Ok, so I’m not exactly the most dedicated Star Wars fan out there. I mean, yeah, I’ve seen most of the films, and I might possibly have owned a plastic light saber at one point, but now I’m beginning to wonder if I ever really understood Star Wars at all.
For example, I had no idea about the plants with boobs.
Last night, you see, I ran across a link to the Wookiepedia — the Wikipedia for all things Star Warsy. Specifically, it was a link to the Wookiepedia page on “Breast.” Not breasts, just Breast, though it turns out that there are up to six of them. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.
The Wookipedia page on Breast starts off with a brief yet still baffling overview:
Breasts were the mammary glands of mammalian species and some reptomammals, and were normally a distinguishing feature of the female of the species. Males did have breasts, but they were far less developed than their female counterparts due to the sexual dimorphism.
Reptomammals!? And what’s with the past tense? Breasts “were?” I’m pretty sure that breasts still are.
Every sentence in the “Breast” entry raises more questions than it answers. In the “Biological role” section, the Wookipedians explain that
In some cultures, sentient females nursed their own young. This was true of both primitive planetary societies like Dathomir, where the warrior-women of the Singing Mountain Clan would feed their children even during solemn councils of war,[1] and high-tech interstellar civilization.
What the hell is a Dathomir, and why are its Mountain Clans singing? How on earth, sorry, Dathomir, do we know that these singing Mountain-warrior clanswomen are breastfeeding at the war councils? In the Star Wars movies I’ve seen there wasn’t any breastfeeding. (Nor was there a Dathomir. but never mind.) Are there like a dozen secret Star Wars movies out there I haven’t seen that focus mostly on breastfeeding?
Even Tenel Ka Djo, Queen Mother of the Hapes Consortium, nursed her daughter Allana herself.[4]
You guys are just making all this shit up, right?
Alternative techniques of feeding infants did exist, as the TDL nanny droid could store up to two liters of milk internally.[5]
Ok, even if TDL nanny droids are a real thing in some expanded Star Wars universe, why do you know the specific amount of milk they can store internally?
Other sentient species retained strong breastfeeding traditions as well: female Wookiees had six breasts, which they used to nurse their litters of cubs.[6] Askajian females also had six breasts,[7] while Gran females had three.[8]
HOW IS IT THAT YOU CAN FOOTNOTE ALL OF THIS. WHY ARE THERE DOCUMENTS THAT SPECIFY THE NUMBERS OF BOOBS THAT IMAGINARY STAR WARS ALIENS HAVE. WHY DO THOSE DOCUMENTS EXIST.
And then there’s a weirdly long and detailed discussion of the breasts of imaginary alien males. From it we learn that Anakin Skywalker — you know, the future Darth Vader — liked showing off his man boobs (not to be confused with the former name of this blog).
As male individuals were not biologically meant to nurse their offsprings, they sported much smaller breasts and produced no milk. Mandalore the Lesser (then a gladiator),[9] Aron Peacebringer (a planetary leader)[10], and Anakin Skywalker (in certain circumstances, such as on Nelvaan) would freely exhibit them.
So fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to dudes taking off their shirts.
Also, whoever came up with the name “Aron Peacebringer,” fire yourself. I mean, what the hell, that is some seriously low effort work on your part.
Some males, such as Anakin Skywalker[16] and Corran Horn would also sleep barechested for comfort, though it should be noted that Horn undressed completely to sleep as opposed to simply going barechested.[17]
Damn, whoever wrote this section is perhaps a little too interested in figuring out when Anakin Skywalker goes shirtless.
Onward. In the “Cultural significance” section we learn, among other things, that
Female patients in bacta tanks could have their breasts covered,[21] but in some cases they chose not to.[22] Leia Organa seemed unperturbed by the sight of Shen breastfeeding in public on Dathomir [1]
I don’t know who Shen is or what bacta tanks are, and I’m sort of thinking that I’m better off for not knowing.
