StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
The biggest issue with media is that the whole sexuality/gender thing is jammed in for little reason. That's why everyone notices it right away sticking out like a sore thumb.I mean I'm not trying to wax philosophic here, but I think those of us with privilege to see ourselves represented in media sufficiently or in some cases more than sufficiently have such a wide array of examples to draw on that anything that verges on the extreme might by ruled as an outlier. Not much time is spent analyzing whether something was forced or not, or bad writing or not, nor is it painted with a broad brush against all other similar content.
I think we're also seeing something similar to a rise in people declaring that they are LGBTQIA along the lines of the rise we saw in people who declare themselves left handed, not because suddenly more people are LGBTQIA or left handed, but because the stigma around being so is no longer as large as it once was.
So, we don't really know true percentages, because many people are still closeted and will remain so until there is enough representation to the point that people can feel comfortable being themselves.
That is why representation matters I just don't think Sam Maggs and her like are doing anyone any favors with quality representation. I think Sam Maggs is an angry person who has convinced herself the best way to approach the world is to go to war with it. I think her friends Xavier and Sol are the same. I think their friendship is based on that worldview and I think it is dangerous and unproductive.
If you look at Sony's characters, I think they are purposefully trying to be more diverse. Which isn't an inherently bad thing, it just needs to be done well.
Jin Kazai can't be a black woman in the narrative of Ghost of Tsushima, but there is no reason why Ellie can't be lesbian. Joel was a cis gender white male and I think part of the backlash against Naughty Dog was that they saw Joel being killed off as an attack on white cis males. I think the game had its problems, but I don't know that was one of them. They also had an issue with what they saw as the replacement for Joel being Abby, who many thought initially was trans because of her physique.
Basically I think everyone needs to take a chill pill... and I wasn't going to wax philosophic...
Now let's say there was a company or government office running special services catering to the LBQGT group, nobody would care because it makes sense as they are working directly with people involving sexuality/gender.
The majority of games don't even have a real plot to begin with. And if it does, it's paper thin like fighting game cut scenes or kill Diablo. A good portion of games dont even have a plot at all (sports, puzzlers, racing games). The only games that have enough plot to flesh out characters are SP narratives and RPGs. Games with lots of plot, dialogue, quests, character creation, etc....
But unless it's a game that involves hooking up with another character, there's probably going to be no need for knowing Sir Larry is gay or Sorceress Sally is bi. The game doesn't say Larry or Sally are straight either. Most games will have characters with no known sexuality. So really gamers can think what they want. But the loud LBGTQ community doesn't want that. They want it specifically pointed out that character A or B are one of the acronyms..... even though the last thing they want is always the dreaded "I don't like when people isolate us. We look and dress like everyone else. You cant even tell most of the time". Well, if that's the case, why point it out or make special sexuality plots when the game's focus is starting as a level 1 scrub and killing a boss 20 hours later?
And if a game does do that by writing a story about sexuality and gender, gamers are like WTF? Who gives a shit. If I play Skyrim (a game with tons of text and NPCs gabbing) why do I need to know if my Argonian is straight or gay? Beats me, but some people want to know.