks, but $50 for a paper manual or $150 for a core game set seems ridiculous. The charm was always that it was dirt cheap, light and took a millisecond to re-skin.
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Nov 2, 2018 01:48
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Lemon-Lime posted:They actually did explain it when they announced the expansion stretch goals but I guess people are so used to just getting free stretch goals that it didn't twig? The expansion stretch goals aren't actually stretch goals to give free copies of the expansions to backers, they're thresholds at which they'll have enough money left over that they can afford to fund translating each expansion book to then be able to sell them later. Yeah I get it after going back and rereading everything, it just seems like an unnecessarily confusing way to handle it particularly since it doesn't look like any of the tiers except for one actually offers said stretch goal translation projects. I'm not really mad or anything, it just seems like a very confusion-prone way of going about it.
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Nov 2, 2018 01:48
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Arivia posted:hot tip: this is not a game about either the holocaust or world war 2, it is grease with elf ears and also mecha. This should have been on the kickstarter it would have sold more copies.
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Nov 2, 2018 03:13
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Kai Tave posted:Yeah I get it after going back and rereading everything, it just seems like an unnecessarily confusing way to handle it particularly since it doesn't look like any of the tiers except for one actually offers said stretch goal translation projects. I'm not really mad or anything, it just seems like a very confusion-prone way of going about it. The issue is specifically this, which everyone who comes to the KS to back will see first:  As the update says, they weren't actually expecting the KS to make enough money for them to be able to licence the expansions and budget for translating them with the KS money. They were expecting that the stretch goals would just be a collection of magazine articles they could translate and give away to backers. Instead they funded in ~24 hours, but obviously you can't change the description for a tier that has a non-zero amount of backers in it, so the tier descriptions are now incorrect. The fact that the expansions won't be part of the stretch goals you get for backing is fine, they just have to make sure to communicate it so people don't mistakenly think they're entitled to the books.
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Nov 2, 2018 03:32
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Americana chat is fine but please be nicer to each other while having it. Thanks folks 
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Nov 2, 2018 04:49
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Since Bedlamdan has acknowledged that he's a lovely person who doesn't mind paying over and over to rereg on Something Awful can we just make it a blanket rule that posting in tradgames earns him an automatic ban every time he does so? Either he winds up paying Lowtax so much money that he can afford to attend classes on why using slurs is a bad thing or he simply stops posting here altogether, so it's a win either way.
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Nov 2, 2018 05:03
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That is a question better suited to PM or QCS 
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Nov 2, 2018 05:07
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Mugaaz posted:An author of a fantastical work has no moral obligation to include the horrors of any subject he is creating a fantasy about. It is not their responsibility to inform people of the truth, and it is not their fault that people are ignorant of that truth. The author has to actually glorify the actual wrongdoing that took place, or willfully create a fiction that masquerades as reality to be guilty of any wrongdoing themselves. They are not authors of history or truth, they are authors of fantasy. It is not their duty to inform. They are not ignoring any responsibility they have or should have. If people want to willfully choose to believe that fantastical works are historically accurate, that is not the author's fault. Willful ignorance is a personal responsibility. I wouldn't call it an iron-clad obligation, but I think all people have a responsibility to do what they can to improve the world, don't you? I don't mean completely collapsing your fantasy novel into a register of oppression. But there is an obligation to think about these issues, and consider how your work contributes to or opposes certain dominant, detrimental ideological strains in our society. I don't feel qualified to judge between the reclamatory mode of Americana or the deconstructive mode of works that face this head on, but I think an author who doesn't at least write in an examined fashion is almost certain to reproduce harmful effects. Not by intent, but even with intent to confront these issues many people fall short. It's hard! But it is in fact a moral responsibility. The improvement of the world isn't an opt-in process, even if we don't all do a huge amount, you know? And sometimes that amounts to discussing the ways in which a generally good work fails for some people, or engaging in a little healthy self-reflection about how we engage with culture through our fiction.
