Jimquisition: The FarCry Racism Adventure

[tzimize]

That was seen as a white man and a local? I just saw a pompous villain and his goon. Their ethnicities are vague and kinda muddy, so I didn't really have any assumptions. It wasn't until I saw this video that I was aware of the controversy nor the context of it.

snip* Political correctness is something we DO NOT NEED in art. *snip

I know it's just semantics, but I think you're confusing "political correctness" with "out of context whistle-blowers." They aren't the same thing. I agree with the rest of your comment and I'm sure that we share the same values, but don't throw around the term "political correctness" in the same fashion that the people you dislike throw around the word "racist".

I dont think I am. but english is not my first language so I might be wrong. When I say political correctness I mean people censoring themselves and their opinions to not appear racist or even inconsiderate. As an example, I mean people being appalled at the use of the word ****** in Mark Twain, without considering the context of the book, and wanting the language "cleaned". If this is not political correctness I might have misunderstood the phrase.

The same problem is found in the image from Far Cry 4. People cry wolf, and do not consider the context. Jim pointed out that Ubisoft has not granted us the whole context yet, but really. Are Ubisoft the Ku Klux Klan? Are they Nazis? Have they acted in a way in the past that makes it legit to assume they are all racist assholes? No. So why the hell should anyone do so now?

 

[Grabehn]

I don't know if it's just me or the culture I was raised lacked any "we fucked X race in the past" thing, but people going out of their way to call out everything as being racist as of late is kind of annoying.

I saw the image and I saw a guy on a chair with his hand in another guys head, and I assumed it meant the one in the chair was some kind of bad guy/crime-boss of sorts.

Maybe it's just that I'm just a bit lost when it comes to the "see image, yell RACIST!" train.

 

[Sticky]

Again, not my argument and you're putting words in my mouth. I never said you had to like or agree with the way the industry is.

You keep saying "This is not my argument stop putting words into my mouth" as you keep backing off of more and more of your arguments. Which is okay, you're entitled to change your opinion or argument at any time, but then:

I did defend it. What more am I supposed to do? You don't like the product, don't buy it. You are not owed perfect choices exactly to your liking by the industry. I'm not sure why that needs any more defending.

And then I have to ask why you don't think this mindset is harmful to the industry. The problem that consumers (this includes you) can fix is complacency, you can not buy their product and still be wary/distrustful of the company for the future.

Really if the consumers as a whole had a lot more distrust for the industry, they would be completely unable to slip half of the garbage they do onto the consumers. Which is why shows like Jimquisition exist ultimately: to raise awareness about the industry woes and offer examples on how to fix it.

Really I don't see why you pull the consumer entitlement card on an issue where the consumers can completely alter the course of the industry. Opinion of the industry has and always will be driven by the consumers.

 

[paukkuii]

Not Ubisoft's fault that people goes to made up conclusions and they have no obligations to release more information until they feel like it.

 

[Voulan]

Is it racist that I didn't see the apparent racism and decided it was not racist? Totally not a racist here.

Seriously though, you can tell he's not a 'white guy' - quite possibly his whole story is about the Orient becoming increasingly westernised and a portrayal of colonialism. Or even a depiction of classism. At any rate, I was too mesmerised at his fabulous pink suit to get up in arms about it. I wish they'd keep this artwork instead of the PC one they're changing it to.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Does anyone else think our swish, suit wearing fiend looks just a little like Julian Assange?

 

[Thanatos2k]

It's pretty great that Ubisoft has distracted everyone with this stupid racism argument, so in the smokescreen people wouldn't see some of the actual outrageous things that they've done with Farcry 4, like ALREADY ANNOUNCING DLC.

What's outrageous about that?

DLC announced at this point should not exist. Any DLC they're announcing now should be in the damn game at launch, included in the price of the game. DLC announced at this point is content confirmed that was cut out of the regular game.

It's really a new low. The excuse of "DLC is what we work on after we're done with the game" isn't even being used anymore. They just shamelessly cut content and sell it back.

 

[JoJo]

That was seen as a white man and a local? I just saw a pompous villain and his goon. Their ethnicities are vague and kinda muddy, so I didn't really have any assumptions. It wasn't until I saw this video that I was aware of the controversy nor the context of it.

Same, if anything I thought people might complain about the campiness of the villain and possible gay-codedness, not the ethnicities. People will seem to look for hidden meanings and 'subtext' in anything, apparently.

