Does the author have familiarity with the cyberpunk genre, like at all? The melding of cultures under the oppression of megacorps is a constant. Also, there doesn't need to be an Asian diaspora...
Does the author have familiarity with the cyberpunk genre, like at all? The melding of cultures under the oppression of megacorps is a constant.
Also, there doesn't need to be an Asian diaspora for there to be asian things in Night City. Night City is, as I understand the lore, the most technologically advanced city on the planet. All megacorps (including Chinese and Japanese ones) would have a presence there. It feels like the author is getting pre-emptively angry over something they don't understand.
Just because a genre's been doing something for a long time, doesn't mean it has to keep doing something. Cyberpunk as a concept is not above criticism. I definitely agree with you that it's too...
Just because a genre's been doing something for a long time, doesn't mean it has to keep doing something. Cyberpunk as a concept is not above criticism. I definitely agree with you that it's too early to make judgements about this game in particular, but when it comes out, maybe there is a frank conversation to be had about the way cyberpunk and Cyberpunk 2077 use culture.
I definitely agree with "just because it was always this way doesn't mean it's good." But a major conceit of cyberpunk as a genre is the death of the nation, and the rise of global corporations as...
I definitely agree with "just because it was always this way doesn't mean it's good."
But a major conceit of cyberpunk as a genre is the death of the nation, and the rise of global corporations as the major governing entity. In the cyberpunk world all people are a part of a global community under the thumb of a hyper-capitalist system. Which is an extension of the actual globalization and homogenization of cultures that is happening now.
I think the author's point is more about the fact that the "culture" as depicted in the game seems to be mostly surface-level. Use of Asian languages and weaponry without any exploration of actual...
I think the author's point is more about the fact that the "culture" as depicted in the game seems to be mostly surface-level. Use of Asian languages and weaponry without any exploration of actual Asian customs or lifestyle, or what homogenisation/globalisation actually mean for people who are a part of those cultures. I interpret the problem to be more about depth and perspective than about whether or not Asian iconography is present.
Anyway... as we've both mentioned, it's way too early to know how this game in particular will handle it. We'll just have to wait and see, and discuss more when the time comes.
This was already posted by another user, but the topic was deleted before I could post my rant, so I'm re-submitting the topic. If I recorded a video of myself walking through Chinatown in Philly...
This was already posted by another user, but the topic was deleted before I could post my rant, so I'm re-submitting the topic.
If I recorded a video of myself walking through Chinatown in Philly and you could heard bits of conversations in Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin, could see signs in different Asian scripts, and yet I never once acknowledged this directly, would that be wrong? Talking about "cultural appropriation" as if it's a universal wrong makes no sense. In the universe of Cyberpunk there is a stronger Asian influence than you would have in much of the Western world. Our main character speaks English (at least primarily, I haven't seen the full gameplay video so she may be multi-lingual for all I know). There's nothing wrong with any of this.
Everything in the game is part of the atmosphere. It seems to me that because Asian culture and language is so different from Western culture people feel like it's more of a veneer than any other setting. Do people cry "cultural appropriation" for the Mediterranean settings of Assassin's Creed? An American developer taking Italian architecture, language, and art to spice up a formulaic stealth/combat game seems no worse than CDPR's use of Asian culture here.
I wrote a comment in the other thread that I'll also put here I went into this ready to take it in as another reason Cyberpunk 2077 frustrates me, but I can't get on board with this (at least, not...
I wrote a comment in the other thread that I'll also put here
I went into this ready to take it in as another reason Cyberpunk 2077 frustrates me, but I can't get on board with this (at least, not with how much we know of Cyberpunk 2077).
