184: Gangbangers, Victims, and Whores

[Pastey Old Greg]

I have liberal guilt up to my eyeballs, and one of the things that irks me is the still stereotypical portrayals of non-skinny, non-white people in media. It's so easy for some white 16-year-old on this board to say "MEH, it doesn't matter in the end," then they go back on Xbox Live find another player with a hispanic accent and yell "BEANER, MOW MY LAWN, BEANER HUHUHU." We are constantly barraged by miniature messages that fuel our perception of the world. If you don't believe me, just look at the kids that will say something like, "but my ALL of my Latino friends think there's no problems with how they're portrayed." Stand on your head if you think he's telling the truth about his "friend" and he'll let you meet his girlfriend in Canada.

Anyhow, this is going to be a problem for a while, and that's one reason: Nerds. I hate nerds because they tell me Woody Allen movies suck because there isn't action or shock-laughs, while they shove drivel like Wanted and Aeon Flux down my throat cause, like the action's cool, and they like, fight fascism and stuff. I've read original drafts for game scripts that made Citizen Kane look like a grocery store-aisle Barbie movie, but end up as just another crappy blast-em-up with cliched characters, because subtlety doesn't exist in their world. You can't have a character with a Spanish name, and not have that character speak in an exaggerated accent, with a fiery attitude, or a black guy who acts like a bang-baby retard.

Good piece, but could have benefited vastly from developer interviews to understand how it came to be. This article has potential to be an eye-opener for a lot of people.

 

[zoozilla]

I think that game developers should first focus on just creating characters that are multi-layered and complex - many games don't feature very deep characters at all.

Once video game characters are more developed than cardboard cut-outs, I think more attention will be paid to issues like the way races are portrayed in games.

At the moment, though, we have to remember that video games are a very young medium.

 

[HellbentCrusade]

I think the issue is more of women than "latinas". To me this article was a major whine. Women are misrepresented in videogames as tight clothed and horny. She is whining about Dead Rising and it comes from an Asian country. Culture is different over there and you need to understand why women are portrayed so. They are also making RE5 and guess waht people did over that game. Whine. There was nothing wrong with killing Sanish but killing Africans as a white guy is bad.

 

[Rigs83]

RE4 revolved around killing Spaniards who dressed as if they were extra's from a Grapes of Wrath film.

 

[whaleswiththumbs]

... i'm not sure what to say. I want to try to bring up my opinion but i think my opinion walks the line of rascism like a sober guy at a police station. Probably better for me to just leave it there.

 

[fartknocker]

As a European, I find the focus of this article on a US-centric minority patronizing and discriminating.

 

[GonzoGamer]

I think this comes down to a matter of Money Talking. Latin American countries are left behind sometimes in gaming culture, because they're not all able to take part. Most of the Indian characters in games are caricatures too.

My favorite politically incorrect video game character of all time was Catlina from GTA. The only way San Andreas would've been better is if she was the protagonist.

 

[awatkins]

A little late to reply to this one but oh well,
I think the author should be happy to see her minority in games at all, there are tons out there that very rarely make appearances at all, take the native americans for instance, or the innuits of norhtern cannada and alaska. When was the last time you remember playing a GOOD game with innuits??
Anyway, i agree with Diddy_Mao, diversity for diversity's sake is retarded, not unlike all the retarded kids/adults we DONT get to see or play in a positive heroic role in video games.

PS: LOL, when was the last time you said to yourself [insert hill-billy accent] 'gee-golly, I'd sure love to play a game where the protaganist is a tripple amputee with NO awesome bio/mechanically enhanced replacement limbs. And it would be dandy if the amputee was portayed in a positive light'

Just saying.

 

[Zero=Interrupt]

You know who's presented in a bad light in video games? Robots. Humans blast us with weapons, order us around, make us fix their ships, fly their ships, fix their dinner, kill their lab partners, and detonate bombs when we don't want to, and I for one am sick and tired of it. What we need are positive, sexy, charismatic robot role models portrayed in an intelligent, but sexy and alluring positive light. Also you should pay us more.

Who's with me?

Also, more booze, gambling, and hookers for the robots in the games.

On second thought, never mind the games.

