Overwatch 2's Weird Relationship With Representation
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- Опубликовано: 16 июн 2024
- Be who you are for your Pride!
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Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
03:57 - Part 1: The Girls, Gays, & Theys of Overwatch
07:01 - Part 2: Corporations Aren't Allies, They're Corporations
13:31 - Part 3: Queer Cynicism and Blizzard's Reputation
24:23 - Conclusion 
Игры
As a bi person: we are all stronger than everyone else, we have 10% damage to all men, women, and enbies
As an enbie, we are cosmic horrors. Our flesh vessels may be weak but they are disposable. A mere intersection of our vast reaching presence with the corporal plane. If you slay one, 3 more will return
I can’t say I am one but my girlfriend is gender fluid and they are the scariest thing ever, they have the powers of every gender at the same time, 50% damage to everything, 50% damage resistance to everything, the powers of the multiverse, extremely dural, and can make jokes about any body part to ever exist, there might be more but she hasn’t told me everything
And a Big Iron on our hip
True
@@andrewenderfrost8161 As the cosmos I can confirm. You terrify me.
Man, idk if its embarrassing but I only realized that there was a pride event like 2 days ago after talking with someone in comms, because the event is disabled in my country. I mean, its not like I live in a Muslim government or where I understand it would be disabled
Maybe you're in a server with a country that bans it. Idk if that's how it works or not, but maybe
Are you russian bc thats why if so
@zackwalker1789 it's probably a client that just doesn't have the files in the game at all and just doesn't run the event.
Personally, soldier being gay would’ve made a lot more of a lore impact if he’d been in a relationship with reaper pre-fall of overwatch. The splitting of the team coinciding with their relationship would’ve added a lot of narrative drama.
But nah, just have him dating some vague guy who we know nothing about and have never seen. And have Gabriel have some of screen wife we know nothing about.
This gave me go/jo × g/eto flashbacks
gabriel having a wife was basically just them beating the allegations imo like it feels so thrown in there sometimes
Gabriel was already in a relationship tho💀 at that point it just seems useless
I don't know, I feel making Soldier 76 and Reaper a couple would have just reinforced the trope of a tragic queer couple breaking down.
Besides, Reaper already had an established relationship (even if Gabriel and Soldier having been together would definitely have been cool as heck)
This is why I hate that retcon. It was clearly done as pandering and terribly implemented in the lore.
Tracer didn't have any existing lore that was made odd from a story creation perspective. Closest she had was winston but them being in a relationship doesn't add anything. It's not some obvious missed chance.
what baffles me about the Soldier one is that Reaper was RIGHT THERE. like either way it was an obvious attempt to score points while deflecting from allegations, but they so clearly didn’t even try.
I mean i dont think that was necessary, reaper was confirmed to be in a relationship long ago and that love bs would be hella forced
Also on the context of OW rep in 2016: I want to point out that back before Tracer was revealed to be a lesbian Geoff Goodman the Hero Designer at the time did an interview with Kotaku saying they wanted to reveal their queer heroes "organically" in their lore and story instead of "pandering" and it clearly bit them in the ass. Note after he left their "policy" clearly changed as Gavin and the new narrative team now aim to have their queer heroes' identity be baked into their character, instead of just finding a "plot relevant" reason to reveal this.
And the part where you said Soldier: 76's sexuality was obviously added retroactively, that's 100% true. Fun Fact: Soldier 76 was Chris Metzan's OC that he created way back in the 90s. Thing is he was very eager to reveal OW's gay heroes during Overwatch's launch days before he left Blizzard so it was clear that 76 was planned to be gay from the start and he agreed to the change.
Well, I wish I'd read this comment before I made my comment. You know that's how it works 90% of the time!
If the Soldier thing was true, why does he have flirting lines with Ana when he's supposed to be gay from the start?
@@AzureRoxe 76 and Ana have never flirted. They've always treated each other like an older sister lecturing their younger, reckless brother. Their voicelines only include their past missions, 76's insanity against the world, and Ana just being tired of 76's BS. So 76 coming out as gay isn't too farfetched. The execution and timing is just bad.
I think you're mistakening 76 with Reinhardt. Rein's interactions with Ana could be seen as flirting, but he's more chivalrous than anything. The guy doesn't have a partner either, so his sexuality can really go anywhere.
wait, are you saying he was supposed to be gay from the beginning, then changed to straight, then back to gay?
@@AzureRoxe Didn't the King's inclusivity tool also substracted points off of Soldier's sheet because it said he was straight?
Fun Fact: The Loverwatch strictly states that the events are non-canon, but COULD happen. Meaning Genji, Mercy, and Hanzo are all technically confirmed as Bisexual
AHH I LOVE THIS
How are genji and Hanzo possibly bisexual?
@@katsdrawsim guessing bcus the mc (player) can be either male or female?
The creator liked thr comment...
@@yume5441 then wouldn't it be pan? Bc the player could be nb
I think the people saying that the devs are doing queer content only as a cover up are forgetting that blizzard gets bad press like, every other day.
