this post was submitted on 19 May 2024
518 points (95.4% liked)

The Onion

4559 readers
1192 users here now

The Onion

A place to share and discuss stories from The Onion, Clickhole, and other satire.

Great Satire Writing:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de 73 points 6 months ago

It’s actually racist not to cast a white man if you think about it – which I haven’t, obviously.

Excellent

[–] Iheartcheese@lemmy.world 51 points 6 months ago (6 children)

I give 2 shits what the doctor is I just miss liking the show lol

load more comments (6 replies)
[–] jettrscga@lemmy.world 45 points 6 months ago (1 children)

People complained that there was a black character in the video game God Of War Ragnarok.

They seem to ignore the fact that it's a game series about Greek mythology and that game is suddenly Norse mythology. Guess continuity issues like entirely different cultures are fine as long as we keep it white!

[–] BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee 19 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Just want to preface that I completely agree with you, I just want to share some fun trivia. The Greek and Norse mythologies are the same*. They both originate from the Proto-Indo-European people. They're not the only ones either, the Proto-Indo-Europeans are thought to have a wide reaching influence, even to this day. As stated, Greek and Norse mytholfogies along with the Roman pantheon, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Bahaism, zorastrianism, along with Celtic, Baltic and Slavic mythologies. There's even reason to believe that the Proto-Indo-Europeans had an influence on Shinto and early Judaism. To my understanding, its believed that Norse mythology is the most "intact" version of the Proto-Indo-European myth. Pretty neat stuff!

[–] dharmacurious@slrpnk.net 10 points 6 months ago

I've always been incredibly fascinated by the PIE>Hindu>Zoroastrian path and how that may have influenced early Judaism. The vast majority of religious people today practice a religion that is either directly or indirectly influenced by PIE mythos and culture, and that's just mind boggling!

[–] Couldbealeotard@lemmy.world 30 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I feel that lore-wise, the doctor changing sex was a bigger test of suspension of disbelief. But they prepped for it by having the Master do it. The Master has previously spent time being a walking corpse, so that is a fairly straight line of baby steps to get there.

Once that's been established, changing race is nothing. And arguably the doctor has shown a not insignificant amount of racial diversity already to prove it's not impossible.

The show just sucks for a variety of other reasons.

[–] havocpants@lemm.ee 4 points 6 months ago

The show just sucks for a variety of other reasons.

Terrible writing. It's been bloody awful for a few seasons now imo. I don't care about the race or gender of any of the actors, but you've got to give me good storylines.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] gregorum@lemm.ee 27 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I really like the 15th Doctor. Ncuti is doing a great job, and RTD really seems to know what to do with him. I really haven’t heard any complaints other than some people whining that the new season is a bit too “fantasy”, but, like, have you ever seen the show?

[–] Monument@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I only want realistic episodes of a show centered around a godlike being that can manifest any reality they choose.

Where’s “The Doctor has to paint a fence”, “Dr. Who and people coughing while standing uncomfortably close at the shops” or even “Dr. Who’s request for holiday got denied and now they are answering emails on a glorious day”?
If my escapist fantasy isn’t reminding me of my dreary life, then what’s the point?

[–] ChairmanMeow@programming.dev 9 points 6 months ago

I dislike how the stories end. The buildup is alright, the setting's the same. But then the ending is terrible. The Doctor isn't being clever or smart or witty or whatever, a solution randomly presents itself and that's it.

It's like, great you can move the space station by causing a burst of baby farts, but you have a TARDIS. You can take the babies yourself. You even talked about that with the only adult there! He then was soundly defeated by the Maestro, only for the Beatles to randomly show up and play a random chord? They even had a clever way to defeat the Maestro (the bubble of silence that the sonic could create), and then did nothing with it.

It's just so... Meh. If only they could write the Doctor to be clever again, I'd enjoy it so much more!