 

[LordZ]

Gangbangers, Victims, and Whores

When it comes to portrayals of Latinas in videogames, most characters fall into one of three stereotypes - and none of them are particularly flattering. Christina González probes the game industry's limited perspectives of Hispanic women.

Read Full Article

Is this really that difficult to understand? It goes along with why the only blacks you see in games are stereotypical and the same for almost any other ethnic group.

Stereotypes are what you see all the time anywhere else. Most authors draw from personal experience. If you don't know any blacks, latinos, whatever in real life, then all you can draw from is stereotypes from other media.

To go even further than that, stereotypes are easier to relate to for the vast majority because they are stereotypes. It's why you see so few original characters in any work of fiction.

For the record, all races get stereotyped in media. The only unique characters you ever find are ones that are based off of real people. If the author only knows a few people that are interesting enough to base a fictional character off of, that's going to be the one or two unique characters in anything they write. You can get offended by stereotypes if you want to, but I see it as being nothing more than a limitation of creativity from the author(s).

Also, I second what Diddy_Mao said. He made some valid points.

Really though, if stereotyping bothers you so much, why don't you try to make a game yourself without any stereotypes in it and tell me how easy it is after your second or third game. Unless you're making a game with only a handful of characters in it total(no extras at all), you're going to have stereotypes. I've yet to see anyone with enough creative genius to create an entire world of all unique characters.

I saw a lot of Italian stereotypes in the GTA series. Did I get offended? No. I thought it was funny, to be honest. While I would certainly appreciate a bit more creativity, I realize and accept that people have limitations. Also, seriously, we're talking about GTA here. This isn't a work of Shakespeare, by far.

 

[afaceforradio]

I say to fix this, make a game with: a Mexican President, a Muslim V.P. and make Canada Supreme rulers of the Universe.

Seriously. There are alot of people saying that this isn't a 'racial equality' article but it kind of is. Whilst it isn't crying racism it is saying that Latino characters are often minor and stereotyped.

Parts of the article were hypocritical... for example saying that Latino characters are often minor, then listing about 7 games where Latinos are the forefront of the entire game. As for GTA, the main characters isn't always some criminal scum douche, they always have a 'reason' of some kind (OK it's not a fluffy kittens and goodwill but you know what I mean) to be doing what they're doing. As another Escapist article said: the crime in GTA is optional, nobody forces you to steal a car and kill a hooker then run off with her purse just to beat an old lady to death with it.

As for displaying Latinos as criminals, if you look at the statistics, 60 percent of prison population is made up of 'minorities' of all kinds. That isn't me being racist I am merely stating a statistic (and it could be wrong, it is just what I read) so perhaps the game developers read similar statistics and decided that it was more fitting that sticking some geeky rich white boy in the mix.

I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying.

 

[Mrsoupcup]

snip

HOLLY COW, I made this post a LONG time ago. Way back when I still though all forums were as crazy as Gamespot and Youtube. (I can't even count how many of my old posts got me close to the banhammer) Anyway I have in a way, reformed from my troll like habits. Though this post in particular was more of a joke than somthing serious. I do get your point though.

The GTA series must be the least racist game series ever, they have had: a White guy (GTA 3), an Italian (Vice city), a British guy (GTA 1/2), a Latin guy (Ballad of Gay Tony), a Jewish Guy (Lost and the Damned, yes Johny is Jewish), an African American guy (San Andreas), an Easter European guy (GTA 4) and a Chinese guy (China town wars) all as the main character.

 

[Jason Danger Keyes]

The protagonist of the last GTA4 episode was Luis Lopez, who was actually a really likeable guy (aside from being a criminal and cold-blooded killer, but who isn't in the GTA universe?)

 

[LetalisK]

edit: NM, forgot to check the date, sorry.

 

[Charles Phipps]

What about the ULTIMATE Latina video game character?

CARMEN SANDIEGO!

 

[Combustion Kevin]

What about the ULTIMATE Latina video game character?

CARMEN SANDIEGO!

She's never around though, like, where even is she?

I don't think I read this article when it first came out, but I a major fault is the presumption of objectification that the writer starts out with, and it's a claim that can not be proven without mind-reading abilities.
As far as sexual objectification goes, sexual attraction makes humans react more empathic/sympathetic to the person they are attracted to, showing them more consideration in their social interactions, if anything, it is not the intended audience that objectifies, surely.