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[Ishan]

This is one thing that bothers me. The city is clearly in Tamilnadu given the store signs and Hotel sign at the end. But people are clearly not speaking tamil. Seems pretty odd.

I need to rewatch it . Can you tell me the specific time points ? My first impression of this was something like a Muslim dominated part of India given the architecture . But if it has South Indian portions then I would go Hyderabad . But if there is Tamil which I can't read so yes I could be wrong (case and point of how India is varied so even me being indian won't know things about other parts of India)

Edit : although if the militant group is operating in a different part of India than where they are from they would default to English to ease communication with the local populace . It's a quite complicated question and needs more context . Plus I think as I said it's just simpler for devs to default to English given how common it is in India and there are many plausible explanations for it such as the one I mentioned .

 

[CouchMaster]

Its not a hijab, and she's wearing jeans with salwar-kameez which is a popular combination in India (salwar part replaced by jeans).

 

[Lalalandia]

Interesting thread like OP I thought she was wearing a niqab and was completely unaware of the salwar-kameez, I've seen it in countless BBC shows in India but never twigged that it was different from the niqab. Them speaking English though was fine I did at least pick up that it is the common tongue across the sub-continent.

Thanks to the posters from the region for clarifying all this for me!

 

[viveks86]

While we are on the topic of accurate portrayal, I'm more concerned that Sony never seems to get their Tamil signage right. Some letters are always jumbled up! Saw this in Driveclub too!

And no, this has nothing to do with religion. Women don't roam around like this in India only around rough areas. Happens all the time in cities too. To block out pollution and the Sun. It's hard as it is to avoid offending people for portrayals that are religious in nature. It's ridiculous to blame ND for not catering to viewers who are looking for stereotyping where there isn't one. They don't have to pander to their 'broad audience'.

And if we are gonna be complaining, why not complain about the obsessive placement of Hindu gods on every damn corner. Now THAT's stereotyping!!!

 

[cgcg]

So OP automatically assumed scarf = hijab...the irony.

 

[WrenchNinja]

I need to rewatch it . Can you tell me the specific time points ? My first impression of this was something like a Muslim dominated part of India given the architecture . But if it has South Indian portions then I would go Hyderabad . But if there is Tamil which I can't read so yes I could be wrong (case and point of how India is varied so even me being indian won't know things about other parts of India)

Edit : although if the militant group is operating in a different part of India than where they are from they would default to English to ease communication with the local populace . It's a quite complicated question and needs more context . Plus I think as I said it's just simpler for devs to default to English given how common it is in India and there are many plausible explanations for it such as the one I mentioned .

https://youtu.be/PZjx5ao7alw

1:20 mark they're speaking something, I can't make it out but it definitely doesn't sound tamil

1:39 there's a sign in tamil. It says Super something, I think market.

3:00 mark a mother and child are running into a home. Can't make out what they're saying beyond the kid saying mummy i think

There's another sign that says Raja bike shop in tamil

In the 7:00 minute mark when she's on the roof underneath the English of the sign is some more tamil. Kind of hard for me to read it though since it's backwards

But yeah, the soldiers are speaking english so they're probably not from around there and it's easier for the majority english player base to deal with this than having to read subtitles

 

[Wavebossa]

Has anybody approached ND about this on twitter?

Since it is character clothing it shouldn't be too time consuming for them to make any necessary changes before release.

It would be even less time consuming for us to educate ourselves

 

[Elfstruck]

Has anybody approached ND about this on twitter?

Since it is character clothing it shouldn't be too time consuming for them to make any necessary changes before release.

So game developers should change their vision everytime because some people tried to make something out of nothing?

We want diversity in gaming, but when game developers present these new concepts, people always find a reason to nitpick. If ND decides to redesign Chloe's clothing this time, you wont't be seeing them in ND's game or any games in the near future because of reasons like these.

