Fallout: The Amazon Series

He's by far the most sympathetic of the three major black characters for sure, but he still starts out the show fully immersed in the Brotherhood's abusive might-makes-right "kick the little guy" mentality, as evidenced by the sadistic glee he takes in tormenting Thaddeus as revenge for his own torment.

Sure, he lets up on the guy eventually... long after the guy fully admits to his true feelings and status as a victim in the same way Maximus was... and even then his first instinct when Thaddeus doesn't immediately agree to help him cover up Titus's death is to try and kill him... but he's a more honest and kind person by the end of the season, at least!

... Thanks to the influence of a nice traditionally-feminine white girl who shows him nothing but kindness and forgiveness.

Which, again, I don't think they wrote any of this with race in mind, and probably didn't cast any of it with race in mind, but it's still an inarguably unfortunate end result if looked at from an angle other than the one the writers intended.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Apr 16th 2024 at 12:14:58 PM

I think it's a bit unfair to criticise (presumably) colour-blind casting because of who happens to get cast. The alternative would be the producers specifically not choosing people because of their race under the reasoning that there's too many characters of that race who are very flawed, and that would be much worse in my opinion. And regardless, I can't think of many major characters in this show (from what I've seen so far) that aren't extremely flawed. The one exception, Lucy (who, assuming that's who you're talking about, I also wouldn't call 'traditionally feminine', she's not not feminine, but there's a lot about her that wouldn't fall under the umbellar of 'traditional femininity', not that there's anything wrong with 'traditionally feminine' characters, I just don't think that fully describes Lucy), is still portrayed as overly naïve (though that is also a strength of hers).

Hell, probably the least heroic out of the main cast is the ghoul, a white (presumably) straight man. Plus, his black wife and has a mixed-race daughter are portrayed positively, from what I've seen so far (I'm aware they're not main characters, but their existence further refutes any racist interpretations).

Fair enough then in regards to my last point (probably shouldn't have made that until I finished the show). Still, unless his daughter turns out to be evil, it still shows that there isn't really much in the way of racism that can be inferred from this show because I don't think many racists would be ok with a mixed-race child and sympathetic to the white man who fathered them.

Edited by king15 on Apr 16th 2024 at 7:23:08 PM

thats ignoring the fact that Max literally tries to talk Thaddeus out of branding him, as he knows how painful that is.

But thats the point. If you ignore a few things here, laser focus on a few small details and, deliberately ignore the story trying to be told, then you can come to all sorts of faulty conclusions.

Edited by ArthurEld on Apr 16th 2024 at 12:18:30 PM

Yeah... on the last point, the fact that you haven't seen the series through to the end yet I think is part of why what I'm saying doesn't completely come across. I won't discuss details any further outside spoiler tags, but suffice to say Coop is given a lot of really massive sympathy points through the final episodes and his wife becomes... less sympathetic.

Again, after abusing him constantly for at least a full day and right before trying to murder him instead of talk things through when he doesn't immediately take his side on what Max (due to also being characterized as the dumbest of the main trio ) accidentally implies is him straight-up murdering a commanding officer and stealing his identity.

Admittedly I may be misremembering the timing of when Thaddeus gives his spiel, believing Max is dead, about how he sincerely felt bad for the guy and regrets joining in on the toxic hazing he was put through due to having experienced it himself. I recall it happening before they find the head but it might have happened at the campfire in the tunnel, I confess I'd need to go back and rewatch.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Apr 16th 2024 at 12:44:20 PM

He didnt just "not take his side", he was going to turn Max in and get him killed.

You describe it like they were arguing over which model of power armor is their favorite.

Someone else said it, but also Lucy is definitely not a "traditionally feminine" character.

Traditionally feminine characters dont enjoy sex nearly as much as Lucy does.

