Tag: orientalism

Craig Yes, we’re fun. Double the fun. That’s a lot of media mothership happening today. Taylor Example. Wow. Craig And again again, third times a charm. Third time is a charm. Taylor Third time. Craig Alright, so you’re listening to me. Your membership here on Edge Radio. 99.3 FM. As always, we look at everything in and around the world of media and how it shapes our understanding of the world around. Us. I’m your host, Craig, joined by Taylor. Taylor Hey. Craig And on music today, roonan. Taylor Yeah. Craig Let’s hear a musical interlude. Very cool thumb piano. Kalimba. Yeah. Playing there tunes to help us get us into today’s topic, which is cyberpunk? Techno Orientalism, representation of Asia and the video game in particular, cyberpunk. 2077, which both Taylor and I have been playing. Yes, finally passed the. Your first act. Yeah, in my game play through, so still new, but really struck by how fascinating. Taylor So that’s what you’re playing. Craig It is, it is indeed. Yes, yes, so. We’re going to be chatting a little bit about the generalities of Cyberpunk 2077 as well as most importantly, what I find the most fascinating aspect of it. Which is the. Representation of Asia that’s in this game. Taylor Yeah. Craig So all that and more coming up soon on media mothership, we’ll go to a short musical interlude. OK, welcome back, medium mothership. So Cyberpunk 2077 is an action RPG video game developed by CD Project React Red. Taylor I think it’s. Craig Some would say they did wreck their launch and it’s based on our. Talsorian ANS games cyberpunk tabletop RPG. Yep, which goes right back to I think the 90s or 80s that that tabletop RPG came out anyway, so the title of. CD Projekt Reds. Cyberpunk 2077 is is that this is the first game. We’ve moved on to since The Witcher. Yep, so they did the witches game series, which was enormously successful and. This is quite a gear shift for them as opposed to the fantasy world of Witcher. This is as the Games title suggests, set in a cyberpunk future. Very dystopian as all cyberpunk fiction is where ultra modern technology is coexisting. Taylor Well. Craig Alongside of, you know, a human society that is suffering all manner of calamity, the location of the game is night city. Which is a Free State of California within the world building. The year, as the name of the title suggests, is 2077, so it’s it’s our future as well. But if you’ve played the tabletop game, you’d know that basically this is an alternate future that started way back in the 90s. I think it started to diverge. Where? Yeah. Taylor But even even within the game itself, they say. Craig You see, Michael because. Taylor Even within the game itself, they talk about how certain events in the game happened in 2020, so it’s definitely an alternate. Speaker Yes. Craig That’s right. Yeah. So there’s some flashbacks where a, you know, a a big tower complex is destroyed, and even that is within a far advanced technological version of our world. But it’s not a kind of utopic technology. Future. This world is very much. As happens in all Saver Punk, we’re looking at mega corporations, multinational corporations Akasaka in this game and militech. So it’s the names kind of of arasaka is, as a Japanese based company within that of course the idea that. Taylor Mm-hmm. Had a. Sucker. Craig As is standard for 80s cyberpunk world building, Japan and Asia is a rising power, and in many ways eclipsing the US and the Wests Power. In this game, you do have militech as the US based. Speaker Hmm. Taylor Military technology. Craig Technology company. Yep. And so basically, these two organisations are pretty much managing most aspects of life. There are still functioning governments, but the real power and technology and yeah, the the political power, the technology. Your power is all based within companies. Taylor Yeah. And everything’s in vending machines. Craig That’s right, there’s there’s a. Lot of have you seen? I mean you’ve not played Cyberpunk 2077. Have you seen it online in any fashion? Speaker 4 Yes. Taylor Yes, I’ve watched the play few of. Craig It OK what are? Some of the things you recall from the play through Ronan. Taylor Ohh it’s very depressing in some parts. Craig In terms of the aesthetics of the world. Taylor In terms of the aesthetics and the. Yeah, wealth divide. Craig Exactly. Yeah, there’s quite a stark rich versus poor class divide within the game space and in many ways. You know you. Could say that in this global world, the the rich and the poor, the the only united global experiences. More so than national identities. So in the game you’re playing a kind of St level character. You can kind of, I guess, choose from various type of of of builds for your character, like a kind of tech based build or. Taylor A cybernetic build. Craig Right to kind of tag. And it’s a very adult game as well. There’s sex and violent crime as well as as Ronan’s pointing out, extreme poverty. It’s it’s very confronting collapse of the American dream. So even though you’re in America, there’s there’s quite. A