Several months ago a Kickstarter campaign was conducted to fund a John Carter computer game. Their prospects didn't seem great and it unsurprisingly failed.

You may also recall we gave a boobies warning in relation to an article about a John Carter comic.

Our impression about that comic - which we didn't share - was that it seemed a bit parochial.

Three comic cover options - two showed a fully clothed male character, and one a topless female.

Mmm.

On the other hand the Kickstarter material for the game showed equally scantily clad males and females, so we let that one pass.

But this week we spotted a GoFundMe campaign for a new sci-fi horror film The Betty which would star Olivia D'abo.

Star Trek fans may remember she played a young Q in The Next Generations' episode True Q and her sister Maryam starred in 80's sci-fi horror series, Something is Out There.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, the YouTube video thumbnail (shown above) which features prominently on their GoFundMe page could be a short essay on gender inequality in entertainment.

By "classic" they seem to mean backwards.

Fully clothed and physique largely concealed male character and a large breasted woman with said breasts barely contained by a skin-tight suit.

Instead of writing that essay we rolled our eyes and guessed that like John Carter, this one would simply not go anywhere.

But later in the week Activision Blizzard shared details about an internal tool they've developed and use to improve diversity in computer game characters.

To our eye the tool has been met with a range of unfair but predictable criticisms from people who purport to support diversity.

While this concept artwork is for a film rather than a video game, it's a real, present day example and demonstrates the need for tools like this.

Which we will discuss in greater depth in another post.

[ Main Image: The Betty. Credit: HJFilmWorld via YouTube. ]

References

Ali, Hasan (April 29, 2022). Help Us Fund Our Feature Film - The Betty. GoFundMe.

Alt, Eric (May 12, 2022). King's Diversity Space Tool. Activision Blizzard.

FNCPR and Sci Fi London. John Carter: Warlord of Mars. Kickstarter. (viewed February 25, 2022)

HJFilmWorld (April 29, 2022). The Betty And the Inspiration from Classic Cinema. YouTube.

Spry, Jeff (February 7, 2022). 'John Carter of Mars' blasts back to Barsoom in new comic series from Dynamite. Space.com.