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[Major Spoilers] One of the endings in Catherine: Full Body gets extremely transphobic... moreso than that original (OP Updated Feb. 17)
- Thread starter HylianSeven
- Start date
Why is Erica shown pre-transition despite this being a point in time (as Toby is there) when she would have already transitioned? Why is that line there to begin with, instead of showing her having transitioned?
Sure seems like this happened because they wanted to have yet another joke about Toby liking a trans woman. It's not clarification or "information" like you're making it out to be, because there was 0 need to invent a scene where there needed to be clarification.
You're completely ignoring the context of this decision by the writers.
Time travel. Something happened that caused it to be delayed. This game is hardly based in reality.
Again, I'm not seeing the joke, just a nod to the player as the player knows what Erica is referring to. You can want it to be a joke but again, I'm not seeing it.
Do you have some supporting sources that show that's the context the writers are going for, or are you just framing it to be what you want it to be? Not arguing, if you have something in particular you're referring to with that statement I'd love to see it.
Are you being willfully ignorant? Trolling? Or do you really not get this?
The fucking context is the other scenes where they play Toby having slept with Erica when she's trans as a joke. And to some extent it's the game's mythology treating her as a man, it's the deadnaming in the credits, etc. etc. I specifically said "context" and not "intent" because I expected this kind of questioning in response if I did that, but you still went for it.
Also, no, "time travel lol" is not a suitable explanation. At best, they explicitly decided to have her transition later for no reason. That is not nothing. Rather, even if the decision was made out of ignorance and not malice, that does not absolve it.
Arbitrarily deciding that she hasn't transitioned yet, so that they can show her presenting differently, is not a neutral thing at all. That's what you're apparently missing, I guess? And so the "nod to the player" is yet again at Erica's expense.
As has been stated multiple times in this thread, the problem isn't that it undoes the transition. The problem is that the writers are presented with a situation where they can have a Butterfly Effect take place, but...everyone stays the same except for Erica, Vincent, and the KCatherines. So you have to ask why her in particular.
It's just kinda gross to take your trans character and jump on the opportunity to show her pre-transition, and then frame her line in this ending as a joke.
It's not about an in-universe 'does she transition or doesn't she'. It's about the writers indulging in this opportunity to let a cis audience ogle Erica pre-transition.
Im pretty sure Hashino is to blame here. The game director wouldnt let this slide if he wasnt in on it.
User Banned (permanent): Transphobic rhetoric, ignoring mod post
I understand what you are saying, but saying it's a joke is your interpretation, not an objective fact. An interpretation based on someone else's testimony, unless you did play the game. You can choose to see it as a joke, but that does not make it true.
I think the developers just wanted to show how she looked like pre-transition, as it is an important part of that character's life, and the purpose of that line is to show that her character has not changed at it's core, and that even though she has not transitioned yet, she will. I don't think showing her before transitioning is a bad thing to do, it's a part of the character's life. Is it offensive to acknowledge a time where a trans character had not transitioned yet? Time travel shenanigans create butterfly effects, why is it so unbelievable to think that something might have delayed her transition? Why is that so offensive?
These are not rhetorical questions, I would love to hear what you think.
I would suggest that instead of asking people to explain the same thing to you personally that has already been explained multiple times in this thread, a fact that was literally stated in the post you're quoting, you just read the thread.
Though I will say that the amount of consideration you are very generously assuming they put into this is a ridicously huge reach, and a mischaracterization of the scene in itself. Especially in a situation where they absolutely have not earned that benefit of the doubt to begin with.
I don't think it's a "ridiculously huge reach" to imagine the devs saying "hey, since we are doing time travel, we should show how she looked like before transitioning, I'm sure some fans would like to see it, but we should add something to make clear that she will transition in the future". Is that so far fetched?
Oh, no, that specific reasoning would not be far fetched.
It's just that that would be transphobic, for reasons that were not only discussed already in the thread, but discussed on the page right before this one (28).
EDIT: Hell, not even on the page before this one. I can quote myself covering it on this page:
Please at least try to read the thread before you ask things of others.
i need you to understand why this line of thought is a problem
You know how deadnaming is considered transphobic, right? What do you think the act of showing someone pre-transition is?