lot of. Of Asia, that’s there. You’re playing as the character V. UM, and you know, I guess you start the game trying to break into the big time, right? You’re trying to to kind of climb out of a kind of nobody existence. Taylor Yeah. Well, you’re, you’re you’re being a Merson. Is really it? Craig So you’re getting. A lot of missions you’re going on. 1. As you’re trying to, you know, become famous or improve your status within this cyberpunk space. Interestingly, kind of joining you on the mission is a character called Johnny Silverhand. Whose voice, likeness and motion capture were provided by Keanu Reeves. Speaker 4 Yep. Taylor Your birth taking. Craig That’s right. That was his fantastic experience at the sober Punk 2077 launch, where he came out on stage. and You know someone suddenly from the. Audience, what did they say? Taylor You’re breathtaking. Craig And Keanu Reeves, without missing a beat, Jess turns around and says. Speaker You’re. Craig So let’s listen to that little clip now. Speaker 5 OK, but let me tell you. The feeling of of being there, of walking the streets of the future is really going to be breathtaking. Your breath taping. You’re all breathtaking. Craig So I mean, and that clips kind of. Speaker 5 All right, all right. Craig Indicative of the real goodwill. That this game had leading up to its launch right? The sense that not only was this from an excellent top notch game company. Taylor Hmm. Craig That had shown itself as highly supportive of its fan base, providing a lot of free DLCS which were enormous. But also, as that launch suggests, you know, they have no expense has been spared. It seems, right in terms of voice talent being able to realise this amazing world. So it was riding high on so much positivity and from what I found online when I was looking at early reviews for years ago. Yeah, positive reviews, right. People saying, you know, this game looks good, some concerns, but it’s beta. And I’m sure they’re going to fix it. But then what were your memories of its launch? Taylor Debacle. You know, this is this is a bad question to ask me because I played it on a. On a a graphics card with 6 gigabytes. Craig You’re the perfect person device name. And because it was pictured at A at a kind of it we play. Taylor Yeah. Craig On every for every and it. Taylor It function perfectly. Ohh did it yeah cause that there were no issues in my playthrough. Craig Right. What was the? What was the story, though that that came out with its initial ones playthrough though, which your experiences not speak? Taylor To well, other people said that it was completely broken and they couldn’t start playing it. It would just crash to desktop all the time. All of the intended things just wouldn’t work. Craig And there was so much bad press that even Sony said. If you want. Taylor We’re going to remove it from the store. Craig Yeah, we’re going to move from the store and also even if you’ve already started playing it, we’ll refund your your. Speaker 1st of it. Taylor To be fair, I played on the PC so. Craig Hmm. PC Master race represent, but you’ve you’re also playing now on the switch. Taylor Exactly. Yeah. To now. Craig Yeah, well. Taylor That, like man, the games and they’re expensive. They are really expensive, but it it it operates well like it it’s fully. There’s no issues with it at all. However, they just brought out a new patch. Where all of the cars can self drive themselves, and apparently they’re like. Speaker Yes. Taylor You know, driving into each other or not driving at all and issues like that. Craig Yes and no. I have. Yeah. And that’s the kind of GTA many. Yeah. And many people playing at that version of the car, being able to auto drive. So you can take in the amazing visuals in this in this game. Taylor There’s still issues ongoing now. Craig Setting. So what I want to so that’s the kind of setup and it’s since gone on to be very successful, I’d say, I mean over those last four or five years, it’s gone on to address most of those problems and now it is considered, you know, one of the best games to to play. The If you’re into kind of action RPG games. Yeah. So I’ve very much been enjoying it, but what really confronted me as I was playing it was how much it evoked my enjoyments growing up in the 80s and 90s. Of a particular view of what that future is gonna be like. As many people were afraid of and excited about the Asia century approach right that this was going to be the like from the 20th viewpoint of the late 20th century. So the the 90s in particular that with the rise of anime and before that in the. Speaker Hmm. Craig 80’s the dominance of particularly the Japanese automobile industry and other high tech aspects coming out of Japan that that 21st century is going to be Japan, century and Asia was on the rise. Within that was a backlash against it. Yeah. Where you had films like Blade Runner? In particular, that portrayed this future and of course drawing upon the inspiration of cyberpunk, which is Neuromancer by William Gibson. Speaker Sure. Craig That I read and. Enjoyed