Ha ha! Racist.

[Radoh]

Yeah, I went into that with no predisposition to believe it was racist, and guess what?
Not racist.
I went through it a second time just to be sure, and I still find no racism to be had.
What I see is not racism, but tropes, lots and lots of tropes. But hey, it's an island nation somewhere that isn't white country so it must be perceived as racism.

 

[Doom972]

Doesn't seem racist to me. It's a fictional tribe, so making it stereotypical is fine, since a fictional tribe of people of all colors wearing jeans and t-shirts would be stupid.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I'm probably a little bit racist to be fair, but I don't know, I didn't see any racism. They're a tribe. You can show a tribe as tribal without racism coming into it.

Admittedly, having a white protagonist who has to solve the tribe's problems could be racist, still seems like they've got something over on him.

 

[TwiZtah]

Can't we just stop taking everything so goddamn damn fucking serious every damn time.

 

[Fr]anc[is]

At least I am going to be able to remember who this woman is and why I should give a flying fuck 5 seconds after receiving a mission from her, unlike Far Cry 2's completely interchangeable characters with the same horrid accent.

 

[Aaron Foltz]

I don't know if you've seen it yet, but the new trailer for Far Cry 3 is now out and it is...well, a little problematic.

blah blah blah

Let me get this straight: a sexy "exotic" priestess asks you (a white westerner who only turned up the other day) to use her magic and lead her tribe of chanting natives (the kind with tattoos, bones and loincloths, naturally) against some evil, modernised corperate types? Oh yes indeed. It's only a trailer, so perhaps this won't turn out to be Dances with the Last Avatar 2.

But then again... discuss.

The fact you think this is racist is in fact making you a racist. I know cuz I have a black girlfriend...

 

[GTwander]

From what I gather in that trailer, the game has weed, titties and ultraviolence.

Sign me the fuck up!
(I loved FC2, though. So it was a given anyway.)


~Oh yeah, "get over yourself, OP". Methinks you just like hearing yourself talk.
Half those tribals were white, and you don't see me getting offended over it (the paleface that I am).

 

[blindthrall]

Oh dears...

If that's supposed to be an island in the south pacific somewhere then it's woefully ignorant.

Yeah, I don't know why they didn't just use the Maori. I've never heard of an instance where they weren't proud of being a warrior culture, so I can't see them having a problem being depicted as such.

As for the game itself...let's just hope the gameplay's good. Looks like Ubisoft's back to retardland after Farcry 2's thought-provoking, if not entirely cogent story.

 

[Baron von Blitztank]

I see nothing wrong with that. If anything it's made me more interested in the game!
But then again I was ok with the blue tribal zombies in Resident Evil 5 so go figure.

 

[maninahat]

I think a lot of people are missing the point I was making. I don't have a problem with the game featuring tribes in the first place (I would have said so, if that were the case). I take issue with the way the game depicts the tribe, and the way the game seems to be using them in the story.

There are good and bad ways to handle tribal cultures, and I think that depicting them as manic, chanting cannibals who treat a random white guys as their saviour counts as a bad.

 

[krazykidd]

Hey how bout we get some white tribal guys instead of always black/indian backwater tribes that are less solhisticated that anyone else? I mean show some originality people .

 

[Bobic]

Oh you do love to be offended don't you, well we can hardly stop you in your daily pleasures.

Oh, did I say I was offended? I don't need to be offended to see something is wrong.

What exactly was supposed to be racist here? The island tribe stereotype?

Besides the stereotyping (which is a by the numbers caricature of tribals), there is also the whole colonial aspect of a westerner coming along and appropriating someone else's culture, becoming their leader/savior because they are apparently too primitive/weak to fend for themselves. That's when a stereotype moves from being silly, to being a form of cultural condescension, carrying an accidental, pro-colonialist message.

Hence why I bring up the Heart of Darkness references from the previous game. Far Cry 2 was very clear on the evils of foreigners coming along, trying to dominate a local culture for their own gain. That message seems to have been forgotten though - as far as the trailer shows, you become some kind of champion of the locals in Far Cry 3, a "warrior to defeat them all". That's really the worst part of all of this.

Never attribute to malice, what can be attributed to stupidity.

Or, in this case, don't blame on racism what can be blamed on lazy story telling.

How many games have you experienced where YOU are the chosen one and only YOU can stop them? Surely if it wasn't racist there, it wouldn't be racist here? It's just another case of Mr Protahg Onist being the chosen saviour, it doesn't suddenly become racist because a fictional tribe have chosen you rather than a bunch of Nords or whatever. To say that it does, is, in fact, the very definition of racism, treating people differently based on their race.