We are also provided with this handy graphic:
And then we arrive at the section devoted to “Non-mammals with breasts,” and that’s when things get really weird.
First we learn that “[a] number of females belonging to non-mammalian species were known to have had breasts.”
And then we get to the shape-shifting, boob-having plants.
T’ra Saa, who was a shape-shifting Neti—a sentient species of plants— had breasts in her pseudo-Human form.[27]
In case you have trouble picturing a sentient plant with huge knockers, the Wookipedians provide a helpful illustration.
Apparently, there’s nothing in the Star Wars universe that can’t have boobs. Humans, wookies, robots, lizards, houseplants — you name it, and whoever is involved with that little facet of the extended Star Wars universe has probably put boobs on it, anywhere from two to six of them.
Actually, that’s not completely true. In the section of “Breast” devoted to developments “Behind the scenes,” we learn that
During the development of Star Wars Galaxies, the team worked with Lucasfilm to determine the female Mon Calamari’s physiology. Because Mon Calamari were not mammals, early concepts showing Mon Calamari with breasts were eventually rejected.[29]
Congratulations, Star Wars Galaxies creators! I award you the first annual We Hunted the Mammoth Award for Restraint in Putting Boobs on Things.
H/T — Zoe Quinn on the Tweeter.
EDIT: I figured out where I found the link to the page, and added a blurry picture of a tree with boobs.
( /s on that last sentence, obviously.)
Oh, god, FATAL. Just read the review, that’ll give you a good idea of what it’s like: rapey and racist. (No, I haven’t played it either.)
To be fair, though, David does have a great point on how silly the “Female? Put boobs on it!” thing is. To my mind the best example is the draugr from Skyrim. I really do appreciate that they thought to include female draugr, but… well, zombies that have breasts when most of the rest of their flesh is gone, that’s a little strange.
Unrelatedly, do the Asari from Mass Effect skeeve anyone else out? The designated “sexy” race is monogendered and it’s a total coincidence that gender is for all intents and purposes female, I’m sure…
I wouldn’t mind it if they weren’t the designated “sexy” race for the setting, but since they are it just feels creepy somehow.
> EJ (The Other One)
I totally agree that it is not a parody. Just that the absurdly long and overdetailled character creation could have been a parody of some more serious and professionnal TTRPG, if it had been treated more heart-lighty.
I do not know the author, but i guess that someone who wrote more pages about the customs of slavery and rape of one race of the game than the history of the said race is not, indeed, the friend of women.
All in all, at least, the book could serve as a “what not to do” for a TTRPG…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35231046?ocid=socialflow_twitter
@Occasional:
The RPGnet review.
The rebuttal by the creator, which should tell you all you need to know.
Otd,
I don’t know why you think anyone is going to click on an explanation free link a troll just dropped in here.
@ Orange Tango Drinker
Thank you, Mango Orange Lemon, for giving us a random link that hasn’t been explained whatsoever, dropped off by someone who is an internet troll. Its been not very fun, we shouldn’t do it again sometime.
Actually, I think I owe an apology (again). I didn’t mean to put you on the defensive, and as a grognard, Lord knows I’ve seen some weird fixations from my fellow nerds.
(Anyone who loves to hate FATAL, look up MYFAROG)
> Nequam
Sorry, can not access, those sites are blocked here, at my workplace.
I had read articles about the game but not the author. Was it articles about the author ?
@Jarnsaxa
Totally agree on Skyrim. That was a good example of silliness. Mass Effect though… hm. I’m not sure about the monogendered / female thing? Usually monogendered falls into spirituality ( reincarnation ) / simultaneous hermaphrodites ( does this one even technically count as monogendered or should it be it’s own category? ) / female-only ( gyno-genesis / parthenogenesis / etc ). Final Fantasy had a monogendered sexless race that everyone considered male even though it was explicitly stated otherwise in the worldbuilding. In nature it’s usually through external influence ( gynogenesis / parthenogenesis intent and use in nature still actively argued, but stuff like wolbachia actively neuters / converts the males of the species it infects into females for its own purposes – which are also reproductive, go figure ).
