LGBTQAnime

A mutual acquaintance on a forum a go on wandered into an anime convention in the American south to kill some time. Like most bookfairs and conventions this one had a series of talks and panels. One of them was listed as being about LGBT themes and representation in Anime and Manga. And it was being hosted by a group called Southern Cospitality.


The talk was apparently very good and they grabbed the slides from the presentation. Having read the slides I agree its pretty interesting and enlightening. Japan is pretty in/famous for its non hetero characters in media, but a lot of the really popular and well known examples aren't exactly what you'd consider positive. A lot of its pornographic or teasing at pornography and mostly made for straight opposite sex audience to fantasize and indulge in what's essentially a fetish.


The slides go into much more detail about the bad, the good and the inbetween, so I'll just take a step back now.

No match for a good blaster at your side kid: Digital Protest and Repression

Believe it or not, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away the word protest in relation to the video games industry had nothing to do with harassing women and stalking liberally inclined nerds. On the contrary there was once a time when game protests were considered a legitimate form of consumer activism and clashed directly with proprietorial rights.

That time was the early noughties and that place was Star Wars Galaxies (SWG). SWG was an online role playing game (RPG) set in the Star Wars universe, between A New Hope and the Empire Strikes Back. As you can imagine it was incredibly popular, until the company running the game Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) mismanaged its community and eventually killed the goose that laid the golden eggs on a monthly basis. The game was shut down in 2011 though I can tell you first hand it had been dead long before that.

Before I continue I should start making my excuses, SWG had a vibrant community in the game and offline, so news about and in the game was news outside of it. However much of the knowledge and trivia about SWG was hosted on fan sites, which understandably died out when the game withered. Proper video game journalist sites also covered the game in detail, but given that the peak was from 2003-2006 most of the news on the game wasn't carried over when these sites changed servers. So much of what follows will be from my own memory. I was however able to find just enough knowledge still hanging around(mostly in decades old forum threads) to fill in some gaps and prove I'm not making this up.

Moving on, SWG was an game that at first prioritised its player base, by which I mean the entire economy was dependent on its player population, nearly every weapon, armour, food, clothing or hairstyle had to be made by a player and players could teach others the skills they had learnt. And this codependency was crucial because unlike most games you're probably familiar with, SWG did not have a leveling up system. Instead of killing boars to earn Xp to get more health you killed boars to unlike combat skills, you cooked food and created recipes to get cooking experience and unlock more sophisticated dishes, you played music to get better at playing music etc. Every character had the potential to be anything they wanted, it depended on what you focussed your progression on, you could be a dancer whose quick with a pistol, a doctor whose a martial arts master, a chef who builds droids in their spare time and so on. But the activities were tied to other players, healing players gave you healing experience and built bounds with you patients, providing covering fire on a hunt netted you combat experience and the gratitude of close range players etc.

In addition to this Star Wars being Star Wars it attracted an incredibly fanatical fan base. Meaning that Role Playing was a very common and important part of the experience, (this will come up later) so the links and relationships between players were very close and the player base quickly developed a reputation for acting like a real albeit virtual community. Instead of just customers looking for a few hours to unwind. I could list dozens of examples from my own time playing the game, I once got swept up in not one but two factional struggles for control over the towns I lived in to just pick one.

Speaking of struggles, like every community it was vocal about things it liked and features it hated. SWG gained some notoriety for a series of protests over different issues. I'm going to focus on three, because they're the ones I am personally most familiar and were also the ones I was able to find the most corroboration on[1].

Phase One: We Shall Ovarrrrwaaahhh Come!


The first example is arguably the first virtual protest to gain widespread (well for the early internet age) attention. Players of SWG when creating characters choose from several species, human, Trandoshan (the lizard people), Wookies etc. However its not just cosmetic, different species have different abilities, strengths and unique traits. Trandoshans for example can't wear shoes but have a regeneration ability. Wookies being big and hairy were limited to a limited set of clothing and equipment. The problem was that the game devs had overlooked coding more Wookie based equipment into the game after it launched. This meant that the Wookie players were being left behind. In addition to skills the other way to improve your abilities is to use superior equipment, which left them at a disadvantage.

