Yes, this is an LGBT thread.
No, I don’t want to go to the mega thread.
No, I’m not demanding that blizz add more gay heroes.
With that stuff out of the way, I just wanted to say this.
If any hero in this game, as it is now, was revealed to be gay, that does not mean blizz is “pandering” to anything. I just saw someone say if dva was gay, it would mean blizz is retconning dva to fit a toxic agenda.
That’s just not true.
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“This is to fit the gay agenda, they should be revealed as gay when they’re announced, not after people come to relate to them.”
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An argument I’ve seen with solider and tracer being lgbt.
What people fail to understand is that by revealing their sexuality later down the line, you relate to their character traits, their morals, their personality before anything else. If soldier being gay was enough to dissuade you from liking him, then it has nothing to do with his sexuality, but everything to do with your own homophobia. It’s not as though being gay comes with its own set of rules and guidelines, and “if you’re gay you have to act like x y and z”.
I relate to Sokka from avatar the last air bender. He’s quick witted, funny, the “dad” of the group, and lacks the natural talent of everyone around him so he makes up for it with his ingenuity.
But when he’s revealed to be straight, does that mean he’s suddenly not any of those things? Does it mean that I can’t relate to him anymore? Not at all.
Anyways, I’d like for this thread to be not devolve into people screaming at themselves over identity politics or whatever. I’d just like to try and understand why people feel so negative about lgbt content in this game. I don’t get it, and it would make for a better criticism if I could hear the perspectives of the mass.
People are making it at theoretical reveals, which is what prompted the comment. This thread is just a subtweet.
@OP
Plenty of people just don’t want gay characters in their stuff. So they set absurdly high bars that very, very little can reach for those characters. It’s as simple as that.
I mean why can’t someone be a bit disappointed when their favorite hero magically turns gay? What if they related to that hero do to him/her being most representative of the player? What if they just wanted that hero to be straight for whatever reason, maybe for their sick fanfictions? It’s not always homophobia.
Nope, these are still issues I see recently.
I wouldn’t be making this thread otherwise. Just because you don’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Anyways, this isn’t really anything constructive to the thread so…
But why?
I’ll never understand why people can simultaneously say “it’s not important and doesn’t matter” and “I don’t want to play as a gay hero”.
It’s sad really, the amount of progress lost because people don’t want to try and understand others.
Because that’s obviously dumb.
Which is why Overwatch has yet to turn anyone magically gay. Tracer and Solider both have never once been hinted at to be straight. This is a heteronormative way of thinking, assuming that everyone is straight unless otherwise is stated, but it’s just that: an assumption.
It’s dumb to get your feelings disappointed or hurt because you assumed something different from reality.
If you suddenly can’t relate to a hero because they’re revealed to be gay, after 3-4+ years of relating to them, then the only factor that changed is that they aren’t the same sexuality as you.
Which is pretty homophobic to me.
If a masked, fully cloaked individual is a playable hero, has a great personality, is funny and witty, and every trait I associate myself with is suddenly not relatable after they’re revealed to be Asian or any other race separate from mine, and cause me to be disappointed and dislike the hero as a result, would you not say that’s racist?
If you identified with solider up until now, him being gay doesn’t affect any of the qualities you relate to.
Anyways, if gay people have found straight characters in media to relate to, straight people can do it too.
Heteronormative huh. You mean what 97% of the population is. It’s completely fine to assume through statistical probability that someone is most likely straight if they have not explicitly stated that they are gay.
People can relate to those that are not of the same group as them, but what if someone really really wants to relate with the sexuality of a character. Why is that such a bad thing? I mean is that not why so many people think every movie needs representation of every single identity group now a days.
You ignored my last point. What if someone just wants that hero to be straight for the sake of that hero being straight. What’s wrong with that?
Also, I’m gonna make this clear. I don’t give a bigger damn whether or not a hero is gay. I’m just questioning your ideas that’s all. As a final note, I find it mildly difficult to relate with a 76-year-old WW2 veteran or a t-w-at girl from Westminsta. Unlucky.
Yes, I do mean that.
I never said making such an assumption was a bad thing. Simply that if it happens to be wrong, then there’s no point in being sad or disappointed because, in this case, nothing implied that it was true.
It’s not. But when said sexuality hasn’t been confirmed, you’re not really relating to that character’s sexuality. You’re relating to the idea of a character’s sexuality.
Heterosexual representation has never been not in abundance, so this situation is unlikely in and of itself.
That’s not my argument.
I’m saying that it’s incredibly telling if you suddenly can’t relate to a character’s experiences, personality, and story just because their not the same sexuality as you (given that sexuality wasn’t confirmed beforehand and there was no indication either way).
Wanting a hero to be a specific sexuality for the sake of being that sexuality is typically because said sexuality is underrepresented in media. Otherwise there’s no real reason behind it.
And like you said, 97% of the population is straight. Definitely not underrepresented.
You can want what you want, but there’s a difference with the majority wanting representation and a minority group wanting representation.
By all means, question me.
It’s more about what these heroes represent and their personalities instead of their age or place of origin, usually.
For example, I can relate to soldier because I, too, have to sacrifice a lot in my life. I’m in the military, I’m pretty stubborn and I hold on to the past quite a bit. And I’m also gay.