anyway? The sense was, though, that that there was. A A fear of Japan, a fear of. Asia, which was. Wound up in this concept, techno Orientalism. Which looks at how the West often portrays East Asia in particular, and during the 90s and 80s, Japan and China. As you know, both being hyper technological but also very weird, very culturally exotic. And so you have all these stereotypes. And anxieties about Asia’s economic and technological dominance? I don’t know if anyone here remembers the 1980s Michael Keaton film in Australia. It was called working class man in America. It was released as Gung Ho. But that was all about a declining America. In. Automobile factory that got bought out by a Japanese company in the 80s that wanted to come in and bring Japanese management structure and it’s a it’s a it’s got a lot of racism, a lot of culture clash, but it’s very emblematic of that techno orientalist vibe where you have this, yes. Highly technologically developed, but all the Japanese are automatons. They’re all soulless kind of racism within that field. Aspects of that are also in the kind of world of Blade Runner. Mm-hmm. But before we go any further, we have got some. Some comments. Ohh yeah. Good from Big Boy natty. Wonderful to have Big boy needy back on. Good afternoon. Dot Norris, dad and mysterious person in the quarter. Great. Yes, we do try to get some mysterious guests. Speaker Yeah. Taylor Yeah. Craig In. Big Boy needy asks. What’s the gameplay like in comparison to other games like GTA5 or like Kingdom come, deliverance, etcetera. You’ve got more experience than I do. Taylor, you want to handle this one with Skyrim? Taylor Yeah. Well, I would say it was. So my favourite game of all time, of course, is Skyrim, but this one comes as a close second. Because it is quite similar. However, it does have the you know the the the first person shooter thing which Skyrim doesn’t have, and so I would say it’s closer to GTA in that regards, but you cannot go into third person. Craig Yeah. And that that was part of the initial scepticism of some missteps at the time. I mean, I please find, I mean that first person many people say is is actually creates more immersiveness in the game space. Taylor In the game. Yeah. But it’s only when you like put it off against which of which all of that was only third person, and those things only first person. Speaker 4 Yeah. Craig The point that was made by many critics of this move was that it it just weird, given how important the coolness your character design is in the game that you get. Speaker Of. Craig So much customization for clothing and you get cool points that you can develop your character. Around and they want your character. They want you to spend time on your character design to make it look cool. But then of course you don’t see it often in the game unless it’s through. A mirror, yeah. Or yeah, in in passing or if you’re jumping into a vehicle and you do that back for the backwards you. But yeah, game play is good. I mean, I go to, I mean, it’s one of those games theorist here at UTAS, referred to it as the Ludo Drome. Yeah, where the more you play these immersive world building games, the more you can start seeing the world around you through the HUD. Right. You start seeing like I I kind of think I’m in the cyberpunk hard or wouldn’t it be cool if the cyberpunk card was here as I’m walking to McDonald’s and then they can scan people and like, you know, this is from gang X or if I’m in the car and I’m thinking, you know, if I. Taylor This is ridiculous and this is and I don’t know what you’re talking about. Craig Playing Grand Theft Auto or Cyberpunk 2077? I could just flip a UI right here and speed off stuff. These, I mean, I mean, it’s a game fictional space, obviously, I know what the difference between reality and. Taylor Fiction is it doesn’t sound like. Craig That, but then you find it. Sometimes you’re in a hub world and you spend a lot of time there. Some people in first person shooters. Inactive. That they’ll stop playing the game and they’ll still see the the blip for the gun sight in their vision. Taylor Well, that’s the the Tetris effect, isn’t it? Craig Right, they’ll see it. Right. Yeah. So what is the Tetris effect? For those that. Taylor I don’t know you if you play Tetris for more than two hours or something like that. You start seeing. Speaker Please see there. Taylor The blocks coming down, yeah. Craig Yeah. And I think similarly, I mean big, Naughty Boy says. Yes. I mean kind of agree, Craig. Thank you. I’ve experienced. Thank you. Yes. Taylor You’re both mental. Craig Well, one of Tasmania’s greatest living authors, shirt Taloon and his book he who fights with monsters, is all about that concept of a guy that travels through a portal to another world, and his only advantage is that he is. The world has recreated him, but given him. Video game HUD. Interface with the the world he’s in, so he he uses a chat and he has a map that pops up and he can bring up his storage devices. I was thinking what a what a fantastic idea. If I mean I guess