Which really isn’t any better an interpretation of the article than “context doesn’t matter”. The article doesn’t need re-interpreting to telegraph it’s point. Which, again, is “Cyberpunk 2077’s in-game context doesn’t matter if its marketing contributes to transphobia right now” which is the title of the article and is written in response to other writing highlighting that imagery and the reaction to it and the common defense of it.
I’m perfectly okay with people disagreeing with the arguments the article makes, I just don’t really see why doing so necessitates distilling the simple premise of it into a pithy statement that is disingenuous with what it actually states.
Personally, discussions around representation of under-represented demographics in video games is something I find interesting. I’m not trans, so my initial reaction was to consider this something inclusive. I find conflicting views, like the RPS article, to be pretty interesting, since they’re from such a different perspective than my own.
And is treating trans people like everyone else (oversexualized and made into objects by corporations) really all that transphobic?
If anything it seems kind of inclusive in a strange way.
I mean they could have easily just not had any trans people whatsoever like 99.95% of games and no one would’ve said anything.
Except that this is not the premise the author made:
Seriously, disgree with what it says. (For the record, I do.) Dismissing it by spouting a pithy soundbyte straw argument that you can sneer at is surely what the internet is good at, but it’s not a real discussion of anything and does no favors to constructive discourse.
That’s kind of my takeaway. It’s a dystopian future where pretty much everyone that’s not ultra-rich is being exploited, and trans folks are getting exploited right alongside everyone else. It’s a very dark comment, but not at the expense of trans folks.
Yes, everyone should think the same 100% of the time and noone should ever question the authority figures of your moral cause. Anyone who does is clearly in league with the reactionaries and should be condemned. A true utopia will only happen when we all agree on everything; dissent cannot be tolerated.
The number of mainstream movies, with marketing, is probably larger than the number of mainstream games with comparable marketing (where comparisons are possible). Movies have a long head start on games, in terms of cultural awareness, for sure, too.
I will say, anecdotally, that pretty much all of the students I teach (college students) are now coming from households where one or both parents grew up playing games; many of their parents still play games, often with them.
I don’t have any problem with disagreement. I disagree with a bunch of the premises of this latest RPS by Sam Greer (Though she is trans, so that lends her observations a bit more weight for me.) What I object to is the dismissal of any article that attempts social critique with accusations of white-knighting or click-baiting. Most of the time people present this kind of criticism out of vested interest or out of real empathetic concern. Cavalier dismissal by impugning motive reads as an attempt to stifle any discussion of the issue at all.
Besides the artist saying so, the character in the ad has a huge penis bulge (really more of an erection outline) the ad says “Mix It Up” and the drink is “Chromanticure.”
I might’ve missed it too if it wasn’t pointed out to me, but the contours of the outfit below the waist are subtle until I suddenly realized they were anything but subtle.
You can really only see it if you are very zoomed in. I would never have noticed it from the original images NVIDIA released since the ad was far in the distance.
Ok, so I guess I didn’t notice it.
So then the next question becomes, “Why would this matter?”
I mean, sexualized people in ads is pretty much the standard, right? Presumably in some future world where trans people are accepted as normal, you’d see them in that same role, right?
I’m probably the wrong person to summarize, I’m likely missing nuance (or maybe even the entire point) on both sides of the debate, but I think it goes something like this:
RPS (and probably other people) says “hey it’s gross the way this trans person is exploited in the game”.
CDProjectk says “Yeah, isn’t it? That’s the point. Dystopia!”
RPS says “But context of your fiction be damned, it might hurt people in the real world and that’s unforgivable, as far as we know.”
Keep in mind that this is not my opinion. I’m just relaying what some in the trans community have written.
In the world of Cyberpunk it makes sense that trans folks would be as exploited and objectified as anyone else. The issue for some critics is that this in-game ad exists in our current world in which trans people are marginalized, ridiculed, and misunderstood. The ad draws on a specific porn fetish, the “hot chick with a big dick” kink that mostly appeals to straight men with a bit of denial. Most trans women don’t want to be thought of as a “hot chick with a big dick” they just want to be women. “Mix It Up” suggests that it’s a kinky lark to switch genders instead of a struggle for identity. Basically, the ad reduces the trans experience to sexual objectification.
Again, the argument that Cyberpunk is all about dehumanizing and exploiting everyone applies, but some in the trans community feel that further objectification in popular media now, no matter the context, is harmful.
I honestly don’t know enough to say one way or the other.
