Is Street Fighter Sexist/Racist?

[Rad Party God]

Wait until you get to Elena in the next edition of SF4

But seriously, Street Fighter has been like this since the early 90's and I grew up with racist Speedy Gonzales cartoons (I'm mexican).

Don't take too much offense on SF, it's as silly as it can get, just go with it

 

[TaboriHK]

Capcom knows its audience in this case, and that's 13 year old boys, and 30-something men that have spent 17+ consecutive years thinking and acting like 13 year old boys.

 

[Something Amyss]

Seems to me you willingly ignored all the sexualized male costumes in order to prove your point.

No, not really. The examples you give aren't horrible sexualised. A couple don't even look much different from what they've worn before, and one's a drawing. You really needed fanart for a fifth example?

Because if a female character was wearing THESE costumes, no one would deny it's "sexist":

If they were topless? Probably, yeah. That speaks more to a different issue, though.

Also, I would question the sanity of any woman fighting with her breasts out[footnote]At least, as far as fighting games go, where they tend to be ample and jiggly[/footnote] . I...Just...OW!

So, yeah. Those costumes aren't like the false equivalence of superheroes.

Not only are they, they're exactly the kind of thing superheroes wear.

Heck, I should know it better than anyone else, I repeat... being a heterosexual woman who is really bothered by sexism.

And that's a false appeal to authority. It also fits with the cognitive dissonance theme, because your argument is "it's different than superheroes because ponies."

You say that even if it isn't negative, it reflects their perceptions of black people and "black culture". And my answer to that is, of course it does, but so what?

So that's racist. If you're admitting that, then what's the point of contention? That they're not as mean as the racists in America who also claimed it was all in good fun? Sure, fine. But then, I've already talked about how little a problem I have with SF being racist.

For example:

true, and that is my opinion as well, I don't care much because it didn't deter me from enjoying the game (for the shallow amount of time I did as well) and I feel it's an all or nothing argument due to all of them being racially based stereotypes. (Also agree, I respect the skills it takes to play the game, but the insane strategies and cheesing your opponent every punishing second you get just irks me the wrong way.)

Yeah, it really doesn't have to be all or nothing. Hell, it pretty much CAN'T be all or nothing.

Hah my first thought went right to orson scott card as well, I greatly enjoyed enders game and enders shadow growing up, but that doesn't change my opinion that he is an absolute asshat.

I never really enjoyed Card's work. But the main reason I brought him up is because his money goes to the anti-gay organisation he chairs/chaired, and that's where I draw the line. I don't want my money going to someone who threatens revolution if I can marry my girlfriend, but I REALLY don't want it going to someone spending that money to try and make sure we're considered less than human.

you just....you just quoted anita?

Imminent nuclear thread in 3..2...1...

Well, I paraphrased her. I also actually was talking about something she said, rather than some claim that she wants to prevent all sexists games from being made or enjoyed, so nobody will notice. I'm pretty sure none of her critics have actually watched that video (I think it was part 1) despite complaining about it.

 

[Brainpaint]

The counter argument people often use against yours is that those male designs are not meant to be sexually appealing to women, but empowering to men. That both types of character; muscular men and skimpily dressed women; are aimed at pleasing men.

I should point out that this isn't my particular view, because the concept of "power fantasy" and "sexual fantasy" is something that simply doesn't fit in with how I look at things. I didn't feel any different playing as Marcus Fenix or Lara Croft as I don't project myself onto existing characters. That's what RPG's with character creation are for in my opinion.

The false equivalence is true.... in comic book characters. It's true, so very true, that superheroines are a sexual fantasy while superheroes are a power fantasy. I tend to complain a lot about how women are potrayed in superhero comic books.

But this doesn't apply here. Those costumes were clearly intended to be sexy, and I think nobody's power fantasy is wearing a thong like Akuma or a hawaiian dancer gown like Dan and such. I can tell the difference between outfits that are meant to be sexy, like in this case, and outfits that aren't meant to be sexy but I just happen to find them attractive, like in the case of superheroes.

