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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 16, 2023

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Your post reminds me of the archetype of a 'centrist' movie/video game critic persona found on various blogs and Youtube channels that would go on tirades against Anita Sarkeesian and the like for 'pointing out sexism' and whatever else. To the point they would be denying reality itself just to rebuke every word ever written by a feminist.

Just like the reason for the main character in a video game being a guy is sexist and the reason the women in the game are dressed to sexually provoke men is sexist, the reason for this movie existing is racist. There is no lack of fascinating men in the world. The reason this fascinating man is getting a movie is because he was black.

To borrow an argument from Anita Sarkeesian: It's not that you can't make a game about men and scantily clad women without it being sexist. It's that the reason for these things existing today as they do and the cultural context surrounding them is sexist, and it's worthwhile to recognize that and point it out for what it is. The same is true here. It's not that you can't, in theory, make a movie about a black man beating the odds in white society. It's that you can't do it today and not recognize it for what it is and most importantly why it is.

Actually, the argument makes a lot more sense for black people headlining movies than men in video games. Because most of the audience for those games is made up of men. (Statistics showing that many women play "video games" misleadingly lump all types of video games together. The types of video games that people like Sarkeesian complain about and which star men have a largely male audience.)