Mafia II Accused of Racism, Take-Two Responds
- Thread starter Tom Goldman
- Start date
Update: I've since been informed that we are no longer allowed to pick on the Nazis anymore either. Apparently, France is objecting due to the fact that most WWII games depict them in a bad light as well.
According to the assistant to the French Minister of Culture, a Mr. Francoise DeHarve, the Sub Asst. Minister of Gaming Entertainment, "We demand that all future games based on WWII be depicted outside the territorial borders of France, or of her colonies at the outbreak of hostilities. We maintain that these games which are based inside of our prestigious country's borders do not depict France in a favorable light. Henceforth,companies that release games that do show depictions of Nazis occupying French soil will be brought to litigation at our earliest convenience."
According to the assistant to the French Minister of Culture, a Mr. Francoise DeHarve, the Sub Asst. Minister of Gaming Entertainment, "We demand that all future games based on WWII be depicted outside the territorial borders of France, or of her colonies at the outbreak of hostilities. We maintain that these games which are based inside of our prestigious country's borders do not depict France in a favorable light. Henceforth,companies that release games that do show depictions of Nazis occupying French soil will be brought to litigation at our earliest convenience."
And we wouldn't it want any other way in our Mafia 2 game because it just wouldn't feel right if it was only white American people in it.
If there was black people it would be a Gangster game.
If it was a white man game it would most likely be about war against Russia or almost all parts on Sci-Fi, RPG, RTS, Space and the whole shebang.
Using talibans or Muslims would lead to a terrorist game with war in it.
Nazi becomes WW2 games and Sci fi games with super monsters in them.
Using small teenager you get a "Saving the world game".
With Italian-American/American-Italian people becomes a Mafia game.
This doesn't mean we will only think that Nazi made super monsters. It's a game story, if people like it they like it but they will most likely not bring that to real life.
Well it's understandable, given that there were no Italian-American gangsters during the 40s-50s. I can see why they wouldn't want to be retrospectively associated with that kind of thing.
Seriously? They aren't freaking out about how almost every black guy in the game has a gun, is classified as a "gangster" and will shoot you in the face at the drop of a hat?
French officialdom has always been prone to radical and crazy statements, as well as bizarre protection of the national image.itf cho said:
I don't doubt that they may attempt to litigate (after all, this is the country that attempted to dominate Gruyere production, to the exclusion of the country that actually invented Gruyere and has a frickin' town CALLED Gruyere). But it'd be a joke to most people, and I suspect an openly token gesture even from those who pursue that avenue.
This is just bizarre, and a little disgusting. I sometimes wonder if activists ever stop to think "from the average person's point of view, will this act cause more damage than good to my cause?".
In Britain this very day there's been news of people fiddling our benefits system from the inside to ensure racist treatment of minorities. REAL racism exists, and every fucking tool complaining about perfectly legitimate entertainment causes the birth of another Nick Griffin, or Jean Marie Le Pen, or whoever you have in America.
That said, *I* personally have not played Mafia II. If, as one of the posts suggested, it presents old-school Mafioso in the modern-day world, it is a little racist - to the same extent as GTA is racist, or the Final Fantasy series, or Team Fortress 2. Not very.
We're not in so lovely and peaceful a world that we can start attacking prejudices that are only readily apparent to academics, when there is real hatred to tackle.
yeah thien there will be only happy family friendly games forever like mario HURRAY...wait mario is italian and he has a moustach.....BAN ITQuid Plura said:
In fact, a couple actual Yakuza members who played said that it WASN'T ENOUGH.blakfayt said:
So.... there.
All my feelings have basically been stated already. I believe Take-Two's response to Unico was strong and logical, and the last paragraph of the article also drives home the point;
Next thing they might say that the Legend of Zelda is racist against elves.