My mistake, I misread it and was about to throw hands.
OP
OP
I've been trying to say in here: if a large amount of trans people consider something transphobic, it's fucking transphobic and you don't get to tell them it isn't.
Full disclosure, I am cis het myself, but I am agreeing with your point, that I think goes back to "Listen to the marginalized people." It reminds me a lot of the Liam Neeson thread, and many others.
Why is anyone surprised after how they handled what could have been a masterclass and landmark "queer" (but not really) character in P4, and followed it up with those minstrel-show level gay guys in P5?
I won't touch another Atlus game ever again. Don't care how critically acclaimed or beloved it is.
I won't touch another Atlus game ever again. Don't care how critically acclaimed or beloved it is.
Showing a part of a character's story?
Let's say you make a biopic about a famous trans person. And you want to show how they went through the process of transitioning (Maybe that is the point of the movie, to show what trans people go through). At some point in the movie you are probably going to show her before that transition. I don't think that is offensive, or in any way equal to deadnaming. The devs were not denying that character's gender identity. They are not taking a picture of that character before transitioning and saying "No, this is what this character is, not Erica, this character is Eric". Specially since they used a dialogue line to show that the character has not changed, and that the transition is going to happen. Also, I want to make clear that I'm not denying anyone's right to be offended by this game. I understand that because I'm not offended, it does not mean that everyone should just deal with it. I'm just stating my opinion.
They don't understand humanity in this case. This is making a character "better" by magically changing something immutable about them, acting like it was a bad choice they made. This isn't far off from a Nazi fairy tale where a girl is made "better" by changing her ethnicity to fit the German ideal, or the whole premise behind conversion therapy. It's monstrous.
That is, to a degree, acceptable.
But therein lies the problem: this scenario isn't like that. You could, reasonably, be cool with showing off someone pre-transition, if you were making a biopic on that and going into their early life and transitioning. But even then, that's because it's core to your thesis. Even then, it would be wise to consult the person in question or some people who are experienced with the subject. But here, there's...nothing that demands Erica be shown prior to transition, let alone shown in a context that implies she is delaying or decides against doing so.
Erica's not the subject matter of the cutscene. Showing her before transition doesn't aid anything.
If not malicious, it is, at the very least, irresponsible.
Is this game about Erica's transition, her life's story? No. Then there's no reason to show her pre-transition.
What you said earlier about how they might have done this to show fans what she looked like before transition because fans might like to see it is the equivalent to my mother showing my friends what I looked like before I transition because they might like to see it. Do you understand how problematic that is? Do you understand the embarrassment and discomfort a trans person like me would feel if someone did that to them?
No one, and I mean no one, needs to know what a person looked like before they transitioned, it's the same as deadnaming but worse. So unless the game is about Erica's life story and her struggles of transitioning, there was no point to showing what she looked like pre-transitioning. Again, just because fans might have been curious doesn't mean it's okay to show.
I want you to consider the vast difference, on multiple fronts, between a biopic going into detail of a REAL LIFE PERSON THAT LIVED, and a throwaway scene in a video game. That was written by someone. And that barely focuses on the trans character, but arbitrarily decided to show them as not having transitioned when it makes 0 sense for the timeline.
I want you to think about if it's really so simple of a thing to decide that they just didn't transition yet, for some reason. You can't have it both ways. You can't say that they're actually super respectfully showing her pre-transitioning life... while also saying it's totally fine that "the butterfly effect" explains her not transitioning by this point, when that would mean her life was entirely different, yet they're showing none of that.
And I would sincerely prefer it if you actually took some time to read the rest of the thread before you continued to repeat the same incredibly basic arguments that have been discussed several times over, even after being told to read the thread.
(not to mention that such biopics tend to rewrite that person's history, often have issues with cis men playing trans women, etc. etc.)
EDIT: Like... again, I have a post at the top of this very page that went into this exact situation. But you're refusing to do any reading at all before you start bothering people with your questions.
As has been mentioned previously, this new release presented them with an opportunity to un-f*ck the situation that they created the first time...and they somehow made it worse for this character.
