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from the the-impossible-takes-a-little-longer dept.
lhsi writes:
"The Atlantic looked at a recent update from the developers of the game Desktop Dungeons to discuss problems with gender bias in gaming, asking 'can a work be racist or sexist if its creator doesn't mean for it to be?'
The developers of the game had recently been adding female character art to their game with the intention that they would be "adventurers first and runway models second." While actively trying to avoid doing everything the 'simple' way, they came into some problems due to subconscious shorthands creeping in.
"This adjustment turned out to be startlingly non-trivial - you'd think that a bunch of supposedly conscious, mindful individuals would instantly be able to nail a 'good female look' (bonus points for having a woman on our crew, right?), but huge swathes of our artistic language tended to be informed by sexist and one-dimensional portrayals. We regularly surprised ourselves with how much we took for granted.'"
(Score: 1) by cybro on Monday March 17 2014, @12:53AM
From the summary: 'can a work be racist or sexist if its creator doesn't mean for it to be?'
Of course it can, it always can. The interpretation of a work is in the eye of a beholder. So it always could be, you might just have to employ various levels of delusion and pull on your own self-important biases to color it the way you see fit.
You can make a porcelain toilet seem racist if you try hard enough.