ForestBoard

In other horrible news,
The *cough*liberals*cough* are now saying VEGGIETALES is "racist!"
I swear, California is the oddest state. No offense to the people who are in CA and read this

Rivienland wrote:

Really quick question, but is there a reason most of Forest is against the current SC Resolution? Is there some information I'm missing?

It is a TEP circle-j3rk. It is cool that they love themselves but there is no need to clog up the SC with that.

Turbeaux wrote:

It is a TEP circle-j3rk. It is cool that they love themselves but there is no need to clog up the SC with that.

Yeah, I thought the achievements listed were a bit TEP centred too. The commendations I've seen were about the founding and nurturing of many many regional communities, large and numerous R/D operations, authoring loads of issues, stuff that seems to be much more game-wide than the current resolution.

I drafted an issue and am looking for advice on how to improve it: viewtopic.php?f=13&t=455333

Sapnu puas wrote:

In other horrible news,
The *cough*liberals*cough* are now saying VEGGIETALES is "racist!"
I swear, California is the oddest state. No offense to the people who are in CA and read this

"While a former writer of the popular Christian animated show VeggieTales argues there is just one race of vegetables, one college student raises an interesting question. If all vegetables are descended from vegetables Adam and Eve, who ate the forbidden fruit, then why are the “evil” characters in the children’s show darker shades with accents?"
(https://finance.yahoo.com/news/white-right-college-project-suggests-popular-christian-show-veggietales-racist-013633842.html)

I mean, why are the villians in popular media so often portrayed as darker with accents?

(Assuming Veggietales is "popular." Me thinks it's on Netflix, so I guess, but literally the only people I see giving a crap about this is Fox News and CBN, so...)

The niceties of normal moral constraints wrote:

"While a former writer of the popular Christian animated show VeggieTales argues there is just one race of vegetables, one college student raises an interesting question. If all vegetables are descended from vegetables Adam and Eve, who ate the forbidden fruit, then why are the “evil” characters in the children’s show darker shades with accents?"
(https://finance.yahoo.com/news/white-right-college-project-suggests-popular-christian-show-veggietales-racist-013633842.html)

I mean, why are the villians in popular media so often portrayed as darker with accents?

(Assuming Veggietales is "popular." Me thinks it's on Netflix, so I guess, but literally the only people I see giving a crap about this is Fox News and CBN, so...)

That show was my childhood. In it's golden days, Pixar was asking them for animation tips. I think people are looking into this too much, as there are a lot of episodes in the original series teaching lessons of unconditional inclusivity that directly contradicts racism.

I think the antagonists have darker color palates because it's a religious kid's show, where light is associated with purity and Jesus, and darkness is the sin and the devil. It's a subtle trick to help kids follow the show, since the intended audience aren't exactly of adult perception. It has nothing to do with race, as there isn't any concept of race in VeggieTales. There's a lot of things you can accuse it of, but racism isn't one of them.

As for the rest of media, it's generally the same reason. Light is associated with good, and dark is associated with bad. This doesn't have anything to do with racism, it's just how humans are built (they can't see in dark, so there is a fear of it).

Besides, race is one of the most shallow things you can judge someone on. For the majority of people, race is one of the first things to become invisible about a person as they get to know them. I'm not saying racism doesn't exist, but I am saying that kids shows are not the source of it.

Canaltia wrote:

I think the antagonists have darker color palates because it's a religious kid's show, where light is associated with purity and Jesus, and darkness is the sin and the devil. It's a subtle trick to help kids follow the show, since the intended audience aren't exactly of adult perception. It has nothing to do with race, as there isn't any concept of race in VeggieTales. There's a lot of things you can accuse it of, but racism isn't one of them.

As for the rest of media, it's generally the same reason. Light is associated with good, and dark is associated with bad. This doesn't have anything to do with racism, it's just how humans are built (they can't see in dark, so there is a fear of it).

That's the thing though. It is hazardous to reinforce the simplistic notion that "light" = "good" and "dark" = "bad," in an environment where some people appear "white" and some people appear "black." The danger of this should be patently obvious, regardless of the particular intent.

