LinkSlayer64
Member
What we need here is street fighter alts that make every character a different skin color. That'd be a cool start to say the least.
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'Stop Giving Evil Characters Brown Skin'
- Thread starter Shaanyboi
- Start date
So the solution is to do the same thing over and over again? That's not really ''effective''.
I would imagine giving people something different would prove more beneficial. There's a reason we complain about lack of representations. We want diversifying elements.
That should be considered effective.
I'm dark skinned, noticed this, and doesn't retract from me enjoying the medium any less. If the characters and world are fleshed out enough, it's not something I'm constantly looking out for on either sides of the spectrum.
It is awesome to see creators embracing the idea to flesh out protagonists who are dark skinned while making their skin color not become the defining characteristic of who they are.
It is awesome to see creators embracing the idea to flesh out protagonists who are dark skinned while making their skin color not become the defining characteristic of who they are.
SicSemperTyrannis
Member
2.7% longer sentences on <400 days is less than two weeks more of a sentence for darker skinned blacks, based on the average you quoted. Doesn't this just prove racism in our judicial system more so than this trope impacting the system?
I could be very wrong, and I've been google searching a lot of movies and games I could think of to make sure I wasn't off, but... dark = evil, white = pure is a very common trope, however dark skin = evil, white skin = pure doesn't really seem to be more of (or even as much of) a trope as white skin = evil. I've gone through most popular games released in the last couple years as well as most famous movies and there really wasn't much that could back that claim up.
Mind you, I'm not saying that if that were the case, that it'd be OK. It's just I couldn't seem to notice that pattern at all? Racial issues are a massive issue indeed, but in this case I can't see it, I guess.
I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt here, but there's so many things wrong with that from a racial standpoint. You've effectively equated power and mental weakness - aka brutishness - to having dark skin.
I'm perfectly aware of "dark is evil, light is good" is fiction and folklore. Of course, one branch of it doesn't stem from racism - it stems from our natural fear of the dark, due to the activity of predators, and our relative inactivity. But that's a relation related to darkness and light as a hue, rather than a skin colour. The idea of "dark is evil, light is good" from a skin colour context is not an extrapolation of this folklore idea to skin colour, but instead stems from racism originating from either slavery or white supremacy, or from the extrapolation of tanning attitudes to those with a darker skin colour, and is very much racist. Even an attempt to apply the folklore idea to skin colour is racist, as you're effectively stereotyping someone from their skin colour, even if such a stereotype didn't originate from a white supremacy standpoint. (Though white supremacy is embedded in such a trope anyway, due to white people having fairer skin than darker people.)
The idea can easily be used in fiction without resorting to skin colour trends. You can have the villains wear darker clothing, and the heroes lighter clothing, for example. Or perhaps have the villains have a black (as in, pitch black) aura. But for the villains to have browner skin, is incredibly racist, and I honestly can't see how people can argue against that in good faith. Look at Kingdom Hearts, black people are exclusively villains.You can't honestly argue that from "dark colours are evil, nothing to do with skin colour", and not see any potential issues with this.
SixMachine
Member
There are alts with different skin colors and tones already.
OP says brown skin. Not jet black with no pupils.
Also worth noting is how none of these brown-skinned characters look like actual brown people. Just palette-swapped/tanned white characters.
If you want to make a black villain, make a black villain. Pucci from JoJo's is one of the few great examples that comes to mind, and his design both incredibly stylish and unusually respectable for a Japanese artist's rendition of a black man.
The real kicker. I recall the mangaka saying with wasn't actually black or at least the manga hints that he isn't.
You keep repeating this like it matters. It doesn't matter. There is common trope that reinforces the idea that bad people have dark-colored skin. It's nice and all that usually this is not intended as racist, and that the dark skin tone does not directly reflect ethnicity, but nonetheless it reinforces a stereotypical association that in the context of modern American society is super goddamn racist.
Having non-malicious intentions is not a shield against criticism.
WrenchNinja
Member
It's shitty, it always has been shitty. I'm unsurprised by people jumping through hoops to justify it because their favourite video games are getting criticism for it.
Yoshimitsu126
Member
I think we also need more diverse heroes/npcs. It can't just be one category.
Light and shadow doesn't have to always be so black and white either. Starcraft did a pretty good job with the Protoss.
Light and shadow doesn't have to always be so black and white either. Starcraft did a pretty good job with the Protoss.
