(no subject)

[camwyn]

Had a look at Point Lookout, the next downloadable content package from Bethesda for Fallout 3. Or rather, I had a look at the trailer, since the DLC won't be out until June 23rd.

Ain't gonna buy it.

For one, I'm not into the whole swamp horror thing- Point Lookout takes place in an area that used to be all coastal and boardwalky and now it's flooded and gross and there are dangly remains of trees and fog and the ground goes bloorp a lot. Looks like somewhere Inspector Legrasse would be hunting down the remains of a Cthulhu cult. I guess that's okay for some people, but I'm not into that.

And for two- and this is the big one: I am so. Freaking. TIRED. Of the 'check it out, inbred deformed crazy hillbillies with crude but deadly sharp objects!' thing. There's an awful lot of lumpy-looking people in badly fitting suspenders, armed with shovels, axes, and rifles, in the few moments of video we get. It's basically yet ANOTHER example of "rural Southerners are scary and weird and you should stay away from them if you want to keep all your limbs on". I don't care if it's radiation that caused it, or radiation plus weird chemicals (which is what created the trogs in The Pitt DLC), or what, but damn it all to hell, will the entertainment industry lay off the rural South already?? I mean, yes, there's a family of inbred cannibals in the main game, but they distinguish themselves by looking perfectly normal, acting perfectly cheerful, keeping themselves clean and upstanding citizens, and generally behaving like everyone else right up until you pick the lock on the basement door and find the corpses and chainsaws. Exactly what the hell is being accomplished by adding freaky looking, poorly dressed, deformed rural people into the game? Why the hell is it okay to pick on hill folk and use them as SCARY SCARY MONSTERS, NO REALLY, LOOK OUT FOR THE BIG LUMPY SOUTHERNER WITH THE AXE AND SHOTGUN?

Not cool, Bethesda. Not cool. I realize there's been an awful lot of other companies that've done the same thing in their entertainment offerings since the days when 'hillbilly humor' was popular on the comic strip page, but it's bloody well played out, okay? The people of the rural South are human beings, and just because they aren't the people of the cities you live in doesn't make this kind of treatment okay.

If I buy DLC again it'll be Mothership Zeta, which I haven't seen a preview for yet but involves being kidnapped by angry green aliens in flying saucers. But Point Lookout? No.

Comments

[agonistes]

Word. (Thanks.)

[camwyn]

Y'welcome. I just... something snapped when I saw what amounted to SCARY SCARY REDNECK ZOMBIES IN SCARY SCARY DECAYING SWAMPY BUILDINGS. Not cool, people, not cool.

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

I have a lot of friends who live in or come from the South, especially the rural South, and I feel indignant on their behalf.

[valles-uf.livejournal.com]

Another potential factor besides 'urban vs rural' is that, I figure, if someone with the mindset to end up doing art design or programming for a game like Fallout happened to be from the backwoods - at least if they were anything like where I grew up...

...That cliche'd taste like sweet, sweet revenge.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Thank you, on behalf of all of my kinfolks. We were hillbillies before we got to North America.

[camwyn]

I'm reasonably sure that my family probably qualifies to some degree, at least on the Italian side- Grandpa's ancestors came from mountain country in central Italy, and were mostly manual laborers and small farmers- but that didn't really figure into it. I've just met too many people from the rural South to not want to smack somebody for this.

[amberdiceless.livejournal.com]

As someone who proudly calls herself a redneck by marriage, I think rural people in general have an undeservedly bad rep (as do those who live in house trailers, regardless of locale.)

On the other hand, I think there's a rather simple explanation for why it's inevitably the rural folk who get picked on in entertainment. They live in remote places, which provides not only a built-in explanation for how they managed to get into such horrible states without the rest of the world noticing, but also places help at a convenient (for the storyteller) distance. No explanation needed: if the protagonist is a two-hour drive from the nearest population center, the audience already know they're screwed. Lazy writing, basically.

[isustrikanda.livejournal.com]

I'm from the rural south and I'm a little rotund, sure, but hardly deformed. I've never murdered anyone with any kind of axe whatsoever. The standard Hollywood use of a southern accent as shorthand for stupid makes me grit my teeth, and I just want to smack people whenever we'd be wandering around and someone would make a comment about "Deliverance country".

Entertainment gets aimed at the urbanites, and uses stupid shortcuts to play on the fear of Other for people who live different lives, because clearly there are no gamers in the rural south or (rural areas in general--gotta tell you, that one's just bollocks).

Thank you for standing up and saying this. I wish more people would.

[camwyn]

It irritates the crap out of me. I haven't spent much time in the rural South, or to be honest in the rural anywhere- I suspect farm country in upstate New York shares more cultural similarities with the rural South than it does with anywhere that's within sight of the NYC skyline- but I've spent enough time with people from those regions to want to smack the ever-living snot out of people who perpetuate this kind of thing.

That, or drop Levi Lauvray on them. He's the man who was in charge of the IT portion of my very first Red Cross disaster job, a flood situation in La Crosse, WI. Mr. Lauvray was a computer whiz and a great teacher, and he was from, as he put it, West by-God-smile-when-you-say-that Virginia. Granted, he was from Charleston rather than somewhere significantly rural, but still. (And anyway, I think Chuck Yeager and Carlos Hathcock have the 'I grew up a rural Southern boy; perhaps you would like to discuss your perception of my home territory at some length' division all sewn up.)

[isustrikanda.livejournal.com]

My cousin had a job in Michigan for a while working with someone who, on finding out she was from North Carolina (not even particularly rural bits, for that matter) kept asking (repeatedly and in all seriousness) if she had checked to make SURE she wasn't related to her husband. People unfortunately have a tendency to be jerks about more than just rural areas.

heh. West by-God-smile-when-you-say-that Virginia. That's AWESOME.

[midnightlurker.livejournal.com]

I can't say anything about the portrayal of Southerners that hasn't already been gone over, so let me just add that I'm happy they're finally going to address the long-running alien gag. :)

[camwyn]

I am reminded of what happened when I was in twelfth grade. The United States Institute for Peace (yes, we have one) had an essay contest in which the state winners all got to come to DC for several days of vacation and seeing important things and competing for who had the best essay nationwide. My roommate was the winner from Arkansas, and it was '91 or '92. She said normally when she traveled outside of her home state people asked her if she wore/could afford shoes at home, but these days people were asking what she thought of the presidential race, thanks to Gov. Clinton.