I'll fully grant, based on my own experience with the show as a youngster, that the people behind Veggietales are almost certainly not racist. But this is a different issue from the perpetuation of racist tropes.

Heck, I'm currently making my way through the Hobbit and Rings for the zillionth time, and upon the start of every of my viewings to date, my first thought is "why does Sauron have to be the 'Dark' lord?" At the very least, having the evil character present as the source of wonderous light would at least be a potentially interesting change-up for once...

Turbeaux wrote:

It is a TEP circle-j3rk. It is cool that they love themselves but there is no need to clog up the SC with that.

It's also really poorly written

The niceties of normal moral constraints wrote:

That's the thing though. It is hazardous to reinforce the simplistic notion that "light" = "good" and "dark" = "bad," in an environment where some people appear "white" and some people appear "black." The danger of this should be patently obvious, regardless of the particular intent.

I'll fully grant, based on my own experience with the show as a youngster, that the people behind Veggietales are almost certainly not racist. But this is a different issue from the perpetuation of racist tropes.

Heck, I'm currently making my way through the Hobbit and Rings for the zillionth time, and upon the start of every of my viewings to date, my first thought is "why does Sauron have to be the 'Dark' lord?" At the very least, having the evil character present as the source of wonderous light would at least be a potentially interesting change-up for once...

I'm in agreement with you here, but I think its a very thin line between being racially sensitive and being too sensitive in general.

For me personally, I can safely say that I've never seen a show and thought "Oh look, someone wearing darker colors. They're a villain", and there are a lot of shows today that are actually using dark color palates to make it seem like someone is evil when they're actually nice, but I just think the whole trope isn't necessary without proper context.

A kid's show, for example, is a proper context because it helps kids follow the plot, and something like Lord of the Rings is just playing to high fantasy tropes. Lord of the Rings is fine for me though, because the Dark Lord is referring to someone who literally wants to cover the middle earth in darkness in the original books.

I find in the fictional media I consume, the trope is pretty absent, and I think that's a good thing. While I'll agree there aren't many villains harnessing the power of light (there is Dr. Light from DC comics though), and it would be interesting to see more of that strictly for the story value, I don't think mainstream non-kid media is in too much trouble.

Canaltia wrote:

I'm in agreement with you here, but I think its a very thin line between being racially sensitive and being too sensitive in general.

I guess. I wouldn't consider being concerning with the consequences of actions to be a matter of "sensitivity."

And, of course, while I make no accusations about your intentions, I think "being too sensitive" is frequently used as a weasel-phrase by people who fully intend to perpetuate tropes of the sort we're discussing anyway.

Canaltia wrote:

A kid's show, for example, is a proper context because it helps kids follow the plot...

Not necessarily, since there is all kinds of psychology suggesting that children as young as months are capable of differentiating between good and bad behavior in itself. From the New York Times:

"To increase our confidence that the babies we studied were really responding to niceness and naughtiness, Karen Wynn and Kiley Hamlin, in a separate series of studies, created different sets of one-act morality plays to show the babies. In one, an individual struggled to open a box; the lid would be partly opened but then fall back down. Then, on alternating trials, one puppet would grab the lid and open it all the way, and another puppet would jump on the box and slam it shut. In another study (the one I mentioned at the beginning of this article), a puppet would play with a ball. The puppet would roll the ball to another puppet, who would roll it back, and the first puppet would roll the ball to a different puppet who would run away with it. In both studies, 5-month-olds preferred the good guy — the one who helped to open the box; the one who rolled the ball back — to the bad guy. This all suggests that the babies we studied have a general appreciation of good and bad behavior, one that spans a range of actions."
(https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html)

If you Google up some of these studies (use search terms like "helper puppet infants identical puppets," as I did) you find that the experimenters control for the appearance of the puppets, by either using totally identical puppets (such that the "good" and "bad" guy are visually indistinguishable) or by using oddball color and shape combinations that do not necessarily carry the light/good-dark/bad load.

