Faking the race, the sequel

Look, it's Jake Gyllenhaal!

Last time I ranted about the crappy fake foreign accents in games. Well, turned out, there's plenty more to say about faking and insulting. Yes, I'm talking about you Hollywood. Where Tekken the movie actually follows the complex, multi-game series in the original mix of different races and nationalities (no matter how much it sucks otherwise), some just seem to look at the game and simply think "fuck it". You know by now what I'm after. The new Prince of Persia: Sands of Time movie shows the beauty of the "faking the race" phenomena. The prince is played by Jake Gyllenhaal, evidently the most Persian looking guy in Hollywood, and the Farah substitute seems to be some British chick. With a tan!

Gemma Arterton's ethnic career:

"Oh hai, iz Greek!"

 "Oh hai, iz Indian!"

That’s about as foreign as it gets. There's also Alfred Molina as a sheik and Ben Kingsley as Nizam/The Vizir, who seems to be inspired by the Persians in 300. Thus, a cultural diversity turned into a whitey party. Weirder still, they went through a hell of a lot of trouble to make the game sound right. So, Jake sis talking with a fake British accent, which ironically is the only authencity in the whole goddamn thing.

There's been "Greek" Gerard Butlers and Sam Worthingtons before, so it's nothing shocking really. And gamers certainly have had some hard time with godawful game adaptations with a total miscast (thank you Uwe Boll). It does make you think though: why to take a perfectly good concept and specificly turn it into an ethnic cleansed western fable? Not that it's any of my business (as a paying customer) but personally I'd have enjoyed watching someone a bit more, you know, Persian. Gemma's part is understandable, surely they couldn't have cast any of the 1,5 million Brits with indian heritage. That's just crazy talk.

Why even try. I suggest Hollywood does the whole damn series and bleaches the characters in every part.

So Kaileena will be played by Yvonne Strahovski.

Elika will be played by Lily Cole.

And Forgotten Sands will be an epic tale of a ghost in a snowstorm.

Yeah. It's pretty obvious Jordan Mechner, the creator of the consept, Disney or Jerry Bruckheimer don't care about the actual cultures they make money on, they just want the cool sounding bits such as "Persian" and "Caribbean" and dress up some white folk in nice clothes.

It's not the ethnicity that bugs me even so much as the need to put someone white, even the totally wrong one, into the role. I'm sad about the characters which were butchered in this project. Farah, who was excellent, for instance. She was interesting, and the exotic looks was part of her charm. She could have been a goddess really. So fail there. Jake doesn't remind the prince from the actual game at all. The muscles and the rough edgy look is more of Warrior Within. This one should have been sparky and smirky, frisky and boyish, a charmer. Even then, it might have been forgivable if it had worked. Jake is a great actor, and he's got the teddy bear eyes and feet sweeping looks, but he's not comfy here. Who ever chose to make the ultimate choices with Prince of Persia turned this movie pretty much into an empty shell.

As predicted, Mechner went all politician about the race thing. When asked whether they'd looked at anyone of Persian descent, Mechner said: “Yeah, they looked at a huge range of actors -- There are hundreds of great actors that could’ve done the job, but you end up picking one”.

What an asshole. Wonder if their "search" was similar to The Last Airbender's "caucasian...or other...".

Which leads us to another great example of Hollywood's ethnic cleansing.

I personally find this quite antic:

"Two months after the initial cast of The Last Airbender was announced and after considerable fan outcry, the role of Prince Zuko, the film’s primary antagonist, was recast from a white actor to Indian-British actor Dev Patel. Subsequently, several actors of “Latino, Middle Eastern” descent were cast to play villains and conquering Fire Nation soldiers that are the antagonists in the film. The production also began casting “Asian and African” actors to play citizens of a country that has fallen victim to the Fire Nation. Because of these castings, M. Night Shyamalan has declared The Last Airbender “the most culturally diverse tent-pole movie ever made.”

This quote is from the wonderful anti-Airbender-movement racebending's site, which I recommend for further reseach. So, what's happening is that Avatar: The Last Airbender, a loved show about Inuits and Asians is now made into a movie called The Last Airbender, cast entirely with white people, except for the baddies and props. "The most culturally diverse" flick is copying the pattern Hollywood have been doing since, oh I don't know, forever. Of course those of us who actually have watched the show have already identified with the Katara, Sokka and Aang we know, and they sure aren't white.

Check out, for example, the pic of Katara and Sokka with their "tribe".

Since I'm choking into disbelieve I'll let racebending do the talking once more. "An entire tribe populated using extras from Greenland – a nation that is almost 90% of Inuit heritage – is championed by two Caucasians."

I don't know how to emphasase this any stronger, but for fuck's sake, the white leads has been there for the last 100 years. It is seen, done, over and out, old news, tired and self repeating. It is nothing to be tampered for, especially by force and obsession, ending up with actors who have absolutely nothing to offer to the characters. Yeah, for a while it looked pretty good for non-whites too, but obviously the last few years' regression wasn't just financial. Distress wouldn't need to lead to discrimination, xenophobia and downturn, yet it often does and these are the results.

Stay tuned for Leonardo DiCaprio as Akira!

Faking the foreigner

"Top of the morning to ya!" by The Boozing Irishman.

Bad voice acting is no news to gamers. There's been some pretty disturbing stuff, mostly within the challenge of delivering emotions. Voice acting can be a tool to great gameplay. It's part of building the character into a likable, charismatic form of identification. Or it can be a way to say "fuck you and your stupid accent".

There's a fine line between funny and offensive. Some brand new games have chosen the latter and present interesting attitudes towards foreigners. The Saboteur's protagonist Sean is an Irishman. His voice on the other hand is not. The result: one of the shittiest, most stereotypical Irish growls I've ever heard. Apparently Robin Atkin Downes thought that just infiltrating some "arses" in the lines is effort to put on a person's national identification. The rest is stolen from these.

Ah yes, let's not forget all the rest of the lovely accents in the game. Jon Curry plays a Frenchman, I think, and sounds exactly the same as he did as an Italian. It's still better than Karen Strassman as Veronique, which is an excellent caricature of the non-native English speaker, who can't tone down the mother tongue. Jules is pretty sucky too, voice acting by a born and raised American of course. And then there's the British accent of Skylar's. This is the most baffling one since you'd think there's British actresses more than enough to choose from. (If not, I'd recommend Claudia Black for everything.)

 "Byt he 'as my bratheeer...also I've

never met a French person."

Dierker may be my favorite of all. The often seen nazi psychopath is related to Indiana Jones baddies. You remember how politically correct they were. The actor's name is suspiciosly German, but his accent sure isn't. Was he adviced to overract? Yikes.

Some people speculate Sean's accent is fake so Sean is easier to "understand" and "identify" as Irish. Yeah. Exactly comments like these worry me. In case if someone didn't know, the Irish aren't some sort of a homogeneous chunk of alcoholic arse yelling goblins. Listen to these Irish actors for example. Trouble locating them? Didn't think so.

I could guess, according to the nature of the game, that it isn't exactly taking itself seriously. There's so much stereotypes in it that I'd like to think so. Much like GTA's Nico Bellic, who sounds like this because GTA has a long tradition potraying all the immigrants and minorities in the world equally overdone. Even if that is so, it is a habit originating from tv, movies and people in Youtube pretending to be foreigners. By repeating it games will evidently be a part of the disease of bad accents and affect on future actors and their performance. It's a great big rat race with no escape.

I'm guessing what is heard in the game is a result of several things. These seem to be that game developers a) don't give a shit, since we're foreigners and therefore secundary, b) find us being an excellent source of humour and c) are working to keep the stereotypes running in order to maintain the power of "normality", "default", "us" and "the others". Since language has a huge significance in delivering images, those who have the power of the language can indeed decide if they want to dissolve the existing stereotypes. By choosing "no, I'd rather make them million times worse", you get results like Bolo Santosi.

"My name is Boloo SanToosi and I'm

the leader of an awful racist stereotype."

Oh yes, if The Saboteur's "who cares"-attitude isn't enough for you, it certainly is nothing compared to Just Cause 2, which seems to be aiming to actual racism. Bolo Santosi, the internet ceberity by now, is trying to be a Singaporean, of who, I'm guessing, none of the game crew knew nothing about. Wonder what voice actor Liz Sutherland was thinking when going to work, since I have no words.

Maybe some day, for the entertainment industry, for example Europe or Asia aren't just some foreign places with funny speaking foreigners, but continents with tons of different nationalities and people who actually buy these games and can tell if the accent is real or not. Until that I guess we'll be laughing for the absurdity, and bitching and moaning in the internet.

That's why!

Femme fatality.

Rubi Malone from Wet.

People ask me, why I like to play almost exclusively with female characters. Of course by people I mean men. Men, who play as girls just for change’s sake.

Let’s see. I grew up playing with fantastic characters like Guybrush, Indiana, Zak, Sam and Max and Brandon. Accational Nintendo-trips included Mario, Link, Mega Man and some Disney licence game heros. What do these have in common? Thaaat’s right, you're a dude. No wonder I was savoring the short moments I was allowed to play as Sophia instead of Indy.

Right, so now there are new(ish), wonderful games like Dead Space, Bioshock, Just Cause, Assassin’s Creed and Uncharted - with their sequels, Splinter Cell, Gears of War and Metal Gear Solid series, God of War, Prince of Persia (reboot), Saboteur, Dante's Inferno and Alan Wake…which also all have a male protagonists.

I know, I know, there have been girl characters. Lara of course, who never interested me at all, not by plastic looks or boring personality… And in some ealy strategic games I liked (Heros of Might and Magic) they did give the opportunity to be a girl (or at least think yourself as one). It didn’t affect on anything, but it was there. And then there was Baldur's Gate. Most praise goes to Final Fantasy games. Sure the protagonists tend to be men, yet more and more girls are involved. There has been multiple playable characters of which many are strong, interesting women. The all girl X-2 certainly got mixed reviews, but goddamn! An all girl game! FF is capable of evolving, and that alone warms my heart.

The better reason, I think I have the right, not just for a girl, but for the best character in the game. Thus, I refuse to choose Amy in Sonic or Peach in Mario, since they reek of weepy utter phlegmatism. Why aren’t other games evolving?

The unfortunate fact it that strong heroines are really freakin’ rare nowadays.

Yeah they’re good when given. Faith from Mirror’s Edge was possibly the coolest thing ever, Bayonetta from last year’s great hack&slash had lots of balls, and "Wet girl" Rubi kicked bunch of asses as well. But that’s it. That's seriously all there is.

Now you’re saying ”how about Tekken and DOA, SoulCalibur and Street Fighter?” Sure, fighting games have always had a few girls in there, not much though, compared to men. For example, Street Fighter 4 has only 5 female characters of total 25 of which two are starting characters. DOA on the other hand can’t be taken seriously after the bikini-mess.

Shooter games show least interest in pleasing women (why does everything I say sound so dirty?). FPS zombie scuffle Left 4 Dead, along with the sequel, allows you to play with one girl. The new Gears of War 3 has a girl, but you can’t play as her.

Really game makers, really?

Ah yes, but there’s always the games in which you can actually modify a character. Great right? Yes, most def. Female Sparrow, Shepard and Warden. And the gameplay is great too. But...

It still seems like the whole industry is actually made by men for men and girls are left to be the secondary audience. If there is a choice it’s always a ”choice”, an alternative, meaning default is still a man. You can see this from several game trailers.

They try. They really do. I guess they just don’t get that we girls don’t want to be ”the other” on the side. Guys have their attention by default. Girls have to ”earn” it.

I was almost happily surprised that DAO had the courtesy to step up and make origins trailers, starring just girls. Out of the six possibilities, two were female versions. City elf and mage. Also Fable has fixed its ways for Fable 3. (I wonder if you can still change your sex mid-game? I mean that was pretty rad.)

See, I’m not totally crazy! There’s studies. May I present: 85% of video game characters are male.

"Emma Westecott, a games research fellow at the Newport School of Art, Media and Design, agrees. "The lack of opportunity for identification through role models leads to self-censorship," she said. "Many young girls simply don't see gaming as being a feasible career choice.”

That's right Emma, you tell them!

See, girls might have gotten used to playing with male characters, but we surely aren’t happy about it. Last year’s statistics say women cover almost 40% of all gamers. That’s a loooot of hard earned female cash put into games, folks. Almost makes you think, don't it.

Still, something’s done right at some point, and there is remarcable stuff we can all look back to. These four have left their mark in gaming history and are mentioned every time someone names their favourite character. So my thanks to you Jill, Jade, April and Rayne.

Oh Lulu, let me play thee! Goth awesomeness from FF X.

Pirate chick Kat from my first PS2-game ever, Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat.

blog: the beginning

Ah yes. So this is the first of my entries. Welcome! It is exhaustingly hot out there. Good thing I'm staying inside like a good little nerd. Today, after taking my cat to the vet, I spend my afternoon in the Media Studies library and read interesting books with interesting sentences like "...cybersex is nowadays part of the internet user's everyday vocabulary..." and wondered what kind of people these authors really are... I'm hoping to get my essay on "racial stereotypes in games" done by tomorrow for Media Education class. It's already late about 5 days...but who counts. I might post a synopsis here when it's done. The subject is super juicy. Reminds me of Yahtzee's lovely "Uncharted is for white suprematists"-review here.

Alan Wake was published today, and so was my shortish Alan Wake-story in the paper. My bf is super disappointed that the game is not yet delivered (despite of pre-ordering it). I'm mostly relieved since I haven't finished playing the 3 games (Dante's Inferno, Uncharted 2 and Little Big Planet) we bought on Wednesday. Where to find the time, when I'm supposed to "study" (read: play all nights) RPG videogames for my thesis as well.

In the summer I'll be also working in a project studying gaming culture in Finland, which is btw my dream job. I hope to get good stuff done there. Gaming culture means a lot of things. Part of it is focusing on the evolution of gaming from the early 80's to present day. What ever is around or in the gaming is alo interesting: gaming/game culture usually discusses stuff like gender and age, stuff that are still, 2010, dealt falsely (mostly in media). Even the bloodiest and scariest games are considered kids' stuff, and female gamers aren't thought to exist even though there's a hell of a lot of us. I'll be glad to help to destroy these assumptions as much as I can. And hopefully I will, through my work.

Btw, all the people applying for the job were women. Just saying.