Was anyone offended by the "Southern cannibal family" in episode 2?
I'd like to pose this question to players from Texas, or any of the red states for that matter. Were you annoyed by the cannibal family seen in episode 2 with the St. Johns?
Most of us guessed something was going on with the St. Johns even before we got to the dairy, but I was secretly hoping it wouldn't turn out to be cannibalism. THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE was one of the first movies to really perpetuate this stereotype, and although it's considered to be a horror classic (for good reason), the idea of people from the South inevitably turning out to be flesh-eating psychos has apparently persisted in the public subconscious.
Telltale tried to mitigate this somewhat by painting the St. Johns as a genuinely educated family (proven by the high school diplomas and college degrees Lee sees framed in the hallway), suggesting these people weren't inclined to cannibalism before the zombie outbreak, but were driven to desperate measures by desperate circumstances. Nonetheless, the cliche is still there.
(I should add that "having an education" is no guarantee someone isn't a psychopath/sociopath. One reason Jack the Ripper slipped away was very possibly due to the pompous Victorian attitude that an "educated man" would never be capable of committing such atrocities.)
Most of us guessed something was going on with the St. Johns even before we got to the dairy, but I was secretly hoping it wouldn't turn out to be cannibalism. THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE was one of the first movies to really perpetuate this stereotype, and although it's considered to be a horror classic (for good reason), the idea of people from the South inevitably turning out to be flesh-eating psychos has apparently persisted in the public subconscious.
Telltale tried to mitigate this somewhat by painting the St. Johns as a genuinely educated family (proven by the high school diplomas and college degrees Lee sees framed in the hallway), suggesting these people weren't inclined to cannibalism before the zombie outbreak, but were driven to desperate measures by desperate circumstances. Nonetheless, the cliche is still there.
(I should add that "having an education" is no guarantee someone isn't a psychopath/sociopath. One reason Jack the Ripper slipped away was very possibly due to the pompous Victorian attitude that an "educated man" would never be capable of committing such atrocities.)
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To answer your question, no, I'm not offended by the cliche. Though, to be honest, I'm from Ohio, so I'd be a northerner, so I don't have this kind of thing thrown at me. I have no idea what it's like for people to assume that I would be a cannibal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWWg5shNWR4
If the St. Johns absolutely had to be up to no good for the sake of the plot, couldn't Telltale have at least come up with something besides cannibalism for a change?
Cannibalism is in most cases a realistic scenario that would possibly occur with alarming frequency in a zombie apocalypse. There is no law and you're starving. You won't be punished(naturally anyway), so it is quite a temptation. With that, it would probably be something many survivors must face, and is sort of second nature in a zombie apocalypse. Alongside bandits.
It is very easy to do such evil deeds, and many will always take the easy way out. With no punishment, they reap the rewards and that only encourages it further. I'd be more surprised were it not included than anything.
In a way, I feel some slight sympathy for the St. John brothers, because if you chat with them enough you learn they initially returned to the farm from elsewhere in the state to look after their mom. It sounds like one of those situations where good people became so desperate that they go bad.
Anyway, I guess you can see the St. John's as some type of cliche of crazy Southerners, but we also meet good Southerners in the game.
Technically, isn't everyone but Omid and Christa southerners? Almost the entire main cast is from Georgia, usually Macon or Atlanta. The most stereotypical southern character would be Kenny, and he's from Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
As for the St. Johns, I can say with confidence that having lived my entire life in the rural south-eastern United States that there is no cannibal problem...
And by no problem, I mean there is a small problem, but we've got it under control...mostly.
As long as it works towards a good story and isn't something which is real stereotype I'm fine
They can feel free to have some crazy Cannabalistic Brits in the next season and I'd be happy with it
I live in Texas by the way.....
Great point.
why would these ones in particular be offensive
It sets them apart.... from.... y'know.. all those other things that eat people...... or something.
Okay, I'm sorry I asked!
Sheesh, I wasn't trying to be a prude. :rolleyes:
I stand by my original answer, sarcastic as it was.
The first eight words of it are absolute truth. Might be one of the reasons Episode 2 is my least favorite.