I currently live in Asia and dark skin definitely has negative reactions. Not only a race thing but also a class based thing. Uper class tend to always be lighter skin while lower class that works in the sun tend to have darker skin. Whenever you see examples of thieves and prostitutes they are always typically protrayed with darker skin.
So not only do I think it's a race based thing which it also clearly is here (many older generations here find Arabs or Africans scary) but it also is a stigma against lower class people.
You find it a lot, I mean look at India, typically darker your skin the lower you are on the cast system.
So not only do I think it's a race based thing which it also clearly is here (many older generations here find Arabs or Africans scary) but it also is a stigma against lower class people.
You find it a lot, I mean look at India, typically darker your skin the lower you are on the cast system.
They do that in some Street Fighter games, actually. Not so much anymore.
I'm curious how that would play nowadays if the skin tone of the character was much more fluid outside of their default color. I think there's an equal chance it would be welcomed or disdained.
Sword Of Doom
Member
Arc System Works does this for palette swaps and people seem fine with it.
UnemployedVillain
Member
The one game that bothered me the most:
...she instantly lost her darker skin when she got 'upgraded' to Zelda.
This is an example of you reading waaaaaay too much I to what was a simple change from tan because she's a pirate and out in the open sun to magically pale, because she's a princess that stays in all the time. The "upgrade" is purely of your own concoction
Kageshinzo
Member
Let me clarify, then, if you misunderstood what I meant: the person in the video the OP posted is reacting to the trope in a racial viewpoint, when the creators of those characters did not mean it in that way. That clear enough?
If only we humans can learn to identify the context of something without adding a certain viewpoint to it. I guess some people just have to do stuff like that.
Fucking lol, "sounding a lot like the juniors in this thread". Do you have any idea how pompous you sound? Try living on the other side of the world. Maybe you'll see that "media" doesn't encompass an all-Western racial stance. In fact, you're sounding a lot like those Western people who decry "cultural appropriation" in that kimono event thing, when in fact the Japanese themselves were okay with it.
See the issue with that is, i've seen those colored associated with a bunch of things for... since people used colors, not just that animals symbols, bunches of things.
You can just make shit up to mean what you want it to in a thing and if you sell it its fine.
May I remind you of the litany of japanese/media games where angelic based beings in white are the fucking bad guys.
LinkSlayer64
Member
Do it to everyone! Then MK can do it, BlazBlue, Guilty Gear, let's keep the momentum.
I'm not saying Capcom darkening Evil Ryu alone is the source of racist sentencing but by your own admission the idea the darker = bad is deeply ingrained in society, so is it a surprise that it manifests itself in the judicial system?
But it's the same person.
I don't recall anyone saying this was purposefully malicious. The effect is still the same though, it perpetuates the idea that dark skin = bad.
Guilty Gear and Blazblue already do it
ASW games fly way under the radar with the general public, though.
But I like it. I'm currently rocking Answer's brown skin, green suit pallette.
This makes no sense to me, but ok...
Nostremitus
Member
Ganondorf is the only Gerudo in Windwaker, so there's no one to compare him to.
But I always thought Telma (the only other Gerudo in the game, unless I've forgotten someone) had more melanin than Ganondorf in Twilight Princess, we just never really see him in well lit areas. The few times he is near light(like the cutscene with the sages) he just looks light gray/green. Mostly we just see him in darkly lit areas, though.
SixMachine
Member
BB and GG got wacky colors lol. You have people straight up cosplaying anime colors, like Kneesocks from Panty and Stocking, blue skin, colors that make them look like the Joker, etc., then of course typical skin tones like brown and pale skin. Basically a lot of fighting games already do this. SFXT even had puke neon skin.
Bubbavelli
Banned
You did it. You owned me. Congrats.
UnemployedVillain
Member
It's a magic transformation to make her look like every other Zelda in the series...plus it's never portrayed as an "upgrade" and she returns to her Tetra look at the end of the game and in every subsequent game she's in
That's not really a counter, for something that otherwise is indeed messed, lol.
I have tanned skin during the summer and pretty white skin during the winter, and I'm the same person (I believe) during the whole year.
The thing you should have pointed out is how Zelda loses the sun tan magically in like... hours
That's bad.WrenchNinja
Member
I lived in India. I fucking know all about the media there and the shitty stuff they push. I've had years of experience dealing with the Fair and Lovely cream and trying to convince my mom to stop using that shit on me and my sister because we have dark skin. The other side of the world is not some special place where they're not guilty of the same shitty attitudes as the West.
