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[Mista Koo]

Fascinating how retarded humans can be.

Since the dawn of time, "light and white" as been associated to "good, God, etc". And darkness associated with "bad, evil, etc". Its a very basic psychology thing that is both natural and sain anyways. What you guys/gals bring up in this thread is useless anecdotal evidence that most people can't even relate to and just shows how insecure, fake-persecuted or plain racist you are.

How is it natural? It's man made.

Isn't it a bit iffy how knowing this dichotomy the same "black" and "white" terms were chosen to refer to human races?

 

[ShironRedshift]

Can the portrayal be done without affecting skin pigmentation? Yes, but why limit a design to that,

This is why:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PZryE2bqwdk

Kids internalize that shit and then it stays with them as adults (as the Twitter video in the OP talks about). It's completely unnecessary (as you yourself admit to and illustrate by pointing out how many other changes they make anyway, rendering this specific change all the more unnecessary, reckless, and harmful) and thus should be done away with, as this is the type of shit that subconsciously reinforces racial biases from a young age.

And if you don't like that, there are any number of studies that show the same thing. Just bringing one up from a recent university class I took:
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/5mm8q8f7#page-1

Here's what we discovered. A mere five-second exposure to a mug shot of African-American and Hispanic youth offenders (in a 15-minute newscast) raises levels of fear among viewers, increases their support for "get-tough" crime policies, and promotes racial stereotyping. However, we also found that these effects vary a great deal by the race of the viewer.

Exposure to the "superpredator news frame" increases fear of crime measured as concern for random street violence and expectations about victimization among all viewers.

The increase for white and Asian viewers is about 10 percent. The effect is more pronounced among African-Americans and Hispanics, with a 38 percent rise.

This, by itself, is not a surprising finding. After all, these two groups are most likely to be
victimized and violent crime typically involves people from the same racial and ethnic
backgrounds. The more pertinent question is how these fears translate into opinions about crime. We measured this by asking an open-ended question about "solutions to the crime problem" on our follow-up survey. Here is what we found.

Exposure to the "superpredator news frame" increases a desire for harsher punitive action among whites and Asians by about 11 percent.

Exposure to the "superpredator news frame" decreases support for this type of solution by 25 percent among African-Americans and Hispanics.

It is interesting that while the "superpredator script" heightens fear among all viewers, this anxiety translates into a demand for harsher and swifter punishment only among whites and Asians. Among African-Americans and Hispanics, these stories remind them of injustice and prejudice.

This finding appears consistent with the historic opposition minority groups have shown toward punitive policies such as the death penalty. Media depictions of "superpredators" remind minority viewers of this fact, while similar news images and stories strengthen the belief among whites and Asians that crime remedies for young offenders need to be harsher, in part as a result of what they've seen.

A similar pattern holds for how these stories affect racial stereotyping. Exposure to the image of a minority "superpredator" increases the percentage of whites and Asians who subscribe to negative stereotypes about African-Americans and Hispanics. However, among viewers from these minority groups, the tendency to attribute negative characteristics decreases by 20 percent after viewing these stories.

The "superpredator frame," therefore, widens the racial divide among members of the viewing public. From our perspective as media analysts, we believe this study suggests why and how the practice of journalism especially when it comes to reporting youth crime on television should be revised. Without commenting on intent, it is enough to say that "body-bag" journalism, particularly as it focuses on young people, has a corrosive influence. There are more constructive ways of reporting these stories. Organizations such as The Berkeley Media Studies Group and television stations like KVUE in Austin, Texas have developed alternative approaches that work well in reporting the story of youth crime and reduce the racially polarizing effect that otherwise emerges.

All that, just from a brief exposure from an African-American individual as a criminal (click the link if you want more info about how it was set up or whatever).

Here's another, conveying the same thing (unlike the former, this one's behind a paywall if you don't have university/library access to the journal but I've quoted the relevant bits to this discussion):
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0093650215579223

The Psychological Effects of the Racial Misrepresentation on Television News

The need to investigate the content of local television news viewing is rooted in the potential psychological effects of exposure. The majority of studies on the topic of race and news have turned to this issue of effects (Dixon, 2006, 2007, 2008; Gilliam & Iyengar, 2000; Oliver, Jackson, Moses, & Dangerfield, 2004). Much of this research is based on the theoretical notions derived from social cognition, priming, schemas, and scripts (Hamilton, Stroessner, & Driscoll, 1994; Shrum, 2009). The major theoretical idea advanced in this prior research is that the cognitive linkage between social groups (e.g., Blacks) and social roles (e.g., criminality) can be reinforced through media consumption. There are three major conclusions that have been advanced by scholars using this approach.