[–] PrettyFlyForAFatGuy 27 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (5 children)

You don't watch Dr Who because they cast women and black men as the main character

I don't watch Dr Who because i have hated the piss poor writing since Moffat took over

We are not the same

Yes i am aware RTD is back, he had four episodes to bring me back to the franchise (three with my favourite Doctor) and i only kind of liked one of them.

and that Goblin episode... wtf was that? Dumb... that's what it was

I thought i hated Matt Smith until i saw him in something that wasn't written badly. Capaldi could have been a fantastic doctor if the writing wasn't so shit. I gave up before i got to Whittaker so have no opinion of her tenure

[–] Zoomboingding@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

She's a fantastic actress that had horrible writing. Also, she really aped Tennant's Doctor's mannerisms more than making her own, though I'm not sure how much of that was within her control.

Watch Broadchurch if you want to see them in something good~

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Meissnerscorpsucle@lemmy.world 21 points 6 months ago (1 children)

WOT having racial diversity in a village where the book made a huge deal about the fact that everyone looks the same due to isolation and inbreeding. That I had an issue with. This is stupid. It is well established that the doctor can come back looking like anything.

[–] zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 10 points 6 months ago (2 children)

a village where the book made a huge deal about the fact that everyone looks the same due to isolation and inbreeding.

Two particular families were called out as marrying into one another often, not the entire village. In fact I feel like Robert Jordan generally does the opposite of what you describe here - he goes out of his way to uniquely describe a ton of Emond's Field residents, and gave them all pretty varied appearances. Heck, two of the main characters, Mat and Perrin, are different as can be in appearance, aside from the fact that they both have dark hair.

Anyways, either way, even if what you're describing is accurate, it's still not a good excuse to get upset that they casted dark skinned actresses for Egwene and Nynaeve.

[–] nxdefiant@startrek.website 2 points 6 months ago

Especially given that they're all descendants of people that lived in one of the biggest cities of the time.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Ballistic_86@lemmy.world 19 points 6 months ago (2 children)

A similar thing is happening with the new Assassins Creed game. Lots of people trying to make every argument against a black male protagonist without just saying they are racist/white supremacist. I’m sure the game is bad, the last several Assassins Creed games were pretty bad. But blaming this one “historical accuracy” or Ubisoft “pushing an agenda” is an intentional (or maybe unintentional) attempt to justify white supremacy.

[–] Clbull@lemmy.world 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (9 children)

I can't tell if Japanese gamers are genuinely frustrated with the inclusion of Yasuke or if right wingers are comment/review bombing the Ubisoft Japan YouTube account's upload of the trailer.

Apparently a lot of the angry comments read as if they've been put through Google Translate and aren't actually in Japanese.

load more comments (9 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] joyjoy@lemm.ee 18 points 6 months ago

The real tragedy is he's not a red head.

[–] TigrisMorte@kbin.social 18 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The character is great. The acting is mostly great. The stories are stupid as fuck.

[–] bane_killgrind@kbin.social 5 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Yeah it's a kids show dude

[–] exocrinous@startrek.website 3 points 6 months ago

First off, that's an incredibly reductive description, especially considering Moffat ran it for a few years. Second, The Owl House is 100% a kids show and had much better stories than the last time I watched Dr Who

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] then_three_more@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They always have been. Next step is realising that even though they're stupid as fuck they're still pretty enjoyable.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] darkphotonstudio@beehaw.org 16 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago)

I stopped watching Dr Who years ago, because the writing was terrible. The Doctor also suffers from Silver Age Superman Syndrome -- they are so overpowered and know everything and are basically infallible. Boring. I don't care what colour or gender they are, just get better writers.

[–] Ilandar@aussie.zone 13 points 6 months ago (2 children)

Mocking the minority of people who hold these opinions just gives them more attention than they deserve. No one relevant actually cares that the character is being played by a black actor. As always, the majority of complaining is coming from conservative trolls who take their anti-woke brigade to literally any film or TV series that has cast minorities in leading roles. It's just the same people doing it every time, they are not actually fans of any of these things and were never going to watch them anyway.

