On Television, Cinema and Race

Tanglebones wrote:
H.P. Lovesauce wrote:

What is wrong with you people?

Have none of you seen Taye Diggs in Way of the Gun? If we're making post-Craig Bond black, he should get it provided he can fake the accent.

Prederick wrote:

(There's a six-letter-word i'd like to use to describe this mindset, but I won't, because it always derails the conversation.)

I hate to be pedantic, but "cracker" has seven letters.

You can make Post-Craig Bond whatever color you want, but don't make him not English.

Speaking as an Australian who actually quite liked Lazenby I have to agree. It's bad enough British (and Australian) actors have to play Pan-European villains in every US action movie ever without adding the indignity of a foreign Bond.

Besides which, if you want to go with a black Bond and don't cast an Englishman you're making matters worse. It's almost saying "a black man can't be British".

LarryC wrote:

Wow. I didn't realize there was a black dude in Thor. In retrospect, yeah, I guess there was. It never occurred to me to take note of their skin coloration. I mean, they're gods, right? They can look however the heck they want to look. Heck, Zeus can be a frickin merman if he wants to.

There were humanoids in Thor? It never occurred to me to take note of their physical characteristics.

There were? Huh. You're right! There ARE humanoids in Thor. How strange. All the main characters are humanoids, in fact. Huh.

LarryC wrote:

There were? Huh. You're right! There ARE humanoids in Thor. How strange. All the main characters are humanoids, in fact. Huh.

Crazy. I never noticed it until now.

People like Will Smith and Denzel Washington emphasize how bullsh*t this whole thing is. The argument coming out of Hollywood seems to be 'people won't like black movie stars, except when they like black movie stars, but those ones are exceptions for... some... reason'. Both Smith and Washington are talented dudes, but they aren't one-in-a-billion exceptions that prove the rule; they were charismatic in popular movies and so people like them. If you put black people in movies and they are charismatic and the movies are okay, you will produce black movie stars. This has already happened; it continues to happen.

The only thing these focus groups and studies demonstrate is that all things being equal people prefer what is familiar. Movies contain mostly white people, so when you show some random non-movie containing a white cast and a black cast most people will go with the familiar one. But when it comes down to a specific film, I can't imagine the ethnicity of the lead character is going to be much of a sticking point. If Harry Potter had been played by a black person, would the kids have noticed? Maybe they say "Huh, he doesn't look like the guy on the book cover", and then they forget in the first 10 minutes and the publisher reprints the book covers.

I suppose I might be overly optimistic about all this, but it seems so silly at this point. Fictional characters have fictional bodies. Bringing ethnic diversity to media is a thing we should do for a whole variety of reasons. The internet trolls who complain about black Heimdall went to see Thor anyway. What is the hold up?

I Cameron's defense, most of the Na'vi roles were played by minorities.

Well, actually, played by CG impersonations of minorities But, as Seth said, I was talking about the Airbender movie, rather than the Cameron flick.

You know, Idris Elba might really carry off a black Bond very, very well. He sure looks sharp in a suit, and he's totally got the presence to make it work. Maybe an athletic Bond, like Connery.

Oh, edit to add: hey, no talking about replacing Matt Smith yet. I want at least one more year out of that Doctor, although I'm not too sure I want another year of Moffat.

Chiwetel Ejiofor = one of the best actors out there and his portrayal of the doctor would probably actually get me excited enough to actually go see the movie.

Pred - I would just like to say I agree with you, and as a white male it makes me uncomfortable how every movie stars white people about white stuff. Someone made a comment about Tyler Perry movies - I actually love Tyler Perry movies. Not all media should be race specific. I am no LarryC (I definitely notice that they are black) but I recognize in the characters people/situations I know, and it is that commonality of experience that I relate to - not their color.

So I think the main take-away from this thread is that Idris Elba needs to be in more things. I agree.

Also, a black Doctor would be a great way to extend the recurring "still not ginger" regeneration joke.

muttonchop wrote:

So I think the main take-away from this thread is that Idris Elba needs to be in more things. I agree.

Also, a black Doctor would be a great way to extend the recurring "still not ginger" regeneration joke.

How about a black ginger Doctor?

Stengah wrote:
LarryC wrote:

There were? Huh. You're right! There ARE humanoids in Thor. How strange. All the main characters are humanoids, in fact. Huh.

