If it truly has no effect, then why be angry about it? Representation matters. It shows impressionable people, like kids, that there are people like them.
How much will they suffer for that, comparatively to those who experience homophobia often? It’s only two characters. I’m worried that EA is just trying to get brownie points for representation, and will throw the characters away as soon as they can.
Identity is an important part.
I'm not saying we shouldn't have LGBTQ people, its just that it seems to have become a requirement for every game/movie/media. If you don't, you get criticized for it, or painted as homophobic.
We need to stop shoehorning people in.
Gays are natural and need to appear natural. They need to fit in the game/media.
As you said, doing it for the brownie points is most of the reason people are doing this.
If LGTBQ want to be treated like normal people
THEY NEED TO START ACTING LIKE IT
Special snowflake has a key word. Special.
They're just trying to say that trans people can join the army too. Basically they're lying to their fanbase because trump said no to trans people.
On more serious note they're only doing this to try and mitigate some of the hate they have been receiving recently for their poor quality games. The characters are irrlevent and the information has no effect on anything
Isn’t that always true? Why do they bother giving these characters back stories at all in these types of games then? When you’re playing are you seriously motivated to kill the opposing team because 400 years ago you were a prince who was frozen by the evil clan and your arch enemy has traveled through time blah blah blah...” or are you just trying to have fun and win? Why do they need to mention that so and so lost their wife, or that so and so loves another character but they are from rival clans or whatever? It doesn’t have an impact on game play. Most people pick characters they think look cool, or who have the moves they think are best. But some like lore. Some look at these stories and choose characters they somewhat relate to. It’s called world building. The backstory is filler because in the end these games are very much the same and very shallow, so they add depth where they can....
The two points I want to call out here are that:
1. Kids will think they’ll need to be LGBTQ+ to be special!
A: As opposed to what? Thinking they need to be married to a woman who was murdered to be special? Or be a government experiment or a contract killer or a demon or an international criminal or a 6’7” 800lbs mountain of muscles or have a 12” waist and size 88HHH tits or whatever common conventions and tropes you find in these games? The point is flatly rejected as either hypocrisy or reaching for straws.
2. Trump banned transsexuals in the military.
A: he did. He’s being sued for it by several states. California of course being one, and the head of the California national guard refuses to comply and has already told his soldiers that none will be ejected or penalized for being openly trans. The case will be heard in federal court wether it is constitutional to deny the transgender to serve.
My point is that there needs to be a balance. In the past, there was a heavy emphasis on being not gay. Now there is a heavy emphasis on being gay. We need a balance, where it's ok to be gay, but it's also okay to be STRAIGHT.
I wouldnt disagree that it’s ok to be gay, straight, or whatever you are. I would say it’s a tad euphemistic to say that in the past there was a heavy emphasis on not being gay, and comparing that to a current emphasis on being gay. In the past gays were beat to death for being gay. Forbidden to marry, denied homes, jobs, medical care, basic rights, and in fear of being openly gay. They were labeled mentally and morally sick, committed to asylums and lobotomized. People were told that straight was the ONLY way to be and anything else was a perversion. I haven’t heard anyone credible call heterosexuality a perversion, and aftont to god, a cause for AIDS or other diseases- and I haven’t seen people pushing heterosexuals to convert to being gay even if they are attracted to women. I haven’t seen marriages between heterosexuals not being honored on principal, or bakers refusing to make straight cakes. I haven’t seen a single case of a gay person sleeping with a straight person...
... and then beating the straight person to death when they found out they weren’t really gay. So I have to dismiss that part of your argument and ask you- where is it being glorified or put up as a lifestyle straight people should aspire to or convert to? Where is the social disadvantage in vein straight or the legal disadvantages? What rights do gays have that straights are denied? Now- out of 8 characters 2 are “LGBTQ.” One is labeled such because they identify as “they” and use non binary propnouns and are androgynous. Characters like that have existed in fiction since almost as long as fiction goes back. Samus from Metroid fit that bill- with the original game carefully maintaining her androgynous nature until the end. So yes- compared to the entire population using moderate estimates of open LGBTQ+- even 1/8 is a high percentage of a total population to be in that group.
However- it’s such a small roster that you can’t make an accurate comparison to general population statistics and demographics. What’s more- so few games have thousands of playable characters that if we applied that logic we wouldn’t really ever likely see LGBTQ+ characters in games not designed around premises involving such characters. So EA and the dev didn’t blare from the roof top these characters have these traits. You’d have to go through their bios to know. The media and internet grabbed it and blew it up. It’s ok to be straight. No one is going to make you suck a dick Unless they are committing a crime. Children aren’t going to suddenly decide they want to take a load to the face because Sonic the hedgehog did. They’ll grow up, reach maturity, and their hormones will make a decision for them. And maybe you’re right. Maybe a component of LGBTQ+ is environmental- that is to say that you’d see an increase in people because those growing up in an environment accepting...