First, watching the news may either help create stereotypes or reinforce stereotypical views of African Americans as criminal perpetrators and Whites as victims or officers. For instance, Dixon (2007) found that viewers tended to misremember unidentified suspects as Black and heavy news viewers, who had repeatedly been exposed to the overrepresentation of White officers, assumed that unidentified officers were White.

Second, distorted news content might reinforce beliefs about unequal distributions of Blacks within negative crime roles and create support for punitive crime polices. For example, Dixon (2006) found that heavy news viewers exposed to more Black than White suspects view a potential defendant as culpable for his or her alleged offense. Similarly, Gilliam and Iyengar (2000) found that local Los Angeles news exposure led to support for three-strikes legislation and the death penalty.

Third, distorted news content might lead to stereotypical thinking about Blacks. For example, Dixon (2008) found that exposure to media depictions of Black criminality increased support for Black stereotypes. Similarly, Oliver et al. (2004) found that violent local news stories were closely associated with participants' mental constructions of dark Black faces.

These studies suggest that studying the content of various crime roles is indeed important. The content carried by the news has been shown in both laboratory experiments and surveys to increase stereotypical thinking.

And there's much more where that came from. All of them showing that while individual incidents might seem harmless and like they might not have an effect at all, this isn't the case at all, and especially cumulatively, the effects the media we consume has on the ways we perceive one another can be quite profound.

The point being of course, this type of thing can very easily be avoided, and not doing so leads to harmful effects, so that's more than enough reason to ditch the trope to me, at least it should be. No harm is done by ditching it (since there are so many other options that convey the same exact meaning regardless) and there's one less thing to reinforce racial biases (of course, before you try nailing me on this, of course doing this won't solve racism or anything, but it doesn't need to. Anything that helps, no matter how minor, is only a good thing, especially when nothing is lost in the process), so that seems to leave little reason to keep it around.

There's simply no reason to continue a trope of a character turning evil magically altering their skin tone in addition to their clothing and aura or whatever, knowing the harmful effects that shit has. None.

 

[Hashmal_Bringer_of_Order]

What I got from reading the whole thread is that the main debate here has nothing to do with actual race but a series of misunderstandings caused by projecting western racial dynamics onto the japanese/eastern pale nobility/tanned peasant field-worker dynamics of imagery.

 

[ShironRedshift]

What I got from reading the whole thread is that the main debate here has nothing to do with actual race but a series of misunderstandings caused by projecting western racial dynamics onto the japanese/eastern pale nobility/tanned peasant field-worker dynamics of imagery.

Problem being, even if you want to go that route (which I have huge reservations with, but putting putting those aside), they choose to release and sell those games as-is in the west, where those dynamics do very much apply and the effects of these things are very real. See: the studies I quoted in my previous post and the hundreds others out there just like them. Doesn't matter a lick what the original intent was: the effects remain the same regardless and that's what matters in the end. That being the case, if Japanese developers want to sell their games in Western markets, these are things they should be made aware of and try to do better about, so as to not contribute the issue. Actually looking over the research on the matter and noting the effects of things just like this in the media, I don't see how anyone could be opposed to such a thing (without nefarious motive, anyway).

 

[autoduelist]

No one. Is. Saying. To. Not. Use. Color.

They're saying they probably shouldn't use skin color because of the message it sends.

Specifically citing examples of white characters who have their skin darkened to show accentuate their villainy in contrast to their original selves or other protagonists, or have their skin lightened to correlate with newly attained purity

It's not a hard argument to follow

And if you read my post, I was -talking about skin color-. You're so condescending about me understanding 'your argument' and you didn't even do a basic read of my post. There are valid reasons we use skin color.

 

[Shaanyboi]

What I got from reading the whole thread is that the main debate here has nothing to do with actual race but a series of misunderstandings caused by projecting western racial dynamics onto the japanese/eastern pale nobility/tanned peasant field-worker dynamics of imagery.