I think they severely misunderstand cyberpunk, and pointing out that other things have done the same isn't really enough there. Basically with anything shown in cyberpunk fiction, you're placed in a hyper-capitalist dystopia with advanced technology, and usually elements of Asian cultures mixed in, as is relevant here. It doesn't take much thought to connect these things, as the overreach of business and often the state are central to everything in cyberpunk, even through the aesthetic itself. What this leaves you with is a genre or aesthetic that is talking about cultural representation and overlap within the framework of a hypercapitalist society. These things are shallow for a god damn reason, that's what it's trying to hammer you over the head with! There's shallow advertisements following you through the streets, projections of fashion lines in the skies, and your augmented reality whateverthefuck is feeding you shallow ads in a million different ways. What do you really think this genre that is built on anticapitalism (or at least criticism of extreme capitalism on top of future tech) wants its viewers / players / whateverrelevantwordforthemediumweretalkingabout to think these are? Do you think it wants them to see these as accurate and full representations of the cultures invoked, or does it want you to see them as hollow commodifications of these things?
Now, there is something interesting there where you could say it is playing both roles. It is critiquing this shallow and surface-level borrowing, but as a product itself, it's also selling that as well. A better way to approach this might be to go after "cyberpunk fiction as a capitalist product" and get into how because it has to appeal in both directions, its bite might be a bit hypocritical and leans on the things it wants to criticize, including this misuse of culture. This is definitely fair, and a criticism I would share for a lot of very good cyberpunk, and a bit similar (if more light, due to the morality of the fiction itself usually not going out of its way to glorify the bad thing) to misogyny point that some are making in that other thread.
I think that may be intentional now, but, especially in early cyberpunk fiction from the 1980s and early 90s, I think it had a LOT more to do with how Japan was viewed at the time by the U.S....
does it want you to see them as hollow commodifications of these things
I think that may be intentional now, but, especially in early cyberpunk fiction from the 1980s and early 90s, I think it had a LOT more to do with how Japan was viewed at the time by the U.S. Japan was an economic powerhouse and was giving the U.S. lessons; they were the future. No one could envision a near future that didn't have Japan as a big player. To extend that idea, make it bigger, a sprawl if you will, well that's only natural.
I think the hollowness that you're referring to is more likely a reflection of the early cyberpunk authors understanding of Japanese culture rather than an intentional literary device.
I don't really even think these things are incompatible. You are right, but I don't think you can divorce the reasons from each other and you really can't ignore what the genre stands for as a...
I don't really even think these things are incompatible. You are right, but I don't think you can divorce the reasons from each other and you really can't ignore what the genre stands for as a whole. The more focused statements that would be made with the cyberpunk aesthetic definitely strengthened later on, but even the idea of "high tech, low life" sets you down that line of thought. But if we look at where cyberpunk is in 2018 and how most people think of it, it's probably big neon or projected invasive-ass advertisements, since it's probably the prediction made by earlier works that hits the mark in the most obvious and currently topical way.
Like, even with what I said being true, there still has to be a reason why the primary places that it pulls from are Hong Kong and Japan, and what you say is certainly a big reason why. I don't think it's an open and shut case, especially since it's hard for me to make an argument about it without trying to put forward the One True Definition of cyberpunk and being all picky there.
I wasn't really clear enough, I guess: I think there's room to criticize these things and especially a lot of the less politically minded cyberpunk tends to include things without much thought in a way that can and should be brought up. But I think this article did a really poor job of placing Cyberpunk 2077 in the context of its genre or saying much of anything.
So thank you for replying, I think I let my admiration for cyberpunk seep in a little too much. I do think that the hollow way that multiculturism through the filter of capitalism is portrayed has an effect much more complex than just "lol this is what those asians are like right?" I also do recognize that the specific ways this came about may not have been quite so noble, and there are probably very useful things to say about that. Nevertheless, I don't think it's fair to take any piece of cyberpunk fiction and tear it down just because it portrays Japanese things in a way that's not very deep.
Please don't take my criticism of the article as criticism for posting it. I very much enjoyed thinking about the topics it brought up, and given the niche nature of the discussion, I seriously...
Please don't take my criticism of the article as criticism for posting it. I very much enjoyed thinking about the topics it brought up, and given the niche nature of the discussion, I seriously doubt there is some better article discussing these very specific topics. No, no, bravo for sharing!
