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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Good thing that isn't what I said, then!
They could have done a lot of things. Why are we defending what they did with "well, they could have done something completely different?"
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."You're kind of oversimplifying what the argument is. It's not about whether being willing to race lift by default makes you a better storyteller, it's that in this instance it would have helped contribute to a better story, even if the show itself was still mostly rubbish it would have helped get some of the stink off.
It's kind of difficult to really do anything with the concept of Mighty Whitey that would invalidate the criticisms being made about it. Because centering white people while borrowing other countries' cultures as a backdrop is basically the problem, and it's difficult to not do that unless you simply have a non-white protagonist. Doing a scathing critique of the concept might be something worth considering, but Marvel was never going to realistically do that because it would effectively invalidate the character.
It's a rigged game. The only way to "win" is not to play.
edited 8th Feb '18 12:17:45 PM by Draghinazzo
If this is just about "Complaining about shows before they are released" do note that in this case at least complaints ended up being accurate.
Sure, sometimes show runners keep tight lid on nature of show so that everyone is blown away and turns out their complaints were completely wrong, but that doesn't mean you can't criticize something's concept. Heck, its kind of like if author says "My work is much better than audience thinks because audience is interpreting my intentions wrong!", its really bad argument since it means author didn't communicate their ideas to the audience well.
Sooo basically, criticism about show before show has been released can be considered criticism of what show runners communicate show to be about to the audience beforehand and accuracy of that criticism is based on accuracy of how well show runners did that communication. If that makes sense, I'm feeling really drowsy and am gonna go to sleep after posting this, should stop writing while being tired as hell
The thing is you probably could do something interesting with confronting the idea that a martial arts chosen one is an entitled white dude.
You could also have cast an actual Tibetan because its not like the MCU is suffering an overabundance of representation. And you could still find interesting things to say obviously.
Forever liveblogging the AvengersI'm not defending the show, necessarily. But not being willing to give a show a chance due to one single change (or absence of change) right off the bat, without even considering the possibility that it might be more than it seems at first glance isn't right. Just because it doesn't always is more than it seems doesn't make a dismissive, flippant attitude more justifiable.
It's like punching a random man in the street and then discovering afterwards that he beats his wife: you still punched a random man in the street and it doesn't make it more right in hindsight.
Pretty much what Spooky Mask said. Every criticism of Iron Fist was made based off of all the information we had to work with at the time, including media's long history of dealing with negative tropes precisely like these ones.
To be perfectly frank, we had no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. They hadn't earned it.
So you think that giving preemptive criticism based off of the well-established concept that we knew they had chosen not to alter is equivalent to assaulting a random stranger on the street?
edited 8th Feb '18 12:21:18 PM by RBluefish
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent.""To be perfectly frank, we had no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. They hadn't earned it. "
In other, more honest words: "I was just waiting for a reason to be a dick and feel good about it".
"I think I said while Iron Fist was still in production that there would be absolutely zero downsides or unfortunate implications from making Danny Hispanic, and I stand by that. "
That's dumb. If people think the Mightey Whitey trope is wrong because it makes a stranger of another race better than the people who were already there and should by all means know better than them, switching the race to another one that is STILL not the race being "rescued" doesn't make it any less offensive. Unless the trope is bad ONLY if it's a white guy.
edited 8th Feb '18 12:27:07 PM by GKG
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It is. The White part is kind of important to the Mighty Whitey trope, and it's rooted in white people dominating other cultures throughout all of history through violence and subjugation.
edited 8th Feb '18 12:30:58 PM by PushoverMediaCritic
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You brought the buzzwords into the conversation.
So... It's fine for Asian/African/(insert ethnicity here) people to be completely clueless when it comes to solving a problem that concerns them, if the Chosen One who comes to solve it despite having no prior experience with it isn't White? Because that's the offensive part of the trope: that the person of another race is somehow capable of solving everything through the power of their Otherness. Do you even get why people dislike the trope?
edited 8th Feb '18 12:35:54 PM by GKG
1. This isn't just based on Iron Fist itself though. Marvel had already dropped the ball on the asian representation issue in DD S2 already. This was a continuation of a trend.
