Your opinion is worse. It's like the people who aren't from Mexico that are offended for Mexican culture in the new Mario game while Mexicans are happy for it to be represented in Mario Odyssey. Just stop.
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'Zelda,' 'Overwatch' and a failure to represent ME and South Asian identity in games
- Thread starter Poetic.Injustice
- Start date
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
Yeah, I agree with this. However it seems that almost every fictional/fantasy non-white culture I've seen being depicted as been accused of orientalism at some point, even respectful and nuanced and complex cultures, so I wonder how one would avoid that label completely.
Yeah, I have to wonder about this too. Every fantasy culture will draw inspiration from real-life/historical ones. The key point should be to not resort to tired stereotypes and make the people belonging to that culture too homogenized (e.g. portraying all brown-skinned people as thieves or perverts or whatever).
Well... what do you suggest? You can't pick the "negative" aspects of a culture (e.g. barbaric traditions that may or may not have been historically accurate that would be at odds with modern sensibilities) because that's negative stereotyping, but you can't pick the cool aspects either because that's exotification?
This can join cultural appropriation on the list of things I couldn't give less of a shit about right now.
I'm open to new ideas, though. Please draw me a line from adapting ancient Egyptian culture in a modern day fantasy piece and hurting, in any way, shape or form, modern day Egyptians?
Gotdatmoney
Member
I mean you can't. But that's just the nature of depiction. Someone may see it differently. If you think you'll ever be able to show non white culture without getting any criticism levied at it you're asking for something impossible.
Good thing Symmetra's as top of the economic strata as they come, then, right?
I think what this article lacks is some nuance.
I think there is generally a problem with exotification in all fiction. I had some pretty troubling reactions to some of the Gerudo stuff in Breath of the Wild (and OoT on a replay). I think the portrayal is vastly improved from prior outings, but I personally had the "glad my wife isn't in the room for this section" moments.
I think what we can say is, it is generally good that games are attempting to be more inclusive. For instance, I think its great that half of the gendered characters in ARMS are women. I think Twintelle is a problematic character design that was created for the male gaze, but I appreciate that Nintendo tried to do a thing with a diverse cast (especially by their standards)
I think including lots of cultures in Overwatch is good, but i Think there is space for pointing out where there might be some orientalism happening in the game and where designers can continue to improve.
I think for instance Blizzard set out to create a globally diverse cast for Overwatch and mostly hit the mark. There are some characters that missed somewhat or leaned a little too hard on stereotypes or orientalism.
I think the author in this case is probably trying to point out that there is not a lot of awareness of orientalism directed at certain cultures (in this case South Asian/Middle Eastern) where maybe there is a little more awareness that stereotypes/mashups of East Asian or African cultures is problematic. The tone of the article is a bit off, as I think the intent in these cases may not have been bad (and in the case of Zelda the Gerudo have improved over time in their portrayal), so had the tone been less sharp it would have caught more flies.
So, I think it's important that pieces like this exist because the bar should be to improve multicultralism in games and start growing the appeal of the hobby. Not just because its the right thing to do, but from a commercial viability standpoint as well.
I think there is generally a problem with exotification in all fiction. I had some pretty troubling reactions to some of the Gerudo stuff in Breath of the Wild (and OoT on a replay). I think the portrayal is vastly improved from prior outings, but I personally had the "glad my wife isn't in the room for this section" moments.
I think what we can say is, it is generally good that games are attempting to be more inclusive. For instance, I think its great that half of the gendered characters in ARMS are women. I think Twintelle is a problematic character design that was created for the male gaze, but I appreciate that Nintendo tried to do a thing with a diverse cast (especially by their standards)
I think including lots of cultures in Overwatch is good, but i Think there is space for pointing out where there might be some orientalism happening in the game and where designers can continue to improve.
I think for instance Blizzard set out to create a globally diverse cast for Overwatch and mostly hit the mark. There are some characters that missed somewhat or leaned a little too hard on stereotypes or orientalism.
