Changing the heroes skin or gender doesn't suddenly change my mind on how generic this looks.
And yet, the burden of bland looking characters still mostly fall upon straight white males in vidya games. Wonder why that is.
Changing the heroes skin or gender doesn't suddenly change my mind on how generic this looks.
I'm sorry I cut into your lane please forgive me I'm going to another roda now I'll be out of your way. ;~;Nep, why the fuck you gotta explain my points both more effectively and succinctly than me when I'm hastily trying to write up the OP before going to work?
I would love to see more representation in starwars games but with that being said I understand why respawn and EA haven't taken any risks with fallen order. Starwars fans have been upset with EA's handling of the IP and if this game isn't successful it will be just another bullet point added to the list of ways EA is messing up starwars.
I'm not saying that having a black/female/lgbt protagonist would mess up starwars, but based on how polarized the starwars community has become since episode 8 it's not surprising that EA and respawn have decided to go the route they have to avoid any potential controversy...remember how some people reacted to girls being in battlefield 5...this looks like they are making as vanilla a story as possible with regards to the starwars universe.
I can't remember entirely because the game was so forgetful, but I'm pretty sure you play as a black/Hispanic (not really clear/doesn't really matter) female in starwars battlefront 2... but the game didn't really receive any major praise as a result of the choice of protagonist. To be fair though bf2 was pretty terrible.
Yeah, absolutely. I don't think that means it's "earned" the franchise a free pass on anything, but I do think it's very good how diverse the recent films have been.If you're not seeing the diversity in Star Wars then you're choosing to have your head in the sand. Last Jedi didn't star any white guys. The stars were essentially Rey and Finn. The white males were Luke in a glorified cameo who they killed off and the main villain. That's it for non-background characters. Yes, Solo starred a white guy, but it's a movie about Han Solo. He's a white character, what were they supposed to do there? Look at Rogue one. I don't think any of the heroes were white males in that movie at all, were they?
Honestly I don't think any major franchise can touch Star Wars for diversity right now, so that's a really weird criticism to make.
sorry about that. is the quote mechanism on this forum - i quoted you on one section and for some reason it carried over to here i think?
This is an interesting topic. No one wants a situation where there's diversity for diversity sake, but it's kind of the only way things can be different in this industry. The amount of gatekeeping limits the opportunities of POCs, women, and non-hetero/non-cis individuals, leading to the same protagonists used time in and time out. For those who make the attempt to make unique protagonists who aren't white/male/straight (and I'll throw in athletic and able bodied) they have to play it safe by shoehorning in a character that fits the standard template, which wouldn't serve the character at all, or have to create a narrative that could be read as inauthentic at best or cartoonishly stereotypical at worst. The latter could lead to creatives choosing not to stray too far from the status quo which is disappointing, but what they really should do is hire more diverse voices that could aid with that.
If you're not seeing the diversity in Star Wars then you're choosing to have your head in the sand. Last Jedi didn't star any white guys. The stars were essentially Rey and Finn. The white males were Luke in a glorified cameo who they killed off and the main villain. That's it for non-background characters. Yes, Solo starred a white guy, but it's a movie about Han Solo. He's a white character, what were they supposed to do there? Look at Rogue one. I don't think any of the heroes were white males in that movie at all, were they?
Honestly I don't think any major franchise can touch Star Wars for diversity right now, so that's a really weird criticism to make.
Quite frankly, I think "diversity for diversity's sake" is fine. I'm currently writing a story (hopefully, eventually a novel, but I'm realistic) where most of the protagonists are non-white. Their skin color has no bearing on my story, so I just made them whatever race I wanted.This is an interesting topic. No one wants a situation where there's diversity for diversity sake, but it's kind of the only way things can be different in this industry. The amount of gatekeeping limits the opportunities of POCs, women, and non-hetero/non-cis individuals, leading to the same protagonists used time in and time out. For those who make the attempt to make unique protagonists who aren't white/male/straight (and I'll throw in athletic and able bodied) they have to play it safe by shoehorning in a character that fits the standard template, which wouldn't serve the character at all, or have to create a narrative that could be read as inauthentic at best or cartoonishly stereotypical at worst. The latter could lead to creatives choosing not to stray too far from the status quo which is disappointing, but what they really should do is hire more diverse voices that could aid with that.
Given the fact that the character is based in a real person ain't it disrespectful to label him as "generic"? I am not even a Starwars fan but I hope that this game delivers, otherwise EA will insist with MP games again.