I mean these aren't exactly healthy dynamics to begin with. It's not like these attitudes don't negatively affect people in East Asian communities.

There's no misunderstanding here in terms of western values "being projected"

 

[IrishNinja]

There are valid reasons we use skin color.

please continue, senator

 

[autoduelist]

No one is trying to challenge or change that connotation here. Just trying to separate skin color and race from that dichotomy, specifically in regards to accentuating the morality of characters in visual entertainment mediums.

Our sense of 'the Other' changes over the years, but it's nearly always tied to identifiable visual attributes. Like I mentioned in a previous post, you can watch the enemies in action movies change from Germans (white) through Russians (white) through 'terrorists' (dark skinned). This is an obvious reflection of real world events. 'The Other', in real life, is represented by skin color, race, accent, dress, and ethnicity and having that echo in 'visual entertainment mediums' is pretty much unavoidable as a result.

EDIT:

please continue, senator

You want a valid reason? Reflection of world events. If we're in a Cold War with Russia, you can damn well bet many 'evil' characters in fiction will be portrayed as Russians. This should not be surprising or shocking to anyone. It's common sense that till will occur.

 

[IrishNinja]

You want a valid reason? Reflection of world events. If we're in a Cold War with Russia, you can damn well bet many 'evil' characters in fiction will be portrayed as Russians. This should not be surprising or shocking to anyone. It's common sense that till will occur.

awesome, another reference to an irrelevant 30+ year old event already addressed pages ago in this very topic
so tell me more about why evil characters might tend to have darker skin in the year of our lord 2k17 next, are you gonna unironically echo prior points about how muslim/middle eastern countries are now the popular villains so this should be cool? cause that's where this piss poor line of logic leads you

 

[FZW]

You want a valid reason? Reflection of world events. If we're in a Cold War with Russia, you can damn well bet many 'evil' characters in fiction will be portrayed as Russians. This should not be surprising or shocking to anyone. It's common sense that till will occur.[/

Which is a terrible practice to begin with

 

[IrishNinja]

Which is a terrible practice to begin with

yeah, pretty much any fallacy of tradition backed by appeals to "common sense" are gonna fall under this

 

[autoduelist]

awesome, another reference to an irrelevant 30+ year old event already addressed pages ago in this very topic
so tell me more about why evil characters might tend to have darker skin in the year of our lord 2k17 next, are you gonna unironically echo prior points about how muslim/middle eastern countries are now the popular villains so this should be cool? cause that's where this piss poor line of logic leads you

You're confusing my opinion on the subject with me explaining why 'the Other' is represented by easy to read visual cues.

Where have I said it's cool? Nowhere. I think it's shitty. I've thought it was shitty for decades. But that doesn't change why it happens, or the inevitably of some fiction following real life events. You asked for an example, and I gave one, and then you just dogpile.

 

[IrishNinja]

You're confusing my opinion on the subject with me explaining why 'the Other' is represented by easy to read visual cues.

i don't rightly care if you're posting in good faith from your own views, playing devli's advocate or something else entirely: your thesis statement here is deeply flawed, and your appeal to historic tradition in defending a shitty storytelling practice is, at best, lazy & unconsciously racist. we can very clearly do better.

 

[RagnarokX]

This is why:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PZryE2bqwdk

Kids internalize that shit and then it stays with them as adults (as the Twitter video in the OP talks about). It's completely unnecessary (as you yourself admit to and illustrate by pointing out how many other changes they make anyway, rendering this specific change all the more unnecessary, reckless, and harmful) and thus should be done away with, as this is the type of shit that subconsciously reinforces racial biases from a young age.

And if you don't like that, there are any number of studies that show the same thing. Just bringing one up from a recent university class I took:
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/5mm8q8f7#page-1

All that, just from a brief exposure from an African-American individual as a criminal (click the link if you want more info about how it was set up or whatever).

Here's another, conveying the same thing (unlike the former, this one's behind a paywall if you don't have university/library access to the journal but I've quoted the relevant bits to this discussion):
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0093650215579223


And there's much more where that came from. All of them showing that while individual incidents might seem harmless and like they might not have an effect at all, this isn't the case at all, and especially cumulatively, the effects the media we consume has on the ways we perceive one another can be quite profound.