 

[viveks86]

https://youtu.be/PZjx5ao7alw

1:20 mark they're speaking something, I can't make it out but it definitely doesn't sound tamil

He is saying "Let's go inside, quick!" in Hindi. Which got me super curious about the location since you will never find Tamil signage outside of Tamil Nadu, where Hindi is rarely ever spoken on the streets in a city, let alone a shanty town.

Could just be an oversight.

 

[KingV]

Neil went Wutarg. We usually take another religions garments...

Tentatively looking forward to the the dlc even though I thought UC4 was sort of underwhelming.

 

[sephi22]

Agree with my Indians bros and sisters in this thread. Sales kameez is quite common in India. Even visiting foreigners wear em

Spoiler

Also cultural appropriation as a idea doesn't exist in India afaik

 

[Lil'DigiOp]

This.

An Indian wearing Indian clothing speaking an official language of India (English).


But due to ignorance, the OP and many others assumed it was an American posing as a middle eastern, Islamac terrorist and thus confirming stereotypical biases.

I think its clear where the burden of education lies here, and its not with Naughty Dog. I'm glad we could all learn something from this thread

Again so that others can see the silliness.

 

[Glass Rebel]

Isn't Chloe half-Indian anyway? Why is OP so angry about and Indian wearing Indian clothing?

For what it's worth, there's no reference to Chloe's Indian heritage before they said it in an interview.

edit: I see we've reached the part where we're defending the developer's "vision" against imaginary attacks. Great.

 

[Unaha-Closp]

the head scarf wasn't used to distract/deceive/disguise - it was used to blend in to a countries dress code for want of a better word. If you think Naughty Dog were deliberately pushing the stereotype that all Muslims are Terrorists I can only suggest you try and look at it a different way - much like you would like people to do in real life.

If Naughty Dog had showed Chloe plant a bomb or commit an act of terror I might say yeah that was a bit suspect but yo she is in a country where she would stand out like a sore thumb and she wants to sneak about where no one is supposed to be. Being a white man I concede I might not see what you see but all I can say is I saw the same trailer you did and not having the stereotype that all Muslims are Terrorists I didn't think that is what Naughty Dog was saying, inadvertently or not.

I was happy to see strong independent women starring in a big game (or standalone expansion thingy) and Naughty Dog are the last studio I would suspect of pushing anti Muslim sentiment.

 

[RocknRola]

The dress she's wearing and what the others are wearing is pretty much any small town right now. I meant the architecture and milieu depicted don't look like modern India at all. And that town looks biggish in the bombing scenes - something like a Kanpur or something but from the 1970s.

Ah, got it. Well maybe an alternative India or something? They had smartphones in the trailer so clearly it can't be that far into the past hehe I'm guessing it's plot related. Nepal in UC2 was also war-torn.

 

[GobFather]

Devs have no problem making every middle eastern setting a war zone and every villain a Russian. They'll be fine.

It's ok to talk about it but when you are corrected .... it's not middle eastern ...it's India and it's a traditional clothes that are worn... then you should accept it. Because you obviously didn't know the truth but many native people are correcting people that "thought" wrong. That's what a discussion is... if you have a concern yet when there is no concern even by those from that culture, that's the end of it. You can continue to hold a subjective view just like in any discussion about gameplay or graphics or etc. but objectively it has been corrected and made clear by many people from the culture itself.

I understand many western devs make particular cultures more a villain than others... But hasn't ND made many diverse enemies that are English, European, and Latinos... with settings all over the world.... even the beautiful Tibet was tastefully placed with many accurate details of the culture.

The main villains from uncharted series:
Uncharted1, Gabriel Roman was English
Uncharted 2, Zoran Lazarevix was Serbian
Uncharted 3, Katherine Marlowe was English
Uncharted Golden abyss: Roberto Guerro was Panamanian
Uncharted The Fourth Labyrinth: Ramon Valdez was Ecuadorian

 

[Faustek]

You know at first I was going to tell you that you are wrong but then I saw viveTKOs and Equanimitys post and finally your answer. So that is covered.