While having to acknowledge all of the essential caveats that come with any sort of psychological study, I'm nonetheless willing to bet that if Larry the Cucumber was the only character on the screen for the entire episode, kids of the age where Veggietales is normally watched would have no trouble whatsoever following which Larry was the good guy, and which was the evil asshole.

Since they're both green, the implied lesson is that "everyone is an asshole" which is both Christian (original sin, etc) and fundamentally anti-racist. :D

Thing is with VeggieTales is that they only have a few consistent villains anyways, and I don't recall any of them being particularly dark.
4 of the most consistent villains are green (Mr. Nezzer and the Scallions), and the 5th (Mr. Lunt) is yellow.
Apparently the show is teaching kids to be racist towards green people :P

Lord Dominator wrote:

Thing is with VeggieTales is that they only have a few consistent villains anyways, and I don't recall any of them being particularly dark.
4 of the most consistent villains are green (Mr. Nezzer and the Scallions), and the 5th (Mr. Lunt) is yellow.
Apparently the show is teaching kids to be racist towards green people :P

Hmm, maybe. I vaguely recall big moustaches and foreigny accents, though. Which I suppose is appropriate for the Mediterranean/Middle East setting Bible stories obviously take, but our Two Valliant Heros have that Canadian/American accent pretty consistently, if memory serves.

Meh, it's lunch time and I want a salad.

EDIT: They should make fermented soybeans -- aka Natto -- the universal Dark Lord of Veggietales. Since that sh*t is legitimately nasty. If I understand correctly, at least 1 in 3 actually Japanese people agree too, so its not really racist.

The niceties of normal moral constraints wrote:

I guess. I wouldn't consider being concerning with the consequences of actions to be a matter of "sensitivity."

And, of course, while I make no accusations about your intentions, I think "being too sensitive" is frequently used as a weasel-phrase by people who fully intend to perpetuate tropes of the sort we're discussing anyway.

Unfortunately, it is, as is a lot of other phrases. However, I am a fan of using phrases disconnected from connotation ("leftist" being separate from "SJW" for example), and so I use it in it's purest sense. When I say "being too sensitive", I don't mean making racists and white supremacists comfortable with media representation, I mean sensitivity on the side of censorship.

While I don't agree that making a person of a darker skin pigment a villain all the time is right, I don't think laws banning creators from doing so is an acceptable answer. I think the media regulations and rating are all right the way they are, and if people take personal offence to something, they shouldn't support the creator, and they can certainly voice their concerns.

However, if something is obviously meant to be offensive, then I think it should be restricted, but not banned. I don't think something malicious is alright, and I don't think it should be on mainstream media, but blanket banning anything leads to bad results the majority of the time.

I realize this is probably overly long and unnecessary, but you brought up an interesting point.

The niceties of normal moral constraints wrote:

Not necessarily, since there is all kinds of psychology suggesting that children as young as months are capable of differentiating between good and bad behavior in itself.
(https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html)

If you Google up some of these studies (use search terms like "helper puppet infants identical puppets," as I did) you find that the experimenters control for the appearance of the puppets, by either using totally identical puppets (such that the "good" and "bad" guy are visually indistinguishable) or by using oddball color and shape combinations that do not necessarily carry the light/good-dark/bad load.

A very good point, and I've actually seen these studies before. I guess I could have been a bit more clear, but when I say that it's an easy thing for children to latch on to, and that they don't have mature perception, I don't mean they can't tell right from wrong. I mean that it's easier to hold on to these traditions, especially since they seem to work when developing children's morals.

These studies, while they were available before, gained most of their publicity in the early 2010's. Most of the shows airing on kids media have been around before 2010, and the ones that aren't are often based off of source material that is. As a result, to avoid confusing kids with a change in coloring, they've just kept it. I'd also assume some of it is subconscious from the animators doing the same in the past, and maybe some tradition is in the mix, but I'm not an animator for kid's shows, so I wouldn't know for sure.

I think it would be great to have some palate variety, I don't think kids mind too much anyways. As annoying as it may be sometimes, old habits die hard, and children, while they can recognize morals, might not recognize the nuance too well. So I would say it's not too likely that things are going to change very fast, since there isn't really short-term motivation for it.