I think the author in this case is probably trying to point out that there is not a lot of awareness of orientalism directed at certain cultures (in this case South Asian/Middle Eastern) where maybe there is a little more awareness that stereotypes/mashups of East Asian or African cultures is problematic. The tone of the article is a bit off, as I think the intent in these cases may not have been bad (and in the case of Zelda the Gerudo have improved over time in their portrayal), so had the tone been less sharp it would have caught more flies.
So, I think it's important that pieces like this exist because the bar should be to improve multicultralism in games and start growing the appeal of the hobby. Not just because its the right thing to do, but from a commercial viability standpoint as well.
How can she be rich? Doesn't Blizzard know all Indians are poor /s
UnemployedVillain
Member
Really?? I'm kind of curious what parts you were talking about. Aside from the initial part of the quest with Link obtaining his outfit (which has been discussed and seems to have various opinions) the game is entirely inoffensive
All this fake outrage over Symmetra not speaking Native tongue from people who have never lived in a South Indian city,
And if any of you are living in said cities , WTF y'all must not meet a lot of people or something. There are millions of ppl who hardly speak their native tongue and almost only talk in English. Yes they are a small minority but why does Symmetra only have to follow majority representation?
I dont know why people find Symmetra so sloppy just because she doesnt speak her native language. Also native language of people in her state is Telgu not Hindi. So everyone going around here crying she doesnt speak Hindi is kinda dumb.
So what? Does an Indian character ONLY have to be from the biggest region in india and speak Hindi? Thats stereotyping if you ask me.
Am glad the picked Hyderabad instead of some North Indian character, which is what they usually do.
And if any of you are living in said cities , WTF y'all must not meet a lot of people or something. There are millions of ppl who hardly speak their native tongue and almost only talk in English. Yes they are a small minority but why does Symmetra only have to follow majority representation?
I dont know why people find Symmetra so sloppy just because she doesnt speak her native language. Also native language of people in her state is Telgu not Hindi. So everyone going around here crying she doesnt speak Hindi is kinda dumb.
So what? Does an Indian character ONLY have to be from the biggest region in india and speak Hindi? Thats stereotyping if you ask me.
Am glad the picked Hyderabad instead of some North Indian character, which is what they usually do.
VyechnayaSlava
Member
If people seek out offense, they'll find it
You make it seem like it hasn't been done before.
Or, if people are offended they'll be offended?
It's a bit disingenuous to say that this guy went looking to be offended. It seems to be something that has genuinely troubled him for a while.
Gotdatmoney
Member
Telling someonw to become game dev to solve a lack of meaningful representation in gaming is one of the dumbest things I have read. Do you also tell black americans to become police officers so they can avoid being harassed by the police? Or move?
Like come on.
Don't put words in my mouth please.
Gotdatmoney
Member
Only if you apply better logic than "fix it yourself"
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
It's crazy to see how certains people react when we apply culture studies to video games.
If you don't care about these issues and just wanna enjoy your fantastical world, just do, but like any cultural product, even our favorite series (zelda is one my favorite serie of all time), we have the right to criticize it.
Bringing an "oriental" culture in a video-game is not innocent, it's not "pure-fiction". It's say a lot about what the designers have in mind about these cultures, past or present. We find gender segregation, erotism and pride in BotW as the most defining attributes of a desert tribe. Anyone with an inch of interest in orientalism (how the west represent/represented the muslim world) knows that it's not innocent nor random. So we're not speaking about the actual present or past of arabs cultures, but about its depiction by the West.
People use to think that to says that the Qunari race in Dragon's Age were representing the muslims was far-fetched, until the leader writer said that it was indeed the case. Yet, the Qunari are not really even theist. So often, stereotypical depictions occur in cultural product and it's necessarily to call them out about this.
If you don't care about these issues and just wanna enjoy your fantastical world, just do, but like any cultural product, even our favorite series (zelda is one my favorite serie of all time), we have the right to criticize it.