I actually thought S76 being revealed as gay was refreshing. He’s not outwardly very flamboyant and I know many gay men who are the same (myself included). That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with being flamboyant, I love flamboyant people, but many of us just aren’t
I think it would have been a lot better received if it had been better announced. It was through a comic and one spray? Not even a voice line, or one of those pre-match chats. I'm all for representation of more silent masculine gays (along with the flamboyant ones) but so many times in games they feel like afterthoughts to please the Gays™ without any effort of making it matter
@@geroni211 This is also true, some dialogue mentioning Vincent would have gone far (I think that’s his name anyway?)
i do very much agree that a lot of the problem comes from how hidden it is. but i'll also point out that it's very rare (and kinda nice) to see older queer representation at all... and also that s76 getting confirmed as gay caused his pickrate to go down, and i think that's hilarious and should happen much more often
@@papervulture it'll be absolutely hilarious if they mega buff a character after revealing them as gay and watch those people force themselves to play that character 😂
i felt the same way when he was confirmed as gay, his OW 2 redesign makes him look more like a stylish old gay dude to me. it felt like they put a lot of effort into it. it's the cowl neck and gelled quiff lol
Fr like lifeweaver isn’t a femboy at all 😭. My bf and I were hype to have a guy with a “cute” aesthetic but while I love lifeweaver he’s more “pretty boy” than any other vibe. Anyways nice vid 👍
i think he has a combination of masucline and feminine traits
As a straight guy I dont often think of watching videos like this but im happy I did as this was very thought provoking for me and I enjoyed listening to all the points keep up the great work
You only me mentioned it briefly but I really don’t like when people paint blizzard (or any company) as cowardly for not doing anything in countries where the pride content would get banned. I think most people don’t understand how serious this actually is - showing this kind of content is straight up illegal in those countries, there is nothing that blizzard can do about that. Their only options are not showing the content or just having their game get banned. And the ladder option would be horrible, not only for blizzards business but also for fans in those countries, who may get their favorite game taken away just so blizzard can get praised by western fans who have no idea what it’s even like to live in a country like this. It’s horrible that it’s like this, but people can’t expect blizzard to single-handedly change the law
I mean, I think it's worth acknowledging that - as much as companies might want to be seen as progressive - they still draw a line where they're not willing to put their wallets where their mouths are. Nobody's suggesting that Blizzard could unilaterally end homophobia or anything, but the point was that these are ultimately still corporations, and they'll make the profit-oriented decision.
@@TheViveros but publishing this kind of content ultimately puts the consumer and potentially the employees in those regional offices at risk, so I don't think that this is a fair assessment. Had they pulled a full Disney, then we would not have had any proper pride event, so I would cut team 4 some slack here.
@@obtusemushroom yeah, the idea is just that they will be silent if push comes to shove, meaning they aren't allies. And that's fine, the point was just to remember that it's a corporation. They don't have to make their employees champion gay rights, but at the same time they shouldn't be seen as highly progressive/an ally. They're fine and it's definitely better to have some representation than none, but it's just something to remember, especially when the CEO is donating to far right groups.
Well, they didn't run the pride event in countries where its 100% legal, there are pride parades in those countries and obviously other companies have done similar events with no legal repercussions.
So this probably was not motivated by legal reasons. More likely they estimated their reputation would worsen in the countries which are seen largely as queerphobic.
After two weeks they backpedaled and enabled the event in some of those countries which had most outcry (Romania, Poland)
People are like that? Man, Blizzard is big, but it's not like they can suddenly bypass laws like this. If you go there, follow the laws or get out. Not like Blizzard can suddenly change the laws, and these kinds of laws are usually backed by culture norms. Maybe bribing the right judges could change something, but there's no changing a culture in a flash.
IDK if lifeweaver has an official ethnicity, but as indigenous, I identify w him so much. Additionally, being two-spirit is a concept that is heavily misunderstood because we already misunderstand gender, but LW is def that sensual lover type in touch w his masculinity and feminine side. Its so crazy to see a whole accidentally represented.
Lifeweaver is thai, but I do feel the same way that you do
I wish they’d get some fucking PVE representation.
what do you mean, the PvE content is the player fighting themselves for playing this godforsaken game in the first place
I think what annoys me about this discourse, and this is no shot to you, I'm sure you *know* this even if it doesn't always come through explicitly in-script, is that when people talk about Blizzard and criticize Blizzard, they're really referring to atleast 3 different entities, ABK (The Board, essentially), Blizzard Entertainment the developer, and the multitude of different teams within it, each of which are pretty massive.
I get very annoyed when people bring up the harassment and the bro culture and the breast milk theft specifically in relationship to Overwatch because we have it on relatively good authority that they (Team 4) weren't involved in any of that (iirc it was mostly focused in the WoW and Diablo teams). Team 4, by all accounts has, atleast in terms of workplace culture, been the white sheep of the company pretty much since it was founded and having people bitch about the nebulous concept that is "Blizzard" like there's just one "Mr. Blizzard" making bad decisions and not a massive company of thousands with a complex hierarchy, just reeks of being disingenuous.
I do want to praise you for the pinkwashing segment though, because it needs to be said. There's no grand conspiracy from Blizzard to hide their controversies. They couldn't even if they tried. There's always going to be some announcement coinciding with bad press because they're a big machine with many moving parts and both are *always* happening. And the constant conspiratorial hearsay is really insulting to the devs just trying to make shit happen.
One thing that wasn't brought up is that running this event in countries with strict laws against LGBT+ *is* legitimately dangerous for both their regional office employees and their customers. There are places where people do legitimately get arrested for being found with these things, so I don't take them not running it in those places as any sort of slam against them, it's for their protection, as unfortunate as it is. I really can't agree with this criticism. They even went back on not running it in Romania and Poland after doing more research into it and deciding it was ultimately safe, so they'd clearly run it everywhere if they could. The fact they can't safely isn't their fault.