EDIT: Got a little confused about who I was replying to, but I'll leave it as it, because the message applies equally to this post's OP and @Whom :)
I am a big fan of the genre and would love to dispute everything said in this article. However, if I'm honest with myself I have to admit that the author is correct in that the genre blatantly...
I am a big fan of the genre and would love to dispute everything said in this article. However, if I'm honest with myself I have to admit that the author is correct in that the genre blatantly appropriates Japanese culture and not always in very deep way. I think this is especially true with the early fiction. That said, I'm still deeply disappointed with the author's narrow lens and seemingly cherry-picked supporting evidence.
The author doesn't show a deep understanding of the how the genre has generated cultural changes not just in the U.S. but in Japan as well. Reading the wikipedia entry on cyberpunk would have provided the article's author with enough information to better understand the relationship to Japanese culture and how both the genre and Japan's culture feed off one another.
From the anime section of the wiki entry:
Cyberpunk themes are widely visible in anime and manga. In Japan, where cosplay is popular and not only teenagers display such fashion styles, cyberpunk has been accepted and its influence is widespread. William Gibson's Neuromancer, whose influence dominated the early cyberpunk movement, was also set in Chiba, one of Japan's largest industrial areas, although at the time of writing the novel Gibson did not know the location of Chiba and had no idea how perfectly it fit his vision in some ways. The exposure to cyberpunk ideas and fiction in the mid 1980s has allowed it to seep into the Japanese culture.
Cyberpunk anime and manga draw upon a futuristic vision which has elements in common with western science fiction and therefore have received wide international acceptance outside Japan. "The conceptualization involved in cyberpunk is more of forging ahead, looking at the new global culture. It is a culture that does not exist right now, so the Japanese concept of a cyberpunk future, seems just as valid as a Western one, especially as Western cyberpunk often incorporates many Japanese elements."[55] William Gibson is now a frequent visitor to Japan, and he came to see that many of his visions of Japan have become a reality:
Quote from Gibson:
Modern Japan simply was cyberpunk. The Japanese themselves knew it and delighted in it. I remember my first glimpse of Shibuya, when one of the young Tokyo journalists who had taken me there, his face drenched with the light of a thousand media-suns—all that towering, animated crawl of commercial information—said, "You see? You see? It is Blade Runner town." And it was. It so evidently was.[24]
The author's specific criticism of Neuromancer is accurate:
Hell, these Orientalist issues were present from the beginning of the genre with the seminal novel Neuromancer. It is set in a futuristic Chiba, Japan but does not have any Japanese characters, let alone protagonists, which shows that this problematic Orientalist view has been apparent in cyberpunk since the beginning.
But the author fails to mention that the novel also takes place in Istanbul and in an orbiting space station, and that Neuromancer's author, William Gibson, manages to work Rastafarians into the story further demonstrating that multi-culturalism is the norm, not the exception, in his world.
Even though I think that the author's observations are mostly accurate, it's not fair to expect or ask Cyberpunk 2077 to fix them as many of the very things the author mentions (Samurai swords, Samurai jacket, etc) are staples of the genre. While many of the observations are on point, the author has used them to attack a game for representing it's source material well rather than as a stepping off point for an interesting discussion of the transmission of ideas that occurs back and forth between cultures,
EDIT: There is a whole other point to be made about the historical context of which much of early cyberpunk was written and how the U.S. viewed Japan at that time, but alas, I have to go.
Does the author have familiarity with the cyberpunk genre, like at all? The melding of cultures under the oppression of megacorps is a constant.
Also, there doesn't need to be an Asian diaspora for there to be asian things in Night City. Night City is, as I understand the lore, the most technologically advanced city on the planet. All megacorps (including Chinese and Japanese ones) would have a presence there. It feels like the author is getting pre-emptively angry over something they don't understand.
