The true final week of this thread. And like I said with the RPGs & More section, I'm glad I walked down this long road. To be clear, I may go into deeper detail on these topics next year. But since I've yet to commit to a topic for Black History Month next year, it could go either way. So I'm happy that I ultimately decided to do this extra week, especially if I do end up doing something else come 2022. Anyway, here are the topics of the bonus week (I also threw in the final banner for Day +7 for good measure to reflect Barret's victory).
BONUS WEEK: THINGS THAT SHOULD BE IMPROVED WITH BLACK REPRESENTATION IN GAMES
DAY +1: HAVE BLACK CHARACTERS BE VOICED BY BLACK ACTORS
I'm sure you noticed a trend with a solid chunk of the characters on this list that said characters tend to be voiced by non-black characters. Nadine Ross is probably the most infamous example of this (& one I've mentioned before), being voiced by Laura Bailey (all due respect to Laura, but Naughty Dog should have recast the character as soon as Nadine's design was finalized). In Nintendo's case, most of their PoC characters are voiced by white actors, which is disappointing to see. That's not to discredit the work the actors put in to bring these characters to life, a lot of them did great work. But in an industry that tends to prioritize white actors, it'd be a great effort to give black actors a chance to shine with the few black roles that exist. Of course, this isn't to say that black actors should only voice black roles. My point is that there already aren't a ton of black characters in games. The least the industry can do is to offer such black actors the few black characters that are there, as there isn't nearly enough room to do otherwise with the characters available. This also extends to other PoC roles. Going back to Nintendo, Fire Emblem: Three Houses had a number of Arabic-coded characters, but all those roles were given to white actors. Of course, this isn't a trend that's exclusive to Nintendo, as even the likes of Clementine & Demoman are voiced by white actors. So it's generally something that I hope improves going forward. Looking at Guilty Gear Strive, I hope that Nagoriyuki & Giovanna are voiced by black actors. But given how they made sure to get a black VA for Venom in Xrd Sign, I'm not too worried on this front. Though you get my point overall, let these talented black actors get their time in the sun.
DAY +2: IMPROVE OPTIONS FOR AFROCENTRIC HAIR STYLES
This can be interpreted in one of two ways. I'll get the obvious one done first, there should be more attention paid to the available options with regards to afrocentric hair styles. We don't all have straight hair, short curly hair, a big afro, & cornrows. We all have a wide assortment of hairstyles that should be taken into consideration. And some games feel content in only giving us the bare minimum, if anything at all. Hell, it took an update for Animal Crossing: New Horizons to give us more than a couple of options with regards to potential hair styles (afros weren't even available at launch). On this front, I have to give Capcom credit for expanding the number of options for black hair styles in Monster Hunter World: Iceborne.
Urban Scholar actually goes into further detail on the topic (as well as skin tones, something I'll go into detail on later this week) here.
When you’re a person of color, creating an avatar with your skin and hair is often frustrating. Why is that? And are there answers to this?
jrous001.medium.com
Though while I'm on the topic of hair & black people, there's one other thing I'd like to address.
*ahem*,
UNLESS THE CHARACTER IS OLD, CUT IT OUT WITH THE CONSTANT USE OF WHITE HAIR FOR BLACK CHARACTERS!!!!!! I get that Japanese games like to do non-realistic hair colors for everyone, from blue to green to red to purple. But it says a lot when a solid number of the characters in this thread have white hair while still being young. At least with the likes of Leroy Smith from Tekken & Sojourn from Overwatch, they're pretty old, so their white hair makes sense. But I don't see why the likes of Twintelle or Shinobu couldn't have brown or black hair. And if I may go off-topic for a bit, please give black characters brown eyes more often. That's not to say that black people can't have blue or green eyes, but they're far from common. It just sticks out to me for the likes of Sojourn, Twintelle, Nagoriyuki, & many more.
