It's been 3 months since the launch of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate & nothing has been done about the racist stereotypes in Spirits Mode

[Neoxon]

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As I said in the previous thread, I can kinda understand the situation with the Villager (his alt was changed late into development) & the reference for Mr. Sandman (both Punch-Out bosses). But all the same these three Spirits in particular look really bad in terms of the racist implications that they create, intentional or otherwise. I was hoping that Primethius's thread would bring the issue to Nintendo's attention with enough outrage. But to my surprise, unlike the Mr. Game & Watch issue, nothing was done. And as someone who loves Smash Ultimate & the series as a whole, this legitimately concerns me. Was it just bad timing with the holiday season that the issue came to light? Does Sakurai/Bandai Namco/Nintendo even see this as a problem? I'm honestly curious as to what happened that could let these glaring issues slip under the radar for this long.

 

[cmChimera]

Pretty sure nothing is going to happen with these.

 

[Deleted member 43077]

nothing is gonna happen either if we are being realistic tbh

 

[Jorden1506]

I don't think they see it as a problem.

 

[Deleted member 51691]

I never heard about this before now. I guess nobody made a big enough fuss for Nintendo to notice or care. I'm sure it wasn't intentional, but having Diddy Kong represent Deejay... yikes. They could have done better.

 

[Deleted member 16876]

Wait, you are telling me they didn't?

Here I was thinking it got solved. Fuck Nintendo.

 

[Optional Objectives]

.

 

[1000% H]

Are we even aware that anyone in any position to make anything happen even knows? We can post on Era all we want but that doesn't mean the message actually gets to where it should be.

 

[NinjaBoiX]

Could you provide some context? I've never played this game. Does the character in the middle change into the character on the right or something?

 

[Jorden1506]

Nintendo won't change anything unless there's a serious, sustained outcry- so thanks for making a thread as a reminder that there's this bullshit in the game.

But given Nintendo's reluctance to have what they regard as their business practices affected by any forces they see as external... I just don't know how much pressure there would have to be to get them to bend.

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Well they bended with the Game&Watch so around that amount of pressure

 

[PeakPointMatrix]

Horrendous oversight by such a massive "family" company like Nintendo, and immensely disappointing. I have no doubt that NoA have brought it up to NoJ HQ, but they simply don't give a fuck. Embarrassing. And no they should not be given a pass just because they make your favorite Marios and Zeldas and Smashes. They should be held the most accountable considering their history and reach. I wish more news outlets held their feet to the fire on this one.

 

[Dyle]

Changing them is more trouble than it's worth, of course they didn't. Also the frustration with these effectively never made a splash beyond places like this, (remember that the person who first posted the Tac one pre-release did it ironically and to mock critics of similar stereotypes) unlike the G&W stuff which was everywhere and universally negative.

 

[Deleted member 249]

Yeah it's actually disappointing. I was hoping their response with the feather on the Game and Watch sprite was indicative of their speed of redressal for these issues but clearly not.

 

[Kirbivore]

I mean theres also a huge update coming up, so we dont know if that'll be addressed there.

 

[Jorden1506]

Could you provide some context? I've never played this game. Does the character in the middle change into the character on the right or something?

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The middle is a spirit which is unlockable after you defeat the fighter on the right. The right one is one of the playable characters which has similaritys with the other mostly in attackstyle, behaviour or appearance

 

[Neoxon]

Could you provide some context? I've never played this game. Does the character in the middle change into the character on the right or something?

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The character in the middle is a non-playable character who is represented by the character in the background within the parameters mentioned on the bottom-left corner of the screen. As an example, Mr. Sandman from Punch-Out is represented by a stamina battle with Donkey Kong who has more powerful smash attacks on a stage with sleep-inducing floors.

 

[Stopdoor]

Fixing it might look like admitting they did intentionally, where as as is it's vaguely ambiguous. I could see why they might try to ignore it.

 

[Zero-ELEC]

Someone in another thread asked how other black/brown characters are represented as spirits and their fights so I did a bit of a breakdown.

Let's see...

Keep in mind I'm taking a wider rage for black/brown, erring in the side of caution for this. Many of these might be contentious.

Street Fighter:

• Balrog/Boxer, who's represented by Little Mac.
• Dee Jay, represented by Diddy Kong
• Dhalsim, not an encounter

Zelda: (most of these are particularly contentious, given the whole fictional ethnicity thing. The Gerudo are certainly meant to be brown/black coded, the rest... probably not.)