That in and of itself doesn’t bother me about Mass Effect. I would say the disturbing part of their sexy-girl trope with regards to Asari would be the tentacle jokes in-game. It’s not even a JP game, AFAIK. The Asari always came across to me as a bad joke about succubi intended for a certain audience and for everyone else it just came across under an odd play of the ‘put boobs on everything’ / ‘make it a stereotypical attractive human female BUT ALIEN’ trope.
Back on the OP SW content, the boob / Gossam thing is odd. Without context it doesn’t make any sense, thus fitting with the trope. The tree thing doesn’t actually bother me, because again it is without context. I’m admittedly not a huge SW fan and so all I have to go on without further research is the information provided. Did the sapient tree assume human form because it was bored, or to interact with humans? If it were the former, I agree, laziness ( why would said tree assume human form, and better yet assume human female form instead of something androgynous? ); if it were the latter, isn’t that just… intelligence? Smart planning? The tree is still a tree, it still has it’s original form, it’s just emulating a human form. This creature could have observed that having certain physical attributes nets you an advantage to your interaction while masquerading as another species and thus you emulate those attributes when you assume their form, granting you said advantages in interaction even if it doesn’t biologically make sense for you to have them.
That kinda thing doesn’t bother me, it’s when there is no good explanation for it, or any explanation other than “cause BOOBS”. Worldbuilding where one sapient species is emulating a human species? Okay, no issues. It’s attempting to emulate, thus it will copy; their are advantages and disadvantages to copying the different forms. But outside of that; where the young of a species clearly do not require it? Where the young are too small to latch to the breast of the mother? Where the species are not mammals by any stretch of the overactive imagination / godsplicing / genetic engineering / etc? At that point it’s clearly fetish fuel.
(For those who didn’t read orange tango drinker’s link, it’s about a wave of rapes in Köln over New Years’. Groups of young men from foreign lands are being blamed, natch. The reporting is carefully neutral in only the way that the BBC could do it: they don’t say that being a refugee is bad but also don’t say that being a rapist is bad.
Trigger warning on that link for non-graphic references to organised gang rape and xenophobia.)
@ EJ (The Other One)
Ah, I see. Anyone have any ideas why OTD posted it?
–There are some excellent parody RPGs out there. I would definitely recommend the Timecube RPG. As reading material, not a playable game.
–I’m not a Star Trek expert, but I thought I had heard that the general consensus was that Klingons are some kind of space-Asians, maybe allegorical for American-Japanese post-war relations or maybe American-Chinese tensions. I was told that the Romulans were the space-Soviets.
–I can think of sound reasons for all the information in the breast article to exist, but I have to say collecting it into a breast article seems odd. I’m trying to think of a non-prurient reason I’d need that all in one place and I’m not coming up with much.
–Oglaf is a great webcomic. It’s a really mixed bag though. People who found the linked one creepy will find a lot of it creepy, but it ranges from that kind of body-horror-surrealism to witty one-off sex comedy to complicated mid-length fantasy plots with weird but compelling premises. Also, about 80% of it is what you might call “NSFW”, but the other 20% is tagged in the archives as “safe.” Most of the safe ones are just really lame jokes, but there was a mini-series about electoral politics that was pretty amazing.
Contrary to popular opinion, I am not the orange tango drinker whisperer. :p
Honestly, I’m not gonna talk to OTD unless they respond to the last comment I made to them. EJ, I think it’d be cool if you joined me on this.
What was the last comment you made to OTD? I can’t find it in this thread.
OTD’s link was crazy. TW: sexual violence and racism.