But yes, I do believe many people will take this wrong if not many people will try and make people see this wrongly so I only hope people will try and educate our fellow human when it's perceived wrong and for the love of all that is sweet do not answer with "educate yourself". That's a shit answer and you aren't helping in the least.

I actually had to say this at work today. No one was malicious about it but lady friend said it was cool to see a hijab in a big game on a kick ass sister and some others joined in the excitement. Unfortunately they started remembering that I have "corrected" them before on "women's wear" so the topic changed to what I may or may not do during the weekends. It's not only women that wear sarongs, boubous or why a Dashiki is actually a man's clothes.

 

[Yoshi]

I think it is fine to use religious garments in that way (disregarding the point whether it actually is religious garment in this instance, I think this is not too relevant to the general point). It may, as you said, go against some people's sensibilities, but then the developers and publishers need to decide on their own if their artistic freedom and what they want to express with their work is worth the expected reduction in sales. I don't think there is any moral imperative to not use religious symbols in a game like that. Afterall, the American game Assassin's Creed even uses a garment designed specifically to blend in with christian monks and to assassinate under that veil. So even from that perspective, I wouldn't see a reason to say that it is natural that religious people have a huge drive to go mad at such a thing (though I am aware of the nutjobs that protested because of some Mohammed carricatures).

 

[leburn98]

Regarding the language spoken: I just assumed that rather than subtitle the entire sequence in English, they decided to have the character's native language presented in English for the target audience. Movies do this frequently to avoid subtitling an entire film as was the case with Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List.

 

[Yoshi]

Being Muslim is a choice, being black or gay is who you are.

More importantly, it is the choice to believe in some idea, which should always be completely free to discuss. Of course "we are offended about anything now, right" is not a very valuable point of discussion, but thinking a set of stories is factual is definitely completely different in nature from being of a certain ethnicity or sexual orientation.

 

[Nicky Ali]

I was watching the PSX stream on my PS4 via the Twitch app and my non-hijab wearing Muslim mum saw it and said:

"Why have they got hijabi's in games now?"

So yeah, make of that what you will.

I'll tell you what though, Naughty Dog have come a long way since those women in Crash Bandicoot 3 who tried to set you on fire.

 

[crimilde]

So we have many official languages . Last I count I remember was eighteen . But in general for legal stuff Hindi and English are both uses . And yes you learn English growing up and many learn it not as a second language but as a medium of instruction . For me I'm actually most comfortable speaking English even though I know Hindi Oriya and Bengali too . I'll speak those with some family friends etc but when with the same people if I'm trying to articulate something I'll shift to English (my typing is error prone and I don't re read my posts so they often have errors but my spoken English is fine ...)

However there are many poor people in India without access to even basic schooling so they wouldn't know English . But once you're in cities a lot of people can either speak it fluently or at least speak some rudimentary form of it so communication is possible .

Thanks for explaining this, much appreciated!

 

[Glass Rebel]

More importantly, it is the choice to believe in some idea, which should always be completely free to discuss. Of course "we are offended about anything now, right" is not a very valuable point of discussion, but thinking a set of stories is factual is definitely completely different in nature from being of a certain ethnicity or sexual orientation.

Saying that religion is "some idea" is incredibly reductionist. And your last sentence makes no sense either. Sexual orientation is biological whereas ethnicity is defined by a shared history or cultural aspects - like religion for example.

 

[CyberPunked]

People sure do love to look for agendas where there are none.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Going by this thread (and myself), it is pretty mistakable depending on the audience, but hopefully ND takes a few steps to address and set aside what it's purpose is in-game, even if it's done subtly.

I doubt it's something that hasn't been talked about in their offices, they seem pretty keen on situations like this.

WTF? Steps to address... what exactly? There is nothing to address. It's not ND's fault that people are that fucking ignorant.

