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Far Cry 4's art is racist and the antagonist is (potentially) gay

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D

DarkFlow

Banned
Delusibeta said:
Jumping To Conclusions: The Thread.
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StaDvgp.jpg
 
N

ngower

Member
MuseManMike said:
What damage and why does the existence of a particular fictional character represent something other than the character itself? If a gay game developer created a flamboyantly gay character, does that somehow make it better or okay? Is there is some line of dialogue a gay writer could write that a straight one could not? If so, fiction wouldn't work, no? What's worse, no gay characters or one you don't approve of? Is the idea of a flamboyantly gay character you disapprove of but one that is memorable, compelling, and liked by fans an impossibility? I'm not trying to gish gallop you, just curious.
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I'm getting pulled into an argument I never wanted to make in the first place. My initial post suggested the OP's perception of this character's alleged homosexuality—even the stereotype—is fundamentally flawed.

But in response to your post: I believe no gay characters are better than flawed, inaccurate, rooted-in-stereotypes characters. The same can be said of any character who perpetuates nasty, harmful images from without. I have just as much of a problem with other misrepresentations, but I can't speak to them as strongly as I could the gay example.

Listen, I'm gay and love drag shows, queer art, and all sorts of femme shit that plays with hetero norms, but I'm fairly neutral, if not masc in my presentation of myself. I don't connect with these exaggerated stereotypes. I don't think they serve any purpose other than comic relief or attrition.

Queer men and women lead more nuanced lives than those portrayed in gaming, and I think games could do better to reflect that fact—that's all I'm trying to get across.
 
D

Dr.Bergenstein

Banned
Orayn said:
The "white savior" is a pretty widespread phenomenon in the media, dude. You don't need to be actively looking for offense to notice it.
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It's not about being a "White Savior", it's about being an outsider with a different perspective, minus the baggage of whatever ethnic group it is being "infiltrated and saved". If there were more Black/Hispanic/Gay/Asian/Arab/whatever people writing, directing, and producing these games, there would be less "White Savior" and more something else.

If I were to write a comic book, I would write it about a white dude who gets super powers and does X with them, because I want to create something that I can relate/insert myself into. There's nothing racist about that, at all.

This has already been said before in regards to gaming. The way to make these things work more often for different groups is to have more people of color, different sexual orientation involved in the creation process. This is also why I love games so much where you get to create your own avatar. Issues like this are avoided, and everybody gets to put a part of themselves into a particular game's world.
 
R

RetroStu

Banned
Vitor711 said:
It's an image of a white man in an elevated position and someone of an ethnic group outside of his race being forcibly made to kneel. He's being used as an armrest. He is basically being reduced to furniture. That's less than human. It's the final step in degrading any race.

Doesn't matter if that's the villain or the protagonist of the game - it's highly racially charged imagery.

That's a fact. If you can't see it, it's because you're choosing to not do so. Using that as your cover for a big-blockbuster action-game is beyond insensitive.
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How do you get through life seriously?.
 
D

d0c_zaius

Member
Vitor711 said:
It's an image of a white man in an elevated position and someone of an ethnic group outside of his race being forcibly made to kneel. He's being used as an armrest. He is basically being reduced to furniture. That's less than human. It's the final step in degrading any race.

Doesn't matter if that's the villain or the protagonist of the game - it's highly racially charged imagery.

That's a fact. If you can't see it, it's because you're choosing to not do so. Using that as your cover for a big-blockbuster action-game is beyond insensitive.
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I like your colorful and dramatic reading of the cover. Since your entire outrage seems to stem from him being "white", I'll let you sit next to the OP and your pile of self-validating assumptions.

The fact you react so strongly with no context says more about you than the game or the developers. Grats for being a tool in the marketing machine.
 
H

heckfu

Banned
I remember when video games were fun.

In my own, personal, white-male opinion, I think that it's a piece of boxart and some have read a little too deeply into it. What if the game is about how terrible white people are? Is it then ok to have it because it shows how shitty white privilege is? We literally know nothing else about the game and people are kinda flipping out.
 
