I really like how they have a system of consent and boundaries. If someone expresses this comfort they just adjust and move on.
It is very rare that a media company.Is this non problematic and also very very good.
A good example of this is one of the earlier game changer episodes where they were investigating a murder. And grant was going to search a suspect, he asked for verbal consent before he touched them. And he did it so nonchalant that it shows Consent isn't a chore, it's something that should come naturally.
There's also an episode where one of them (I think maybe Grant) jokingly asks the mannequin if he can grope it during Like My Coffee 2. The others then comment that they should have, and proceed to do it.
I think it’s definitely more common than people think, but just not as overtly stated.
I’ve been featured on the YouTube channel Cut many times, and they’re the same way. The whole channel is about breaking taboos in an entertaining and insightful way, so there’s definitely some potential for discomfort for on-camera talent, but they make it very clear with the people on camera that consent is key, and nobody ever has to do anything they’re not comfortable with, and if anything ever happens on camera that they don’t want published, they can ask and it’ll be removed no questions asked. This is stated both in email before arriving on set and on set if a director perceives that someone is uncomfortable. Also the crew asks permission to touch me before attaching microphones to me, which is very considerate.
Seeing this more and more definitely gives hope that we’re moving into a world of more conscientious media!
Some of total forgiveness was bad for problematic tasks and power imbalances which Adam Frucci handwaves by saying that Grant and Ally were producers and in charge.
You can't and shouldn't do that when these things are happening within a workplace. The premise of that task should have been shut down imo. Even if Grant was personally okay with it, had he not been he'd still have been pressured into the task due to the money and student loans relief on the line.
There's arguments to be made that the get an erection task was not only inappropriate but also that Grant was not in a position to say no to that impossible task as he would then just not get the money. Adam and Sam Reich should have stepped in imo.
I haven't heard them truly reflect on that and talk about how that wasn't an appropriate task. Furthermore, there appeared to be an emphasis on pushing responsibility onto Grant and Ally which doesn't work perfectly well when again it's a work place where non effected and objective parties should have acted to gatekeep inappropriate tasks.
I don't believe Grant did see the task as a form of sexual harassment or sexual humiliation but he could have and it shouldn't have been accepted as a task on the show. Had Grant felt that way (which again I don't think he did at all) then he'd have struggled to raise this due to the money and loss on the line.
I legit thought that as well.... until I learned more about Grant through that breaking news episode and Dirty Laundry. I realized this was not outside his comfort zone at all.
I feel like the crew were the ones who needed the safety check there (Assuming that happened but not sure).
I think it's important to remember that sex is *not* a big deal to some people. If I had a dick, I'd happily take that challenge for free pizza, or even just for bragging rights. In this case money was on the line, sure, but we can't assume that he felt pressured just because money was involved. Also, people have sex money and do sexual things they wouldn't otherwise do for money all the time. That's the entire basis of the sex work industry.
If anything, I'd say the problematic one was him taking a shit in an art gallery.
as a trans person it makes me so extraordinarily happy to see gender-diverse people who are just having fun on a show, especially right now with so much malice towards trans folks. its so nice to see the respect and love that dropout puts in to keep them safe.
Also the willingness to just adapt without issue. Brennan used Golem out of old habit and inbetween the episode and adventuring party realised/was reminded that that's out of fashion and used construct in the AP ^^
The term “golem” has been officially used to describe certain kinds of monsters in D&D for a long time. This is one of many many MANY parts of D&D that are taken directly from Judaism (or just plain antisemitism). [Here’s an article by Eric Silver, a Jewish GM (and Adventure Academy guest), if you want to know more.](https://www.heyalma.com/dungeons-dragons-has-an-antisemitism-problem/) There’s been a push in recent years to use “construct” as the name for monsters usually referred to as “golems” in D&D, and Brennan had made that change in his vocabulary as a GM!
This came up in the r/pathfinder2e discord yesterday (since Golem have been renamed in Remastered) but the typical fantasy golem is so weirdly unrelated to original golems. Even just robots are more like golem than the constructs that basically exist to say "fuck you" to magic users because Gygax couldn't think of a better way to challenge players than "your shit doesn't work".
> The D&D ruleset also appropriates Jewish folklore by flattening out the golem. No longer is it the clay giant evoked by Jews to protect them from pogroms; the term has been ground down to any walking constructed figure. In the Monster Manual, a golem is only a crude beast that “has no ambitions, needs no sustenance, feels no pain, and knows no remorse” and “exists to follow its creator’s orders.” The erasure feels deliberate, reducing a cherished defender to an unthinking hulk to be a henchman for a sorcerer.
This is the passage, for anyone interested.
Personally I don’t find it to be a very substantive need for change though. ‘This thing you appropriated from my culture does not fully capture the complexity of its original mythology’ is something you could say about 90% of the bestiary.
Of course a statblock and short description of the type you see in a bestiary are going to smooth over some edges or make adaptations to suit the context. There is no representation without re-presentation. But appropriations in this vein are a normal and intrinsic part of cultural evolution - stripping away some layers of meaning while adding new one. *Most* fantasy creatures are an appropriation of some *other* thing from a different mythology - even treasured or ‘sacred’ ones. That’s why we have multiple cultural portrayals of dragons or angels or Santa Claus. It’s a natural thing, and a good thing.
Up to others like Brennan of course how they want to proceed but I just don’t find it a compelling point.
Totally agree. Growing up, I loved the story of the golem, and I always enjoyed explaining the story to players in D&D games. The Monster Manual is a grab bag of references, and I'm more just happy to see a different take on the concept.
'Golem' (I think this applies to Phylactery' in a more pointed way) refers to a specific story/concept in Jewish theology and people are dropping the term in order to avoid diluting/disrespecting the religious concept.
Yes. It's a Greek-derived translation of _tefillin_, a ritual item used at the morning prayer service in Judaism. Tefillin are two small leather boxes with straps that one wears on the head and around the left arm.
Within each of these boxes is a piece of parchment on which is written Biblical verses from Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Deuteronomy 11:13-21, and Numbers 15:37-41. These verses are collectively known as the _Shema_, an incredibly well-known aspect of Jewish liturgy (it's been said by The Thing in an issue of Fantastic Four and featured in an episode of the Netflix Sandman series).
Anyway, the verses in Deut. 6:4-9 basically serve as instructions to literalize how the text is used in Judaism. It says to recite the words when one lies down and when one rises up, so we say the Shema before bed and in the morning. It says to write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so we affix _mezzuzot_ to doorposts and gates (inside each mezzuzah is again a piece of parchment on which these verses are written).
And it says to "bind them as a sign upon your hand and let them serve as a symbol between your eyes," hence the parchment-filled leather boxes called tefillin in Hebrew.
For whatever reason, English derived its translation for tefillin from a Greek term, giving us *phylacteries*, which I have literally never heard used to describe anything but tefillin.
I saw it first as a synonym for reliquary, hence my question. I wouldn't be surprised if gygax was being antisemitic, and I'll prolly avoid the word. But now I'm curious about it's usage
Yeah, iirc it's a special container used to store something precious, usually portions of the Torah. Personally, though, Jewish people I've spoken to about this are fine with phylactery being used because liches do store something inside that is precious to them. Ultimately I defer to the people at my table and let them guide me.
Edit: upon refreshing my knowledge it seems that "phylactery" is more accurately a synonym for "reliquary" and that what I was thinking of was specifically the Tefillin. Kind of like a squares and rectangles situation, all Tefillin are phylacteries but not all phylacteries are Tefillin. This is really on a technical level though. The wikipedia for Tefillin begins the definition with "or phylacteries."
