Most video games star white males.

[ZeroMachine]

Most movies are about white males

Last I checked, this was a forum section about video games.

Seems a very typical white privilege thing to do to shift the blame so that something racist suddenly becomes irrelevant.:/

That's the most racist thing I've ever seen anyone say on here.

On some subconcious level? Yes.

As en masse you find people who claim to think that they find black women unattractive and a myriad of racist notions that contradict their claim that "I'm not racist" and "I don't think any races are any better than any others".

Thing is, that most people don't realize that they hold racist notions. And white privilege tends to erase the idea from their minds that society might be racist.

1. No.

2. I don't find most black women attractive. That doesn't make me racist. That just means that I don't find most black women attractive. It doesn't make me think they're any lesser than I or any white girl that I do find attractive.

3. Again, that comment is, in and of itself, racist.

TO BE FAIR, I've seen this point brought up time and time again. You are in no way the only person to pick up on the fact that most protagonists are white males. It is, in fact, somewhat of an issue- I, personally, would like to see more games with more diverse main characters.

But the problem isn't really racism (I'll stick with that side of the argument, I think we've seen a good boost in female main characters). A little bit, yes, denying that would be foolish. BUT, when making games (or any other story-telling medium, but let's just stick to games), the developers work with what they know and what their greatest target audience is.

Most developers are white. I honestly rarely see black developers in behind-the-scenes stuff. So, it'll be easier for them to write for a white character.

Most gamers are white. Therefore, it'll be easier to market white characters in games.

This isn't so much racism as it is just cold, hard facts. Do you think that black people don't play games as much because "whitey" doesn't want them to? 'Cause, let's face it, the pure idea of that is just silly.

Racism exists. Racism in marketing exists. Racism in games (movies/books/tv shows/etc) exists.

But pointing at it and going "THIS IS BAD. YOU MUST CHANGE IT." will do nothing. The problem has nothing to do with developers seeing black people as inferior. It's a market problem.

 

[OneTwoThreeBlast]

Well of course most video game stars are white males. We live in a female-oppressive patriarchy where men are considered more powerful, more interesting, and more deserving of exaltation. Until we fix what is truly wrong with how our society approaches gender, we shouldn't expect any less.

EDIT: and while one may legitimately argue that more gamers are male, perhaps we should ask ourselves whether this a symptom of how games portray women rather than a cause.

 

[Thyunda]

Spoiler: Spoilered for brevity

...why is it a problem that most games star white males? If there's no reason for him not to be a white male...let him be a white male. If your game is set in a country with a mostly white population, and you don't consider his race to be an important factor in his character, then make him a white male, because then you don't have to concern yourself with other aspects of the story that might involve race or gender.

Wow. You're obviously not aware of it, but this is a ridiculously ignorant statement.

Please explain this comment.

I can't speak for yunabomb, but the problem for me is seeing white as "default" and non-white as "other". It's not that any particular character is a white male - after all, why not? It's that almost all of them are. If there's no reason for him not to be a white male, then surely there's no reason for him not to be a black male, or latino male, or South Asian male - or indeed a woman of any race.

I'm guessing nobody read the second half of my post.

FICTIONAL CHARACTERS ARE NOT REAL PEOPLE. THEY ARE SYMBOLS. A WHITE MALE IS A BLANK CARD. WOMEN HAVE BEEN OPPRESSED UNTIL FAIRLY RECENTLY. A FEMALE PROTAGONIST REPRESENTS GENDER EQUALITY.

That's the point. A white male is not a blank card. White is not default, non-white exceptional. Male is not default, non-male exceptional. Why should a blank card be of one particular race or gender? One of the best examples of "blank card" character from the last few years is Chell from Portal, and she's a non-white woman.

(I read your original post; I just didn't agree with it.)

And I notice you remember Chell quite easily. She stands out. Valve did a grand job creating a memorable character, despite her being a blank card. With her being female, you remember HER and not just her actions. Most games like to make you feel like you've accomplished those things, not the character you play as.

Besides. There are always exceptions to the rule. Sometimes those exceptions are secretly conformers in disguise - making a character a minority (I don't like the term, makes it sound like there's one black for every fifty whites) just to show that they can be as uninteresting as a white male is conforming to the rule.

Chell, however, IS an exception. Unless you want to dig really deep and conjure a feminist metaphor out of nowhere. But I'm not THAT kind of person, so I'll let you have her.

