Gamergate life 75 (english)
I have always found interesting how selective Social justice warriors are when they speak about racism and stereotypes. They seems to have a particular selection of races that are “protected” and so everything that happens to them is “racism”, while other races are completely ignored under the same circumstances. This of course applies to white americans over everything else; we all know by now that, by SJW standars, white americans have no culture, can’t receive racism, and are never stereotyped. But it also happens to other countries, and one example of it is Spain.
The best example of this is probably the Resident evil saga. SJWs usually complain that Resident evil 5 is “racist” because you have to kill black people (in a game set in Africa…), yet i have never seen one complain that in Resident evil 4 everything you kill are spaniards, since the game is set in Spain. And a very stereotyped Spain i must say. In fact is so stereotyped that it’s not Spain. It’s mexico. Even the accent of the characters is mexican. Spanish characters in games have a long tradicion of being stereotyped like hell. There are only a few spaniards i can think of in games that are not, like, Mila in Dead or Alive or Zatto in Guilty gear. Yet i have never seen anyone inside this culture of outrage complain about how stereotyped we are and how it should be changed. And i think i know why.
I think they don’t do it because, well, probably the main reason is that they really know shit about any culture outside their “protected” groups, but another big reason is probably that they can’t get the support of spaniards for it. Because we just don’t care. People complaining about stereotypes are usually white middle class millenials who try to feel outraged in stead of someone else, but even so there are a number of black people in their ranks that help support them in their idea that their “protected” races need their help to become something in life (a very racist sentiment, i must say). In the case of spaniards, they would probably have a hard time finding many of us who seriously complain about how we are portrayed in games, and supporting them in their madness. I don’t think i have ever seen a spaniard complain about it. Oh, sure, we bring it up sometimes, but we do it in a humorous way, to laught at how ridiculous characters like Vega are; there are no one complaining about how Vega is offensive and should be changed. In fact Vega is a very popular character in Spain.
I still remember the first time i saw Miguel Caballero Rojo in Tekken (The name’s a joke referencing Michael Knight btw, you’re welcome). As he appeared in the screen, dressed in some kind of “traditional” clothes more akin to a mexican noble house than to a spaniard, in an scenary set in a meadow full of sheeps, me and my friends began to laught so hard we had to pause the game because our stomach hurt. Yet, i’ve never seen anyone offended by the character. We simply laught at this stuff. We consider it normal for a far away country like United states or Japan to not know shit about a small, close to bankrupcy due to government corruption, country that time ago ruled half the planet but now can only presume of it’s soccer team and having invented the lollipops (yes, we created the lollipops, you are welcome as well). We do exactly the same about other countries, we know shit about half the countries in the world and we represent them through stereotypes. And that includes white americans, who are represented in almost every fictional work made outside the United states as blonde, blue eyes, and with an specific facial structure.
Oh, and i have something to say about stereotypes itself too. I’ll tell you something as an artist: stereotypes in fiction are not bad. Stereotypes are a way to quickly convey information to the reader, precisely because, being stereotypes, everyone think about a set of information about a character when they believe it belongs to that stereotype. This is something we artists use when we have to give the reader (or spectator) a lot of info in a small ammount of time, which usually happens in movies, short comics, animations or even videogames that don’t spend much time on story. This is easily exemplified with anime. They have some stereotypes for personalities, like “yandere”, “tsundere”, etc, that they can use in the first chapter of a show to quickly explain the spectator that a character is more or less “X” way, and latter in the show they can explain more about the character. This can be applied to race. If i, as a comic artist, have to do a 3 panel strip about a spaniard, one of my best options to show everything i want to say in so short space, is to make the character a walking stereotype, so i would make a Matador or a Flamenco dancer. And i doubt many people here would be offended by it.
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When prince Fushimi Sadanaru from Japan made a state visit to Great Britain in 1907, he expressed his disappointment in not being able to watch ‘The Mikado’, a popular english play that had been forbidden during the prince visit for fear it might offend him.
In reality ‘The Mikado’ is really satire over life in Victorian England, a common practice at the time, and the prince probably knew this. The leading Danish comedian Ludvig Holberg also had several of his plays take place in Hamburg but was in reality satirizing life in his native Copenhagen.
The reason some people get offended today, as opposed to no one getting offended in the past, is not because people today are more enlightened or smarter. It is because many young people today are nothing more than soap bubbles. Being anchored to nothing, they can be made to believe anything.
Edit: I didn’t mean to say people in the past didn’t get offended. Just that they had more important things going on than being offended over a theater play.
I am german, somehow we never can speak without a thick accent or replacing english words with the german word that sounds almost the same (you want to convey that the character is from germany while letting the audience still understand what they are saying, i get it) in video games.
Haha! Don’t forget the yelling, having a short temper, and degenerating into ranting German when they get angry or flustered (though I guess that last one is popular with a few other stereotypes, too). And come to think of it, I don’t think I *have* ever heard a German character say the word “pig” in a movie or video game, but I hear “SCHWEIN!!” all the time. Half the time they don’t even get the accent right and pronounce the “w” like it is in English.
Because a Trump supporter didn’t like something I was saying, she made a point that because my name is German, I should go back to Nazi Germany. I wonder if this genius thought Eisenhower, because of his name, was part of the Wehrmacht
.