After months of being ignored during updates a group of Wookie players decided to take action. They formed protest lines at Space Ports,- in order to travel from planet to planet in the game you needed to use a Star Port so cities with Space Ports had the highest population density and were the most trafficked areas-  on several planets and servers, and started chanting protests and demands for better equipment. It got noticed both in game and out of it, and the response was very positive. While some of the chants were abusive most were fun. Unfortunately I've not been able to find an image of these protests and can't really remember any of the chants, but SOE did respond on its official forums and Wookie approved equipment did start appearing in subsequent updates.

This episode actually helped SOE's reputation as it helped reinforce the impression that they were a company that cared about their customers and were willing to acknowledge and deal constructively with issues when they cropped up.

Oh and while I didn't find an image of Wookies chanting, I did find images from a later and different protest that shows how that actually worked in the game,

This will come up a bit later, but essentially the Wookie protests were much more numerous, like you couldn't see the screen for all the text boxes popping up

Things would soon take a turn for the worst however.

Phase Two: Moderators Strike Back

The second time SWG started making waves over internal dissent was over the issue of inflation and counterfeit coinage. No really, SWG was paid for on a monthly subscription (about four or five pounds a month I think) so in game goods and services were paid for by a virtual currency called credits. However during the updates which the monthly subscriptions paid for a bug occurred that allowed some players to clone extra money. They of course went on a spending spree but it wasn't long before the development team at SOE realise there was a problem and took action.

They didn't just remove the bug that allowed for cloning credits though, they decided to ban every account that had these cloned credits on them[2]. The problem was that this included a large number of players that had taken these credits in good faith, from trading or accepting gifts. These players were very angry, and so were all there friends.
 
 Now if you don't play online RPG's you may not get what the big deal is, so I'll briefly explain, players of these games do form very firm relationships with the other players, sometimes in the real world but also in the game itself. So by banning someone from the game for no reason SOE was actively damaging these connections. And imagine how incensed you would be if you were rounded up in a dragnet against counterfeiters in the real world because you accepted money from them in good faith, and then were given the same punishment as the ones who did the counterfeiting.

It did not go over well. Again the protesting at the Space Ports was attempted, but this time the response was much more draconian. The moderators of the game used their power to spawn protesting players into space. Yes that is what teleport them into space in the top image refers to[3].
Now doing this meant that the players were stuck there, potentially forever if the moderators didn't teleport them back.

I realise that this is a bit confusing, so try to imagine police rounding up protesters outside an embassy and then restraining them completely they can't move or do anything until the police let them out of the restraints. 

When this didn't work, more people kept protesting outside the space ports the moderation team threatened to shutdown the servers. And apparently they actually did this on at least one server[4]. Player characters are server linked, so if say my character "Rykian Kel" a Twilek Miner was created on Server Basilisk, I couldn't access that character when Server Basilisk is offline. So this action punished thousands of players who had nothing to do with the protests, assuming they even knew about them in the first place.

The protests eventually ran out of steam, but not before generating a lot of negative publicity and mockery. SOE seemed to learn its lesson, for a bout six months.

Oh and one minor tangent, one player did a lot to publicise the protests by role playing as a reporter, they broadcast news of protest at Theed Space Port on server channels, and got noticed by several gaming news sites. In order to shut the player up a mod teleport their character into a hostile area with very dangerous animals. I'm told Cuban dictators Machado and Batista used to throw dissidents to the sharks. However another moderator overrode them, and brought the character back, because they feared bad press. Yes really, this isn't a joke, that actually happened. Unfortunately corroboration is a bit light but I did find a copy of one of their reports[5].

This is Allehe reporting live from a staged protest outside Theed Starport. Just a few moments ago protesting cartoons went suddenly missing -- warped outside our great galaxy. Where have they landed? This we do not know. What we do know is people are angry...and showing their support in banning CREDIT Dupers...also known as cheaters. It appears the Great SOE GODS are favoring the cheaters over the fair and honest gameplayers. I will remain here until there is no news... This is Allehe
Reporting live from Theed Spaceport, Naboo, Intrepid.
Back to you Dan.

This is Allehe reporting live from a staged protest outside Theed Starport. Just a few moments ago protesting cartoons went suddenly missing -- warped outside our great galaxy. Where have they landed? This we do not know. What we do know is people are angry...and showing their support in banning CREDIT Dupers...also known as cheaters. It appears the Great SOE GODS are favoring the cheaters over the fair and honest gameplayers. I will remain here until there is no news... This is Allehe
Reporting live from Theed Spaceport, Naboo, Intrepid.
Back to you Dan.

