[Aptorian]

But how does removing the Mr and Mrs affect those issues?

[QuickTidal]

I think it's more that its a potato toy...so as long as all the various bits and bobs to attach to it and make it look however you want are in the box, who cares what it's called?

[LinearPhilosopher]

Briar King, on 26 February 2021 - 03:06 PM, said:

So we just are at the lvl in the western world now where Mr. and Mrs. is a bad thing? Companies are really going this route? It’s a child’s learning toy. Is the company not telling the parents how to parent or atleast have influence over them?

Gotta love how we go from dropping Mr. and Mrs. from a toyline to full out feeling like the toy company is telling people what to do. By this logic, allowing gay marriage will allow the state to recognize the legal status of turtles marrying one another.

[QuickTidal]

On top of that, they aren't even being dropped. Mr. And Mrs. Potato Head are still going to be produced, the non-gender specific Potatohead one is literally a third option.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Briar King, on 26 February 2021 - 03:06 PM, said:

So we just are at the lvl in the western world now where Mr. and Mrs. is a bad thing? Companies are really going this route? It's a child's learning toy. Is the company not telling the parents how to parent or atleast have influence over them?

Read this a little more carefully:

'It also said it would sell a new playset this fall without the Mr. and Mrs. designations that will let kids create their own type of potato families, including two moms or two dads.

[...] Hasbro clarified that the Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head characters will still live on and be sold in stores, but under the Potato Head brand. In a picture posted on Twitter, the "Mr." and "Mrs." names are less prominently displayed at the bottom of the box, instead of the top.'

They're not removing 'Mr.' and 'Mrs.' from the traditional playset. They'll create an alternate playset that doesn't have 'Mr.' and 'Mrs.' for people who don't want them (or specifically to create families with 'two moms or two days'---would you prefer it if there were separate Mr. Potato Head Couple, Lesbian Mrs. Potato Head Couple, Nonbinary Potato Head, Intersex Mrmrs. Potato Head... lots of possible combinations). Right-wingers supposedly like capitalism, right? Hasbro is trying to expand their line to adapt to the desires of more people, and make more money. Their initial tweet may even have been confusing on purpose in order to generate free publicity from the predictable reactionary outrage machine.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 26 February 2021 - 04:08 PM

[Malankazooie]

The line of thinking is an addled brain that has been polluted by having Fox News on as the background noise and soundtrack to daily existence. It's the same as the "war on Christmas" message drumbeat that begins around November every year. Emotion manipulation to get people to entrench into their "side" and complain about how the others are destroying society.

[Aptorian]

It impresses me how some of you guys can't manage to have a conversation with BK without talking down to him while espousing your superior values.

[JPK]

I will agree that the way BK is treated around here bothers me. I think that this one was a bit different though. He started the conversation with a well known trolling meme format and then failed to actually participate in the discussion to a meaningful degree.

Seriously though guys, look back over your responses and ask yourselves if you'd really be ok being talked down to to that degree.

[JPK]

I do. Either typed out or by pic, it's still a very well known trolling meme. So I do think you provoked this one a bit even if it was unintentionally.

That said, it really bugs me how you get dogpiled every time you pop up on the discussion board. I don't share your political views pretty much at all, but I still respect you a lot. We just view a lot of things differently, and I'd love to see an atmosphere around here where you were more comfortable actively participating in the discussions again.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Briar King, on 26 February 2021 - 06:15 PM, said:

You mean the change my mind thing? I typed it out instead of the doing the pic of guy at desk to not come across as this.

Having read their clarification, do you still think it's 'ridiculous'? If so, why?

Do you think it's 'ridiculous' in the sense of being trivial (for example, that they're falsely assuming that calling the entire brand, not just Mr. Potato Head Himself, 'Mr. Potato Head' was implicitly teaching children that men are more important than women or nonbinary people, etc., without providing rigorous evidence for that claim?), or do you mean it upsets you?

Do you think gay or lesbian parents should be forced to buy a 'Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head' couple for their children? Should nonbinary parents, or parents who think their child may be nonbinary, be forced to buy 'Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head'? Do you think only having 'Mr.' or 'Mrs.' toys teaches children that everyone belongs to one gender or the other? And if a company chooses to be more inclusive so their toys will appeal to more people, do you think that's 'ridiculous'?

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 26 February 2021 - 07:03 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'"Shocked by the uproar": Amanda Gorman's white translator quits

[...]

Gorman, who is 22, had selected the 29-year-old herself, as a fellow young writer who had also come to fame early.'

'Dutch publisher Meulenhoff had announced Rijneveld, winner of the International Booker prize, as the translator of the Joe Biden inaugural poet's forthcoming collection, The Hill We Climb, last week. But the move quickly drew opprobrium. Journalist and activist [...] led critics [...] asking why Meulenhoff had not chosen a translator who was, like Gorman, a "spoken-word artist, young, female and unapologetically Black".

"An incomprehensible choice, in my view and that of many others who expressed their pain, frustration, anger and disappointment via social media," [...] "Isn't it – to say the least – a missed opportunity to [have hired] Marieke Lucas Rijneveld for this job? They are white, nonbinary, have no experience in this field [spoken word?], but according to Meulenhoff are still the 'dream translator'?"

Rijneveld had previously welcomed the assignment, saying that "at a time of increasing polarisation, Amanda Gorman shows in her young voice the power of spoken word, the power of reconciliation, the power of someone who looks to the future instead of looking down". [...]

