• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

'Stop Giving Evil Characters Brown Skin'

M

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
xdr said:
What was the argument then on RE5? On french forums the issue was always about "hey but shooting on black zombies it's racist wtf". Seriously, I ask that peacefuly I've never heard another argument about it.

And honestly I don't (at least not on purpose) take nonsensicial directions... I mean I honestly DON'T see any racial things in those "dark skinned vilain" or "Evil Ryu/Evil whatever" characters... It's true I'm a French white dude from French white parents and so on, so maybe I'm not sensitive about it I've never suffered of racism (except when I lived a bit in Korea, Koreans called me "fucking american" in streets because I'm white...) so maybe I just don't see it. Most of my favorite artists are Japanese, Korean, African americans, Latinos, etc etc.
I mean how they could on purpose make "evil characters" black for a racial reason, it's... So dumb... We're in 2017, people who make games are educated, they are not some Hillbillies. Oh well it's true I'm surprised by some elections recently (USA, France alt right almost won, etc), that's so weird...

Honestly I can't believe it's on purpose, but... of course there are some stereotypes like "black dies first in horror movies" (not so mucn anymore though), or black character is the funny dude, etc. Asians are the math guys.

That's just weird to me, like all those sexists talks. I mean yes girls are often sexy but Nathan Drake too, Snake is not bad I guess, the Prince of Persia, heroes of Far Cry games, AC, Watch Dogs, they are all handsome/good looking dudes I think, no?

Honestly I'm always confuse in all those talks, maybe I'm too naive and don't see the "dark purpose" (yeah I know "dark" again, sorry) behind all these but, that's how I feel. :)
Click to expand...
"I'm a white dude so maybe I don't get it, but..." <proceeds to show that he truly doesn't get it>

Yeah, okay. By the way, the problem with representation of women isn't that they're good-looking, it's that they're often sexualized. Completely different thing. You don't see Nathan Drake or Joel walking around in a speedo because that'd be patently ridiculous, but that kind of ridiculousness always gets a pass for many female characters because they're designed as sex objects first and foremost.
 
C

Cheat Code

Member
sephi22 said:
I feel like Overwatch is also guilty of this. One of the games primary villains in Reaper is a black/Hispanic hybrid. Orisa, who's supposed to be a killer robot model that was part of the omnic crisis that killed millions has an African accent. Widowmaker is a good white girl gone bad through brainwashing, and they gave her a huge butt and dark skin. She's purple but that's as subtle as you can get without going full blackface. Roadhog is Maori and Junkrat is a dark skinned Aussie (excuse being he charred himself)

The heroes like Mercy, Tracer, Reinhardt, Torbjorn or Soldier 76 are full aryan on the other hand. And this game is supposed to be a bastion of diversity or whatever.
Click to expand...

So basically Reaper is Hispanic and evil and Sombra is Hispanic and chaotic neutral and that's it for dark-skinned villians.

Then you have Ana, Pharah, Lucio and if you count Asian characters (which we might as well because you are counting purple characters and someone who is on fire) we can add Genji, D.va and Mei. Symmetra is also an anti-villain with obviously strong morals that is manipulated by her bosses.
 
S

sanstesy

Member
Mael said:
Half of the people who played the game didn't finish it to begin, with so I doubt that many people didn't make the obvious connection.
Especially when in the sequel, gerudos are all pirates who will kill you on sight.
The gypsy undertone is probably a bigger deal than the brown one for OoT's era Gerudo though.
They're absolutely not portrayed as good people.
Click to expand...

That people didn't finish the game doesn't really matter when the game gives context through talking to their leader Nabooru. Majora's Mask handled it completely wrong with them just being evil predators that stole eggs to get treasure and that was their role.

But the OoT Gerudo were female-only thieves that weren't inherently evil and that concept could have been greatly expanded to even greater effect in other Zelda games. Now Gerudos are just one of the other one-dimensional good guy tribes fighting against evil.
 
C

cmChimera

Member
udivision said:
She gets it back right after the battle with Ganon as she leads her pirate crew to sail the seas once more, ending her hour-long tenure as a princess.

But no one really talks about that.
Click to expand...