Corporations are inherently self-interested and socially neutral. They swing whatever way they think will help them sell more products. That's the system we live in, and much like how the cycle of abuse perpetuates itself, turning victims into abusers, I see rainbow capitalism in the same way. It's hard to take stands that go against profit in a system where profit has always matter above all else. But I see these progressive moves as small victories for both the devs that clearly fight for them and the players who deserve them. When they make content like this, I do believe that it is a genuine expression from the people who actually made them, and I don't think that should be discounted just because the coporation bodies that have to stamp approval on it may or may not have cynical reasons for allowing or disallowing it. Like you said, everything's complicated.
(panrom ace, btw. I don't really like throwing it out as a disclaimer but I've had people dog on me for pride takes if I don't mention where I stand, so).
I love how nuanced your take is. The bit about "just release it in countries where ebeing lgbtqia is illegal" really irked me in the video as well, even if everything else was great...
I greatly appreciate your take on this,
This video made me question if there is such thing as being authentically lgbtq+ friendly while being corporate and hearing your take which gave some credit to the devs and their efforts a bit more attention helped me find some footing.
Coming from a country where LGBT laws are non-existent and is shunned upon even having any amount of queer representation in media be censored (Brunei), I completely understand if a big company wouldnt exactly be able to shell out and announce their big LGBT oriented events to certain regional demographics around the world which simply dont allow it.
Me being a gay person living in a very homophobic country, it means something to me when I am able to recognize efforts from other parts in the world be it through mainstream media or a game like overwatch. Even if they may not exactly be completely "authentic" just because they're a corporate company. It still is able to bring a smile to my face, make me feel seen and heard.
These efforts like announcing a new queer hero in a video game may seem small, irrelevant or unimpactful in the grand scheme of things especially in a global scale but from the people who have been raised in an environment where we arent able to be exposed to these advancements in queer representation it is a blessing to be recognized.
That being said, im not saying that people aren't allowed to express their opinion on the topic and find it that way just like how Viveros did in the video, but just wanted to recognize and appreciate what is there. Its these small victories that help us get to where we would ideally want to be.
Much love!
My gay friends in Saudi Arabia told me that their version of the game has no references to pride if you put the rainbow player icon on they would only see the default overwatch logo and the midtown map has no pride decorations
HE DON'T MISS!!
(also, i came out to my mom and it went incredibly well and she's super supportive of me :3)
I'm so happy to hear that, congrats!
@@TheViverosysm!!! Can't wait to go to my first pride with my sister
Oh also, there was the rainbow weapon charm so I guess there was 4 in game pride cosmetics
5:06 thank you lol. Drives me wild hearing them call those prepubescent twigs daddy
I love how Venture is UNDENIABLY queer due to their pronouns. There is no way to refer to them without acknowledging their non-binary identity, unless you're going to go out of your way to be ignorant or bigoted. I love that it's exposing a lot of the ignorant in the community and hopefully people can learn. If they weren't taking a commitment before, they sure are now. Even the VA for Venture is non-binary and goes by he/them/she.
well ive seen a lot of people just go out of their way to misgender them. just to be bigots.
baptiste my beloved, i love his interactions with lifeweaver and other way around (when lw pulls bap there can be special lines)
anyway it's weird how overwatch falls between checking boxes and actual diversity representation but fails a bit on all ends but also makes people mad still like it's just kinda weird. it's nice to see in popular games but also still feels hollow?
idk its a hard feeling to put into words but this vid does a good job of getting those words organized!
anyway fuck money all my homies hate money.
Weird how people think any billion dollar company cares for them as a person lmfao
I remember not questioning the representation at all back in 2016/17. I was just so happy and excited that I ate those crumbs up, and I thought it was soo nice of blizzard to make the two characters that were essentially the poster children of overwatch queer. Now looking back, it was definitely questionable and I’m glad they finally committed to some actual in game representation. It’s just unfortunate that it comes at a time like this where there are basically no positive feelings towards the game, and bigots can just disguise their nasty comments as regular overwatch hate
The game that makes people v-tubers takes another victim
I will be suing them for damages, this shit is *expensive*
And now we have nonbinary Venture...
As a gay dude, I personally like the way they did Soldier and Tracer because they were made lgbt in mind for their backstories and it was just a part of who they were and not their entire idetity. They felt more special and organically revealed than the way they did Phara and Baptiste. Phar and Bap were just confirmed outside of the game with basically no previous hints or context that they could have been queer in-game.
Im sure if Overwatch 1.2 actually came out with the PvE, it would have probably shown representation through the campaign story and feel more organic.
I just find it funny thinking that soldier is this mean hard ass who you would think is the farthest thing from gay, ends up being a big gay grandpa.
~someone~ hasn't been paying attention to the voicelines between bap and literally everyone. (also mercy and pharah have been flirting for a LONG time.) none of this was *sudden*.
Baptiste has definitely been hinted at as queer, both from voicelines and the short story about him and Mauga that came out years ago.
@@duckatalinah nah not the pharmercy ship CEASE LEAVE NOW
@@duckatali It feeks like Mercy and Genji have been doing that more.
Just finished watching and this is another banger video! I always said Blizzard's approach with Representation with the "have it's cake and eat it too" was bad and it's also reflective on how they represent social commentary too. That being said you're completely right about it being super complicated as the political social climate is treacherous right now with queer folk and any positive rep is important BUT we still have to be critical of corporations. I believe this thought can absolutely co-exist .