Phase Three: Its Not Broke But We'll Fix It Anyway

The previous examples and the attention they gained established a precedent. Unlike most other player communities complaints against the way developers were handling the game was done mostly through in game protests. Usually the main way to express displeasure is complaints on the games official forums or an online petition, there was certainly a lot of that on SWG to, but the focus was planning and organising attention grabbing protests. And the development of SWG gave plenty of opportunities for grievances and smaller protests.

The third and as it would turn out final phase of mass protest would occur roundabout the same time I started really playing the game. And revolved around major game overhauls. There were two sets of protests, but the grieveances were the same, as were the tactics used and the response from the developers so for the purposes of this I'm merging the two.

The two overhauls that proved so controversial were Combat Upgrade (CU) and then later New Game Enhancement (NGE). You don't have to know what they were, you just need to know that they changed a lot, and they pissed off a lot of players. And I mean a lot, we're talking tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of players, remember this game was incredibly popular.

CU came first and once again its implementation sparked protests, only these weren't peaceful protests anymore, no that bridge had been burned over the fake credits scandal. Now there was a violent minority who had months of experience and practice and they were angry. This was when the players unleashed a powerful weapon, sabotage.

A server has a finite (though vast) amount of resources, meaning that if the server uses up enough resource the game performance will degrade, and then eventually crash. A lot of players became, very good at finding ways to waste server resources. One tactic in particular was to summon a destroyed vehicle, when a vehicle degrades past a certain point it explodes very noisily. So if enough players were to summon enough degraded vehicles at the same time, well the server goes offline.

The Moderators were just as heavy handed as before. In addition to bans and teleportations they spawned high level stormtroopers in areas where protesters were summoning vehicles to kill their characters and delay them from spawning more vehicles and buy time for more bannings. Several servers were knocked offline for awhile and many others experienced extreme performance issues.

However, the company itself was working hard to stay on message, the President of SOE John Smedley appeared on the forums asking for patience and calm, the response were almost all negative and abusive but overall it seemed to work the protests fizzled out with the diehards leaving and the subscription numbers leveling off again.

Things settled down for a bit, but then less than six months later NGE arrived. NGE made CU look like a bug fix and logo redesign in comparison, it completely restructured the game from the bottom up. I remember the change from CU to NGE very clearly, they were completely different games. And once again we had another round of protests and sabotage and more crackdowns. We also had another attempt by Smedley of all people to play the same trick twice. This time the PR offensive didn't work, and why should it, the company had tried this trick less than six months ago.

Eventually the protests were broken, but this time they were met with a mass exodus of players. And I mean mass, within a month the servers were ghost towns. I stayed on for awhile because my friends did, but that was basically it, you could spend hours not running into another player and we soon drifted off ourselves. The game limped on until 2011, but it died long before that.

Conclusion

So what have we learned? I suppose a better question is why did I write about this? Well truth be told its been rattling around in my head for years now. Its a curious bit of virtual history and I think its interesting how in the space of four and a bit years a community matured from idealistic civil rightsish protests, to Seattle 99. And given how most of the sources on this topic are dead or on the verge of disappearing it was now or never.

I do think it's interesting to note that thousands of people from around the world could unite and tell a company to go fuck itself and that they're relationships and enjoyment is more important than a companies proprietorial rights. Even you don't understand the appeal of video games, their commitment and militancy alone would ensure acknowledgement and study if it happened out in the open air.

Appendix:

Here's an example of another form of protest, that didn't really fit anywhere else but as another example I think its worth including.
































This image is the start of a raid, I've grabbed to give an idea of what raids looked like. When the controversy was at its peak, several groups of players who had decided they'd had enough but wanted to make a statement beyond cancelling their subscriptions started a raid as a form of mass suicide protest. They would line up like the above and as one go into combat and then just take damage until they died. Usually they'd be a video uploaded accompanied with anti SOE messages. No, I'm not entirely sure what they hoped to accomplish by this as death in SWG was just a minor inconvenience. But I assure you the players who did stunts like this were not joking, they took this all very seriously.