Also, and this is just a petty gripe, but are you necessarily a westerner in this game? I remember Far Cry 2 having a whole cavalcade of protagonists of varied ethnicities. Will this too?

 

[G32420NL]

From what I gather in that trailer, the game has weed, titties and ultraviolence.

Sign me the fuck up!
(I loved FC2, though. So it was a given anyway.)


~Oh yeah, "get over yourself, OP". Methinks you just like hearing yourself talk.
Half those tribals were white, and you don't see me getting offended over it (the paleface that I am).

Aah we always like a bit of the ultraviolence dont we my brothers, it all lookes quite horrorshow. all this jabbering about racism is giving me something of a pain in the gulliver.
(sorry, had a bit of an clockwork orange flashback there)

But i can't see any racism going on, but then again you can find it in many things if you really dig for it.

I must admit that this trailer didnt sell me like the others, but that is more because of the weird charactermodels

 

[Radoh]

I think a lot of people are missing the point I was making. I don't have a problem with the game featuring tribes in the first place (I would have said so, if that were the case). I take issue with the way the game depicts the tribe, and the way the game seems to be using them in the story.

There are good and bad ways to handle tribal cultures, and I think that depicting them as manic, chanting cannibals who treat a random white guys as their saviour counts as a bad.

Okay one, the guy at the beginning merely said that some of them on the northern island are cannibals, you are assuming there is one tribe up on that island, making the priestess lady and her merry band of warriors are those cannibals, that's folly on your part.
Also, assuming since the previous game had multiple protagonists of varied backgrounds, it should be reasonable to assume that the white guy's arms featured in the trailer are one set of multiple different pairs of arms of varying colors you can stare at during cutscenes.
It should also be of note that a lot of the tribals featured are most certainly not the same color as the priestess, so it is to be assumed they take all kinds in and use them for their war with 'corporate bad guy', you being white is of no consequence to them as it is shown they don't care.
Additionally, you think that maybe you are the chosen one not by merit of skin but rather of actions that could take place before you show up to priestess lady?

TLDR; You seem to be jumping at racism awfully quick considering we've seen nothing of substance from this game yet.

 

[peruvianskys]

Never attribute to malice, what can be attributed to stupidity.

Or, in this case, don't blame on racism what can be blamed on lazyness.

I don't think anyone is arguing that Far Cry 3's developers sat down and asked each other, "How can we get the message across that black people are bad?"

However, sometimes laziness can lead people to fall back on comfortable cultural stereotypes that, upon examination, rest on racist caricatures and offensive Colonialist assumptions. The whole "White Westerner comes in to primitive, exotic tribe and delivers them to freedom by using the powers of a stock dark-skinned character" is a really shitty trope to use and I don't think it's "hypersensitive" to point out when a piece of media relies on racist stock characters and disrespectful cliches, even if it wasn't done with any intention.

The majority of racist things are done without people even consciously deciding to be racist; our white Western culture just has a lot of unexamined, invisible prejudices that come out when we we fall back on stock characters and cliches developed in times where stories were framed with Eurocentric, colonialist views.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

This is insulting to all mankind and i'm deeply offended!
Shameless racism of the worst kind and it should not be tolerated!

Cheap trick to get us to watch the trailer...but it worked!

 

[Bobic]

Never attribute to malice, what can be attributed to stupidity.

Or, in this case, don't blame on racism what can be blamed on lazyness.

I don't think anyone is arguing that Far Cry 3's developers sat down and asked each other, "How can we get the message across that black people are bad?"

However, sometimes laziness can lead people to fall back on comfortable cultural stereotypes that, upon examination, rest on racist caricatures and offensive Colonialist assumptions. The whole "White Westerner comes in to primitive, exotic tribe and delivers them to freedom by using the powers of a stock dark-skinned character" is a really shitty trope to use and I don't think it's "hypersensitive" to point out when a piece of media relies on racist stock characters and disrespectful cliches, even if it wasn't done with any intention.

The majority of racist things are done without people even consciously deciding to be racist; our white Western culture just has a lot of unexamined, invisible prejudices that come out when we we fall back on stock characters and cliches developed in times where stories were framed with Eurocentric, colonialist views.

Perhaps you should try reading the bulk of my post rather than my silly little intro. . .

 

[Evil Smurf]

This is offenesive to my beliefs! I don't believe in natives and YOU try force them down my throat, Shame on you.

 

[daveman247]

I dunno.... could you be jumping the gun a bit? We aren't getting the whole story from just this short trailer. There may be additional context we are missing

 

[beyondbrainmatter]

I think all natives in all games should be modelled after the Sentinelese [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_people].

They are noted for vigorously resisting attempts at contact by outsiders.

-Wikipedia

lol