I had no idea BBC was so blatantly rasist. I was really confused at first because they were describing thousands of women being groped and at least one raped on new year’s eve by drunken men, and I was wondering why this made the news because that’s not something they usually report on. Then it became clear this was perpetrated by strangers in public places. Then the perpetrators were described as brown. Then as refugees. Then as gangs, with multiple men on one woman. Also, they were robbing the women.
It’s just a really strangely written, anti-refugee, fear mongering article. I was really disappointed in BBC for publishing it.
Nothing in this thread, I was thinking of when you and I cross-posted challenges to drop the misogyny.
@EJ
It’s not about gang rape; one case of rape is reported, but an unprecedented wave of sexual assaults (mostly groping and harassment) and thefts, as well as setting off fireworks in a crowd. It’s about a situation on New Year’s eve on a public square around the main station in Cologne, which, it seems, was crammed full with visitors and party goers. Witnesses and police speak of the attackers “looking like” people of North African/Middle Eastern decent, which quickly escalated into rumours of them being refugees (allegedly some had copies of the documents needed to apply for asylum with them). It’s really awful, but what I see in German media and in this article is mostly extremely irresponsible reporting.
Also, BBC “neutrality” is a fickle thing, if they report in this way:
That sentence supports the idea that there was a huge, organised group carrying out the attacks, when most others report that several smaller groups used the protection of the crowd to sexually assault and steal from women. There has recently been an upsurge and new quality of pickpocketing in the area, which, by the way, imo points away from refugees who just came here and have no way to become part of organised crime so fast.
Also, I find it patently absurd and I’m totally with kupo that it’s extremely racist to report this incident as something that stands out from the usual level of sexual assaults against women on occasions such as these. BBC and many other outlets report that authorities fear something like this could happen again come carnival season, which is huge in Cologne. The thing about Carnival, though, is that it always has been an awful, awful time for women. I used to live in a small town in Southern Germany with a strong “Fasnet” culture, including a lot of clubs dedicated to rich costumes of witches and boogeymen. Under the guise of these costumes, so many sexual assaults were perpetrated that the town (very late) decided to put numbers on each costume so that the person under it was identifiable. Members of these clubs were esteemed members of the community, you didn’t just get to be in one and have your own costume. That never let to the level of reporting we’re seeing now.
I also don’t want to engage with tango whatchamacallthem, and I’m guessing they planted the link as a kind of racist toldyouso, but I’ve been seething about the media the last few hours because of this; sorry about the rant.
The level of hypocrisy involved in reporting like they do and then closing the article with “but please, no jumping to conclusions and don’t think all refugees are like that” blows my mind. It’s not just the BBC, either.
I don’t see any of this supposed racism at all. The article reports that there has been many attacks, and some suspects have been possibly identified as Arab or North African. That’s all. It even reports warnings not to link this to asylum seekers. The facts have been reported here, not much else. The article is certainly not ‘blatantly racist.’ Its a balanced fair article.
@Bernardo:
Thank you for correcting me on that.
I think I’m too privileged to engage properly with this one, so I’m going to listen instead of talking.
@Orion:
Agreed.
orange tango drinker: when we last spoke, Orion and WWTH both made some good points to you which you haven’t yet responded to. I’d take it as a personal favour if you could do so. It would show respect to them and to the community as a whole.
@Orion – I think you have it flipped.
At least in TOS, I believe:
Klingons = Soviets
Romulans = Chinese (or, more roughly, Communist-allied Asians)
Vulcans = Probably Japanese (more roughly, not-Communist-allied Asians)
Because, hey, it was the 1960s…cultural essentialism…yaay.
See! Vulcans meditate, be mysteriously spiritual, and exhibit emotional control!
Be Amazed! By how much Klingons love to drink!
And Federation / Klingon relations pretty reliably follow the arc of US / Soviet relations through The Undiscovered Country (“The Klingon Empire is going through a fundamental change caused at least in part by an economic catastrophe! Can we put aside our past differences and make peace?! Tune in!”)
As the series continued, though, some of the direct allegory gave way to the species having their own personalities, back stories, and interactions.