Also the "blizzard is too dumb to make these 5D chess plans of rainbow washing" part is 💯
I'm glad you liked it, Bastet-related errors aside lmao
And yeah, it's hard to know how to talk about this stuff imo because of all the nuances involved in it, especially because people feel very strongly for very understandable reasons. I totally understand why a lot of people assume the worst, both because of Blizzard's reputation and just the general legacy of queer representation, but I also understand why a lot of people do sincerely believe that Blizzard could do better and how important Overwatch is to them. Either way, I do think that it's important to draw a line between being cynical about Blizzard's motives and values versus being a conspiracy theorist, bc some of those theories on Twitter give Blizzard *way* too much credit.
Baptise _wasn't_ confirmed queer before?
Damn
Yeah, I thought this was well known
Yeah he had full bi vibes from the start
I can say as a fellow Yeehan supporter since day one, we were in pain, especially with Bap making eyes at Cassidy.
But besides that, my sister made a good point: we may not see already established characters with non-straight identities anymore. They may not want a lot of their roster being rainbow because, ugh, we are unfortunately still a minority. Plus notice there's still no canon relationships, straight or not, between playable characters? Yeah. They will subtext until the cows come home, but they don't like confirming relationships in case it upsets those who don't either like those particular ships, or, idk, people don't want loveydovey voice lines.
Then again, look at everyones reaction to Lifeweaver and his flirty af lovely self. Maybe they'll change their mind.
Widowmaker's whole thing is being seductive, I don't think anyone would have an issue with Lifweaver being flirty. I think it comes down to the relationships thing. I loved the idea of Rein being Pharah's dad, but the theory got crushed later. 76 and Ana seemed like a natural pair, but it got crushed. Plenty of people wanted Reaper and 76, but it got crushed too. I stopped caring about the lore entirely after just about every theory gets deconfirmed, because Blizzard's subtlety sucks more than their decisiveness.
I find corporate pride less helpful as a means to tell the "morals" of a company, if they could be said to have any lol, and more as a barometer to see how small the group spreading hate actually is. Anti LGBT people are louder than ever, yet companies do stuff anyway meaning that the majority of people support LGBT rights, at least enough to make it the more profitable option
@4:50 OMG! Thank you for saying this! 😂
IMHO Everyone is obsessed with categorizing any dude who isnt traditionally masc or has a dumpy🍑 as a femboy and its such an eye roll.
The most interesting thing about Overwatch's representation is the ults.
Specifically how when your allies ult, you hear their English lines, and only hear the "native language" lines when they're on the enemy team (or when YOU do them).
Contrary to Blizzard's goal of making Overwatch a team that welcomes diversity it makes you feel like you're a bunch of English-speaking Americans fighting against foreigners who refuse to conform to English standards.
Of course, that's not WHY they did it, I'm just saying that's an unfortunately inference one can make.
This is actually a topic that I’ve got on the list for a potential future video! The way Overwatch uses language is really interesting and has some unintended consequences for sure.
The queer representation issue is even more bizarre when you take into context how Riot Games, wholly owned by Tencent, a chinese company, somehow has better queer representation than Overwatch which is owned and opersted by an american company.
been ages since i touched league but how is their rep better.
Im commenting this at 6:38. I have no clue if it will be covered and I hope it does, but there feels like a lot of subtext with soldier. As a literal dont ask dont tell soldier. He is gay, but its quiet. Its almost silenced by his career in a very literal sense. While this is not really representation, its really akin to our real life situation as is-
As a cisgendered, white male with mental illness Im very happy to be represented by characters like Sigma & JunkerQueen
Fr tho 😂
this is an amazing video. this is my first pride being out as bi, something i rly wasnt admitting to myself. but seeing bap be bi was really cool. now im coming to terms with the corporate aspect of it all, its really sad hahaha
There is one thing I liked about Soldier: 76 being revealed as gay:
Before the announcement that Tracer was gay, people were speculating who the secretly gay character was. The majority of people I saw had two answers: Zarya for women and Lucio for men. Zarya because she was a butch, pink-haired character. Lucio because he's the most free-love kind of guy but also the twinkiest and least manly of the bunch.
The fact that the first two gays were poster children of the game, one of which being a masculine, tough guy who wasn't about flowers and pastels, gave me hope that gay men can stop being stereotyped by flamboyance while being seen as "men*" and that gayness can be perceived as being befitting of anyone because it's not intrinsic your ability to fit an aesthetic.
I think the funny thing about this is they would probably get less heat if they had less representation. People would look less to conspiracies and extreme theories about the company being homophobic or whatever if there was nothing to bring peoples attention to the topic. Kinda sad
I think its more about WHO wants representation, and HOW they want it. Every representing character in OW is a stereotype except 76 and Bap. They got different reactions, but Bap didn't really have much going for him and 76 was subjected to Blizzard's canon-relationship whack-a-mole only to end up with a non-playable character retroactively. At this point, I am still waiting on trans Zarya reveal because it would be SO BLIZZARD of them to do that. Not even limited to gender and sexuality, because nationalities get stereotyped too. Lucio was a jet-set-radio expy, so him being barely-Brazilian wasn't an issue for many (Brazilians like Blanka, I don't think they mind it lmao). Bap is just kinda dull to me.
In my opinion, I prefer it when representative details like this are not often directly mentioned. When a company makes multiple direct references to a character being gay, having autism, etc it feels more like a corporation trying to appeal to those groups to sell more, rather than the writers trying to make a genuine and representative story. In reality, having these identities shouldn't be the forefront of their character, because they are much more than those identities alone.
Still waiting for good representation of ace and aro characters which are actually human :')
True.
Theoretically you could always headcanon a person with no confirmed sexuality to be ace but ever since that whole topic has become more mainstream people have become way more eager to label everyone and aro/ace people often get kinda forgotten.