The niceties of normal moral constraints wrote:

While having to acknowledge all of the essential caveats that come with any sort of psychological study, I'm nonetheless willing to bet that if Larry the Cucumber was the only character on the screen for the entire episode, kids of the age where Veggietales is normally watched would have no trouble whatsoever following which Larry was the good guy, and which was the evil asshole.

Since they're both green, the implied lesson is that "everyone is an asshole" which is both Christian (original sin, etc) and fundamentally anti-racist. :D

That's... actually pretty close to the Old Testament, not gonna lie. It would make for an interesting spin-off, probably better than the current version of VeggieTales. I mean, since when is bacon a vegetable?

I think that there are far more important things to worry about than the possibility of an awful Christian cartoon being racist! How about that global warming?

Rivienland wrote:

Really quick question, but is there a reason most of Forest is against the current SC Resolution? Is there some information I'm missing?

The main argument against it is, as others have said above, that the candidate's actions have really only taken place in and benefited one region-- TEP. Bach hasn't done very much outside of TEP, and some see that as reason not to support a global commendation. The text itself is also not very well written. There's also a small move in Gameplay circles against the commendation because of the whole NPO drama that's taking place. TEP is the only remaining GCR ally of the NPO, and commending Bach might be seen as indirectly commending TEP and indicating that the fact that they are still allied with the NPO is okay.

Sapnu puas wrote:

And my PSAT score for 2018 is…
1120, down from 1180 last year.
My "Writing and Language" is the highest area, then "Math", then "Reading".

Balls.

Sometimes I forget you're a year older than I am... Just got my practice PSAT scores in. :P

Turbeaux wrote:

I think that there are far more important things to worry about than the possibility of an awful Christian cartoon being racist! How about that global warming?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/australian-cartoon-depicting-indians-eating-solar-panels-slammed-as-racist-a6772246.html

(I Googled racist "global warming" cartoons.)

Also, I'm now reading Flavor Matrix by James Briscione, and just the idea of the "Black tea tomato sauce" recipe is blowing my mind.

The niceties of normal moral constraints wrote:

Heck, I'm currently making my way through the Hobbit and Rings for the zillionth time, and upon the start of every of my viewings to date, my first thought is "why does Sauron have to be the 'Dark' lord?" At the very least, having the evil character present as the source of wonderous light would at least be a potentially interesting change-up for once...

Perhaps the moment to mention that Lucifer means light bringer?

Tolkein and race though... with the partial exception of the hobbits pretty much every character possesses virtuous characteristics in direct proportion to the purity of their ancestry. The state of Middle Earth is getting steadily worse as the blood of Numenor is further diluted and the elves depart. Blood is so essential that Gondor can't replace its first and only royal dynasty and is ruled by corrupt Stewards instead. There is no Sirius Black equivalent who is able to transcend their lineage. And don't get me started on the dark-skinned Southrons and Haradrim with their Oliphants and susceptibility to manipulation by the Dark Lord. Author of an extended diatribe on how everything modern is worse than everything old, I'm not saying Tolkein was a skinhead, but he would have been no enthusiast for multiculturalism. As a kid I loved the fantasy and the grandeur of the world-building, but when I reread as an adult I ended up primarily feeling sorry for him.

And yes, reread. However many viewings you embark on, The Hobbit and LOTR are books.

Canaltia wrote:

I think the antagonists have darker color palates because it's a religious kid's show, where light is associated with purity and Jesus, and darkness is the sin and the devil.

That would be Jesus from the Levant, a region not noted for its white people.

Mount Seymour wrote:

Sometimes I forget you're a year older than I am...

Seriously? Mind=blown.

Uan aa Boa wrote:

Seriously? Mind=blown.

I'm a sophomore in high school. I was in eighth grade when I was first Forest Keeper. >_>

Mount Seymour wrote:

I'm a sophomore in high school. I was in eighth grade when I was first Forest Keeper. >_>

Huh. This makes me older than Seymour... I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I'm older than Seymour, but on the other hand, I have accomplished next to nothing compared to Seymour.

