Two nights ago I posted an article to our Facebook page that listed tweets in response to some sort of White Man March. My first reaction upon coming across it for the first time, as I think most most people’s would be, was not so much what is this as why is this. My second was to ascertain that the tweets were in fact funny so that I could share them on social media and use them as a hook to create discussion [which they did not, but what are you going to do].
In coming up with today’s Shame Day post the march came to mind, but it dawned on me that I knew literally nothing about it besides the fact that the internet thought it was ridiculous.
Come for the overwhelming concentration of power and privilege stay because the police won't disrupt white people #WhiteManMarchProtestSigns
I did what I consider to be the bare amount of research possible and determined that, yes, the White Man March is indeed worthy of its own Shame Day post. Continue reading →
What it does is speak volumes for the game’s publisher, Deep Silver, and those it hired to advertise the game. There was an emphasis placed on the feelings of terror and loss and the need to protect one’s family; it sought to set itself apart from other zombie games [of which there are so many]. Unfortunately the game turned out to be your fairly standard run-of-the-mill zombie hack and slash, but that’s not the point here.
The point is that this trend was actually continued in the promotion of the game’s sequel, Dead Island: Riptide, the trailer of which can be viewed here. The tone is once again consistent with that of the first, highlighting the terrors of a vacation gone horribly, horribly wrong. Which is great. And which is why the following seems so shockingly out of place.
“We deeply apologize for any offense caused by the Dead Island Riptide “Zombie Bait Edition”, the collector’s edition announced for Europe and Australia. Like many gaming companies, Deep Silver has many offices in different countries, which is why sometimes different versions of Collector’s Editions come into being for North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.
For the limited run of the Zombie Bait Edition for Europe and Australia, a decision was made to include a gruesome statue of a zombie torso, which was cut up like many of our fans had done to the undead enemies in the original Dead Island.
We sincerely regret this choice. We are collecting feedback continuously from the Dead Island community, as well as the international gaming community at large, for ongoing internal meetings with Deep Silver’s entire international team today. For now, we want to reiterate to the community, fans and industry how deeply sorry we are, and that we are committed to making sure this will never happen again.”
So no harm now foul, right? Dead Silver took back their horrible statuette and we can chalk another victory up for the internet! But why exactly were people upset? An article on Rock, Paper, Shotgun which I linked to but will link to again said this about it:
This is beyond disgusting. It’s as if someone were attempting to demonstrate the most misogynist idea that could possibly be conceived, in an attempt to satirise the ghastly trend. A text book example of the most extreme ends of misogynist fantasy, a woman reduced to nothing but her tits, her wounds hideously depicted in gore, jutting bones, and of course barely a mark covering her globular breasts.
It’s very prevalent in a lot of zombie imagery you can find nowadays, and it’s certainly present in this picture of a zombified Snow White on the left. Her body is mutilated [appropriately so, for a zombie] but her breasts remain completely untouched. There’s this sense of the grotesque from the image as a whole, but her chest remains an object of potential titillation.
I don’t think I have to say too much about how grossly sexist this is, and how prevalent it is in the society we live in. What I am going to say is thank God that on some level we can make enough of a public outcry to stop stuff like this before it happens. The bottom line is this: if we as a community [on the internet or otherwise] care enough about something, we really can do something about it. Even if it’s just stopping the production and sales of a tasteless statue.
Today is Election Day for the United States of America, so I suppose this is just as good a time to write about this as any. While the embedded video below “stars” Mitt Romney, he is in no part the focal point of this post.
Mitt Romney has some things to say about ways to help those affected by Hurricane Sandy.
A man yells at around 00:22, and says “What about climate? What about climate, that’s what caused this monster storm!”
He holds up a sign that says “End Climate Silence.”
This is almost instantly met with boos.
The boos turn into a rousing cheer of “USA! USA!”
At around 36 seconds in his sign is violently yanked down.
Seemingly unperturbed, the man tries in vain to yell above the crowd; he does not succeed.
00:54 has the camera zoom in nice and close on Romney’s awkward grinning face.
Thirty seconds after the man’s outburst, Romney continues his speech where he left off as if nothing happened.
Even watching that video for a third and fourth time to write this I’m still both shocked and angry. This man was raising a legitimate point about the source of the storm, and he was shouted down. What’s more, he was shouted down by dozens of people yelling the name of their country over and over and over.
Why did this happen? Sure, the guy may have been interrupting what was ultimately supposed to be a way for Gov. Romney to raise support, but is that a reason to boo him? Is it a reason to yank his sign down? You can see the man struggle to keep it up and then decide it’s not worth the trouble.
As a presidential candidate, can you stop Americans from crying “USA! USA! USA!”? Yes. You can. When what is typically a patriotic cheer is used to instead bully someone and invalidate their opinion. It is disgusting what happened, and anyone involved should feel disgraced by their behaviour.
A reply to Beaton’s tweet put it well when he said:
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