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The dirt under your nails - ARCANE

stratigo said:
China is VERY iffy on portrayals of lgbt people in media and will often censor them. I am sure homophobes inside studios are happy to have china as an excuse to cut LGBT content, but china does provide the excuse by their often regressive policies.
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Yes, this is true. China and the CCP have an extensive track record of homophobia. But Riot Games is an American based studio and by all accounts are the ones making the decisions, not their Tencent owners who -as far as I am aware- have never actually involved themselves in these decision making processes.

We have plenty of evidence that Riot's upper management is intensely regressive and reactionary and are themselves the ones deciding what does and doesn't get released to the general public. Designers, lore writers, artists, and pretty much every low level employee at riot is open about how they have to fight to get any kind of queer rep into the game. Riot has had a very publicized culture of sexual harassment and sexism. It's COO farted in peoples faces and only got a two month suspension after his actions were made public.

The reason Arcane only had gay subtext is not the CCP. It's not China's censorship laws which are applied irregularly and infrequently. It's not even China's homophobic culture.

Riot Games, the corporate entity, and the people who manage it, are the ones who decide what does and does not get put out. We didn't get Diana and Leona's official romance short story until summer 2021, and there is no reason it couldn't have been published much earlier in the US while not publishing on League's Chinese website.

Neeko -an actual confirmed lesbian- didn't come out until 2018, and even then it was a shapeshifting gecko girl who always looked conventionally attractive with a slim body and skin hugging clothing.

Riot is the reason Arcane tiptoed around the homosexuality, not China.
 
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CatOnTheWeb said:
Yes, this is true. China and the CCP have an extensive track record of homophobia. But Riot Games is an American based studio and by all accounts are the ones making the decisions, not their Tencent owners who -as far as I am aware- have never actually involved themselves in these decision making processes.

We have plenty of evidence that Riot's upper management is intensely regressive and reactionary and are themselves the ones deciding what does and doesn't get released to the general public. Designers, lore writers, artists, and pretty much every low level employee at riot is open about how they have to fight to get any kind of queer rep into the game. Riot has had a very publicized culture of sexual harassment and sexism. It's COO farted in peoples faces and only got a two month suspension after his actions were made public.

The reason Arcane only had gay subtext is not the CCP. It's not China's censorship laws which are applied irregularly and infrequently. It's not even China's homophobic culture.

Riot Games, the corporate entity, and the people who manage it, are the ones who decide what does and does not get put out. We didn't get Diana and Leona's official romance short story until summer 2021, and there is no reason it couldn't have been published much earlier in the US while not publishing on League's Chinese website.

Neeko -an actual confirmed lesbian- didn't come up out until 2018, and even then it was a shapeshifting gecko girl who always looked conventionally attractive with a slim body and skin hugging clothing.

Riot is the reason Arcane tiptoed around the homosexuality, not China.
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A lot of media companies, and riot in particular, deeply care about what 'china' wants, in so far as they think they can create something that appeals to the massive chinese demographic. And this means they will craft media that often splits the difference for lgbt content, where they hint and tease, but don't actually reveal. Like I am absolutely certain Fortiche intends vi and caitlyn to be in a relationship. I am pretty sure that the riot devs push this relationship. And almost certain the riot execs play this relationship down and use China as the excuse to do so, and that excuse is part of the point of censorship policies. The point is to boost the homophobes in companies and chill lgbt support. Censors don't rigarously cob through every media and give a thumb up and thumbs down. They give a general direction of their intentions and let people in companies do the rest.

The homophobes in Riot use China to downplay lgbt aspects they would dislike, but the ability to use China as a tool makes their arguments much more persuasive and powerful AND it's the entire point of the censorship policies in the first place. To boost these kind of shitheads
 
Konradleijon said:
i have a issue with people praising Arcane for LGBTQ repsention for implied two conventionally attractive white women are together. never stating it and no homoing any MLM content. especially since other animated and Netflix shows are much better with queer content.
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Are you fucking kidding me. She's biracial. Or is that just not an option here???

Like do these two look white to you
 
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mothematics said:
Are you fucking kidding me. She's biracial. Or is that just not an option here???

