Comment on Self insert power fantasy recommendations?

• comically_cluttered@beehaw.org ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  I’d rather not wade into the larger “CDPR is transphobic” debate, but here’s an article from Polygon from a few years ago detailing some stuff, including the cosplay contest controversy:

  polygon.com/…/cyberpunk-2077-marketing-cd-projekt…

  To save you from reading the whole thing, basically, during the run-up to Cyberpunk’s release, CDPR got very… edgelord with their marketing.

  One of the more controversial pieces of marketing was an in-universe poster advertising an in-universe drink called “Mix It Up”, which depicts what appears to be a trans woman in a highly sexualized manner. (They’ve stated their reasoning for this more or less being something like “it’s satire reflecting the corporate exploitation and commodification of sexualized bodies in marketing”, but some people perceived that as a bullshit excuse.)

  They then organized a cosplay contest and that resulted in another controversy because it was related to the poster.

  Again, the larger issues with the poster itself (and CDPR as a whole) are in the article, but the cosplay thing really comes down to this bit in the article:

  CDPR also included a cisgender cosplayer as the Mix It Up girl among their cosplay contest finalists. Even if you buy the company line that the poster represents how queer bodies have been appropriated for marketing, their entire argument is negated when they have a cis person dress up in that queer body as part of their own video game marketing.

  If you’re thinking perhaps the model was well-meaning, attempting to create a trans-positive cosplay, trying to further highlight queer commodification CDPR spoke of originally, or just a misguided ally who got it wrong this time around, I have bad (yet predictable) news for you. Yugoro Forge, the cosplayer in question, tweeted that her costumes are “beyond politics,” and when pushed on the fact her Cyberpunk 2077 costume dehumanized trans people who are already subject to violence so frequently, she replied, “many cis men and women face acts of harassment and violence on a daily basis as well.”

  So you’ve basically got them saying the poster is satire, but then they’re not only doing exactly what they’re satirizing, but doing it in a way that can be seen as rubbing salt in the wound for people who were already disappointed in them.

  My personal opinion on the whole thing is that they really just fucked up and couldn’t read the room, but they do also have a history of being less-than-kind to the queer community themselves, so I can understand why people view the company as hypocritical in regards to the whole thing.

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• MummysLittleBloodSlut@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  One of the finalists was a cis woman who pretended to be trans. She put a glowstick in her pants to cosplay the Chromanticore model. CDPR decided to reward that with a feature on their Twitter.

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