Don’t forget General Pershing in WWI. That family name was anglicized from Persching.
General Custer’s family had anglicized their name from Kuestner.
I would prefer if my country had ANY stereotypes instead of being recognized as the “not Spain” country…
Portugal?
well, yes, let’s just look at all the recognizable Portuguese in gaming…. there’s none.
How do you feel about the separatists in CSGO? “YEZZZ YEZZZZZ”
Aww you forgot Eric Lecarde from Castlevania!
Where’s Don Flamenco? You don’t any more insulting than that low-tier punch fodder from Punch-Out!!!.
Woah, holy shit, that’s the bull from Running Wild in the bottom left corner. I didn’t think anybody else knew about that game.
Cool the spaniards like me, laugh a lot with this things, and like says her we don´t give a fuck, but one thing… Vamp is rumanian not spanish 😉
But he was created using Joaquin cortes as a base
I’m brazilian, myself.
I liked better when the japanese thought this country here was a fishermen’s jungle village inhabited by electric green men than FIFA world cup land.
That one country in the north got it worse, though. They went from Guile to Rufus. lol
I normally overlook racism in games if the characters and game are at least entertaining. I’m Black (African American for those that care to e politically correct) so I get slapped in the ace with funny racism all the time. I’ll let stories use the N word if they can make me laugh with it. Just go easy on the big noses and fish lips.
I thought I might post a witty response…I’ll do it mañana…I need a nap first. 😉
I’ve spent a few summers travelling in the south of Spain and towns like Torrevieja, Malaga, Gibraltar and Seville has taught me two things.
One: Siestas make perfect sense, the mid-day during summer is _brutal_.
Two: There is no “Spanish” identity. Madrid, Bilbao, Seville and Barcelona have less in common than say Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. That’s the impression I got at least and it’s one of the things I love about the country. 🙂
(And proper Spanish cuisine is to die for, literally. I’m allergic to shellfish but I love Paellas. :P)
As a Canadian, I can say that nearly every single instance of Canadians in fiction is stereotyped to all hell. And we fucking love it. My favourite Canadian character is Bear Hugger from Punch Out!!!. He’s a fat guy with chest hair in the shape of an evergreen, drinks maple syrup from the jug, is a lumberjack and has a bear as a personal trainer.
Or Woodie from Don’t Starve. A bearded lumberjack (again) who transforms into a fucking were-BEAVER.
Sure, it helps that absolutely no one hates us.
Fucking Matador I still have the traumatic flashbacks because a friend of mine managed to convince me to play the fucking game on Hard for the first time.
I just spent the the day reading your comic strips. I have read a number of comments that disparage your grammar and spelling but i have to say that not only have I noticed a decided improvement in both from your first to this one, but considering that it is not your first language it is very well done. While there is still room for improvement (which can be said even for English speakers hehe) the articles and observations are obviously intelligent and well thought out. Thank you, and keep up the great work you’re doing! My only thought for improvement would be to attach links to articles that you mention please.
Yeah, lately people don’t find almost anything, or anything at all, to correct in the grammar, so i must be doing better.
I try to add links whenever i can.
As an aside, it’s worth noting the difference between a stereotype and a trope, as little as it is.
Speaking in best SJW language, I‘d guess at a bit of privilege is involved in the „we don‘t care“ view.
It is easy not to care if where we live we are the majority. I can imagine being a lot more sensitive to stereotypes after having been put at a disadvantage over racial stereotypes, especially when this happens in ones home country, such that there is no viable way of escaping it.
Then again, as gamers we probably have plenty of experience with infuriating stereotypes and the threat of unjustified consequences („killer game“ debates etc). I mean I can laugh at the image of the fat 40-year old virgin gamer, but not so much at „shooters kill!“ debates. Then again, unlike with racial discrimination we at least have a choice there (though keeping quiet about or abandoning a hobby over it sounds like an awful choice).
Anyway, to put it into context: Great comic, I enjoy it for both the humor and for seeing the other side of the gamer-gate debate. I just don‘t agree with some of the conclusions 🙂
The fact that you are able to civilly disagree means we already like you 1000 times more than most sjws.
Ugh… error on my side; I just meant that “SJW language” remark to avoid being called a SJW just for using terms, which they over- and misuse, without actually seeing myself as one. It’s just hard to write about these topics in a meaningful manner, without using words, which have been abused ideologically, or being attacked for language rather than content.
Such is the lethal danger of newspeak and the corruption of language. Friend of mine kicked me to the curb soon as she found out I’m a white nationalist, without even bothering to listen when I tried to explain what that actually means.
Do you mean white patriot, because ik in correct nationalism is thinking your country is better than others?
*if im
I just looked up white nationalism and i can respect people that believe in that. I might be one myself but i would not see myself as a white nationalist.
I recently played resident evil 4 and i really liked Louis even though he is a spanish stereotype. I mean he is dressed like a stereotypical spaniard, he is a ladiesman and not to forget his sexy, over the top, spanish accent that gets me wet even though im straight XD, but all those ‘stereotypical’ trades make him a cool and likable character. It proofs that just because a character is a stereotype doesn’t mean he/she/it is a bad character.
Are you trying to tell me that spaniards are not just humans with head of a bull? XD