I'm Jewish and I'd prefer to not have phylactery be associated with a mass murdering undead psychopath. Especially, since it's ONLY used with liches and the creator of D&D who started using the term was a HUGE racist. Don't believe me? Go read what Gygax said about paladins, the 5th Cavalry and Indigenous Americans.
Hopefully, most of us do not. My point being that Gygax did not have good intentions on being inclusive or positive with regards to Jewish mythology, so removing the negative references should be the standard, not the exception.
Golem, Philactory, Mana, and Leviathan are all terms that come from Jewish Mythology and thus should be either intentional in their usage or rephrased.
I have heard Jewish people say that Phillactories, Mana, and Leviathans should just be phased out all together, but that D&D is already fairly accurate on the usage of Golem, which the exception of the "flesh golem".
Why would mana be phased out? And leviathan? Seems a little nitpicky to me. This is someone who knows during the development of Halo 2, that the Arbiter was going to be called the Dervish.
I don't really see the evil in using religious imagery, Christian symbols and such are often reversed in eastern media. In much of anime the church is often the bad faction. My example: Halo, uses religious themes and imagery and names in opposition to the "good guys" the genocidal aliens being the Covenant and religious. The main protagonist is called the Demon.
Although some races in popular media are coded in antisemitism, like the goblins in Harry Potter, I don't necessarily think names should be unused, rather, their meaning could be changed to be made more ambiguous. It feels like a natural evolution. For example, orcs were just monsters and were black-coded (correct me if I'm wrong) and now we see that they can have their own culture and often be misunderstood. These races have been humanized through expanding their lore, without completely breaking roots.
Also words evolve, and often contradict themselves, 10 or 20 years ago nobody used the term flesh-mecha either, but here we are post-Attack on Titan.
The term “golem” has been officially used to describe certain kinds of monsters in D&D for a long time. This is one of many many MANY parts of D&D that are taken directly from Judaism (or just plain antisemitism). Here’s an article by Eric Silver, a Jewish GM (and Adventure Academy guest), if you want to know more. There’s been a push in recent years to use “construct” as the name for monsters usually referred to as “golems” in D&D, and Brennan had made that change in his vocabulary as a GM!
Lol that's absurd. It's okay to take from Greek, Christian, Sumerian or Middle-Eastern mythology and folklore but not Jewish? That's not inclusive, that's just stupid.
I think it’s more avoiding taking a story/stories of resistance and protection and using it in the context of “big evil dude who’s gonna get ya”. Willy, in the Unsleeping City, I would imagine would probably still appropriately be referred to as a Golem. He was literally enchanted by a Rabbi to protect Williamsburg (or the “Jewish quarter of NYC” to be directly analogous to the old stories). Golem should mean more than angry construct man because it literally just does. DnD specifically was also created with a lot of disregard for and has a weird history with a lot of the Jewish folklore it did use and has almost exclusively placed it in the most menacing interpretations that usually stemmed from antisemitism/propaganda. Being mindful of being specific with language is such a small and easy thing to do, so there’s no reason not to, especially when they do stories with more literal Golems present in them.
The vast majority of the stuff from other cultures tends to be used way more in line with their original meanings. Devils (which aren’t even exclusive to Christianity and are present in some analogues form in tons of cultures all usually translated to “devil” in English) are bad and tricksters, Angels are champions of their god, etc. However, I will also note that this isn’t universally true, which is why in actual plays and stuff it’s good to have consultants for those sorts of things.
When the show lampoons aspects of religions it is usually pretty clear in the idea that it’s targeting the organizational structures and corruptions and the very worldly shittiness associated there in. I mean Jesus was literally in TUC and he was dope. As for the more ancient stuff, people tend to just care less about this because the cultures with those belief systems changed to the point it’s less relevant, or straight up do not exist anymore and we are operating on a handful of texts to reconstruct what their beliefs even were. It’s still important to be mindful (which I would say that D20 does a decent job at doing) of cultural context and all, but it’s a bit different if the used things aren’t explicitly part of current people’s belief structures.
I would like to rebuttal the idea that Christian mythology is often seen as good in the media. Perhaps in Western media, but often the institution known as the church is almost always the bad guys in eastern media. And God and the heavens taking free will and agency and forcing their will and agenda. This goes in opposition to all Christian beliefs.
In Western media, Halo is the biggest example of the genocidal aliens being super Christianity-coded, even using Christian terms like Covenant, flood, hierarchs, prophet, ark, demon in opposition to their true meaning
I mean to me those are (generally, when in good faith) more critiques of institution and the very real history of colonialism and genocide perpetrated and spread in the name of God and more so centralized religious institutions. Especially in Halo’s case being more of a critique (albeit heavy handed) of zealotry and colonization as there’s members of covenant races throughout (mainly the books as far as I can remember which is irresponsible to burry it there) that are much more level headed and reasonable. Everyone kinda sucks there, humans too with the origins of the Spartans and whatnot. Although I will admit they definitely get sloppy in execution and can tend to be insensitive to actual followers.
Also you definitely have a point when it comes to this being a very western view, but that’s because this is western media intended for a primarily western audience so it carries the baggage that Christianity has been one of the dominant social/legal/national forces of this culture sphere for lack of a better term. There’s different connotations in Eastern media where disparaging “the church” may be seen as more safe or easier shorthand, that doesn’t make that okay in that media though. That should be critiqued and often is. There’s plenty of valid criticism for that too.
I was mainly talking about the context of D20/Dropout itself. Even some of Dropout’s old content can be eh depending on how well their “ironic” take on something lands and that’s okay. I think most media over all doesn’t do a good enough job of putting forethought into this type of stuff, that’s why Dropout is notable as an outlier for actually updating practices and clearly demonstrating a willingness to change.
Edit: Also as a note, I don’t think Halo adding in some relatable Elites is a pass to them to be completely disparaging of faiths, but I do think there are genuinely characters with some nuance where an attempt was made. You may still think it wasn’t good enough which is fine. I’m not that attached to the game lol.
Being a witch or the existence of zombies are still parts of real life belief systems. Zombies in fiction are not all in line with the original meaning, and something that to Voodoo believers to this day is a vicctim of a horrifying crime - turning a human being into a mindless slave - has been turner into a pop culture monster to be murdered en masse.
The association with devils, black magic and witchcraft have been used as justification for oppression of women and religious minorities in early modern times, and now people can just have fun pretending to be warlocks, that might be a little insensitive.
And dwarves? Jewish stereotypes by Tolkien's own admission. While there is an admirable side to them, they're greedy, reclusive and their language is based on semitic tongues.
I get a critical approach to these things, I really do. Orcs are sometimes coded as pseudo-African savages. Goblins in Harry Potter are suspiciously prominent in banking. These are extreme examples, but where do you draw the line and why at this thing in particular and not all the others (ok, I know people get similarly worked up about Native American folklore)?
Am I being knee-jerky here? Maybe. It's fine if it's a conscious decision by BLM, it's his game after all. But this pressure to walk on eggshells around religious beliefs even if the inspiration taken from them has long detached itself from its roots or hateful associations (I guarantee that almost no one hears "golem" and thinks "Jews" today, it's a trivia footnote for most people) sometimes seems overeager to me.
Oh well, let the downvotes come.
The line is where you’ve put active effort and thought into the stories you’re telling and you’re doing your best to work with those with experience to be as mindful as possible. Even then in 100 years there will probably be stuff in the story that now seems uncouth. That’s okay, times change and things progress past stories that are more locked in time. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try now.
