-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Racist Stereotypes in Smash Bros. Ultimates Spirits Mode
- Thread starter Deleted member 4976
- Start date
Just to be clear, these spirits are not randomly assigned to Smash characters in the mode right?
Like I can buy that the Japan side was stupidly oblivious but where was NoA localisation? Why didn't they notice this obviously racist shit?
I'm black. I'm not offended. But I do think these are all indicative of some diet, non-malicious insensitivity.
I'm still gunna play the fuck out of some smash tho.
How is Diddy closer? He has exactly one move that's a kick and it only comes out when you whiff what the move is supposed to be. If you do it correctly he slaps you.
I don't see why Nintendo should be blamed since they weren't even responsible for making any of the Smash games. There are parts where they definitely know better and we see every now again that not everyone they have is up to standard in certain aspects (like this thread and patch notes for Smash Bros, whereas it's not a problem with their other games... or at least patch notes).
The fact that they're japanese is the reason for why this still happens. Besides, Nintendo isn't developing the game so that was put there by Sakurai and Bandai Namco. Then you have Nintendo as a publisher/production in Japan not seeing it as a problem as well.
The problem is that considering that this still is in the game, no one at the western branches saw it as problematic and talked to NCL to change it's content, which should happen in a QA since NA and European do have much more context for black people racism than a japanese person do.
We also have to consider that the black male Villager wasn't a thing in the earlier builds of the game. That particular instance is an unfortunate unforeseen situation that should be rectified.
What? No, they didn't change that skin just to have a black guy in that spirit battle. There's several hundred spirit battles in this game, they absolutely didn't just sit down and decide consciously that you know what? Let's make that Villager with the purple shirt black cause it would perpetuate racist stereotypes in conjunction with this one spirit fight.
They changed that Villager alt to black because they added additional skin tones for both Villager (boy and girl both got one that used to be white) and Pokemon Trainer to be more inclusive. That skin having been used for the TAC spirit (which again, was picked because of Villager 'stealing' projectiles and the clothes being closer) most likely slipped through the cracks, as I'm pretty sure the spirit battles all were done by the time they added those additional skin tones.
There absolutely was tone deafness in regards to selecting the Kongs for Dee Jay and Sandman, but those were picked based on the traits of the characters they were supposed to represent (Dee Jay being an agile fighter who uses mid-air flip kicks like Diddy, and DK being a heavy hitter with a big punch attack like Sandman), rather than the comparison of black people to monkeys.
They absolutely should have used different characters for the Kongs, and either used a different Villager alt or Isabelle instead, yes. But especially considering that G&W's feather got removed off both his in-game sprite and spirit in the Day 1 patch before launch, it shows that there clearly isn't malicious intent here.
For Kirby, could have gone with the Jambastian Mages, although if Star Allies came out too recently, Dark Meta Knight is another viable option, espicially since the Dark Meta Knight is already an alt for Meta Knight, and make it Reflect Meta Knight to represent the mirror part.
Mr Sandman I'm shocked isn't like a giant Little Mac to be honest. Best way to represent a boxer is with... another boxer. I know Donkey Kong was a boxer at the end of Punch Out Wii... but they could have had a Donkey Kong (Boxer) spirit if they wanted to specifically reference that. Sorta like Master Cycle and City Tripper being Mario Kart Spirits despite being based on Legend of Zelda and Animal Crossing.
Dee Jay is in because they wanted every single Street Fighter 2 character. Given his kicks theme, Ken feels like the right choice considering his focus on kicking moves.
In reality though we need more black fighters in Smash. Ultimate had the chance to add Elma from Xenoblade X, but didn't. Gotta see what DLC does at this point.
Fire Attack was a mistake to include in the first place.
Mr Sandman I'm shocked isn't like a giant Little Mac to be honest. Best way to represent a boxer is with... another boxer. I know Donkey Kong was a boxer at the end of Punch Out Wii... but they could have had a Donkey Kong (Boxer) spirit if they wanted to specifically reference that. Sorta like Master Cycle and City Tripper being Mario Kart Spirits despite being based on Legend of Zelda and Animal Crossing.