It's not even the only fighting game that does it. Japanese fighting games, and in general Japanese videogames, do tend to sexualize the male characters wherein Western videogames tend to abhor the idea.

Also, I dunno about anybody else here regarding this opinion of mine, but even if a good deal of them are sexualised, mainstream Japanese games have a lot more playable female main characters as opposed to western games that like to keep them on the sidelines or the background like they don't exist as anything other than window dressing. A lot of those main female characters are also a lot more active or have more define-able personalities.

 

[Yuuki]

Seems to me you willingly ignored all the sexualized male costumes in order to prove your point.

Because if a female character was wearing THESE costumes, no one would deny it's "sexist":

Spoiler

Those are simply skins (taken straight from SFMods?), and that too skins I have never seen being used in anyone's gameplay. Don't even get me started on the sheer number of skimpy/bikini skins available for the female characters...and there's only 8 females in the SF4:AE roster lol (vs 31 males).

It's best to stick with the original/default character designs when talking about sexualization.

 

[havoc33]

Anything can be construed as racist/sexist/homophobic/whatever if you over analyze it hard enough.

Exactly.

I'm amazed that this thread has gone on for so long. Enjoy your lives people. Stop getting annoyed at everything and everyone around you and you just might turn out a more happy person overall.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

As a black man, Capcom has done some stuff to piss me off. IE. Resident Evil 5.

-snip-

Yeah, stopped reading there. If RE5 pissed you off and you're pulling the race card, your arguement for SF being sexist or racist can't be a very good one.

I never followed the whole outcry around RE5, was it simply the fact that the majority of the zombies were black, or the way black people were portrayed?

OT: Streetfighter? hell yes uses a lot of stereo types. is it offensive? in my opinion, no, only playful. but I am coming from the position of a 30 something white guy with disposible income, so probably immune to seeing it as offensive

 

[kingthrall]

Cammy is my favorite character to play, I love her kicking moves.

Also yes, the game is so much inferior to its older generations. The best fighting game was killer instinct and I look at the new Xbox game and it looks like a pile of horse fertilizer.

I find like 1 or two games a year that have interest, the rest are not even remotely worth paying attention to, just clone copies with 100$ worth of dlc attached.

 

[rbstewart7263]

As a black man, Capcom has done some stuff to piss me off. IE. Resident Evil 5. But I don't think that they come from a place of hate. To quote Yahtzee, "They're just idiots!". I love them, but damn it, they can be really fucking stupid sometimes. Recently my library just got Street Fighter 4, so I played it with my little sister, this is my first Street Fighter experience, AND I have never heard of any other characters besides Ryu. So I pick the black guy in every fighter I get to and I get to Dhalsim. And he looks fucking crazy... I eventually figured out he was Indian not black, but he still looks like a huge stereotype.

Then we get to Cammy...

And fucking hell, right then and there I just figured out my sister is going to be a feminist...
Cammy's main attribute (besides me kicking ass with her character every time) is her as-athletic abilities. And also that booty don't lie!

But seriously, I Cammy also looks crazy as shit too. I have no problem with women being sexy in games as long as they can also be fleshed out, fully realized, 3 dimensional characters, but this is FUCKING Capcom. I didn't play the story, and maybe she's the best female character since Jade from Beyond Good and Evil, but something makes me doubt that.

Don't get me wrong here, with the hour I spent playing Street Fighter, I had a fucking blast. It was badass. I loved playing it. But I also felt dirty for enjoying it. I don't know guys, What is your opinion? I'd love to hear it.

