184: Gangbangers, Victims, and Whores

[Christina Gonzalez]

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.

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[The_Prophet]

Good article, and I agree that latinas are unnoticable in games, and that they are often criminals in games.

 

[mattaui]

Speaking of Latinas, isn't Chell from Portal a Latina? Of course, I'm gauging that entirely off of the color of her skin and hair, since even her name isn't entirely identifiable.

Is perhaps the real problem that some games try too hard to focus on race an identifying element? Does 'identity gaming' have all the pitfalls of identity politics?

 

[vortexgods]

I'd argue that she is (well Half Latina) because she's based on Alesia Glidewell who is half Brazilian, as is Zoey (also based on Glidewell) from Left4Dead.

I tend to think of making female characters in games as sexy as not being a problem, but you can't really say that Chell is particularly sexy because you mostly are her and don't see her. (Now, GLaDOS, on the other hand rrowr...)

 

[elmaxx]

Speaking of Latinas, isn't Chell from Portal a Latina? Of course, I'm gauging that entirely off of the color of her skin and hair, since even her name isn't entirely identifiable.

Is perhaps the real problem that some games try too hard to focus on race an identifying element? Does 'identity gaming' have all the pitfalls of identity politics?

I really don't think games per se focus on a specific social segment. I think people that take things waaaay too serious and write long winded obvious editorials.

I believe that Miss Gonzales is taking the GTA franchise and characters way too seriously, besides, if the game developer company makes fun, or uses a certain stereotype is to make the story go forward, nothing more. The companies do NOT focus on the ethnical traits, people that have a bone to pick do. Nothing wrong with expressing the author's opinion on that. But, as a Guatemalan (latin american, and proud of it), a gamer and a consumer... i think its great that people that make games take the time to feature at least the tip of the iceberg of a culture, even if it's just a stereotype.

Besides, i really do *hope* the author is of enough age to recognize that parody and comedy do go hand in hand, and its a huuuuuge feature in the GTA universe. Please do not write Editorials that lower the intelligence of the gamers and consumers to people that cannot recognize the difference between a game, and a social issue.

Tolerance and acceptance are not skills acquired in video games, these are acquired at home, at an early age, and enforced with some studying and personal experience.

The "think of the children" attitude does not apply, because *gasp!* the game has a label that makes it exclusive to be bought and expected to be played by people older than certain age.

If the author chooses to be offended by a game... sorry to put it this way, but it is the choice of the author. If you ask me, GTA IV is a fun game, and the stereotypes, situations, locations and other details make up for replayability of the whole experience.

 

[Vortigar]

Elmaxx:
I didn't think the tone of the article was all that indignant about the whole thing. The impression left in me at the end was that nobody had really noticed, not even the latina writer, nor the developer.


Which brings me to another thing, the point of this article. I remember having this kind of dicussion before about black people in games. (I thought of calling them African American but games aren't always set in America so I needed a wider term than that. It's a shame I feel the need to write such an explanation to be politically correct at all really.) And this article didn't really bring anything new to the table I think.

Southern Americans make up a large part of the total amount of Americans, so do African Americans, both are portrayed stereotypically in games, if at all. It's only been about ten years since actual characters have been introduced to games though and this is a medium that thrives on stereotypes. In America main characters are white Americans, in Europe white Europeans, in Japan white Japanese, etc, etc. Slowly other groups are creeping in. I wouldn't think anything of it.

But you can bet that whenever a game comes up that has a Dutch element in it my interest is peaked. I grinned like a maniac when I first saw Capcom vs SNK's Kinderdijk stage for example.

 

[dukethepcdr]

Maybe if more "minorities" made video games, there would be more characters in games that are to the liking of the author of this article. I get a little sick of people writing articles like this complaining about racial inequality in games, movies etc. If you are so worried about it, don't just complain, do something about it. Make your own game staring latinos or whoever you want. You can't force writers and developers of games to make what you want. In order for them to even finish a game that is playable, it needs to be something that they want to invest all that time, effort and money into.

Besides, there also needs to be some feedback from the consumers in the form of buying the games too. There have been games staring "minorities" in recent years like Brave, Prey, Gun etc. but none of them sold very well. It's hard to pitch a game idea to publishers if previous games along the same lines did poorly.

 

[nhex]

This was an interesting article. Now that I think of it, I don't believe I've ever actually read something examining the roles of Latinos in video games.

 

[CPLWeeks]

Really? have we reached a Zeitgeist in the world where we start applying equal opportunity to video game characters? If that's the case, I'm going to start a campaign to challenge the racist language on the Equal Opportunity disclosure forms given out by all employers and government agencies in America. I want them to change 'White' to 'European-American'. Jesus.

 

[MorkFromOrk]

Video game studios are kinda like what Hollywood studios were some 50 years ago when it comes to dealing with non Caucasian characters. There are some pleasant exceptions though like Zoe and Domasi Tawodi.