Dee Jay is in because they wanted every single Street Fighter 2 character. Given his kicks theme, Ken feels like the right choice considering his focus on kicking moves.
In reality though we need more black fighters in Smash. Ultimate had the chance to add Elma from Xenoblade X, but didn't. Gotta see what DLC does at this point.
Fire Attack was a mistake to include in the first place.
That's a great point, surprised it didn't include ARMS. Hope if there is An ARMs Rep it is her
Yes people here. And dont a damn thing happen to them. Post in a Bayonetta thread with how you're fine with her character and you get banned for "excusing sexualization" post a donkey kong for being black and you get warned.
Correct, it's not random. At least not as far as I am aware.
I would guess that localization probably mentioned something and was ignored. Ultimately it's not that Japan is oblivious to this stuff, it's that casual and malicious racism towards minorities is fairly ingrained in the culture there. The population doesn't really care.
His FAir is a kick, His UAir is a kick...
DSmash is a kick.
His jab used to have a kick as well
What's your problem? I've read the entire thread and why people are upset. What does that have to do with my post?
I'm not black but... I dunno, I feel PoC often get a pretty bad turnout in most games (the Smash thread on this subject was pretty telling) and this just seems to fuel that fire.
It's hardly the worst most overt and deplorable form of racism...but it's a drop in a giant bucket where characters of colour really aren't given the limelight afforded to just about everyone else. It'd be tiring, wouldn't it?
As a woman I get annoyed with "support role" chicks, or demure characters wearing bikini armor bullshit. :/
Twintelle is by far the most identifiable character from the franchise. I mean, it's not like Spring Man is popular or iconic enough that anyone would care if he got passed over.
User banned (1 week): Racism
The saddest shit is that they will never acknowledge it
Fucking japanese
Fucking japanese
If your intent was that the shirt color was the same in the pre-release build (I'd also love proof of that) and they just made that particular alt black skinned then I misunderstood and willing to give them benifit of the doubt about that one.
The other though? they could've used other character as listed by plenty people in this thread that share the same "properties".
Yes, but Sakurai had no involvement with SSU. He left years before.
I think this is the big point here, there was no evil intent. Just need to change which villager they use for Tac.
Yep. Agreed that it was likely an oversight. A very unfortunate one that they should address asap like they did with the G&W feather, but I don't really think the Villager/Diddy/DK spirits were intentionally trying to be racist.
Not giving them a pass, since I do think it should be addressed asap and that Nintendo as a whole needs to be way better and able to notice these sorts of things before release.
If enough people make this known, they will change it. They did it with G&W and they will do it if we make sure they hear it.
Are there several examples of black Spirits that don't look badly represented in this mode? Or are we basically looking at the entire representation here?
Top is E3 build, bottom is release build:
(obviously slight differences in the palette because of the top ones being taken by a camera off a screen, while bottoms are proper screenshots)
I am black and where I don't feel offended by this I do wonder why no one at NoA caught this during localization.
They acknowledged the G&W Indian thinng and removed it didn't they?
Why are some of you so worried about intent? Like who fucking gives a shit if they didn't mean it. This shit is racist and needs to be changed.
I don't think it's likely that these were intentionally made to appear racist or enforce stereotypes, but they can definitely be seen as problematic or racist by some and that's understandable. Localization should have at least brought these to the attention of Nintendo of Japan, because companies in this day and age need to be always on top of coming off looking racist or bigoted. But hey, if they were intentional, then that's fucked up.
Personally I would prefer Twintelle too (ultimately I'd prefer both), but there's just no way only one character from a series is getting in and it not being the main character.
Game and Watch was changed, this will probably be changed as well if people makes noises. Like I said, go to Bill Trinen twitter to show this. It'll be a long time for change it but it can totally happen.
The vast majority of the people saying it was unintentional are also saying it should be changed ASAP.
- Twintelle is a side character from a series whose main character already got sidelined.
- Marina is portrayed as more of a tech expert in the Octo Expansion, & thus doesn't have much to pull from.
- Rodin is already an Assist Trophy.
Typically with a game this large, they likely just localized the text and didn't see the in-game context. Still a bad look though.
Ah okay, thanks. Man, I didn't expect him to be like this