They must literally have zero clue how western values work. None.
I mean, this was supposed to be the make-good. It just boggles the mind.
Simply put, this just does not meet standards of today's audiences and should not have been released in this form.
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I noticed that whenever we have a thread about transphobia in gaming we always get a large influx of burner accounts.
It's kind of funny (in a sad sort of way) that people will jump through so many hoops just to make an obvious troll post that no one will take seriously and will get them banned.
Off topic but how the hell does anyone make a burner for this site? When I was signing up I ended up having to use a college email account as the thing suggests. EDIT: was also very cognisant of the fact that I was signing up to comment in this thread when chances were umpteen arsehats were in the process of doing the same.
Update:
Catherine does not explicitly state anything about "making everyone's lives better", however that is heavily implied. She wanted to be with Vincent under different circumstances. She took him back in time and dated him in high school, and they go on to get married years later, in the time when the game's events would have taken place in that timeline. At the wedding, almost everyone else's lives are improved. Paul, the guy that died at the beginning of the game in both this version and the original, is alive and dating Katherine. They are happy. Vincent and Catherine are happy together. Erica for some reason has not transitioned in this timeline, and we do not know if she will in this timeline. Tobey says that he wish he met a girl like that, referring to Catherine, and Erica (pre-transition) puts her arm around him and says "She may be closer than you think", as a "joke" about her having transitioned and dating Tobey in the other timeline.
There's also transphobia involving Rin. The thread wasn't originally about that, so I will spoiler that below.
Rin is male but a crossdresser, and ends up in Vincent's bedroom and he discovers Rin has a penis. He freaks it and slaps Rin's hand away and she runs off. Now the issue here is that they are going with the "trans panic" route, implying Rin was trying to trick him. Rin is also in fact an angel, but angels look like these pink minion-like creatures.
Original:
So the following is MAJOR spoilers for an ending in Catherine: Full Body. If you don't want to know, turn back now.
This got more transphobic, with making Erica never transition being one of Catherine's different circumstances. In the original game, one ending revealed that Erica was trans, and this was handled poorly. Only men have the dreams, and she had them too...therefore by the game's logic, she was considered a "man". There was also that whole thing where Tobey lost his virginity with her and eveyrone basically turned it into a "haha you had sex with a man" transphobic "joke".
Yall really need some help. You seriously have to quit trying to take games so seriously, not only that expecting every developer to share your views on a subject. You aren't entitled to play every title and they aren't required to make games with your viewpoints approved in them. Why try to force your viewpoints on another? Let them make the games for the audience they want to target and if you're looking for a game with "Representation" in it either find one to suit your feelings or make one yourself. You do realize that the vast majority of gamers dont have this "representation" need as you put it and dont find these things "problematic". Its just a very small fringe sect that do, so of course developers arent going to target that small subsection of people, it makes literally ZERO financial sense.
What are the odds this guy blew a gasket when Tracer and 76 were confirmed to be gay and when Apex Legends dared to breathe in his general direction
Number of posts: 3.
Lol.
Yeah sorry we don't need help if we want developers to have some human decency.
As much as it sucks to see something like that posted, there is something amusing about someone not even understanding the topic well enough to troll about it.
Complaining about how devs shouldn't need to provide "representation", when the issue is effectively that they did provide it but they fucked it up real bad is... lol.
Complaining about how devs shouldn't need to provide "representation", when the issue is effectively that they did provide it but they fucked it up real bad is... lol.
I feel like we're on the same page on the criticism, but I'm compelled to make this even more clear: Saying (repeatedly, as you have) this is an issue of interpreting "western values" gives it the angle of this being a misread of some arbitrary local concept (and as such, simply a bad localization choice). You specify that this is an issue of "today's audiences." Both those ideas imply that this wouldn't be offensive to people everywhere.
As I said before, this is the human condition. This is writing that casts humanity, who and what someone is on the most fundemental level, as a "problem" to be solved.
