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Racist Stereotypes in Smash Bros. Ultimates Spirits Mode

Deleted member 4976

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,246
I had made a thread about the lack of representation in Smash, but over the past weeks, I've seen some incredibly... suspect (quite frankly, just racist) things in the games spirits mode via twitter/images online that I feel warranted its own thread. It's one thing to have little to no diversity in a title with such a large roster, it's another to still have problematic elements and racist stereotypes present in 2018.

Self explanatory:
DvHeGCWUwAAjDgY.png


DvHeGCgUYAAwENU.png


Tac, a thief with increased speed:
(Update: Seems this was a late dev change, and earlier versions had a different villager in place.)
DumKiFLUUAAypMs.png


Sources for the images:
https://twitter.com/KelThaFunkee/status/1076885983281311744
https://twitter.com/The_Infinite1/status/1074542310765998081
https://twitter.com/JONATHA30838270/status/1074092736385495040

I'm not sure if there's more, as I haven't played the mode, and stick largely to local/online play. But it wouldn't surprise me if there was.

UPDATE: The following picture has been confirmed to be updated and fixed. The below is presumably from v1.0 before the fix was applied/went live. Leaving in quotes so people can see what some of the posts were talking about, but this one has already been addressed by Nintendo.
DufxpsDU0AAtth6.png
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Last edited:
Datajoy

Datajoy

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Oct 27, 2017
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Angola / Zaire border region.
Jesus... certainly those first two would have been better represented by Ryu and Little Mac, respectively? Super shitty to have the Kongs as the representatives for those fights.
 
Big Yoshi

Big Yoshi

Member
Nov 25, 2018
848
IIRC in early builds of the game that villager wasn't black. And Donkey Kong is the final boss in Punch out Wii's super mode.

Diddy is absolutley terrible though.
 
Platy

Platy

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Oct 25, 2017
22,621
Brazil
I can understand mr sandman (DK was the hard boss of punch out Wii), I can see why the villager one could be made without prejudice.... But the Diddy Kong one made wtf when I saw it. Like they have NOTHING in common
 
Order

Order

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
1,319
Using Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong for black characters is fucked up

But this is gaming side so I’ll just wait for the flood of people to say how it isn’t racist
 
1000% H

1000% H

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Oct 25, 2017
4,630
I couldn't help but notice these as well.

I can kinda rationalize the Sandman > DK stuff thought just because they're both high ranking Punch-Out characters.
 
Foffy

Foffy

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Oct 25, 2017
11,183
Datajoy said:
Jesus... certainly those first two would have been better represented by Ryu and Little Mac, respectively? Super shitty to have the Kongs as the representatives for those fights.
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Those spirits are fought in areas where you unlock those characters. They tend to not drop the unlockable character as variants for spirits in the areas they reside.

I thought the DK one was a bit deeper of a wink, seeing as

Donkey Kong is a secret fight in the most recent Punch-Out game, so they tied that to the "final boss" of the NES game.
 
Narpas Sword0

Narpas Sword0

Member
Oct 28, 2017
951
Wow, that’s gross.

Foffy said:
Those spirits are fought in areas where you unlock those characters. They tend to not drop the unlockable character as variants for spirits in the areas they reside.

I thought the DK one was a bit deeper of a wink, seeing as

Donkey Kong is a secret fight in the most recent Punch-Out game, so they tied that to the "final boss" of the NES game.
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Why not put the spirit in a different place lol
 
Kirbivore

Kirbivore

One Winged Slayer
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,442
Primethius said:
I had made a thread about the lack of representation in Smash, but over the past weeks, I've seen some incredibly... suspect (quite frankly, just racist) things in the games spirits mode via twitter/images online that I feel warranted its own thread. It's one thing to have little to no diversity in a title with such a large roster, it's another to still have problematic elements and racist stereotypes present in 2018.

Self explanatory:
DvHeGCWUwAAjDgY.png


DvHeGCgUYAAwENU.png


Removed in one part of the game, but still here:
DufxpsDU0AAtth6.png


Tac, a thief with increased speed:
DumKiFLUUAAypMs.png


Sources for the images:
https://twitter.com/KelThaFunkee/status/1076885983281311744
https://twitter.com/The_Infinite1/status/1074542310765998081
https://twitter.com/JONATHA30838270/status/1074092736385495040

I'm not sure if there's more, as I haven't played the mode, and stick largely to local/online play. But it wouldn't surprise me if there was.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

The last one was probably a bigger oversight given that the dark skinned Villager wasnt in the game when it was first shown.

That and it was actually used on Twitter to garner a reaction from ERA. A reaction caused by those types of games. Saw this when it was leaked but deliberately fishing for Era's reaction was the reason no one said anything about the Villager
 

r_n

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,885
The feather was removed from the spirit as well in the day 1 update.