Women get harassed in public spaces all over the world constantly. Both victims and perpetrators are of all races and nationalities. Of course it only makes the news when the suspects are brown and it can play into the fear of refugees. It’s not like I think this shouldn’t reported on, but I do think street harassment in general should be reported on all the time and not just in lefty blogs and op eds. It’s insulting to women that the news media only cares about our well being on the streets when we can be used as a tool to scapegoat a different marginalized group.
Many Bothans died to bring us this post. Or something.
Yes. Had a loooong discussion about this with my partner, because he can’t see how weird and kinda sexist it is.
It’s true that women get harassed all the time and I agree that it’s ridiculous that normally there isn’t much media coverage. but I think this case is considered especially newsworthy because it seems that the men acted organised… and that is new in this dimension and it frightens people. I think it’s important not to minimize this.
It’s not like the writers of the Wookieepedia page designed the aliens. That sexism is on the writers of the novels etc., who as far as we know aren’t the same people as the writers of the page.
“Fantasy and sci-fi authors putting boobs on ridiculous things” would be a great subject for a post – hell, for a recurring feature!
I just realized that every depiction of an anthropormophized reptile female with breasts the media has sold me is a lie
@nparker
After that quote, they go on to say,
This doesn’t seem to be backed up by anything other than the fact that there were a large number of incidents. Later, they also say,
Sure, it’s a fact, but is it relevant or necessary in this story? Then there’s this:
They imply that the refugees detained were suspects in this case but don’t actually say what they’re being detained for, and the fact that there was no official confirmation tells me their end goal in including that line is to imply those individuals were involved.
They’re stirring up racial tensions by painting this as an organized attack by refugees against women, when in reality it appears only one individual stated that POC were involved and we don’t know how many that was, the violence wad mostly robberies but we don’t know if any men were targeted, and the media never reports on cases of groping during, say, a riot by a bunch of white guys after a sporting event.
I’ll admit, my eyes passed over some of the more troubling paragraphs in that article–a combination of skimming and privilege. Thank you to the folks who took the time to lay it out–like one of those 3D cross-eye pictures, now that I’ve seen it once, the racism is pretty blatant.
@ kupo
That all sounds rather like exposition, and guessing of alternative motives, to me.
They really aren’t ‘stirring up racial tensions.’ The majority of the media would just outright state their belief. This article didn’t do anything close to that.
@nparker
I have to say, I’m really tired of this kind of sophistry. “well, if you interpret it that way” is, to me, on a level with “that’s just, like, your opinion, man.” Especially since kupo has clearly laid out how the BBC story makes the unwarranted connection between this incident and the refugees.
This is a huge topic in media ethics, and most journalists have been taught that they should be careful about making such spurious connections. One can expect them to be especially sensitive with this, and the BBC (as many other outlets) wasn’t.
The police have since denied the rumours about suspects having asylum documents in them. They have also made clear that while there were around 1 000 people on the plaza, those are not one huge group of perpetrators. Around 90 official reports have been filed to date. The speculation and outright falsehoods in the article are racist, unwarranted and, in the current climate, u
irresponsible.
@ Bernardo Soares
Well, I’m really tired of my points being misrepresented. Its happened elsewhere on the net and now its happening too. This is not about ‘interpretation’- this is about what I believe to be correct and what kupo believed to be correct. See, I disagree with what kupo said, but I’m not going to start claiming that they are wrong simply because they have declared my point to be only an interpretation, which you have done. That’s because that is not kupo’s point, and neither was it mine.
I don’t have to agree with what kupo said just because it was ‘clearly laid out.’ Their view was, but that doesn’t mean I have to agree. I made the point that kupo’s clear points were, in my mind, looking at things that simply were not there. Maybe you need me to expand?
I believe that quote by kupo was overreaching. I believe it to be some form of association fallacy, akin to ‘they reported this, then that, therefore they are saying there is a link,’ which I believe to be wrong.