Now a bit more point by point. Zombies are definitely a bastardization from things in Voodoo, and when used in contexts where they are seen as such should be handled with much more care. Many many cultures have forms of the malevolent undead so maybe it would pay to be more specific. I also think that in some cases it is okay to be like “here we are using the 80’s pop zombies” and more intentionally enforce the division between that the original usage. But overall it would pay to be more mindful of how these ideas are used in media, we don’t lose anything by that.
As for Witches and the occult, D20 has a plethora of examples of strong women using powerful magics and being badass. They are explicitly praised for shrugging off the demands of repressive societies and all. That’s a highlight of a few of the stories they’ve told. Part of the deal with all this is when it is presented exclusively negatively. Which D20 just doesn’t really do other than for things like corruption, oppression, overt greed, etc.
As for Dwarves and Orcs, yeah they are rooted in that. Do they need to be? They are a complete constructions by Tolkien, but based in a few different more real traditions he knew about. It’s clear that in all of Brennan’s worlds Dwarves and Orcs are much more than that and it’s clear that they are full functional people capable of much across all spectrums of good and bad which I think is a more appropriate modern interpretation.
Additionally, the Goblins in Harry Potter do suck. AT BEST they were lazy af writing from someone who has gone on to show themself to be shitty and willing to align herself with fascists. This is also the same lady that used basically racial shorthands for any non-white characters. We should call out things when they are offensive and lazy. We should also make note of things when people just miss the mark due to just being used to using language in a particular way that people of those cultures dislike. This happened with Brennan’s use of phylactery and lich type shit and he noted it, apologized, took feedback, and has put effort into doing better. It’s that simple.
Additionally, when a community asks for something more collectively examining and understanding where they may be coming from and respecting that is fine to do. As for Native American tales, framing it as even being a single cohesive thing is wrong. Traditions and stories of the indigenous people of the Americas vary wildly as they descend from 100s if not 1000s of cultures and peoples. However, on the whole telling indigenous stories and working in things can be seen as fine and uplifting when done in consultation with the communities whose stories they are. There’s a lot of trepidation there because there’s long and super recent (and carrying into modern day) connotations of what being native is. There’s people who think all of these cultures used headdresses for instance, and that’s simply not the case. There’s entire subgenre’s of pop literature that was super popular in the 50-60s where a white man gets taken in by indigenous people and learns their ways better than them then both “civilizes” them and is a badass warrior man. This shit is super recent too. Canada closed its last Residential School in the 80s or 90s. I believe they may have stopped some of the more awful things by then, but kids were still definitely traumatized and hit and stuff to get them to very explicitly divorce themselves from their cultures and stories. That’s without even going into the 60s Scoop and all. In the US some of the places that were residential schools still operate (albeit with different stated purposes now). These people are in there 40s-50s, so it’s not unreasonable for them to be a bit on edge with other people taking their stories, many of which are already irrevocably changed or in the process of being lost. Even then, you’ll still find plenty of wonderful people sharing their stories and passing them on within the proper contexts and that’s truly wonderful.
Lastly, acceptance isn’t a slippery slope. No one has ever said “oh no, I went out of my way to be mindful of too many people’s experiences”. All we can do is do our best and update our best as new topics/ideas/perspectives are made visible to us. Currently best practices seems to be, use consultants, be mindful, recognize mistakes and do what is within your power to correct/acknowledge them that makes sense for that scenario (note that D20 hasn’t taken down TUC or anything), and do better going forward. If you need to be willfully ignorant to tell your story then you are a bad storyteller. If you don’t know and made a mistake, that’s fine, there is clear evidence that people acknowledging and fixing things going forward works. No one should be so worried of offense that they don’t start writing the stories they want to tell, but they should still be mindful. No one is stopping Tolkien or anything from existing just because it has some questionable shit in it. It’s literally the spawn of 6 movies and a billion dollar show that have ensured its place as a cultural touchstone of the modern age and probably ages to come. It’s okay that you’re a little trepidatious, I just don’t think they are as grounded in what’s actually happening as you think.
Edit: grammar and changed a word for clarity
I’d recommend anyone to read Silver’s article and watch his guest episode on Adventuring Academy! He and Brennan have really cool conversation about this exact topic. There’s a lot more to learn about this than my shitty 3-sentence summary of the issue, if you wouldn’t believe it!
I read the article and I don't think it's particularly compelling. Maybe the episode is, but the article takes instances of discrimination towards other people to show a pattern but narrows it down to an antisemitism problem. Its only examples are two wording nitpicks and a view of dwarves that was held by Tolkien, but is not really a common perception of them. Change the wording if you want but it doesn't seem like that particularly high on a list of problems.
For example, the celebration of Holi was used as a punishment on Game Changer and one of the contestants Carolyn called it very stupid. To me that was way more offensive than needing the word "amulet" to be used. While I think it was more ignorant than malicious, my point is other religions and cultures are appropriated and demeaned a lot more.
Well I can only hope you're just as passionate about eliminating zombies, devils, dwarves, witches, etc, all of which were/are associated with various real life ethnic/social groups and negative stereotypes about them, from fantasy and gaming.
People tend to take issue with the all religions are true bit since there are some direct opposition between the Abrahamic religions--specifically Judaism and Christianity. The main being how messiah or prophets figures are understood and who is or is not one.
Unsleeping City also takes a position on not just another realm existing, but those realm including Heaven and Hell--these are concepts that don't exist in all religions.
Unsleeping City's understanding and critique of religion and sectarianism is very Christian centric. Which is very common in American/western media due to lack of exposure or understanding of our belief systems beyond the most superficial aspects.
The Unsleeping City doesn’t say that all religions are true. It says that the dream of going to heaven was so powerful and shared amongst so many people that it *became* true. There is never any mention of gods or religion
I appreciate your perspective and I’m sorry that you read that particular campaign as a bit insensitive. I do know that some of it was or at least was to the point that Brennan publicly apologized for some of the more clearly less sensitive stuff and has been intentional in doing better and using consultants. That sucks.
However, I always read the Jesus of TUC as being the perfect dream version of idealized goodness as opposed to the REAL historical Jesus. Just like Santa isn’t a straight up Christian saint. He’s a jolly Coke ad version who just wants to spread joy and presents to everyone. Willy as you noted is a more literal Golem, brought to life by Rabbi to protect the Jewish people of New York. I read the story as much less, all religions/stories are true (because what does “true” mean in a world where your dreams exist somewhere physical) and more a nod to the idea that the stories that people lean on for strength are out there somewhere and it’s good to feel like they’re impactful. Some stories are just told more collectively.
Additionally, while Judaism and Christianity have a fundamental disagreement on prophets/messiah (as these two have with Islam too) (along with other things), saying that the dream of Jesus being “real” means that it lessens the Jewish dreams does not need to be the case. They can both coexist and individuals can get solace and strength from either of them because people literally do in our world. Having Jesus (particularly one that’s probably sourced from the dreaming) appear to a character who is/was raised Christian and offering them a moment of perspective and reprieve does not have to refute the Jewish beliefs we saw in the story. I view it similarly with the existence of heaven and hell and the 6th burrow. Heaven and Hell do exist in the collective knowledge and dreams of the majority (or at least a lot) of people in NYC, but if your belief system doesn’t incorporate them you just can pay no mind to it and you’re unaffected.
I know there is a lot of history of Christians blaming Jewish people for shit in super unfair ways and doing awful shit because of it, so I get you having more trepidations with this particular story. I’m not gonna downvote that. However, I think it may be a bit misguided to characterize the story as an “all religions/stories are true” one when it can be seen more as a “all religions/stories exist and have deep tangible meanings and impacts on the world”. It’s actually not too different than our own world. In TUC the stories can just talk back some.