 

[Thyunda]

Well of course most video game stars are white males. We live in a female-oppressive patriarchy where men are considered more powerful, more interesting, and more deserving of exaltation. Until we fix what is truly wrong with how our society approaches gender, we shouldn't expect any less.

Ahem. No. Drop the female oppression crap, it's gone. That stuff ended twenty years ago. And that's pushing it. Now we just have the after effects of the female oppression. And since fictional characters are not people, and are in fact visual metaphors, a female protagonist carries undertones that a developer may not want their game to be about.

 

[OneTwoThreeBlast]

Well of course most video game stars are white males. We live in a female-oppressive patriarchy where men are considered more powerful, more interesting, and more deserving of exaltation. Until we fix what is truly wrong with how our society approaches gender, we shouldn't expect any less.

Ahem. No. Drop the female oppression crap, it's gone. That stuff ended twenty years ago. And that's pushing it. Now we just have the after effects of the female oppression. And since fictional characters are not people, and are in fact visual metaphors, a female protagonist carries undertones that a developer may not want their game to be about.

Really? When did they stop paying women less than men for the same work? Did that end today? Because last I checked, it was still the case. Just because things have improved doesn't mean the issue of oppression is over and done with. It's a mistake to simply brush it off as "soooo yesterday."

 

[Redryhno]

Yes, that includes the ones made in Asia.
Uncharted
Gears of War
Crysis
Assassin's Creed
Metal Gear
Legend of Zelda
Super Mario Bros.
Deus Ex
Mass Effect
Max Payne
Hitman
Kane & Lynch
Devil May Cry
ect. x 1000
Surely I am not the only one disturbed by this.

Not trying to "disturb" or "upset" you, etc., but who cares if your pixels are white or not? I mean, if you're disturbed by your little guy breaking crates that belong to someone else being white, why not also be "disturbed" by the guy being a guy at all? Where's the ugly, completely unattractive woman as a protagonist that has such a small cadre of games?

Making a white protagonist in a video game isn't racist.

The tendency for video game developers to make protagonists as white is racist.

Haven't I seen this same kind of thread somewhere else posted by someone with this exact picture complaining about how white supremacy has ruined the world? or something to that effect. And it's no more racist than two black guys sitting on a porch, car, etc. yelling at each other, with every third word being "****** this", "****** that", and not giving a care in hell, and as soon as someone that's not black come up to them - doesn't matter if they've been friends for twenty years - and say, "hey nigga" and immediately being attacked for being racist, beaten to a pulp, and subjected to breathing out of a tube for the rest of his life. And the best part was, the guys get off a battery charge because he was being "hated on",

I don't really see how this is a big deal anymore, except for the extremes we've gone to keep everyone "happy", and the PC world the world's turn into is so sad from my view seeing as how you are no longer allowed to say black, mexican, honduran, white or asian anymore because that's "racist" and you then have to turn everything you say into an extra three syllables when the people you use them for don't care as a whole whether or not you call them by their "proper and respectful" names, come on, where's Caucasian-American or whatever the proper term is, why can't we be angry by not being "respected" as our own little section of society?

I don't see what the difference is between a black guy shooting an AK and a Russian, besides their probably differing political views or whose faceless country sent them into the warzone. In short, I think you're just blowing this whole thing out of proportion. so the polys are white? does it lessen your interest in the game, or are you one of those people that, you know, found out really early that that skin-deep myth/legend/etc. didn't apply to you?(sarcastic joke... kind of)

 

[Syphous]

Most "leading men" are white. That's true for books, movies, television, and video games. But really, who cares? Does it even matter? Who is sitting at home thinking "I would love to play Uncharted, but the main character is white, and for some reason that's fucking racist!"

 

[Thyunda]

Well of course most video game stars are white males. We live in a female-oppressive patriarchy where men are considered more powerful, more interesting, and more deserving of exaltation. Until we fix what is truly wrong with how our society approaches gender, we shouldn't expect any less.

Ahem. No. Drop the female oppression crap, it's gone. That stuff ended twenty years ago. And that's pushing it. Now we just have the after effects of the female oppression. And since fictional characters are not people, and are in fact visual metaphors, a female protagonist carries undertones that a developer may not want their game to be about.

Really? When did they stop paying women less than men for the same work? Did that end today? Because last I checked, it was still the case. Just because things have improved doesn't mean the issue of oppression is over and done with. It's a mistake to simply brush it off as "soooo yesterday."