Unico, I understand you're trying to combat racism but you need to keep in mind that He Who Fights Monsters should take care not to become one themselves. You are doing just that; you're actively making a lot of things seem racist in your own minds. This does no good for anyone except your own egos at the false sense of 'a job well done'.Tom Goldman said:
Hahaha! Nice one.ninonybox360 said:yeah thien there will be only happy family friendly games forever like mario HURRAY...wait mario is italian and he has a moustach.....BAN IT
Next thing they might say that the Legend of Zelda is racist against elves.
Seriously? I'm speechless.
Mafia is an Italian/Sicilian word. The Italian mafia was something that actually happened. It may not have been the most glorious part of Italian-American history, but that's no reason to ignore it. I hope this doesn't catch on. "Germany and Russia called, they want you to forget they were ever Nazis and Soviets."
Mafia is an Italian/Sicilian word. The Italian mafia was something that actually happened. It may not have been the most glorious part of Italian-American history, but that's no reason to ignore it. I hope this doesn't catch on. "Germany and Russia called, they want you to forget they were ever Nazis and Soviets."
seconded. thats like setting a game in the early roman period and saying "aw they're picking on christians!". or setting a game during the crusades then bitching about the arabs.Kollega said:
ffs children its about the mafia. they are italian criminals. (or sicilian techically)
Guess they should complain about these things as well:
1) Happy Days.
2) Everybody loves Raymond.
3) The Sorporanos
4) Goodfellas
5) Santino Marillia
6) Every single skit thatever did that featured Italian, Italty, poking fun at Italians from WB, Hanna Baraba and Disney.
7) Mario brothers
8) Olive Garden and every other Italian restuart not Italian owned
9) Moe Sizalik from The Simpsons.
10) Lugigi from The Simpsons.
11) The Italian soliders on Under Seige 1
12) Mob wars on Face book.
13) Maria Wars on face book.
14) The Mob and Mafia war charaters cups that you can buy at 7-11
Ahh fuck it!!!! This list can go on forever....
Before my rant here is a quotation that I found from Wikipidia in regards to where the mafia orignated from
"The Mafia (also known as "Cosa Nostra") is a criminal brotherhood that emerged in the mid 19th century Sicily. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct. Each group, known as a "family", "association", "clan" or "cosca", claims sovereignty over a territory in which it operates its rackets ? usually a town or village or a neighbourhood (borgata) of a larger city.
Offshoots of the Mafia emerged in the United States, during the late 19th century, following waves of Italian emigration (see the Italian-American Mafia) but also in Canada and Australia.[1] The term "Mafia" is also employed to name Mafia-type organizations operating under a similar structure, whether Sicilian or not; such as the Camorra, the 'Ndrangheta, the Stidda or the Sacra Corona Unita, as well as foreign organized crime groups.
The link can be found her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia
The time line for this game is in the 1945 to 1957. What do you think that era was like. Shinny happy people and vampires. Times were differnet back then. Raciam was a huge part of it back then and the game barly touches all the ethical and racial disgrimation that actually occured during that time. The mob is not full of nice shinny happy people. Get use to it. History didn't make the Mafia as fun happy people. Neither did they. There was racisum galore from the mob itself nevermind from almost everyone else in that era. Mafia 1 and two sounds very mild compared to The Godfather series, Sorporanos and Goodfellas. Sorry this group kinda dug their own grave in regards to this one. No one told the mob to come over to Canada/America and start crime. They did that on their own.
But seriously whats the point of having a M rated label that clearly dediates what makes the game M rated on the game for a reason to only be used and picked on by some dumb moronons like this group.
The game is mild compared to what is going on in the world right now. And even then the game so call racism content is mild compared to eveything else like Godfather etc. Racisum my ass!!
There only doing this so that way there oranigation to be noticed.
It's a game after all deal with it.
1) Happy Days.
2) Everybody loves Raymond.
3) The Sorporanos
4) Goodfellas
5) Santino Marillia
6) Every single skit thatever did that featured Italian, Italty, poking fun at Italians from WB, Hanna Baraba and Disney.