As a black man, Capcom has done some stuff to piss me off. IE. Resident Evil 5. But I don't think that they come from a place of hate. To quote Yahtzee, "They're just idiots!". I love them, but damn it, they can be really fucking stupid sometimes. Recently my library just got Street Fighter 4, so I played it with my little sister, this is my first Street Fighter experience, AND I have never heard of any other characters besides Ryu. So I pick the black guy in every fighter I get to and I get to Dhalsim. And he looks fucking crazy... I eventually figured out he was Indian not black, but he still looks like a huge stereotype.

Then we get to Cammy...

And fucking hell, right then and there I just figured out my sister is going to be a feminist...
Cammy's main attribute (besides me kicking ass with her character every time) is her as-athletic abilities. And also that booty don't lie!

But seriously, I Cammy also looks crazy as shit too. I have no problem with women being sexy in games as long as they can also be fleshed out, fully realized, 3 dimensional characters, but this is FUCKING Capcom. I didn't play the story, and maybe she's the best female character since Jade from Beyond Good and Evil, but something makes me doubt that.

Don't get me wrong here, with the hour I spent playing Street Fighter, I had a fucking blast. It was badass. I loved playing it. But I also felt dirty for enjoying it. I don't know guys, What is your opinion? I'd love to hear it.

Alright so I have a question and I havent really been able to ask it until right now so please indulge and forgive me as everyone has heard this before. But how is Re 5 racist? Would you have seen them all being white and acting like that as racist?

as for your criticisms for streetfighter go I cant find any merit to them. I dont know exactly how any street fighter character is more or less interesting than the aforementioned mortal combat characters. To me there all just skins with moves to em and thats all they need to be.


Edit: Ok Feeqmatic answered it ok thank you Feeqmatic. I looked through the posts after postingthis but there you go.

Yeah I can see how thats kind of offensive. logically ole girl should be darker in that hot african sun by default even if she is born with light black skin. But then none of the characters tan so thats neither here nor there I suppose.

 

[rbstewart7263]

I mean, as far as I know...he is THE original black guy in street fighter.

Birdie Predates Balrog, and so does the character Mike. Unless you consider Mike and Balrog (M. Bison originally) to be the same person, but as far as I know their only similarities are being black and boxers.

Which brings me to the other reason I quoted you and brought that up: Capcom are really uncreative.

The problem is, that doesn't make their game not racist and/or sexist, it just means it's because they're idiots. I doubt there's any malice involved, but it's still what it is.

ah I forgot about birdie, don't play the games much anymore so didn't think about him.

and yes, I generally put mike and balrog together considering the only reason they changed the names was fear of likeness rights coming from mike tyson due to the similarities.

(There are possibly more credible sources out there, but here: http://streetfighter.wikia.com/wiki/Balrog )

and yes they are idiots about it, and there certainly isn't any malice involved, but when EVERY character is a stereotype, I find it hard to argue about any of them really. (now sexist on the other hand, is a decent argument considering stats and exposure and whatnot. but I don't really have an opinion here or there on that.)

To be fair while black people today practice a variety of arts. back then black americans were well known for there prominence in boxing. nothing wrong with that. White trash with tattoos still dominates mma though WOOT! lol jk

 

[rbstewart7263]

I never got the controversy behind Resident Evil 5. Africa + Zombies = African Zombies. You shoot them because they're undead, not because they're black. The only offensive thing I can think of is the portrayal of the Ndipaya tribe, and you might argue they're taking the Indiana Jones route of caricature (never heard a peep about the portrayal of Peruvian tribesmen in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, not even from my Peruvian buddies). There's a general concensus it's dumb and harmless.

Because there are only black people in africa right? I was actually talking aboutthis yesterday with a dude at work. I don't know how little people know about africa, but there are other ethnicities than black, black, and really black. Africa is a ( really big) continent. There are black people, white people, Middle eastern people, hell even asian people. But for some reason everyone think that Africa is full of poor black people. Also fuck that tribal stage.

OT: Really, you are going to jump in on the latest street fighter game and start yelling racism?Racism isn't the word for this. I'm starting to believe people have no idea what racism even means. Is Street fighter Prejudice? Maybe. Stereotypical? Sure. Racist? No.