Bringing an "oriental" culture in a video-game is not innocent, it's not "pure-fiction". It's say a lot about what the designers have in mind about these cultures, past or present. We find gender segregation, erotism and pride in BotW as the most defining attributes of a desert tribe. Anyone with an inch of interest in orientalism (how the west represent/represented the muslim world) knows that it's not innocent nor random. So we're not speaking about the actual present or past of arabs cultures, but about its depiction by the West.
People use to think that to says that the Qunari race in Dragon's Age were representing the muslims was far-fetched, until the leader writer said that it was indeed the case. Yet, the Qunari are not really even theist. So often, stereotypical depictions occur in cultural product and it's necessarily to call them out about this.
His criticism of Overwatch just strikes me as weird. It's in the headline, yet he only talks about it for about two sentences. He also doesn't explain what's specifically bad about this. As mentioned in this thread, there are other characters who also don't speak in their native language, so it's not like Symmetra is singled out.
It's true that it's hard to accuse anyone of not being really offended, after all, like you said, if someone is offended they're offended, but when the argument is so slim as with the overwatch one it just comes off as reaching.
Oppo
Member
I hear this -- but I'll say, as someone working on a game right now, I find the whole prospect kind of paralyzing. Like, a real minefield. I literally don't know how to approach inspirations from any culture without running afoul.
I'm not going to become an expert in every world culture, nor do I have the budget to even workshop things with academics. In the end I will try to carefully step around it by making such a fantastical setting, in sci fi, that I hope there's enough distance between whatever subconscious decisions I make in the art style and other creative decisions, to not piss off any actual cultures here on earth.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
It might also be problematic if the author genuinely didn't know they speak English in India.
What you quoted reads like Japan needs to give proper Middle Eastern geography lessons in BotW so that Americans can understand ME culture and stop the xenophobia in Trump's America.
That's the sweet irony. Author wants Japan (or Westerners) to do the legwork to represent cultural differences between MENA regions with 100% authenticity in a fictional city, while can't bother to Google that English is a language taught in most schools in India from grades 1 to 10.
Why is Symmetra's lack of a regional language troubling an Iranian American, when multiple Indians in this thread have mentioned her being at worst a neutral, and at best a really good representation of Indians in media? Her characterization is something you almost never see when it comes to Indian characters. She's intelligent/educated but not to the extent of being nerdy, like the sexless nerds shown in BBT. She's an upper class, morally ambiguous Indian woman who works for an international multibillion dollar conglomorate, which sometimes involves espionage and assassinations. She does this in hopes that it'd improve the life of the poor living in the slums because that's what her employer tells her, but because of her background she can't relate to the poor and see that this is not the case. Her speaking in English exclusively makes a lot of sense in context.
It's nice to not have a character that stereotyped as the nerdy, tech support type, or the mystical, exotic curry eating yoga man (Dhalsim) or the poor, openly defecating slum dweller (Slumdog). Often, people ask for minorities to not be stereotyped in media, and finally when we get a non-stereotypical character like Symmetra, suddenly she's not stereotypical enough, by not speaking in Hindi,Tamil, Telegu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Bhojpuri, Urdu, Bengali, etc. etc. You can't make her speak one of these languages and make her more relatable to more Indians. Hindi is still not spoken my most Indians despite being the official language. Believe it or not her speaking English makes her relatable to more Indians than speaking one of these other languages would. We can all tell she's an interesting character who just happens to be Indian, based on her accent and mannerisms. We don't need to be beaten over the head with it.
Even if I'm off base, I'd rather discuss her representation as good or bad with other Indians. I don't really like when other people get offended on our behalf. Indians, at least the ones in India, are very Jingoistic and get offended by even minor slights. God knows we don't need people getting offended on our behalf on things that even we don't find offensive.
Gotdatmoney
Member
No offense but your overblowing the amount of work you need to do as well as the actual criticism you will receive if you were to make a mistep. Is this one piece about 2 of the most popular games in recent times with hundreds, hell, thousands of love letters about them, enough to make you lose sleep?
Literally just do research and try to avoid negative stereotypes. Like just think about your work "a bit" more than you would have before this article.