Just because a genre's been doing something for a long time, doesn't mean it has to keep doing something. Cyberpunk as a concept is not above criticism. I definitely agree with you that it's too early to make judgements about this game in particular, but when it comes out, maybe there is a frank conversation to be had about the way cyberpunk and Cyberpunk 2077 use culture.
I definitely agree with "just because it was always this way doesn't mean it's good."
But a major conceit of cyberpunk as a genre is the death of the nation, and the rise of global corporations as the major governing entity. In the cyberpunk world all people are a part of a global community under the thumb of a hyper-capitalist system. Which is an extension of the actual globalization and homogenization of cultures that is happening now.
I think the author's point is more about the fact that the "culture" as depicted in the game seems to be mostly surface-level. Use of Asian languages and weaponry without any exploration of actual Asian customs or lifestyle, or what homogenisation/globalisation actually mean for people who are a part of those cultures. I interpret the problem to be more about depth and perspective than about whether or not Asian iconography is present.
Anyway... as we've both mentioned, it's way too early to know how this game in particular will handle it. We'll just have to wait and see, and discuss more when the time comes.
Seeing as there's a section of the article that addresses Orientalism in the Cyberpunk genre as a whole, I would say yes.
Thank you. I just wanted to add my useless comment that you said it better than I could have.
This was already posted by another user, but the topic was deleted before I could post my rant, so I'm re-submitting the topic.
If I recorded a video of myself walking through Chinatown in Philly and you could heard bits of conversations in Korean, Japanese, and Mandarin, could see signs in different Asian scripts, and yet I never once acknowledged this directly, would that be wrong? Talking about "cultural appropriation" as if it's a universal wrong makes no sense. In the universe of Cyberpunk there is a stronger Asian influence than you would have in much of the Western world. Our main character speaks English (at least primarily, I haven't seen the full gameplay video so she may be multi-lingual for all I know). There's nothing wrong with any of this.
Everything in the game is part of the atmosphere. It seems to me that because Asian culture and language is so different from Western culture people feel like it's more of a veneer than any other setting. Do people cry "cultural appropriation" for the Mediterranean settings of Assassin's Creed? An American developer taking Italian architecture, language, and art to spice up a formulaic stealth/combat game seems no worse than CDPR's use of Asian culture here.
I wrote a comment in the other thread that I'll also put here
I went into this ready to take it in as another reason Cyberpunk 2077 frustrates me, but I can't get on board with this (at least, not with how much we know of Cyberpunk 2077).
I think they severely misunderstand cyberpunk, and pointing out that other things have done the same isn't really enough there. Basically with anything shown in cyberpunk fiction, you're placed in a hyper-capitalist dystopia with advanced technology, and usually elements of Asian cultures mixed in, as is relevant here. It doesn't take much thought to connect these things, as the overreach of business and often the state are central to everything in cyberpunk, even through the aesthetic itself. What this leaves you with is a genre or aesthetic that is talking about cultural representation and overlap within the framework of a hypercapitalist society. These things are shallow for a god damn reason, that's what it's trying to hammer you over the head with! There's shallow advertisements following you through the streets, projections of fashion lines in the skies, and your augmented reality whateverthefuck is feeding you shallow ads in a million different ways. What do you really think this genre that is built on anticapitalism (or at least criticism of extreme capitalism on top of future tech) wants its viewers / players / whateverrelevantwordforthemediumweretalkingabout to think these are? Do you think it wants them to see these as accurate and full representations of the cultures invoked, or does it want you to see them as hollow commodifications of these things?
Now, there is something interesting there where you could say it is playing both roles. It is critiquing this shallow and surface-level borrowing, but as a product itself, it's also selling that as well. A better way to approach this might be to go after "cyberpunk fiction as a capitalist product" and get into how because it has to appeal in both directions, its bite might be a bit hypocritical and leans on the things it wants to criticize, including this misuse of culture. This is definitely fair, and a criticism I would share for a lot of very good cyberpunk, and a bit similar (if more light, due to the morality of the fiction itself usually not going out of its way to glorify the bad thing) to misogyny point that some are making in that other thread.