Diddy incorporates similar kicking moves to DeeJay (the spirit condition is Diddy's launching kick attack, for example) which is probably why that got chosen.
Likewise DK was probably chosen both as a reference to Punchout Wii and to reference Sandman's big punch.

which is all to say
GinoFelino said:
Good lord, those first two are incredibly misguided at best.


Right??
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dlauv

dlauv

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Oct 27, 2017
8,064
I noticed this too and wondered when ERA would say something.

Mr. Sandman is particularly bad because there is a dark-skinned Lil' Mac they could have made giant instead.
 
Instro

Instro

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Oct 25, 2017
11,591
The Donkey Kong one is a reference to Punch Out Wii I think, since he was the true final fighter after Mr. Sandman. Coupled with the Diddy one though it looks really bad. It's a Japanese developer so I'm not at all surprised this stuff got snuck through. I would bet that someone on the localization team caught this though, and were probably ignored.
 
Tabaxi

Tabaxi

Member
Nov 18, 2018
4,646
The Dee Jay one is especially inexcusable. There's no way it couldn't have been done on purpose.
 
Jahranimo

Jahranimo

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,614
Dang they forgot to take the feather off the spirit. I did smh at both Deejay and Mr. Sandman ones too.

Old Japanese companies sigh gotta do better.
 
Becks'

Becks'

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Dec 7, 2017
6,317
Canada
It is terrible and NoA won't do shit because they are scared to do or say anything without NCL when it comes to development.

This is what happens when you isolate yourself for so long.
 

Deleted member 41931

User requested account closure
Member
Apr 10, 2018
3,744
Also from one of Sakurai's previous games in case people want to say its just a coincedence and people are just looking for controversy.
maxresdefault.jpg

I'm not necessarily saying these were intentional, but its not exactly impossible.
 
Arkanim94

Arkanim94

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,312
The fire attack sticker has a bandana, not a feather.

Using the kong on the other hand is a problem.
 
Hella

Hella

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Oct 27, 2017
21,548
Yeah... the Sandman one jumped out at me when I was playing. Real bad.

Not sure what Nintendo is thinking with this stuff--global companies have no excuse.
 
Raijinto

Raijinto

Member
Oct 28, 2017
9,888
I kinda get the DK one, at least I can see how it was made solely as a reference to Punch-Out!! Wii with absolutely 0 malice. It's still misguided obviously- I wouldn't have done it- but like I said I see where it originated from.

The others are really bad, though I haven't played much Yoshi's Island or Street Fighter.
 
FluxWaveZ

FluxWaveZ

Persona Central
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
9,932
Xaszatm said:
Uh, other examples from Nintendo? I definitely agree it's racist but the "no surprise" is interesting.
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Because it's an old, out-of-touch Japanese company where there's not even a single, non-optional character of color in the roster to begin with to demonstrate their take on ethnic representation?
 
Xaszatm

Xaszatm

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,945
dlauv said:
I noticed this too and wondered when ERA would say something.

Mr. Sandman is particularly bad because there is a dark-skinned Lil' Mac they could have made giant instead.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

To be fair, I'm like 90% positive there was a thread on this earlier as well. Let me see if I can find it.
 
rpm

rpm

Into the Woods
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
9,734
I don't get Dee Jay as Diddy or Tac as Black Villager, like at all
I think they picked DK for Sandman because they're both heavy hitters, but someone should have seen this and changed it to Little Mac or C. Falcon or something
Did no one on the localization team looks through these?
 
Brazil

Brazil

Actual Brazilian
Member
Oct 24, 2017
14,613
São Paulo, Brazil
Jesus fucking Christ, Nintendo.

rpm said:
I don't get Dee Jay as Diddy or Tac as Black Villager, like at all
I think they picked DK for Sandman because they're both heavy hitters, but someone should have seen this and changed it to Little Mac or C. Falcon or something
Did no one on the localization team looks through these?
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Tac as Villager makes sense because of its Neutral B. But they could've used literally any other skin for the character.
 
1000% H

1000% H

Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,630
Honestly what makes this worse is that Spirits is pretty much where are all the black characters reside and even then it's not like there's a ton so the handful of images in the OP make up a significant amount of that representation.
 
Doggg

Doggg

Member
Nov 17, 2017
9,500
I'd give them the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes they choose fighters to represent spirits using the most tangential details. I was just playing the Street Fighter world in WOL last night, and I thought it was hilarious that they used Meta Knight to represent Vega simply because they both wear metal masks, even though they really look nothing alike. Diddy Kong may have simply been used because his tail resembles Dee Jay's hair or something. Other posts have made the connection between Mr. Sandman and Donkey Kong.
 
Kthulhu

Kthulhu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,671
What's really bizzare is that they corrected the feather on G&W, but didn't go back and fix the spirit.
 
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