[–] FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yeah I remember reading similar headlines when Jodie was announced as the next Doctor. Same assholes, different day. I’m more concerned that the first few episodes have had terrible writing.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Thcdenton@lemmy.world 13 points 6 months ago (2 children)
[–] ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 9 points 6 months ago

This is the most IYKYK pic I've came across in Lemmy

[–] PanArab@lemm.ee 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

They are from outer space though, not time travelers

[–] Thcdenton@lemmy.world 7 points 6 months ago

If they FTL they time travelin

[–] mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 11 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (2 children)

There's cases where I will play devil's advocate for such asshats. Some comic-book events feature a black Superman, and that raises questions about whether Kryptonians coincidentally match every ethnic group on Earth, or if they've got some skin colors that aren't an option for humans, or if there's some imprinting transformation wiggle-room when they show up as babies on rocketships. Remember that Supes works with a dude from Mars - cosmically our next-door neighbors - and his ass is green.

And for the constant murmur of Idris Elba maybe playing James Bond, I have to point out the sliding window of ambiguous canon. From Dr. No until Die Another Day, the previous film was definitely the same guy, probably, and beyond that ehhh don't worry about it. It was completely unreasonable that Pierce Brosnan during the handover of Hong Kong could be the same man as Sean Connery during the Cuban missile crisis - but there was no hard cutoff. You could suspend disbelief, movie by movie, and never really think about it. Did a character change? Did some details shift? Retcons happen, why worry. Don't ask what movie Bruce Wayne and his parents were seeing. For forty years, 007 was played by 6'1" commonwealth blokes with light skin and dark hair, and the unspoken through-line is that audiences can be convinced all white actors look alike. Casting anyone else would require acknowledging that the codename can be transferred - or starting a new continuity. (Admittedly less of an issue since the Daniel Craig films pretty solidly cover a new continuity with yet another 6'1" commonwealth bloke with light skin and blond hair.)

But... Doctor fucking Who? They're shapeshifters. Every single Gallifreyan gets a dozen chances (or a dozen ish, evidently) to completely scrobble their appearance while maintaining a continuous personality. Even their fucking accents can change. Any losers sincerely whining about this are being bigots about an aggressively queer and accepting production. Even the original run started with an educational bent and tried to be progressive for the betterment of its audience.

The people this article mocks might as well kvetch about Star Trek being kind of preachy.

[–] exocrinous@startrek.website 5 points 6 months ago

Some comic-book events feature a black Superman, and that raises questions about whether Kryptonians coincidentally match every ethnic group on Earth

Not exactly, but they have dark and light skin. Krypton's red sun is a big deal in Kryptonian health. Kryptonian communities living closer to the equator would probably evolve higher melanin the same as humans did. Actually, light-skinned Kryptonians require a bigger suspension of disbelief than dark-skinned ones do.

And obviously the racial dynamics between dark and light Kryptonians wouldn't be the same as on earth. It would depend upon factors like the shape of continents, the location of arable soil, of large herbivores and of predators, and of minerals.

Fun fact: swords made out of meteorites are a common trope in Japan, because Japan has poor iron and big mountains.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] DaSaw@midwest.social 10 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I just hope they eventually cast some fully Britishized actor originally out of Hong Kong... one trained in certain things Hong Kong actors are known for. I want a kung fu Doctor. :p

[–] Obi@sopuli.xyz 6 points 6 months ago

Just thinking of the running scenes through random spaceships being spiced up with some wall runs and flying rotating kicks and it is glorious.

[–] Flummoxed@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You have watched the Pertwee era right? Actually, on second thought, if you really like kung fu, don't watch Pertwee 😁

[–] Minarble@aussie.zone 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You can’t expect Venusian Kung Fu to be similar to Earth Kung Fu

[–] Flummoxed@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

You are completely right, hence my detraction. Very different, especially in light of physics.

[–] minibyte@sh.itjust.works 6 points 6 months ago (2 children)
[–] nokturne213@sopuli.xyz 6 points 6 months ago

Never knew his first name.

[–] David_Eight@lemmy.world 5 points 6 months ago

Comparing mutants to "aliens" is boarding on anti-mutant hate speech. SMH

[–] Krauerking@lemy.lol 4 points 6 months ago

I miss sci-fi stories written by better writers and can't get behind this super special nonsense fantasy.

God I wish even our shows weren't monopolies now of old land holders.

Who cares what an alien looks like other than the people that want it to be relatable for some reason instead of the companion

load more comments
view more: next ›