that’s Google glasses, right? If you could interact with the world around you with a game hub interface. And you can get storage items out of things into storage. Taylor Ohh no absolutely I cause cause they’ve got the the things that you can put in the on the dashboard of your car and it it. It flashes it up onto the windshields of like. Craig Yeah, it’s. Taylor Direction. You need to go in order to follow. Google Maps I’ve always wanted. Craig You test researcher from sociology did a project looking at gamers who played GTA back in the day, and he’s interviewed locally here in Hobart, was asking them after the game after you’ve played the game, does it make you see Hobart? Or in a different way, and some of them recounted that experience of. You know, I’d like to, you know, drive down this one way St if I was in the game. So you’re starting to see the cityscape as more international as well. One guy was saying I thought Hobart was really boring, but then I’m playing GTA. I realised there are aspects of Hobart which I like the gang world of GTA, driving down hungry Jacks. And there were three kids, he’d think. Taylor OK. Yeah, yeah. And he could have just leaped out of the car and slit their throats slight there, yeah. Craig That would be gang gang XI. Get the money. Obviously. We’re saying make sure you do reality and fiction, but it made for some people. See Hobart as a world engaged globally whereas. Taylor Yeah. Craig As you know, there are dark parts of Hobart, just like you could do a GTA Hobart. Taylor This is this is just for people who have got no imagination. I’m. Craig No, no, no. Taylor Sorry. Craig No, it makes the space around them more exciting through their imagination. Yeah, they’re super imagination. Taylor You think about that without playing a game. Craig I can make. Taylor Whenever I drive down the street, I think about running people. Craig That would be more worrying to me. Alright, I wanna go back to find some key times here. So techno Orientalism, there’s a there’s a a clip here. Speaker 6 What’s the future? Craig Yeah. Speaker 6 Look like this question is at the flow. Of countless people. Craig OK, this clip here that I’ll play second of that just defines the key aspects of technology. So listen to this for a second. This is from my seats for an assignment they had to do for university. Good on them. Speaker 6 So you probably know that there’s another common element in the genre. The Asian influences. Most of the most popular cyberpunk film shows or video games take heavy influence from Asian, particularly East Asian architecture, language, culture, and more. In fact, this concept is common enough that the name techno Orientalism. Or sometimes cyber Orientalism has been made for it. But before I dive into this trope, let’s talk about how it relates to Orientalism. Craig So last week on the show, we covered Orientalism. With the great. Episode of the Shadow the the Temple bills of Nabon well, I think is how it’s pronounced within that fake Indian country. They had their other characters. Speaker MHM. Taylor Ohh yeah, the really boring. Craig One. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I didn’t realise. And it’s about to talk about here. It’s all about a snake charmer, right? And of course, the concept of Orientalism came about through Edward Saeed and the cover of most. Hmm. Of the books. Orient was made would say feature that picture of the snake charmer, which is considered one of the classic oriental stripes because it’s the Wests version of what the Orient is right it has these, you know, kind of your. Arabian carpets and a young boy with the snake hypnotising it and kind of 18th century sheiks in their clothing and then nonsensical writing, which is just meant to evoke it. But again, it’s an idea of nonsensical. If you’re actually from those regions you wouldn’t identify. Or experience any of that painting. But from a western perspective, you have no experience of. It and that. Says Ohh, how perfectly exotic. Anyway, let’s hear first the definition of Orientalism. Sure. Speaker 6 Orientalism can be summed up pretty well by French artist Jean Elijah Holmes 1879, painting the snake charmer, the image and bodies, Western misguided ideas of the Orient going as far as to include writings on the wall that are in fact utter gibberish. So Orientalism, the idea was coined by Edward Saeed in 1978 as a way of referring to the general. Othering of Middle Eastern, Asian and North African societies, whereas the oxidant, the word referring to Western societies, was represented as normal and standard. The Orient was a backwards deviation from the norm. In his then controversial book, Orientalism said talks about how within writing, those from the Occident were portrayed as heroes and those from the Orient as inferior villains. Craig So it was very much what we had in last week’s episode with the Shadow where the Western guy who went to India got trained up. With the special. Indian shadow techniques? Yeah, brought that back rationally, but he’s the good guy because he’s the white