Also even with non human/ usually robot characters theres sooooo many stories about how they can actually feel love too and I get that its supposed to be inspirational and all but sometimes it kinda comes across like are you supposed to not be human if you dont love someone? Just feels like such a slap in the face to ace people.
Its also a bit of a fandom issue because even when there are characters where its pretty clear that they dont care much about romance they still get shipped with everyone because "well maybe they just dont know what they like yet" or even worse "my oc will finally make him like someone" which is exactly the type of stuff aro people get confronted with in real life.
Anyway sorry for ranting 😅
This topic just gets to me.
real, at this point i just grab my faves nd slap aro pins on 'em- ive decided sombra, moira and brig are all actually aroallo bc im aroallo nd i think theyre neat :3
1:14 this is stupid, why can't we have characters that have autism with out it standing out? same with sexuality, instead of making extra content for a character being gay why not just treat all of the characters the same?
Me waiting for Soldier 76 and Reaper to be canon 👁️👄👁️
We’re here with you homie
We’re here with you homie
literally had no idea about queer daddy soldier or symetra being autistic. ty for teaching me something!
I guess Im in the minority of people who actually like Soldier as gay rep 😅
Same. It's good to have masc gay characters who can tear someone's head off because so many people picture a "gay guy" as effeminate, dainty, and weak. I guess when that expectation is subverted, a lot of guys become insecure because there's no way a gay guy can be "more masculine" than themselves.
He's the most traditionally masculine character in the game and he's gay,
It's just like my headcannon that zarya is straight because she's the most traditionally masculine woman in the game and it would be a nice subversion of expectations
I think people were a bit disappointed with solider’s rep not because he’s not “stereotypical gay” (thank goodness) but because there’s hardly anything in game about it. Unless you want to count the voice lines of him chasing reaper as examples (which I don’t quite think solider sees reaper that way since he still has his heart for his ex boyfriend) he doesn’t seem to think about or mention his boyfriend in game. Unlike tracer who will think about her when the situation lines up.
I think something that would fit his character would be if he thought about him under his breath or something in game. He doesn’t seem the type to talk about it out loud because it’s obviously a sad subject for him since he had to leave him. It’s still not a lot but I think will improve his rep power a bit. It would at least make it equal to tracer.
But that’s just what I see others say about why they are disappointed with solider. I personally don’t have a horse in this race in particular (I’m ace aro) but from what people told me about it that’s what I’ve got. I’m glad to hear that you guys are happy with his rep though! As long as it was meaningful to some folks it clearly isn’t useless.
And now we got Venture a nonbinary
I think it's a little unfair to refer to everything that happens with Overwatch as a purely the whims of Blizzard, the monolithic entity. From the artists to coders, the OW team has a whole slew of queer-identifying team members that are also fighting for representation in the game that they themselves are making. You boiled down the reason for *any* queer representation as just being corporate pandering, but I don't think some high level exec was like "Make Midtown gay so we can extort the gays for money." That was an idea that originated with the team because they wanted to do something fun for Pride month.
I'm not trying to be a corporate bootlicker or anything, but I'm tired of everyone forgetting there are actual, human people that work on the game and probably have a little more say in how it's produced now that the IP is profitable once again.
On two separate instances I explicitly acknowledged that this representation comes from queer people fighting hard just to get *anything* for a Pride event and doing what they could to make it the best it possibly could be, and then followed it up by discussing how this is part of a more complicated discussion of queer representation when corporations have so much power and can use genuine efforts for queer representation for corporate self-interest.
19:03 - "Are there queer people working at Activision Blizzard who sincerely put their heart and soul into advocating for Overwatch to have a Pride event, and then into making it as good as it could be? For sure. I’m not disputing that at all. But ultimately, the reason the corporation is doing it is because it’s in the corporation’s best interests to seem pro-queer."
23:23 - "Summing up how corporations engage with a society that treats corporations better than it treats most people on the issue of queer representation isn’t straightforward. People feel differently about it for a lot of different reasons, and the manifestation of that representation is often the work of queer people who’ve had to fight just to get a crumb of visibility even as it’s being used by a company to talk the talk without having to walk the walk in a way that might be alienating to the vocal minority of bigots."
I love the philosphy talk for video idea, alredady got my vote
I can't find the comment anymore, but the idea came from a viewer who mentioned it recently and I thought it'd be a fun one to hand over to the members - it'd be fun to go through the roster and try to explain each of their motivations/philosophical viewpoints in bite-sized pieces.
You gotta put a warning before putting a picture of Bobby kotick. I was trying to eat and almost threw up😂😂
Close to 10K congrats man!! 🎉
I don't like their philosophy around diversity, but I wouldn't change a thing about their characters. For me, it's really just fence sitting and boring writing.
Lucio is my favourite character, but he rarely feels like he has a Brazilian perspective. Namely as one of the few characters from a developing nation. D.Va's from South Korea in a post-global war future that never addresses North Korea's implied continued existence.
Symmetra is only autistic if you read a specific comic and notice a specific word. Soldier has one paragraph in a boring short story where he implies he had a gay partner. I'm glad Bap and Pharah are queer (PharMercy, let's go), but with so little lore content, a mundane conversation about them coming out of the closet feels company mandated
so glad I found your channel!!
Soldier 76 being gay just further drives home the massive missed opportunity to make him and reaper exes.
Apex is so incredibly real for representation. Most of the lgbt+ characters are just... themselves. Bloodhound is non-binary, loba, Valkyrie, and Bangalore, and Gibraltar are gay, Catalyst is transgender, and I might even be missing a few. They don't shy away from it, but also don't make it their whole personalities. It's part of who they are, just like how actual people are. It's very based.