Footnotes:

1: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/StarWarsGalaxies See entry under "Powder Keg Crowd
2:  https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/78672/star-wars-galaxies-folk-get-banned
3: The full comic is here https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/08/25/this-is-an-allegory
4: http://www.busygamernation.com/2004/08/news_flash_star_wars_galaxies.html
5: http://boingboing.net/2004/08/25/gamespace-protestors.html

CHAPTER 4: PERESECUTION

WHEN, ON JANUARY 30, 1933, HITLLER was appointed chancellor, triumphant Nazi troopers staged a massive demonstration, marching with torches through the streets of Berlin, singing songs of vengeance. Still, Hitler did not have the majority of voters needed to win an election on March 5. Whether the Nazis really expected a Communist uprising or whether, as often before, they camouflaged their own wrecking methods by ascribing them to their opponents, luck came to their assistance. On February 27 the Reichstag, Germany’s white-columned, neoclassical parliament building, went up in flames. In no time, Hitler, Goring, and Goebbels turned up among the scorched ruins. Hitler proclaimed: “This is a sign of Providence from above. Now nobody will dare stand in our way when we crush the Communist menace with an iron fist.” Immediately afterward, a wave of terror swept throughout Germany. The Nazis had started to settle accounts with their enemies. When the jails proved not to be large enough, Himmler stepped in; within less than a month he embarked on the construction of concentration camps, beginning with Dachau.

Among the first to be jailed were the directors of homosexual rights organisations, which had been proscribed just four days before the burning of the Reichstag. Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Research was a prime target, as were Kurt Hiller, its chairman, Felix Halle, a legal adviser, and Max Hodann, a respected sex reformer whose books on women’s rights, sexual minorities, and abortion had annoyed the Nazis for years. Hiller, Hirschfeld’s successor and the most prominent member of the institute, was shipped to Oranienburg, where he was repeatedly tortured. Through sheer luck he was discharged and later published a vivid account of his experience. The offices of several prominent homosexual organisations were raided during these early winter weeks of 1933. Storm troopers plundered the premises of Friedich Radzuweit, editor of Die Freundschaft (“Friendship”), and took his stepson to jail. Communist and Social Democratic papers were forced to stop printing. The Nazi propagandists never tired of conjuring up the smouldering debris, the smoking woodpiles, the devastated ceilings of the Reichstag, to declare that this fire was only a beginning. The Communists, they said, had destroyed the Parliament; now they would unleash a civil war. German citizens could expect the worst. Only the strongest government measures could save the nation. The strongest measures followed soon. On March 24, the so-called Enabling Law was adopted, subtitled the Law to Remove the Stress from People and State. In reality, it did away with the constitution, removed all legal restraints, and gave total control to Hitler and his thugs. It signalled the end of the Weimar Republic and the start of totalitarianism, and it remained on the books until 1945.

The blaze that consumed the Reichstag, the later ransacking of Hirschfeld’s institute, and finally the notorious book-burning of May 10, during which fanatical storm troopers destroyed the works of those who had made German culture great but were now declared to be subhumans, should have been seen as a signal to every non-Nazi that an era had abruptly come to an end, that a new dark age would follow. Shortly thereafter- and nearly a year before the Roehm purge- the Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health was enacted, a barely noticed omen of mass killings to come. Here terms such as “racially inferior offspring,” “deviant psychopath,” “criminally insane person,” and “unneeded consumers” were first introduced. Homosexuals should especially have been on their guard; as early as the fall of 1933, some were sent to Dachau and to Fuhlsbuttel, near Hamburg. Yet most gays hoped they could weather the storm. Many rushed to join the Nazi Party in the belief that they could vanish among the uniformed crowds; others hoped for the best, and although bars, cafes, and dancing places catering to homosexuals were eliminated, they tried to continue their lives as unobtrusively as possible. Gradually, many realised that their existence was threatened, and they lived in constant fear of discovery. Others joined the armed forces, over which the Gestapo was never to gain complete jurisdiction. But not until Roehm and his confederates were executed did most homosexuals believe that a country like Germany could fall back into barbarism. Now, however, there could be no mistaking the murderous intentions of the Nazis. There could be no doubt any longer that the Nazis were as violently opposed to sexual deviants as they were to such racial deviants as Jews and Gypsies.

