-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Is it problematic that Lifeline (Apex Legends) is Voiced by a White Woman?
- Thread starter Newt
- Start date
- Status
Would it be problematic if a white character would be voiced by a black person?
I don't see why this would be any problem at all.
I don't see why this would be any problem at all.
Is there no scope to ask for specific ethnicity when you send the request?
I'm honestly not surprised that there is an almost "colourblind" casting model but the fact that we still end up with mostly white voice actors is indicative of an underlying problem.
Research has definitively found that you can't tell race or colour by voice. This is nothing like Hollywood (and I fully agree with you about Hollywood's egregious history in this regard).
Surely the fact a person of any colour can play a person of any part in a game or cartoon is a huge positive?
I feel people who make this argument intentionally ignore the fact that black voice actors and actresses don't have the same opportunities as their white cohorts.
Is Lifeline african?
Her name is Indian/Nepalese etc..
Ajay Che is Lifeline name
FC4 main protagonist is Ajay Ghale and he's nepalese.
She's a Yorkshire less putting on a cockney accent.
Ultimately though she's English, so her cockney shouldn't sound as abhorrent as it does, hence the "no excuse".
Last edited:
It would be a positive if it was a level playing field. But when white VAs just get massively more opportunities than minorities do, and minority roles go to white people...it can be alot better in that regard.
In theory voice acting should be a level playing field for any minority. But it isn't.
She has a Caribbean accent and is clearly a black woman. Gibraltar isn't European for example.
I hear you, that's the one single counter-point I could see against what I said.
But do we have the receipts? Do we know white VAs get more opportunities? I mean it's probably an inherent fact of structural racism, but some numbers would be good to hammer it home.
As GLAM pointed out, in many cases you don't even see the artist until they're in the studio. You probably see their name and that's it.
We had a professional voice actor come in to the thread saying that they typically don't even get to see what a person looks like until well after booking the person for their voice.
Deliberately asking for people of certain skin colour in a job application for something like that where the ability to do the job has no bearing whatsoever on the person's race seems like an easy way to get yourself a discrimination lawsuit.
The argument, if you'd cared to look for it in this thread, is that black and other minority VAs are underrepresented in the industry, so when the roles perhaps most suited to a particular minority demographic (such as when one calling for a particular regional dialect and accent) are taken by white or American actors, it does harm in a way that doesn't happen when the reverse takes place.
Sure, but when you ask for VO talent to voice a black Jamaican character the agency will just look for Jamaican accents in their database.
You can´t hear skin color - for a VO talent agency it´s not relevant. Again - missed opportunity.
Somewhere in the background you can hear Trump asking why there is no white history month.
A little, i guess. I really like her attitude and style but its a bit weird that they would choose her for a performance with such a heavy accent.
Bit of an aside: for a long time i assumed Bangalore was voiced by Jennifer Hale but apparently she has a black actress giving a performance that just sounds similar to me.
I think there are def problems w this type of thing esp in games where often the same few actors are used to voice a wide variety of characters. But i think overall the effort to have variety and fairly respectful depiction of different types of people is good and important. Not a easy thing to talk about, but worth talking about
Bit of an aside: for a long time i assumed Bangalore was voiced by Jennifer Hale but apparently she has a black actress giving a performance that just sounds similar to me.
I think there are def problems w this type of thing esp in games where often the same few actors are used to voice a wide variety of characters. But i think overall the effort to have variety and fairly respectful depiction of different types of people is good and important. Not a easy thing to talk about, but worth talking about
She looks like she could be mixed. My general rule of thumb is that POC characters should be voiced by POC, and if the character is supposed to have a specific accent then you should use a voice actor who actually has that accent.
Also representation matters, which includes the voice actor behind the character. WHITE VOICE ACTORS ARE NOT UNDERREPRESENTED
Also representation matters, which includes the voice actor behind the character. WHITE VOICE ACTORS ARE NOT UNDERREPRESENTED
Seemingly not
An interpretation of a role of a fictional/real life character in different forms of media?
Do we need receipts in order to point out that white people get more opportunities?
That's fair enough but like another poster posted pointed out in this thread, the fact this "colorblind" model still has us ending up with mostly white voice actors in games is kind of emblematic of a major systemic issue in the industry.
This is a Japanese character played by an African man.
If the voice actor is good, or makes the character believable, it is fine.
If the voice actor is good, or makes the character believable, it is fine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=32&v=QK2JnY95YiQ
Doesn't look white to me. Maybe mixed? But what do I know.
No. I don't see any issue with it. The only time I care about the voice acting is if it's too jarring to hear. And in that case, I don't even check who voiced that character or if there's a mismatch somewhere.
Admittedly, I don't care so much about the VA behind the voice for most media I consume so I don't bother looking up which actor/actress voiced who.
Admittedly, I don't care so much about the VA behind the voice for most media I consume so I don't bother looking up which actor/actress voiced who.
Nadine was cast before it it was even decided she was a black character.
https://www.playstationlifestyle.ne...ley-responds-uncharted-4-casting-controversy/
On topic: It doesn't seem like the VA for Lifeline is white.
Never heard anyone complain about marina from splatoon being voiced by a asian person.
It should not matter tbh.
It should not matter tbh.
Super useful background, thanks very much. Seems the issue is even more deeply rooted and systemic than I thought.
Search for Jamaican accents probably doesn't include any actual Jamaicans.
To those suggesting we ignore this, nothing changes unless we speak about it.
This thread just reminded me of this dogshit piece someone wrote a few months back complaining about Charles' voice actor in RDR2 not being a true Native American
https://www.pastemagazine.com/artic...edemption-2s-redface-proves-how-far-game.html
They went out of their way to at least find someone close to respresenting the character, and people still complain.
https://www.pastemagazine.com/artic...edemption-2s-redface-proves-how-far-game.html
They went out of their way to at least find someone close to respresenting the character, and people still complain.
So what's equal to you? And I'm asking this in good faith, not jabbing at you or anything. According to the census if you include mixed race black Americans, they constitute about 18% of the population. So should 18% of VAs be black? And until then is it okay for black VAs to voice non-black characters because they're underrepresented but whites by your approximation are over represented and therefor "problematic" when voicing any character that's not white? I'm just curious what numbers and percents this industry needs to be at for you to say things are equal.
Personally? I don't care who voices what as long as the quality is good, so I don't have a very passionate take about any of this. So I'm curious what someone like you, who appears to care quite a bit, considers where the goalpost should be.
No, you're not alone. I have no idea what any of the voice actors in any of the games I've played look like -- other than David Hayter -- and I think it's strange that anyone would look them up to check to see if they're the right race or not.
- Status