guy. And then you had the drug den Indian. Evil guys who are trying to get the, you know, the mayor’s son hooked on opium and. Taylor But you have to think at that time what were the places that were in the Orient, what were their stories? Yeah. And look. And with the the the White McDonald’s eating rice. Craig Yeah. And this is where the South Bank genre is is really interesting because that we finally do get that. Experience reflected back upon us, where just as we did Blade Runner, we just as American creators. Like Ridley Scott and. Speaker Have. A. Craig White Anglocentric creators, their version from a western perspective of what Asia is you’ve got Akira and Ghost, and you’re coming out of Japan articulating the same setting cyberpunk, but fundamentally reoriented from a Japanese point of view. Some of that is self orientalist, right? So you’ve got some self exoticism. Taylor Yeah. Craig There. So you’ve got some geisha robots, which was? Very much being that troupe of Orientalist, you know, seductive, beautiful, passive these and other. Taylor Also that that that’s part of of their national identity. That’s like having kangaroo robots, yeah. Craig Sure. Look, I mean it, it can be, I mean, I guess The thing is that how many people in those. Countries have first-hand experiences of. That that is it actually reflective of the lived experience which is. Of. Taylor Such as here with Kangaroos. Craig Which is where many Australians become so outraged that the stereotype that is portrayed on Australia, that it doesn’t reflect the fact that most of us live in cities and not in the Bush equally. What’s interesting with Ghost in the shell, for instance, is if you have a look at where they set. Taylor Yeah. Craig The future it’s it’s it’s the Japanese version of Hong Kong. So goes and the show is set in a kind of, you know, very Hong Kong looking future. Not really a Japan looking future. So they’ve orientalized Asia in a very interesting way in that film. Big boy. Needy has replied back. Do you want to read that please? Taylor Says immersive gameplay does definitely make life a bit more alive after living a day to day life. Where it’s all the same and then play GTA where you can do anything. It makes it more alive. Craig Which always just be interested in those farming simulators or the what’s it like on Roblox? There’s a number of garden, yeah. How how far are you through on that one? Taylor Grow. I don’t really play it. No. OK. Wow, wow. Craig Yeah. OK, pushing on. Speaker And he lead hundreds of millions of. Men to sweep the world. And that, my friend, is what you have. Got to prevent. Speaker 6 It’s worth mentioning here that Orientalism can refer to the othering of a variety of places, but in this video I’m talking specifically about Asia, and usually more specifically about East Asia. Orientalist imagery is still prevalent in pop culture, from the use of ninja costumes on Halloween to kimonos on stage, but there is debate as to whether these acts are racist. In themselves, they are almost always fantastical and inaccurate. As Pedro Jacobelli writes about a film. Craig So yeah, I mean it is that whole debate around, you know, your cosplay is my culture and cultural appropriation. Taylor But not even cosplay as well, cause I was in a theatre production in 2017 or something like that where we had it was Japan, Japan sort of themed Macbeth? If if it was like Macbeth, if it was in. Speaker Oh really? Taylor Japan really. Yeah. Craig There’s a great Kurosawa film trends of blood. Which is that right? It’s it’s it’s a samurai version of. Taylor Yeah, yeah, yeah. It it was that sort of sort of thing. So yeah, we learned how to do sort of like samurai sword fighting styles and things like that. We had Tycho players come in and do the soundtrack behind everything and our costumes were kimonos and yukatas. And they were sort of. Craig Ohh, fantastic. Taylor Specifically, not fantastical or anything. Well, the witches, of course, were fantastical because they were based off the one that crawls out of the TV screen the the rings, yeah. Craig The ring? Really. You did surgical. Taylor But all of the other people. So I I played a a few other different characters but all of my costume was sort of downplayed, sort of more traditional rather than fantastical. Craig Right. So you’re like, you know, you cut the yeah kind of Japanese. Bathroom. Yes. So Orientalist of me to say that. But again, you know that that that would have copped. You copped some some. Friction there some, some, some some. Taylor We we. Yeah, we were scared about it. But yeah, there was no, no issues with it at all, because I guess we’d had just done it in a really sort of. Craig Tasteful. OK. Yeah, yeah. No one there. Performing was Japanese. Speaker 5 No. Craig But again, many people might. Some people would say it. It can be an effective entry point, right to provide more interest in that space or a form of soft power, right? Isn’t it? I mean for. Instance, you know. Taylor You’re talking about an effective entry point to racism. Craig Trying out more