The point being of course, this type of thing can very easily be avoided, and not doing so leads to harmful effects, so that's more than enough reason to ditch the trope to me, at least it should be. No harm is done by ditching it (since there are so many other options that convey the same exact meaning regardless) and there's one less thing to reinforce racial biases (of course, before you try nailing me on this, of course doing this won't solve racism or anything, but it doesn't need to. Anything that helps, no matter how minor, is only a good thing, especially when nothing is lost in the process), so that seems to leave little reason to keep it around.

There's simply no reason to continue a trope of a character turning evil magically altering their skin tone in addition to their clothing and aura or whatever, knowing the harmful effects that shit has. None.

I'm not sure these fit with what's being discussed, though. I don't think anyone reasonably interprets something like Evil Ryu as a racial change or commentary on race.

Those studies have to do with representations of actual races. Social treatment and media portrayal of different races leads to children internalizing that whites are good and black people are bad. The children aren't just blindly reacting to skin color, they're making decisions based on race. The Media disproportionately reports crimes allegedly committed by minorities.

I'm not sure things like Evil Ryu contribute to that since he's obviously still Ryu, Ryu is Japanese-American, and he's still Japanese-American when he's dark. It's understood that he's dark as in evil, not dark as in different race. Same as how it's understood a white person is still white when they get a tan. If it has any effect I don't think it's any stronger than dark in general being considered evil. Plus the character is included because it's meant to be something people want to play with and like because evil and dark are cool, whereas with the doll experiment kids didn't want to play with the black doll.

What I got from reading the whole thread is that the main debate here has nothing to do with actual race but a series of misunderstandings caused by projecting western racial dynamics onto the japanese/eastern pale nobility/tanned peasant field-worker dynamics of imagery.

This was a western thing, too. Pale skin was a sign of privilege (not toiling in the sun). Men and women would powder themselves or paint their skin to appear paler. This was apart from racial issues though; this was between pale-skinned people. While the notion of fair-skin was used as reasoning to flaunt the superiority of white people over other races, I think that's reading too much into it. If a character is white and they are a princess it makes sense for them to be pale and it doesn't have to have to be a racial thing. It's part of the trappings of aristocracy. It's something that happens when you have pale skin and don't get enough sun exposure. If a character had naturally darker skin they'd be in the same boat, but they couldn't be pale because their skin is naturally darker.

 

[KurtFehl]

I'm tired if being told I am racist for consuming media even though I don't think about any of these "issues" at all

 

[autoduelist]

i don't rightly care if you're posting in good faith from your own views, playing devli's advocate or something else entirely: your thesis statement here is deeply flawed, and your appeal to historic tradition in defending a shitty storytelling practice is, at best, lazy & unconsciously racist. we can very clearly do better.[/QUOTE

So I'm a racist now for defining 'the Other', by someone who in part defines themselves by their heritage [which I'm not saying is a bad thing, by the way]. What a sad state of debate.

 

[IrishNinja]

I'm tired if being told I am racist for consuming media even though I don't think about any of these "issues" at all

you're clearly not trying to give the plight of others more than a passing thought, so why not do just that & keep it moving?

So I'm a racist now for defining 'the Other', by someone who in part defines themselves by their heritage [which I'm not saying is a bad thing, by the way]. What a sad state of debate.

the post you're quoting says the method of storytelling you're defending is, again; at best lazy & unconsciously racist. i agree this is a sad state of debate, where one can't differentiate themselves from their argument/defense of "the Other" narrative.

I'm not sure these fit with what's being discussed, though. I don't think anyone reasonably interprets something like Evil Ryu as a racial change or commentary on race.

that's a pretty weird claim to make when the initial video in the OP very clearly does just that, as do a number of people agreeing here since

 

[Murkas]

I'm tired if being told I am racist for consuming media even though I don't think about any of these "issues" at all

Who the fuck is calling you racist lol.

 

[Drillary Clinton]

I'm tired if being told I am racist for consuming media even though I don't think about any of these "issues" at all

 

[Chronospherics]

Eh, I think that a villains tend to be portrayed as just looking a little weird. This list highlights Violent Ken and Ryu, throw away characters that just had their palette swapped arbitrarily, when other villains from Capcom's titles are extremely white, (e.g. Wesker, Virgil).