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Nov 2, 2018 05:14
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Joe Slowboat posted:I wouldn't call it an iron-clad obligation, but I think all people have a responsibility to do what they can to improve the world, don't you? I don't agree. No one has any responsibility whatsoever to try and improve the world through fiction or entertainment. Anyone is welcome to do so, but I refuse to believe this is something that should be enforced. That idea seems absurd to me. Isn't this just a variation of forcing your moral beliefs onto complete strangers?
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Nov 2, 2018 05:25
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Do you believe that morality is something we should attempt to pursue and see reflected in the world? Because that's going to involve convincing others, and also some degree of saying 'this is how it's going to be.' I think it's more honest to morality to say 'you're doing something immoral here, you should not be' than to go 'well I think it's immoral but hey, different strokes!' I'm not suggesting coercing others. I'm just saying I will judge someone wanting who does not try to improve the world in whatever small way they can. I'm not asking them to sacrifice their entire lives, I sure don't. But I try to do what good I can. And if you don't care about improving the world, then why would you care about my disapproving judgment?
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Nov 2, 2018 05:39
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Kai Tave posted:Hey remember that time you equated people rolling their eyes at dumb cheesecake miniatures of a lady groping herself with telling irl women that they should dress more conservatively, then yelled at everyone for being a bunch of sex-negative prudes? Arivia posted:Who can be the most Performatively Woke Today
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Nov 2, 2018 05:45
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Joe Slowboat posted:Do you believe that morality is something we should attempt to pursue and see reflected in the world? Because that's going to involve convincing others, and also some degree of saying 'this is how it's going to be.' I think it's more honest to morality to say 'you're doing something immoral here, you should not be' than to go 'well I think it's immoral but hey, different strokes!' Honestly don't understand the view when taken to this extreme. Am I supposed to refuse a salad or shampoo if it wasn't designed to improve the world? Can't the cook just try to make a really good salad? Can't the shampoo company just try and make a product that cleans my hair? The salad or shampoo is now found wanting because it doesn't improve the world? I don't agree with any of that. Usually I'm just looking for something to accomplish some basic goal. I don't assign moral value to most of my food or entertainment choices. Sometimes they actively cause harm or good, and I will approve or disapprove accordingly, but the overwhelming majority have no moral implication to me at all. The core of your argument seems to be that all products or choices must have a moral component, and if that component isn't there, then the party is guilty of some moral deficiency. I don't agree with that axiom.
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Nov 2, 2018 05:51
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Yeah I don't know why I keep remembering the time you were a huge dumbshit, it must be because you keep posting like a huge dumbshit.
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Nov 2, 2018 06:08
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Mugaaz posted:Honestly don't understand the view when taken to this extreme. Am I supposed to refuse a salad or shampoo if it wasn't designed to improve the world? Can't the cook just try to make a really good salad? Can't the shampoo company just try and make a product that cleans my hair? The salad or shampoo is now found wanting because it doesn't improve the world? I don't agree with any of that. Usually I'm just looking for something to accomplish some basic goal. I don't assign moral value to most of my food or entertainment choices. Sometimes they actively cause harm or good, and I will approve or disapprove accordingly, but the overwhelming majority have no moral implication to me at all. The core of your argument seems to be that all products or choices must have a moral component, and if that component isn't there, then the party is guilty of some moral deficiency. I don't agree with that axiom. Everything has some small moral implication, yes. Everything uses resources, everything makes up the cultural sphere we live in. In most cases, the amount of effort it would be asking of someone to make a thing more morally valuable (like a salad) is way out of proportion to the good it will do. But... creating fiction that doesn't reinforce racist ideas much, that has a basic moral center, is really easy! It takes marginally more imagination to make a Tolkein-ripoff setting where there's no racist metaphors than to make one where they exist. It takes only some small amount of thinking, literally the easiest thing in the world, to do your due diligence. You can do more, and have an even better result, but we're not even talking about that. We're at the point of the bare minimum. If I can help someone at no real cost to myself, and choose not to, that's callous. Also, we were specifically talking about fantasy settings that depict eras of historical suffering closely connected to modern experience. That does actual harm if it you're not careful. You can't just say 'well I was just making what came easily!' because that doesn't excuse harm. So, the basic moral precept of 'attempt to do good' isn't even applicable, it's the incredibly uncontroversial 'try not to do unnecessary harm.' Edit: also, what do you see as the value of a story, of a depiction of a fantasy world? Do you have such a low bar that all you want is to be distracted from the world? Or do you want something that engages you? And again... why do you care if I approve of your decisions? You seem to want me to judge literature or games written with no regard for their effect on others as highly as I judge more thoughtful, engaged work, and that's ridiculous. Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 06:16 on Nov 2, 2018 |
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Nov 2, 2018 06:12
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I feel like I shouldn't have to explain this, but yes, entertainment does in fact have an element of escapism, and fantasy doubly so.
