I was going to write about the "Grape juice controversy" but then I saw this:
http://gomakemeasandwich.wordpress.com/2014/09/11/thoughts-on-lightning-returns-and-cultural-appropriation-spoilers/The writer is complaining about some game I had not heard before. A Quick Ask.com search revealed that it was the latest(?) Final fantasy game. ...I am kinda disappointed that I haven't played any FF games after X and can't even keep up with them now.
Anyway, apparently the story of the game has been influenced by religions a lot. The characters and background take some names from Christian and Norse mythology and there is a religious organisation that seems to be slightly based on the Catholic church (At least the architecture is similar form what I see in the article.) What does this have to do with cultural appropriation? Well, taking anything from
another culture is obviously appropriation and since Christianity and Norse aren't asian religions (at least according to SJW logic) this is wrong-bad.
Though the writer also complains how the game takes
really little from these religions into the game. Everytime Thor does something that the mythological Thor did not it is seen as an attack against Norse faith. When there is something in the game that did not happen in the Bible this is seen as an attempt to distort the Bible. ...Really.
And then there is the final debate on wether or not this counts as cultural appropriation:
What exactly does and does not count as cultural appropriation is always tricky to pin down. Myself, I would say that although Lightning Returns is a bizarre and misinterpretation of Catholic Christianity, I would not call it cultural appropriation, simply because of the context of the two cultures in question. While Japan did not suffer as many ill effects of Western colonial oppression as other Asian countries, it still left an indelible mark on Japanese society. And in general, it is certainly true that Christianity was often a tool of colonial oppression.
And yes Japan does have a history of colonialism itself, and yes it does have a problem with racism against non-Yamato-Japanese. But Japan has never colonized the West, nor has it attempted to forcibly convert Western people or otherwise destroy Western religion. And bizarrely-worded t-shirts aside, it certainly doesn’t have a history of selling misrepresentations of Western religion and culture for profit in such a way that would comprise a threat to the integrity of said religion and culture.
So while Lightning Returns is a deeply weird take on Christianity that some might find offensive (I don’t, but I could understand people who do), I don’t think it’s fair to call it cultural appropriation.
...So, if western developer had done something like this using Hinduism and Aztec mythology that would have been wrong, but since the Japanese haven't opressed the west (note that the writer acknowledges the bad things the Japanese have done but says that these do not count since the victims were mostly other asians) the Japanese cannot be quilty of stealing western culture...
And what the hell does it matter if someones ancestor did something bad to another persons ancestor? Why does that matter when discussing things that happen now?...AARGH!
