Godheval

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But what if – what if! – an earthquake did take place shortly after April 26th?  Or even a month later?  It certainly isn’t beyond the realm of possibility, given the seeming decrease in our planet’s tectonic stability.  Of course such an earthquake would have nothing to do with the “Boobquake”, and it would be just a coincidence, but can you imagine the fallout?

It’d actually be hilarious – a real cosmic sort of humor – except for the fact that earthquakes kill people.

But how much of a backfire against McCreight’s effort would that be?  For people already even remotely willing to believe Sedighi’s claims, this would only seal it in stone for them.  I can’t imagine McCreight herself would be too vocal about her experiment at that point.

In any case, as a heterosexual man (even as a committed ally to womanism), I am certainly looking forward to the 26th!

UPDATE (4/26/2010): I actually didn’t end up leaving the house on Boobquake day.  Oh well.  But even more interesting than all of the cleavage I missed is the 6.5 magnitude earthquake reported off the coast of Taiwan.  Apparently this is pretty standard seismic activity.  According to McCreight:

“No, the Taiwan earthquake is not statistically significant – yet.”

So no one’s connecting the quake to McCreight’s little (or, actually quite big in many cases) experiment just yet.  Still, it’s pretty funny.

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Then there’s the matter of which movies are offered to either side.  If I’m the romantic type, I must want to watch some trite garbage like The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past or the insufferably pointless and overrated Paranormal Activity.  But if I’m not – if I’m the skull-crunching manly-man type, or the lonely lurker type – then I must want something involving drunken stupidity like The Hangover, the pulp sensationalism of Inglorious Basterds, gangsters in Public Enemies, explosions like G.I. Joe, or a healthy dose of racism like we find in The Goods - you know, because the target market probably isn’t Asian or anyone else who might be offended by Asian stereotypes.

Because all real chest-pounding manly men enjoy that kind of stuff.

As a guy in a successful heterosexual relationship, his ad was tailor made for me, right?  Except that I hate most romance movies no matter who I’m watching them with, because of their hackneyed storylines and characters who are either unrealistically beautiful or exaggeratedly hideous only to – by way of magic or hard work – become unrealistically beautiful.  Except that I don’t buy into the idea that ideals like love or tenderness or sensitivity or – you know, generally not being some chest pounding machismo asshole – are mutually exclusive from my identity as a man.

Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a mole hill, but the shit just annoyed me.  Maybe me and my girlfriend, instead of exchanging frilly pink hearts, like to share a cocktail inside of a flaming skull right before we headbutt each other.  With love.   You don’t know.  It’s just more evidence of how the consumer culture is so oblivious or indifferent to the many different types of ways that people can choose to interact with one another – and not just on Valentine’s Day.

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Not-Sees are those who accuse people of color of being “hyper-sensitive” for daring to notice what are for POCs obvious instances of racism. Not-Sees are people who would deny the legacy of slavery in the United States, and tell African-Americans – disproportionately poor and still denied access to quality education, housing, and employment – that they need to “get over it”. The Not-Sees themselves have, after all.

Not-Sees are people who see nothing wrong with Emily Blunt posing with crutches, or think that Abercrombie and Fitch are justified within their business ethos to reject a model with a prosthetic arm. They are people who think that gay marriage isn’t an important issue, because after all they are not gay, so why should they care? These are the same Not-Sees who would dismiss a transgendered person’s struggle with identity as mere “confusion”, or some sort of intended sexual deviancy.

Not-Sees are people who dismiss the outrage of feminists around the sustained gender inequalities such as wages, the sexual double standard, or the inordinate pressure placed on women to conform to the beauty standard, and to be judged by their physical appearances first, if not exclusively.

Ironically, Not-Sees can even be feminists themselves, Western or white who ignore the particular experiences of women of color, presupposing that the problems women face are universal or at least the same as their own; who would ignore Islamic women’s own voices while railing against the practice of covering.

It would be a wonderful world if there were no pressures on Muslim women at all to don the hijab. Frankly, if every Muslim woman in the world threw off her hijab, refused to be “modest”, and became a rad-fem activist, it’d suit me perfectly.⁴

Not-Sees are willing participants in a culture of willful, sustained, institutionalized obliviousness – people who out of laziness or for the sake of their own peace of mind ignore, shy away from, or attempt to delegitimize issues that do not affect them directly.