"I am shocked by the uproar surrounding my involvement in the spread of Amanda Gorman's message and I understand the people who feel hurt by Meulenhoff's choice to ask me," Rijneveld wrote. "I had happily devoted myself to translating Amanda's work, seeing it as the greatest task to keep her strength, tone and style. However, I realise that I am in a position to think and feel that way, where many are not. I still wish that her ideas reach as many readers as possible and open hearts."

[...] "We will be looking for a team to work with to bring Amanda's words and message of hope and inspiration into translation as well as possible and in her spirit."'

https://www.theguard...YnSZZ46EHRSTYqA

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 01 March 2021 - 07:22 PM

[Aptorian]

I want to believe in the woke moment but it's so very hard to not hate these people.

[QuickTidal]

Azath Vitr (D, on 01 March 2021 - 07:22 PM, said:

'"Shocked by the uproar": Amanda Gorman's white translator quits

[...]

Gorman, who is 22, had selected the 29-year-old herself, as a fellow young writer who had also come to fame early.'

'Dutch publisher Meulenhoff had announced Rijneveld, winner of the International Booker prize, as the translator of the Joe Biden inaugural poet's forthcoming collection, The Hill We Climb, last week. But the move quickly drew opprobrium. Journalist and activist [...] led critics [...] asking why Meulenhoff had not chosen a translator who was, like Gorman, a "spoken-word artist, young, female and unapologetically Black".

"An incomprehensible choice, in my view and that of many others who expressed their pain, frustration, anger and disappointment via social media," [...] "Isn't it – to say the least – a missed opportunity to [have hired] Marieke Lucas Rijneveld for this job? They are white, nonbinary, have no experience in this field [spoken word?], but according to Meulenhoff are still the 'dream translator'?"

Rijneveld had previously welcomed the assignment, saying that "at a time of increasing polarisation, Amanda Gorman shows in her young voice the power of spoken word, the power of reconciliation, the power of someone who looks to the future instead of looking down". [...]

"I am shocked by the uproar surrounding my involvement in the spread of Amanda Gorman's message and I understand the people who feel hurt by Meulenhoff's choice to ask me," Rijneveld wrote. "I had happily devoted myself to translating Amanda's work, seeing it as the greatest task to keep her strength, tone and style. However, I realise that I am in a position to think and feel that way, where many are not. I still wish that her ideas reach as many readers as possible and open hearts."

[...] "We will be looking for a team to work with to bring Amanda's words and message of hope and inspiration into translation as well as possible and in her spirit."'

https://www.theguard...YnSZZ46EHRSTYqA

Aptorian, on 01 March 2021 - 07:52 PM, said:

I want to believe in the woke moment but it's so very hard to not hate these people.

Indeed.

It's pretty brutal that even the TRANSLATION of a writers work (in this case one chosen BY said writer!) falls victim to something like this, an utter exacerbation of the notions of what is good, and just and right in favour of 'outrage'. We are talking about someone who reads something in one language, and interprets the closest version of that in their native language so that work can reach more readers. At no point does that person doing the translation have to have the same life experiences of the original writer to do a good job at translating the work. What utter nonsense. As far as I'm concerned, Amanda Gorman is the final word on who translates her work (if the publisher has given her that clout...a lot of times they would not).

And let's be clear about the compainers:

Quote

Journalist and activist [...] led critics

activist and critic certainly fit...but journalist? Nope.

But yeah, imagine going through your little critic-life thinking "For those words that person wrote to REALLY be translated well, that other person in that WHOLE OTHER COUNTRY AND CULTURE...needs to be just like the writer"...holy shit, the hubris.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 01 March 2021 - 08:04 PM

[Cause]

Yes but what’s sad is that instead of defending her choice she seems to have stayed silent, and the translator apologized for their outrage? Why? He is not responsible for how others feel.

Also wierd to see that they are non-binary used as an attack by a crowd by would normally celebrate it

This post has been edited by Cause: 01 March 2021 - 09:15 PM

[Grief]

I find the extension of blackness, and the minority experience more generally, as some kind of universal shared experience fairly interesting in these debates.

Is the black experience of a Dutch native likely to be comparable to the black experience of an American writer in the first place?

I find that certain parts of the left have a tendency to mush every minority experience together on some level (whereby minorities of any kind are assumed to understand and sympathise with other minorities in a more authentic manner than the social majority).

In my view, this tendency is also one part of the left's struggle to respond effectively to certain political realities; whether the the working class anti-migrant Brexiteer or the cuban Trump voter.

In the artistic sphere, I put less and less stock by "authenticity" as any kind of metric.

[LinearPhilosopher]

this is kinda ridiculous... the kinda thing people on the right say to straw man the left... except its not a straw man... its actually real.

I think people are just looking to express outrage regardless.

[Macros]

The latest drug on the scene is outrage

[Tsundoku]

Macros, on 03 March 2021 - 07:42 AM, said:

The latest drug on the scene is outrage

The drug is self-righteousness, outrage is the syringe.

[Macros]

ETA NSFW

Also before you syringe up on outrage, look up who Johnathan Pie is

This post has been edited by Macros: 03 March 2021 - 08:36 AM

[LinearPhilosopher]

Macros, on 03 March 2021 - 08:35 AM, said:

ETA NSFW

Also before you syringe up on outrage, look up who Johnathan Pie is

All the poor guy ever wanted was a coffee. Now look at what you've done.