The Bussing Debate of the 21st Century

In the last days of March I kept seeing an orange bus in my twitter feed. Called the Free Speech bus because in America Free Speech is cross between a magic talisman and a catchphrase. The Bus was vandalised, here we see graffiti and windows were also broken. You'd think a "Free Speech" bus would welcome the honest opinions of others, but well, like I said most Americans see it as a catch phrase.

Here's what the bus looks like in pristine condition for comparison.

Now as you can see the bus has images about biology and is clearly arguing against transexuality. That struck me as a little odd at first because this bus is being run by the the American organisation Nation for Marriage (NOM) an anti same sex marriage pressure group. Now it didn't surprise me to learn that people opposed to same sex marriage are also hostile to transsexuals, but I did find it curious that the organisation appears to have shifted gears.

So I did some googling, turns out they haven't, their still trying to sabotage same sex marriage in America but this bus tour is an initiative by the group CitizenGo, of which the leaders of NOM are members. CitizenGo founded in Madrid in 2013, on the surface looks like a Conservative Christian Change.org. It hosts dozens of petitions on various pro Christian angles, but as this bus shows it also does active campaigning and activism around certain issues. There was a similar bus operating in Spain until the Spanish government cut its funding. I don't speak Spanish so I don't know if its resumed its tour, all searches turn up is this impressive photoshop

Anyway, I think the bus has demonstrated an important distinction we need to keep in mind when we talk about speech and action. On the surface it seems clear the vandalism is step beyond driving around and politely (I assume) telling people that transexuals are freaks undeserving of the same standards of civil rights. But like most things it becomes a lot less clear the more you look at it. Both NOM and and CitizenGo support violence against queer people around the globe. Brian Brown the President of NOM and Board member of CitizenGo has endorsed multiple attacks on LGBTQ communities around the globe including Russia infamous Gay propaganda law.

But before I leave you, I will close with one last little nugget that should tell you all you need to know about Brian's mission (i.e. NOM's mission), his new international partners, and the global threat to LGBT people.  You see, it turns out CitizenGo has officially endorsed the ignominious Russian law against gay "propaganda." 

 And their petition platform hosts campaigns in favour of conversion therapy.

 If your not familiar, conversion "therapy" is a tool to pressure people, usually teens into conforming to the behaviours and values promoted by the organisation. The reason its not consider proper therapy apart from its methods not standing up to scientific scrutiny, is that the goal is different. The point of therapy is to help the patient better understand themselves and deal with their internal issues and stresses.

Through therapy, you can change self-destructive behaviors[sic] and habits, resolve painful feelings, improve your relationships, and more.

 Whereas conversion "therapy" isn't about the patients well being at all, its about getting them to submit regardless of the effect on it has.

Now advocates of conversion "therapy" argue that this is what they're doing, indeed in the above screencap the authors of this petition make that argument. But the problem here is that its nonsense. The problems they list are caused by social pressures or completely tangential to no hetero relationships. If a teen like Nicole doesn't want her homosexuality its the result of societal and familial pressure. And contrary to propaganda, non hetero sex does not leas to sexually transmitted diseases, un protected sex increases the chances of STI's.

To quote the Human Rights Campaign 

In 2007, a task force of the American Psychological Association undertook a thorough review of the existing research on the efficacy of conversion therapy. Their report noted that there was very little methodologically sound research on sexual orientation change efforts (SOCEs) and that the "results of scientifically valid research indicate that it is unlikely that individuals will be able to reduce same-sex attractions or increase other-sex sexual attractions through SOCE." In addition, the task force found that "there are no methodologically sound studies of recent SOCE that would enable the task force to make a definitive statement about whether or not recent SOCE is safe or harmful and for whom." Read the full report.
In short, there is clear evidence that conversion therapy does not work, and some significant evidence that it is also harmful to LGBTQ people.
In contrast, there is ample evidence that societal prejudice causes significant medical, psychological and other harms to LGBTQ people. For example, research on the issue of family acceptance of LGBTQ youth conducted at San Francisco State University found that "compared with LGBTQ young people who were not rejected or were only a little rejected by their parents and caregivers because of their gay or transgender identity, highly rejected LGBTQ young people were:

Oh and if you'd like an example of what Conversion "therapy" is like, read this account

And that one is one of the tamer accounts I've read.