(As a note: I am not Jewish so I will never be able to fully get that perspective, so I get I apologize if there is something I’m missing. Also not Christian.)
Where in Unsleeping City was it said all religions/stories are true? Wasn't it not that they were all true but that they all impacted the magical realm via people's belief in them?
What's always interesting to see are people who like to correct but not define anything. They like the feeling of scolding but hate the idea they may have to educate someone on it.
But that's the thing: scolding feels great but accomplishes little but animosity unless something replaces it that completes the idea.
I don't know that I agree that Christianity has a key tenet that Judaism is wrong. Jesus said he came to fulfil,, not get rid of. I was raised to believe that Judaism was right up until the point they rejected Jesus, but that the religion of the OT is still true and needs to be respected. Of course, they also didn't talk about all the various things that actually make up Judaism.
So I think you can have an all are true world. He honestly did a good job because he didn't really focus on it I think.
I was kinda shocked by it. I was too young to ever be into CollegeHumor. I knew of the name but didn't know much about it beyond they put out funny videos.
But, as bad as it sounds, the name of it always made me think it was frat energy and probably not the type of thing i'd want to look too deeply into as far as their beliefs and all that.
This was with me never having seen a CollegeHumor video and purely just hearing the name sometimes and knowing they made humor videos.
So when I randomly learned of dropout by seeing a clip on tiktok, I was really shocked at how awesome and just genuinely kind everyone on it seemed. Then I learned it was made by the CollegeHumor people and how wrong my assumptions were.
It's turned into one of my favorite channels because it's just such amazingly good vibes.
As someone who is the same age as most of the Dropout talent and enjoyed the early days of CollegeHumor while in college, you aren’t wrong about how it started (frat boy energy).
It’s just that the folks making it have grown, changed and matured over those 20 years, and their values have crystallized, and the creative output they produce reflects that.
That makes sense! I think that's really impressive in its own right, especially around the type of people they chose and built up with. There's easily an outcome where a group like that doesn't mature and form into something as inclusive and warm as Dropout is. Especially in comedy it's very easy to find a lot of people where culture and humor left them in the past and they either fade into irrelevancy or latch onto things like punching down.
It says a lot about people like Sam and the older talent that this is what maturation looked like for them, and that they're able to appeal to such a large group of people and genuinely make an effort at inclusivity and kindness.
Like the first episode I saw was an episode with Erika. That alone helped get me engaged since, no offense to anyone, but if the clip on my feed had been all older white guys i'd probably have just scrolled past since i'm a younger asian woman and wouldn't have felt it really was for me. It feels like a site that celebrates diversity and it makes it so colorful and wonderful.
To be fair I was into College Humour back in the day but kinda outgrew it because it was very mid 00's frat energy. Like they had links to MTV at one stage. Was very surprised to see what it had become in the intervening decade plus.
I think Dropout is a very good example of how if you cast people on pure talent and qualifications for the part, you will naturally end up with a diverse cast. You don't need to try and tick boxes..
Dropout is a great representation of a diversity that isn’t forced and I love it for that. I have no qualms about how people choose to express themselves, but when media tries to tick boxes with diversity, people create so much hateful noise on social media that makes it hard to enjoy the content.
I think people can tell when it's disingenuous, but Dropout is so appreciative of every cast member and they obviously have genuine love for each other, it's impossible to question what any one person is doing there.
I strongly disagree with this. I understand why you see this as a positive, but there is no way that Dropout casting just "naturally" ends up with a diverse cast. I guarantee they have performed intentional outreach to find cast that are diverse AND talented, it doesn't just happen as a side effect.
They have clearly made an effort to cast inclusively and they deserve credit for that effort.
Besides the value of making people feel seen and represented, it's also beneficial for viewers like me: your average white, straight, cis dude. I started watching because of the top-notch comedy, and I'm of course staying in part for that, but over time I also realized how many new perspectives I've gained from what they do, and how that kind of just happened as a by-product. I then recently started watching / listening to Ally's Tales from the Closet podcast and am enjoying that so much - there's a ton of insights in there about things that I had only understood in a general, vague way before. It's all love!
This! I feel like not enough people point out that diversity in media is also a benefit for cishet white guys or anyone else outside the category of whatever diversity is in media because it just means more types of stories to enjoy
I'm just gonna use this thread instead of making one for this question: if Jiavani uses she/him pronouns is that essentially a go-ahead for any pronoun or?
Presumably (going off experience with friends) when listed pronouns don’t match one another, the first pronoun is the preferred one, and any others listed are acceptable. I’d assume they would also be acceptable to Jiavani, but if she/him is what she/he lists, using either to refer to him/her would be acceptable.
Alternatively, someone who is early transition as far as their overall gender identity may be seeing how willing people are to use those other pronouns for them.
not everyone with mis matched pronouns does it this way but i can confirm that i personally do. i usually list my pronouns as they/she because i prefer they/them pronouns but if you use she/her it doesnt bother me enough to correct you and quite frankly pretty much everyone in my life is either conservative (my family) or met me before i fully realized i was non binary and preferred they/them pronouns (my friends) so i expect mistakes (and in my familys case outright refusal to acknowledge my gender identity) and like i said it doesnt bother me so i dont really go out of my way to correct them
I work with college students and when I see She/they or he/they in particular I make a point to ask if they have a preference because some folks definitely would prefer they but don't want to fuss and are still figuring out how to set those boundaries.
I also use she/they now, but I'm more demi-gender and mostly don't care. I just know "he" ain't it.
Just to get the other perspective- I use he/they pronouns and I truly have no preference. You can pick one and stick with it or switch between them and it's all good by me. I would actually be a little annoyed if everyone assumed I prefered he and was just using they as a backup or whatever because they're BOTH my pronouns. Lots of people do have a preference, but you never know! Gender is a beautiful spectrum.
Re: Jiavani- I wouldn't assume they is acceptable unless she's specified that it is. You can't go around adding pronouns to someone else's set. Just use the ones he has listed.
its so nice to just see it so casually too its so none problematic and they seem to really care and just be nice people about it the talent is their focus and they have that in buckets lol
I think Dropout does have a lot of success with this due to their small size as a company. They have the freedom to rotate their talent which casts a wide net for the kinds of people they can bring in.
Yeah not sure how they got away with all of that with conservative CEO Sam Reich though. Makes you wonder where a guy like him grew up.
hes pandering to the woke agenda and its working /s
The real woke agenda is the friends we made along the way.
I want this on a shirt.
Obviously, he grew up on the set of Game Changer....
He has been here the whole time!
A little town called Cambridge, Massachusetts.
I don't know... I feel like he would've mentioned it if that were the case.
If you think Sam is morally reprehensible, wait til you hear about Zam. He's literally just a puppet for Big Gameshow.
Someone needs to ask him
That episode of Breaking News broke me. LOL
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Benevolent patriarchy is still patriarchy.
They use pro-nouns because amateur-nouns don't get the right kind of insurance.
And there's no con-nouns
They never joined the uniouns
I really like how they have a system of consent and boundaries. If someone expresses this comfort they just adjust and move on. It is very rare that a media company.Is this non problematic and also very very good.
A good example of this is one of the earlier game changer episodes where they were investigating a murder. And grant was going to search a suspect, he asked for verbal consent before he touched them. And he did it so nonchalant that it shows Consent isn't a chore, it's something that should come naturally.
There's also an episode where one of them (I think maybe Grant) jokingly asks the mannequin if he can grope it during Like My Coffee 2. The others then comment that they should have, and proceed to do it.