Edited by ArthurEld on Apr 16th 2024 at 12:28:10 PM

A thing that could have been resolved in a number of ways other than murder given that Max was in power armor and they were in the middle of nowhere with no means of contacting HQ. Max jumps straight to "I gotta crush this guy's head to keep him quiet" when he could have... explained himself better, held him down, run for it and taken his chances — he jumps straight to killing the guy because he's still in that toxic might-makes-right Brotherhood mindset, and it's not an unjustified reaction but it's still a deeply unsympathetic reaction.

And my description of Lucy as "traditionally feminine" was more on the fact that she is perpetually smiling and perky, starts the show desiring more than anything to be a good wife to someone who will give her lots of children, is deeply devoted and deferential to her father, only resorts to lethal violence as a result of being forced to confront a dangerous world she's unprepared for, whose character arc is largely based around not letting said world change those prior things, and who is unerringly kind and forgiving to nearly every single man in her life who does wrong by her.

Maximus lies to her repeatedly? Forgiven. The Vault 4 overseer locks her up and exiles her in a very scary ceremony where she fully thought he was gonna cut her head off? Forgiven. Cooper tortures her almost nonstop for like a day straight then sells her into slavery to have her organs harvested? Not forgiven immediately but she saves his life and ultimately joins up with him in the finale, seemingly on track, given her record for sheer pollyanna-esque kindheartedness, to on at least some level forgive her father for killing her mother and nuking a major city.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Apr 16th 2024 at 12:39:53 PM

If you say so.

I mean one innocent little mixed race girl who is inconsequential to the story except as tragic backstory fodder for her anti-hero white father whose black wife (major spoilers, sincerely don't click until you've watched the rest of the show) literally advocates for global thermonuclear genocide in private doesn't really strike me as outweighing the unfortunate — and again, probably unintentional but still — fact that every named black character in the show that has a bigger role than that is at least kind of a shitty person, with only one of them growing out of it directly because a nice white girl inspired him with her kindness

Again, I don't think there were any racists in the writing room or even racists in the casting department, but it's still an unfortunate lineup and, with Maximus in particular, rings very familiar to how John Boyega as Finn was handled in the Star Wars sequels — we've already gotten the repeated played-for-laughs emasculation / humiliation down (general bumbling demeanor, being forced to mutilate himself by selling his teeth, getting the shit kicked out of him by those scavengers, getting bested in a fistfight by Thaddeus despite being in power armor, not knowing what sex is, etc. etc.), I suppose season 2 onward will tell if the handling of his character continues on that trajectory.

And again again, to be entirely fair to you guys and to the show, I never really noticed any of this or felt this way (aside from Maximus kind of reminding me of Finn in a bad way) until it was pointed out to me by a person more perceptive to these sorts of things, and now I can't unsee them, and its souring my already "meh" opinion of the show

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Apr 16th 2024 at 1:20:04 AM

So...youre literally just importing drama?

You didnt like the show, you went looking for other people who didnt like the show, and then you regurgitated their opinions here.

This isn't drama importation and I resent the implication, it's a sincere and on-topic attempt to discuss some Unfortunate Implications people have picked up with the show and that I've come to agree with to an extent. The fact that I came to these conclusions from browsing off-site discussions about the show doesn't make this any less valid of a conversation topic.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Apr 16th 2024 at 1:41:18 AM

The producers confirm that S2 will have deathclaws. Cool.

and Yeah, as much as I might disagree with it, I don't think it's really fair to call Dirtyblue 929's point drama importation. They genuinely believe there are unfortunate implications in the show and are politefully discussing it.

A deathclaw should be portrayed as a full on horror movie villain, something in the vane of say Nemesis (minus the gun). Should be cool to see in live action.

Edited by king15 on Apr 16th 2024 at 8:33:55 AM

Janey is presumably going to be more relevant in season 2.

And by Fallout standards, I was actually surprised how many POC characters were around in various positions of power and authority in the old world. I'm guessing they didn't really want to address racism in the world (minus Cooper's conversation with Charlie), hell they went with a generic "the Reds" rather than specifying China is the US' enemy. If you know you know, but I could see a non-fan thinking that referred to the Soviet Union.