I think that may be intentional now, but, especially in early cyberpunk fiction from the 1980s and early 90s, I think it had a LOT more to do with how Japan was viewed at the time by the U.S. Japan was an economic powerhouse and was giving the U.S. lessons; they were the future. No one could envision a near future that didn't have Japan as a big player. To extend that idea, make it bigger, a sprawl if you will, well that's only natural.
I think the hollowness that you're referring to is more likely a reflection of the early cyberpunk authors understanding of Japanese culture rather than an intentional literary device.
I want to believe though, I really do.
I don't really even think these things are incompatible. You are right, but I don't think you can divorce the reasons from each other and you really can't ignore what the genre stands for as a whole. The more focused statements that would be made with the cyberpunk aesthetic definitely strengthened later on, but even the idea of "high tech, low life" sets you down that line of thought. But if we look at where cyberpunk is in 2018 and how most people think of it, it's probably big neon or projected invasive-ass advertisements, since it's probably the prediction made by earlier works that hits the mark in the most obvious and currently topical way.
Like, even with what I said being true, there still has to be a reason why the primary places that it pulls from are Hong Kong and Japan, and what you say is certainly a big reason why. I don't think it's an open and shut case, especially since it's hard for me to make an argument about it without trying to put forward the One True Definition of cyberpunk and being all picky there.
I wasn't really clear enough, I guess: I think there's room to criticize these things and especially a lot of the less politically minded cyberpunk tends to include things without much thought in a way that can and should be brought up. But I think this article did a really poor job of placing Cyberpunk 2077 in the context of its genre or saying much of anything.
So thank you for replying, I think I let my admiration for cyberpunk seep in a little too much. I do think that the hollow way that multiculturism through the filter of capitalism is portrayed has an effect much more complex than just "lol this is what those asians are like right?" I also do recognize that the specific ways this came about may not have been quite so noble, and there are probably very useful things to say about that. Nevertheless, I don't think it's fair to take any piece of cyberpunk fiction and tear it down just because it portrays Japanese things in a way that's not very deep.
Please don't take my criticism of the article as criticism for posting it. I very much enjoyed thinking about the topics it brought up, and given the niche nature of the discussion, I seriously doubt there is some better article discussing these very specific topics. No, no, bravo for sharing!
EDIT: Got a little confused about who I was replying to, but I'll leave it as it, because the message applies equally to this post's OP and @Whom :)
I am a big fan of the genre and would love to dispute everything said in this article. However, if I'm honest with myself I have to admit that the author is correct in that the genre blatantly appropriates Japanese culture and not always in very deep way. I think this is especially true with the early fiction. That said, I'm still deeply disappointed with the author's narrow lens and seemingly cherry-picked supporting evidence.
The author doesn't show a deep understanding of the how the genre has generated cultural changes not just in the U.S. but in Japan as well. Reading the wikipedia entry on cyberpunk would have provided the article's author with enough information to better understand the relationship to Japanese culture and how both the genre and Japan's culture feed off one another.
From the anime section of the wiki entry:
Quote from Gibson:
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyberpunk#Literature
The author's specific criticism of Neuromancer is accurate:
But the author fails to mention that the novel also takes place in Istanbul and in an orbiting space station, and that Neuromancer's author, William Gibson, manages to work Rastafarians into the story further demonstrating that multi-culturalism is the norm, not the exception, in his world.
Even though I think that the author's observations are mostly accurate, it's not fair to expect or ask Cyberpunk 2077 to fix them as many of the very things the author mentions (Samurai swords, Samurai jacket, etc) are staples of the genre. While many of the observations are on point, the author has used them to attack a game for representing it's source material well rather than as a stepping off point for an interesting discussion of the transmission of ideas that occurs back and forth between cultures,
EDIT: There is a whole other point to be made about the historical context of which much of early cyberpunk was written and how the U.S. viewed Japan at that time, but alas, I have to go.