• Impa (do Sheikah count? they tend to have darker skin that Hylians...), represented by Sheik
• Koume & Kotake (Gerudo), not an encounter
• Twinrova (Gerudo), not an encounter
• Ganondorf from Twilight Princess (Gerudo), represented by Ganondorf
• Urbosa (Gerudo), represented by Zero Suit Samus
• Tetra (Hylian, kinda pushing it, relatively dark skinned, most likely tanned), represented by Toon Link
• King of Hyrule (Hylian, dark skinned, not likely tanned, given he's a boat), not an encounter
• Din (Hylian??? Goddess?? relatively dark skinned???), represented by Zelda
• Ganondorf character spirit, not an encounter

F-Zero:

• Baba (he's... an issue), represented by Captain Falcon

Punch-Out!!:

• Mr. Sandman, represented by Donkey Kong
• Great Tiger, represented by Incineroar
• Super Macho Man, not an encounter
• King Hippo (Vaguely Pacific Islander?), represented by K.Rool
• Bald Bull (Turkish, dark skin?), represented by Little Mac
• Doc Luis, represented by Little Mac

Splatoon:

• Off the Hook (one of them is Marina), represented by Inkling
• Octoling Girl and Octoling Boy (debatable, renders used are the lightest skinned versions they had :| ), represented by Inkling

Xenoblade:

• Elma, represented by Bayonetta

Bayonetta:

• Rodin, not an encounter
• Loki, represented by Sheik

Ever Oasis:

• Tethu, represented by Young Link

Shantae:

• Shantae, represented by Zero Suit Samus

ARMS:

• Twintelle, represented by Bayonetta

Those are all the Black/Brown spirits in the game. If I missed one, feel free to point them out.

Also if you're thinking, "hey, doesn't this series have black characters", yeah, probably, they're just not spirits.

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[MazeHaze]

Could you provide some context? I've never played this game. Does the character in the middle change into the character on the right or something?

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I think the character on the right is supposed to represent the character on the left. They use smash characters with combat modifiers on them as stand ins for classic nintendo characters

 

[Deleted member 249]

Fixing it might look like admitting they did intentionally, where as as is it's vaguely ambiguous. I could see why they might try to ignore it.

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OR "we didn't intend it but it's clear this is hurtful so we will address this and resolve to do better"

Not that hard.

 

[NinjaBoiX]

The middle is a spirit which is unlockable after you defeat the fighter on the right. The right one is one of the playable characters which has similaritys with the other mostly in attackstyle, behaviour or appearance

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Ah, ok. So Donkey and Diddy Kong unlocking black guys is obviously in poor taste/racist.

Not sure I get the thing with the bottom one though. I'm not even sure what the spirit character is...

 

[Kouriozan]

This issue sadly failed to gain traction on social medias, or it would have been corrected ASAP.

 

[Unknownlight]

The feather was a clear and obvious mistake (Nintendo themselves had corrected it in the past without anyone pressuring them). These are not "clear and obvious"—the original thread has over a thousand posts of people arguing whether it "counts" even on Era, which is the most likely gaming forum on the internet to agree on things like this.

 

[Silky]

nothing will happen as unfortunate as that may be

 

[Zero-ELEC]

Ah, ok. So Donkey and Diddy Kong unlocking black guys is obviously in poor taste/racist.

Not sure I get the thing with the bottom one though. I'm not even sure what the spirit character is...

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The Spirit is Tac. He steals your ability and runs away. It's represented by the only(?) dark skinned male Villager. It's... unfortunate.

 

[Dark Ninja]

They probably don't see that they did anything wrong or intentional. People who are upset about this should send them a message and boycott smash and its DLC. Send them a direct message!

 

[Neoxon]

Ah, ok. So Donkey and Diddy Kong unlocking black guys is obviously in poor taste/racist.

Not sure I get the thing with the bottom one though. I'm not even sure what the spirit character is...

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Tac is an enemy from the Kirby series who can steal your copy ability. In its case, the Villager used in its Spirit Battle didn't have that particular alt until after E3, so it was likely an unforeseen turn that still looks bad.

 

[Deleted member 4072]

Can someone ELI5 how these are racist stereotypes? Not really seeing anything obvious here.