about the complexity. Taylor Yeah. Craig That really is part of Japan and I guess if you’re upfront that this is a, as they’re saying here, if it’s if it’s kind of hyper fictional and hyper stylized, often that can help avoid that appropriate. Taylor Yeah. Speaker Hmm. Taylor Recently. Craig Monkey, but yeah, well, yeah, yeah. I mean, well that in its own way was an appropriation of Chinese clothing from the Japanese point of view. Taylor Exactly, yeah. Craig UM. Yes, but again, in in the the point you were doing it was a. Little more downplayed. Taylor Yeah, yeah. Craig Very interesting if yeah, that, that, that didn’t cop any Orientalist. Taylor Backlash. I’ve got a video, but if you wanna. Watch it. It’s good fun. Craig Next episode, next episode. Alright, so what’s techno orientalism? So we’ll quickly jump into a definition of techno Orientalism. Speaker 6 Techno Orientalism differs a bit from Edward Saeed’s definition of Orientalism. Instead of seeing Asia as just backwards and uncivilised, techno Orientalism represents Asia as so technologically advanced that it has no humanity. Asian people can still be framed as intellectually inferior, but the key distinction is that they’re now also hyper technological. Making them supposedly emotionless and. Newman, in their book techno Orientalism, Imagining Asia and speculative fiction, history and media, David S Rao, Betsy Huang, and Greta Igneo write that this presents a juxtaposition of cultural retrograde with technical hyper advancement. The message of techno Orientalism is actually a little contradictory, since it portrays ancient people as both terrifyingly intelligent. As well as uncivilised and culturally behind techno, Orientalism means using Asian more specifically East Asian cultures, as a signifier of the future. This isn’t just any future, though. It’s cyberpunk, thus a dystopian future. These films tend to have a white guy battling against a corrupt system or corporation in a city full of indicators of East Asian. Craig So a couple of interesting points raised there. One of the species of it is this contradiction. So rather than Orientalism, which is set as you know, the East is underdeveloped, exotic and mystical and irrational, and the West is hyper. Enhanced and rational in techno orientalism. It’s it’s in many. Ways flipped where Asia is. Now, the technologically advanced space. But the criticism of Azure in that space, particularly if we’re looking at the 1980s with the rise of particularly automate of companies, is that it’s also dehumanising that they work like robots. They’re are kind of an ants like people that just, you know, support. Labour and again, this would be the racist discourse around othering. Taylor Yes. Craig And and the fear of of of, of that cultural other. Taylor Yeah, it it it. It’s also a a Trumpian fear of the country being taken over as well, because if you look at Knight City, it’s it’s set in America and then it’s got all of this sort of Asian influence from it of like you. Craig Know and and you know within the game you could certainly criticise the. At at a sucker. Company as as emblematic of that, that that’s a. Company which is. Very much that fear of Asian power that it’s going to be kind of not based on Western values that will be based on this idea of a Japanese values which is full of loyalty and honour and tradition and working for the company. And you know, you don’t mean. Anything the company means everything. Taylor And what’s it called? Where it’s fairly all piety as well. Craig Yeah, yeah. And again, there’s a there’s a. There’s a stereotypes of experiences which don’t reflect the lived experience. That is the complexity of the Japanese space. But nevertheless, is the stereotype there. So so aspects of Cyberpunk 2077 certainly replicate that. I just want to play though what I think is really a counterpoint for that is that you have the character of tacky murder. Right. Who’s the bodyguard of the emperor? Right, the yeah. Taylor Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Craig Saka. Taylor The. Craig But there’s a lot of his his character is quite complex, so if we listen to like I’ll, I’ll play a short clip of his back story. Yeah, where it’s really conveying his humanity. Right. His sense of the struggle that he’s had, he’s not just a a villainous character or a. Taylor Dialogue. Craig You know, side quest. Yes, dude. Speaker 4 I remember the chemical stench of the canal where we boys washed our shirts. Corporate transporters sometimes passed through our slab arasaka, selecting children, but only the clean ones or Osaka gave me what no one else could values I could honour live for. This was most important. You dirty your hands. Full money. I in the name of a priest. Speaker So as you can probably see. Craig So as you. Probably see sorry, that’s actually from. A YouTube clip from the Kavanagh Cle called the anti Japanese Racism and Orientalism of Cyberpunk from Blade Runner to Cyberpunk 2077. His you choose basically ripping it apart saying it is full of racist stereotypes. He loves this world