7) Mario brothers
8) Olive Garden and every other Italian restuart not Italian owned
9) Moe Sizalik from The Simpsons.
10) Lugigi from The Simpsons.
11) The Italian soliders on Under Seige 1
12) Mob wars on Face book.
13) Maria Wars on face book.
14) The Mob and Mafia war charaters cups that you can buy at 7-11
Ahh fuck it!!!! This list can go on forever....
Before my rant here is a quotation that I found from Wikipidia in regards to where the mafia orignated from
"The Mafia (also known as "Cosa Nostra") is a criminal brotherhood that emerged in the mid 19th century Sicily. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct. Each group, known as a "family", "association", "clan" or "cosca", claims sovereignty over a territory in which it operates its rackets ? usually a town or village or a neighbourhood (borgata) of a larger city.
Offshoots of the Mafia emerged in the United States, during the late 19th century, following waves of Italian emigration (see the Italian-American Mafia) but also in Canada and Australia.[1] The term "Mafia" is also employed to name Mafia-type organizations operating under a similar structure, whether Sicilian or not; such as the Camorra, the 'Ndrangheta, the Stidda or the Sacra Corona Unita, as well as foreign organized crime groups.
The link can be found her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia
The time line for this game is in the 1945 to 1957. What do you think that era was like. Shinny happy people and vampires. Times were differnet back then. Raciam was a huge part of it back then and the game barly touches all the ethical and racial disgrimation that actually occured during that time. The mob is not full of nice shinny happy people. Get use to it. History didn't make the Mafia as fun happy people. Neither did they. There was racisum galore from the mob itself nevermind from almost everyone else in that era. Mafia 1 and two sounds very mild compared to The Godfather series, Sorporanos and Goodfellas. Sorry this group kinda dug their own grave in regards to this one. No one told the mob to come over to Canada/America and start crime. They did that on their own.
But seriously whats the point of having a M rated label that clearly dediates what makes the game M rated on the game for a reason to only be used and picked on by some dumb moronons like this group.
The game is mild compared to what is going on in the world right now. And even then the game so call racism content is mild compared to eveything else like Godfather etc. Racisum my ass!!
There only doing this so that way there oranigation to be noticed.
It's a game after all deal with it.
We saw the same thing over "The Sopranos" if I remember.
Like it or not Italy has produced one of the largest, most enduring, and most dangerous series of organized crime syndicates in history. Syndicates which define themselves ethnically and still exist and are very powerful today, with organized crime busts making the news.
Back at the time that "Mafia 2" was set you didn't have a lot of organized crime in the US. The closest thing we had were large Irish gangs that did pretty much the same things, and the Italians killed most of them off in some of the first crime wars the US had ever seen.
Later on of course we did see other ethnic and cultural syndicates develop and have a foothold, and of course games set in more modern times do account for this.
It arguably wasn't until the civil liberties victories of the 1960s and 1970s that you really started seeing other groups of criminals developing in a big way. Sort of ironic, on a lot of levels, and a demonstration of how even the most idealistic efforts can cut both ways.
The bottom line is that "Mafia 2" is absolutly fine as period fantasy.
I'll also say that I think this case here demonstrates exactly why we need to seriously take efforts to curtail "political correctness" in general and stomp on those who want to try and find ways to enforce a ban on "hate speech". Just because something is unpleasant and might fit certain definitions of racism and bigotry does not mean that it's untrue. You start supressing or worse yet re-inventing history so groups like Italians won't be offended by things like The Mafia, and it also prevents people from learning from history and why things have developed in specific ways. A lot of laws and developments in law enforcement exist specifically because of the activities of organized crime, especially that involving tight ethnic and cultural groups that are very, very difficult for outsiders to infiltrate as a result.