Good writers don't stop writing because their works are criticised do they? Of which games are not held to anywhere near that standard of depictions.
UnemployedVillain
Member
You're projecting like CRAZY, because I almost did a double take reading your "defining features" list and guessing where you were going with it. Not to mention, because this seems to be ignored for some bizarre reason Nintendo is a Japanese company. They'd literally be considered "oriental"! You can't profess the issues of viewing things with a western slant, then go on and assume a Japanese developer is viewing things exactly the same. It's incredibly egotistical and hypocritical at that.
Also, the gender segregation of Gerudo is based on AMAZONS (along with numerous other aspects of their culture), but sure, conveniently ignore that to push some narrative that it's some western lens of desert cultures.
The eroticism is purely your doing. In the same way that nudity isn't inherently sexual, the Gerudo's outfits aren't made to be sexualized in the game. Yes there are characters that comment on their appearance, but it's never made a point. There are no issues of male gaze, hell, despite looking similar to belly dancers there isn't a single scene of anything involving belly dancing or that could be construed as erotic.
And the pride, again, comes from their Amazon roots, not from some misconstrued view on desert people. The fact is you're the one who's making questionable statements about your views on desert people through all these implications that the game most certainly isn't.
Oppo
Member
None taken. I just can't help but notice it's no longer just a question of "appropriation" in the sense of lifting a cultural symbol or custom and not giving credit or using in a hamfisted way, but even an
absence of full diversity, will sometimes land you in hot water. I have no illusions though; obscurity will probably protect me to some extent, you're right. I'm not going to put in anything obviously (Jar-Jar level) stupid.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
Would appropriation be levied at a non-western game developer that includes a very european motif? Medieval European settings with generic towns and castle are common as are desert people that live near an oasis and plains people that are nomads.
Final Fantasy XIV's new expansion Stormblood had an extensive time spent on questing in a plains area that is reminiscent of both Asian plain nomads and Native American plains cultures. For the most part it was done fairly well, but it was still appropriating while just making the people different by making them a subsection of the race with horns and scales. The whole time there was basically like an amalgamation of Dances with Wolves, Fern Gully, and Avatar.
Final Fantasy XIV's new expansion Stormblood had an extensive time spent on questing in a plains area that is reminiscent of both Asian plain nomads and Native American plains cultures. For the most part it was done fairly well, but it was still appropriating while just making the people different by making them a subsection of the race with horns and scales. The whole time there was basically like an amalgamation of Dances with Wolves, Fern Gully, and Avatar.
There will never be a way not to offend anyone, because these aren't objective issues. Whatever you do, someone will complain, feel wronged or want you to go deeper and deeper until you do something that caters exactly to their worldviews.
All you can do is your best to deliver your vision.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
When we speak about orientalism, we don't speak about anything related to the east, like eastern-europe, east-coast or japan. We speak about the western depiction of the muslim world.
And western worldview is affecting the whole world, mainly through cinema and series today. So being japanese don't make them immune to those kind of representation. It's almost impossible to find a place in earth today which is not affected by the western view of others civilizations, even one own civilization is alienated by the western perspective !
Eroticism is maybe an inappropriate term, sensuality is better suited to this case, but it doesn't change anything to the issue at hand. Seduction is extremely present during the whole gerudo storyline. I mean, they are basically roaming the external world to find a husband.
NonexistentK
Member
well first he says this
also for some one who is so annoyed by the western ignorance I like how much he seems to internalize the british foreign office created, euro centric political term "middle east". I am not seeing any of those east asian countries calling themselves "far eastern" anymore.
but the links he used in his own article saysRye Khosravi said:
also for some one who is so annoyed by the western ignorance I like how much he seems to internalize the british foreign office created, euro centric political term "middle east". I am not seeing any of those east asian countries calling themselves "far eastern" anymore.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
I'm getting the impression that the problem is not so much with these specific examples in and of themselves and more that these are some of the only examples of ME and South Asian identity in games aside from Middle Easterners being terrorists in Military FPS.
