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John DiMaggio goes off at the Gears 5 panel when a audience member asks what Kait her sexual preference is
- Thread starter Theorry
- Start date
what does it mean for a question about a fictional character's sexuality in a narrative that doesn't deal with their sexuality to be "genuine"?
Even if it's a genuine question, that doesn't mean it is appropriate.
Yeah, if that had been the context, they probably could have given an answer like "We haven't defined that in our fiction yet because it hasn't become relevant to Kait's life in the context of our story" or something like that. The fan seemed to be asking it in a prurient way though.
We are 100% on the same page :) . I interpreted some of the "why does it matter" posts as directed towards the dude asking the question, not towards the idea of representation itself.
It's Gears of War. It's a reasonably safe assumption that a character's sexual orientation isn't going to form a significant narrative thread and doesn't need to be asked about in a panel for nearly the same reasons it's unlikely to be a major plot point and doesn't need to be asked about at a Pokemon Sword and Shield event.
One of the biggest cutscenes in 2 was a character breaking down over losing his wife. BUt that doesn't count because its hetero and normal.
Also lol I have been wanting gays in Pokemon since literally forever. Hell, Pokemon has explicitly been doing heterosexual implied things since like Black and White, with the weirdo love interest phone caller that talked to you over the course of the game.
An argument could be made than having a first female protagonist gives the new game a tint of "progressiveness" which extent could be matter of interest.
It's underdantable to label the question as inappropriate, but not as downright malicious within reasonable doubt imo. And such the response from the man may have been, as said, a bit exaggerated.
Things aren't always as black and white are they
Yeah you should chill the fuck out. It's not that serious, it's a damn video game. Your literally arguing against people that make the game, even they don't care. If they WANTED The story to focus on her sexuality or include it in some way, they would, but they didn't. I don't think she's going to be fucking any swarm dudes or females. Again, take a break off the internet and CALM YOUR ASS DOWN. Your acting like I'm saying there can't be any representation and devs shouldn't strive for it. Never said that, the dude that asked the question to the gears crew wasn't asking them because he "cared" so again for the final time, calm the fuck down. Honestly watch the vid again because I don't think you understood his answer. It's just not that type of story for Kait, I seen you brought up Dom. Well that's asnt the case for literally every other character, his backstory was rooted in that. Marcus was rooted in his fathers history and so on. Each character has different goals and ideals, coalition shouldn't bend over backwards to change a character for something they didn't already plan for. And if she IS gay or bi or whatever, then congrats, they'd tell you. I don't see why they'd hide it, but I honest to go belive that's just not isn't their plans as of now.
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Well if that counts as sexual orientation being a significant part of the overall narrative and a "genuine thing we need to be asking about characters in all future panels" this dude skipped a step and forgot to ask if that character was straight or bi.
I'm sure that's a genuine oversight and he didn't have a specific agenda for specifically and only asking about Kait's sexuality 🤔
it kinda does - but we don't think of it as significant because heterosexual relationships are often seen as the 'norm'. zacmortar isn't arguing that the man asking the question in the video was doing so out of genuine concern about representation (they've clarified this in an earlier post) - there's just been more than a few replies in this thread that implies that representation in games like this is an unimportant topic.
The only reason this guy asked this question is because there is an offensive stereotype about lesbian women having short "manly" hair. I quote the manly part due to what I have been hearing from idiots whenever the protagonist is shown or mentioned in the various youtube videos.
Asking for representation isn't the case here.
Asking for representation isn't the case here.
To be clear, I think representation is completely important. I also don't think it's helpful to conflate anything that happened here with representation issues because this guy was obviously completely full of shit and representation-positive attitudes had nothing to do with that question. It was a question driven by titillation and stereotypes about military women
Everyone was laughing because John said it in a funny way. If he had said it in a serious tone, I doubt people would've laughed.
On-topic: This was awesome, lol
i know - and i think the few people arguing for representation in this thread aren't trying to claim that the question was asked in good faith (the poster you had quoted had already clarified as such in an earlier post). there were just some posts early on in the thread that suggested wanting to know if a character was lgbtq in general was silly.
Asking it in this context is silly. Just like asking what Kait's favorite color is. It's silly. You can argue there is no harm in wanting to know but good lord why would you ask that in this situation.
Granted the guy was obviously trying to do some weird troll.
Glad he got roasted. I am beginning to feel that I'm one of the (older) gamers that really do not care/ask about sexual preference in my video games. This isn't to say I don't want representation, but it doesn't need to be addressed/in the forefront (i.e. I absolutely still love the way you find out that Bill from TLOU has a male partner through great storytelling, not a BIO).
Yeah but you can't judge for sexual preferences, you can judge about actions tho. Maybe sexuality defines you, but is not the case.
Yeah, he's done some great roles. I love his Aquaman. Outrageous!!
It wasn't, because if it was he'd know how to ask it correctly.
i'm not saying otherwise (although there's a large disparity between a character's favourite colour and their sexuality). and i know the guy wasn't being genuine.
but wanting to know a character's sexuality (or ethnicity, etc.) in general isn't silly, especially if you're a minority who rarely sees themselves represented in games media. if the question had been phrased with genuine concern for lgtbq representation - as another poster had rephrased it to be earlier in this thread (and clearly not in the sleazy, disengenuous way the guy in the video did) - i can see it being an appropriate question to ask in this panel, especially when character's in the past have had romantic plots.
a lot of people DO judge others by their sexuality though, and often not fairly if they aren't straight - which i'd imagine contributes to the underrepresentation of lgbtq people in media.