It's usually the case that the villains are simply made to look different from the protragonist. I honestly can't think of many games where the bad characters are dark skinned.

Gannon has a darker skin tone because takes the form of is a Gerudo, and the Gerudo themselves are not Evil. It's also only one of his forms, his default are often depicted as blue or green.

 

[RRockman]

Oooh this is new. What does it mean?

 

[Nerazar]

Just a practical question: So what should we do instead?

What kind of skin should "evil" characters have, then? And should that answer override any considerations with regards to setting or the story itself? Or artistic freedom?

 

[Drillary Clinton]

Oooh this is new. What does it mean?

Something about shoes and fitting

 

[Principate]

Just a practical question: So what should we do instead?

What kind of skin should "evil" characters have, then? And should that answer override any considerations with regards to setting or the story itself? Or artistic freedom?

When a characters turns evil don't change their skin colour to a darker shade that is analogus to realworld race.

 

[stargateheaven]

I feel like there's just as many as the other color skinned evil characters in media.

 

[Murkas]

Just a practical question: So what should we do instead?

What kind of skin should "evil" characters have, then? And should that answer override any considerations with regards to setting or the story itself? Or artistic freedom?

You can have evil dark skinned characters, no one is saying stop that.

But if you have a light skinned character and they turn evil and you want to show that off, don't darken their skin. Give them evil eyes, an aura, change their voice, half human half monster transformation etc.

And an artist has the freedom to do what they want, and people have the freedom to point out problems they may have.

Can I make a game about fucking little kids and then yell artistic freedom if people criticise it? Even if I put in a good reason in the story (the kids have magical healing powers in their bodies that can only be extracted by adults fucking them because there's a virus called dolbachia spreading that only targets adults)?

 

[FinalAres]

When a characters turns evil don't change their skin colour to a darker shade that is analogus to realworld race.

What's ridiculous about this is that the skin colour that it's mostly changed to is analogous to A LOT of those developing the game (Japanese developers), it's more often similar to Asian skin than African skin.

 

[PowWow]

This stereotyping in the media has a real and tangible damaging effect on those of us who are not white.

It's a tiresome, lazy trope and to be honest we are all sick of seeing darker toned characters in the evil role time and time again.

Bravo to the poster who detailed the studies above. That's really the end of this discussion.

 

[Drillary Clinton]

Just a practical question: So what should we do instead?

What kind of skin should "evil" characters have, then? And should that answer override any considerations with regards to setting or the story itself? Or artistic freedom?

The "artistic freedom" excuse is tired at this point. What exactly is the story reason for Evil Ryu being brown?

 

[FinalAres]

The "artistic freedom" excuse is tired at this point. What exactly is the story reason for Evil Ryu being brown?

Since when is artistic freedom just about story?

They've used colouration to depict someone who is darker, which is commonly associated with being more evil (characters wearing black, living in the shadows, white V black = good and evil, white wedding dresses represent purity). And you know what? They've been successful. Show me Ryu and Evil Ryu without their names and I could immediately tell one was evil.

What people have to get their head around is this is nothing to do with race. None of these characters have had their ethnicity changed, their colourations are just darker. I don't care how "analogous" you 'think' it is, there is a fundamental difference between unfair depictions of different races (which happens a lot) and this farce of an argument. Do you not see how much this dilutes the real issues? Do you not see how this ridiculous argument makes people switch off to conversations that SHOULD be happening about the actual depictions of race in games.

 

[Calcaneus]

I'm tired if being told I am racist for consuming media even though I don't think about any of these "issues" at all

I'm pretty certain very few if any people in this thread think someone is racist for watching the Lion King or playing Zelda or Street Fighter. I mean I personally love Street Fighter, but I can still acknowledge that a good point is being made in this thread about a harmful trope. The aim isn't to condemn fans or creators as racists, it almost never is, its to point out an unfortunate pattern and discuss why that is and how we can potentially move past it.

Just a practical question: So what should we do instead?

What kind of skin should "evil" characters have, then? And should that answer override any considerations with regards to setting or the story itself? Or artistic freedom?