setting but he. It highly problematic and I agree with some of the criticism, as the outer cycle 1 is is pretty much playing into that trope of the villainous, you know, Shogun empire, that. But I think Tucker Tucker’s character is is complex, is full of kind of remorse. Speaker Buddha. Craig And a sense of exploitation he’d suffered. You know, he’s not just a cardboard cut out villain. In fact, he becomes a a helpful guy. Speaker Right. Craig Throughout this. Taylor World The funny thing to me is that it it’s negative if you frame it as a dystopia, and in many ways it is a dystopia. However, when I look in that world, I I want to. Speaker So. Taylor Be in there. Craig What is it about the world that? Taylor Appeals to you. It’s because it’s just so. Like you know, technologically advanced, I want to be in a world that technology technologically advanced, no matter what. Craig Yeah, and and in. Many ways, that’s what I was thinking about in terms of their aspects of the hub and. Your interface in that world. Taylor Yeah. Craig Like the net running, you can do which is where your character can. Has got various cyber cyber implants which means they can hack into security systems and be able to see through security cameras and switch them off. And again when I see security cameras like I’ve seen a couple of security cameras walking around today and I’ve thought wow if I was a net. Taylor Well. Craig Tanner, I could just hack into that camera. Taylor So that’s why you when we went down, the thing seems like that is a good that is a good sign. Yeah. Craig It’s. Taylor It was like the first time you’ve ever pointed that out and we’ve gone there 100 times and I was like, so confused you were like. Speaker Sure. Taylor CCTV camera over there. Craig Good location for it. That that’s their location because you’ve got the passion. Powerful. Gonna we be able to pick up an accident or something? And I’m only tuned into that cause in the game whenever I come across a group of people that I need to take care of, I’m always. Trying to find. Where the cameras are first to then hack into the cameras, locate where the rest of the people are that are going. Taylor Yeah. Craig To have to take care of. And then I’ve been doing that. In real life. Yeah. Just I’ll walk into a space and say where are the security cameras here? Yeah. And it has made me really sensitive to how many security cameras are around us. And again, that’s part of the cyberpunk world that you’re in a highly. Surveyed society and yeah, I agree with your sense of the fun of the immersiveness of it, that. And that’s the punkness of cyberpunk, they say right where the cyber is. It’s high tech, but the punk is it’s it’s your working class, your people on the streets that are using that corporate technology. For themselves, right, so your chart. Peter gets to hack into the corporate security cameras to then use those to defend himself with. Taylor But of course your character can also be corporate. Craig Too. Well, that’s where the power is. The ultimate power in these worlds, where where it’s dystopic is that you know, you don’t have a welfare system, you don’t have anyone helping you. You don’t have any supports in this space. The companies own you and the companies own the power. Taylor The thing that I really like about it is that even though it is so high tech and there’s all of this amazing stuff everywhere, there’s still just rubbish on the. Craig Ground. It’s a really healthy world. Yeah. Yeah. Look and. And it does have that wonderfully worn world building to it. And which is why I always prefer the world. Taylor It is. Craig Building of Star Wars to Star Trek while while Star Trek is is a fantastic universe. Nevertheless, the kind of alien world the Blade Runner world, the Star Wars world is all about used technology which is partly damaged. It has storytelling within that. Big boy Nadia sent another. Taylor Ohh sent. Another two said, he said. I’ve heard of people being called racist for wearing traditional Chinese outfits, whereas actual Chinese people are fine with. Speaker Message. Craig It look and that’s one thing I found when I was looking into information about Cyberpunk 2077 and that. Taylor And that so some people from the future have said it’s OK. Craig People in 20. We have 2077 time travellers, have said. Great people from Japan who have commented about it, as well as some of the reviews online have been positive about how the use of Japanese language is spot on in the cityscape. The the katakana and English blurring that’s there is is more evolved than it is in Japan. Like you have hatcho and then. Kadu in karaka. So they’ve quite enjoyed the accuracy to the the written system. Taylor And if if you like, stand up on the top of a building, you can see karaoke everywhere. Which is the true? Family man. Craig Family Mart. So there is a sense of also some sense of, you know, the the the soft power of Japan that you know in the 80s. Yes, Japan was on the rise and in many ways, maybe it was lucky they’ve got that as a cultural soft power like