Crazy. I never noticed it until now.

And they talk by squirting air through their meat while slapping meat flaps together. Disgusting.

SallyNasty wrote:

Pred - I would just like to say I agree with you, and as a white male it makes me uncomfortable how every movie stars white people about white stuff. Someone made a comment about Tyler Perry movies - I actually love Tyler Perry movies. Not all media should be race specific. I am no LarryC (I definitely notice that they are black) but I recognize in the characters people/situations I know, and it is that commonality of experience that I relate to - not their color.

That's exactly right. In fact, it can often be more meaningful if it's presented through an unfamiliar culture. Also, if nothing else, seeing the same people/cultures all the time is just boring.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

I know his reputation and all, but the closest thing to a Tyler Perry movie I've seen is The Boondocks episode "Pause", which had me in tears.

Such a great episode.

Grubber788 wrote:

I feel like video games are worse than film and television with this phenomenon. I think Ryan or Jeff from GiantBomb said something like video game developers are generally afraid of addressing racial issues directly, so they often use allegories to talk about the issue. I'm not saying I want to see more black or Asian protagonists, because adding diversity for the sake of diversity doesn't seem like the right "answer." What I would like to see is game developers not being afraid of the weight race inherently carries in media (for better or worse).

Speaking as someone who has spent the last few weeks occasionally reading the comments at Kotaku, I can understand why developers are afraid to touch this. The industry's as white as Poland, and they're facing two problems, the issue of criticism for their portrayal of a minority character if they get it wrong, and an audience that kicks and screams bloody murder and "CENSORSHIP!" anytime someone even brings up the concept of "hey, maybe the vast majority of female characters shouldn't be tits first, characterization twelfth." I mean, I think it's going to happen eventually, it's just moving on a very, very, very, very, very slow speed. At some point, a huge AAA CoD/Skyrim/Uncharted-level game will come out with a minority lead, and there will be issues, I can pretty much guarantee that, but it'll be progress.

Slow, painful, grinding progress.

gregrampage wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

Pred - I would just like to say I agree with you, and as a white male it makes me uncomfortable how every movie stars white people about white stuff. Someone made a comment about Tyler Perry movies - I actually love Tyler Perry movies. Not all media should be race specific. I am no LarryC (I definitely notice that they are black) but I recognize in the characters people/situations I know, and it is that commonality of experience that I relate to - not their color.

That's exactly right. In fact, it can often be more meaningful if it's presented through an unfamiliar culture. Also, if nothing else, seeing the same people/cultures all the time is just boring.

Yes this. A bajillion times this.

Sidenote: Other thing I hate when people say while discussing this issue. "Well race shouldn't matter, so why are you complaining?"

Yes, race does still matter. If it didn't matter, i'd easily be able to identify more minority protagonists in games other than Carl Johnson and Faith. Oh, and let's toss in Jade from BG&E, even though her ethnicity is never made clear, and the main character in Jade Empire.

/thinks

Hey, how many minority protagonists have there been in games in like... the last decade?

Prederick wrote:

Hey, how many minority protagonists have there been in games in like... the last decade?

Two? Jade and the guy from GTA: San Andreas? Also the guy from Prey, if that event counts?

4xis.black wrote:
Prederick wrote:

Hey, how many minority protagonists have there been in games in like... the last decade?

Two? Jade and the guy from GTA: San Andreas? Also the guy from Prey, if that event counts?

FIFA 12

I talked about this last year some time, so I'll be brief: (After writing: "Well, brief for me, anyway.")

There's a very good reason for game developers especially to use stereotypes, particularly for characters that don't have much screen-time. There's simply not enough interaction in most games to establish the motivations of such characters, so stereotypes act as short-cuts. That goes for ethnicity-based stereotypes, gender-based stereotypes, or profession-based stereotypes. All of them are about very quickly and efficiently sketching a character that people feel like they "know". When you have a character that cuts across stereotypes (say, a female scientist), there's more effort that has to be put into place to flesh out the character, or other stereotypical roles have to be emphasized (like: female scientist? Okay, make sure she wears glasses, and maybe make her more absent-minded than normal. Or the like.)