Are you aware that women don't have to sign up for national service, whereas men do? It's gender INEQUALITY. Not oppression. Fuck me, can tell you've grown up in the past two decades. No idea what oppression is.

 

[OneTwoThreeBlast]

Most "leading men" are white. That's true for books, movies, television, and video games. But really, who cares? Does it even matter? Who is sitting at home thinking "I would love to play Uncharted, but the main character is white, and for some reason that's fucking racist!"

I personally don't think it's a big problem, but when coupled with the use of women as merely fodder for male gamers and when placed within a larger context of patriarchy, it's just one more question we should ask.

More importantly to us as gamers, we should ask whether this pushes women away from gaming. We all would like gaming to become more socially acceptable and more widely embraced; it's possible that we are hindering that goal.

 

[yunabomb]

Most "leading men" are white. That's true for books, movies, television, and video games. But really, who cares? Does it even matter? Who is sitting at home thinking "I would love to play Uncharted, but the main character is white, and for some reason that's fucking racist!"

I can't really think of any women who have a problem playing as a male protagonist. There are, however, many women who don't like the fact that most games have male protagonists and/or very few women in them.

Same principle applies for race.

 

[psilontech]

Posting in a troll thread.

... Just thought I would join in:

Is a character having a low/high melanin content in their skin or the presence or absence off a vagina hurt anyone?
No?

Then everyone get off it.

 

[OneTwoThreeBlast]

Well of course most video game stars are white males. We live in a female-oppressive patriarchy where men are considered more powerful, more interesting, and more deserving of exaltation. Until we fix what is truly wrong with how our society approaches gender, we shouldn't expect any less.

Ahem. No. Drop the female oppression crap, it's gone. That stuff ended twenty years ago. And that's pushing it. Now we just have the after effects of the female oppression. And since fictional characters are not people, and are in fact visual metaphors, a female protagonist carries undertones that a developer may not want their game to be about.

Really? When did they stop paying women less than men for the same work? Did that end today? Because last I checked, it was still the case. Just because things have improved doesn't mean the issue of oppression is over and done with. It's a mistake to simply brush it off as "soooo yesterday."

Are you aware that women don't have to sign up for national service, whereas men do? It's gender INEQUALITY. Not oppression. Fuck me, can tell you've grown up in the past two decades. No idea what oppression is.

Again, less oppression does not mean absence of oppression. And I live in the US. Men are not forced to sign up for national service, so fuck me, I can tell you've grown up somewhere else. Oh dear, now I guess I can completely dismiss your views!

 

[Sentox6]

Really? When did they stop paying women less than men for the same work? Did that end today? Because last I checked, it was still the case. Just because things have improved doesn't mean the issue of oppression is over and done with. It's a mistake to simply brush it off as "soooo yesterday."

You can follow a few interesting links here [http://lattenomics.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/do-women-really-get-paid-less-than-men/]. In particular:

There are lots of reasons. Men and women do not work the same number of hours. They do not work in the same occupations. They do not work continuously the same, and so on.

You know, if it was really true that you could hire a woman for three quarters of what you could hire a man with exactly the same qualifications, then employers would be crazy not to hire all women. It would be insane to hire men. Not only would it be insane, it would probably put them out of the business because the ones that were smart enough to hire women would have such a cost advantage that it would be really hard for the others to compete.

This is the single biggest problem with the "women get paid less than men" theory: it requires that misogyny is stronger than capitalist greed.

Yeah, right.

 

[Stravant]

To me complaining about lots of games having white males as main characters is like complaining about every video game character in history being right-handed.

It doesn't really effect the gameplay at all (except maybe in some rare cases in RPGs), so why does it matter?

 

[OneTwoThreeBlast]

Really? When did they stop paying women less than men for the same work? Did that end today? Because last I checked, it was still the case. Just because things have improved doesn't mean the issue of oppression is over and done with. It's a mistake to simply brush it off as "soooo yesterday."

You can follow a few interesting links here [http://lattenomics.wordpress.com/2008/05/07/do-women-really-get-paid-less-than-men/]. In particular:

There are lots of reasons. Men and women do not work the same number of hours. They do not work in the same occupations. They do not work continuously the same, and so on.

You know, if it was really true that you could hire a woman for three quarters of what you could hire a man with exactly the same qualifications, then employers would be crazy not to hire all women. It would be insane to hire men. Not only would it be insane, it would probably put them out of the business because the ones that were smart enough to hire women would have such a cost advantage that it would be really hard for the others to compete.