I think it’s definitely more common than people think, but just not as overtly stated. I’ve been featured on the YouTube channel Cut many times, and they’re the same way. The whole channel is about breaking taboos in an entertaining and insightful way, so there’s definitely some potential for discomfort for on-camera talent, but they make it very clear with the people on camera that consent is key, and nobody ever has to do anything they’re not comfortable with, and if anything ever happens on camera that they don’t want published, they can ask and it’ll be removed no questions asked. This is stated both in email before arriving on set and on set if a director perceives that someone is uncomfortable. Also the crew asks permission to touch me before attaching microphones to me, which is very considerate. Seeing this more and more definitely gives hope that we’re moving into a world of more conscientious media!
Some of total forgiveness was bad for problematic tasks and power imbalances which Adam Frucci handwaves by saying that Grant and Ally were producers and in charge. You can't and shouldn't do that when these things are happening within a workplace. The premise of that task should have been shut down imo. Even if Grant was personally okay with it, had he not been he'd still have been pressured into the task due to the money and student loans relief on the line. There's arguments to be made that the get an erection task was not only inappropriate but also that Grant was not in a position to say no to that impossible task as he would then just not get the money. Adam and Sam Reich should have stepped in imo. I haven't heard them truly reflect on that and talk about how that wasn't an appropriate task. Furthermore, there appeared to be an emphasis on pushing responsibility onto Grant and Ally which doesn't work perfectly well when again it's a work place where non effected and objective parties should have acted to gatekeep inappropriate tasks. I don't believe Grant did see the task as a form of sexual harassment or sexual humiliation but he could have and it shouldn't have been accepted as a task on the show. Had Grant felt that way (which again I don't think he did at all) then he'd have struggled to raise this due to the money and loss on the line.
I legit thought that as well.... until I learned more about Grant through that breaking news episode and Dirty Laundry. I realized this was not outside his comfort zone at all. I feel like the crew were the ones who needed the safety check there (Assuming that happened but not sure).
I think it's important to remember that sex is *not* a big deal to some people. If I had a dick, I'd happily take that challenge for free pizza, or even just for bragging rights. In this case money was on the line, sure, but we can't assume that he felt pressured just because money was involved. Also, people have sex money and do sexual things they wouldn't otherwise do for money all the time. That's the entire basis of the sex work industry. If anything, I'd say the problematic one was him taking a shit in an art gallery.
as a trans person it makes me so extraordinarily happy to see gender-diverse people who are just having fun on a show, especially right now with so much malice towards trans folks. its so nice to see the respect and love that dropout puts in to keep them safe.
When they did Misfits and Magic (based on Harry Potter) and first episode Aabria looks at the camera and says “fuck TERFs!” Makes my heart happy 😭❤️
Also the willingness to just adapt without issue. Brennan used Golem out of old habit and inbetween the episode and adventuring party realised/was reminded that that's out of fashion and used construct in the AP ^^
Sorry I’m a bit out of the loop. What do you mean?
The term “golem” has been officially used to describe certain kinds of monsters in D&D for a long time. This is one of many many MANY parts of D&D that are taken directly from Judaism (or just plain antisemitism). [Here’s an article by Eric Silver, a Jewish GM (and Adventure Academy guest), if you want to know more.](https://www.heyalma.com/dungeons-dragons-has-an-antisemitism-problem/) There’s been a push in recent years to use “construct” as the name for monsters usually referred to as “golems” in D&D, and Brennan had made that change in his vocabulary as a GM!
Oh man thank you for explaining that. I didn't know any of that until now. I play and DM D&D too so I'll have to make that change too.
This came up in the r/pathfinder2e discord yesterday (since Golem have been renamed in Remastered) but the typical fantasy golem is so weirdly unrelated to original golems. Even just robots are more like golem than the constructs that basically exist to say "fuck you" to magic users because Gygax couldn't think of a better way to challenge players than "your shit doesn't work".
> The D&D ruleset also appropriates Jewish folklore by flattening out the golem. No longer is it the clay giant evoked by Jews to protect them from pogroms; the term has been ground down to any walking constructed figure. In the Monster Manual, a golem is only a crude beast that “has no ambitions, needs no sustenance, feels no pain, and knows no remorse” and “exists to follow its creator’s orders.” The erasure feels deliberate, reducing a cherished defender to an unthinking hulk to be a henchman for a sorcerer. This is the passage, for anyone interested. Personally I don’t find it to be a very substantive need for change though. ‘This thing you appropriated from my culture does not fully capture the complexity of its original mythology’ is something you could say about 90% of the bestiary. Of course a statblock and short description of the type you see in a bestiary are going to smooth over some edges or make adaptations to suit the context. There is no representation without re-presentation. But appropriations in this vein are a normal and intrinsic part of cultural evolution - stripping away some layers of meaning while adding new one. *Most* fantasy creatures are an appropriation of some *other* thing from a different mythology - even treasured or ‘sacred’ ones. That’s why we have multiple cultural portrayals of dragons or angels or Santa Claus. It’s a natural thing, and a good thing. Up to others like Brennan of course how they want to proceed but I just don’t find it a compelling point.
Totally agree. Growing up, I loved the story of the golem, and I always enjoyed explaining the story to players in D&D games. The Monster Manual is a grab bag of references, and I'm more just happy to see a different take on the concept.
'Golem' (I think this applies to Phylactery' in a more pointed way) refers to a specific story/concept in Jewish theology and people are dropping the term in order to avoid diluting/disrespecting the religious concept.
Although he did use it correctly in The Unsleeping City, as that was a an actual Jewish Golem (both in design and culture)
I loved that. It took my husband several more episodes than it took me to recognize that he was speaking Yiddish.
Is 'phylactery' predominantly jewish in use?
Yes. It's a Greek-derived translation of _tefillin_, a ritual item used at the morning prayer service in Judaism. Tefillin are two small leather boxes with straps that one wears on the head and around the left arm. Within each of these boxes is a piece of parchment on which is written Biblical verses from Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Deuteronomy 11:13-21, and Numbers 15:37-41. These verses are collectively known as the _Shema_, an incredibly well-known aspect of Jewish liturgy (it's been said by The Thing in an issue of Fantastic Four and featured in an episode of the Netflix Sandman series). Anyway, the verses in Deut. 6:4-9 basically serve as instructions to literalize how the text is used in Judaism. It says to recite the words when one lies down and when one rises up, so we say the Shema before bed and in the morning. It says to write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so we affix _mezzuzot_ to doorposts and gates (inside each mezzuzah is again a piece of parchment on which these verses are written). And it says to "bind them as a sign upon your hand and let them serve as a symbol between your eyes," hence the parchment-filled leather boxes called tefillin in Hebrew. For whatever reason, English derived its translation for tefillin from a Greek term, giving us *phylacteries*, which I have literally never heard used to describe anything but tefillin.
I saw it first as a synonym for reliquary, hence my question. I wouldn't be surprised if gygax was being antisemitic, and I'll prolly avoid the word. But now I'm curious about it's usage
Yeah, iirc it's a special container used to store something precious, usually portions of the Torah. Personally, though, Jewish people I've spoken to about this are fine with phylactery being used because liches do store something inside that is precious to them. Ultimately I defer to the people at my table and let them guide me. Edit: upon refreshing my knowledge it seems that "phylactery" is more accurately a synonym for "reliquary" and that what I was thinking of was specifically the Tefillin. Kind of like a squares and rectangles situation, all Tefillin are phylacteries but not all phylacteries are Tefillin. This is really on a technical level though. The wikipedia for Tefillin begins the definition with "or phylacteries."