Obviously people are talking about having another white male main playable character in video games forced down our throats and the general familiarity of the presentation and era/story of the game and not "labeling" this particular dude about his looks
Given the fact that the character is based in a real person ain't it disrespectful to label him as "generic"? I am not even a Starwars fan but I hope that this game delivers, otherwise EA will insist with MP games again.
My thoughts are mixed. The star wars movie universe is very diverse, with no straight white male leads (except solo, but he's dead now). If Star Wars X has a white hero, that would be fine.
However the star wars game universe is very white and very male. It also involves one character, while movies can have a diverse ensemble cast of heroes.
The Force awakens and Jedi Academy series were also about young white man learning they were force sensitive. So I get why people feel we've seen this story before.
I think I'd prefer an alien or pick-your-own protagonist. Racism (unless we're taking alien races) doesn't seem to be a thing in the star wars universe, so a pick your own protagonist would work fine.
I don't like how games seen to want to recreate the voice actor's face, while the movies use CGI to make real people into aliens.
The star wars universe is lacking some villain diversity though. A female antagonist is good, especially if they avoid making her a sexy siren-type (I'm so glad star wars is a kids series or you know what characters the "more seductive" dark side would have).
I get what you're saying and in a vacuum that would very much be true, but oftentimes that's not the case and it depends entirely on what narrative you're trying to portray. A woman is going to have a different life experience than a queer white man whose experience differs from a South Asian man, etc. Different walks of life and what have you. It would do a disservice to a potentially unique story opportunity to just palette swap their gender/race and continue on with the story as is.Quite frankly, I think "diversity for diversity's sake" is fine. I'm currently writing a story (hopefully, eventually a novel, but I'm realistic) where most of the protagonists are non-white. Their skin color has no bearing on my story, so I just made them whatever race I wanted.
I can't name many games--if any--where the character would drastically change if you made a white protagonist Black or Hispanic or Asian or Indigenous or whatever. Joel from TLOU could very well have been Black and it would have changed dick-all.
I don't think "shoehorning" is the appropriate word.
I get what you're saying and in a vacuum that would very much be true, but oftentimes that's not the case and it depends entirely on what narrative you're trying to portray. A woman is going to have a different life experience than a queer white man whose experience differs from a South Asian man, etc. Different walks of life and what have you. It would do a disservice to a potentially unique story opportunity to just palette swap their gender/race and continue on with the story as is.
You've mentioned that you want the characters of your story to be non-white and I commend you for doing that, but what else? Are they immigrants or first/second generational residents? Do they speak other languages and if not are there dialects that are unique to them and people like them? Are they religious or heavily influenced by their native culture, etc.? These questions could go on and I haven't event touched on physical descriptions and if your characters are female on not. A lot of what you write can help these characters live vibrant lives on page and help flesh them out more than just being female or POC.
Yup. Especially in fantasy/sci-fi contexts where there isn't any real-world sociopolitical context needed for introducing characters of different races, genders or sexualities that needs to be considered, it can hardly be seen as diversity for the sake of it, a fantasy world setting is not so tightly or inherently white or hetero or male culturally or historically to make it seem forced, and anyone who believes that it does clearly believes, either consciously or subconsciously, that fantasy/sci-fi narratives shouldn't or can't belong to women, the LGBTQ or people of colour.Quite frankly, I think "diversity for diversity's sake" is fine. I'm currently writing a story (hopefully, eventually a novel, but I'm realistic) where most of the protagonists are non-white. Their skin color has no bearing on my story, so I just made them whatever race I wanted.
I can't name many games--if any--where the character would drastically change if you made a white protagonist Black or Hispanic or Asian or Indigenous or whatever. Joel from TLOU could very well have been Black and it would have changed dick-all.
I don't think "shoehorning" is the appropriate word.
The Force awakens and Jedi Academy series were also about young white man learning they were force sensitive. So I get why people feel we've seen this story before.
I think I'd prefer an alien or pick-your-own protagonist. Racism (unless we're taking alien races) doesn't seem to be a thing in the star wars universe, so a pick your own protagonist would work fine.
I don't like how games seen to want to recreate the voice actor's face, while the movies use CGI to make real people into aliens.
I get what you're saying and in a vacuum that would very much be true, but oftentimes that's not the case and it depends entirely on what narrative you're trying to portray. A woman is going to have a different life experience than a queer white man whose experience differs from a South Asian man, etc. Different walks of life and what have you. It would do a disservice to a potentially unique story opportunity to just palette swap their gender/race and continue on with the story as is.
You've mentioned that you want the characters of your story to be non-white and I commend you for doing that, but what else? Are they immigrants or first/second generational residents? Do they speak other languages and if not are there dialects that are unique to them and people like them? Are they religious or heavily influenced by their native culture, etc.? These questions could go on and I haven't event touched on physical descriptions and if your characters are female on not. A lot of what you write can help these characters live vibrant lives on page and help flesh them out more than just being female or POC.
You have to take into account what being a cis-het white male contributes to the story. What conflicts arise for this white person? What do his race, gender, sex and creed contribute to the story?I get what you're saying and in a vacuum that would very much be true, but oftentimes that's not the case and it depends entirely on what narrative you're trying to portray. A woman is going to have a different life experience than a queer white man whose experience differs from a South Asian man, etc. Different walks of life and what have you. It would do a disservice to a potentially unique story opportunity to just palette swap their gender/race and continue on with the story as is.
At the time of writing, I'm not super interested in getting into their culture. One of the main characters, the favourite character of my group of aspiring authors, is a black lesbian, but none of those racial/sexual aspects come up when they talk about her. I've shown what I've written to a few published authors and those aspects still don't come up in conversation.You've mentioned that you want the characters of your story to be non-white and I commend you for doing that, but what else? Are they immigrants or first/second generational residents? Do they speak other languages and if not are there dialects that are unique to them and people like them? Are they religious or heavily influenced by their native culture, etc.? These questions could go on and I haven't event touched on physical descriptions and if your characters are female on not. A lot of what you write can help these characters live vibrant lives on page and help flesh them out more than just being female or POC.
While it's good to explore the national and ethnic and gender identity backgrounds of characters as part of their characterization, there is also the fact that sometimes a person's minority status honestly doesn't have anything to do with the story.
So what then? The answer, if we're following your line of logic, is then just to make them white guys. Which is a problematic doublestandard. Your essentially instating the idea that minorities need a particular reason to justify their existence in a story, while while guys can just be. No one ever asked Lucas or Rowling why they made their protagonist a white dude, but according to this reasoning, we'd need a reason why Rey being a woman is needed for the new trilogy, and that is, simply put, not fair.
There is great value in going into the specific experiences that being a minority of some kind have. But that shouldn't be necessary to justify their inclusion in a story. Sometimes, you should have a black female trans lesbian just because you can.
Very true. A white male human in a fantasy/sci-fi universe just feels lazy. You've made an excellent point, I don't know what else to say that wouldn't be redundant, lol.Yup. Especially in fantasy/sci-fi contexts where there isn't any real-world sociopolitical context needed for introducing characters of different races, genders or sexualities that needs to be considered, it can hardly be seen as diversity for the sake of it, a fantasy world setting is not so tightly or inherently white or hetero culturally or historically to make it seem forced, and anyone who believes that it does clearly believes, either consciously or subconsciously, that fantasy/sci-fi narratives shouldn't or can't belong to women, the LGBTQ or people of colour.
Situations like this bring up an interesting point, because Star Wars is TEEMING with alien races, but the main character in a video game that doesn't rely on human actors physically portraying a part is still a human. When choosing a human, of all the possibilities, they chose a white guy. So on multiple levels, the creative team has failed us by choosing to represent the majority in the main character option by making him look like the majority, when they could have chosen to stay with a human character but provide some diversity or opt to go even further and tell us a story from an entirely alien perspective in the way only a few sci-fi franchises can.
no, as far as I'm aware they can not be.When I first saw the character at the start of the trailer, I was slightly bored by that alone, but not enough to not give it a chance. I wondered if it was a standard default created character and we could customize our own, but that wasn't the case. The rest of the trailer didn't interest me much. The guy didn't have much of a charm or character to him to win me over like Drake for example. The "Trust no one" line repeating was boring and uninteresting and I just put that on the character as well. Maybe future videos will make the character more interesting, or maybe the world will be made interesting instead, the gameplay being awesome would be nice.
Oh I would love to be a robot looking character like the one in Rogue One, or something. Can robots be Jedi? I'm a Star Wars noob.
No I know,
My request of a Twi'lek is just that they are so definitively Star Wars but only get to exist secondary to others unless you get lucky with a custom character game.(Hera came close but still ended up secondary to Ezra and Sabine)
I mean as amazing as Ahsoka is she deserves a lead but hasn't gotten one outside of a book. An Ahsoka game or movie would be amazing.
Ahsoka's situation was perfect for a game like this.
No I didn't. It's a lot more subtle than I've type out. It could anything from how a character would interact with another. For example, if your character is a woman in a room full of men, how would that affect her interactions with them? Is she acting more assertively to get her voice heard or carefully observing her surroundings? Is she "one of the guys", dressing down, up, is she aware that she's the only female in the room? It's the little touches that makes the character that much different than if it were a man. That's what I meant.While it's good to explore the national and ethnic and gender identity backgrounds of characters as part of their characterization, there is also the fact that sometimes a person's minority status honestly doesn't have anything to do with the story.
So what then? The answer, if we're following your line of logic, is then just to make them white guys. Which is a problematic doublestandard. Your essentially instating the idea that minorities need a particular reason to justify their existence in a story, while while guys can just be. No one ever asked Lucas or Rowling why they made their protagonist a white dude, but according to this reasoning, we'd need a reason why Rey being a woman is needed for the new trilogy, and that is, simply put, not fair.
There is great value in going into the specific experiences that being a minority of some kind have. But that shouldn't be necessary to justify their inclusion in a story. Sometimes, you should have a black female trans lesbian just because you can.
So, to explore the first question: would a minority character is better served within this framework?
Would having a minority character in the premise of this be more important if it had a non-white guy protagonist.
Sure, but your working under the assumption that those questions are necessarily relevant to the story, which might not be the case. As I mentioned in the OP, we functionally have no history of humanity in Star Wars. Canonically, black people may have never been enslaved by white people. For all we know, there were never any tensions at all. As a result, it's possible in that fictional space that there isn't any relevant distinction in how a black person might talk to white people vs other black people, unlike that is the case often in real life.No I didn't. It's a lot more subtle than I've type out. It could anything from how a character would interact with another. For example, if your character is a woman in a room full of men, how would that affect her interactions with them? Is she acting more assertively to get her voice heard or carefully observing her surroundings? Is she "one of the guys", dressing down, up, is she aware that she's the only female in the room? It's the little touches that makes the character that much different than if it were a man. That's what I meant.
Exactly. With Star Wars as the backdrop, picking a human protagonist is already bad enough, doubling down by making the human white makes it especially jarring in how banal of a choice it was.Meh White males are default which also means they are generic.
And in Star Wars where they could have anything cool...it's like going to some fantastic world market grocery store and picking out Wonder Bread.
I'm not saying you couldn't make a good/great piece of media by using ones' gender or race interchangeably. That what seem to be working in Hollywood now. What I mean is the subtle nuisances that makes the characters more than the sum of their parts. I'm not asking for a dissertation or a complete cultural deconstruction guys relax, lol. Okay, several of you guys mentioned Ripley, great female lead and not meant to be. This works well in a sci-fi/fantasy setting where you could create an entire universe free from the social/economical baggage that our current world has. Templates are fine for settings like this because you're free to create, edit, change, and explore as much or as little of the characters background without real-world commentaries should you so chose (which makes it a problem when most people use male/white for their humanoid characters, but I digress). But let's take another strong female character, Clarice Starling from Silence of the Lamb. She lives in a world similar to our own and have to fight an uphill battle with doing her job, often times butting heads with her superiors, peers, and other men in she interacts with. Her entire story would change drastically if she was anything other than a woman. See what I mean?
At the time of writing, I'm not super interested in getting into their culture. One of the main characters, the favourite character of my group of aspiring authors, is a black lesbian, but none of those racial/sexual aspects come up when they talk about her. I've shown what I've written to a few published authors and those aspects still don't come up in conversation.
She's a badass rocker and people seemed to dig it. I just... well, to use a term you said, "palate swapped" her. I don't know how progressive it is to ignore the sociopolitical aspects of being a black lesbian, but I don't think that's really necessary.
Hell, look at Alien. The film's script was written as gender-neutral and they just hired actors based on their performances. And wouldn't you know it? Ripley is hailed as a great female character. I think there is a good precedent for "palate swapping" actually working.
Sure, but your working under the assumption that those questions are necessarily relevant to the story, which might not be the case. As I mentioned in the OP, we functionally have no history of humanity in Star Wars. Canonically, black people may have never been enslaved by white people. For all we know, there were never any tensions at all. As a result, it's possible in that fictional space that there isn't any relevant distinction in how a black person might talk to white people vs other black people, unlike that is the case often in real life.
I see the distinction your trying to talk about and why you feel I misunderstood you, but I honestly feel I didn't because your essentially arguing that minority status HAS to be included in a characterization, or they may as well be white guys.
To use your example of being the only woman in a room full of men, that was Rey's position in Star Wars TFA, stuck between Chewbacca, Han, and Finn for most of the movie. The only other woman she interacted with was Maz, who only showed up for a short scene. And there is no distinction in how she interacted with Maz except that she was a Yoda like figure to her, but I see no reason why Maz couldn't have been a male alien and still gotten the scene exactly how it played out. Rey was effectively genderless in terms of how she interacts with everyone she meets, but I don't think that in any way lessens her character or justification as a woman. It all works just fine.
She's a woman just because, and that's fine.
I address this in my later post, but I do agree that fantasy/sci-fi/utopian settings frees the characters from our world's baggage and that makes gender/race swaps okay. The thing is, most creatives don't do that and we almost always end up with white male leads because...Sure, but your working under the assumption that those questions are necessarily relevant to the story, which might not be the case. As I mentioned in the OP, we functionally have no history of humanity in Star Wars. Canonically, black people may have never been enslaved by white people. For all we know, there were never any tensions at all. As a result, it's possible in that fictional space that there isn't any relevant distinction in how a black person might talk to white people vs other black people, unlike that is the case often in real life.
I see the distinction your trying to talk about and why you feel I misunderstood you, but I honestly feel I didn't because your essentially arguing that minority status HAS to be included in a characterization, or they may as well be white guys.
To use your example of being the only woman in a room full of men, that was Rey's position in Star Wars TFA, stuck between Chewbacca, Han, and Finn for most of the movie. The only other woman she interacted with was Maz, who only showed up for a short scene. And there is no distinction in how she interacted with Maz except that she was a Yoda like figure dealing a harsh truth to her, but Maz could have been a male alien and every detail of that scene could have played out the exact same way. Rey was effectively genderless in terms of how she interacts with everyone she meets, but I don't think that in any way lessens her character or justification to be written as a woman.
They made Rey into a woman for no reason other than that they could, and that works just fine.
I'm not saying you couldn't make a good/great piece of media by using ones' gender or race interchangeably. That what seem to be working in Hollywood now. What I mean is the subtle nuisances that makes the characters more than the sum of their parts. I'm not asking for a dissertation or a complete cultural deconstruction guys relax, lol. Okay, several of you guys mentioned Ripley, great female lead and not meant to be. This works well in a sci-fi/fantasy setting where you could create an entire universe free from the social/economical baggage that our current world has. Templates are fine for settings like this because you're free to create, edit, change, and explore as much or as little of the characters background without real-world commentaries should you so chose (which makes it a problem when most people use male/white for their humanoid characters, but I digress). But let's take another strong female character, Clarice Starling from Silence of the Lamb. She lives in a world similar to our own and have to fight an uphill battle with doing her job, often times butting heads with her superiors, peers, and other men in she interacts with. Her entire story would change drastically if she was anything other than a woman. See what I mean?
I address this in my later post, but I do agree that fantasy/sci-fi/utopian settings frees the characters from our world's baggage and that makes gender/race swaps okay. The thing is, most creatives don't do that and we almost always end up with white male leads because...
It shouldn't be.You started this by saying "No one wants a situation where there's diversity for diversity sake," and we're saying we very much do. You argue from this position as if people are actively trying to discourage how minority background interactions happen, but nobody is saying that. We're just pointing out that you don't need to include those interactions with your story to include minorities.
To use your example, yes, the movie Silence of the Lambs would indeed be very different if you changed the gender and sourthern background interactions that Clarice has Hannibal and other characters. You are correct that it would indeed result in a different movie. However, that doesn't necessarily entail that it would be an inferior movie. Nor does it entail that it would be a superior one, either, sure, but the argument I'm making here is that having those interactions is neither necessary nor inherently beneficial to the story.
You don't need a fantasy story to accomplish this. You can make this happen in a real life setting. It would be statistically improbable to have an interaction between two people that is purely egalitarian without bias' towards whatever minority status a cahracter has, but that doesn't actually matter. If 99% act differently towards a woman than they do a man, there is nothing stopping you from writing the super-rare character that doesn't. That's not even unrealistic, really, just rare.
Yes. To further that point, to see such a character devoid of the usual socio-political struggles associated with them can be seen as aspirational or empowering to some, in that they are just allowed to be. That also has value in some respects, even for stories set in our socio-political backdrop.It obviously depends on the context of the whole story. For me, I'd suggest that exploring the sociopolitical aspects of being a black lesbian would only serve to grant further authenticity the character and the story - but that's only a surface level observation. I don't think failing to do so would render things completely pointless or weak (it can still be a strong story, regardless), it would just lose a level of nuance that the might help a black lesbian reading this character to identify with them.