I dunno which side to stand on. Should I be concerned with the racebending? Is there something I should be upset about?
It’s not worth having any emotion about
Aight
Rule of thumb: racebending is nothing but attention bait. An otherwise mediocre at best product is suddenly talked about. Some screech, some sing praise, all create an atmosphere of attention and serve as advertising.
Mind if u elaborate?
Sure! Basically, I am of the opinion that moves such as racebending or revealing a character “has been gay all along” are not done in good faith, regardless of what the authors claim publicly. It is pretty much universally done to “second rate” characters, yet is touted as the next big thing since sliced bread. Meanwhile, there are dozens upon dozens of media makers that basically exist to talk about such events and how they are basically the coming of the antichrist.
And that’s the thing - there are plenty of media and other things that we wouldn’t even know or notice existed were it not for the outrage and counter-outrage. This show is an example - I’ve personally learned it exists from here, on lemmygrad. Likewise, many comics and movies I only know were made, because some outrage baiter talked about it.
Think of it as the same type of circus as US politics - you have two parties supposedly at each other’s throats, that serve the same master at the end of the day.
So basically, it’s fake representation?
It’s a marketing strategy. The “representation” may be real in a sense that you do get to see different people - although only the “popular” subgrupos. But the core purpose is marketing and nothing more
I hear the show is just bad in general. Unfunny meta trash a friend told me.
As far as the race/gender argument of shows is concerned… Personally, I don’t really care about the race or gender of the character. Just the plot and actual character development. Imo if you designed and wrote a good character you could roll a die for the race for all I care. Just make them interesting and well written ffs.
Unfortunately I feel a lot of these shows the entire point of the character is to be “why yes I am [race gender], deal with it” as the basis for the ENTIRE character. Just an empty shell otherwise, which makes for an annoying preachy character at best. I’m not saying brining up these things is always bad just don’t make that the entire existence of the character.
I also believe some (probably more than that) writers/directors will purposely not care about writing better characters/development then cast the character to be a minority so when people don’t like the character they can just claim it’s because they are all racist/sexist. Which only serves to hurt the diversity movement imo. It pushes away people that otherwise would be indifferent and just want to see a good show. It makes it harder for the people who legitimately want to support the movement, and it gives ammo to those that are actually racist/sexist assholes.
The kind of tokenism that shows do now, where characters have no depth or traits outside their identity, is really offensive too.
Which is why I think representation isn’t good enough imo.
There are well written stories that get ruined by execs for marketing purposes.
There are will written stories that get ruined by execs for propaganda purposes.
I hate it, but I can usually get on with both kinds. Like when it’s revealed at the end of a crooked cop drama that, after all, not all cops… the show can be fun right up till the last five minutes. So it’s not too bad.
But then there are poorly written stories that never had substance from the beginning because they were only ever written to be sold and to propagandise. In this situation, the writer storyboards ‘drama’, which just means characters acting as shitty as absolutely fucking possible to each other, just to create tension and drama that can be resolved in the denouement. In between these ‘plot points’ the writers try to storyboard pro-imperialist messages as if they’re trying to make a cult drinking bingo game for communists. It’s boring as fuck.
Almost everything nowadays falls into this latter category. I’ve not seen not even heard of Velma until this comment. So I’m talking in general.
It’s all always going to be commodified within capitalism. Unfortunately for viewers, the studios are now so far gone with the monopoly finance capital that there’s nobody stopping them from cannibalising the industry, the artists, and themselves with it.
It looks so, so unfunny. My reaction to racebending, to echo comrade Shrike502 a bit, is that it is often a desperate ploy of subpar storytellers to try to draw in as much ragewatching as possible as well as dupe well-meaning progressives into thinking because the showrunners are “on their side” the show must be worthwhile. Feels like it’s not really duping anybody anymore, except of course the fanatical right-wing culture warriors who get pissed about a sexy M&M or whatever.
I think it goes a step further insofar as I find it outright insulting… if racebending is gonna be a part of your story, and your justification is that you’re telling a new, more modern story, then you better be doing that. Velma sucks cuz it’s overly meta, contrived nothing laced with the adult equivalent of knock-knock jokes. Speaking of, something that worries me about the quality of adult animation and media in general is how damn meta it’s all becoming. It can be funny, but it usually just exhibits a pathetic distrust and distate for one’s own writing. “Yeah, we know it sucks, too”. Get over yourselves and write a decent fucking story then! Stories are gonna get so self-aware that true artificial sentience is going to be achieved by a Rick and Morty episode or a Drake and Josh remake lol.
So basically, the whole debacle around racebending is meaningless then? So that leaves other reasons to dislike Velma.
The reaction of the triggered right wingers has been funnier by far than the show itself, which is otherwise quite bad…unfunny jokes, incoherent plot, unlikable characters and the edgelord type of social commentary that you’d expect to find in a South Park episode, i.e. pathologically centrist and desperately trying to make jokes that offend “both sides” equally.
But no, it’s nothing to be upset about. Bad art is not offensive it’s just disappointing. And it’s all subjective anyway…there may be people out there who genuinely like the show and get enjoyment out of it. At the end of the day it’s simply yet another entertainment product for people to consume to distract them from their soul crushing existence under this capitalist dystopia.
As communists we have more important things to concern ourselves with.
“It’s politics when they do it 😉”
Anti-SJW logic.
I think the whole intention behind the show was to outrage right-wing to generate discussion and free press about the show to popularise it. There isn’t anything redeeming about the show.
Source?
It’s my opinion. I haven’t watched the show nor do I plan to.
Noted
I wouldn’t say that the show has no redeeming qualities, the main cast is slightly above being-having 1 or 2 traits and that being the only joke and repeated endlessly, but the show puts the comedy over the story, not that there is something inherently bad with it, but when the jokes are boring, and the jokes are definitely boring then there is a problem bc you also don’t have well fleshed out characters. I would say is more “meh” than let’s say “painfully garbage” shows like Paradise PD
that velma can’t be worse than scrappy