2. People weren't necessarily saying the show was going to be the worst thing ever, they were criticizing the concept of the show. It being more well-written and less sloppy than it turned out to be wouldn't automatically invalidate that complaint.
I don't mean to be rude, but you came in here basically peddling a conspiracy theory that Black Panther got inflated scores because of "identity politics" (which totally isn't a buzzword, am I right?) and overall been very disingenuous. In light of that, your complaints about people's dismissiveness (as well as your fixation on other people's politeness) kinda fall flat.
edited 8th Feb '18 12:40:36 PM by Draghinazzo
Not this discussion again....
Iron Fist got more flak than it deserved, but I think that the fact that the reviewers were working off the first six episodes of the show and not the stronger second half paired with the high standard Jessica Jones set and Luke Cage at least still met in the fist half of the show (not in the second half) lead to Iron Fist being derided more than, let's say, the same show would have been if it had been released as part of the CW line-up or were a stand alone show with little expectation attached to it.
And yes, a few reviewers didn't WANT the show to succeed, but I don't think that they would have had enough sway if the show had been great.
We don't have numbers, but the show was watched enough that it got a second season, and it has its fans - me being one of them. Despite its flaws, I actually enjoyed it more than Daredevil (I kind of can't stand Matt and the underlying sexism and racism in the show) and Luke Cage (which started strong but really went off the rails in the second half of the show). Note, I said I enjoyed it more, not that I think that it is better on an objective level.
Anyway, there will be a second season, no matter what the critics said.
Black Panther is now certified fresh on RT with 80 reviews and counting standing at a comfy 99%.
There's still that one guy with one negative review. He's still the only one.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."It's also not massively overinflated because to say so would be to fundamentally misunderstand how Rotten Tomato scores even work. A movie that's universally considered a barely-6/10 piece of functional mediocrity by all 100% of reviewers would have a higher RT score (in this case, than a film that's %) considered a full-on 10/10 by 90% of the audience and a 4/10 by the remaining 10% for heavily subjective reasons (in this case, a 90%), even though conventional logic would dictate the latter the much better movie.
edited 8th Feb '18 1:08:51 PM by AlleyOop
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I feel like you were skirting on it, particularly when you said that Ghost in the Shell was subject to "pointless, manufactured controversy", which is pretty tantamount to saying "the SJ Ws were pissy about it".
edited 8th Feb '18 12:52:18 PM by KarkatTheDalek
Oh God! Natural light!![]()
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Cool. To repeat myself, do you have an argument for why the #AAIronFist (it's short for Asian-American Iron Fist, in case you didn't know) movement was bad and wrong beyond "someone was a bit snarky on Twitter once" and "engaging in any sort of preemptive criticism of a story's narrative conceit is wrong," or is this all you're giving us?
edited 8th Feb '18 12:52:46 PM by RBluefish
"We'll take the next chance, and the next, until we win, or the chances are spent."The only nuanced take I’ve seen on Mighty Whitey recently was Hank from Kong: Skull Island, who I worried would be depicted as the Apocalypse Now archetype of “white man who has tamed jungle natives”, but was instead played more like “kooky stranded guy that the villagers let stay with them just as their wacky neighbor”.

@Spooky Mask Yes, I do realize that there aren't the same situations. My point was that saying that "willingness to Race Lift is proof that you are a better storyteller than if you didn't" is absolutely laughable. They could have kept the Mightey Whitey trope and done something interesting with it, even if they didn't in the end. Stuff can be deconstructed or reconstructed and just because something looks problematic at first glance doesn't mean it actually is. There's something rather disingenuous in not being willing to give something a chance right off the bat and then saying "I told you it would suck!" afterwards.
edited 8th Feb '18 12:13:15 PM by GKG