Monday, January 3, 2011

A separate cast(e)

It would be a rare creator who didn't want to envision their little world as a perfectly egalitarian society, free from the banal prejudices of modern life, but it would rarely be true.  The truth is that all are not created equal, and some will be pigeonholed, marginalized or outright discriminated against for their minor little differences.

Take the three fine gentlemen above, for example.  They're all to scale, they've all got the requisite number of limbs and aren't oddly tall or short, but they are definitely not created equal.  These three future citizens of Shukuzu will face an immediate classification based solely on subtle differences in their appearance that really only appear if you spend the time to look for them.

Our fine, upstanding gentleman on the right is representative of his class; expensive, highly detailed, and as flawless as you can expect from a person the size of a grain of rice.  It is exactly those qualities that will see his kind marginalized within Shukuzu, pricing his way out of the common realm and left to make only scattered appearances, usually in some functional capacity such as our porter here.

Our suave hipster in the middle is just that.  Middle class, unoffensive but also not overly catching to the eye, rather boring as an individual but priced well enough that he can appear in the thousands.  He is the common man, every where and every thing; milling about on the sidewalks, waiting patiently on the station platforms, hustling to or from somewhere he will never reach and never did just leave.  He may occasionally man the counter at some more obvious establishments, but for the most part he is the aimless fill, interesting only in that they are there.

Everyone has an angle that just makes them look horrendous when it's caught on film.  That, unfortunately, was not the case with the gentleman on the left.  His head is just a sliver of what it should be, like someone had balanced a coffee can on their shoulders.  Many of his fellow discount bin refugees feature a distinctively incomplete left leg, as if they went sprinting from the mold before they had completely dried and left part of themselves behind.  If the paint on most cheap LPP is garish, with these guys it is also poorly applied and often in even more surprisingly bad colors.  But, these poorly formed and badly dressed people will be the ones with homes, hidden behind windows and furniture enjoying the peace and quiet of a place of their own.  High in downtown skyscrapers, these will be the salarymen tucked in to conference rooms deciding the fate of the teeming masses below.  While the beautiful people struggle with someones baggage and direct traffic, and the massive middle class rushes about aimlessly, the odd looking rejects will occupy the upper rung of the Shukuzu society.

I guess even oddly preferential reverse discrimination is still discrimination.

1 comment:

  1. A very profound post! :-)

    Love it! The comment about how we all have bad photo angles was excellent! You have a great talent for writing and your humor is hilarious! Thanks for sharing it with us!

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