Last weekend I decided to read The Queen's Gambit. Yes, the book that got turned into an inaccurate miniseries by Netshits.
People praise the show for encouraging women to play chess.
Here is the thing. We do have female chess players. Since 1941, we have female Grand Masters. My tiny ass country even has three sisters who are renowned champions and the youngest one is the head coach of the national men's team now.
The idea that women/minorities/gays need fictional characters like them to prove they can do THINGS is ridiculous and so condescending. The actual, real life people did the things. Take it or leave it, they are the way they are, if you need some prettified, perfect parable character who throws sassy one-liners to get into a thing then you were never passionate about it in the first place.
Specifically, in The Queen's Gambit novel the main character, Beth does just that. She isn't doing it because someone told her she can. She gets no support that way, people either don't care or just say "ah, this is your thing, have fun".
Which is why I'm annoyed by this show in specific.
It also makes it obvious she is not great at many other things and somehow idiotic people still YAS KWEEN the character. She is an alcoholic drug addict, who only cares as long as other people serve a purpose in her chess playing.
Well, that is how SJWs want to be treated: as spoiled, self-absorbed, overgrown brats occupying their 'rightful' place as the center of the universe and whose every demand must be catered to by everyone else no matter how arbitrary, ridiculous and out-of-place they might be. Anyone who won't entertain them at best bores them, at worst (and far more often) must obviously be a mean bullying enemy out to oppress them.
As far as I'm concerned, demanding 'representation' because you can't identify with, draw inspiration from, or otherwise respect the (real life!) people in the story and their struggles until & unless their identity mirrors yours is a sign of insanely unhealthy narcissism and betrays a lack of empathy for anyone outside the in-group you've placed yourself in (regardless of whether or not you actually fit in it, ex. troons among women or Shaun King types among blacks).
It bothers me they can't like real people who are living, therefore changing, reacting to new situations, etc. because anything can suddenly become problematic. A human being a dynamic, but their own world views and morals are impossible to follow, so they prefer static fictional characters over real humans.
It's madness.
I think it just comes down to a mix of narcissism, including projecting themselves and their thoughts unto others; not being able to clearly differentiate between reality & fantasy; and not being able to separate politics from anything in general. Sane, healthy and non-narcissistic people are able to empathize with characters who don't look like them or think the exact same opinions they do most or all of the time. They're also sufficiently grown-up to know that reading Mein Kampf will not automatically turn you into a jackbooted goosestepping stormtrooper nor that reading Das Kapital will turn you into a frothing Internationale-singing commissar.
SJWs, on the other hand, assume that anything less than a saintly depiction of characters whose identities & beliefs they identify with, and anything less than an unrelentingly negative depiction of characters whose identities & beliefs they identify as inherently evil & wrongthink, are personal attacks on their own identity & beliefs, and must mean the author him/herself is an evil bigot. They can't comprehend that fiction doesn't have to be political all the time nor can they separate the artist from his or her work, and they also tend to be so emotionally unstable that they constantly crave validation & asspats (even from fiction) - so it's no surprise that they're not able to write compelling characters or appreciate them any more than Jack Chick could've written or appreciated a good Catholic.
Well, that's the thing. They're really getting stretched with the 'first woman this and that" thing, and seem to often forget that the "firsts" already happened long ago. So what if the USA hasn't had a woman president yet? The USSR never had one, either. But many countries in the West did have female leaders .. I guess they forgot about, say, Thatcher and Golda Mier. Lord knows they forgot about Kim Cambell up here, and as far as Hollywood and directors go, look at how they seem to have forgotten successful women like Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, Gracie Allen, and Penny Marshall. The first civilian in space would have been female, too, if the Challenger hadn't blown up.
I think it's mostly a reflection of general human species psychology, the narcissism is just getting more prominent, and there is nothing to select out the most obnoxious in society any more. And there are plenty of warnings about where pride/hubris/narcissm leads to in individuals ... imagine entire groups walking off cliffs because they think they see their own beloved reflection at the bottom.
See the glass as half full. She's still the first civilian and first woman to die on a space flight!
Now that’s something all women should be inspired by!
Quite the contrary: I have found that most of these people know of and DESPISE Thatcher. Based on the merits, they should love her. She started at the bottom, worked her way up, and showed through determination that she would have her way one way or another. But she is an icky conservative, so she doesnt count.
I spent the better part of 4 decades not caring at all about the presence of "diversity" or "representation" in my entertainment.
Now I'm genuinely happy when something I'm watching is just white people, because it means there's zero chance that some racist casting manager got their mitts on it. Bonus points if there are no stronk wymynz either.
Younger, but same.
I wouldn't mind "diverse" characters if we could tell different stories with them. But the moment an Arab is there, they must be saintly. Black person? Police oppress this literal angel going to college. Woman? Everything bad that happens is because she is a woman.
It's just ridiculous.
I think what slew me the most about the show was that for 90% of the series she really couldn't play chess at a grandmaster level unless she was coked to the gills on downers. Yeah, that's the kind of representation I would want if I were trying to YAS KWEEN it up over a fictional character.
In the book she could play chess, what she was really bad at was winding down and actually sleeping. For a lot of the story she took her pills to be able to fall asleep.
Another thing that makes today's idiots go YAS KWEEN is Beth being supposedly independent, when in fact she judges people's usefulness based on if they can help her chess be better.
She literally stops caring the moment she is better than the other person. Harry Beltik moves into her house after her adoptive mother dies and they have sex... until she realises she outgrew him in chess. She gets pissed at Benny when she realises his life is not just chess, but he also plays poker to pay his bills.
In a way I get why this appeals to shitty people.
Sounds like a majority of "strong, independent women" in the world today that also bag on how how "oppressed" they are by the "patriarchy" and how evil men are.
Thing is, Beth is not evil or calculating. She is just so single-mindedly into chess she literally has no life outside it. She never studied a trade or got a degree, never had other hobbies, never developed relationships, never learnt any life skills outside chess.
But she is also not a happy character, I think. She is not supposed to be seen as a role model.
It's the non-romantic version of how girls see Batman's Joker. You are supposed to think he is fucked.
I was about to say this.
It's funny, isn't it? My niece wants me to play with her since she saw this thing. She also wants it less and less each day because she actually isn't that into it.
And that's the problem. If the reason you want to get into "thing" is some prettified, perfect parable character who throws sassy one-liners then you most likely don't want to get into the "thing". You want to be that prettified, perfect parable character who throws sassy one-liners. And that will never happen.
I didn’t mind the queens gambit. I think it’s a nother situation where the show has one message but the media surrounding it goes in an ignorant SJW direction. Like when all the Killmonger takes came out back in the day. The show was pretty tasteful imo
Does anyone make the representation argument who isn't female with an ulterior motive? You only ever hear it when they're gender flipping something.