the. Speaker Hmm. Craig Positive image people have of a country from around the world, far worse ones to be stuck with than than cyberpunk. I mean the Kangaroos and crocodile man hunter. Taylor Yeah. Like. And how about fermented fish from like Norway? Things like that. Craig Yeah. What about Vikings storming? Taylor Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Craig Yeah. Yeah. So in in many ways, yeah, many of the reviews of said Punk, 2077 from Japanese players and. Game reviewers in Japan were positive in terms of, much like Big Boy Natty saying not taking offence at this, but seeing it as actually yeah, culturally tuned as opposed to I guess the bad press that the Assassin’s Creed, Japan one. Taylor A positive spin on it. Craig Where some of the lettering was wrong, where it was just there as an orientalist touch. Taylor And they didn’t allow you to break grave sites either. Whatever it was. Craig Probably a good thing. But also the voice acting is good, right? I mean, you’ve got a good Japanese voice acting there. Taylor Yeah. Craig What’s the second point? I can’t read it from here. Your point. It’s depicted as a dystopia, but it doesn’t need to be. Maybe. Make Brisbane into S Hunk city and it might be fine. Just a normal technological city. Yeah, if you did so in this environment, of course, you’ve got Japan town. Which is kind of like Chinatown that exists in some of the largest city. Which does provide you that sense of cultural hybridity that that food is engaged with and celebrated. Were there any other? I mean, it’d be interesting. Yeah. Cyberpunk Brisbane, cyberpunk. But. Taylor Cyberpunk cover. Craig That’s I mean. I kind of think you could do steampunk. Taylor Hobarts. Ohh yeah. Craig Because we’ve got. A lot of old. Taylor Colonial buildings. Yeah, we just don’t have the high rises that you need for a cyberpunk city. Craig I mean with Dark **** it kind of gets swept away in some neon. Taylor I suppose. Craig Right, that neon scape which is I think also the pleasure of Cyberpunk 2077, is that neon cityscape space. Speaker Hmm. Craig Well, we’ve got about two or three minutes left. So we we we might return to some of these themes in the future because I’ve got so much more to talk about. But I mean for me, I guess the job and I have had for Cyberpunk 2077 is that they’ve gone back to the 80s version of that world. So I I started off as a nomad. And and you’re. Yeah, that’s how I. Taylor Cool. Craig Roll. I’m very mad. Max. And you start with an 80s car. That’s been kind of mad. Max stuff a bit. And and I felt that was an immediate entry point to me in terms of this is this is a a kind of 80s as if everything went off the rails, right. Yeah. Right. So you’ve still got a lot of that that temperament and and and and. Cultural climate from the 80s so that the version of Japan Town is very much a kind of what if Japan continued its success up as opposed to the economic downturn in Turkey in the in the early? Taylor 90S is this funny because I’ve I’ve played through the game twice now, so I started off on PC and now doing switch of course. For PC I started as a Corpo. Craig Right. It’s the kind of corporate. Taylor And. Yeah. And for switch, I did the street kids. So I haven’t done the the Nomad 1. Craig Street kid the. Yeah, the Mad Max one. Yeah, right. That’s quite an old punk. Taylor He’s got a. Mohawk. Brilliant. Craig Yeah, it looks totally out of place in. The city, but. And I guess that would be cyberpunk. Three, which is mad. Max. Australia. Yeah, yeah, right. It actually is not neon based, but all about, you know, these these tyranny of distance deserts and your punk. Kind of. Not steam, but you know, 80s diesel technology. Taylor Yeah. Yeah, diesel punk. Craig Yeah. Yeah. Where it’s all about, you know, you’ve got a crossbow on your forehand and. Slightly mediaeval yeah vibe to it, but yeah, that’s probably Australia’s strongest sci-fi image. Yeah, Mad Max. Well, again, thanks, big Boy native been part of the conversation. One would have some audience engagement ring. You want to sign us out with the tune? Again, I think that really evokes cyberpunk. Taylor And it really resolved. Craig Resolve. Thank you so much. So thanks Taylor for. Taylor Being on, no worries. Craig We’ll get you on with the switch and we’ll do a live. Let’s play some point, OK? It’s been Craig for media mothership for another week. You can find further show notes. Taylor OK, sure. Craig Up on our. Taylor Podcast please, please just use the mouse on that first. Oh. Craig There we go. Yes, the trackball, which is very cyberpunk. Taylor Yeah, it is, yeah. Craig In in. Vibe. We’ve got some great music coming up. Inevitably, we’ll have Taylor show team for aeroplane. Taylor At some point I I need to just to just finish my website cause that’s the whole reason I need to have people being able to send me tracks, so I need to finish the website. Craig Yep, Yep. Well, we’ve been practising on the kalimba kalimba kalimba. The Kalambo Kalambo kalimba. Speaker Yeah. Craig Coming up now is FOMO by tan. By what? Taylor By what?