T

Tinfoilhatsron

Banned
BobbyRobby said:
I feel you could use the same rationale to rally against some really cool characters.

Take The Wire. Without seeing it, you could ask, why is this gay black guy a criminal? I'm afraid this will reinforce stereotypes.

Now imagine they had caved, and made him a white straight dude. You'd have robbed us of Omar Little, one of my favorite fictional characters

Wait until you get some context. Are you that desperate to be first in the outrage line?
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I can see your rationale. Yet Omar is a type of minority [;)] too and portrayed well. (The Wire is in necessity realistic.) If Ubisoft creates FC4 with an awesome character that subverts the flow, then awsome! If not, then everyone here will eat crow. A win, win eh? :p
 
C

cpp_is_king

Member
Vitor711 said:
It's an image of a white man in an elevated position and someone of an ethnic group outside of his race being forcibly made to kneel. He's being used as an armrest. He is basically being reduced to furniture. That's less than human. It's the final step in degrading any race.

Doesn't matter if that's the villain or the protagonist of the game - it's highly racially charged imagery.

That's a fact. If you can't see it, it's because you're choosing to not do so. Using that as your cover for a big-blockbuster action-game is beyond insensitive.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but isn't that kind of like... just what bad guys do? Let's say you're a bad guy, and you want to conquer some land. You go into the land and you see that the people there are of a different race. Do you say to yourself "well, shit. I really want that land, but since those guys aren't the same race as me, it would be insensitive for me to conquer it."
 
D

DidntKnowJack

Member
Apparently "Don't judge a book by it's cover" is an antiquated expression. Because that's literally what's happening here.

Ok it's a game, not a book. You know what I mean.
 
M

Majanew

Banned
Vitor711 said:
It's an image of a white man in an elevated position and someone of an ethnic group outside of his race being forcibly made to kneel. He's being used as an armrest. He is basically being reduced to furniture. That's less than human. It's the final step in degrading any race.

Doesn't matter if that's the villain or the protagonist of the game - it's highly racially charged imagery.

That's a fact. If you can't see it, it's because you're choosing to not do so. Using that as your cover for a big-blockbuster action-game is beyond insensitive.
Click to expand...

Is he white, though? And if he is, is his motivation racism? Because white people don't treat humans like shit unless they are of a different race?
 
K

Karkador

Banned
Dr.Bergenstein said:
It's not about being a "White Savior", it's about being an outsider with a different perspective, minus the baggage of whatever ethnic group it is being "infiltrated and saved". If there were more Black/Hispanic/Gay/Asian/Arab/whatever people writing, directing, and producing these games, there would be less "White Savior" and more something else.
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This is exactly what the White Savior complex is talking about; the natives have all this "baggage" (their heads up their ass, apparently) and can't solve their own problems. It's like saying no foreign country can truly be indepedent because they need American magic to keep them standing.
 
M

MHWilliams

Member
RustyNails said:
Lawrence of Arabia actually is 100% real, and the movie follows the historical events extremely well. It's pretty much a quick history lesson.
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RetroStu said:
Thats a true story for christ sake, i'm pretty sure some of the others are as well. And so what anyway, can we not have white men as the 'hero' anymore?.
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I was expecting that response, which is why Dangerous Minds was next. Based on a true story, Latina teacher. Movie? Michele Pfeiffer.

That's not to say these aren't great movies, Lawrence is one of my favorites. You can totally make great movies from the trope, but it remains a question why we keep returning to the idea and why it's quite rare the other way around.

MuseManMike said:
It is common and totally capable of producing great works. Just like the people offended by rape and revenge tropes can't deny the fantastic films and episodes of television that come from it. This is ignoring the fact that, you know, the real-world existence of people like Lawrence complicates offense (though his relevance is overblown).
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And you cannot deny the overuse of such tropes to impart "seriousness" into story. The use of rape as a shorthand for "that person is evil" is amazing prevalent. Of course these things can be handled correctly, but that does not preclude saying "hey, many creators don't handle it correctly." For example, see: Far Cry 3. Once again, a game I enjoyed, that unfortunately whiffed satirizing the white savior trope.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
Not said:
These are the questions being asked. I think it's refreshing we as a society (even a niche society like this one) are finally challenging this stuff we've taken for granted for thirty or so years.
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yup, asking questions is only good
 
Z

Zeyphersan

Banned
Jintor said:
The explanation by the writer was probably among the craziest fucking things I've ever heard.
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TheHollowNight said:
Yeah I mentioned that in one of my previous posts. That's the only thing that gets me worried about this game. The interview he did was bananas.
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What was his explanation?