Kinda surprised Mirage isn’t part of that, I don’t know how to describe it but he just seems queer
Seer and Fuse are pan and Octane is also implied to be bi
@@demonassault5912 I can't remember who told me, but I was told he was bicurious. So I mean 🤷🏼♀️
Also I'm pretty sure Loba is bi
I just realized this is basically the subways surfers of overwatch analysis.
Good video, nice job!! really updating us on blizzard's and OW 's misdoings regarding representation, i hope many people get to watch this.
Love your commentary! Voice! Aesthetic! EATING IT ALL UP! THANK YOU
that’s exactly how i felt about Soldier, i still love him as a character but he doesn’t represent me but i’m glad there’s a group of people that soldier makes them feel seen
Soldier 76 coming out as gay felt like a republican getting caught on grindr.
two videos in one day? wonderful
I am glad that the pride event is in the game. There's no taking away from the fact that having it is better than not having it. Even still, this feels like they're continuing with the tradition of just handing out enough crumbs to keep people from absolute starvation. Some name cards, icons, and a temporary glow-up of a map. It's all good stuff on paper, and I'm sure the devs wanted to do it. I know that a company so rife with controversy like ActiBlizz will always have something going on, so it's hard to believe anything released lately is truly genuine, but I'm confident this is. It's a shame that it's not enough for me anymore. If there was something like a free Drag skin, or some sorta free skins for some of the LGBT+ characters, then maybe there's a conversation to have. The part that I am hung up on is how Call of Duty, with no fanfare, launched its latest title with a whole host of pride flags as their version of name cards. No cost, no fanfare; just...put in the game. That is how I feel it -should- be nowadays. Any bit of fanfare almost feels as though they're asking for applause; which just reeks of marketing to me. I bring this up because it feels like the name cards and/or icons could've launched with OW2, and then we get this event for the first June that OW2 is out. While that sounds odd, why not just group the release of the two together, like they did? Because that's hypocritical. We've got the devs several times now saying that, for OW2, they don't want to keep grouping up stuff to release at once. They want to release things as they're ready, so that players can get a continuous stream of content. Despite that being the message delivered to us for months now, I can't help but feel that these icons and cards were held on to, rather than released when ready.
tl;dr: I want to be thrilled, but the fact this is a bar that other titles under ActiBlizz, like CoD, are able to clear with less issue, tells me that this is just marketing for the sake of optics.
Really enjoying the little speaking avatar more than I thought I would, nice touch
I always agreed with Overwatch's representation being lacklustre. Soldier being revealed as gay wasn't making much sense and was ticking a box unlike Apex and Valorant where they have interaction voicelines and canon ships (eg LoValk, RazeJoy etc).
Also we have to respect how Opera GX has their logo as two black guys kissing for Pride instead of just a rainbow version of theirs.
honestly before "as you are", there was a really good case for overwatch absolutely failing lgbt poc. while we got some hints of baptiste's bisexuality in "what you left behind" considering that mauga was later confirmed by the writer of that short story to have been written as baptiste's ex boyfriend, it was telling that the two white people were allowed to be confirmed as gay meanwhile when it came to their characters of color it was always just left subtextual. im glad that theyve corrected that but it shouldnt have taken this long.
In my future, they are all pan.
As a fanart enthusiast. They all pan till proven otherwise
And it would be a better world that way 🫶🏽
Another great video! Honestly was very informative, I’m a huge fan of the game (2700+ hours) and had no idea about pharah, bap and symmetra; much less the more detailed topics you explained.
It's also implied Echo might be on the Autistic spectrum via a voiceline she has with Symmetra though it's not confirmed only implied
Funny that the 3 new lgbt character have parental issue/no parents 💀 and to all we know could be the same with soldier and tracer
What does that have to do with anything
got to this video late, it was quite a venture to get here
Being a straight guy , its weird how i love playing weaver, love the flamboyancy of the character and the attitude. Makes me feel sexy and cool somehow lol.
Honestly it’s not that weird, it’s just that we don’t get many of those types of male characters so we’re not exposed to the choice as much. Tons of straight women are big fans of the campy over-the-top sexy female characters in games because they enjoy getting to experience that fantasy - someone like Bayonetta would be a good example of that in the opposite direction I think.
20:48
The struggle of a gay men that is playing LiS true colours, "do i be gay and pick Steph or straight and pick Ryan?"
I can say as someone who's known Blizzard since 1996 with the original Diablo, it's horrifically incredible to see how far they've fallen by today's standards.
It's not that they made made character gay after bad news. Pride month is a yearly tradition and it would be so easy to wait before pride to announce literally one of the worst information for future of overwatch. Decision of canceling PvE must have been known for months cmon
Given how chaotic their communication around everything PvE has been, I would be shocked if any of their announcements about PvE were planned more than maybe a week in advance. Frankly, like I said in the video, I don't think they're capable of that kind of long-term strategizing, and they've been shooting themselves in the feet over PvE year-round anyways.
Bgm choice is on point for this video, monokubs theme slaps
my friend I love your videos!!! You talk very quickly and its hard to follow sometimes you don't need to rush it! You have good takes and it seems like you are just speeding through. I'm sure people wouldn't mind if the videos were a bit longer. much love
LMAO a GSA meeting w/ guns = SRA
Small correction, emily also appeared in an OWL spray alongside Tracer, Winston and Mei. I think it was the 2019 season or smth
no because i was genuinely surprised when i found out soldier was gay. before i started playing overwatch, the only queer character i knew was tracer and didn’t think much of it , and when i started playing the game and mained soldier for the first month or two is when i finally noticed he was gay. like he would’ve been the last character i was think is gay. and i just think that proves that they did a good job with making him gay. it’s not stereotypical, it’s not straight out in your face, and it’s genuinely just not a big deal. THATS how you’re supposed to make queer characters and give representation; make them a normal character that just isn’t straight.