Edited by PhiSat on Apr 16th 2024 at 2:33:53 AM

Looking forward to deathclaws, at least. And yeah, the downplaying of China's role in the nuclear exchange I think is a trend that is gonna continue for the foreseeable future of the franchise just as a natural consequence of China becoming a huge, huge market for American entertainment media. Fallout Shelter has an entire licensed gacha spinoff/sequel developed by a Chinese company and exclusive to Asian territories specifically because Chinese gamers fell absolutely in love with Shelter. Nobody in Hollywood wants to piss off the CCP censors and risk losing out access to the new golden goose.

I'm less familiar with the original games, but other than racism against people of East Asian descent (due to the actions of China, not unlike how the USA reacted after Pearl Harbour with Japan), has there been much suggestion of racism in Fallout, even pre-war? In Fallout 4, for example, I'm pretty sure Sanctuary Hills is shown to be quite diverse (not that that means there isn't much racism, but this fact along with the lack of evidence I have seen towards racism in the Fallout-verse does suggest that there isn't much racism against non-Asian minorities).

I thought that trend was starting to reverse in recent years, considering that the Chinese government has been pushing for more domestic film and television production over allowing more imports.

The big example I could think of was when an Asian scientist was in the Vault-Tec Vault 4 commercial. It felt off to me for a Vault-Tec commercial given the racism against East Asians because of the whole war with China. You'd think Vault-Tec wouldn't want to show "the enemy" in a commercial for their end of the world product.

Racism clearly is still an issue against Native Americans given the conversation between Cooper and Charlie, and the 50s aesthetic of the Old World always makes me think there likely is still quite a bit of racism against African Americans. But I suppose it's not made super explicit, so hey, maybe it was less of an issue.

Edited by PhiSat on Apr 16th 2024 at 2:52:38 AM

Eh, it's reversing to a degree but not to the point where anyone like Amazon or Bethesda is going to be poking the bear to any serious extent.

There's not much indication in the series of pre-war racism other than concentration camps for Chinese-Americans accused of espionage, which, yeah, but then again there isn't much significant focus on pre-war culture at all until FO3, and even then it was very much just lite set dressing in terminal entries, audio logs, notes and such.

FO4 was the first time they really gave us a good hard look at pre-war society and a lot of people have argued that they did a soft-retcon of sanitizing it to a degree — OG lore and FO3 to an extent implied that the nation was decidedly dystopic and on the edge by the end, with widespread food shortages/rationing, frequent massive protests, crime skyrocketing... we see that outside the prologue in FO4, through environmental storytelling and Apocalyptic Logs but it's still stuff we never see directly.

I think a lot of people just kind of assumed the pre-war US was still probably fairly racist until the FO4 prologue showed Sanctuary Hills, at least, as a postcard picture of diversity, because we never really got any indication one way or another. Cooper's Native American friend is probably the closest the series has come so far to directly addressing any form of pre-war racism other than wartime anti-Chinese hysteria.

Edited by Dirtyblue929 on Apr 16th 2024 at 2:01:56 AM

To be fair to the intro of Fallout 4, Sanctuary Hills is clearly quite a middle class community so would be somewhat nicer than other parts of the country (which I think works in the favour of the narrative by emphasising the difference between life for the protagonist pre and post war). The intro cutscene, the vault not letting enough people in (even threatening to shoot) and the vault itself all show that the world the Sole Survivor lives in is still very much a dystopia (one Nate/Nora/whatever name still had to deal with, just that they lived a somewhat happy life anyway), just from the intro. And of course, the audio logs and terminals show that the pre-war Commonwealth is as much a dystopia as anywhere else was in the franchise.

As for diversity, I don't mind pre-war America being shown to be diverse and lacking institutional racism towards races (other than Chinese people). The racism against Chinese people allows for slightly more contemporary commentary by creating a scenario not too dissimilar to the Islamophobia after 9/11 (though fortunately it never got to internment camp levels).