PHOENIXZERO
Member
Kinda expand on this from an episode of Through the Wormhole from a couple years back.
Are We All Bigots?
That doesn't work because in a globalized economy, especially in japan where everyone else in the world is buying more video games than you nowadays, you open yourself up to this criticism.
And when you are selling things across the world, you have to consider how people will react to that across the world.
So you know... your point is moot.
Uh, you do realize that Western color theory is, in fact, not universal across all cultures, right?
In China and many other Asian countries, white is the color traditionally associated with death.
UnemployedVillain
Member
That's not really a counter, for something that otherwise is indeed messed, lol.
I have tanned skin during the summer and pretty white skin during the winter, and I'm the same person (I believe) during the whole year.
The thing you should have pointed out is how Zelda loses the sun tan magically in like... hours
And gains it back hours later at the end of the game.
LinkAndEpona
Banned
Same.
Take Pokémon for example, since X/Y you've had a lot of options for what your character looks like and the other humans are just as diverse. However besides henchmen, none of the Leaders of the Antagonist teams in Pokémon have been anything but light skinned. I haven't finished Sun/Moon yet though, so I could be wrong.
SicSemperTyrannis
Member
I do admit it's societal, but to place blame or put the onus on media to change the concept of light and dark as good and evil is pushing it. I just don't see the original intent of the examples provided in the article to be racial in any way, just a way to portray level of virtue through shading. I understand that they could do that with just clothing, but the creators deciding to do it through character coloration and shading doesn't mean they were being racists or perpetuating it. The fact that the judicial system is impacted is a whole other can of worms, that we would likely never see the bottom of the discussion.
Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
And we're saying the context is problematic because those viewpoints exist!
You can't just magically deny that there are no Brown nor black viewpoints consuming this media.
watermelons
Banned
Is Scar even a "bad" guy when you consider that he's a Lion?
The Spoony Hou
Member
Here's the thing: that concept isn't applied in a racial standpoint. It works within one ethnicity (in this case, Japanese). It shouldn't be used for racial comparisons.
Lionel Richie
Member
This is a very nice post since we're looking at this issue through a western look and literally all of the examples I've seen in this thread are of eastern games. Not saying it justifies it, but it helps to explain it better and remove some of the frankly ethnocentric connotations being implied.
SenkiDala
Member
The one game that bothered me the most:
...she instantly lost her darker skin when she got 'upgraded' to Zelda.
Damn... I'm very very naive or you have a dirty mind (it's that).
To me it was pretty clear that as a Pirate well she was like all sailors always on a boat, under the sun, so was very very tan (and it's a fact, I've been living next to a harbor all my life and it's true, and obvious). When she comes back to her "true form" as the Princess Zelda, by magic, she comes back as the Princess she was, and a princess is always in a castle, can't go out a lot, is overprotected, etc etc, so is very very pale, it's also a fact.You're 2nd exemple though, it's cleary fucked up, I agree about this one.
EDIT: Damn UnemployedVillain, sorry, I haven't read your post, I was browsing back in the thread, so basically we say the same thing.
That's why I always presume it's just make-up like a heavy batch a of powder like 17/18 century aristocrats and royalty put all over their faces. All of it just washed away on her way up from the bottom of the sea.
She just has a heavy tan from traveling the sea, which will do that to a person because you are exposed to endless sunlight with very little shade. It's super easy for a person to get sunburned at sea.
Again, this does not matter. Furthermore, as others have pointed out, negative associations with darker skin are not only a race issue in America, it is a race and class issue in many parts of the world, including Asia.
You seem to think non-malevolent intentions are the only thing that matter. That's the point in which people in this thread are disagreeing with you.
The "darker skin = brutish" notion absolutely applies to broader racial preconceptions in Japan.
Either way, conceiving of darker people as more animalistic is supposed to be okay when it's confined within an ethnic group?
UnemployedVillain
Member
They changed Team Aqua's leader to be darker and a member of the Pokemon League in BW is black
I'm pretty sure he's half black.
His brother is also half black (and gets lynched for it) but looks like a white guy
Was King of fighters mentioned yet. All the riot of blood people get darker.
It's been forever
but wasn't it just a scapegoat saying his mother had black lovers?
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