Like the article on the OP said, there are many other ways to visually signal that a character has gone evil without using this same old trope. Take out the skin color change and Evil Ryu and Violent Ken are still easily noticeable as the evil versions.

 

[Murkas]

Since when is artistic freedom just about story?

They've used colouration to depict someone who is darker, which is commonly associated with being more evil (characters wearing black, living in the shadows, white V black = good and evil, white wedding dresses represent purity). And you know what? They've been successful. Show me Ryu and Evil Ryu without their names and I could immediately tell one was evil.

What people have to get their head around is this is nothing to do with race. None of these characters have had their ethnicity changed, their colourations are just darker. I don't care how "analogous" you 'think' it is, there is a fundamental difference between unfair depictions of different races (which happens a lot) and this farce of an argument. Do you not see how much this dilutes the real issues? Do you not see how this ridiculous argument makes people switch off to conversations that SHOULD be happening about the actual depictions of race in games.

Then if we're following this logic, if we had a dark skinned evil character who turns good and holy later on, a nice simple way of showing this is to lighten their skin up? I mean, hey it's worked all this time in reverse so why not do it in these cases too...

 

[FinalAres]

Then if we're following this logic, if we had a dark skinned evil character who turns good and holy later on, a nice simple way of showing this is to lighten their skin up? I mean, hey it's worked all this time in reverse so why not do it in these cases too...

If a game developer wants to do this that's fine. As long as you're not changing their ethnicity.

What we're talking about is a 'trope' (hate that buzzword) that is literally millenia old and has its basis in a pretty well known middle eastern text. If you want to completely change how literature is written for no reason other than 'his character kind of looks brown, someone should surely be offended!' be my guess. And good luck.

 

[David Ricardo]

This is why:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PZryE2bqwdk

Kids internalize that shit and then it stays with them as adults (as the Twitter video in the OP talks about). It's completely unnecessary (as you yourself admit to and illustrate by pointing out how many other changes they make anyway, rendering this specific change all the more unnecessary, reckless, and harmful) and thus should be done away with, as this is the type of shit that subconsciously reinforces racial biases from a young age.

watching that video, we are supposed to believe that racist white society has taught black babies that white babies are nicer looking, better behaving, etcetera. But I don't think it contains all the information necessary to conclude that.

We need to discard a lot of things that may affect the result: the lighting (it's too dark), the baby face design (maybe a lighter skin colour fits better that specific head shape), maybe babies just like lighter skin coloured babies better naturally... who knows? You have to perform a lot of tests before arriving to any kind of meaningful conclusion.

 

[Synth]

And you know what? They've been successful. Show me Ryu and Evil Ryu without their names and I could immediately tell one was evil.

You'd know the good vs evil versions of Ryu and Ken without the skin color alterations just as easily, due to the other aspects of their character designs that signal it...

The only case where this wouldn't be true is if there aren't any other aspect of their character signalling it, and then in this case having that reaction to just the skin being darker is exactly the problem, because people naturally live their lives with those skin tones.

People in here also need to stop using the "it's not a change of race" argument... nobody really gives a fuck. Skin colour is inherent to a person regardless of their race. You can have two people of the exact same race, and one being viewed more negatively for being darker is just as problematic, and has been covered repeatedly in this thread for places such as India.

When a game like fucking Rumble Roses can create a good and evil persona for its entire fucking cast, that's easily differentiated between, without once resorting to magically altering their skin colours, then no... there isn't a valid reason for doing so.

Then if we're following this logic, if we had a dark skinned evil character who turns good and holy later on, a nice simple way of showing this is to lighten their skin up? I mean, hey it's worked all this time in reverse so why not do it in these cases too...

Well, of course. I mean, it's totally fine to photoshop darker people into appearing lighter for a magazine cover, so long as you don't change any other features. They're clearly not changing the person's race, so what could possibly be the harm?

 

[FinalAres]

You'd know the good vs evil versions of Ryu and Ken without the skin color alterations just as easily, due to the other aspects of their character designs that signal it...

The only case where this wouldn't be true is if there aren't any other aspect of their character signalling it, and then in this case having that reaction to just the skin being darker is exactly the problem, because people naturally live their lives with those skin tones.

