09.14.07

Contemplation - Elitism, Stereotypes and Anime

Posted in Contemplation, Visual Novel, Manga, Anime at 8:31 pm by RexRox

One thing I hate is when people make blanket statements based on stereotypes - crap like “Americans are all stupid” and “Anime is all porn”. Consequently, I find it stupid when somebody says stuff like “All translators are bigots and hate you”. The blogger in question though does raise some interesting points regarding elitism, which makes excellent fodder for a rant (so I can put off actual blogging a little longer).

One of the points he raises is the argument refuting anime making you better than everybody else, an opinion that is held by elitists. Unfortunately, he does this whilst bagging out the hobby so badly it’s not funny. A self-hating cretin does not a good argument make. As several other people have no doubt pointed out, liking anime is no different to liking TV shows and movies. Drmchsr0 in his arguments essentially builds up some stereotype of anime watchers (I dislike the term otaku) being a bunch of anti-social drags-on-society that amount to nothing. Just read the various rants he has and its not hard to come to that conclusion. He waves the stereotype around a bit more during the ODEX drama and tries to make himself look like some sort of… I don’t know - he’s certainly not an upstanding citizen nor a scumbag. Regardless, he seems to think it’s good that he beats on both the Corporate Authorities and the anime community. As noted earlier however, he hates elitism - regarding the translation community (with exceptions like MM) as full of themselves. Personally, I feel that he too is engaging in a form of elitism - he feels that he’s better than the community because he hates the hobby that he and they seem to love (OH SHI- Time Paradox!). Similarly, there’s a lot of people out there with a similar attitude - MTF is a good start, though I’m sure there’s a hell of a lot of others. They enjoy anime and manga, yet they seem to hate anyone that likes it a little too much or is different to them (drm’s better than some of the MTFers though).

A situation recently came up in which ordinary anime fans (and the more ‘hardcore’ ones) were being slammed due to their liking Japanese anime, manga and culture (in a roundabout way). A lot of people on the SomethingAwful forums where this took place are quite obviously anti-Japanese culture (as noted by drm and others), but drm and a few others seem to think this is perfectly fine - these anime fans deserve what they’re getting after all. My extrapolation (correct or not) is this: Liking/Feeling proud of anime is bad and so is elitism on the matter - but it’s perfectly fine for elitist people who are anti-anime to do whatever they like. Notice the double standard. Oh, and don’t use the argument of stupidity because they paid money - because that’s blatant bigotry.

Is it okay for this to happen? Of course not - if you’re going to preach about the anime community being pathetic because of its behaviour, then apply that standard across everything please - there’s nothing more grating than a hypocrite or double standards IMO. Elitism is bad no matter who practices it - it’s self-gratifying bigotry (I need a new word). If the anime community’s not allowed to act up then neither’s the ordinary community, both can be as bad as one another. By a similar token, stop with the blasted stereotypes - they are full of shit and simply open up arguments to lambasting.

This rant’s probably not entirely accurate and a lot is based on personal assumptions, so take it with a grain of salt. Regardless, this is my opinion on the matter. I’ll look at posting some actual blog material later tonight.

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