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As it turned out, I wouldn’t have to wait too long, and I may even have been overdue in giving proper credit. Bioware, a Canadian company that has risen to high acclaim in recent years for producing consecutive triple-A quality games, also deserves credit for being a trailblazer when it comes to inclusion. Back in 2005, Bioware released a game called Jade Empire, one that took place in a fictional world, but that borrowed extensively – and authentically – from Chinese culture, history, and mythology.  Unlike other Asian-inspired properties that feature white protagonists – the list here is endless, from Kung-Fu with David Carradine to M. Night Shymalan’s whitewashing of Avatar: The Last Airbender – Jade Empire featured an entire cast of Asianesque characters – “esque” only for the fact that the game does not take place on Earth.  It was evident in every detail of the game that Bioware had done their research.

2007 saw the release of Mass Effect, a space opera featuring an ethnically ambiguous main character – Commander Shepherd – who players had the option of customizing to resemble a variety of different ethnicities, and to be male or female.  The majority of the crew were aliens, with special mention to Tali’Zorah nar Rayya (pictured right), whose name, appearance (clearly inspired by Muslim hijab), and accent invoked the Middle East.

Mass Effect challenged norms of sex and sexuality as well, with the possibility for a “lesbian” sexual encounter, and a race of aliens – Asari – who invoked human femininity, but in actuality had no separate sexes or genders.  I quoted lesbian because the aforementioned encounter could happen between a female Commander Shepherd and Liara (pictured left) – an Asari who could be called “feminine”, but who explained that she was not female.  In this, the Asari might also be the closest we’ve come – or will come for a long time – to transgendered characters.

Finally, in 2009, Bioware released Dragon Age: Origins, a high fantasy game in a world populated by the usual suspects – humans, elves, and dwarves.  At a glance, DA:O would appear to be a step backwards for the company in terms of inclusion, because there is nary a dark-skinned or almond-eyed character to be found in the world.  Every character – with perhaps the exception of a random NPC or two – had European features.  It could possibly be argued that one character, Sten (pictured right), for his cornrows hairstyle, was intended to invoke an African-American, but that would be a stretch, due to his otherwise European features.

There was also the character creation system, which again – like Mass Effect – allowed players to create a character inspired by a variety of ethnicities (my character is pictured left).  The only trouble here is that regardless of the look of the character, the families of the character remain constant – and they invariably have a European countenance.  Different world, different rules of genes and inheritance – I was willing to accept some creative liberties, although they could’ve taken a hint from Fallout 3, which demonstrated well how a character’s family can be changed to match the player’s ethnicity choices during character creation.

Thankfully, Bioware did not even attempt – or need – to rely on the weak “hair connection” of Sten, nor the minor concessions of the character creation system.  They also didn’t simply rest on the laurels of creating two inclusive games for the mainstream years prior.  Above I talked about how a character’s ethnic inspiration could come through in ways other than appearance – namely by invoking real human experiences.  This is exactly what Bioware did in Dragon Age: Origins – and much like we saw with Jade Empire, there was clearly a fair amount of research done, or information drawn from a diverse or well-informed design team.

Without flinching from the possibility of controversy, Bioware boldly modeled the Elves of Dragon Age after the American “black experience” – the very thing I suggested back in February.  The Elves, thousands of years before the events of the game, possessed a rich and vibrant culture until they were conquered and enslaved by a human empire.  Fast forward to the present and slavery has ostensibly come to an end – although still practiced in some pockets of the world – but most Elves, living in cities, are confined, by a legacy of oppression, to what are called “alienages” or slums.  Their social status as second-class citizens follows even those that leave the alienages, as happens if you play an Elven main character, with humans marveling at an elf that actually made something of him or herself.

There are other elves, too, not confined to the city slums, who live nomadic lives and remain extremely wary of humans.  They also look down on their city brethren, referring to them as “flat-ears”, and thinking them weak for not casting off the yoke of human oppression.  The parallels between the elven experience and the black experience is not at all superficial, with the game asking some tough philosophical and moral questions around these issues of race and racism.