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Nov 2, 2018 06:39
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Liquid Communism posted:I feel like I shouldn't have to explain this, but yes, entertainment does in fact have an element of escapism, and fantasy doubly so. Yeah, and I think that one should at least make your escapism not reinforce harmful ideas. That's not a big ask, and it doesn't take much effort! And I doubly don't care about what you do at your own table, but if you're publishing something, that's going out into the world, and I will be very disappointed if you don't try to think about these things. I think escapism can be a good, in that it makes some people happier, but it should at least not hurt anyone, and it's so easy to think through. Seriously, it's pretty cool that my feeling like 'hey, surely you could be better' is getting this much response, apparently my impotent expressions of judgment have some strange power.
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Nov 2, 2018 06:52
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Joe Slowboat posted:Yeah, and I think that one should at least make your escapism not reinforce harmful ideas. That's not a big ask, and it doesn't take much effort! And I doubly don't care about what you do at your own table, but if you're publishing something, that's going out into the world, and I will be very disappointed if you don't try to think about these things. I think escapism can be a good, in that it makes some people happier, but it should at least not hurt anyone, and it's so easy to think through. You're getting this much response because your position is that there is some need to add the fraught racial and social tensions of the historical period into a very different setting that is using media aesthetics associated with the 50's in a very different context. The game as presented is a riff on nostalgic impressions of the squeaky-clean media image of 1950's Americana, not the actual thing. It's as relevant as asking why a D&D game doesn't focus on period takes on the place of women and the strict social castes that make 'adventurers' a ridiculous concept.
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Nov 2, 2018 07:00
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Going on what others have said, it seems like there’s a chunk of folks who flat out equate the 50s aesthetic with oppression. I think some people are wary of this because the 50s were 60+ years ago and the average SA user is in their 30s. There was probably a decent bit of subversion (sexual, racial, etc) in the 50s that we miss out on from only hearing about it through pop culture. From what I can tell, the aesthetic of Americana is more Happy Days and Johnny Rockets than actual 1950s, meaning that it’s a 1950s stripped of context and meaning. While the comparison has been made to using a Nazi germany aesthetic, I think it’s important to realize that “greasers” and Ralph Mouth and Ron Howard weren’t advocating for racial genocide. Greasers weren’t goosestepping in the streets to murder gays or blacks. Malt shops weren’t set up as meeting places for Nazi putsches. The 50s were discriminatory as hell, but the 50s aesthetic wasn’t really connected to this in the same way that Hugo boss Nazi uniforms were connected to the SS. If folks want to associate that aesthetic with the discrimination that took place in that era, it’s fine, but there’s not really a historical basis for that, to my knowledge. I think that’s the catching point, because there doesn’t seem to be evidence that leather jackets and poodle skirts are fascist iconography and suggesting that they are provokes argument. Also, I’m not an expert on the 50s, and will admit I’m wrong and ignorant if presented with evidence to the contrary of what I’ve said.
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Nov 2, 2018 07:14
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Jeez, my position was 'Americana is doing the work by having a conscious engagement with the issue and coming to a thoughtful conclusion' - I was literally saying I appreciated the devs' good faith! It's the position that 'actually if you're writing escapism you don't need to think about the actual conditions of the era you're fantasizing at all' that I objected to. Maybe the best way to do good is Americana's kind of reclamation! But do something, consciously, rather than just ignoring the problem.
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Nov 2, 2018 07:19
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