Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Respect Us!!

From the Wikipedia entry on D&D:

As the popularity of D&D grew throughout the late 1970s and 1980s, the game was referenced more and more in popular culture. Numerous games, films and cultural references based on D&D or D&D-like fantasies, characters or adventures have been ubiquitous since the end of the 1970s. Typically, though by no means exclusively, D&D players are portrayed derogatively as the epitome of geekdom. References to the game are used as shorthand to establish characterization or provide the punch line of a joke. Many players, irritated with this stereotype, embrace the fact that professional basketball player Tim Duncan, comedian Stephen Colbert, musician Moby, and actors Vin Diesel, Matthew Lillard, Mike Myers, Patton Oswalt, Wil Wheaton and Robin Williams have made their D&D hobbies public.


Speaking for those that are AAVE-fluent, I find this list of celebrities devoid of a G contingent. Obviously Tim Duncan is black (partially) but he's not exactly "TD from the block," or anything. I would like to hear of, say, an Elijah Dukes playing D&D, or a Tyrese Gibson, or even a Marshall Mathers.

Update (8/26): as Dan alluded to in the comments, Vin Diesel is half-black. And he is pretty hard. In fact, he has the name of one of his D&D characters tattooed on his BACK! Isn't that ridiculous? He says that during the filming of one of his Riddick movies (either the Chronicles or Pitch Black, I don't remember) he and Judi Dench and this other actor dude used to play D&D after the day's shoot.

1 comment:

Taran said...

Isn't Vin Diesel black?