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'Stop Giving Evil Characters Brown Skin'

S

Shaanyboi

Banned
https://twitter.com/mic/status/868132133348319233

This should seem like racial politics 101, and yet this pattern still continues. Another recent example is Hyrule Warriors' characters Lana and Cia. Both are more or less the same person, yet the evil Cia is given notably darker skin for no apparent reason.

This isn't to somehow say people with dark skin can't be portrayed as villains. But it's damn noticeable when your shortcut to show "this is evil version of ____" is to give them a tan.


In short: Yo, stop with this basic-ass shit. You should know better by now.


EDIT: In case you don't see the issue, consider this mandatory viewing
The Adder said:
Because this bears repeating. Give this video a watch.
Click to expand...
 
Tizoc

Tizoc

Member
A recent Anita S. video brought it up on how in various games, evil characters are depicted with a darker skin tone too.
 
P

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Using Scar from the Lion King as one of the examples made me have to check I wasn't on The Onion.
 
F

FluxWaveZ

Member
borges said:
Never noticed this pattern. Indeed, the first 20 evil guys that came to my mind are all white.
Click to expand...

Meanwhile, it's something I had been aware of since I was a child, which saddened me. Ganondorf was notable for me with this, as basically the only major black character I was aware of, with the Nintendo 64 being my first console.
 
M

Masterspeed

Member
Isn't it mainly a Japanese game issue? I love me some Japanese games, but they always tend to be the most...on the nose when it comes to racism.
 
R

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
He's not wrong but Scar? Really?
 
N

_Nemo

Member
I mean, I can attest to the fact that racism is rampant against black people and it bleeds into movies when they kill off the black guy first (which can be argued that it's not racism), but I've never associated racism with video games. There's literally tons of white/light skinned evil characters.
 
T

TheSun

Member
But villains are usually cooler than the heroes.

But seriously that shit is annoying. Usually appears in Japanese games, Kingdom hearts for example.
 
X

xxracerxx

Don't worry, I'll vouch for them.
Rhaknar said:
He's not wrong but Scar? Really?
Click to expand...

Compared to the rest of the lions, yes.

55lNRtN.jpg
 
S

Shadoken

Member
But as a brown person. Evil Ryu was the only character i could relate to because he had the same skin color as me. Please dont take it away :(
I dont want Dhalsim to be the only char.

Edit: Lol isnt this the same website that had an article on Injustice 2 being sexist because most of the female characters were low tier?
 
F

FinalAres

Member
The reason for this is to differentiate between the original, which was whitewashed.

Also they're not being portrayed as a different ethnicity, just darker skin. And that's literally because dark=bad, like bad guys wear black.

I know this sounds like I'm some anti-sjw gamergate moron trying to justify racism, but I'm really not. I totally understand that you need to be sensitive to different races, even if you yourself aren't racist and maybe dont have a culture where you can experience the plight of those ethnicities (which makes it harder to understand what is racist and what isn't).

But in this case its really not bad. They're not tanned, they're in shadow.
 
S

SixMachine

Member
The tan for evil characters, such as Evil Ryu is a design to contrast the light skin of the protagonist, since they are suppose to be an opposite and opposing force of the original.

Hilariously enough, I want to see a dark skin character turn white when he gets his evil version, but I keep thinking of Dave Chapelle as a the white dude in the racial draft.
 
W

What did he mean by this?

Member
I disagree. More please, villains are always cooler than heroes. From the Far Cry 5 reveal I was hoping the black priest was a villain.

Edit:
I might be confusing the thread. The idea of giving non-human/fantasy humans dark skin in these frequently Japanese games is a different situation. Hmmmmmm
 
P

PKrockin

Member
Yeah this is pretty unnecessary and should be avoided whenever possible, because this shit has a real effect on people as much as they like to think of themselves as 100% free agents.

I get that darkness has been linked with evil since forever, but it doesn't have to be their skin.
 
Mediking

Mediking

Member
And stop being afraid to put brown skinned characters as playable characters in JRPGS!!!!! God! Man, that angers me.
 
Autoignition

Autoignition

Member
Jackstin said:
The reason for this is to differentiate between the original, which was whitewashed.

Also they're not being portrayed as a different ethnicity, just darker skin. And that's literally because dark=bad, like bad guys wear black.

I know this sounds like I'm some anti-sjw gamergate moron trying to justify racism, but I'm really not. I totally understand that you need to be sensitive to different races, even if you yourself aren't racist and maybe dont have a culture where you can experience the plight of those ethnicities (which makes it harder to understand what is racist and what isn't).

But in this case its really not bad. They're not tanned, they're in shadow.
Click to expand...

This was my kneejerk reaction to this too. It's more of a light/darkness dichotomy than an issue about race, which is an artistic choice.

But then I realized that this shit doesn't exist in a vacuum, and applying that artistic direction to people in terms of skin color when there are, in fact, entire communities of real world people who also share that skin color, isn't a super great thing to have reflected in your work. There are other ways to convey "touched by shadow" than to make a character's skin color darker.
 
J

James Scott

Banned
Jaded Alyx said:
I don't think any of those have brown skin....
Click to expand...
latest

Dark pit is a white boy, only his hair and clothes get darker.
Dark Link is usually all black (link's shadow) but sometimes gray.
Ganondorf probably fits the bill since he's from a middle eastern race. He's since been grayed out (or greened)
 
C

Cyclical

Member
I think the title might miss the point (and certainly will fire people up). These things become a problem when the only person with dark skin is the evil character. I wouldn't tell anyone that villains should never be allowed to be of a certain of shade, but instead ask why so few heroes and just regular characters have darker skin. That's what makes the difference so noticeable. A host of characters, all with lighter complexions, and so often it's decided to make the sole (of one of the few) dark skinned one the villain? Come on.
 
K

KillLaCam

Banned
To be fair the Hun guy in Mulan does actually look evil. I feel like he wouldn't be as intimidating if he wasn't gray.


Its might be a common thing but I haven't noticed it in games that I've played since the ps2. But I don't really play that many Nintendo games. Every time I've seen a brown guy being the evil guy its not a "hey lets make the 1 evil guy darker" situation.



I have 100% noticed it with Disney though. Idk how much they still do it, haven't seen a new Disney movie in like 5 years.

But is this really a big issue in games? I'm actually curious now
 
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