 

[Linde]

I dunno
I like the Dee Jay one because Diddy Kong is probably the closest thing to a breakdancing kickboxer on the roster
Especially with those smash attacks

 

[NoKisum]

I've been stuck at a work related convention the last few days, so I barely got to touch my Switch (at least not with online play). Did 3.0 not drop yet?

 

[Error 52]

It's an unfortunate "Japan is really ignorant about this shit" moment. I don't think it's worth going full ResetEra over this.

(Also, I don't get the problem with the last one.)

 

[Deleted member 249]

I've been stuck at a work related convention the last few days, so I barely got to touch my Switch (at least not with online play). Did 3.0 not drop yet?

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April.

 

[Twenty7kvn]

You should reach out to Kotaku and other sites, maybe they'll run a story and ask a Nintendo rep about it that should get there attention.

 

[Noppie]

Can someone ELI5 how these are racist stereotypes? Not really seeing anything obvious here.

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2 black men portrayed by an ape and a monkey, a thief by Villager's one dark skinned alt.

I don't think this was intentional or with bad intent, in the previous thread people explained how the spirits were representes by the fighters, but it's unfortunate for sure.

 

[RochHoch]

I don't think Nintendo cares because these seem to be unfortunate oversights without racist intent. It's a problematic situation to be sure, but it's nowhere near as bad as the Game and Watch thing.

 

[Deleted member 249]

You should reach out to Kotaku and other sites, maybe they'll run a story and ask a Nintendo per about it that should get there attention.

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Also post on Reddit. Usually that's the quickest way for things to gain traction.

 

[Yoshimitsu126]

Hopefully it'll be changed before the spring update.

 

[Dark Ninja]

I dunno
I like the Dee Jay one because Diddy Kong is probably the closest thing to a breakdancing kickboxer on the roster
Especially with those smash attacks

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With Diddy its because his side special or jump attack(forgot which one exactly) looks like DJs jump kick which is all he does in that match.

 

[Mekanos]

The Game And Watch feather was an easy graphical change that brought it in line with the other portrayals of the character. This would involve some degree of gameplay change (at least for the Kongs) that I suppose they aren't willing to do.

I also agree I'm not convinced people high enough heard about this issue.

 

[celigio]

I don't even remember if this was covered by gaming journalists

 

[NoKisum]

April.

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Ah okay. My assumption when this was first brought up was that if they're gonna make a major change to Spirits/Adventure mode, they'd wait and include it with a major update, but that's still a month out clearly.

 

[NotLiquid]

It's probably not gonna change either, no one outside of Era made noise about it.

 

[Rogue Agent]

It's a crying shame.

 

[Swiggins]

Can someone ELI5 how these are racist stereotypes? Not really seeing anything obvious here.

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In the United States there's a long history of people stereotyping POC as "monkeys" or "apes." Largely due to racist pseudo-science from the turn of the century and minstrel theater shows.

It's still used today by the scum of the earth.

 

[stumblebee]

Diddy Kong is a carefree, kick-based fighter. There's nobody else on the roster who fits Dee Jay, personality wise, than Diddy Kong. Unless I'm wrong about that?

 

[DrArchon]

I don't think Nintendo cares because these seem to be unfortunate oversights without racist intent. It's a problematic situation to be sure, but it's nowhere near as bad as the Game and Watch thing.

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The Game and Watch thing also lacked any kind of ambiguity. The fact that many people can find other excuses for these (even when they agree that they aren't great looks) means that they probably won't change these.

 

[Deleted member 4072]

In the United States there's a long history of people stereotyping POC as "monkeys" or "apes." Largely due to racist pseudo-science from the turn of the century and minstrel theater shows.

It's still used today by the scum of the earth.

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Oh right I didn't notice that till now. Never sprung to mind. Hopefully it's just an oversight from them.

 

[Jorden1506]

With Diddy its because his side special or jump attack(forgot which one exactly) looks like DJs jump kick which is all he does in that match.

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Exactly that Diddy is a monkey is unfortunate but the selection came from attack style in this case not appearance

 

[Wijuci]

Someone in another thread asked how other black/brown characters are represented as spirits and their fights so I did a bit of a breakdown.

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So... it's a non issue?

 

[Neoxon]

So... it's a non issue?

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Nah, these three are definitely problems. While I can see how these Spirits in particular turned out the way they did, they all still look bad & should be rectified.