This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I watched RRR last night, a 2022 Telugu-language film directed by S. S. Rajamouli, starring two revolutionary Indian heroes of old, but re-imagined to make them meet and have cool adventures together.
It was a very fun movie. The dance numbers were quite impressive, I liked the "bromance", and the action scenes were pretty funny. Everything was pretty over-the-top, especially the British, which is why I'm writing this right now.
The British were not kind to India. I don't really know any specifics on what all horrible things they did, though I am familiar with the "Blowing from Guns in British India" painting that depicted the punishment they gave for some rebellion or other. However, even so, it is kind of odd how they portrayed the British in the movie. The movie opens with a British governor paying a few coins to purchase a child from a village because he liked how she painted and sang, and when the mother tearfully tries to stop the British convoy from leaving, a soldier is about to shoot her, but is stopped because the British governor considers Indians to not be worth the cost of the bullet. Other scenes of similar callous viciousness are common: an Indian man is brutally beaten by a British soldier because the soldier felt embarrassed and wanted to save face, the heroic sepoy who carried out the governor's orders is not promoted because only three white dudes were chosen to be promoted, or a man being flogged is made to be flogged much more than usual because the wife of the governor didn't consider him submissive enough.
The movie is really fun, but interspersed with this kind of atrocity porn, with Englishmen commonly saying that Indians are totally worthless subhuman trash, considering any Indian in the governor's palace a servant, or warning the nice British woman that cavorting with one is dangerous. It came across as an ethnic caricature. I don't think there are any British men favorably portrayed. The only British people favorably portrayed are the beautiful British women at the dance party, and the beautiful British woman who takes a liking to the protagonist. This sends the message to me "all you evil Brits, get out of India, except for your women, we'll definitely be taking those." Which, fair! That's definitely a natural inclination of many people throughout history, but it isn't really brave enough to come out and say it like that.
I was left wondering what other ethnic groups it would be appropriate to give this treatment to. I feel like if you swapped the British caricature with a caricature of any other (non-white) group of people, this movie would never have gotten so popular. People would be afraid to even mention it. I liked the movie, but I wish it didn't have this ugly portrayal in it. It made it less good. Also it was 3 hours long, what the hell.
I dislike white as an umbrella term, because Indian distaste is clearly towards a specific type of upper-class British oppressor. They are white. But more importantly, they are:
All 5 together, create a caricatured evil. Make a small change, and the resulting individual isn't considered evil anymore. As you observed, gender is easiest to change, and a 'white 18th century upper-class British woman' becomes a protagonist.
Hollywood does this all the time. White isn't inherently evil.
1970s white Slavic USSR communist is evil. 19th century southern low-class slaver ? Shoot away. You have to tick all the check boxes. Even the Nazis are always in uniform. Among black people, the quintessential African warlord with a child army is obviously evil. The mountain dwelling bearded Islamist in traditional garb with ak-47s ? evil. Wrinkled old cougar with small dog and leopard print jacket ? Evil. In India, old & fat god man turned politician rings all types of alarm bells.
As bad as British atrocities were (the famines aren't talked about enough), the Catholics (Portuguese inquisition) and Mughals (specifically Aurangzeb) were leaders on cruelty. However, given that India has a large catholic & muslim population, it is difficult to portray them as explicitly evil without ruffling a few feathers. Not a lot of protestant whites in India. The British are an easy consensus target.
Portraying the British as villains is normal. My issue is that they are complete caricatures. Yes, confederates were frequently caricaturized as well. However, I can't really tell you any modern media where it would be acceptable to make a caricature of even an African warlord with a child army. What would it look like, if we use RRR's portrayal as the standard? Team America: World Police got away with caricatures of mountain-dwelling bearded Islamists in traditional garbs with AK-47s, because it was a different time (just 20 years ago!) and because they caricaturized everyone.
I could say that the easy formula for who you can caricaturize and who you can't is about skin color, since it's acceptable to do it to communists, slavers, and Nazis, but perhaps there is another element here. Communists, slavers, Nazis, and the British are known worldwide quite well, discussed at length and recognized as generally quite bad. It could be that one is only allowed to caricature that which they understand very well, and due to the West's recent ascent to power, every notable example is white.
Chinese Communists are also known worldwide.
Hmm, now that you metnion it, Fallout 3 had Chinese soldiers in it that were hostile, and I guess they were kind of caricatures. I might just be entirely wrong, on every front. It happens.
Weren't a bunch of those Chinese soldiers in-universe holograms created to exacerbate stereotypes?
Yes, they were. But aren't they identical in voice lines to the real Chinese soldiers you meet in some factory or other? I don't remember. I do think putting in some caricatures (or, really, just throwaway characters that aren't fleshed out and don't need to be fleshed out because they have a specific purpose, "angry and want to kill you in a language you don't understand") with a handful of voice lines is probably different from making a movie with caricatures that take a ton of screentime. But it did disprove my notion that you can't make caricatures of non-white ethnicities.
I think Fallout 3 does interesting things sometimes, so I'm glad it exists, but Bethesda sucks at writing, so I can't recommend it to anyone. Sad!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link