Monday, October 19, 2009

Tolkien You Racist Eurocentric Fucker

Dragonage: Origins

A friend is really excited about it, so I was looking into it - cause knowing what has a friend excited and happy is a good thing. And I look and I look. And I see things I like - which is rare. But I see a cgi movie/storyline I wouldn't mind paying 30$ (yeah no, not gonna pay $50 for it) to see and play. The whole concept of pause in play would help it all not be a rush of noise and jabbing buttons for me. The possibility of same sex romantic storylines? For both men and women? Woot!

And then...And then - Asian team member (Jon Santos) working on Dragon's Age in a promo video. Another Asian team member (Stan Woo). Someone possibly Latino (Jose Illitzky). Haven't seen anyone black yet.

Is there anyone non white looking among the avatars promo material? I think there's one dude. With white/whitish blonde hair - he might be dark skinned. I can't tell because I find a lot of the captured video to be dark and oddly coloured. But the shape of his nose and lips and jaw tell me nothing. And I'm probably only assuming he's black because he's a big guy playing back-up in the trailers for a white hero.

For all the "Oooh Origins. So important. Who you are will factor into who you become! Blah Blah" - Who you are? WHITE.

I repeat: Tolkein You Racist Eurocentric British Nationalistic Fellatioing Fucker.

Because of you, you dead, decayed old white man, the land of fantasy remains in the Pseudo Europa. But not just that, despite the fact that SPAIN was influenced by the Moors and that Rome had dark skinned citizens, fantasy is all about white elves (whether or not some new representation has elves as 'ghettoized' - cause really how fucking Othering is that. Yeah, we have slums for non-humans) and white dwarfs and white men.

Though I guess places like Feministing would be happy to see white woman avatars and white women in the promo vids as part of the design team. Woop de la fucking do la and a bottle of Tear Champagne.

Dark Heroic Fantasy = White Fantasy. Same as what came before. Meanwhile look at our even more deformed Trolls and Ogres & Evil Savages.

I can't choose to put aside the part where I'm multiracial black and go - at least they have gay people-. Because no matter how much I'd want to, the sucking wound at my side will keep on bleeding, whether I pay attention to it or not. Being uncounted and unrepresented still fucking hurts.

This year... this year - really, is the lesson I'm supposed to learn and have reinforced is utter, total disrespect and hatred for unthinking, racist white fuckers - selfish pigs who can't imagine a far off future, or a fantasy land (OMG Avatar: Live Action - Stop STABBING ME) without anyone but white people. Just...

Not just Schrodinger's Rapist, I have to juggle Schrodinger's Racist - time after fucking time, after fucking time again.

The Conversation I Want To Have, is not happening. Other conversations are and they're good and blessed and halllujah that they're happening. But the conversation I want to have, hasn't. Isn't.


Me. Specifically.

Me. The Non White Fantasy Fan.

Whether it's only one part of a conversation, or one conversation in a series of conversations - right now the one I want to have is; is it worth the effort of ignoring so much history and pain and continued invisibility via ignorance and 'doing what's easy' - is it worth the effort to put our own stamp in the fantasy playbox? Or should we cast it all aside, drop troll, ogre, dragon, elf, monster, orc - all of it? Do we start from scratch based on non-white, ancestral origins mythology? Do we give up trying to see our faces in those pseudo lands regardless of the spilled blood, rape, and servitude/slavery in their real life analogues?

I don't have an answer yet for myself. I've spent the past few months wrestling with the question, trying to come up with a solution other than screaming at the idiots I encountered at the beginning of the year. Cause those idiots don't give a damn about any pain but their own. This year has made that unquestionable.

But there is something, some teasing thought in my head about how our ancestral lineage is used as accessory and dressing for their tales. Some baby thought about picking and choosing.

I'm going to give it some time.

I tried to find a way to end this without saying I hate you all, you smug unthinking white monsters. I can't; you genocidal, story/culture serial killers.

NB: While I am depressed, I refuse to believe 'Resistance Is Futile', no matter how much has been lost or how many have been eliminated.