A big reason that this is troublesome for female and non-Caucasian characters is that there are less stereotypes around for those characters, and they're stronger. We don't have a "default image" of what a male black scientist looks like (although Lucius Fox in the recent Batman films provides a pretty nice male black inventor.) We have only a couple of images of "female space marines" to work with. (And in fact, that might have something to do with my interpretation that Ashley Williams was hispanic: transference from my memories of Private Vasquez in Aliens.)

Anyway, what this all means is that it's really really important to have more diverse main characters--because it's the main characters that you have time to really go in depth. You can break stereotypical molds, because you have room to explore the actual character through dialogue and behavior throughout the game. So it's the main characters that really establish new archetypes, and those new archetypes can act as the base for new stereotypical characterizations that can be used as short-hands for later side characters.

If you don't have main characters--or more generally characters with a lot of screen time--who are diverse, you can still create these new archetypes. But it mostly happens when there's a complete vacuum around the role (like Private Vasquez the hispanic female space marine: before Aliens we didn't have much of an idea of what *any* space marine was supposed to be like), or when the character is portrayed by an actor with a very strong presence (like Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox--when he's on screen, you can't help but think "that is an awesome awesome guy... who's the clown in the bat costume?".)

If you default to Caucasian male main characters, you create the stereotypical impression that only white men can be anything--that anybody else is restricted to the roles set aside for them. That's nasty, and it's self-reinforcing: because of that tendency, simply having a non-white-male main character is cutting across the grain and requires more characterization effort to not feel like some sort of token effort.

In short: I want to see more diverse main characters. In games where you get to choose what your main character looks like, I want the main character's closest friends to be characterized strongly and against stereotypes. Go ahead and use stereotypes for the random guy you meet once or twice, who sends you out to slaughter leets or whatever--there's absolutely no time to do more. But don't use them for the characters that follow us all game long: we need to have a much larger variety of images out there. And hell, while you're at it you can make some of them break role in the other way: it *also* helps break the more hurtful stereotypes when you make the white men fill them sometimes. Why don't we have a white male sexpot sidekick to moon over our badass hero once in a while?

Let's not forget the monumental cornholing that Verhoven did of Starship Troopers. Jeez. Where to start. There are so many things wrong with that movie adaptation of the book, but among them is the fact that they took a Hispanic main character in a military from all different races and cultures and turned them all into the Aryan Nations version of GI Joe.

Ugh.

Prederick wrote:

Speaking as someone who has spent the last few weeks occasionally reading the comments at Kotaku, I can understand why developers are afraid to touch this. The industry's as white as Poland, and they're facing two problems, the issue of criticism for their portrayal of a minority character if they get it wrong, and an audience that kicks and screams bloody murder and "CENSORSHIP!" anytime someone even brings up the concept of "hey, maybe the vast majority of female characters shouldn't be tits first, characterization twelfth."

Keep in mind, too, that game designers have a different situation than movie producers/directors in that the game designer is literally creating the cast of a game. The studio and management team will have some say in whom they prefer for certain roles (especially the leads), but a good chunk of the cast is made up by people who will audition and show interest. There are plenty of roles where the character's race wasn't really set in stone, or it was completely changed based on a strong audition.

With that in mind, a game designer's race and gender choices are all seen as deliberate and ones they have complete control over. So the (sometimes obnoxious) question of "oh why did you decide to make that character be a (insert negative trait) and make him/her (insert race/gender)?" comes up with a lot more force.

4xis.black wrote:
Prederick wrote:

Hey, how many minority protagonists have there been in games in like... the last decade?

Two? Jade and the guy from GTA: San Andreas? Also the guy from Prey, if that event counts?

Chell, technically, but that pretty much doesn't count. Wow, I'm really drawing a blank on any other ones though.

gregrampage wrote:
4xis.black wrote:
Prederick wrote:

Hey, how many minority protagonists have there been in games in like... the last decade?

Two? Jade and the guy from GTA: San Andreas? Also the guy from Prey, if that event counts?

Chell, technically, but that pretty much doesn't count. Wow, I'm really drawing a blank on any other ones though.