Uan aa Boa wrote:

Tolkein and race though... with the partial exception of the hobbits pretty much every character possesses virtuous characteristics in direct proportion to the purity of their ancestry. The state of Middle Earth is getting steadily worse as the blood of Numenor is further diluted and the elves depart. Blood is so essential that Gondor can't replace its first and only royal dynasty and is ruled by corrupt Stewards instead. There is no Sirius Black equivalent who is able to transcend their lineage. And don't get me started on the dark-skinned Southrons and Haradrim with their Oliphants and susceptibility to manipulation by the Dark Lord. Author of an extended diatribe on how everything modern is worse than everything old, I'm not saying Tolkein was a skinhead, but he would have been no enthusiast for multiculturalism. As a kid I loved the fantasy and the grandeur of the world-building, but when I reread as an adult I ended up primarily feeling sorry for him.

To be fair, the Fellowship is fairly multicultural -- an alliance of Wizards, Men, Elves, and Hobbits. Who are all white males. Also, Arwen.

Damnit.

Still, it doesn't really surprise me that a guy who fought in WWI and observed WWII would end up expressing significant skepticism concerning the virtues of the "modern." I might have to read more research and commentary to get the precise nature of JRR's thoughts, but that outcome generally seems pretty straightforward and is at least understandable.

EDIT: The "Total War" and "Opposition to National Socialism" sections of the Tolkien Wikipedia article might be informative. Though, I'd prefer to have the time to read the cited materials instead. [<updates weekend to-do list>]

Uan aa Boa wrote:

And yes, reread. However many viewings you embark on, The Hobbit and LOTR are books.

:| <--- works in a library

The written word and the books that contain them are easily our species highest achievement. But I need a break occasionally. Sides which, my copies probably should have been rebound about a couple decades ago. Adding a couple more scratches to Netflix' DVD copy doesn't concern me as much :)

Mount Seymour wrote:

I'm a sophomore in high school. I was in eighth grade when I was first Forest Keeper. >_>

It's hard to say this without sounding patronising, but the fact that I'm so surprised by that should be entirely to your credit. I had to look up sophomore as I don't understand the US system, but I'd somehow always thought you were at college/university.

In the interests of full disclosure, I'm 45. Funny old game this.

Lord of the rings and high fantasy in general requires the occasional review really, and to be fair most authors and writers do seem to acknowledge that. I think a lot of bias does tend towards the unconscious and the 'other' being unknowable and/or hostile. Not great I know but probably not a result of actual conscious racism.

I remember finding out about D&D dark elves way back when people I knew were playing it. So... the dark elves are the underground ones (which, you know, doesn't make a great deal of sense in itself. Why wouldn't they be a palid pale white living in tunnels and that?) and they're the irredemably evil ones huh? I seriously doubt whoever wrote all that was a card carrying KKK member but it might speak of unconscious acceptance of racist views.

Uan aa Boa wrote:

It's hard to say this without sounding patronising, but the fact that I'm so surprised by that should be entirely to your credit. I had to look up sophomore as I don't understand the US system, but I'd somehow always thought you were at college/university.

In the interests of full disclosure, I'm 45. Funny old game this.

My sense is that Forest tends to have an unusually high average age, while the average NS player tends to be around 17-25.

I didn't disclose my age for a while after joining Forest because I thought it would color people's early impressions of me. One of the things I like about NS (and in general, online) communities is that one's age and other physical/surface attributes matter only to the extent that they shape one's maturity and merit in discussion and action-taking.

Mount Seymour wrote:

My sense is that Forest tends to have an unusually high average age, while the average NS player tends to be around 17-25.

I didn't disclose my age for a while after joining Forest because I thought it would color people's early impressions of me. One of the things I like about NS (and in general, online) communities is that one's age and other physical/surface attributes matter only to the extent that they shape one's maturity and merit in discussion and action-taking.

That's true. Honestly any of us could be more or less anyone. I could be typing this up in my home like you'd all expect me to be, or I could be sat outside one of your houses in a van.

By the way, you left the landing light on.