On Twitch
and Project
Alpha Monday 8:30 pm PST. This show is a great example of the smart, funny,
enlightening things that happen when you give often-marginalized voices a
chance to just speak while you listen. Two friends discuss geeky stuff and Geek
culture from a perspective most of us don’t get to hear so bluntly or
eloquently put.
0:19:38
Question: “Why can’t black gamers and writers make new
characters and series and games that reflect their culture? … Do any of the
new identity, social issue, and race-based series sell well? I don’t think
blaming white people is the answer black artists need to focus on, making
content is.”
Dave: “And that good sir, thank you so much, because we
are roughly 25 minutes into this show, and you have just hit on the exact
reason why this show exists, so thank you for that. And I don’t mean that
facetiously, I mean thank you for that.”
…
Dave: “So here’s the thing, first and foremost, I think
the main place where your logic is in error is idea of black people blaming
white people. We’re not here blaming anybody, and the fact of the matter is
consumers vote with their wallets, they do. And I also ALWAYS say, because
we’ve had this conversation many times, and I always say it’s more important
that we /do/ launch new properties, and that we /do/ have new characters, and
we /do/ have new representation of things. But, [to an eager Damion] let me say
one thing, that’s super hard to do.”
…
Damion: “The complications of all that is… here’s the
thing: everybody wants to launch their own stuff, and everybody wants their own
stuff to become wildly popular, successful, and amazing, but it comes to
resources allocation and cultural support for the launching of the things is a
big part of it. Black Geek culture’s just starting to become a viable thing
where it could possibly support its own launch.”
Dave: “Or even just be a viable part of just Geek
culture. Unless it’s something like Hancock, and even Hancock couldn’t support
– universe. Well, it could have, but it was kind of garbage.”
Damion: “If they had written it better.”
Dave: “Been better, yes.”
Damion: “Been a good idea along with funding. Okay,
we’ll move on. So where we get into the difficulty is mythology. Mythology is
like a pantheon. And every single culture has its own pantheon. And right now
the pantheon’s pretty full. Like, you’ve got your sun god, you’ve got your dark
lord, you’ve got all your characters, all those slots are pretty filled in the
zeitgeist of the hearts and the minds of the men. And zeitgeist has been formed
by the prevailing culture, which has been Judaeo-Christian, heterosexual, white,
male culture, which took it’s real cementing in the 1920s, which was 20 years
before the super heroes started, which is why it reflects that almost
exclusively. And to break up that field and to interject some new things in it,
is going to take some real work on everybody’s side, and some real just bad-ass
stuff from the creators that’s enough to get penetration that will enable it to
meet.
And in
terms of, he also asked about does it have to be about social issues and other
things, if you think about it, your issues, your struggles, are what enable you
to tell your most powerful stories.
So, do
they sell? Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. And it really depends on
the delivery because I’ve seen really, really excellent ideas really poorly put
together–”
Dave: “Like ‘The Dark Tower.’”
Damion, with a nod of agreement: “And I’ve seen really,
really shady ideas where I’m like, ‘Okay, that’s not bad.’ But then they
delivered it in such an amazing fashion that you’re immediately sucked
in.”
Dave: “Shout out to ‘The Dark Tower.’”
Damion: “So what we need is really amazingly fashioned
delivery systems for people of color and anybody in the ‘other’ category.”
[They continue discussing why it wasn’t a great movie, and
casting Idris Elba was a questionable casting choice, and how it illustrates
pandering in casting that doesn’t add anything to the story.]
Critical Analysis 