Unrelated but I can't honestly see how the villain in the pink suit isn't white though, he looks exactly like a muscular Scandinavian. Maybe they're using that crazy definition where a tiny smidgen of non-European blood makes you non-white for some reason. At a stroke he could be half-Asian I guess.

There are many people who "look white" but aren't, especially in Asian countries where plastic surgery is relatively common, but also plenty of people with "obviously" black parents.

Only racists would assume you can tell someone's race immediately, at all times, by their physical characteristics.

You calling me a racist? If someone looks white (or black, or Asian) then for all practical purposes they are that race, the amount of blood from other races must be minimal for them to have no resemblance to another race what-so-ever. If anything, the one-drop rule is racist as it assumes to be white you have to have 100% pure European ancestry (hint, no-one does) when the same strict standards are not applied to other races, for example most people considered 'black' in the US have some European ancestry.

Returning to the pink-suited man, I had another look at a better quality picture and I can see the East Asian features if you look closely, although I know European people including my own father who have a similar face type, so it's easy at a glance to mistake one for the other.

 

[Ichigo]

Ok first of all, i fail to see the racism in the Far Cry picture. That brings me to second of all. If people start screaming about thinks they don´t know anything about, it´s no ones fould except their own. That is an attitude too many people have. Pointing the finger at someone or something because they think to know everything about it. That is where Racism started. It would be better for all of us, if we would start to use our brain more and our mouth less, because it bacame very famous to hate stuff before there is a reason. If you want to blame someone for the whole reason of this weeks JQ blame the idiots who started streaming before they new why, not the pupblisher (even if i think their clouk and deggar shit is really stupid, but not a valid argument in this case).

 

[andago]

It's pretty great that Ubisoft has distracted everyone with this stupid racism argument, so in the smokescreen people wouldn't see some of the actual outrageous things that they've done with Farcry 4, like ALREADY ANNOUNCING DLC.

What's outrageous about that?

DLC announced at this point should not exist. Any DLC they're announcing now should be in the damn game at launch, included in the price of the game. DLC announced at this point is content confirmed that was cut out of the regular game.

It's really a new low. The excuse of "DLC is what we work on after we're done with the game" isn't even being used anymore. They just shamelessly cut content and sell it back.

Why not? If they've already had an idea about a side adventure that wouldn't fit or would be considered extraneous to thr main narrative, why would they include it in the main release? Do you think that if they continue to have ideas to add into the game they should continually delay the final release? As far as i'm concerned, if the main release works as a whole on its own merits, they can sell or announce DLC for it whenever they want, it only becomes an issue if it truly affects the core product.

 

[Casual Shinji]

No, there's isn't a mathematical equation that proves he's clearly evil, but the common sense is slapping one in the face with a mackerel. Even with all the sociopathy in games, I can't see how anyone could be confused over this cover unless they've been living under a rock for the past 10 years.

Have you played the GTA series, particularly in the past 10 years?

Indeed I have, and even with all the heinous things your character does in-game or in cutscenes, it stays the hell away from anything racist. Or should I say, it always makes damn sure the protagonist thinks racism is wrong. Even Trevor has his little side mission with the border patrol guys. Making clear to the audience that eventhough he's a violent, psychotic sexual deviant, he's sure as hell no racist.

I'm not claiming there's no racism in games, but no (professional) developer would ever make a game where (or give the impression that) the protagonist is full-on racist. Even in Bioshock: Infinite where the racism is very much condemned, it still gets down played significantly for fear of controversy.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Are you kidding me? Racist? People don't seem to even know the fucking meaning anymore.

If the picture was of many white men dominating many ethnically different men I could totally understand, but one "white" man dominating one ethnically different man could be entirely circumstantial and therefore not racist. Racism is the belief that you are inherently better than someone else due to yours or his race. I don't see that at all in this picture.

 

[Jangles]

The FarCry Racism Adventure

It is time to talk about potential racism in videogame boxart. We all knew this day would come, and yet we did nothing. I'm being dramatic of course, so let's just talk about fabulous pink suits and a publisher that kept its lips sewn shut.

Watch Video

Jim,

As a longtime viewer of your show, I must say that I am disappointed. I know you probably don't care, but this video was not up to your standards.

Instead of acknowledging outright how misplaced the accusations of racism were, and capitalizing on the fact that the only thing people cared about was that it was assumed that a white man was subjugating a darker man, you ended up talking about Ubisoft. Rather than talking about the issue, you aimed to please everyone and you disappointed everyone.