Right. Princess can't have dark skin. Too pure.

professor denim said:
Because the princess, contrary to a pirate, doesn't live the sea life and gets burned by staying days under the sun.
Click to expand...

It's the same girl. How would she lose her tan, and why?
 
A

aBarreras

Member
Morrigan Stark said:
? Cole isn't angry nor an idiot... I mean "idiot" is subjective, he's a typical Boisterous Bruiser, not really the "dumb" variant though, just a bit goofy. I get that he might still be considered a stereotype, though.
Click to expand...

Cole Train character is great, people just dismisse it because LOL GEARS, LOL MSFT.

but the true is, Cole is far more deeper than it appears. he knows people look up to him, he knows that if he shows any trace of despeir or hopelesness the rest of the people go down with him.
 
M

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
I actually watched the video and I can't see the problem with what he's saying? Why are people disagreeing?

It's super fucked up that "evil Ryu" is essentially just a darker-skinned version of Ryu. Like c'mon, blatantly racist. This isn't about him having a darker outfit. Christ.
 
O

Option-

Member
Many of this comes from japan, i´m not condemning them as this isn´t racial in a nasty form like you can see in the western world i guess.
 
G

Gotdatmoney

Member
xdr said:
Kinda tired of those false debates... "Blabla girls are stereotypes, sexy, but boys are not" (mostly not true) "blabla in RE5 you kill black persons, it's racist" (yeah because Spanish persons in RE4 was perfectly fine)...
Click to expand...

Have you A) ever played RE5 and B) ever been to any countries in Africa? I love me some RE5 but jesus christ I dunno what Capcom was thinking with certain sections of that game.
 
P

PSqueak

Banned
Twilight Gap said:
it's current year and now villains can't be a certain shade if the protagonist is lighter.

okay.
Click to expand...

I think the point that the video opens with, evil versions of good guy characters being dark skinned for no reason, is pretty valid tho.

Why do Ryu, Ken and Sakura suddenly get a tan when they become evil? makes no sense and is weird.
 
A

atr0cious

Member
MoogleMan said:
I swear people are so sensitive over everything...

I've noticed this since I started gaming 29 years ago.

It's just not what he makes it out to be.
The evil or bad guys are usually darker to give a sense of evil.
Dark = bad/evil.

It has nothing to do with ethnicity.
Could we please stop making an issue out of every little thing?
Click to expand...
You don't see how coding white people as Evil, by giving them brown skin isn't an issue?
 
D

dmcRedgrave

Member
Gotdatmoney said:
Have you A) ever played RE5 and B) ever been to any countries in Africa? I love me some RE5 but jesus christ I dunno what Capcom was thinking with certain sections of that game.
Click to expand...

My favorite part of RE5 is when the mud-dwelling black people jump up and down with their fuzzy wooden shields and chuck spears at you.
 
7

7DollarHagane

Banned
cmChimera said:
This is literally the reason why it's bad. I have no idea how you can't see the harm in that association.
Click to expand...

If its poetrayed in a "light/dark side of the force" way idk how you can say its a racial thing.

The idea of a mystical power having a good/evil side is not a racial thing. Its an old trope. Thr notion of darkness representing evil isnt about race.

Besides, the "dark" side is usually portrayed as equally powerful/more powerful than the "light" side but with a corrupting influence.

Ryu embraces the dark hadou and therefore gets glowing eyes and a changed skin color and clothes to signify the change. It wouldnt make much sense if the dark hadou turned him orange.

I am not saying that this never happens, becauase it does happen, but when theres a light/dark side in the fiction, there's some context for the darkness being portrayed as the evil side.
 
W

wamberz1

Member
I may be wayyyyyy off here, so apologies if so, but a lot of this has to do with Japans idea of white/light colored=pure, right?
yanipheonu said:
There's at least the "villain temporarily turns black" twist on things. Greed in Fullmetal Alchemist gains the black shell because it's pure carbon. A similar thing happens with Sen. Armstrong in Metal Gear Rising, where his skin hardens and looks black in response to physical trauma.

Nanomachines_Son.jpg
Click to expand...
And Eve from nier automata as well...
 
