"MadameLee;c-16740159" wrote:
"Katlyn2525;c-16740085" wrote:
"MadameLee;c-16740075" wrote:
"Auroraskies;c-16740065" wrote:
I think a lot of you here have very thought through and valid points, both for and against and the different reasons why, and I agree with you all, in different ways, especially on implementation methods.
But I think a note on "representation" is needed:
It is not to be understood as a want for visual identity or the need to give someone else that, like a box to be ticked, in the self-imposed norm's peripheral vision - it is a complete rewrite of the map, to take into account the actual complexity that is, any, society.
In my city, half a million citizens, there are 169 nationalities, people on motorized wheel chairs driving on bike lanes, crying teenagers fiddling with their phone sitting on the curb, a huge hospital with a psychiatric ER, a large youthful community of feminists, a even larger queer one. There are students, poor people, families, both rainbow and not, academics, people without work, people on extended sick leave etc, and these categories, and others, are too blunt to come close to an actual understanding of the people therein.
When it comes to game play of The Sims (3), the offence is, more than anything else, that I am to agree with that the chosen sims, with their looks, behaviour and limitations, are what is considered "fun", "okey", "common", and mostly: "neutral".
Even if a norm, seen as concept, is an unmarked category, it does not mean that it is never represented in real life, and for me, that person would never be my choice of company, interest or any kind of focus except critically in an analysis.
So to be expected to accept that kind of 'representation' in a game I play for fun, is ironic. Any kind of diversity that is managable within the game engine frames would be better than that, simply because it, actually, would be more fun.
Play with life?
@Auroraskies I might want to add to your comment -despite the fact we might or might not want disabilities in the game for whatever our reasons are. We can't forget about the fact that a person isn't disabled today, one might be tomorrow or 5-50 years from now but the point is at *some* point people will be disabled-if a person isn't currently.
I much rather have Sims version of disabilities which might seem rude to some people rather then the stereotypes of disabled people we have had in stories either a)temporary disabled (Clara from Heidi or Colin from The Secret Garden) or evil (Pirates: Captain Hook from Peter Pan or Long John Silver from Treasure Island) the only good full disabled characters I could technically find were superhero like (MCU only)-Xavier from X-men, and the Avengers with the exception of Thor and Captain America (and the Guardians of the Galaxary) if we look at the others minus Thor and Captian America we have: Iron Man (needs an artificial heart or something in order to live), Hulk=seems to be on the autistic spectrum-he can be plain old Bruce Banner but once he gets "overloaded" by something he turns into this big Green mean monster (so I conifer Hulk to be a cross between Austic person and Frankenstein), what's her name who was in Iron Man 2-in another movie she gets her own powers I think? Nick Fury who isn't a superhero but he's disabled as well because he can't see with one eye (eye patch).
Those are comic book superheros. Not people with real disabilities vs the sims. You can't really compare the two. Disabilities in comicbook are more acceptablle because they are not real, and do not have anything to do with how we handle the dignity of a real person. I have never met a mutant.
@Katlyn2525 Did you miss the fact-I mention both temporary disabled characters and "evil" characters in stories? Temporary "Good" disabled characters-Clara from Heidi and Colin from The Seceret Garden and also Tiny Tim from A Christmas Carol-but he's a minor supporting character compared to Clara&Colin and Archie wanted to be this category from early Glee Seasons Then Evil characters-Long John Silver and Captian Hook.
Which is better-idea that disabled people can be superheroes (aka Marvel Cinematic universe) or that all disabled people want is to be "not disabled" hence Clara&Colin. Or disabled people are Evil (Peter Pan and Treasure Island)? Which of the the three options is the best? In my opinion the first one is.
You have to compare apples to apples. Not apples to oranges. This means you have to compare RL people with real disabilities and how they could possibly be put into the game without the possibilty of offending those same people.