 

[Littaly]

When games become mainstream people will start noticing ^^

Until then, yah, broken stereotypes are always nice.

There was an article a while ago about black males in video games..

 

[Sylocat]

I can't think of very many female characters of ANY race who aren't sexualized to some degree or another. Weak defense, I know.

For that matter, I can't think of many game characters who don't fall into these archetypes. The fact that we know virtually nothing about Maria Santiago aside from "Dom's wife" is hardly surprising, not just because she's a Latina but because she's a character in a macho fantasy game. Isabela Keyes? The character art of every female character in games involves them striking a "come and get it" pose. What's new about all this?

 

[BrotherRool]

I notice a lack of Swahili people in games nowadays. I'm thinking something should be done about this, especially in Britain where 95% of the population are white and British. That means for every 100 unique characters in a game we should only expect 5 to be from any minority group at all.

On a (slightly) more serious note (yes that was sarcasm/irony) if we're talking about under-represented groups, what about the Welsh? 5% of the UK's population are Welsh but when was the last time you heard a Welsh accent on any game?

 

[Grenbyron]

With or without ethnic diversity, people will still buy games. I would bet that if you had a wildebeest in a suit with a nice variety for guns and a challenging task, the game would sell. Lets not kid ourselves that the game industry is picking on or using a specific group because it believes a game will sell. The main issue is the people you have making Video Games. You want to see Latinos in a better light, have more Latinos sign up for game design. This is why most heroes in games are of the backgrounds of those that make them.

 

[Ronwue]

There really is a fine line to tread when considering what the next best step is with this. While I do think that humans are equal in right and all that crap, in games, striving for political correctness is not really something that should be focused on. Sure, do not discriminate on the development level, but if the character is to be a racist bastard, don't flare up on the game because of that.

There are a myriad of stories out there and not all of them are politically correct. I would dare to say that most are not politically correct. But they are still great stories and it would be a pity if they were not told. Sure, developers could go on research stuff to portray different classes of different people in different lights, but in the end what is the point? If it does not really help the story in any way why would it be necessary. How would you put a university degree in GTA Y. It's absurd. The game is about gangs and the way they murder each other.

In the end most people (and I'm talking about an overwhelming majority here) do not notice these things. I would rather game developers spend the research money in diverse cultures that are not the point of the story, into actually improving said story, optimizing the game, optimizing gameplay or adding more content. Sure, if you have something to spare or have made a point of portraying some group or other in whatever light go for it.

The train of political correctness is picking up even more speed on a track which had its top speed limit passed a while ago.

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

Besides, i really do *hope* the author is of enough age to recognize that parody and comedy do go hand in hand, and its a huuuuuge feature in the GTA universe. Please do not write Editorials that lower the intelligence of the gamers and consumers to people that cannot recognize the difference between a game, and a social issue.

Tolerance and acceptance are not skills acquired in video games, these are acquired at home, at an early age, and enforced with some studying and personal experience.

It isn't an editorial. Nor does it lower the intelligence of anyone, the article is just pointing out the good and bad of latin characters in games. If talking about this so troublesome that you feel the need to post the view that it isn't necessary in not one but two articles, perhaps you should question why it makes you so uncomfortable.

And last time I checked, video games are played at home. Why should they not encourage tolerance and acceptance?

 

[Skipid]

Why does it matter?

Why would someone go out of their way to examine if this race is as equal to this race in a video game?

Isn't it the goal of all anti-racist communities that "Race, Skin color or nationality does not matter"? Isn't that what you would call "Equal" ?

And for the record, in GTA4 I remember clearly that an "Hispanic-sounding" cop was shouting at me. But then again, Rockstar have always been a little "ahead".

 

[ExileNZ]

Wow. Talk about flying off the handle, guys.

Much as I hate 'bitching' or political correctness articles, I really don't think this was either. It was just a "Hey, now that I think about it..." article and why not? Minorities are this week's theme, after all. Interesting that she hadn't even noticed til lately.

If I have any complaints it's that a couple of important positive role-models are missing from the list - Jade from Beyond Good and Evil for one (though I confess I'm not entirely sure of her origin either, given there's no Earth in the game). Smart, capable and if you like sexy too, though the sexual angle is never actually pushed.

Anyway, let's call a spade a spade, shall we? This wasn't some political doom and gloom piece, so let's save the trash talk for then.

 

[Nelsormensch]

When I think of latinos/latinas in games, the first thing that comes to mind is Grim Fandango. I was a little puzzled that the author didn't mention it at all, but maybe that was deliberate given Grim Fandango takes place in a very fantastic setting. Even so, no mention at all seems like a significant oversight.

In general, games like Grim Fandango seem like a mighty fertile ground for looking at culture/race/ethnicity/whatever. Instead of wading into the quagmire of real world issues, perhaps more game could do something similar to what Neil Gaiman did with African myths in Anansi Boys.