J

JonnyDBrit

Member
I think it's possibly worth distinguishing two different kinds of intent to the usage of dark skin as part of an evil character. In cases like Violent Ken and Evil Ryu, as the vid in the OP brings up, then yeah it's a straightforward 'dark = evil' approach. True, in this case skin tone is likely less a deliberate aspect, than it is about making everything about them darker, especially as they're palette variants, but you can kinda see the basic logic in a lot of designs. For example, even in a game like Asura's Wrath, derived from buddhist and hindu iconography and with skin tones all over the place, Deus -
initial
big bad of the game - is the darkest of all. Well, him or Wyzen, who is a... greedy, fat bastard. Yeah.

In other cases like Cia, as brought up by OP, I would say that's less down to strictly 'dark = evil', so much as it as a closely correlated case of exotification. Cia is intended as the femme fatale, the Ms. Fanservice of her game, to borrow parlance from tvtropes a bit. And uh, there's a bit of trend in Japanese media - unfortunate or otherwise - to treat brown skin as sexy; hence so often if a woman with a touch of melanin turns up in an anime, she is likely to be most stacked and scantily dressed member of the cast. Hell, even Nintendo has gotten in on it of late with the Gerudo in BOTW and Twintelle. And because evil is so often treated as sexy because lust, temptation and all that, the result is a character like Cia being made brown as a presumed matter of sex appeal.
 
T

Twilight Gap

Member
PSqueak said:
I think the point that the video opens with, evil versions of good guy characters being dark skinned for no reason, is pretty valid tho.

Why do Ryu, Ken and Sakura suddenly get a tan when they become evil? makes no sense and is weird.
Click to expand...

Sure japanese games from japanese devs make plenty of decisions that would offend societies from the other side of the world, and the first example is rightfully stupid if there is nothing more to the character than "darker skin". His examples to strengthen the argument beyond that however are borderline ridiculous, and risks jeopardizing artistic expression.
 
A

aBarreras

Member
yanipheonu said:
There's at least the "villain temporarily turns black" twist on things. Greed in Fullmetal Alchemist gains the black shell because it's pure carbon. A similar thing happens with Sen. Armstrong in Metal Gear Rising, where his skin hardens and looks black in response to physical trauma.

Nanomachines_Son.jpg
Click to expand...

and whats your point exactly? o_O

one piece is racist too because people turn black when usin haki?
 
L

LotusHD

Banned
MoogleMan said:
I swear people are so sensitive over everything...

I've noticed this since I started gaming 29 years ago.

It's just not what he makes it out to be.
The evil or bad guys are usually darker to give a sense of evil.
Dark = bad/evil.

It has nothing to do with ethnicity.
Could we please stop making an issue out of every little thing?
Click to expand...

This post's lack of self-awareness...
 
M

Marmaladefire

Member
Maxinas said:
I like dark colored villians, and i like dark colored good guys, what's the problem here?
Click to expand...

The problem is that there aren't enough of the latter.

If you think the dichotomy of light= white= right and dark = black = evil doesn't have any relation to race and never plays out that way, well..You must be white, or very confused. People are joking about Kingdom Hearts, but it's a great, ham fisted as hell example of it. It's really annoying when most of the people actually keeping the series afloat live in diverse societies and the only time a brown character comes around, they're a villain.
 
7

7DollarHagane

Banned
yanipheonu said:
There's at least the "villain temporarily turns black" twist on things. Greed in Fullmetal Alchemist gains the black shell because it's pure carbon. A similar thing happens with Sen. Armstrong in Metal Gear Rising, where his skin hardens and looks black in response to physical trauma.

Nanomachines_Son.jpg
Click to expand...

Black and red.
maxresdefault.jpg


Also for most of that fight he's covered in flames and glowing yellow. Also he didn't turn black because he turned evil, he's pretty much the stereotypical white evil guy. If anything the parts where he turns black on his skin is where he's more powerful than when he's white.
 
P

PSqueak

Banned
Twilight Gap said:
Sure japanese games from japanese devs make plenty of decisions that would offend societies from the other side of the world. His examples to strengthen the argument beyond that however are borderline ridiculous, and risks jeopardizing artistic expression.
Click to expand...

