(Hi, if you’re linked to here by my longtime stalker who wants to paint me as a bigot, take a look at the history first and see if you want to be used by a misogynist, body-image-shaming racist who threatens my children again and again over the years. This is not the first time he’s attempted to get people to come after me because he doesn’t like that I exist. Be aware that he edits quotes to suit how he wants to be seen and is an untrustworthy source because of pathalogical lying. He also has admitted to doxxing me, to people who are probably, given his bent of hatred, are likely to be hostile.)
On to the rambly blogpost.
When I saw Overwatch‘s trailer from Blizzard, I thought for a wistful few moments “AWWW YIIIISSSS BLIZZARD MAKING CG MOVIES AT LAST!!!!!!!” (Yes, that was crushed shortly after, but I was consoled by the pure cracky fun that is Heroes of the Storm. C’mon. Nuking Diablo ftw, and I’ve seen the beta, I hope there’s a singleplayer mode so I can listen to the snark to snark combat. Also, the ‘wtf just happened?!’ of watching Nova fall into a sudden pitfall, and Diablo strolling over and covering her with dirt, then strolling away. Jim Raynor on a horse, I Want to play this game!)
Then I ran across this awesome responsive essay to some changes being made. On Tumblr no less. Has she been dogpiled on by Tumblr ‘feminists’? I hope not. She expressed a lot of the problems I have about people complaining about portrayal of the female sex in games/media/whatever. She’s quite right about the body-image shaming that SJWs engage in (I’m victim of this myself, as seen in the evidence of this post being done by my misogynistic stalker.) I’m just a bit sad that there seems to be a weird conflation of big woman = overweight looking. What about muscular? Muscular yet female women are even rarer in portrayal.
Namely, the “I want to pretend and play in a fantasy” POV is just as valid as the “BUT THERE IS NOBODY THERE WHO LOOKS LIKE ME” complaint. Y’know, I’d like to see more Pinoys Portrayed Positively … but it’s not the industry’s fault that there aren’t as many ports of visual novels to the English speaking world. (If there is a English port of Sampaguita please let me know, because from what I read, the story is awesome, the Filipina heroine has very typical Filipina traits while also NOT being totally locked into the mode, and it’s got actually gorgeously rendered character designs by Masamune Shirow.)
Am I disappointed that there ‘aren’t more Filipinos in Fiction?’ No, not really. I spot them now and again. Dr. Park in House MD is a Filipino-Korean Mezstiza and oh, I found her quite a familiar series of tropes. Her dad is a sweetheart, and while it’s never made clear which side of the pair is the Philippine connection, I think it’s somewhat implied to be the mother. And Dr. Park implies the whole Overbearing Female Ancestors parcel. (Poor Chase.) I’m not going to whine about ‘cultural appropriation’ because it’s quite a real trope, thank you very much. Watch Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. Good movie. One of my all time favorites. It’s a Taiwanese movie by Ang Lee and if you recognize the name it’s because of Brokeback Mountain. (I also recommend The Wedding Banquet. Also thanks Wikipedia, I’m going to go look for Pushing Hands, because it’s one of the series I haven’t seen, which deals with the classic Confuscian family and its rubbing up to, and against modern values. Be warned, they’re very ‘Asian’ movies.)
But I’m also not ‘offended’ or ‘upset’ because, well, honestly, ‘we don’t need to compete‘ with international superstars. I agree with everything this writer (who is a Chinese-Filipino mezstiza, or Chinay,) says in the post. She rocks. I’m sure there will be the inevitable SJW troll (like Clamps / Yamamanama /superstalkerofwomenAndrewPMarston) who will dismiss her because she writes romance novels, but I figure, SJWs as a whole like to ignore romance writers as a whole when it comes to their whinging about ‘not enough female authors’ falsehood, much in the same way they like to ignore that romance as a genre is Freaking Huge and Profitable, because it doesn’t play nice with the militant tumblrfeminist-misandrist worldview. They’re not ‘real writers’, like they like to pretend that they’re not raging hypocrites.
But hey, I have no intention of telling them to stop or shut up. I’m in fact, happy to let them talk/type what they think. They have the right, much in the same way I do – and that right does not exempt anyone from valid criticism.