Roadhog Better Be Canonically Married To Mercy Still
Wait their married 🤯
How specifically American is this regressive trend toward homophobia? Is this happening everywhere?
I would say that the trend isn't specifically American, but these various reactionary movements tend to present themselves differently depending on the country they are in.
The US has a lot of Evangelical Christians, so it tends to present itself very religiously, but in a place that is slightly more secular like the UK, it might take the mask of a secular terf who is simply "concerned for women's rights". In a much more progressive place, like one of the Scandinavian countries, it will present itself much more subtly, coming off more as a "I don't hate gay people, but I wish they wouldn't kiss in public" kind of thing.
These bigoted movements however tend to be in response to progress, rather than the other way around. We have made a lot of progress for queer people, which is why the establishment is pushing back against it. In the US, we saw more visible acceptance of trans rights and trans people, and so as a result it became the new hot-button issue, and as people successfully pushed back against trans rights, they started pushing back against gay rights as well because they already had that in a more progressive country, they probably wouldn't have made this much progress, but they might have successfully gotten people to be slightly less accepting.
These types of things tend to be deeply interconnected with other problems, we tend to see a big spike in reactionaries around large economic crises like the Great depression, the current post-covid recession, the 2008 financial crisis, etc. Because capitalism is a strange beast that continuously fails and collapses in on itself, this means that there tends to be a big spike every 10 to 20 years, unless some major event like 9/11 happens to quicken that pace.
TL;DR it's not specifically American, but it's not going to be as severe as America everywhere.
I know it is still around in the middle east as I have friends in the middle east who have first hand knowledge, just not in the same way
I've noticed how more and more bigoted comments appear on videos talking about anything remotely talking about queer stuff or just the person in question being queer and it's honestly very worrying. Even on videos that don't mention anuthing political. Like a simple video from eskay doing Lucio rollouts is enough to attract the bigots and they'll comment straight up transphobic messages targeting her when she didnt mention anything about that.
Yeah, there's a reason why I moderate my comments pretty aggressively, especially on this video. It's definitely not my favourite part of this stuff.
As a female attracted person, Mercy x Pharah makes me uncomfortable. Cause, didn't Mercy know Pharah when she was a kid ??
THANK YOU. I feel like the only one who ships Gency over Pharmercy purely for this reason.
@@dylanmoss01 fr gency feels natural but pharah x mercy is weird
I usually let shippers ship, and I still do because in the present timeline, Pharmercy is cute and could work. Then again, I recently encountered a situation where a person flirted with a friend's sibling by bringing up how the sibling was like in kindergarten... because the person had worked there at the time. And both my friend and I were creeped out by the idea that THIS was the thing to bring up when flirting with someone much younger. The sibling didn't even remember, and might at least not been uncomfortable if that had simply not been defined. It was a weird and creepy thing and my friend got her sibling away from there quick.
Regarding Pharmercy, it really depends on how they view each other and what impact the past made on them. Mercy and Genji had some past relationship as a doctor and patient, then moved to different parts of the organization and then back again as field medic and field agent, as well as friends. And now they are sort of there again, but more independent because the organization is not really an organization as a superhero club. Same with Zenyatta and Genji, their potential romance can be awkward if they define their relationship as master/student due to that mental power imbalance, but if they move on from that, it could work. Same with Pharmercy; the age gap is there, but perhaps they simply didn't think much about it in the past, and haven't really thought of each other much in the meantime. Only now in the present are they together, and they do not bring up their past relationship, so they sort of start from scratch.
Again, it is to each their own. I personally prefer Mercy x Genji for my own reasons, but it could help to view it like that.
I mean it really depends on how you look at it?
Pharah was a kid while Mercy was a teenager which at that time would be wrong and weird, but according to the posted official ages (and take this with a grain of salt because some of these ages don’t fit lore wise) there’s a 5 year age gap between them being 34(pharah) and 39(mercy) which isn’t super unreasonable considering that there are age gaps around that range in real life as well.
I’m also pretty sure that after the fall of Overwatch they both grew separately into the people they are now in the story, so while it may feel strange that they knew each other at a younger age, they’re both completely different people now.
But that’s just my take on it… in the end I don’t really care if they end up together or not, I just wanted to comment on if the relationship could work realistically.
@@Penamesolenimo mercy genji is so far superior
In regards to lgbtq+ representation in Overwatch, I really want enby rep (which is my rep) because the closest things I have are things that match my aesthetic, like Lifeweaver, Bastion, & the new Slime Echo skin. At least I can come up with my own enby hero concepts in workshop I guess.
Unfortunately I don't think they'll ever add any gender non conforming heroes I mean Lynx17 was only confirmed on twitter and not even the comic they feature in
If they were too scared to reveal a characters use of they/them pronouns in a comic which is where they tend to reveal alot of their rep then I find it unlikely they'll add a gender non conforming hero to the game
@@KodaCreatesthis aged poorly (in a good way)
@@dylanmoss01this aged like milk but created a very nice cheese (or something (thats not how cheese is made (idk i dont make cheese)))
9 months later, how do u feel about venture
as a straight man I don't get why people hate LGBTQ+ homies so much and I'm truly sorry for that...However!!! What I do understand is this!!! The colour pink is so good! (sorry for the nothing comment, pink is my favorite colour specifically pastel pink that is...other pinks are fine. Pastel pink though, man...You ever see a colour and it like, screams at you "yeah, I'm the one your eyeballs are addicted too, ME!!" I guess this comment turned into something after all huh? Oops...)