DAY +3: TAKE THE TIME TO DEPICT BLACK PEOPLE PROPERLY
ALL CREDIT FOR THESE IMAGES BELONG TO SUGARYACID (who's no longer on Twitter) & SHORTYBAT FROM TWITTER & DEVIANTART RESPECTIVELY!!!!!
I've brought this up a few times throughout this thread, but one of my biggest pet peeves is how artists (especially for Japanese games) depict black people with lighter unicolor lips & the same skin tone for their palms. The latter of which is more of a recent annoyance for me when it was pointed out to me not too long ago, but it's begun to stick out like a sore thumb. And so far, only Arc System Works (at least of the Japanese developers that I can immediately recall) put in the effort to include these features......& only for Nagoriyuki for both (Giovanna has a darker top lip, but no lighter palms). And even then,
Nagoriyuki's lips were only fixed after they got (justified) criticism for how his lips were originally. Us speaking up about how we actually look is important, as the Nagoriyuki fix proved that the developers do listen. But what's equally important is to put in the proper research to get this stuff right from the get-go. Perhaps there should be more black people in the industry to help draw attention these things ahead of time, but I'll get to that in due time. Anyway, in the case of the lips, said bright unicolor lips are typically a remnant of an offensive racist caricature that's better left in the past (not forgotten, mind you, as people need to remember to never do that again). But the palms part is mostly a thing that goes a long way towards making black people feel properly represented. Of course, these aren't the only things that should be done (hence why this bonus week exists), but they're definitely on the list.
DAY +4: HIRE MORE BLACK EXECUTIVES & DEVELOPERS
As you can probably tell, Sarah Bond is the only prominent recent example who I could immediately recall when I started writing this yesterday (3/3/21). And Sarah most certainly deserves the praise she's gotten thus far, especially given the success of Xbox Game Pass. There are other examples as well, such as former Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aimé (though I'm not exactly fond of his pro-police rhetoric), Ramone Russell from Sony (he works on the MLB games), Andrew Augustin (formerly of EA, but he went on to create Notion Games), Tim Lewinson (development director for Apex Legends over at Respawn), & Dinga Bakaba (director for Deathloop). But it shouldn't be only them. Hell, a lot of the issues with black characters in games (both covered so far & soon to be covered going into the week) can stem from the fact that there aren't a ton of black people in positions of power throughout the industry. I don't just mean executive positions like Sarah, but also in development positions. Looking at the Overwatch 2 behind-the-scenes presentation at BlizzConline, I only recall seeing one black developer. Of course, this is only a snippet of the entire development team. But my point is that we should have more diverse people in positions of power (not just black people, but other people of color as well) to make sure that said minorities are properly represented & that our voices remain heard. And in general, more diversity in the workplace is never a bad thing. This ties back into the thing about the need for more afrocentric hair styles. As was pointed out in this thread, having more black developers & executives would likely result in suggestions like checking barber shops for ideas. This also ties into tomorrow's subject, but I'll leave that for then. All the same, I'm sure you get my point.
DAY +5: CUT IT OUT WITH THE STEREOTYPES
Since
celes already wrote an amazing thread on the topic of colorist stereotypes, I won't go into too much detail on the topic as she already beat me to it back in January. In case you don't feel like checking the Twintelle write-up, I'll provide a link here. I'll also throw in another article on black women being able to be soft, as it also ties into the topic of today & is generally a great article.
Before I start: I just want to make it clear that you can like a character, game, an artist, a publisher, etc. in isolation while still acknowledging that looked at within the greater context, that thing you like might be contributing to the reinforcement of harmful stereotypes or imagery that...
www.resetera.com
“The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman.
