Current Events > Gamespot review of Dune-10/10. "Relies on white savior trope"

(+) Yeah! (+)

i dont know anything about dune. Any details

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oh boy

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They're not wrong though

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Isn't that somewhat of a theme though in the book, like it kinda acknowledges it.

ThePikachuBandi posted...

Isn't that somewhat of a theme though in the book, like it kinda acknowledges it.

Yes

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up

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I mean duh?

That's kind of a big aspect of 'Dune' series
:/

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much like the review relies on faux-woke accusations to get clicks

The "good" section just reads like a checklist of buzzwords rather than giving any depthful commentary on why you'd like it.

"Great cast!"
"Gorgeous cinematography!"
"Really makes you feel like Dune-Man!"

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Is it an actual case of "white savior" or just a situation where a white guy happens to be the protagonist?
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I don't know if it's a trope so much as it is an unfortunate byproduct of an industry where male actors are dominated by whites.

DeadBankerDream posted...

checklist of buzzwords rather than giving any depthful commentary

That's because it's literally a bullet point list lol

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Doom_Art posted...

That's because it's literally a bullet point list lol

I feel like a short list of good and bad should go more in depth than "the movie didn't look ugly and the characters have scenes where they are in the scenes."

I legitimately don't understand how anyone could be helped by that list.

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DeadBankerDream posted...

The "good" section just reads like a checklist of buzzwords rather than giving any depthful commentary on why you'd like it.

"Great cast!"
"Gorgeous cinematography!"
"Really makes you feel like Dune-Man!"

...Are you seriously saying that a bullet point list reads like bullet points? Please tell me you're not. I agree it's not terribly useful, but it's pretty clear what they're going for, for whatever reason.

Much like many game reviews have these things at the end. Meant to provide a very quick look at it, which ends up being useless.

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That's not incorrect. But all they did was point that fact out.they didn't even deduct a point for it. So don't let that bother you.

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Thank goodness for gamefaqs sister site, gamespot.
I was considering purchasing Dune, but now I see that it's actually garbage

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Funkydog posted...

Much like many game reviews have these things at the end. Meant to provide a very quick look at it, which ends up being useless.

I very rarely read reviews, so I guess I'm just out of the loop on what reviews are supposed to look like. But like you're saying, it's useless.

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DeadBankerDream posted...

I feel like a short list of good and bad should go more in depth than

That's what the review itself is for lol

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DeadBankerDream posted...

I very rarely read reviews, so I guess I'm just out of the loop on what reviews are supposed to look like. But like you're saying, it's useless.

I would imagine the actual review goes into more depth and this is just for those who want a quick glance/summary (that is pretty useless imo, yes)

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I mean, I wouldn't exactly call it a "white savoir" trope since... the "savoir" ends up committing galactic genocide and is literally compared to Hitler in the story itself.

But this movie only covers the first half of the first book, so I can see how it might come off like that. And the series has definitely got some weird identity politics, to say the least.
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DeadBankerDream posted...

I feel like a short list of good and bad should go more in depth than "the movie didn't look ugly and the characters have scenes where they are in the scenes."

I legitimately don't understand how anyone could be helped by that list.

There is a full review that went along with that short list.

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Remember that this movie isn't the entire book.

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ClunkerSlim posted...

Eh... pretty much literally white savior.

While it's literally "white savior" IMO dune gets a pass seeing as it invented the fucking concept and it wouldn't be until much later that it was codified into racist art elsewhere in Hollywood.

It's kinda like complaining about how the epic of Gilgamesh uses the overused villain becomes friends with the main hero trope or something.

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DeadBankerDream posted...

I feel like a short list of good and bad should go more in depth than "the movie didn't look ugly and the characters have scenes where they are in the scenes."

I legitimately don't understand how anyone could be helped by that list.

Yeah dude. Because its a surface level summation of the review. Its not the review itself

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The white savior is just a 'chosen one' who happens to have white skin, unless the color of the skin is necessary for the savioring the white savior trope is racist nonsense

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Lisan al-Gaib

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sevihaimerej posted...

The white savior is just a 'chosen one' who happens to have white skin, unless the color of the skin is necessary for the savioring the white savior trope is racist nonsense

It becomes racist when you examine the culture and circumstances of the people being saved. Bruce Willis isn't a white savior in Armageddon. He's just a savior who happens to be white.

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Tyranthraxus posted...

It becomes racist when you examine the culture and circumstances of the people being saved. Bruce Willis isn't a white savior in Armageddon. He's just a savior who happens to be white.

