@#12 / Scraps: Spot on!
@Lauren O: thank you!

I am especially frustrated at dismissing these sorts of discussions as "Women's Studies". I happen to have studied and am currently working in science, after attending a well known "institute of technology" with a notably high male to female ratio. A far cry from "liberal arts"!

While I'm not the sort to raise a fuss about something like GTA, I'm glad someone out there does. Kyle's remarks only highlight just how much farther we have to go.

I am not amused. This blasé contrarian response just looks like yet another shallow "cooler than thou" post-feminist attitude. I'm all about sexual liberation, but I'm *very* disappointed to see Xeni / Boing Boing promoting an article so totally dismissive of anyone who is at all troubled by GTA's continuing misogyny.

Notably, in Eastern art tradition imitation is honored rather than deprecated. That said, this shouldn't be labeled as simply "imitation". It is using some stylistic elements common to traditional Chinese artwork and familiarity with these might help one appreciate the mural. Certainly the mere usage certain stylistic elements is not enough to qualify as "kitsch"! This isn't imitation, it is a novel synthesis of traditional Eastern and Western painting styles.

To familiarize yourself with traditional Chinese landscape painting, you can look here: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/clpg/hd_clpg.htm

Especially: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/09/eac/ho_1979.5.htm

My Chinese coworker tells me that the Great Wall is very often compared to a dragon. I think that's credit due to the artist, that I could see that in the painting. I'm not saying this is a masterpiece, but (in my opinion) I do not think it is "goofy" or "kitschy" or "awkward".

I've taken a Chinese art history class and I'm not understanding what's horrible about the painting. The dramatic hills in the upper right echo classic Chinese landscape painting. (see http://images.google.com/images?q=chinese+landscape+painting ) Classic Chinese paintings were sparing with color; if they used them, they used uncomplicated washes of a single color -- this paintings has two predominant colors, mimicking this effect. Line is the most important element in Chinese painting -- here, the serpentine lines of the wall twist like a dragon over a misty landscape. I imagine this was intentional.

If this painting is horrible in some way, perhaps it is lies in the location it inhabits - it may be incongruous within the lobby of this bank. The nationalistic pride may seem tacky, but I think it is well founded - rather than painting a political figure or scene, the painting honors a genuinely wondrous heritage of the nation.

It's ironic. I'm a "nerdy girl" and I've been irritated and insulted by persistant stereotypes and objectification of women in the comics. I took it out of my RSS feed after comic #317 ( http://www.xkcd.com/317/ ). I don't think you should be giving the guy kudos for sensitivity here, his other comics have had a distinct lack thereof.

I doubt it's intentional on his part, but as Neal Stephenson observed in Snow Crash one of the most frustrating type of sexism is that practiced "by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists."