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Street Fighter - a beloved franchise drenched in racism, cashing on racial stereotypes for 30 years?

Shuri

Shuri

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
755
I was doing research on the history of racism in videogames and found this great NPR piece by Gene Demby about Street Fighter's racist problems:

''Street Fighter II': Most Racist Nostalgic Video Game Ever?'
https://www.npr.org/sections/codesw...hter-ii-most-racist-nostalgic-video-game-ever

"According to worldwide Capcom investor relations data, the original Super NES Street Fighter 2 sold 6.3 million copies, the Super NES Street Fighter 2 Turbo sold 4.1 million and the Genesis Street Fighter 2: Special Champion Edition sold 1.65 million. The original Super Nintendo port remains Capcom's second best selling game to date."
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The Street Fighter franchise has generated a lot of money over the years.. But at what cost?

Amazingly, this all could have been even more ridiculous. Here's the game designer Yoshiki Okamoto on Chun-Li, the game's lone female character and a fan favorite:

"You know how each character has a life bar? At one point, I wanted to make the power gauge for Chun-Li shorter than for the other characters because women are not as strong. But [another designer] didn't want to do that. We both had legitimate reasons, but then we came to an agreement to not make it shorter."
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Yikes, glad this was fixed..

There is also this interesting article by Ken McDonnell, breaking down the backgrounds of each fighter:

'Street Fighter 2' Is Of Its Time In The Worst Ways Possible'
https://nowloading.co/p/street-fighter-2-stereotypical-racist-imagery/4270650

Zangief hails from Russia. The man is a giant, a brute and his stage reflects that. In Street Fighter 2's depiction of the USSR, a bleak-looking factory is populated with a ton of angry, drunk men. They stand on the sidelines, cheering on the fighters, guzzling vodka. It denotes every stereotypical image of the Russian people imaginable — they're all about hard work, shed tons of vodka and violence.
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We sincerely hope that Blanka, the muscular green-skinned mutant, is in no way a reflection of the Brazilian people — though his savage persona does extend beyond his character.

The Brazilian stage in Street Fighter 2 sees the population as poor, backward and simple. The emaciated fishermen live in shacks by a river, where giant snakes coil around trees. Everything seems primitive. It's an age-old look at Brazilian life that was surely out of place even when the game was released, never mind today!
We sincerely hope that Blanka, the muscular green-skinned mutant, is in no way a reflection of the Brazilian people — though his savage persona does extend beyond his character.
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Chun Li, one of the two playable female characters in the game and the most respectfully clad of them both — 'cause Cammy wears a thong that becomes a top — sports a Harajuku-esque dress and, boy, does this lady's stage not reflect well on the Chinese people. Old men ride by on bikes, passing stalls where people cheer on the fight while... choking the necks of chickens.

The people appear uncivilized, their living standards are extremely low and they appear barbaric and cruel. It's as unflattering as Chun Li's outfit, which barely covers her crotch.
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he story rounded up all of the game's developers and artists and programmers — a group of eccentrics from America and Japan who sound like they were a bunch of HR nightmares. But despite all this, the game became a monster hit
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Basically, Ryu, the Japanese guy, and Guile, the american guy, are the cool alpha male silent types, while the others are massive negative stereotypes from their countries.

The developpement team was a mix of american and Japanese developers..

You can find many scanned documents and books online about the design of SF2 showing more of this ethnicity-based design for SF2.

In a way, you kinda get that the designers went for an 'international tournament' feel, but was it necessary to exploit those stereotypes? SFV had some pretty problematic controversies around clothing and soundtrack samples, but is it time for Capcom to perhaps for a clean slate for SF6?
 
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sixteen-bit

sixteen-bit

Member
Oct 30, 2017
3,680
Shuri said:
Yikes, glad this was fixed..
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Her lifebar is the same length as the other characters, but she still has fewer hitpoints. This continues to SFV. Historically, the only women in Street Fighter to reach the 1000 hit point average that Ken and Ryu have are Makoto, Poison, and Laura.

edit: and Kolin, whoops.
 
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Chindogg

Chindogg

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,241
East Lansing, MI
Most women in SF games have less life even if the health bars are the same size. Luckily they make up for it in speed so on average they do more damage.

Shuri said:
In a way, you kinda get that the designers went for an 'international tournament' feel, but was it necessary to exploit those stereotypes? SFV had some pretty problematic controversies around clothing and soundtrack samples, but is it time for Capcom to perhaps for a clean slate for SF6?
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Just about every fighting game in the early 90s fulfilled stereotypes, because a lot of martial arts films those games inspired embraced stereotypes as well.

Street Fighter is meant to be a caricature of the real world. Look at the UK stage in SFV. A guy with a bowler using a croquet wicket as a cane? Floating yogis in the India stage? A soccer trophy replacing Jesus in the Brazil stage?

The absurdity of the whole series softens the blow of racism and while it's perfectly ok to criticize those stereotypes, honestly it's mostly harmless parody.
 
Ratrat

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Oct 27, 2017
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Well, I hope people are able to speak for their own country/culture.
 
Noctis

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Oct 25, 2017
11,377
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OP with all due respect, when a hypothetical SF6 releases it doesn't need a clean slate.

The series is fine as it is, will a couple designs irk some people? Sure, that could be toned down (personally i don't think they should).
 
Silky

Silky

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Oct 25, 2017
10,522
Georgia
They've certainly gotten better with the stereotype thing since the Alpha series was introduced but there's clearly still a whole lot of room for improvement.

Recent Balrog art with him sporting huge lips still bugs me, especially when (storywise) that character took a really interesting turn around SF4 and SFV

I like NPR so I'm gonna give the article a read-over later tonight
 
FroMonk

FroMonk

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Oct 25, 2017
475
It is problematic, but there's no way Capcom goes clean slate for SFVI. They tried that with SFIII and it was pretty unsuccessful on release, with only Ryu and Ken being the returning characters at first, but then bringing in Akuma and Chun-Li when they realized people wanted the original characters, too.
 
hibikase

hibikase

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Oct 26, 2017
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I mean we've known this since forever. Dumb ethnic stereotypes are an inherent part of the Street Fighter ethos.

One of the great things about Overwatch is that they made sure to do the complete opposite and show different nationalities as positively as possible.
 
NICHIJOUDENSETSU

NICHIJOUDENSETSU

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Nov 15, 2017
858
The thing I find most odd is that the game with the most tame racial / sexual stereotypes is beloved the world over, and actually serves to bring people together in a common spirit of friendly competition.
 
Nightfall

Nightfall

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Oct 27, 2017
3,964
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I think you're reading way too much into this. The characters had to look distinct and recognizable. They had to have very pronounced personalities. That was done simply via visual traits.
So everyone could instantly see "Oh, this guy's a sumo! Oh this guy's russian" etc.

Is Street Fighter racist? No, I dont think so. And if you look at new characters like Rashid or Menat, you can clearly see them represent their origins while also being badass!
 
jwhit28

jwhit28

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Oct 25, 2017
5,052
Haven't they already improved? The current Brazillian rep is a sexy lady that practices Jiu Jitsu. Nothing about Juri screams Korean besides Taekwondo. Even going back to Street Fighter III, the stereotypes were turned down. If you are asking if they will completely dump the World Warriors, again look at the reaction to Street Fighter III.
 
Platy

Platy

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Oct 25, 2017
27,707
Brazil
The health bar thing is not even close to being the biggest problem with SF treatment of women .... at least now Akuma also has a ridiculously low health =P

Also I heard that Blank might be a monster because he is based on some depictions of Braziliank folkore creature Curupira.... i don't believe in it much

sixteen-bit said:
Her lifebar is the same length as the other characters, but she still has fewer hitpoints. This continues to SFV. Historically, the only women in Street Fighter to reach the 1000 hit point average that Ken and Ryu have are Makoto, Poison, and Laura.
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At least Laura saves a little the list... if was just makoto and poison one could arguee that the list was "manly women that people fap less"

Chindogg said:
I recall during a Videogames Live concert in Brazil the audience went nuts for Blanka's theme so it might not just be a cut and dried situation of people being offended.
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Blanka in brazil is the same reason most trans people like Poison
For a long time that was the only representation we had.
 
scare_crow

scare_crow

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Oct 28, 2017
6,310
So, you're saying a game made in 1991 isn't as culturally sensitive as present-day mindsets?

I don't believe you.
 
Silky

Silky

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Oct 25, 2017
10,522
Georgia
hibikase said:
I mean we've known this since forever. Dumb ethnic stereotypes are an inherent part of the Street Fighter ethos.

One of the great things about Overwatch is that they made sure to do the complete opposite and show different nationalities as positively as possible.
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The only black guys in Overwatch are either happy, music loving characters (comparable to SF2's Dee Jay) and big muscleheaded assholes (SF2's Balrog)

The only Russian character is a grossly overused strongman/man trope

I like Overwatch too my dude but to argue they do the complete opposite is a bit of an eyebrow raiser for me.

Nightfall said:
I think you're reading way too much into this. The characters had to look distinct and recognizable. They had to have very pronounced personalities. That was done simply via visual traits.
So everyone could instantly see "Oh, this guy's a sumo! Oh this guy's russian" etc.

Is Street Fighter racist? No, I dont think so. And if you look at new characters like Rashid or Menat, you can clearly see them represent their origins while also being badass!
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SF2 is a game definitely lost in it's ways simply due to when the game was produced (early 90s). It gets way better in later titles (4 returning to some of those goofy stereotypes for the newcomers like Fuerte, Rufus, Hakan)
 

Deleted member 8117

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I feel like it gradually evolved from being stereotypical and racist to become a celebration of different cultures and identities. For example, as an Arab, I love how Rashid is presented in SFV.

It's also one of the few fighting games where women got a muscular bodies realistically portraying their physical strength. There's still "fan-service" or whatever but it's applied to both gender with stuff like Hot Ryu so I don't have that big of a problem with it.
 
Ryce

Ryce

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Oct 25, 2017
9,290
Why are all of the examples in the OP from 25 years ago? Racial stereotypes were massively downplayed in Alpha, III, IV, and V.
 
Neoxon

Neoxon

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Wiping the slate clean roster-wise is almost what Capcom did with SFIII, so I wouldn't expect them to try that again anytime soon. Plus we still have at least 2 more seasons of SFV after S3.

That said, Capcom did start to tone down the racial stereotypes from Alpha onwards.
 
jakoo

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Oct 27, 2017
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I mean, you can probably extend this criticism to any legacy franchise that was conceived in a time where the social standards are different then they are today. Obviously, you can look at a more contemporary franchise like Overwatch for how to do a better job of representing a multicultural cast of characters, but they had the benefit of creating a blank slate that's mindful of the standards of today. I don't think a legacy franchise like Street Fighter would survive a soft reboot if they completely removed all of the original characters, and even hard "rebranding" them would probably risk alienating the core audience.

I do agree that some characters, particularly Dalhsim, seem a bit outlandish in today's view. That being said, I also think it's somewhat of a stretch that if a fighting style is generally associated with a certain country, that it's not racist to portray them in that manner? In the article for example, I don't know if I agree with the assertion that E-Honda as particularly troublesome...he's a pretty generic and not particularly exploitative take on a sumo wrestler. Also....lumping in Vega with that? I've never heard of "Spanish Vanity" as some kind of stereotype or trope.

It seems Capcom is somewhat receptive to improvements though. For example, I am glad that in the instance of Sakura they are trying to move away from the "Japanese schoolgirl" trope and kind of elevating what she seems to be about in Season 3.
 
Deft Beck

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I think that the modern games are doing a better job than the past games. Rashid was designed in tandem with a Saudi Arabian game outlet, no?
 
Chindogg

Chindogg

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jakoo said:
I wonder if Street Fighter is somewhat receptive to improvements though. For example, I am glad that in the instance of Sakura they are trying to move away from the "Japanese schoolgirl" trope and kind of elevating what she seems to be about in Season 3.
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The fact that she graduated high school and is working as an arcade hype girl is a very refreshing upgrade.
 

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Chindogg said:
I recall during a Videogames Live concert in Brazil the audience went nuts for Blanka's theme so it might not just be a cut and dried situation of people being offended.
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Most brazilians never went to the north or don't care about it. Some people in the other, most populated regions, think it's like how it was represented in SFII even. Self depreciation is a thing here too, like it must be with most of the people in these countries, so yeah I don't think it's a good reference.

I'm brazilian and I think Blanka is a shitty character that should never come back. Not only because of what he represents, but he's in general very stupid. I don't like Laura too, but Sean is amazing ー love him.
 
Pandy

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Today I learned that some people think the characters in Street Fighter are somehow supposed to be representative of real-life humans.

EDIT: Also, lmao at the incredibly hyperbolic thread title with the token question mark at the end to take the sting out of it.
 
hibikase

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Brazil loves Blanka but to be fair there's basically nothing about him that can be considered an ethnic stereotype, nobody thinks that Brazilians have green skin and can produce electricity with their bodies.
 
SageShinigami

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Oct 27, 2017
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You "clean slate" and you'll kill the franchise. You can make new characters that are more measured and thoughtful, but the franchise fans ain't trying to see everybody gone except Guile and Ryu.
 

FormatCompatible

One Winged Slayer
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Oct 25, 2017
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Chindogg said:
I recall during a Videogames Live concert in Brazil the audience went nuts for Blanka's theme so it might not just be a cut and dried situation of people being offended.
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I don't know about other people, but me and my friends while not necessarily offended by Blanka (we still loved the character) made fun of the fact he was the only brazilian character for years and he looked like that (and had legcuffs to boot).
 
RM8

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The health bar is a non issue. Different characters having less health not only makes sense, but it also makes for more varied character styles (like Akuma who is a glass cannon). The issue was Chun Li being the only one having "custom" health, I guess.
---

My Mexican perspective - T. Hawk sucks ass, but not because he's a Mexican stereotype. It's actually the opposite, lol, he's not Mexican at all despite canonically being so. El Fuerte is awesome, though, and that's a Mexican stereotype. Lucha libre is an actual Mexican thing and Mexican people are indeed overly proud about Mexican food :P
 
NinjaScooter

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Similar situation to Punch Out. Like if you go back to it's inception, you have Russian character named Vodka Drunkinski, but Nintendo much like Capcom has toned a lot of that down.
 
Chindogg

Chindogg

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Heartskips said:
Most brazilians never went to the north or don't care about it. Some people in the other, most populated regions, think it's like how it was represented in SFII even. Self depreciation is a thing here too, like it must be with most of the people in these countries, so yeah I don't think it's a good reference.

I'm brazilian and I think Blanka is a shitty character that should never come back. Not only because of what he represents, but he's in general very stupid. I don't like Laura too, but Sean is amazing ー love him.
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FormatCompatible said:
I don't know about other people, but me and my friends while not necessarily offended by Blanka (we still loved the character) made fun of the fact he was the only brazilian character for years and he looked like that (and had legcuffs to boot).
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Fair enough.
 
Arkeband

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Dhalsim always seemed a little iffy to me.

The stage backgrounds still suck, mostly because they look like they're from a previous generation of hardware. They seem to be the biggest offender.
 
Dreamboum

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Did the first article really say that the representation of Guile, a white man, is racist ?
 

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Solid Sora said:
I feel like it gradually evolved from being stereotypical and racist to become a celebration of different cultures and identities. For example, as an Arab, I love how Rashid is presented in SFV.

It's also one of the few fighting games where women got a muscular bodies realistically portraying their physical strength. There's still "fan-service" or whatever but it's applied to both gender with stuff like Hot Ryu so I don't have that big of a problem with it.
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That's true too. Later games got all better with it.

hibikase said:
Brazil loves Blanka but to be fair there's basically nothing about him that can be considered an ethnic stereotype, nobody thinks that Brazilians have green skin and can produce electricity with their bodies.
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I don't think he's even brazilian. Character sucks tho.
 
MR ARCADE

MR ARCADE

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Oh come on I am from Brazil and I was never offended by Blanka's monster like appearance. The world is full of stereotypes even the American fighters are... Guile and the army muscular Rambo look is am example. I remember kids in Brazil where excited just to have a fighter representing Brazil.
 
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