Well, there was an initial period where people could sign up without needing a special email (mine is a gmail I only use for this as a result- I was a little paranoid about the site being attacked early on). So you see a lot of burners that actually made an account back then and just never posted till they get burnt, and often for like... well, posts that are so obviously trolling/going to be banned that they make me wonder why they suddenly decided to go through the effort to post. But obviously there can only be so many of those that exist, anyway. I have to assume at least some new ones are actually throwing their college or ISP emails at it?
I totally agree with you here, but to address "Western values", I feel like we should also more directly state: it is transphobic to Japanese trans people as well.
I was really wondering about this too! Thanks for providing a bit of context.
On the plus side, they've been fairly incompetent trolls (at least the ones I've seen in this thread.) Gone after double digit--or in some cases single digit--number of posts.
Bingo. That was what I was trying to get across, that trans identity isn't a modern/Western creation.
Lmfao I completely forgot about that part
god P5 is such a fucking trash fire
I had the slight hope that Atlus might have taken the opportunity with a remake to tone down the more transphobic parts of Catherine, but was not expecting them to go all in like this.
It's telling about how things work at Atlus, that at no point during the development process did they think any of this might be completely awful or that if someone did, they were thoroughly disregarded.
Here's hoping Hashino is at least serious about handing off Persona to someone else, and focusing on his new studio and Project Re: Fantasy, because the only way I'm looking at any future Persona titles is without him.
It's telling about how things work at Atlus, that at no point during the development process did they think any of this might be completely awful or that if someone did, they were thoroughly disregarded.
Here's hoping Hashino is at least serious about handing off Persona to someone else, and focusing on his new studio and Project Re: Fantasy, because the only way I'm looking at any future Persona titles is without him.
This is not what I am asking for.
1) I am asking about what the japanese trans community think of the new content added to Full Body specifically. It would be interesting to know what they make of it.
2) The "panic" scene is a played out transphobic trope but it leads to more positive things, ultimately, Full Body does give the players the option to make up for it and make the main character gay, which I would think is a step forward coming from that company that has always went out of its way to prevent that kind of development.
I'm really hoping we get some links to back up the claims in that post. I saw it and was immediately curious to read the reactions to the game from Japan, so I did a bunch of Googling and searching Twitter and some other BBS stuff over the last couple of days, but the only thing I could find was a few blogs and matome (conversation aggregation/curation) sites reporting on and translating the reaction from overseas.
http://yurukuyaru.com/archives/79065951.html
http://www.ishiyuri.com/entry/2017/...after-it-released-catherine-full-body-trailer
https://privatter.net/p/3026704
Haven't been able to find anything else or genuine reactions from Japanese LGBT players, unfortunately. Maybe the poster was just talking about stuff she heard from Japanese people in the industry she knows? I don't know, but if there is discussion online, I'd be interested in reading it.
Uh, I hope you're not conflating gay representation with trans representation.
the "trans panic" scene is the least of the game's problems. vincent is written as kind of an asshole, and it's a totally believable reaction for an asshole cishet dude to have in that situation (really, trans women have gotten much worse violence). but most importantly, vincent can grow to be a better and more openminded person after that and ultimately end up in a loving and accepting relationship with rin, which on its own is actually pretty cool!
the main problems with rin's plotlines are its weird conflation of trans, (m/m) gay, and crossdressing as all basically being the same thing and not really understanding any of them. it almost feels like a bunch of cishet dudes legitimately trying to write a queer romance but the concept of being queer is so alien to them they literally make the queer people aliens
the main problems with rin's plotlines are its weird conflation of trans, (m/m) gay, and crossdressing as all basically being the same thing and not really understanding any of them. it almost feels like a bunch of cishet dudes legitimately trying to write a queer romance but the concept of being queer is so alien to them they literally make the queer people aliens
Like I'm into effeminate dudes too but people using that as a way to tell a gay relationship story feels like they don't actually know what goes into gay attraction or even gay relationships.
Not him but to my knowledge Rin is a male-identifying crossdresser. He probably meant "gay panic" but either way Vincent's reaction would be the same. His freak out is because he found a penis when he was expecting a vagina.
I'd assume that's the case. I don't know for sure but I'm assuming that everyone working on the story is straight and doesn't actually know any differences between straight and gay attraction. In fact I think that goes for most CIS people in general.