Wait and see for what? It's already confirmed by people who follow the culture as to what it is and what it entails. "It's real" is a a good "defense" simply because it's accurate to the culture, regardless of how the world takes it. Again, if ND does it right, why should they have to change it? Your suggestions, humorously enough, would mean less accurate portrayals and less normalizing, which is why those stereotypes exists.

Like, what are you even talking about?

So game developers should change their vision everytime because some people tried to make something out of nothing?

We want diversity in gaming, but when game developers present these new concepts, people always find a reason to nitpick. If ND decides to redesign Chloe's clothing this time, you wont't be seeing them in ND's game or any games in the near future because of reasons like these.

These.

 

[cm osi]

even if it was a niqab, does it change anything? i mean it cover the whole face. here in italy you can't go around with it, you have to be recognizable.

but then again, even if it was intended as niqab (which isn't a islamic symbol, it's just a dress) why the offense?
i saw lots of people outraged by the hitman nuns for their sexist design and nobody said anything about the use of the religious dress. and that was way more "offensive" if you want to use that word

 

[SubbieD]

Actually many ppl in Indian cities speak at least some rudimentary broken English . This is because we just have so many languages (18 official last I checked) if you mean to have any conversation with a person who's from a different part of India you'll have to learn English . (Hindi is more prefer ant in Northern India but once you move out of a group of 5-6 or so northern states to the others pick up English . For example I speak English Hindi and 2 regional languages Oriya and Bengali . And my first instinct when speaking to someone from India is to start with English unless I already know where they are from etc .

Although here you could make a case for more Hindi too given the location depicted. But many Indians also combine both while speaking too we call it hinglish . ( Plus speaking English can also be a form of showing dominance/ showing off in certain parts . But that's reading a lot into a small scene I think here the intention was Indians speak English so we can get away with using that)

And there are words in Hindi in that sequence .you hear it with that family quickly going indoors . And then Chloe also says nahi which means no to the guard. I fact the words she uses "sir please nahi" is an example of hinglish


Nd has seriously done it's groundwork . I hadn't noticed or paid that much attention to these things . Possibly because the whole scene seemed so natural to me. And now looking back at it within the context of comments in this thread I notice nd has included these small things which I take as very normal in India but may not be obvious to someone who's not indian . I think they've done their groundwork from the looks of it .

Yep, English is one our 16 national languages A lot of us speak it and are educated in it, a fair bit isn't as well and pretty much any section of our military will speak it fluently. Just not with that accent

 

[Raonak]

Oh jeeze.

Indian head scarf is not even a religious garment. It's a common accessory of indian dresses, my mum and sister wear one for their cultural outings.

I don't know how one could get offended by that :/

 

[Lexad]

WTF? Steps to address... what exactly? There is nothing to address. It's not ND's fault that people are that fucking ignorant.



These.

I never once remotely thought during that trailer, oh Muslim stereotypes, she is a deceiver because she is covering her face.

I saw a woman who was in a culture that asked women to cover themselves and she did so. It just also happened to cover her face and let her blend in well with her environment. Chloe doesn't exactly blend in normally in that context.

We have seen this in Homeland. Hell a lot of companies ask women to cover themselves out of respect when visiting Arab countries when doing business.

 

[Alienfan]

But as a disguise, I can't think of anything else that would have worked. If you want to conceal your face in an inconspicuous way, what else would you use? A motorcycle helmet?

 

[aadiboy]

It's a dupatta, but she's wearing it like a hijab. Many Muslim women use dupatta's as hijabs, which is what Chloe was doing as a means to hide her face.

 

[Elfstruck]

I was watching the PSX stream on my PS4 via the Twitch app and my non-hijab wearing Muslim mum saw it and said:

"Why have they got hijabi's in games now?"

I mean it's not uncommon for people to be misinform when it comes to this sort of thing.

 

[Cid Highwind]

Some people really are offended by everything

 

[Bishop89]

Has anybody approached ND about this on twitter?

Since it is character clothing it shouldn't be too time consuming for them to make any necessary changes before release.

 

[HarryKS]

Over thinkkng OP, over thinking.