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Racist Stereotypes in Smash Bros. Ultimates Spirits Mode
- Thread starter Deleted member 4976
- Start date
I mean, we already have Little Mac as Balrog, & most don't seem to have a problem with that.
Balrog's spirit fighter is Little Mac in the game, which no one is complaining about. Now there's something to be said about Nintendo's overall lack of diversity when it comes to PoC, but that's a separate issue.
ITT, nobody realises that Mr Sandman is the final boss of Punchout Arcade and that DK is the final boss of Punchout Wii (hence the connection)
Also Villager was chosen for Tac because he steals your items and projectiles (while Tac steals your copy abilities in the actual Kirby games). They chose black villager because Tac wears black clothing.
This one is an unfortunate miss though, they obviously just forgot to remove the feather (since they removed it from the G&W character himself)
Oh we realize. Doesn't make it not an issue though if that was even the intent to begin with.
^^
It's not like they were afraid to use Little Mac as 90% of the other Punch Out characters.
And if they didn't want to overdo it, Captain Falcon and K.Rool are right there.
The depiction of black people as monkeys is simply tone death?
Yeah okay, I see where you sit, I'm wasting my time.
It's been pointed out numerous times in here. It's still an issue.
Yea they're pretty transparent.
Considering how oblivious/insensitive Japan is as a whole to racism, yes I can very easily see that.
But again, doesn't matter since they should patch this regardless.
I kind of feel it should be though, and this topic is an example of why. It weakens the word and kind of wrecks discussions when everything racially insensitive is described as "racist" when there are far too many actual malicious racist people in the world.
Yea, because they weren't made as those spirits to depict black people as monkeys. They were made to be references, that unfortunately end up being unintentional racist depictions. That's the defintion of tone deaf.
I am sure I came across other "negative" spirits (similar to Tac the thief) that aren't represented by black characters? Not that I am saying the examples from OP are ok, but I don't think we should only select those few ones and pin point at them and call the game racist against certain race.
Tac was really fast in Kirby, he would steal your ability, put it in a bag and run off.
Also, please remove the Fire Attack Picture as it's old news:
Changed Spirit as well.
ITT, nobody realises that Mr Sandman is the final boss of Punchout Arcade and that DK is the final boss of Punchout Wii (hence the connection)
Also Villager was chosen for Tac because he steals your items and projectiles (while Tac steals your copy abilities in the actual Kirby games). They chose black villager because Tac wears black clothing.
This one is an unfortunate miss though, they obviously just forgot to remove the feather (since they removed it from the G&W character himself)
Changed Spirit as well.
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You can be racist without being outright malicious or meaning to be. In fact, that's one of the issues I see time and time again, where for a lot of people, it doesn't count as racism unless it's super blatantly evil.
ITT, nobody realises that Mr Sandman is the final boss of Punchout Arcade and that DK is the final boss of Punchout Wii (hence the connection)
Also Villager was chosen for Tac because he steals your items and projectiles (while Tac steals your copy abilities in the actual Kirby games). They chose black villager because Tac wears black clothing.
This one is an unfortunate miss though, they obviously just forgot to remove the feather (since they removed it from the G&W character himself)
Why was Donkey Kong the final boss in Punch Out Wii?
This just sounds a way of people not wanting to feel bad for doing bigoted acts. Just cus a person isn't being malicious about it (or aware of it) does not mean it's not a bigoted act nor that the impact on the victim is any lessoned. People need to own their shit and get better.
You're so afraid of hearing the word racist that you're not even listening to minorities that know what racism is. No matter how hard y'all try to make it so, racism isn't just burning crosses and KKK shit.
Racism can come in many forms.
It's funny how regular ass people on this board can put 2 and 2 together that black character depicted as monkey is an automatic no but the entirety of Nintendo some how cannot. But it's tone deaf and purely accidental not racist just a mistake. Some of yall will do anything to defend this shit.