People in here also need to stop using the "it's not a change of race" argument... nobody really gives a fuck. Skin colour is inherent to a person regardless of their race. You can have two people of the exact same race, and one being viewed more negatively for being darker is just as problematic, and has been covered repeatedly in this thread for places such as India.

When a game like fucking Rumble Roses can create a good and evil persona for its entire fucking cast, that's easily differentiated between, without once resorting to magically altering their skin colours, then no... there isn't a valid reason for doing so.



Well, of course. I mean, it's totally fine to photoshop darker people into appearing lighter for a magazine cover, so long as you don't change any other features. They're clearly not changing the person's race, so what could possibly be the harm?

Yes you don't have to use skin colour, but you also can use skin colour. What you're talking about is banning a certain kind of artistic expression saying "there's plenty of other ways to do it". Why should they do it another way when that way is perfectly acceptable. And it is totally acceptable and in no way racist.

 

[dreamcastluvr]

Can we also stop making them almost exclusivley humanoid males too while we're at it?

 

[Drillary Clinton]

Since when is artistic freedom just about story?

They've used colouration to depict someone who is darker, which is commonly associated with being more evil (characters wearing black, living in the shadows, white V black = good and evil, white wedding dresses represent purity). And you know what? They've been successful. Show me Ryu and Evil Ryu without their names and I could immediately tell one was evil.

What people have to get their head around is this is nothing to do with race. None of these characters have had their ethnicity changed, their colourations are just darker. I don't care how "analogous" you 'think' it is, there is a fundamental difference between unfair depictions of different races (which happens a lot) and this farce of an argument. Do you not see how much this dilutes the real issues? Do you not see how this ridiculous argument makes people switch off to conversations that SHOULD be happening about the actual depictions of race in games.

Are you being this obtuse on purpose?

 

[FinalAres]

Are you being this obtuse on purpose?

Are you using drive by comments because you can't articulate a response?

 

[Drillary Clinton]

Are you using drive by comments because you can't articulate a response?

Why should I even bother repeating what's already been posted in this thread multiple times when you're blatantly being stubborn at this point?

 

[FinalAres]

Why should I even bother repeating what's already been posted in this thread multiple times when you're blatantly being stubborn at this point?

Unfortunately a lot of what I said hasn't been answered by you, as you well know. The fact that you're defensively refusing to address each of my points shows that you know I'm right.

 

[Drillary Clinton]

Unfortunately a lot of what I said hasn't been answered by you, as you well know. The fact that you're defensively refusing to address each of my points shows that you know I'm right.

Lmao now you're lying and I'm gonna go ahead and do you the favor of regurgitating what's been beaten to death ITT.

There is an inherent problem with the argument that darkening a character's skin for the sake of showing that they are evil or bad is ok for any reason. You can use "contrasting colors" as much as you want. Doing it with someone like Dark Link where he is a literal shadow is completely different from making Ryu a brown person when he is evil. You can tell who is Evil argument and who is Ryu by looking at them? Cool, you can do that to without making him a brown person. This doesn't dilute the issue when you take into consideration that there is already a lack of representation for colored people in the medium, this is just one facet of the issue.

Did I articulate that enough for you?

 

[Principate]

What's ridiculous about this is that the skin colour that it's mostly changed to is analogous to A LOT of those developing the game (Japanese developers), it's more often similar to Asian skin than African skin.

Of course it's it's not by chance and more likely social stigma.

 

[Glitter and Gold]

The "artistic freedom" excuse is tired at this point. What exactly is the story reason for Evil Ryu being brown?

It's so lazy lol

Even lazier than darkening the skin and clothes on Ryu's sprite and calling it a new character named EVIL RYU

And if you read my post, I was -talking about skin color-. You're so condescending about me understanding 'your argument' and you didn't even do a basic read of my post.

I'm sorry I just gave you too much credit. I didn't think you'd actually be defending using darker skin colors for evil characters.

There are valid reasons we use skin color.

I disagree

 

[Drillary Clinton]

It's so lazy lol

Even lazier than darkening the skin and clothes on Ryu's sprite and calling it a new character named EVIL RYU

Right. It shows lack of creativity on the developer's part.