Blizzard has made it pretty clear that their hearts are in the right place with Overwatch. I think it would be appropriate for them to add a few Hindi voice lines for Sametra to bring her in line with a lot of the other heroes and pay respect to her heritage and cultural inspirations.
The Gerudo are trickier because they are a fantasy race and they pull from a number of historical and mythical societies, as do the Hylians, Sheikah, and to a lesser extent the Rito, Goron, and Zora.
Unfortunately there's probably no way to create a fantasy culture based on non-white cultures that doesn't rub someone the wrong way. If they are simplistic or overly othered then you are engaging in negative stereotyping. If they are idealized then you are engaging in fetishization or romanticism (orientalism in this case). If their race is incidental to their cultural motifs then you are engaging in tokenism. If they are too close to an existing culture then you are engaging in cultural appropriation.
That previous paragraph probably reads as whining about how white creators just can't win, but it's intended to acknowledge that creating fantasy races can be incredibly fraught and that the best course of action is to proceed in good faith, listen to criticism to see what people aren't satisfied with, and remember that your decisions can send messages you did not intend.
As always, this thread is full of people who wish they could put the "Games are Art" Genie back in the bottle. Underrepresented people have a right to be disappointed with their representation in media and race theory is a valid form of criticism.
Blizzard has made it pretty clear that their hearts are in the right place with Overwatch. I think it would be appropriate for them to add a few Hindi voice lines for Sametra to bring her in line with a lot of the other heroes and pay respect to her heritage and cultural inspirations.
The Gerudo are trickier because they are a fantasy race and they pull from a number of historical and mythical societies, as do the Hylians, Sheikah, and to a lesser extent the Rito, Goron, and Zora.
Unfortunately there's probably no way to create a fantasy culture based on non-white cultures that doesn't rub someone the wrong way. If they are simplistic or overly othered then you are engaging in negative stereotyping. If they are idealized then you are engaging in fetishization or romanticism (orientalism in this case). If their race is incidental to their cultural motifs then you are engaging in tokenism. If they are too close to an existing culture then you are engaging in cultural appropriation.
That previous paragraph probably reads as whining about how white creators just can't win, but it's intended to acknowledge that creating fantasy races can be incredibly fraught and that the best course of action is to proceed in good faith, listen to criticism to see what people aren't satisfied with, and remember that your decisions can send messages you did not intend.
As always, this thread is full of people who wish they could put the "Games are Art" Genie back in the bottle. Underrepresented people have a right to be disappointed with their representation in media and race theory is a valid form of criticism.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
An Arab website is focusing on themselves?
Just because they say that word is focused on the Arab world doesn't mean it is true. Even their attribution to Edward W. only says West and East.
I almost only hear the word horribly used to describe something reminiscent of China.
God Dayumm
Banned
I don't know what the author would like to see here other that the broad harmless stereotypes. Brown people that are not Gerudo and are more normal? There is that in Zelda too. And they are boring.
Yes, and they are a beautiful part of their fauna that is nice to be included. What does the author want here? Polar bears, unicorns, roaches?
Yes, and they are a beautiful part of their fauna that is nice to be included. What does the author want here? Polar bears, unicorns, roaches?
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
Orientalism is not orient.
Anyway, it's not relevant. Call it "arab stereotypical depiction from the west" if you want.
UnemployedVillain
Member
And Japan isn't "the west" despite how large an influence you believe western culture to have on it
This. The Gerudo wouldn't warrant a mention if there were more diverse, realistic portrayals of Middle-Eastern, North African or South Asian people in video games.
The NDF is out in force in this thread...
That's not what I meant, they pick and choose the cool stuff from different cultures and mash them together, which happens a lot in fictional cultures, but then the game avoids saying something worthwhile about the culture it's taking inspiration from. The most egregious recent example is Detroit, watch the latest trailer, and then read what David Cage said afterwards. Some "creatives" want the cool imagery and designs of certain cultures without the responsibilty of telling their stories.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
I never said it was, please read carefully.
However, they can absorb western prejudices on muslims cultures and portray them that way in their video games.