For example, during a dialogue between my city-elf main character and one of the nomadic elves, she asked me whether or not I thought that humans were generally sorry for their history of enslaving the elves – a question that invokes the idea of “white guilt”.  The potential answers to these questions were even more telling of the care that Bioware put into building this narrative.  I had the option of saying “It depends, all humans are different.” – the enlightened response, for sure – or “I don’t think most of them (humans) think about it.” – invoking the all too common attitude of Americans today of dismissing slavery and its legacy to history, as something not necessary to consider in present day.

The moral question comes when you encounter an elf who long ago was wronged by humans – they killed his son and raped his daughter, who upon realizing she was pregnant, committed suicide.  This fellow – through means I’ll leave for you to discover – continues to punish the humans for what they did way back in the past.  As an intervening party, you need to decide whether or not he is justified in his actions, or whether it is time for him to let go of his hatred.  In this we see the other side of the black experience – how should African-Americans respond to today’s Euro-Americans – with hatred or resentment for crimes of the past, or with the possibility of forgiveness?  This is a question left for every African-American to answer, not just once, but sometimes on a daily basis – and in Dragon Age, the player is left with a number of different ways to address the vengeful elf.

The Elven analogy is only one of many ways that Dragon Age demonstrates inclusion, albeit probably the richest example.  There are also the Dwarves, who use a caste system clearly inspired by India – including the so-called “Castleless”, corresponding to India’s “untouchables”.  There are also possibilities for gay and lesbian sexual encounters, depending upon the gender of your main character and the choices you make in relationships with your teammates.  This marks the first time ever in a video game that we see an illustrated sexual encounter between two male characters, as two women had at least been done before in Mass Effect and in Fear Effect: Retro Helix back in 2000.

Hana and Rain from Fear Effect: Retro Helix

Going further than that, the male companion in question – Zevran (pictured right) – was not a stereotype of the gay male, but a very complex character with a rather Ancient Greek sensibilities about sexuality – partnering with whoever he finds beautiful, regardless of gender.  And unlike many depictions of “gay” male characters in media, Zevran was not defined by his sexuality, but more by his life as an assassin.

In spite of the near unanimously Euro-inspired cast of characters, Dragon Age:Origins demonstrates inclusion of diverse experiences in ways that no game has ever done before.  Bioware has again established themselves as a trailblazer in an industry that so far has shied away from challenging the status quo or tackling tough issues.

One can only hope that in addition to blazing a trail, Bioware has also set a trend, with other developers soon to be nipping at their heels in trying to be more inclusive.

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This new problem became even more present in the case of the latest game I’ve played – Uncharted 2: Among Thieves for PS3.  In it you play as Nathan Drake, the white treasure hunter (thief).  Let me give you a quick background on this guy.  In the first game, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, we learn that Nathan is the descendant of Sir Francis Drake – one of many brutal conquerors of the Western world.

Nathan is pursuing a lost treasure that his ancestor is said to have left behind.  My problem with that game, aside from the fact that Nathan is plundering cultural sites, is that it maintains the mystique of Francis Drake the explorer, rather than Sir Francis the conqueror.  Now you may say, it’s a just video game, not a social commentary.  But that’s just it.  It doesn’t have to be a social commentary to at least acknowledge that Sir Francis Drake was a piece of shit.

Anyway, this really created for me the problem of not being able to relate to the main character that others had described to me in the past.  And my “other world” argument doesn’t work in this case.  Here we have the descendant of a plundering conqueror doing some more plundering – and he’s the goddamn hero of the story.

He starts off fighting native soldiers of what looks to be some place in South America, and ends up fighting some kind of zombies or some other nonsense.  I’ll let the killing natives thing slide, because it’s to be expected that the villain – some other plundering asshole – would recruit locally.  Cheap labor and all that.

The “zombie” thing could’ve been interesting if they were the vengeful dead left behind by Francis the conqueror, but it was nothing so relevant as that.  It was some magical B.S. that changed people into creatures.

