Git offa my land!
The latest howling controversy in gaming has been over a consultancy firm hired onto gaming projects to make them more woke. It turns out their fingerprints are all over several recent big-budget flops.
I won’t go into it. Gamers make up a tiny number of my readers. It just made me think what a tiny, underrepresented identity group I belong to: old lady gamers.
As far as I know, it’s just me and Shirley Curry. (Seriously, check Shirley out. She’s an 87 year old grandma from Ohio who plays Skyrim. She’s a hoot).
And I was thinking how *I* wasn’t bitching about my identity group not being represented in video games. And then I thought hang on, that would be kind of awesome.
I can see a crabby old lady NPC with a sniper rifle who shouts at you and plinks you from a great distance. Kind of like Bette Davis in Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte. Which, if you’ve never seen it, is the most fantastic old horror film featuring an enormous cast of famous scene-chewing old hams. It’s all Oscar-winners and low-budget gore.
Only in 1964.
It was originally supposed to star Joan Crawford against Bette Davis. Check out the making of for some hilarious behind-the-scenes drama.
When I was a kid, we watched it strictly for the “head rolling down the stairs” scene.
Posted: March 27th, 2024 under games.
Comments: 10
Comments
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 27, 2024, 8:51 pm
If you watch any clips of it, bear in mind Davis was only 56. Jesus, the skin around her eyes – I know 80-year-olds with fewer crow’s feet.
I guess that’s what a lifetime of smoking will do.
Comment from Anonymous
Time: March 27, 2024, 9:28 pm
That’s because old people look old in the old days.
They didn’t have the benefit of forever chemicals to help preserve them.
Plus it’s a fact that everything looks worse in black and white, Paul Simon documented that.
Comment from QuasiModo
Time: March 28, 2024, 12:23 am
I guess the gaming industry is going like Disney…they don’t care how much woke is going to hurt their bottom line because the WEF goons will just make up the loss with ESG money.
Just like watching old movies to get away from it, gamers have 1000’s of old games they can play.
Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: March 28, 2024, 1:56 pm
Sigh- That picture struck me instantly – I knew who it was – and I have been wandering down the internet/ garden path looking for her for at least an hour now. Of course I was wrong, but only in fact, not spirit.
My first thought was, ” That’s Barbara Fritchie!”
Well, no.
However, if you know about her, you may forgive my mistake, and if you are not aware of her story, perhaps you will consider a bit of forbearance for me after I’ve explain a bit.
Barbara Fritchie’s story has elements that should resonate among our gang: patriotism, gallantry, bravery, the American Civil War, and a crazy old lady…
I first learned her story by reading James Thurber, an American writer for the New Yorker magazine in the 1930’s. He is a lovely writer and always amusing in his gentle humor. However, in this case, he did not actually write anything at all: he simply illustrated a ballad (actually a poem) by John Greenleaf Whittier….
To summarize the story – Early in the Civil War the city of Fredrick Maryland fell to the Rebels Confederate Forces. Stonewall Jackson, the famous and brilliant Rebel Confederate General was marching his troops through the city, when they came across a house flying an American Flag from an upper window.
As one does when occupying a conquered city and encountering a symbol of defiance, Jackson halted his column, and had every man load and fire, in volley, at the offending flag. Enter Barbara Fritchie, 90 years old: As the torn flag on its shattered pole began to fall, she leaned out the window to near death and snatched it up and then held it up high in full defiance.
According to John Greenleaf Whittier, her 90 year-old voice rang out:
“ Shoot if you must this old gray head, but spare your country’s flag, she said”.
Stonewall Jackson, a gentleman as much as a general, and a civilized man who understood putting principles before life said,
“Who touches a hair on yon gray head, dies like a dog!”
“March on!” he said.
Whittier then concludes
“ All day long through Frederick street
Sounded the tread of marching feet:
All day long that free flag tossed
Over the heads of the rebel host.
Ever its torn folds rose and fell
On the loyal winds that loved it well;
And through the hill-gaps sunset light
Shone over it with a warm good-night…
One, from Thurber’s illustration anyway, visualizes this tough ol’ biddy holding that flag out the window for all the hours till sunset. Tired? Hell No!
They’re a dangerous breed, these old ladies…..good thing she didn’t have a shotgun that day.
For those who would to read the ballad themselves or would like to see Thurber’s illustrations (which I highly recommend) I have included a link below.
It is in fact a link to many of Thurber’s stories which you may want bookmark. He makes for lovely light reading on a wintery day or evening….
Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: March 28, 2024, 2:01 pm
Stoatie – I just got marked as Spam after I attempted an edit on an admittedly too long post with a link in it..
Would you please take a look and see if Akismet is just being snotty again? I haven’t fallen astray with him for a long time, now and in fact thought the old bastard had retired.
Thanks
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: March 28, 2024, 4:00 pm
I have kicked your magnum opus out of the spam bucket, Some Veg. Sorry about the company you had to keep. There’s some weird ol’ spammers in there!
Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: March 28, 2024, 6:28 pm
Thanks Ms Weasel – perhaps a bit heavy on the Opus and a bit light in the Magnus… but anyhow, thanks.
As for the time in the Spam Bucket, well, I’ll be in the bath for a while.
Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: March 29, 2024, 5:18 pm
Some Vegetable: “the Rebels Confederate Forces.”
Is this some sort of inverted political correctness? Because then you need to go down to Ole Miss and protest the “Rebels” athletic teams, and then over to Bardstown to protest “Rebel Yell” bourbon.
BTW, I first thought the picture was Lilian Gish in The Night of the Hunter.
Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: March 30, 2024, 5:17 pm
Rich – I was trying to be a bit polite to the Southerners who might prefer the term. In our family we always called them rebels since my ancestor, who was in the Union’s 62nd Pennsylvania was killed at Gettysburg. However, I assure you that I won’t be assed to try to be polite to you again. Never try to teach a pig to sing and all that.
Comment from drift hunters
Time: August 26, 2024, 2:23 am
You’ve done an amazing job of covering all the important aspects.
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