.. and welcoming of diversity are more likely to be true to themselves and not try to fit a mold laid out to them. So it’s not that such things would “force people” to be LGBTQ+, but that of people had the same attitudes 50 years ago you’d see that there may just be a lot of people in complete denial of themselves or who never explored and discovered things about themselves because they were afraid or ashamed to do so. So- I agree that no minority or other group should be used as a token or as an advertisement, but I don’t agree that instances like thisnof inclusion are by default such things- and I certainly can’t agree that they are part of some greater plot by big gay to trick kids into thinking being gay would make them cooler or being straight is wrong.
That would require them to be able to know where everyone is and risk dying to not shoot at someone that appears with a different skin than the ones they are hunting. The first is impossible and the second is just going to get them killed out of the match
its a battle royal. The characters are literally just a reskin of the base character with different abilities. as i said. You would have to know where every player was, which character they picked, and you would have to ignore enemies that are trying to kill you. Meaning no one would do that.
Funny enough, Knuckles said it best: "anytime someone calls attention to the breaking of gender roles, it ultimately undermines the concept of gender equality by implying that this is an exception and not the status quo." By calling attention to it every time you see it, you're denormalizing it, which is counter-productive. People will start to view being LGBTQ (like @creativedragonbaby said) as a glorified way of life. It poses a huge underlying problem to the LGBTQ community.
It’s the razors edge. That is to say- holding someone up as a token- “This is my friend Jeff...” vs. “This is my gay friend I told you about...” There’s nothing inherently wrong with making characters who fall in any particular place on a gender or sexuality spectrum- but there is something wrong in using “token” representation and shouting it from every roof top. That’s the catch 22 though. Often times it isn’t the creator who is playing inclusiveness as an angle- but media and society that latches on and makes a taking point of a characters orientations. In fact that and other headlines read: “EA confirms...” meaning someone in media was made aware of the character bios and asked. Not that EA made some grand press release on the issue. So we do have to separate creators and companies who have “non binary” etc. characters they aren’t pushing as billboards, and media and fan bases sensationalizing the inclusion of such characters.
EA assigning the characters' preferences sounds like a down side. If EA hasn't assigned anything, LGBT people could have played any character and imagined them as being what they want. This way, EA has told them they can only play THOSE TWO characters, because ALL of the rest are straight.
One of the characters isn’t assigned a sexuality. They just refer to themselves as “they,” like a robot or demon or alien or any number of non controversial characters. A single character was assigned a sexual preference asides “straight.” What is interesting though is I don’t tend to hear people say these things when characters are given “straight” back stories. Ken masters from street fighter married a woman for instance. So many characters in games have heterosexual elements to their back story and most people don’t feel the need to write news articles or discuss it and say “Why do I need to know that Guile has a wife?” Or all the other examples of characters who needlessly have heterosexual backstories that don’t contribute to game play or the main game story. I find it convenient that “videogames should be neutral in sexuality..” comes up most when characters start being something other than hetero or maybe lesbian.
I'm not saying we shouldn't have LGBTQ people, its just that it seems to have become a requirement for every game/movie/media. If you don't, you get criticized for it, or painted as homophobic.
We need to stop shoehorning people in.
Gays are natural and need to appear natural. They need to fit in the game/media.
As you said, doing it for the brownie points is most of the reason people are doing this.
If LGTBQ want to be treated like normal people
THEY NEED TO START ACTING LIKE IT
Special snowflake has a key word. Special.
On more serious note they're only doing this to try and mitigate some of the hate they have been receiving recently for their poor quality games. The characters are irrlevent and the information has no effect on anything
1. Kids will think they’ll need to be LGBTQ+ to be special!
A: As opposed to what? Thinking they need to be married to a woman who was murdered to be special? Or be a government experiment or a contract killer or a demon or an international criminal or a 6’7” 800lbs mountain of muscles or have a 12” waist and size 88HHH tits or whatever common conventions and tropes you find in these games? The point is flatly rejected as either hypocrisy or reaching for straws.
2. Trump banned transsexuals in the military.
A: he did. He’s being sued for it by several states. California of course being one, and the head of the California national guard refuses to comply and has already told his soldiers that none will be ejected or penalized for being openly trans. The case will be heard in federal court wether it is constitutional to deny the transgender to serve.
Fucking always in everything now and they're so gross.
Makes me wanna throw up every time I see the words.
Battle Royale.