Linking this back to the show, an advertisement with an East Asian scientist (and I specify East Asian and not Chinese because racists rarely care about the specific nationality of the person they are being racist towards, as long as they look how the racists believe the nationality they hate looks) does seem slightly strange. Though I certainly don't think it's impossible in universe and could even be spun by Vault-Tech as them having 'One of the good ones' and 'Even Chinese people want to support our cause' and similar things.

I feel like that's reaching because Maximus is absolutely a heroic figure who wants to do right by everyone. Saying, "he is deceptive and manipulative" ignores that he gives up his lying twice.

Saying that he bullies and abuses his squire for a day as a character flaw also somehow implies that it is not remotely understandable that he's mean to someone who beat the shit out of him on a regular basis for no reason other than he was an outsider.

It seems there's a Morton's Fork. Is he allowed to be mean to the abusive bullying culture of the Brotherhood of Steel or not?

He's only not Lawful Good by comparison to Lucy and the traditionally feminine white girl is a figure of ridicule and a Failure Hero who is continuously mocked as naive bordering on stupid throughout the series.

Though this does remind me of the fact that anti-fascist material is hard to write with fascists because it turns out that they don't mind being depictwed as murderous evil scumbags. You have to make them stupid as well, which undermines their use in any sort of medium.

Nor do they go on heroic journeys to rescue their dads by themselves.

Edit:

Interestingly, this is one of the rare shows that also shows black individuals allowed to rise to the absolute top of the corporate and social hierarchy. Lee Moldaver is the leader of NCR's Remnants and also the Big Good of the setting but is allowed to be a believably flawed and ruthless character in the process. Cooper's wife is also allowed to play the role of a Corrupt Corporate Executive, showing that she's fully capable of surviving and thriving in the shark like world of the pre-War environment.

Much like Amanda Waller, their depictions are beyond traditional depictions.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Apr 16th 2024 at 2:34:03 AM

Maximus is just as much of a Failure Hero as Lucy. Arguably worse of one, since all his "accomplishments" were things others did that were accredited to him. The only thing he managed to do successfully was save the Snake Oil Salesman from retribution he very justly deserved. Lucy at least managed to take down the organ harvesters through her own martial prowess and ingenuity and delivered the head.

Edited by PhiSat on Apr 16th 2024 at 3:36:17 AM

I've seen at least one jackass who took to Fallout's pre-war retrofuturistic aesthetic as a justifications to create a mod specifically to de-diversify the Wasteland of anyone coloured or accented.

People, are, idiots.

If your familer with them you know the twits name. I'm not repeating it and giving them any exposure.

Edited by Avenger09 on Apr 16th 2024 at 10:38:31 AM

Saving said Snake Oil Salesman also saved Thaddeus' life (after a fashion) so a chain of good deeds there.

Mind you this is interesting as a Critical Race Analysis of media because we're getting right into the fact white characters are allowed to antihero, Failure Hero, or mixtures of good and evil just fine but the issue here seems to be the idea that there's no uncritically good role for a black person to have.

They're actually allowed to be as flawed as the entirety of the white cast.

That's rare outside of black television and productions.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Apr 16th 2024 at 2:36:44 AM

I believe it was John Jackson Miller who stated that Rae Sloane was a character that Disney's media folk liked a very great deal. A lesbian black woman for the leader of the Empire was someone that would nicely cut off any Imperial co-opting for their movies. He said he also believed that they wanted the Empire to be deliberately uncool in the sequels. Dangerous but uncool.

I wonder if that's the sentient for the pre-War. You don't want to aid racism by depicting the kind of racist society that might be lionized by viewers. Sort of like how when they did the Handmaid's Tale, the director said, "I know the Gilead people would be racist but if i cast it that way, then the only black and minority roles would be as slaves."

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Apr 16th 2024 at 2:41:02 AM

Yeah the idea that Maximus somehow needs to be behaving "better" than all the white people around him who want to call him is...uncomfortably close to the model minority concept for me.

Let minorities be shitty people (not that i think Max is really intended to a shitty person and i doubt the average viewer got that impression). In its own way, paradoxically, positive representation has to include negative representation.