On a note that is not directly related, I will point a finger at the politics and political correctness involving native americans, which has lead directly into historical reinventionism. While many get into the whole "good, one with nature Indians" and "evil, greedy white men" thing, it's not and never has been that simple. The way that things are taught now prevent people from actually learning anything about the period. What's more while something of a minority there are a decent number of natives who also get irritated because in an effort to make tribes look more advanced (or noble-primitive) and morally correct than they ever were, a lot of the actual culture and history is lost. A good example of this is how if you look at the tribes down here in the East Coast, you'll find that they weren't as migrant as tribes elsewhere and lived in longhouses and other permanant and semi-permanant structures, they also farmed. People like to portray the situation as the first settlers coming in ans screwing people with no concept of land ownership, that's hardly the case, at least on the East Coast they very much did understand the concept for example, and by portraying things differantly people tend to miss out on how the settlements were, how they farmed, and other details. On some levels this does make them more advanced than a lot of portrayals, but at the same time it also means that when they sold land they did so believing they got a good deal. People criticize settlers and such for trading with cheap baubles, but there were cheap baubles in proportion to the society of the settlers, not in proportion to the natives who couldn't make such things. If a tribe walks off with a couple boxes of costume jewelery in exchange for farm land, and they were happy with the deal (since they
cut it), it's not right to retroactively make judgements, especially seeing as they very much did know what they were selling.
Like it or not Italy has produced one of the largest, most enduring, and most dangerous series of organized crime syndicates in history. Syndicates which define themselves ethnically and still exist and are very powerful today, with organized crime busts making the news.
Back at the time that "Mafia 2" was set you didn't have a lot of organized crime in the US. The closest thing we had were large Irish gangs that did pretty much the same things, and the Italians killed most of them off in some of the first crime wars the US had ever seen.
Later on of course we did see other ethnic and cultural syndicates develop and have a foothold, and of course games set in more modern times do account for this.
It arguably wasn't until the civil liberties victories of the 1960s and 1970s that you really started seeing other groups of criminals developing in a big way. Sort of ironic, on a lot of levels, and a demonstration of how even the most idealistic efforts can cut both ways.
The bottom line is that "Mafia 2" is absolutly fine as period fantasy.
I'll also say that I think this case here demonstrates exactly why we need to seriously take efforts to curtail "political correctness" in general and stomp on those who want to try and find ways to enforce a ban on "hate speech". Just because something is unpleasant and might fit certain definitions of racism and bigotry does not mean that it's untrue. You start supressing or worse yet re-inventing history so groups like Italians won't be offended by things like The Mafia, and it also prevents people from learning from history and why things have developed in specific ways. A lot of laws and developments in law enforcement exist specifically because of the activities of organized crime, especially that involving tight ethnic and cultural groups that are very, very difficult for outsiders to infiltrate as a result.
On a note that is not directly related, I will point a finger at the politics and political correctness involving native americans, which has lead directly into historical reinventionism. While many get into the whole "good, one with nature Indians" and "evil, greedy white men" thing, it's not and never has been that simple. The way that things are taught now prevent people from actually learning anything about the period. What's more while something of a minority there are a decent number of natives who also get irritated because in an effort to make tribes look more advanced (or noble-primitive) and morally correct than they ever were, a lot of the actual culture and history is lost. A good example of this is how if you look at the tribes down here in the East Coast, you'll find that they weren't as migrant as tribes elsewhere and lived in longhouses and other permanant and semi-permanant structures, they also farmed. People like to portray the situation as the first settlers coming in ans screwing people with no concept of land ownership, that's hardly the case, at least on the East Coast they very much did understand the concept for example, and by portraying things differantly people tend to miss out on how the settlements were, how they farmed, and other details. On some levels this does make them more advanced than a lot of portrayals, but at the same time it also means that when they sold land they did so believing they got a good deal. People criticize settlers and such for trading with cheap baubles, but there were cheap baubles in proportion to the society of the settlers, not in proportion to the natives who couldn't make such things. If a tribe walks off with a couple boxes of costume jewelery in exchange for farm land, and they were happy with the deal (since they
cut it), it's not right to retroactively make judgements, especially seeing as they very much did know what they were selling.