I’m going to respond to kupo in a comment addressed to kupo now, (its a bit like talking behind a person’s back otherwise if I list my other objections, I feel.)
@ Bernado Soares
Also, please don’t splain media ethics to me. I consider that quite belittling, tbh.
@ kupo
Germany saw a record influx of migrants in 2015, which provoked an intense debate on immigration and marches by the anti-Islam Pegida movement.
Sure, it’s a fact, but is it relevant or necessary in this story? Then there’s this:
This doesn’t seem to be backed up by anything other than the fact that there were a large number of incidents.
No, the policeman implied this. They are simply reporting this.
Sorry, split it in two to make the blockquote mammoth seem less ugly.
nparker: Here’s what you’re missing:
The original article repeated the claims by a random, unnamed police officer that there were 8 suspects arrested who had papers on them. There’s a reason that the use of unnamed sources is problematic, and this is it. The choice of which quotes to use, and how much effort you put into confirming them, is key into how the story comes across.
Maybe the officer was telling the truth, maybe he wasn’t, but we can’t know because his reputation wasn’t put on the line. And if it turns out later that the attackers were just a bunch of random drunken louts who got together at a bar and then launched a grab-and-grope spree, the people who read about a band of asylum-seekers who were assaulting local women may miss the less sensationalized follow-up story.
The BBC chose to use the quote not because it gave a solid fact, but because it was sensationalist and fit the ‘refugees might be dangerous’ narrative. If they weren’t being racist, then they were being lazy, shitty journalists.
I too believe the quoting of the policeman was a really stupid move.
I’m not sure it can be said to be sensationalist when the article also included many quotes that state not to jump to conclusions.
@nparker
I’m obviously not going to change your mind, so I don’t see the need to respond to your points, but I do hope that you took a second look at the article to try and understand my perspective. I did re-read it after your post to see if I may have jumped to conclusions, and I was able to see how it could be interpreted differently, and maybe it’s because I’m in the US where racist media is common, but I still feel like it was racist.
“And what’s with the past tense?”
Hint: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…
It’s a funny thing to see someone discover the SW Extended Universe for the first time (there are hundreds of novels, comics, computer games and other media expanding the SW franchise. This is why ep. 1-3 were so long awaited and also why everyone was so disappointed with them).
@ Kupo
Rest assured I read it a couple more times, and did attempt to see your perspective. I came away deciding it was a badly written article, but no more than that.
Still, even the BBC isn’t perfect- I consider them very much an ally as they attempt to be as neutral as possible (well, they legally are meant to.) I’ve noticed problems occasionally before, but not here in this article. I usually love their coverage as the impartiality thing almost always works- its refreshing in this day and age, and its the only news source I really trust. The neutrality sometimes falters, so I’m not saying it works all the time, but I simply disagreed with the assessment of the article in discussion.
However, I respect your opinion (and am kind of glad you said we could end it there, because I didn’t particularly want Orange Tango Drinker to derail the discussion on this page any longer.)
Kale to Sci Fi & Fantasy:
http://cdn2.mommyish.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/you-sit-on-a-throne-of-lies-ELF.gif
Even.
Doctor.
Who.
@ Mockingbird
At least Lady Vastra is a vaguely humanoid animal. Remember the sexy lass who was in fact a tree?
https://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2016/01/04/star-wars-fans-possibly-really-really-obsessed-with-breasts/#comments
@orange tango drinker:
You were possibly thinking of a different link. That link leads to this very page.
@ EJ (The Other One)
Pfff. Laughing heartily now. Can’t. Stop.
Why are trolls so often really this- silly?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/mayor-of-cologne-says-women-should-have-code-of-conduct-to-prevent-future-assault-a6798186.html
yes this was the link I had meant to post.
Yes, but what are you saying about it, or what do you want to know about it? We’re not performing monkeys- you can’t just give us a discussion topic, then leave and not contribute yourself, you know.