ITT, nobody realises that Mr Sandman is the final boss of Punchout Arcade and that DK is the final boss of Punchout Wii (hence the connection)
Also Villager was chosen for Tac because he steals your items and projectiles (while Tac steals your copy abilities in the actual Kirby games). They chose black villager because Tac wears black clothing.
This one is an unfortunate miss though, they obviously just forgot to remove the feather (since they removed it from the G&W character himself)
I think most of us get why they did it, its
Just the optics are not good and it's definitely tone deaf. I don't think all of us is saying sakurai is racist.
To be a fun crossover? Plus they are two of the oldest nintendo characters.
Whether deliberate or not is irrelevant; this shit perpetuates some racist stereotypes and they have to go. It's 100% on Nintendo.
Little Mac even has his shorts as one of his alt colors (at least in 4)
Getting baited was pretty much one reason why it didn't gain traction. That and it being part of the leak thread put it on ice for some time, even though there was intention to create a thread on it.
Granted considering the extra spirits listed in this thread that was found after launch was probably the more beneficial move.
I think it's bad enough that Japan continues to be oblivious to how offensive and outright damaging this sort of shit is to us people of colour, what makes it worse is that for some reason neither NoE or NoA picked up on it/seemed to care enough to do anything.
C'mon, son.
C'mon, son.
He was the secret boss/fight in that game- the final boss was still Mr Sandman. And in answer to your question... why not? It was fun.
I mean Diddy has this animation in Donkey Kong Country:
And I don't really know about Street Fighter but based on the name, the association between a character named Dee Jay and a character who has a boombox makes sense to me.
And I don't really know about Street Fighter but based on the name, the association between a character named Dee Jay and a character who has a boombox makes sense to me.
Likely as a fun easter egg. Of the classic Nintendo characters, he's the one known to punch hard.
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How else should we describe these then? At face value we have no idea of intent, all we can see are multiple instances of known stereotypical racism. Maybe it was intentional, maybe it was not. There is no better word to describe what is in the OP in my opinion.
But these two things are wildly different. That's the problem. Racially insensitive acts are racist, that's fine. Is there another word that I should be using to describe KKK shit?
Besides evil. True, but not specific enough.
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Glad I didn't spend money to support this trash. Not surprised people turning a blind eye. Really says a lot about Nintendo and some of their fans.
I will be surprised if Nintendo actually does anything to address it. Unless their bottomline takes a hit or their fans in Japan make it an issue, I can see them just shrugging it off as Westerners being upset. Hell, they still do blackface here and do not understand why thats wrong.
They wanted to do a fun crossover. They were actually going to originally have Princess Peach as the secret final boss, but then realised that people would probably complain about violence against women if they did that; so they chose DK instead.
i dont understand these kind of posts, when they removed the feather from mr game and watch
Donkey Kong is the "superboss"/final boss of Punch Out Wii. It makes sense, despite the negative context of the topic.
The other two though, yikes. Not a good look.
The Sandman/DK thing didn't register for me because of the Punchout connection (final bosses) but in with the rest of it, it's definitely not a good look, be better than this Nintendo
Between this obviously racist nonsense and the sexualised depictions of minors in the Xenoblade series, I feel increasingly alienated by Nintendo. One more incident on this level and I am done with them. NOA/Treehouse need be given a veto to police this because it's obvious NCL themselves are utterly clueless if I am being charitable or at worst, really awful people.
I wouldn't be too sure. They were quick to address Mr. Game & Watch's side smash.
...please tell me you're being sarcastic.I mean Diddy has this animation in Donkey Kong Country:
And I don't really know about Street Fighter but based on the name, the association between a character named Dee Jay and a character who has a boombox makes sense to me.
Because punching out women is weird:
https://kotaku.com/5320198/punch-out-devs-talk-graphics-difficulty-nixed-princess-peach-idea
Don't make excuses for them. As if it's just a coincidence the black characters were matched with the apes and there wasn't any deliberation on Nintendo's part. This is as blatant as racism gets.