OW could honestly use some straight representation at this point
There’s only 6 queer heroes in a roster of nearly 40, but I get that math is hard.
@@TheViveros make it 7 with venture
Great video, you explained the good, the really bad and the indifferent. A thousand thumbs up ❤❤❤❤❤
Honestly I feel like even without representation outside of Pearl and Marina, Splatoon *feels* more queer than overwatch in a way that's hard to put my finger on.
when everyone's gay, no one isn't.
To be fair, i think they did a pretty good job at letting us know in game that symmetrya was autistic because all you have to do is look at her play style lol.
But yea I'm super glad they came out with all the pride icons and I hope in the future they confirm more characters to be LGBTQ+
No wonder I liked playing Symmetrya so much lmao
@imverygay7572 same
Not to tokenize your identity or anything, but I've lowkey been waiting for this video from you since the start, and it did not disappoint.
Disco elysium mention :OOOO
Lets not forget the implied ex-relationship between Mauga and Baptiste
BLIZAAAAARD MAKE THE SITUATIONSHIP OF PHARA AND MERCY CANON AND MY LIIIIIIIIIIIFE IS YOURS.Loved your video man
something i kind of have an issue with is that, while of course people very much have the right to be skeptical about blizzard as a company's choices with their queer rep, a lot of people do still outright ignore the love and passion put into these things by the actual writers.
of course, as you said, you aren't trying to imply that there aren't queer people working on overwatch trying to make its representation as faithful as possible - it's just that so many people outright ignore this fact. 'blizzard is not an ally, it is a corporation who wants to make bank off of queer people' and 'the people behind the actual queer representation are trying their hardest with actual pure intentions in mind' CAN coexist, yet i see people dunking on overwatch's queer characters solely because of the choices of blizzard as a whole, which is pretty sad!
Bastet came out in 2019, not 2017!
Oh my god I knew that why did I say that
Oh no
I listened to myself saying it wrong a dozen times too lmao
Bro hole got me dead lmao
I think a company who makes a game about HEROES, should step up to the mantle of a HERO. This fact that the ball gets dropped so often is disappointing. I want to believe they're trying, but that's tough.
As a Bi man myself, I've never really been too concerned over the representation in game. While i do like to understand the lore of overwatch I've never cared about heavily showcasing soldier as more gay or bap as more bi considering there is so much more to their personalities than them being gay. I think its something good to have in the game but it shouldn't be something that's forced.
For example, soldier being gay doesn't really need to be expanded because there's no reason too, nothing in the lore requires that side of him to be shown more. It could be if for instance his older lover became entangled in the lore for being evil or something and it was effecting his mental state. Just having them be gay all the time, whilst representing my sexuality and many other people, makes them more one dimensional than anything else. Instead of soldier being known as soldier, he'd be known as that gay guy if it was forced beyond what it is now.
A solution to this problem would be simply including it into the in game lore more. For instance if solders X became part of talon for some reason, allowing for better representation whilst not making it feel forced just to make people happy and making the character 1 dimensional. I generally don't see a problem with what they're doing currently since the lore has been more lack luster recently anyways.
16:28 If playing overwatch has taught me one thing, it’s that one should never underestimate their opponent
I didn’t know about that female blizzard employee… I had heard that they had a sexist scandal because their partnership with Lego ended.. but wow. I’ve been upset with blizzards standards, as it seems they’d like to ban people who are cheating more often than the ones in vc telling me to bash my head in, or that they won on midtown because they’re a homophobe. I feel like sitting here and taking the abuse is starting to become the norm with this company/game and I’m tired of it.
So I dont like look at the lore stuff or anything but do the straight characters also like get sprays and stuff? I haven't equipped new sprays since like 2018 just curious
there was literally just a whole loverwatch event where they made a dating sim between genji and mercy
@@TheViveros oh cool
one thing i want to point out is the difference between overwatch devs and blizzard (corporate)- obviously you can’t completely separate the two, but several devs have pointed out how they will try to do something nice for the game, and blizzard (corporation) will use the timing of their announcement to drop some awful news without alerting the devs- the devs are More upset than the fans in many cases, bc they will work hard for months on something only for it to be overshadowed by something awful coming from corporate- not to say to never be skeptical of rainbow capitalism, but rather that sometimes the issue isn’t as clear as it seems on the surface- it was never blizzard as a company pushing for pride, it has always been queer devs hoping to represent themselves in the art that they’re putting out for us
7:05 DANGANRONPA 👹‼️
Old video is old but I do wanna say: The Overwatch Team is Team 4. And Team 4 isn’t really involved with the drama and bad shit that keeps popping up in Blizzard. The “boys club” atmosphere described by the lawsuit was mostly coming from the WoW and Activision departments. Team 4 was always described as kinda insulated from all that. Apparently it was Jeff Kaplan keeping them separate (aka protected) and after he left they stayed pretty insular.
So anytime people accuse Team 4 of pandering to cover a Blizzard scandal I roll my eyes because by all accounts Team 4 is the exception. Like Blizzard isn’t a monolith where all the teams are huddled in one office building floor and the WoW people are walking through Overwatch meetings and pitching ideas. They’re separate groups under one umbrella corp.