Vitor711 said:
It's an image of a white man in an elevated position and someone of an ethnic group outside of his race being forcibly made to kneel. He's being used as an armrest. He is basically being reduced to furniture. That's less than human. It's the final step in degrading any race.

Doesn't matter if that's the villain or the protagonist of the game - it's highly racially charged imagery.

That's a fact. If you can't see it, it's because you're choosing to not do so. Using that as your cover for a big-blockbuster action-game is beyond insensitive.
Click to expand...

I'm not disagreeing, but I do have a question: does that mean, to you, that all racially charged imagery is inherently racist?
 
D

DidntKnowJack

Member
Not said:
These are the questions being asked. I think it's refreshing we as a society (even a niche society like this one) are finally challenging this stuff we've taken for granted for thirty or so years.
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Absolutely. I just didn't see many questions being posed in this OP.
 
R

RetroStu

Banned
I'm out of here because i really hate these subjects and get annoyed. There are simply people who see injustice in everything and they can't get through their day without being offended by something and no matter what anyone says, they won't change their views.
Its all pointless.
 
N

Not

Banned
What if the game is a critique of colonialism? You'd need a colonialist villain, right?

Next: Does he have to be straight? There are tons of presumably straight characters in games. While making the antagonist overtly gay may lead to accusations of anti-homosexuality, we don't know how much of a stereotype this character might be, or even if the protagonist is straight (or so I'm guessing). The villain might be portrayed as layered, dynamic, and complex, which would be a good step for homosexual representation.
 
R

rdrr gnr

Member
Zeyphersan said:
I'm not disagreeing, but I do have a question: does that mean, to you, that all racially charged imagery is inherently racist?
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Something racial isn't inherently racist. But that's not the right question. You should be asking any imagery that can in any way possibly be construed as racist, will it? Yes, it will. Because that's the unavoidable schema of the people interpreting that work. Whether it's deliberate or an subconscious product of the creator(s). Irrelevant details become relevant. Fiction becomes mired in fact. And heaven forbid you do something racially controversial intentionally, you'd better not be white.
 
V

Vitor711

Member
Zeyphersan said:
I'm not disagreeing, but I do have a question: does that mean, to you, that all racially charged imagery is inherently racist?
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Not at all. Racism is like any topic - when broached and dealt with well, it should absolutely be in the public discourse. I just have no faith in Ubi to do so considering that the writer for FC3 dropped the ball massively trying to do that. I know it's a different team but their work across board is hardly the epitome of racial deftness.

I think it's in poor taste to use such imagery to try and sell a game. Being intentionally controversial (or, more likely in this case, just unintentionally insensitive) hardly adds anything to just such a discussion. It's a cheap tactic.
 
scoobidoo112

scoobidoo112

Member
Not said:
What if the game is a critique of colonialism? You'd need a colonialist villain, right?
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Adding to this, just for the sake of argument, what if it isn't? What if the game is a brutal, realistic representation of historical colonialism, does that make it wrong? Can a game not discuss or display racism within the context of a story?
 
M

Majanew

Banned
Vitor711 said:
Not at all. Racism is like any topic - when broached and dealt with well, it should absolutely be in the public discourse. I just have no faith in Ubi to do so considering that the writer for FC3 dropped the ball massively trying to do that. I know it's a different team but their work across board is hardly the epitome of racial deftness.

I think it's in poor taste to use such imagery to try and sell a game. Being intentionally controversial (or, more likely in this case, just unintentionally insensitive) hardly adds anything to just such a discussion. It's a cheap tactic.
Click to expand...

Uhh...I didn't write that. You messed your quote up.
 
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