What I'm annoyed by are movies like House of Wax, where these smart, sexy college kids stumble into this backwoods southern unspecified area where everyone is stupid, racist, sexist, and, don't forget, at least 50 and ugly as sin. :P (And usually rock the evil-Christian vibe!) These brave, young, unsuspecting folk (depending on movie) get raped and eaten, slowly tortured to death, all that kind of junk, and in the end, at least one set of silicone walks out alive to tell the tale.
I thought that the St. Johns were very believable and that TTG did the story line very well. I didn't get The Hills Have Eyes/House of Wax/Chainsaw Massacre vibe from them at all. I mean, yeah, they're fucked up and it was creepy and we pretty much figured they were cannibals from the start, but TTG did it right.
It wasn't a bunch of young punks defeating an evil that has been there since the start of time. There weren't unnecessary racial slurs and rape scenes stuffed in between their arrival and dinner.
Hell, if such a thing could be called as much, I would say that TellTale did it classy, haha!
While I am annoyed by the stereotype perpetuated by movies, I can't lay blame on TTG for going this route. There WOULD be cannibalism in any sort of apocalypse. And the fact that these were people all around the same age, various genders and backgrounds, and all from the south, really take away most of the objections I could have had with it.
3 months just isn't enough time to go the route they did.... unless they started day one or were a "Backwoods cannibal family" before the walkers started walking... which is what I think their history was.
They're just too well adjusted as a group.....
Maybe they had plans for it before the apocalypse but never had a chance to do so(because law was still around and such).
I read a story about this guy who was a cannibal but got away with it to this day because of some loophole in the law in his country. Not sure if it's true or not, but it could show that people already have these ideas in mind and the apocalypse is the perfect opportunity to execute them.
Man, I guess I just totally disagree. The vibe I got from them is that they would've never considered eating human meat until they were basically forced into trading it to the bandits. Three months can be a long time, especially if it all goes straight to shit on day 1.
I don't know, I just wasn't offended by any of it and I lived my whole childhood pretty close to Macon.
I didn't really have a problem with it. That rugby team that crashed in the Andes had to resort to cannibalism to survive after a few days. That was a much more dire situation, but then they didn't have this guy with them...
I'm pretty sure Danny not only talked Brenda and Andy into eating people, I'm convinced he's wanted to try it for the longest time. He apparently stuffed Brenda's cat as a mother's day gift and was probably already a sicko before the end. Brenda and Andy both have a very mundane attitude towards fucking eating people where as Danny seems to celebrate it. He actually seems to get excited about the idea of Lee eating him.
I figured sometime in the confusion and chaos that followed the outbreak the St. Johns lost almost all their livestock, ran out of meat, and in the process of burying their dead farmhands and what not Danny either brought up the idea of butchering their dead or just went ahead and did without telling Andy and Brenda.
It probably did start with people who really were dying, and then people who were probably going to die... and then just whoever they could find. At least one doctor has said cannibalism can actually be addicting, so if Danny prodded the other St. Johns into it it's not hard for me to believe they became fixated on it.
I wasn't offended, I honestly don't give two anal expulsions - but I thought it was poorly written.
They had a farm - I doubt their entire stock of food and supplies disappeared day one. My grandparents were farmers - they had enough canned goods and supplies on hand to last months if need-be. I'll assume the St Johns would have done the same.
Something doesn't add up.
They need gas, and they need it every day. Rather than waste time only searching for it themselves, they take it from people who have already stockpiled the gas in exchange for the only renewable commodity they have - food. They always need gas, and so always give what food they don't eat away.
That could explain how their food stores quickly dropped over time.
I doubt the St Johns were victims in any way - and just used the bandits.
They say the bandits killed a lot of their farmhands in their early encounters, so they would probably continue to be harassed(like Lee's group in ep 3) unless a deal of some sorts was made. Though the bandits were probably still getting conned by getting human meat, the St. Johns weren't free from injuries.
On it being offensive, well nearly all the characters are from Georgia, so it's really just a small couple who are sterotypical, even then I didn't think Andy was a huge stereotype, at least compared to Danny and MAMA'!
Ha! Is it because of his face? He just looks evil, the poor sap.
Even with Kenny's mustache he looks evil. :eek: