Racism in Video Games | Ubisoft’s FAR CRY 4
Yesterday I stumbled upon an article on blockbuster video games and racism, and as a longtime gamer myself, I expected the over-exaggerated Grand Theft Auto V game to sit squarely in the crosshairs of the article’s content (especially on the heels of a controversial study declaring that video games promote racist thoughts and behavior).
Instead I was completely surprised when BIOSHOCK INFINITE, one of the games in my Top 10 list to play when I eventually have the time, popped up as one of the games mentioned. As a quick note — even if you don’t follow video games, if you’re here to read up on racism, you’ll appreciate both this post and Zack’s article. I digress…
Now, as any good writer would do, I immediately put “Play BIOSHOCK INFINITE” on my calendar for last night. I already own the game and had no idea there was any controversy associated with it (mind-boggling that I hadn’t heard anything, considering the buzz it received, not to mention all the awards), so for research purposes, well, I mean I had to play it, right?
But it will take awhile to play through Bioshock Infinite (often months for me with my schedule), so I will talk about my findings in a future post. For now, let me speak to the first point in Zack Kotzer’s article — the box art for Ubisoft’s new game FAR CRY 4. Zack, not known for his racism articles, summarized it nicely:
“When the first art for Far Cry 4 surfaced online recently, most people saw a glimpse of the new Himalayan setting, a scatter of some guns you’ll be able to shoot, and a fab, foreign villain you’ll be trying to kill.
Other gamers, though, saw an image steeped in colonialism: a fairer-skinned overlord stroking a submissive native, with broken Buddhist statues being used as a throne; in other words, sensitive cultural images of a marginalized group dolled up for shock value.”
I scrolled down to look at the full picture, and it was pretty easy to see both views. I’m just not sure what to make of it, as the character being portrayed as racist in the art is obviously the villain of the story — so he’s the guy you, as the gamer, would seek to bring to justice.
There are dozens of games over the years that use The Third Reich and/or Hitler as a villain, and of course that creates a deep sense of evil that we want to defeat. Video games are an art form, and they should be afforded the same graces within that form as we give to film, TV, etc.
Still, there are always lines that can be crossed, and those lines will differ from person to person. If FAR CRY 4’s villains were the Nazis, and the cover showed an image of Hitler in the exact same pose with his hand on the head of a Jewish boy, what would reactions be then? Yeah, I thought so. There are definitely lines.
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And although I personally don’t find the cover offensive, obviously Veerender did, which means for him, the line was crossed. How Ubisoft handles that is up to them (and anytime a situation like this arises, potential game sales are always brought into consideration by the publisher), but regardless, Veerender is entitled to his opinion.
Unfortunately, in the age of “I’m a big badass because I’m on the internet and I don’t need to act like I normally would in person”, the aftermath of that tweet wasn’t pretty:
“In a week I had more than a thousand mentions,” says Veerender. “I had vitriol. I had derogatory slurs. I had death threats. People were talking about me on NeoGAF.
There was a blog post written about how I should be punched in the face. People are telling me to man-up, that I was being overly sensitive, that I was just complaining about a non-issue. I wrote two tweets. I had responses for ten whole days.”
For those of you familiar with Hollywood 27 and/or Change The World Films, you know that ACTION is a big part of our M.O. The goal is always to talk about how we can actually make things better, all of us — and not just talk.
So when it comes to questions of racism, here’s how you handle this if you’re one of those gamers who disagrees with Veerender and feels that the game art is most certainly not racist (and yes this also applies if you somehow feel so strongly about it that you’re actually compelled to defend Ubisoft).
1. Re-read Veerender’s comments on the artwork.
2. Look at the box art itself. He’s pointing out specific things, physically in the art. Do you see those things?
3. If yes, then understand that he’s pointing out exactly what bothered him, that it’s a real thing, and then understand that you don’t need to see it the same way. And if you don’t see those things, then feel free to ask for clarification if you really feel it’s something worth discussing.
Either way, when you reach an end there on one of those paths, just move on with your life and understand that someone felt offended by an artistic choice that an artist made — it’s very easy to happen and it’s really between the artist and the individual.
If there are no personal attacks involved that need defending, then just move on, and don’t MAKE a personal attack that then needs defending. If you’re so bored that you think making a personal attack sounds like fun, well, I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Other things that you don’t do? Write blog posts about punching in the face. Go into a racist rant. Make death threats. I know for most people that sounds absolutely absurd to even think of, but for the people who think the internet is a place to act like idiots, there it is.
Guess what? When you act that stupid, you solve nothing… and you accomplish nothing. Next time you feel like that, come back here and read the voice of reason for 5 minutes… maybe then you won’t threaten to kill a guy like Veerender because he didn’t appreciate some video game box art. And that’s the double truth.
CREDITS
https://motherboard.vice.com/read/blockbuster-video-games-still-suck-at-handling-racism