 

[Principate]

Yes you don't have to use skin colour, but you also can use skin colour. What you're talking about is banning a certain kind of artistic expression saying "there's plenty of other ways to do it". Why should they do it another way when that way is perfectly acceptable. And it is totally acceptable and in no way racist.

It's implicitly racist. It's litterally darker skin=evil. That's what it says and I implore you to give me another explanation. We're not talking about someone going absolutely pitch black or some other other non human skin tone here.

 

[FinalAres]

Lmao now you're lying and I'm gonna go ahead and do you the favor of regurgitating what's been beaten to death ITT.

There is an inherent problem with the argument that darkening a character's skin for the sake of showing that they are evil or bad. You can use "contrasting colors" as much as you want. Doing it with someone like Dark Link where he is a literal shadow is completely different from making Ryu a brown person when he is evil. You can tell who is Evil argument and who is Ryu by looking at them? Cool, you can do that to without making him a brown person. This doesn't dilute the issue when you take into consideration that there is already a lack of representation for colored people in the medium, this is just one facet of the issue.

Did I articulate that enough for you?

No because you didn't respond to any of my points, only other people's points.

You've not answered why a millenia old literary tradition that has no basis in white culture is inherently racist and should be abandoned.

You've not answered why the colour of a characters skin is analogous to A change in race (analogous was not my word. It's the word used by your side of the argument to explain why a clearly white character with darkened skin was somehow related to another race.

Other than saying it doesn't dilute, you've not explained why. Whereas I did explain the opposite. It's people looking at stupid threads like this and thinking 'if this is all racism in video games is, then it's not a problem'.

 

[Synth]

Yes you don't have to use skin colour, but you also can use skin colour. What you're talking about is banning a certain kind of artistic expression saying "there's plenty of other ways to do it". Why should they do it another way when that way is perfectly acceptable. And it is totally acceptable and in no way racist.

Because all the other ways aren't inherent to a person's identity.

Let's drop the term "racist" for a moment, as I feel that the mere thought of that label being assigned to anyone - either the creators or the consumer - causes people to instead immediately approach the topic from "I'm not racist!" standpoint... which nobody is trying to say you are. I've played every Street Fighter game in existence. I don't consider myself to be "part of the problem" for having done so.

Again, this doesn't need to be tied to ethnicity at all to be a problem. If say 5% of people from each ethnicity were to be born with purpleish/blue skin, and for whatever backwards-ass traditional reasons the colour blue has been commonly used to portray promiscuity, it'd be similarly insensitive if many games basically used that as a character trait signifier. If you feel a need to make skin colour alterations to denote an aspect of your character, that's not necessarily bad in and of itself (nobody complains about Hulk, or the Asari etc), but opting for skin tones that people actually have and establishing that as a signifier for a person being evil is shitty. It may not be intentionally shitty... but it's shitty nonetheless, and completely unnecessary. It's only effective because its continual use keeps it so.

 

[Principate]

No because you didn't respond to any of my points, only other people's points.

You've not answered why a millenia old literary tradition that has no basis in white culture is inherently racist and should be abandoned.

You've not answered why the colour of a characters skin is analogous to A change in race (analogous was not my word. It's the word used by your side of the argument to explain why a clearly white character with darkened skin was somehow related to another race.

Other than saying it doesn't dilute, you've not explained why. Whereas I did explain the opposite. It's people looking at stupid threads like this and thinking 'if this is all racism in video games is, then it's not a problem'.

Since when was the milenia old tradition white is good brown is evil? Or in this case here largely not even talking about pure white but a persons skin tone. Clearly the earth is evil it's filled with brown. Damn this evil wood. This mud is killing me.

 

[FinalAres]

It's implicitly racist. It's litterally darker skin=evil. That's what it says and I implore you to give me another explanation. We're not talking about someone going absolutely pitch black or some other other non human skin tone here.

Yes, darker skin = evil. Do you think that it will teach children to think black people are evil and white people are good? No it doesn't. Because these people don't look like black people, they look like white people who've been on holiday.

Games ARE however teaching people that white males are handsome, successful, heroes and everyone else is support. That's the real issue.

This is totally separately to the issue of bad guys being a different ethnicity, which i would totally get and would be on your side with.

But skin colour is ridiculous. There's much more to a race than just the colour of their skin.