Come on, guys! There's loads.... Here, let me get you started:

Unicorn from Peggle
Zerg in Starcraft 2
Khajit/argonians in Oblivion and Skyrim (if you chose to play them)
The Limbo of the Lost protagonist (i'm pretty sure everything about that game was "minority")
Any Jedi games (I mean, there's so few Jedi now after the great purge that they must be classed as a minority, right?)
Link from Zelda

I'm sure you guys can come up with a few more!

Well, it's worth pointing out that pretty much all of the customizable avatar games let you play just about any minority you like, either in game or in real terms.

Ugh. I just went through my Steam library trying to find minority characters and the best one I could find was Lewis from Left 4 Dead. Then I remembered how terrible people could be when forced to play a woman or a minority. That was pretty unbelievable.
Lewis is a great example of how minorities should be portrayed in games.

Shepard is a great example of how minorities should be represented in games.

I... Uh... Why?

Going through my list of games...

Rico Rodriguez from Just Cause 2. I haven't played that enough to comment on the portrayal though.

Does Star Wars Republic Commando count? They're technically Maori I guess.

Longest Journey and yeah, Beyond Good & Evil.

I only picked the ones where you had no choice but to be a minority, so I didn't count games like Left 4 Dead, Dead Island and Skyrim. I could probably go back and count things like King's Bounty: Armoured Princess and I may have missed a few others, but even then, it's pretty slim really... I did identify lots of games with white male protagonists that could easily have been minorities instead though. Not saying they all have to be, but the proportion is certainly skewed.

4xis.black:

Redwing has the essence of it. Minorities are often portrayed as having their "ethnicity" be a significant part (and often the only significant part) of their character or personality. I'm all for portraying all the cultural nuance of all cultural segments of the globe, but I would like equal representation. I would like an American Indian protagonist who was primarily portrayed as a Space Marine, because his being an American Indian is just taken for granted - because everyone supposedly is, or doesn't really care.

Equally, I want a "white" protagonist portrayed as a stereotypical example of his "race" and as NOTHING ELSE. Okay, maybe I don't want that last bit for any protagonist or side character, or anything; but again, equal representation for all would be good.

Generally speaking, there are two levels of acceptable minority characters: The 'non-racial' character who is non-white but whose cultural background is not in play, and the 'racial' character who is non-white and whose non-white experience is explored in some way. (Unacceptable minority characters would be the lazy stereotyped ones.) Ideally every game should include the former, and it would be good if more games attempted the latter.

The Shepard who appears on marketing materials and as the default character model is a white male. You could make him non-white and nothing would change plotwise, but this is true of every 'create your own' protagonist I can remember. And while he might be a better example of a character than the personality-free Dovahkin from Skyrim, he is no better an example of a minority because in no significant way is he actually a minority.

So, yes, I suppose if default Shepard were Chinese or something he would be a good example of how not to make the gaming landscape 98% Caucasian, but being as he is a white guy by default he is hardly a good example of ethnic anything. He is instead the very model of the status quo.

Yeah, I cannot for the life of me think of too many non-customizable minority characters in major video games. I think you could play as a black guy, an Asian guy and an Indian guy in Far Cry 2, right? I would love to see more Indian and Asian characters in games, but we're only just starting to see those two groups' popularity rising in sitcoms, so it'll still be probably 5 years before we get a meaningful Indian character in a video game.

I'm really enjoying playing as a Latino lady in Saints Row the Third. I think SR3 is a great satire of the current state of games. I think it even subtly and effectively touches upon race as well. I know my next essay for my own website will be about this game.

Shepard is a good example of a minority character because as far as I can tell, he is absolutely neutral, meaning that he's neither a minority nor a majority. He's just human. I would have a greater problem with him if he were "portrayed" as Chinese by dint of having a bad English accent or some other painfully awful Chinese stereotype.

LarryC wrote:

Shepard is a good example of a minority character because as far as I can tell, he is absolutely neutral, meaning that he's neither a minority nor a majority. He's just human. I would have a greater problem with him if he were "portrayed" as Chinese by dint of having a bad English accent or some other painfully awful Chinese stereotype.

He's unintentionally Canadian. Mark Meer couldn't entirely hide his own accent. FemShep doesn't really have that problem though.

Edit:

And lo and behold, the voice of Commander Shepard:
IMAGE(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/58/Mark_Meer_%28cropped%29.jpg/200px-Mark_Meer_%28cropped%29.jpg)

Good luck getting that out of your head.