ashiamonetb.medium.com
These colorist stereotypes do plague the industry, from the hard-as-stone black woman, darker-skinned women always being sexualized to the point of taking away from their characters, & the whole "darker skin = evil" stereotype found in the likes of Kingdom Hearts, NieR: Automata, & even Persona 5 Strikers. But a solid chunk of the characters talked about in this thread are also plagued with a colorist stereotype of some kind. This is especially true with Vivienne, whose hardcore personality & inability to show any sort of softness is very much rooted in the "tough as nails black woman" stereotype. Vivienne far from the only one plagued with these kinds of stereotypes, as Nadine Ross is yet another prominent example of this. But they're just but two example that was covered in the thread (seriously, read it, it's fantastic). Of course, that's not to say that black women can't be tough, but showing more range of emotions would be appreciated. The main solution to this would be to, as mentioned yesterday, get more black developers, writers, & executives (especially black women). While Project Athia has me excited for one of the few leading black ladies in a AAA project from a Japanese developer, the fact that it's being written by a white guy has me concerned for if it'll avoid the aforementioned stereotypes. It doesn't help that there are so few major female writers in the industry, let alone black women. So yeah, the topic of yesterday is pretty much the overarching issue for a lot of this. And of course, I also mean straight-up racist stereotypes, like the racist spirit battles in Smash Ultimate that still haven't been addressed (especially now that the Pyra/Mythra update proved that base game spirits can be altered, something that was left for debate when Spring Man & Twintelle's spirit battles weren't updated with the then-newly-added ARMS tracks). Even if the Villager one was due to a last-minute change to said Villager's alt and the DK one was a result of him & Mr. Sandman being bosses in Punch-Out Wii, they should have taken the time to fix it. And there's really no excuse for Diddy being the rep for Dee Jay. Of course, Smash Ultimate isn't the only example of racist stereotypes, but it's one of the most prominent ones in recent memory (especially considering that it's the only modern fighting game besides DBFZ without a black character, which makes matters worse). But seriously, cut it out. It's annoying.
DAY +6: DON'T BE AFRAID TO MAKE DARKER-SKINNED BLACK WOMEN
Another thing I noticed over the course of the previous month. While there were quite a few black men who were darker-skinned, I could probably count the number of darker-skinned black women on one hand. Of course, this isn't me doubting one's blackness in any way for the characters I talked about, but rather me asking for more skin tone diversity amongst the black women we see in games. That's not to say that we don't have any dark-skinned black women in games, as we have the likes of Shinobu from No More Heroes &, in the near future, Sojourn from Overwatch 2 (seriously, why did it take until what I assume will be 2022 for Overwatch to finally get a black woman?). What I'm asking for is more of them. And if the concern is how to properly convey light being shined on their skin, easy, do some research or (better yet) hire more black people who will know more about the subject. Black people come in all shades, & it's time that the industry show that for black women.
DAY +7: MAKE MORE BLACK CHARACTERS IN GENERAL
This is probably the most obvious takeaway from this thread, but sometimes the obvious thing is the most important one. Yes, there are more & more black characters being created in gaming today. But it's not happening fast enough, especially not with protagonists. This is especially true with black women, who we sadly don't get a ton of in gaming even compared to the guys. You may get the impression that there are a ton of black women in the industry, but there aren't (well, not as many as there should be). I mainly made a conscious effort to highlight prominent black women in this thread where I could because they deserve it. Of course, this also means
respectful representation (which is still a prevalent issue for black characters in games), which goes into the other topics I've covered throughout the week. The last thing we need is a monkey's paw wish in that we get more black characters, but they're all offensive stereotypes with no attention paid to making sure their features are portrayed correctly & are also voiced by white actors. Still, representation matters, & the industry should get the memo on that. Fighting games today are starting to make some semblance of an effort to make good on this (see Guilty Gear Strive & Samurai Shodown, though Darli Dagger is more sexualized than I'd like), but then you have Smash Ultimate being the sole outlier with over 80 characters & not a single black character (at least DBFZ has the excuse of not having any options, which is a complaint I'd raise straight at Toei & Toriyama's faces).......& racist stereotypes in-game to boot. All this can be mitigated if we, as mentioned before, get more black people in the industry making decisions & speaking for us. We have a lot to bring to the table, & it's well past time to be allowed to show that.
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