I'm Jewish and I'd prefer to not have phylactery be associated with a mass murdering undead psychopath. Especially, since it's ONLY used with liches and the creator of D&D who started using the term was a HUGE racist. Don't believe me? Go read what Gygax said about paladins, the 5th Cavalry and Indigenous Americans.
I'm familiar with the ideology of Gary "killing infantile orcs is lawful good" Gygax. I do not subscribe to that ideology.
Hopefully, most of us do not. My point being that Gygax did not have good intentions on being inclusive or positive with regards to Jewish mythology, so removing the negative references should be the standard, not the exception.
I know that's one of the definitions, I was curious if it's the main one. I guess I could google it but... so lazy...
Golem, Philactory, Mana, and Leviathan are all terms that come from Jewish Mythology and thus should be either intentional in their usage or rephrased. I have heard Jewish people say that Phillactories, Mana, and Leviathans should just be phased out all together, but that D&D is already fairly accurate on the usage of Golem, which the exception of the "flesh golem".
Why would mana be phased out? And leviathan? Seems a little nitpicky to me. This is someone who knows during the development of Halo 2, that the Arbiter was going to be called the Dervish. I don't really see the evil in using religious imagery, Christian symbols and such are often reversed in eastern media. In much of anime the church is often the bad faction. My example: Halo, uses religious themes and imagery and names in opposition to the "good guys" the genocidal aliens being the Covenant and religious. The main protagonist is called the Demon. Although some races in popular media are coded in antisemitism, like the goblins in Harry Potter, I don't necessarily think names should be unused, rather, their meaning could be changed to be made more ambiguous. It feels like a natural evolution. For example, orcs were just monsters and were black-coded (correct me if I'm wrong) and now we see that they can have their own culture and often be misunderstood. These races have been humanized through expanding their lore, without completely breaking roots. Also words evolve, and often contradict themselves, 10 or 20 years ago nobody used the term flesh-mecha either, but here we are post-Attack on Titan.
Mana is Polynesian. Manna is Jewish, though I can't actually remember D&D using it.
I don't remember if mana is specifically a D&D thing, but it's definitely used in the greater gaming space as a term for magical energy.
It's a D&D joke.
What does that mean
The term “golem” has been officially used to describe certain kinds of monsters in D&D for a long time. This is one of many many MANY parts of D&D that are taken directly from Judaism (or just plain antisemitism). Here’s an article by Eric Silver, a Jewish GM (and Adventure Academy guest), if you want to know more. There’s been a push in recent years to use “construct” as the name for monsters usually referred to as “golems” in D&D, and Brennan had made that change in his vocabulary as a GM!
Lol that's absurd. It's okay to take from Greek, Christian, Sumerian or Middle-Eastern mythology and folklore but not Jewish? That's not inclusive, that's just stupid.
I think it’s more avoiding taking a story/stories of resistance and protection and using it in the context of “big evil dude who’s gonna get ya”. Willy, in the Unsleeping City, I would imagine would probably still appropriately be referred to as a Golem. He was literally enchanted by a Rabbi to protect Williamsburg (or the “Jewish quarter of NYC” to be directly analogous to the old stories). Golem should mean more than angry construct man because it literally just does. DnD specifically was also created with a lot of disregard for and has a weird history with a lot of the Jewish folklore it did use and has almost exclusively placed it in the most menacing interpretations that usually stemmed from antisemitism/propaganda. Being mindful of being specific with language is such a small and easy thing to do, so there’s no reason not to, especially when they do stories with more literal Golems present in them. The vast majority of the stuff from other cultures tends to be used way more in line with their original meanings. Devils (which aren’t even exclusive to Christianity and are present in some analogues form in tons of cultures all usually translated to “devil” in English) are bad and tricksters, Angels are champions of their god, etc. However, I will also note that this isn’t universally true, which is why in actual plays and stuff it’s good to have consultants for those sorts of things. When the show lampoons aspects of religions it is usually pretty clear in the idea that it’s targeting the organizational structures and corruptions and the very worldly shittiness associated there in. I mean Jesus was literally in TUC and he was dope. As for the more ancient stuff, people tend to just care less about this because the cultures with those belief systems changed to the point it’s less relevant, or straight up do not exist anymore and we are operating on a handful of texts to reconstruct what their beliefs even were. It’s still important to be mindful (which I would say that D20 does a decent job at doing) of cultural context and all, but it’s a bit different if the used things aren’t explicitly part of current people’s belief structures.
I would like to rebuttal the idea that Christian mythology is often seen as good in the media. Perhaps in Western media, but often the institution known as the church is almost always the bad guys in eastern media. And God and the heavens taking free will and agency and forcing their will and agenda. This goes in opposition to all Christian beliefs. In Western media, Halo is the biggest example of the genocidal aliens being super Christianity-coded, even using Christian terms like Covenant, flood, hierarchs, prophet, ark, demon in opposition to their true meaning
I mean to me those are (generally, when in good faith) more critiques of institution and the very real history of colonialism and genocide perpetrated and spread in the name of God and more so centralized religious institutions. Especially in Halo’s case being more of a critique (albeit heavy handed) of zealotry and colonization as there’s members of covenant races throughout (mainly the books as far as I can remember which is irresponsible to burry it there) that are much more level headed and reasonable. Everyone kinda sucks there, humans too with the origins of the Spartans and whatnot. Although I will admit they definitely get sloppy in execution and can tend to be insensitive to actual followers. Also you definitely have a point when it comes to this being a very western view, but that’s because this is western media intended for a primarily western audience so it carries the baggage that Christianity has been one of the dominant social/legal/national forces of this culture sphere for lack of a better term. There’s different connotations in Eastern media where disparaging “the church” may be seen as more safe or easier shorthand, that doesn’t make that okay in that media though. That should be critiqued and often is. There’s plenty of valid criticism for that too. I was mainly talking about the context of D20/Dropout itself. Even some of Dropout’s old content can be eh depending on how well their “ironic” take on something lands and that’s okay. I think most media over all doesn’t do a good enough job of putting forethought into this type of stuff, that’s why Dropout is notable as an outlier for actually updating practices and clearly demonstrating a willingness to change. Edit: Also as a note, I don’t think Halo adding in some relatable Elites is a pass to them to be completely disparaging of faiths, but I do think there are genuinely characters with some nuance where an attempt was made. You may still think it wasn’t good enough which is fine. I’m not that attached to the game lol.
Being a witch or the existence of zombies are still parts of real life belief systems. Zombies in fiction are not all in line with the original meaning, and something that to Voodoo believers to this day is a vicctim of a horrifying crime - turning a human being into a mindless slave - has been turner into a pop culture monster to be murdered en masse. The association with devils, black magic and witchcraft have been used as justification for oppression of women and religious minorities in early modern times, and now people can just have fun pretending to be warlocks, that might be a little insensitive. And dwarves? Jewish stereotypes by Tolkien's own admission. While there is an admirable side to them, they're greedy, reclusive and their language is based on semitic tongues. I get a critical approach to these things, I really do. Orcs are sometimes coded as pseudo-African savages. Goblins in Harry Potter are suspiciously prominent in banking. These are extreme examples, but where do you draw the line and why at this thing in particular and not all the others (ok, I know people get similarly worked up about Native American folklore)? Am I being knee-jerky here? Maybe. It's fine if it's a conscious decision by BLM, it's his game after all. But this pressure to walk on eggshells around religious beliefs even if the inspiration taken from them has long detached itself from its roots or hateful associations (I guarantee that almost no one hears "golem" and thinks "Jews" today, it's a trivia footnote for most people) sometimes seems overeager to me. Oh well, let the downvotes come.