So really what we have here, is vandalism of a bus on the one hand, and an attempt to dehumanise trans people and push for further marginalisation, pushed by people ok with tormenting teenagers on the other.

If this were a version of the trolley problem I know which track I'd take. 

Miami Vice: Or How I Learnt to Stop Judging Things by Their Covers

I watched filmed starring Gene Hackman and Nick Nolte called Under Fire the other day. Its about the Nicaraguan revolt against Somoza in 1979. It was made in 1983 back when the Reagan Administration was doing its best to vilify the Sandinistas and return the brutal right wing dictatorship to power. So I was impressed with how explicitly pro Sandinista the film. Unfortunately it wasn't very good, the action scenes were kinda dull and a couple looked like they were cut from a comedic farce and pasted into this film instead.

But it did remind me of another slice of 80's Americana about the US attacks on Central America, Miami Vice. To date it is the only episode I have ever seen, but that was because of a lack of opportunity to watch others. The episode, which the Miami Vice Wiki informs me was called Stone's War, aired in 1986, I caught it in the mid 2000's on a free view channel and its stuck with me ever since.


The reason the episode struck such a chord with me is simple, despite not having seen the show its fame and popculture footprint gave me a mental image of 80's excess at its very worst. I knew the protagonist drove around in flash cars (in Stone's War he drives a Testarossa) high speed chases in the Miami sunshine, beautiful women in bikini's, and refusal to play by the chiefs rules. The problem here wasn't with any of this in itself, it was that I've seen all before so never really cared to see another example of cool cop single handedly winning the war on drugs.

So unless Stones War was the rare exception I owe the series an apology. Stones War was smart, emotional and earnest. There was fast paced action and gun fights but they were tense and exhilarating and the show took its subject matter incredibly seriously and Crockett (the main character) instead of being the ultimate icon of 80's action hero, was sorta flawed.Though the opening credits much like how I thought the show would be, so I wasn't completely off base.


The wiki has a full synopsis and plenty of trivia, and the plot is kinda convoluted so I won't attempt to recreate it here. I'll just briefly summarise, the CIA, backed by big business is using American mercenaries to aide the Contra's in their civil war in Nicaragua. During which the commit many crimes, including the murder of an American priest while pretending to be Sandinistas. A journalist and an old acquaintance of Crockett have video evidence of the CIAs dirty tricks, and the CIA is now trying to murder the pair of them and recover the footage. Crockett winds up entangled in the scheme and grudgingly tries to help. And in the biggest shock for me watching, despite killing a few bad guys, (including one guy who wears a necklace made of Sandinista ears)he ultimately fails completely, both his acquaintances are killed and the tape is partly wiped and broadcast in an edited manner to make it look like Sandinistas were carrying out war crimes. For an extra kick in the teeth it ends with him staring off into the distance while listening to a radio report blaming the murder of the priest on the Sandinista regime. His failure is total.

Ears.... Sandinista Ears

So yeah a pretty big departure from sunshine and car chases. I was genuinely impressed, the American right is depicted as scum. Halfway through the leader of the mercs calls a meeting of supporters and assembles a group of industrialists, including one from the United Grain Company. And they're all for the plan to send Americans into Nicaragua, the only concern they have is if they'll get a return on investment. And the mercs, ex-CIA are sadistic killers, who are quite willing to murder American citizens on US soil if they can keep it quiet. Politically speaking its right up my street.

But more importantly it was an entertaining watch, the action scenes were tense and the emotional bits were appropriately emotional. I felt frustrated when that plane full of soldiers took off and escaped from Crockett too. I think that's the main failing of the film Under Fire, it had a lot of knowledge about Somoza and Nicaragua packed into it, even the trivia about the Mussolini statues, but it was a bit of a slog. Nothing really connected it was like watching Nolte stumble from one scene to another. Which was a pity because some of the street fighting scenes were inventive it just didn't gel with anything.

So in conclusion, Stones War is pretty good, and I hope the rest of show lives up to its standards because I plan to catch up with the rest.


Oh and this isn't an April Fools joke by the way, I thought about making a joke post but couldn't think of anything intentionally funny so I thought a post about light entertainment (light entertainment which opens on a massacre of villagers, has a necklace of human ears and has a woman punched so hard her neck snaps) would do instead.