This is the single biggest problem with the "women get paid less than men" theory: it requires that misogyny is stronger than capitalist greed.

Yeah, right.

Well, I don't know how one can come to a concrete conclusion either way. When you can empirically measure the two, let me know what the results are.

I don't feel like going into all the other ways that women are treated as "less than" men. We all know the arguments. We all know the counter-arguments.

I've lost interest. But hey, thanks for not answering like a jerk. I appreciate your respectful tone in the absence of agreement.

(Witticism Out)

 

[Thyunda]

Well of course most video game stars are white males. We live in a female-oppressive patriarchy where men are considered more powerful, more interesting, and more deserving of exaltation. Until we fix what is truly wrong with how our society approaches gender, we shouldn't expect any less.

Ahem. No. Drop the female oppression crap, it's gone. That stuff ended twenty years ago. And that's pushing it. Now we just have the after effects of the female oppression. And since fictional characters are not people, and are in fact visual metaphors, a female protagonist carries undertones that a developer may not want their game to be about.

Really? When did they stop paying women less than men for the same work? Did that end today? Because last I checked, it was still the case. Just because things have improved doesn't mean the issue of oppression is over and done with. It's a mistake to simply brush it off as "soooo yesterday."

Are you aware that women don't have to sign up for national service, whereas men do? It's gender INEQUALITY. Not oppression. Fuck me, can tell you've grown up in the past two decades. No idea what oppression is.

Again, less oppression does not mean absence of oppression. And I live in the US. Men are not forced to sign up for national service, so fuck me, I can tell you've grown up somewhere else. Oh dear, now I guess I can completely dismiss your views!

No, but if World War III broke out and suddenly America was in need of manpower (it's highly unlikely, of course, but the capacity is there), you would be hauled off to fight a war that you may or may not believe in, and the women of your country will be safe at home, with their comfortable jobs.
There is no oppression of women. At least not in polite society. Human traffickers are another story, but again, the main reason women are so valuable as slaves is because somewhere along the line in the past, men took charge and handed women between them. We'd be in the same boat if women had done the same. Hell, I'm sure somewhere, at some point, there's a guy being traded between women at gunpoint.

Oppression was the result of the Nine Years War. The Teutonic Knights were built on oppression. The Jews of Nazi Germany were oppressed. Slavery is the most famous example of oppression. Overtly preventing women from holding status was oppression.
People these days...you'll cry oppression at anything. WOMEN GET PAID SLIGHTLY LESS THAN MEN! THIS IS OPPRESSION!

Just shows off total ignorance. Oh, and then there's the people who claim that the white men are now oppressed. Pft. Not at all. Though there is an interesting scrap of truth to that argument. It seems that in an attempt to show equality and tolerance, a man slapping a woman is considered socially abhorrent, but a man punching another man in the face is considered a fair fight.

 

[Caverat]

After reading the first post, this is a trap folks, just so out of the blue and short-to the point? Troll trap. Either a troll, or an overly sensitive fuckwit. Regardless, not worth the time.

 

[mysecondlife]

Pretty sure the game developers weren't expressing hatred towards non-caucasian when they were making white male protagonist games. So no. Not racism. and I'm not bothered by it.

Also, I'm not a white male.. if that helps my argument.

 

[JWAN]

Most videogame players are white males.

Its called "targeting an audience" and its how main stream games market themselves to ensure that a large number of people buy them.

But if you truly feel that strongly about this subject wither make your own games or get a group together and petition the companies. Think of the forum like space. No one can hear you scream and thats the sad truth.

 

[MightyMole]

As others have said, it's just marketing. Majority of gamers are white males so majority of protagonist are white males. Of course the gaming community is growing to be much more diverse, but at the moment white males are still the majority.

If anything I see more people complaining about girls being in games then there not being enough. Most of the time when girls are in a game, people jump to claim that they are sex symbols and being used to fulfill some sexual fantasy, mostly because the majority is... Well you get the point.

Personally, I've never really cared about race or gender in a game. My favorite genre is horror, a genre in which games featuring female leads arr 50/50 to male leads. For every Harry Mason there's a Heather Mason. For every Chris Redfield, there is a Jill Valentine. For every Edward Carnby, there is a Miku Hinasaki. Though maybe that says something...