That was the first game.  And I brought all that baggage with me into the second game.  There was not a moment of playing Uncharted 2 where I wasn’t thinking “I don’t want to be this plundering white boy”.  Nathan Drake for me, by his very premise, is character with few redeeming qualities.  As the game proceeds, we see Drake robbing a museum in Turkey, but at least having the moral sense to use only tranquilizer guns on the museum guards – at least those he isn’t pummeling into unconsciousness or choking out.  These guards are all dark-skinned, which from my understanding of Turkish demographics, is rather improbable.

He goes on to loot temples and other sites in Nepal.  The villain – some burly homicidal Eastern European – is exploiting some sort of Civil War in Nepal to raze temples to the ground in search of a certain artifact.  Drake is hot on his trail, not to stop him, but to beat him to the punch.

Disaster happens, Drake ends up isolated in some snowy mountains, and is rescued by a Nepalese mountain man.  A popular story.  When he wakes up, he finds himself in a village where, as is to be expected, no one speaks English.  Drake makes a number of snide references like “Yeah, I still don’t speak that.” and “Why do I bother?”.

Oh, SORRY to burden you, white plunderer, by having the audacity to not speak your fucking language up here in the Nepalese mountains, and hinder you in your efforts to steal from us.

By some sheer coincidence, Elena – Drake’s reporter friend from the first game (she’s white, too) – who for reasons unknown can speak the language of the Nepalese mountain people – is there waiting for him when he wakes up.  She proceeds to take him to someone who “really wants to meet him”.  At this point I was expecting the Nepalese equivalent of the “magical Negro”, some sagely old woman or diminutive hunchback, maybe.

Imagine my surprise when it’s some jolly old white guy wearing the Nepalese garb – obviously a transplant.  Turns out he was once an “explorer” like Drake, looking for the same elusive artifact, but he gave up and settled in this village.  Phew!  Good thing there was another white guy around, because for a minute there Drake’s quest for plunder might’ve been obstructed by a language barrier!

Drake’s presence in this mountain village eventually brings a full scale assault from the villain down on the natives, who are mowed down relentlessly as Drake himself runs for cover.  We’re talking men, women, children – being gunned down by soldiers and a plowed by a tank.  A tank.  Seriously.  In exchange for your hospitality, kind villagers, I bring you death.  In spite of the mass devastation of innocent villagers, the only two moments of mourning in the game are upon the deaths of Elena’s cameraman – also white – and Schafer, the former treasure seeker.

Maybe the moral of the story is, if you’re a Nepalese mountain person and find a white man collapsed in the mountains, leave his punk ass there to die.

Oh, and did I mention Chloe?  Well, she is Drake’s other potential love interest, a direct contrast to Elena, his reporter friend.  Elena is white – very white – with blonde hair and blue eyes and an investigative journalist.  Chloe is dark-skinned, green-eyed, dark-haired, and a fellow thief.  She’s the “exotic” one.  In only her second scene in the game, we find her straddling Drake, ass in the air, putting his hands on either of her hips before leaning in for a kiss.  Completely forced and disingenuous sexual banter continues between the two throughout the game – brilliantly written lines like “You know you’re going to miss this ass”, and “I think you’re enjoying this too much” as she climbs a ladder.

And of course she’s all kinds of shady, selfish, her motives and loyalty repeatedly questioned, whereas Elena is the reliable mainstay.  Elena’s also the only one to call Drake on being a pig, and to have anything close to a sense of feminism – that is to say, some self-respect as a woman.  She’s also the one that Drake chooses to “love” in the end, with Chloe going on to…who knows where.  But no worries, because Drake points his friend, a lecherous cigar-smoking old white man, in her direction.  So we can assume she won’t be alone for long.  You know, because she’s just waiting around for the next white dick.  All women should be so fortunate.

Once upon a time, I was able to just play video games and enjoy them.  I didn’t see race, I didn’t see cultural issues, didn’t see gender issues, didn’t see anything.  Games were, after all, my escape from such heavy things.  But now, being more “conscious”, I can’t help but notice them.  And damn if it isn’t a burden.  This burden carries over into just about everything these days.  There is hardly a movie or a game or a book where I’m not looking for and easily spotting a slew of cultural faux pas and outright offenses that can only be attributed to the dominance of an oblivious majority.

Does anyone else get this?  Do you mournfully reminisce the days of blissful ignorance?  I do sometimes.  Yet, I don’t think I’d be willing to trade it for my current awareness.

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