• CrawlMarks [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    7·
    17 days ago

    Wait, I am dumb. He has a point yeah? Space aliens don’t map to rascism because rascism is based on nothing and space aliens could actually have differences you would need to be aware of. Like, a xenomorphs only water fountain might be needed if our biology was incompatible?

    • sodium_nitride [she/her, any]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      15·
      17 days ago

      In actuality, mapping space aliens to bigotry (racism, speciesm) is not really far fetched

      Humans already have big physical differences with differing needs. Example - cis female body type vs rest (one needs sanitary pads the others don’t), or adult vs child (different heights, weights, food requirements), or elderly vs young, able bodied vs handicapped. The differences between generic humans and space aliens is only a more exaggerated, in some sense. Even fantasy races and space aliens are often based on human characteristics. A cis human man is physically closer to a generic cis male fantasy elf than a cis woman.

      Furthermore, even if xenomorphs are completely different to us, it doesn’t mean that we should discriminate against them, or hate them or go to war with them.

      On a narrative level, fantasy or sci fi often exaggerates existing aspects of human society. Magic doesn’t exist in reality, but differences in magical talent can be used as allegories about ableism, competition and meritocracy. Planet destroying super weapons don’t exist, but can be allegories for nuclear weapons. So exaggerating differences between species/races to make allegories for bigotry has its basis in the very structure of the types of narratives.