Interesting, could I have an example of an actual white savior and what circumstances of the saved contribute to you applying that trope?


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Wonder what their LotR review looked like.

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lmaoooo

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sevihaimerej posted...

Interesting, could I have an example of an actual white savior and what circumstances of the saved contribute to you applying that trope?

Dune. Like the original story, relies on familiar "white savior" tropes.

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#NoMoreWhiteSaviors

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sevihaimerej posted...

Interesting, could I have an example of an actual white savior and what circumstances of the saved contribute to you applying that trope?

Avatar is one, it's essentially a white character coming in and saving another racial community with their new, fancy ideas or ways. They usually become highly revered by the community and achieve high honours in it while literally only being their for like year or two. The unstoppable threat they usually help against is other white people, who the non-white group is no match for.

Darmik posted...

Dune. Like the original story, relies on familiar "white savior" tropes.

Why only answer half a question and which half of this question will you answer?

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ThePikachuBandi posted...

Avatar is one, it's essentially a white character coming in and saving another racial community with their new, fancy ideas or ways. They usually become highly revered by the community and achieve high honours in it while literally only being their for like year or two. The unstoppable threat they usually help against is other white people, who the non-white group is no match for.

I see...for Dune, I never read the book but I'm trying to remember any non white people in the David Lynch movie and I can't, so I assume it can be a matter of coding? I still find it difficult to not see that as a 'chosen one', he's the Kwizatz Haderach iirc there's only one of those, he represents that not a whole race. If anything that movie was about the evils of gingers and the upsides of drug abuse, but again that was a David Lynch movie that even he admits is all over the place so I'm sure there's important details omitted (or that I just don't remember).

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sevihaimerej posted...

Interesting, could I have an example of an actual white savior and what circumstances of the saved contribute to you applying that trope?

As was already said, Dune is pretty much the original one.

The circumstances in question generally involve the affected people having a culture that is considered primitive to that of the white savior, and the white savior, who pities the savages, will defend them against other uncaring white people, or from an oppressive faction within their own people.

A somewhat popular example of this is District 9 where aliens, despite all their advanced Knowledge, can't seem to do shit to change the battery of their space ship until a white guy decides to help them out.

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sevihaimerej posted...

I see...for Dune, I never read the book but I'm trying to remember any non white people in the David Lynch movie and I can't, so I assume it can be a matter of coding? I still find it difficult to not see that as a 'chosen one', he's the Kwizatz Haderach iirc there's only one of those, he represents that not a whole race. If anything that movie was about the evils of gingers and the upsides of drug abuse, but again that was a David Lynch movie that even he admits is all over the place so I'm sure there's important details omitted (or that I just don't remember).

It's not coding really. The fermen were explicitly viewed as lesser subhumans. It's a fictional ethnicity but the story of oppression and salvation is the same. If you replace fermen with something like "American Indians" you see the story for what it really is.

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The good- effectively adapts novel to screen
The bad- like the original story...

This is literally a contradiction wat

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Thank god they warned us

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ClunkerSlim posted...

Wow. So apparently Michael (the author) is taking a lot of shit over this review. Both on GameSpot and Twitter. Someone just hacked his twitter account and did some kind of shit with venmo payments. A lot of people are also calling for him to be fired from GameSpot, not realizing that he already quit last week. All because he said "white savior tropes." I get why he left GameSpot now.

Yeah being a game reviewer sucks, say something is bad and you're an idiot, say something is good and you're a shill. Not saying game reviewers are faultless, but they get a disproportionate amount of hate for what they do.

Tyranthraxus posted...

The fermen were explicitly viewed as lesser subhumans.

Genuine question, have you actually read the books?

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ClunkerSlim posted...

https://twitter.com/ClunkerSlim/status/1435053730324533249?s=20
https://twitter.com/ClunkerSlim/status/1435063918163120128?s=20

I don't know about the SyFy movie, never saw it, but the Fremen aren't portrayed as gullible in the first book. They're more advanced than the colonists when it comes to the spice (which is the most high-tech thing in the universe), combat, survival, and especially understanding the worms. There's a whole subplot about how they're bribing officials to ignore their more advanced settlements so that they can operate under the Emperor's radar.

And while Paul might not do the most damage until later books, the whole first novel is about him gaining awareness that he is choosing a genocidal warpath purely for the sake of revenge. Obviously the books are dealing with messiah archetypes and colonialism, but these things aren't presented as positive. Pretty much the opposite.

There actually is a lot of problematic stuff in Dune, but it's more about gender roles, sexuality, and eugenics.

Of course I haven't seen the new movie, so it might be totally different.
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