I can relate to tracer because her optimism and determination are traits I strive to match, especially when life gets pretty difficult.
It’s not that complicated: a lot of epic gamers are homophobic. They don’t like gay people deep down. They don’t want that stuff in their games. For all the touting that dank-meme-centrist-gamer culture does about “not getting offended” about anything, they sure do get up in stitches about some pixels being suggested to have a different orientation than what they assumed
… Why would you relate to the sexuality? “I relate to Jim because he is straight”.
Also, Soldier isnt a WW2 Vet. He’s probably a millenial or a gen-x. Soldier 76 is one of us.
There’s a difference between wanting to see yourself represented and no longer being able to relate to that hero because they are gay. One is just disappointment that your head canon is wrong (and the character didn’t turn gay, they were always gay, you made an assumption) and the other shows a lack of empathy for gay characters. Which is often caused by a lack of empathy towards gay people.
For example, I would like to see D.va end up trusting more in Dae Hyun (the man supporting her in her short) and that trust lead to romance. I think it would be cute. But, if she ends up with say…D.mon (her female teammate) instead, I might be disappointed that she isn’t with Dae Hyun, but I won’t be angry. I’m not gonna claim she was turned gay. I’m not gonna stop liking her character for being brash, bold, funny, brave, or relating to her as a female gamer. Because D.va will still be all of those things.
Besides, there is no shortage of well done straight characters in media.
Gamer culture as a whole has some pretty big red flags, with the rampant sexism and outright disgusting hate speech that comes with anonymity and the internet.
I just really don’t get the concept of hating someone else for something they can’t control and doesn’t harm anyone.
Thanks for your reply
Haha aw thank you!
Yeah, if you have a really cool character with an amazing personality and uplifting morals, but they’re also gay and everyone knows that the moment they launch, some people might not be able to think past “gay” and completely discredit anything else that character might’ve had to offer. Think Gibraltar from Apex Legends.
However, with solider and tracer (and hopefully more), blizz is making you learn and love the characters for who they are and what they stand for first, with their amazing personalities and themes and whatnot. Then, when revealed to be LGBT, you can see that they’ve been lgbt this entire time, and you’ve been relating to them anyways, thus homosexuality doesn’t come from a set of “this is how gay people act” and thus potentially opens eyes to their own homophobic tendencies, if they exist. It’s a way of showing you that “hey this person you love? They’re gay. But that doesn’t mean all those things you love about them are gone, they’re all there. Just because they’re gay doesn’t mean those traits don’t exist anymore. They’ve always been themselves, this is just one more thing to learn :)”
Fits in perfectly with how some people I know (myself included) had to come out in school.
Yup. Which is exactly why I always say “anti-SJWs” and “SJWs” are just the opposite sides of the same coin although the antis do love to pretend otherwise. They are just as quick to “throw labels around”, “see hidden agendas everywhere”, and “flip their **** over littlest things”. They get offended just as easily because everything is apparently “pandering” to them.
Case in point: I saw comments in which the antis called people accusing the Witcher 3 of sexism to be sensitive little snowflakes while being all up and arms about Witcher 3 having a minor gay character. Apparently the existence of that one character was too much pandering. Like… who’s the sensitive little snowflake again?
I personally just wanted both to shut up.
I never noticed soldier was gay but now that he is, I can’t believe I didn’t notice the whole time every bit of dialogue he has makes him come across as gay and proud.
I think a lot of people are allowed to dislike a character’s gay reveal.
It’s not necessarily a dislike or hatred towards lgbt, but the fact that in this day and age, lgbt is used as a statement, as a way for certain people or groups to gain the acceptance of others by showing their “wokeness” and progression
Representing the lgbt is nice, but i don’t honestly think they need to be represented in order to be acknowledged or accepted
And also, announcing a character to be gay the moment they are released is a horrible idea, because you are defining very early on what their defining trait is going to be
Ow characters are already one-dimensional enough, and most can be defined with one word, so creating a character that everyone will know simply as “the gay one” won’t make for a really beloved character
but like look what Apex did with Gibraltar. It’s in his bio (which came at launch) that he realized the importance of heroism when he was saved from a reckless accident with his boyfriend. The boyfriend is mentioned as an afterthought because his defining trait isn’t that he has a boyfriend, it’s that he knows the importance of stepping up and being a hero/helping others. I think that’s an example of how you could mention sexuality at launch without it coming off as in your face and forced
I know almost nothing about Apex but what i meant is that it would definetely not work for ow since it’s heroes are kind of flat and one-dimensional, it would be rather different i think
This is very beautifully said, well done. I can definitely see this perspective. My issue lies with those who dislike an entire character because they are gay.
A character who’s revealed as gay just for the fun of it is definitely terrible, and people can dislike that they were revealed with certain things in mind. I have an issue w those that can “no longer relate to a hero because they’re gay” as if sexuality affects their personality traits.
Again, well said
I definitely agree, but characters in apex aren’t as exaggerated and one dimensional as the cartoonish heroes of overwatch. It works because apex is much more grimey and realistic then overwatch is, from the art to the legends. It might work for apex but I don’t know for overwatch. I would love to see it though, though I could see why it wouldn’t work.