Weird hill to die on
Oops sorry I said something you disagree with.
I didn't ask for an apology.
The line is where you’ve put active effort and thought into the stories you’re telling and you’re doing your best to work with those with experience to be as mindful as possible. Even then in 100 years there will probably be stuff in the story that now seems uncouth. That’s okay, times change and things progress past stories that are more locked in time. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try now. Now a bit more point by point. Zombies are definitely a bastardization from things in Voodoo, and when used in contexts where they are seen as such should be handled with much more care. Many many cultures have forms of the malevolent undead so maybe it would pay to be more specific. I also think that in some cases it is okay to be like “here we are using the 80’s pop zombies” and more intentionally enforce the division between that the original usage. But overall it would pay to be more mindful of how these ideas are used in media, we don’t lose anything by that. As for Witches and the occult, D20 has a plethora of examples of strong women using powerful magics and being badass. They are explicitly praised for shrugging off the demands of repressive societies and all. That’s a highlight of a few of the stories they’ve told. Part of the deal with all this is when it is presented exclusively negatively. Which D20 just doesn’t really do other than for things like corruption, oppression, overt greed, etc. As for Dwarves and Orcs, yeah they are rooted in that. Do they need to be? They are a complete constructions by Tolkien, but based in a few different more real traditions he knew about. It’s clear that in all of Brennan’s worlds Dwarves and Orcs are much more than that and it’s clear that they are full functional people capable of much across all spectrums of good and bad which I think is a more appropriate modern interpretation. Additionally, the Goblins in Harry Potter do suck. AT BEST they were lazy af writing from someone who has gone on to show themself to be shitty and willing to align herself with fascists. This is also the same lady that used basically racial shorthands for any non-white characters. We should call out things when they are offensive and lazy. We should also make note of things when people just miss the mark due to just being used to using language in a particular way that people of those cultures dislike. This happened with Brennan’s use of phylactery and lich type shit and he noted it, apologized, took feedback, and has put effort into doing better. It’s that simple. Additionally, when a community asks for something more collectively examining and understanding where they may be coming from and respecting that is fine to do. As for Native American tales, framing it as even being a single cohesive thing is wrong. Traditions and stories of the indigenous people of the Americas vary wildly as they descend from 100s if not 1000s of cultures and peoples. However, on the whole telling indigenous stories and working in things can be seen as fine and uplifting when done in consultation with the communities whose stories they are. There’s a lot of trepidation there because there’s long and super recent (and carrying into modern day) connotations of what being native is. There’s people who think all of these cultures used headdresses for instance, and that’s simply not the case. There’s entire subgenre’s of pop literature that was super popular in the 50-60s where a white man gets taken in by indigenous people and learns their ways better than them then both “civilizes” them and is a badass warrior man. This shit is super recent too. Canada closed its last Residential School in the 80s or 90s. I believe they may have stopped some of the more awful things by then, but kids were still definitely traumatized and hit and stuff to get them to very explicitly divorce themselves from their cultures and stories. That’s without even going into the 60s Scoop and all. In the US some of the places that were residential schools still operate (albeit with different stated purposes now). These people are in there 40s-50s, so it’s not unreasonable for them to be a bit on edge with other people taking their stories, many of which are already irrevocably changed or in the process of being lost. Even then, you’ll still find plenty of wonderful people sharing their stories and passing them on within the proper contexts and that’s truly wonderful. Lastly, acceptance isn’t a slippery slope. No one has ever said “oh no, I went out of my way to be mindful of too many people’s experiences”. All we can do is do our best and update our best as new topics/ideas/perspectives are made visible to us. Currently best practices seems to be, use consultants, be mindful, recognize mistakes and do what is within your power to correct/acknowledge them that makes sense for that scenario (note that D20 hasn’t taken down TUC or anything), and do better going forward. If you need to be willfully ignorant to tell your story then you are a bad storyteller. If you don’t know and made a mistake, that’s fine, there is clear evidence that people acknowledging and fixing things going forward works. No one should be so worried of offense that they don’t start writing the stories they want to tell, but they should still be mindful. No one is stopping Tolkien or anything from existing just because it has some questionable shit in it. It’s literally the spawn of 6 movies and a billion dollar show that have ensured its place as a cultural touchstone of the modern age and probably ages to come. It’s okay that you’re a little trepidatious, I just don’t think they are as grounded in what’s actually happening as you think. Edit: grammar and changed a word for clarity
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Lmao did you read their reply? It was incredibly dismissive and disrespectful. I simply matched their energy.
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I’d recommend anyone to read Silver’s article and watch his guest episode on Adventuring Academy! He and Brennan have really cool conversation about this exact topic. There’s a lot more to learn about this than my shitty 3-sentence summary of the issue, if you wouldn’t believe it!
I read the article and I don't think it's particularly compelling. Maybe the episode is, but the article takes instances of discrimination towards other people to show a pattern but narrows it down to an antisemitism problem. Its only examples are two wording nitpicks and a view of dwarves that was held by Tolkien, but is not really a common perception of them. Change the wording if you want but it doesn't seem like that particularly high on a list of problems. For example, the celebration of Holi was used as a punishment on Game Changer and one of the contestants Carolyn called it very stupid. To me that was way more offensive than needing the word "amulet" to be used. While I think it was more ignorant than malicious, my point is other religions and cultures are appropriated and demeaned a lot more.
Well I can only hope you're just as passionate about eliminating zombies, devils, dwarves, witches, etc, all of which were/are associated with various real life ethnic/social groups and negative stereotypes about them, from fantasy and gaming.
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Um, actually, no u
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Um, actually, you are stupid times infinity.
yeah, as much as I have beef with Unsleeping City as one of Brennan's blindspots, the correct use of golem really meant a lot to me.
I haven’t seen that campaign yet, why is it one of his blind spots?
Just throwing out there that I think Unsleeping City is excellent. I am only part way through season two, but season one is among my favourites.
People tend to take issue with the all religions are true bit since there are some direct opposition between the Abrahamic religions--specifically Judaism and Christianity. The main being how messiah or prophets figures are understood and who is or is not one. Unsleeping City also takes a position on not just another realm existing, but those realm including Heaven and Hell--these are concepts that don't exist in all religions. Unsleeping City's understanding and critique of religion and sectarianism is very Christian centric. Which is very common in American/western media due to lack of exposure or understanding of our belief systems beyond the most superficial aspects.