Next you'll be telling me they discriminate against the LGBT community for x reasons.

Well Scotland has black people too but less than 2% last I checked. ergo had this game taken place there Id think itd be appropriate if every person in the game was scottish. also africa is a big place and while some places have a variety like south africa I dont think that this is the part of africa they are trying to depict albeit Im not sure the part that there thinking of is being depicted well anyway.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

In order to be called sexist/racist it has to be discriminatory and portray that sex/race in a negative manner. But Street Fighter is basically one giant pile of cartoonish stereotypes...none of whom are supposed to be taken seriously.

No. Cartoonish stereotypes can be sexist / racist. In fact, positive stereotypes can be sexist / racist.

 

[C.S.Strowbridge]

Seems to me you willingly ignored all the sexualized male costumes in order to prove your point.

Having big muscles is good if you are a fighter.

Having big boobs is bad if you are a fighter.

Drawing idealized males is not to turn on women, it's a power fantasy for men.

 

[Requia]

Seems to me you willingly ignored all the sexualized male costumes in order to prove your point.

Having big muscles is good if you are a fighter.

Having big boobs is bad if you are a fighter.

Drawing idealized males is not to turn on women, it's a power fantasy for men.

The male bodies (Aside from E Honda) depicted in Street fighter are *absolutely terrible* for fighting. Those guys are all dehydrated and carb depleted, it's the body of a bodybuilder, and completely dysfunctional to try and perform that way (note the real world MMA fighter up the thread, note how his abs are barely visible, and Liddel fights in a weight class so has a much lower bf% than a less regulated fighter in good condition). Some of the women (Chun Li in particular, but I'd take Cammy or even Sakura over most of the men if asked to bet on real people who looked that way) on the other hand have serious muscle and a bf% appropriate for the task and their gender.

Worth noting the men actually have some quads though, still one up on Kratos in the functional body department.

 

[Erttheking]

Speaking as someone who's only seen the series from a distance...I guess it can be racist, but I sorta see it as the stupid silly harmless kind of racism. Like how I'm Irish-American and the sole Irish character in punch out was a freaking crazy cheating son o a *****. Come to think of it, Punch Out kind of does the same thing with every character being a stereotype. And I think that's why it doesn't really bother me, if it's racism it's equal opportunity racism. Every character of every nationality gets mocked, and that diffuses the offensive nature of it for me. Kind of like how I normally get annoyed at women designed for fanservice but I'd be up for it if the men were just as sexualized.

Resident Evil 5 however, that's a bit of a different story. Especially considering that there's apparently a level where you gun down tribals in mud huts. I mean, there's a freaking difference between comically over the top stereotypes whacking each other with over the top moves until one falls down, and then there's gunning down stereotypes on mass. One just doesn't feel right. Not saying that Capcom is racist, but you can do racist things without being racist.

 

[pilouuuu]

As many have already said, NO, they're not effing racist or sexist! They're funny! USA should learn a thing or two about Japanese people.

Nowadays everything is considered racist or sexist. Really? Chill out, guys and gals. Have some fun. Laugh about yourselves too. I hate this freaking politically correctedness in USA. Games are for having fun. Hopefully they don't offend anyone. But if they do, then don't be so uptight and try to laugh about it. Or if you prefer just stop enjoying everything because there's a slight chance they may be racist or sexist.

 

[Yuuki]

In order to be called sexist/racist it has to be discriminatory and portray that sex/race in a negative manner. But Street Fighter is basically one giant pile of cartoonish stereotypes...none of whom are supposed to be taken seriously.

No. Cartoonish stereotypes can be sexist / racist. In fact, positive stereotypes can be sexist / racist.

Well then in that case you can call Street Fighter sexist / racist all day

I don't think Capcom really care and personally I no longer care what people are offended by (in the wake of recent years). At this point everything is sexist / racist / etc.