1. As soon as a Ubisoft rep said the pink suited man wasn't white, a lot of people simmered. Can only white men be racist?

 

[Machine Man 1992]

I don't know what's sadder: that people couldn't recognize the guy wearing a flamboyant pink suit as the villain, or that they cried racism before the damn game was even released.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Meh only those with issues about race would find it racist.I don't have issues with race as I do not see race so I never saw it(or RE5) as racist.

 

[Dragonbums]

I wouldn't call it racism, but there is a need for perspective here. Colonialism was a very real thing, and it fucked to hell a fuck ton of countries that are still struggling with the after effects today. In a vacuum, there would be nothing wrong with the picture. Just a smug dude demonstrating power over his underlings.

However we don't live in a vacuum, and for many people in many countries, this represents white colonialism. Rich white man in a suit, having power over the thuggish intellectually less natives of an undeveloped island. Like I said above, people and countries are still struggling with it's effects today.

It's the reason why Japan is still hated by all the other Asian countries even today. They were fucking nasty when it came to their attempts to colonize their neighbors and even after all those years people still hate the shit out of them for that.

That's not to mention the countries that are still being fucked over today. Like our ham fisted "democracy" into every country that has our corporate interests, so on and so forth. So no, I don't think Ubisoft did anything deemed racist. It's a pretty nice cover if I were to just take it at face value. But for a lot of people it brings up a lot of other things as well. The reactions in my opinion are still threads of white superiority still surviving in the minds of minorities and lesser countries more than any ill intent by Ubisoft with the cover.

 

[theApoc]

I wonder if we ever reach the point where people look at a box art like FC4's and only see two humans instead of a "white human" and a "slightly darker skinned human".

Nope, probably not, that would make too much sense, something the world is generally severely lacking. The fact that this is even being mentioned as controversy is absurd.

 

[Bocaj2000]

That was seen as a white man and a local? I just saw a pompous villain and his goon. Their ethnicities are vague and kinda muddy, so I didn't really have any assumptions. It wasn't until I saw this video that I was aware of the controversy nor the context of it.

snip* Political correctness is something we DO NOT NEED in art. *snip

I know it's just semantics, but I think you're confusing "political correctness" with "out of context whistle-blowers." They aren't the same thing. I agree with the rest of your comment and I'm sure that we share the same values, but don't throw around the term "political correctness" in the same fashion that the people you dislike throw around the word "racist".

I dont think I am. but english is not my first language so I might be wrong. When I say political correctness I mean people censoring themselves and their opinions to not appear racist or even inconsiderate. As an example, I mean people being appalled at the use of the word ****** in Mark Twain, without considering the context of the book, and wanting the language "cleaned". If this is not political correctness I might have misunderstood the phrase.

The same problem is found in the image from Far Cry 4. People cry wolf, and do not consider the context. Jim pointed out that Ubisoft has not granted us the whole context yet, but really. Are Ubisoft the Ku Klux Klan? Are they Nazis? Have they acted in a way in the past that makes it legit to assume they are all racist assholes? No. So why the hell should anyone do so now?

That's the problem: it's not censorship unless you're actually racist. A politically correct society simply means that a person will be called out for their prejudiced actions. The only problem with this is that people tend to be ignorant and judge based on superficial conditions. They don't know that Tom Sawyer is a book about overcoming racial prejudice, and they don't know that American History X is an anti-race-war film. And if that's the case, then they are just as ignorant as the racists for not even knowing their own source material. But PC means that "Scrub me Mamma with a Boogie Beat" will never be made again in the US. Political correctness simply means that people can't get away with racism like they used to. Trust me, it has it's place.

As for Ubisoft, instead of solving the issue immediately and giving context to the people who think that it might be a bit racist, they choose to be cryptic. This move is really stupid, and they deserve whatever they get. No, they aren't a racist organization that own slaves and deny the holocaust, but it's still a bad PR move. Worst yet, it's an easy problem to solve, and that's what annoys both me and Jim.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

I usually agree with Jim, but throwing the majority of the blame for this little fiasco at Ubisoft is ridiculous. This is just another case of dumb people looking for anything to cry foul about. They look for racism or sexism, or whatever their favorite hot-button issue is, and they find it. Chalking it up to Ubisoft not giving enough context is a cop-out. The game comes out in 6 months. That's not that long to wait to hold off on condemning a game for being racist. Heck, there'll probably be a lot more info out before then. Ubisoft should not have to cater to idiots' hot-button knee-jerk reactions.