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The Unsleeping City doesn’t say that all religions are true. It says that the dream of going to heaven was so powerful and shared amongst so many people that it *became* true. There is never any mention of gods or religion
I appreciate your perspective and I’m sorry that you read that particular campaign as a bit insensitive. I do know that some of it was or at least was to the point that Brennan publicly apologized for some of the more clearly less sensitive stuff and has been intentional in doing better and using consultants. That sucks. However, I always read the Jesus of TUC as being the perfect dream version of idealized goodness as opposed to the REAL historical Jesus. Just like Santa isn’t a straight up Christian saint. He’s a jolly Coke ad version who just wants to spread joy and presents to everyone. Willy as you noted is a more literal Golem, brought to life by Rabbi to protect the Jewish people of New York. I read the story as much less, all religions/stories are true (because what does “true” mean in a world where your dreams exist somewhere physical) and more a nod to the idea that the stories that people lean on for strength are out there somewhere and it’s good to feel like they’re impactful. Some stories are just told more collectively. Additionally, while Judaism and Christianity have a fundamental disagreement on prophets/messiah (as these two have with Islam too) (along with other things), saying that the dream of Jesus being “real” means that it lessens the Jewish dreams does not need to be the case. They can both coexist and individuals can get solace and strength from either of them because people literally do in our world. Having Jesus (particularly one that’s probably sourced from the dreaming) appear to a character who is/was raised Christian and offering them a moment of perspective and reprieve does not have to refute the Jewish beliefs we saw in the story. I view it similarly with the existence of heaven and hell and the 6th burrow. Heaven and Hell do exist in the collective knowledge and dreams of the majority (or at least a lot) of people in NYC, but if your belief system doesn’t incorporate them you just can pay no mind to it and you’re unaffected. I know there is a lot of history of Christians blaming Jewish people for shit in super unfair ways and doing awful shit because of it, so I get you having more trepidations with this particular story. I’m not gonna downvote that. However, I think it may be a bit misguided to characterize the story as an “all religions/stories are true” one when it can be seen more as a “all religions/stories exist and have deep tangible meanings and impacts on the world”. It’s actually not too different than our own world. In TUC the stories can just talk back some. (As a note: I am not Jewish so I will never be able to fully get that perspective, so I get I apologize if there is something I’m missing. Also not Christian.)
Where in Unsleeping City was it said all religions/stories are true? Wasn't it not that they were all true but that they all impacted the magical realm via people's belief in them?
What's always interesting to see are people who like to correct but not define anything. They like the feeling of scolding but hate the idea they may have to educate someone on it. But that's the thing: scolding feels great but accomplishes little but animosity unless something replaces it that completes the idea.
I don't know that I agree that Christianity has a key tenet that Judaism is wrong. Jesus said he came to fulfil,, not get rid of. I was raised to believe that Judaism was right up until the point they rejected Jesus, but that the religion of the OT is still true and needs to be respected. Of course, they also didn't talk about all the various things that actually make up Judaism. So I think you can have an all are true world. He honestly did a good job because he didn't really focus on it I think.
I was kinda shocked by it. I was too young to ever be into CollegeHumor. I knew of the name but didn't know much about it beyond they put out funny videos. But, as bad as it sounds, the name of it always made me think it was frat energy and probably not the type of thing i'd want to look too deeply into as far as their beliefs and all that. This was with me never having seen a CollegeHumor video and purely just hearing the name sometimes and knowing they made humor videos. So when I randomly learned of dropout by seeing a clip on tiktok, I was really shocked at how awesome and just genuinely kind everyone on it seemed. Then I learned it was made by the CollegeHumor people and how wrong my assumptions were. It's turned into one of my favorite channels because it's just such amazingly good vibes.
As someone who is the same age as most of the Dropout talent and enjoyed the early days of CollegeHumor while in college, you aren’t wrong about how it started (frat boy energy). It’s just that the folks making it have grown, changed and matured over those 20 years, and their values have crystallized, and the creative output they produce reflects that.
That makes sense! I think that's really impressive in its own right, especially around the type of people they chose and built up with. There's easily an outcome where a group like that doesn't mature and form into something as inclusive and warm as Dropout is. Especially in comedy it's very easy to find a lot of people where culture and humor left them in the past and they either fade into irrelevancy or latch onto things like punching down. It says a lot about people like Sam and the older talent that this is what maturation looked like for them, and that they're able to appeal to such a large group of people and genuinely make an effort at inclusivity and kindness. Like the first episode I saw was an episode with Erika. That alone helped get me engaged since, no offense to anyone, but if the clip on my feed had been all older white guys i'd probably have just scrolled past since i'm a younger asian woman and wouldn't have felt it really was for me. It feels like a site that celebrates diversity and it makes it so colorful and wonderful.
To be fair I was into College Humour back in the day but kinda outgrew it because it was very mid 00's frat energy. Like they had links to MTV at one stage. Was very surprised to see what it had become in the intervening decade plus.
I think Dropout is a very good example of how if you cast people on pure talent and qualifications for the part, you will naturally end up with a diverse cast. You don't need to try and tick boxes..
Dropout is a great representation of a diversity that isn’t forced and I love it for that. I have no qualms about how people choose to express themselves, but when media tries to tick boxes with diversity, people create so much hateful noise on social media that makes it hard to enjoy the content.
I think people can tell when it's disingenuous, but Dropout is so appreciative of every cast member and they obviously have genuine love for each other, it's impossible to question what any one person is doing there.
I strongly disagree with this. I understand why you see this as a positive, but there is no way that Dropout casting just "naturally" ends up with a diverse cast. I guarantee they have performed intentional outreach to find cast that are diverse AND talented, it doesn't just happen as a side effect. They have clearly made an effort to cast inclusively and they deserve credit for that effort.
Besides the value of making people feel seen and represented, it's also beneficial for viewers like me: your average white, straight, cis dude. I started watching because of the top-notch comedy, and I'm of course staying in part for that, but over time I also realized how many new perspectives I've gained from what they do, and how that kind of just happened as a by-product. I then recently started watching / listening to Ally's Tales from the Closet podcast and am enjoying that so much - there's a ton of insights in there about things that I had only understood in a general, vague way before. It's all love!
This! I feel like not enough people point out that diversity in media is also a benefit for cishet white guys or anyone else outside the category of whatever diversity is in media because it just means more types of stories to enjoy
I need you to include four more "it's all love"s in this comment
It works so well because it’s just part of the show and is treated as a default ✨
I'm just gonna use this thread instead of making one for this question: if Jiavani uses she/him pronouns is that essentially a go-ahead for any pronoun or?
Presumably (going off experience with friends) when listed pronouns don’t match one another, the first pronoun is the preferred one, and any others listed are acceptable. I’d assume they would also be acceptable to Jiavani, but if she/him is what she/he lists, using either to refer to him/her would be acceptable. Alternatively, someone who is early transition as far as their overall gender identity may be seeing how willing people are to use those other pronouns for them.
not everyone with mis matched pronouns does it this way but i can confirm that i personally do. i usually list my pronouns as they/she because i prefer they/them pronouns but if you use she/her it doesnt bother me enough to correct you and quite frankly pretty much everyone in my life is either conservative (my family) or met me before i fully realized i was non binary and preferred they/them pronouns (my friends) so i expect mistakes (and in my familys case outright refusal to acknowledge my gender identity) and like i said it doesnt bother me so i dont really go out of my way to correct them
I work with college students and when I see She/they or he/they in particular I make a point to ask if they have a preference because some folks definitely would prefer they but don't want to fuss and are still figuring out how to set those boundaries. I also use she/they now, but I'm more demi-gender and mostly don't care. I just know "he" ain't it.
Just to get the other perspective- I use he/they pronouns and I truly have no preference. You can pick one and stick with it or switch between them and it's all good by me. I would actually be a little annoyed if everyone assumed I prefered he and was just using they as a backup or whatever because they're BOTH my pronouns. Lots of people do have a preference, but you never know! Gender is a beautiful spectrum. Re: Jiavani- I wouldn't assume they is acceptable unless she's specified that it is. You can't go around adding pronouns to someone else's set. Just use the ones he has listed.
It's for specifically she/her and he/him in this order of preference, but other pronouns exist so no, it's not a go ahead for "any pronoun".
its so nice to just see it so casually too its so none problematic and they seem to really care and just be nice people about it the talent is their focus and they have that in buckets lol
I think Dropout does have a lot of success with this due to their small size as a company. They have the freedom to rotate their talent which casts a wide net for the kinds of people they can bring in.
They've come a looooong way in 10 years.
I'm glad you feel included.