Like do these two look white to you
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That is a very good question, and I'll argue that much of the issue stems from the more typical tropes for these kinds of stories and the shadow cast by a character's portrayal in other League associated material. Caitlyn in League is stereotypically posh English, from her accent, to the references in her clothing to even the environment of her splash art. Further, the nature of the existence Piltover's story calls on other literature where the classic class conflict is exemplified by poor people of every race against the rich who are all going to be white (as defined by US culture) so it's expected that if any character would be biracial it would be Vi and Powder/Jinx. That in Arcane Piltover is much more cosmopolitan is a surprise (not only is there racial diversity on the council, there are also clearly non-human members), but it's also not super clear that interracial marriage (again, as the US defines it) is a thing, so it's easy for a viewer's preconception to do a lot of heavy lifting in regards to race.

Amusingly, sometimes, looking at that image, Caitlyn alternately looks "white" or biracial based on what I manage to look at first. Her father or her face? Biracial. Her Clothes or her expression? White.
 
Rule 3: Be Civil
Dekutulla said:
do only white people frown now
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No you dumbass, if I process that she is frowning before I process the structure of her face, all of the details that suggest a heritage other than "generic European" become contextualized as emotional indicators. I figured this would be obvious from the context of the sentence, but it would appear logic and subtlety are lost on you.
 
Zeful said:
No you dumbass, if I process that she is frowning before I process the structure of her face, all of the details that suggest a heritage other than "generic European" become contextualized as emotional indicators. I figured this would be obvious from the context of the sentence, but it would appear logic and subtlety are lost on you.
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Dude, you wrote a post so incomprehensible I thought you were drunk.
 
Zeful said:
No you dumbass, if I process that she is frowning before I process the structure of her face, all of the details that suggest a heritage other than "generic European" become contextualized as emotional indicators. I figured this would be obvious from the context of the sentence, but it would appear logic and subtlety are lost on you.
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I don't think you're really in a position to be talking about things being lost on people here
 
We can't really be sure of her heritage until Riot posts the official calliper stats for each hero.

For real though, this discussion is insane. Her expression and clothing was white? What?
 
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Zeful said:
I figured this would be obvious from the context of the sentence, but it would appear logic and subtlety are lost on you.
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I don't know if logic is quite the word I'd reach for in this particular instance, but I have never personally parsed strong emotion in a way that means "this person must be white", so I guess you're the expert here.
 
I mean, I could sorta get what you're trying to say; some League official art featuring Caitlyn (particularly her first design) could be called racially ambiguous-leaning-towards-white and her whole "Victorian steampunk" vibe probably makes people think "white girl" first because that whole aesthetic is mostly about idealizing the British, but...we're not talking League.



Like, the only thing about this that makes me go anything but "East Asian girl in a posh outfit" is that she has blue eyes, and that's just uncommon, not impossible (especially since she's mixed).
 
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To be honest, to the rest of the planet, this whole White/Asian thing is pure nonsense.

Neither White not Asian are real ethnicities, but concepts that only truly exist within the American BS race system.
 
Tyran said:
To be honest, to the rest of the planet, this whole White/Asian thing is pure nonsense.

Neither White not Asian are real ethnicities, but concepts that only truly exist within the American BS race system.
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...As opposed to all those other real ethnicities? I mean, I can get something in the sense of "there isn't a single 'Asian' or 'white' ethnicity" or "the American definition of 'white' doesn't fly as much in other countries", but claiming it's exclusively an American thing is... baffling. Ethnicities are already kind of defined by arbitrary cultural declarations and boundaries, and those broad divisions are not reserved to America.
 
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I will be sure to tell to the South Asians called "Asians" in the UK that it's all American nonsense.
 
I joked to @mothematics that Caitlyn couldn't be asian because her name isn't on the somehow universal standard list of english names women from the asian diaspora choose for themselves and their daughters, but it's another thing altogether to see someone arguing this unironically.
 
Tyran said:
To be honest, to the rest of the planet, this whole White/Asian thing is pure nonsense.

Neither White not Asian are real ethnicities, but concepts that only truly exist within the American BS race system.
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I, too, mistakenly identified myself as "White" when my 3rd grade teacher told us White people were the majority and I looked at the sea of Chinese students surrounding me :V
 
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Stop: Rule 3
  • Staff Post
    • Zeful said:
    No you dumbass, if I process that she is frowning before I process the structure of her face, all of the details that suggest a heritage other than "generic European" become contextualized as emotional indicators. I figured this would be obvious from the context of the sentence, but it would appear logic and subtlety are lost on you.
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    rule 3
    Responding to someone asking why you're saying her expression is white by calling them a dumbass unable to comprehend logic is obviously uncivil.
     
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