Artistic vision is not free of criticism tho, he is criticizing the artistic choices and explaining his case fro how it is harmful, and yes it is harmful, like people have brought up that study with the little black girl and the dolls, artistic freedom, much like free speech gives you the freedom to do whatever you want, but doesn't protect you from criticism.

So yes, capcom can continue to make eviler M. Bison even darker skinned, i will still think it's stupid and worth of criticism.

This is less of a call for censorship and more of a call to visualize things differently, this is what many people don't understand.

We cannot keep coddling japan just because they're a retrograde isolated island culture, shit's global now and these things have to be criticized. Just like the portrayal of gay people in persona games.
 
M

Mael

Member
sanstesy said:
That people didn't finish the game doesn't really matter when the game gives context through talking to their leader Nabooru. Majora's Mask handled it completely wrong with them just being evil predators that stole eggs to get treasure and that was their role.
Click to expand...

the way the Gerudo are portrayed in OoT, Nabooru might as well not exist. Ganondorf is their clear and legitimate leader and they're seen as thieving and kidnapping people who are absolutely not portrayed as anything but people to fear and avoid.

sanstesy said:
But the OoT Gerudo were female-only thieves that weren't inherently evil and that concept could have been greatly expanded to even greater effect in other Zelda games. Now Gerudos are just one of the other one-dimensional good guy tribes fighting against evil.
Click to expand...

The only boy that can be born is 1 every 100 years and is evil by all accounts we have.
They were at best viewed as kidnapping, thieving tribe and certainly as antagonistic.
They're known for stealing people and their belonging, how is that in any way good?
At least in Botw, you get to see them interact more than just trying to kill you on sight.
 
N

Nanashrew

Banned
7DollarHagane said:
If its poetrayed in a "light/dark side of the force" way idk how you can say its a racial thing.

The idea of a mystical power having a good/evil side is not a racial thing. Its an old trope. Thr notion of darkness representing evil isnt about race.

Besides, the "dark" side is usually portrayed as equally powerful/more powerful than the "light" side but with a corrupting influence.

Ryu embraces the dark hadou and therefore gets glowing eyes and a changed skin color and clothes to signify the change. It wouldnt make much sense if the dark hadou turned him orange.

I am not saying that this never happens, becauase it does happen, but when theres a light/dark side in the fiction, there's some context for the darkness being portrayed as the evil side.
Click to expand...

Going off the light side and dark side of the force, everyone who becomes a sith gets paler and whiter, unless they have red, blue or green skin.

To represent the darkness they'll wear a black cloak that makes them look like a reaper, or even wear a mask to help instill fear because of the inhuman appearance.

There are plenty of ways to handle the evil version of a character without changing the skin tone.
 
P

Painguy

Member
Shaanyboi said:
The ones that everyone else views as thieves, pirates, and are scared of?
Click to expand...

Cuz having a literal demon as their king won't make them do fucked up shit to scare ppl right? One of them is a sage in the game dude. Like one of the holiest figures possible in Zelda. You are really reaching here.
 
E

ElBoxyBrown

Banned
It makes no sense for Violent Ken's skin to be darker. You can make up some BS about the Dark Hado being able to turn skin darker but Violent Ken is just Ken under the influence of Psycho Power. Psycho Power doesn't make Bison's skin darker.

Edit: Now that I think about it, Akuma always had dark skin. So Evil Ryu's skin color makes no sense.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

[DF] Resident Evil 4 Remake on iPhone 15 Pro: Can Mobile Truly Handle AAA Gaming?
44
3K
StereoVsn replied
  • Locked
Metaphor: ReFantazio Details Story, World, Tribes, Characters, English Screenshots
Hype
2
454
Fake replied
[Gamespot] The Most-Anticipated PlayStation Games Of 2023 And Beyond
|OT| Opinion News
34
3K
Batiman replied
Resident Evil 7 - New Details & Impressions from PSMUK
2
75
29K
dlauv replied
Study on Race & Ethnicity Options in Character Creators
2 3
113
17K
kamineko replied
Top Bottom