Buffy Tarot cancelled

[flake_sake]

http://www.tfaw.com/Profile/Buffy-Tarot-Cards___324290Read more... )

Comments

rebranding tarot in the USA

[anonymous]

This is not meant as a put down of tarot fortune telling, but if the cancellation of that Buffy deck is related to any controversy about tarot cards, I think it's time for tarot to be rebranded in the US.
The fact that tarot cards are sold in the US only for fortune telling is limiting the ability of those cards to fully become a part of our culture. In Italy where people play real card games with tarot, they had dancers dressed as tarot cards as part of the Olympics ceremony. Try to do that in the USA and the fundamentalists will shoot it down.
I have this thought that entertainment corporations could make more money with the gaming side of tarot than they would always stressing the fortune telling aspects. In France where tarot is recognized as a game there are all kinds of pop culture tarots. There's even been a Disney tarot published for game playing in France. If American companies knew what the French know about tarot cards, that they could be used for card games, tarot could be like all the different versions of the Monopoly boardgame on the market. We could buy tarot decks based on Star Wars, Elvis, Betty Boop, Looney Tunes, the Simpsons, Scooby Doo and much more!

Re: rebranding tarot in the USA

[flake_sake]

Looks like you had something there and it really was the occult stuff about tarot games that stopped it.
Sometimes it's astonishing how empty headed people can be...

Re: rebranding tarot in the USA

[anonymous]

Well, there's still speculation as to what was really the issue. It is not only fundamentalists who are to blame for their ignorance, I believe the American tarot industry itself might be at least somewhat in fault. I don't think the way tarot is commonly sold in the US still serves a useful purpose. Back in the 60s it made more sense to sell tarot only for fortune telling because of the big occult boom in that decade. In Europe however tarot is also sold as a real card game similar to spades and not only as a fortune telling tool. There's a very real danger of a tarot market crash so the customer base for tarot needs to be expanded if this is to be avoided. I believe there is also a place for tarot cards as a means of teaching European history in America's schools. If the tarot publishers educated Americans about the role the cards played in the history of game playing, they could be more easily integrated into public education. I've read where this was done in secular France where tarot is played as a spades-like game. The tendency of too many tarot publishers to maintain an air of mystery regarding the cards and to even distort the actual history of them has unfortunately limited the acceptance of the cards to mainstream America and made them more controversial than necessary.