-
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.
TBT to when Naughty Dog cast a white girl doing an accent as a South African black woman and said she was better than actual South African black women
- Thread starter LifeLine
- Start date
The accent is where they just completely lose me, very tone deaf, and Nadine as a character in U4 was just a terrible, they do redeem her in Lost Legacy though where she's actually humanized. But I'd rather they just come up with a new character built from the ground up with a black VA in mind instead of just changing the VA. Nadine isn't that interesting, Chloe just makes all characters around her pop, and if we didn't get Lost Legacy Nadine would be just as forgotten as the old British woman from U3 and the Russian guy from U2.
It was stupid then, and it's stupid now. Can't blame Bailey for taking the role and making the most of it, but it was an ill-conceived and poorly justified casting choice.
You haven't been in blackface threads over the years since the old place and here, lots of excuses for it!
It's so obviously Laura Bailey missing the mark with an accent that she's not familiar with.
Druckmann can do no wrong now since he dunked on some alt right trolls apparently.
User Banned (1 Month): Dismissive and inflammatory false equivalence.
In the same game they hired a black actress to voice an old white woman.
There are white people in South Africa who (of course) speak with that accent. This may have been an inappropriate decision in many ways but this isn't black face or doing a "black voice" or anything like that.
It's such a bad excuse, though. The character is South African. If you chose to create a character who's a mercenary from South Africa, you fucking know whether your character is black or white because it is IMPOSSIBLE to have a character who grew up in the '80s in South Africa without apartheid having an effect on the way they view the world.
If Neil somehow didn't think about that, that's a writing failure on his part.
She also voices Chun-Li, a Chinese woman, in most forms of media (MvCI & Teppen aside) for over a decade (no accent, though).
At least in the case of Avengers, Laura has been voicing Black Widow for damn near a decade at this point (with Natasha's EMH actress, Vanessa Marshall, now doing Gamora). Same for Thor regarding Travis Willingham, even though Travis has since moved away from the role outside of Marvel's Avengers. If you were referring to Iron Man or Hulk, you all would have a point.
Last edited:
I definitely don't think it's okay but unless they do something like what's suggested below, I think they should just roll with it and strive to do better in future cases.
Doesn't TLOUS2 and TLOUS kinda have another problem with whiteness too?
All major black characters get killed violently.
A video game character that is white that is being played by a black (person of color) actor is okay.
A video game character that is a person of color being played by a white actor is -not- okay.
This Druckmann guy truly is an idiot if he actually used what you said as a deflection to the issues. It's the equivalent of people saying that you can be racist towards white people. Somebody else in this thread said it best, it was Druckmann's "all lives matter" moment.
I remember watching a video with Druckmann explaining that the VO was done before the character design was finished, something along those lines.
Laura had an interesting take on the situation as well:
"It wasn't until we had rehearsed and arrived for our first day of filming that I saw the concept art for Nadine. One of the very talented artists at Naughty Dog had come up with a beautiful design for her, and it happened to look… very different than me. And that was difficult. Not because it changed anything about my performance. Nadine was the same woman. She had the same background, the same personality, the same strength. But suddenly, because she had a different skin color than I did, there was a chance some would deem my portrayal unacceptable.
But at that point, what's worse? Choose that beautiful design the artist created knowing there could be backlash because they had already cast a non-black actress? Or change the design entirely out of fear and lose the opportunity to have a strong character of color in the game? I guess I don't know if there's a right answer to that. All I can say is, I think she's one of the most badass people I've ever had the honor to play and I'm so proud to have worked on Uncharted 4."
OP
OP
I think up until recently "race doesn't matter since all we hear is the voice" has been the majority opinion and how they avoided any major pushback during the original release.
but with current events and what's happening with Central Park and Big Mouth, public opinion is changing and in the future it will be seen as equivalent to doing black face.
unless the voice lines are redone, U4 and Lost Legacy will suffer the same fate as what old shows and movies with blackface are going through now.
but with current events and what's happening with Central Park and Big Mouth, public opinion is changing and in the future it will be seen as equivalent to doing black face.
unless the voice lines are redone, U4 and Lost Legacy will suffer the same fate as what old shows and movies with blackface are going through now.
Seriously. She's not a bad actress, but the character ALWAYS sounded like "Laura Bailey doing a bad fake accent over her normal voice".
Probably the worst South African accent attempt by a white person since DiCaprio in Blood Diamond.
I think Laura Bailey is super talented but yeah it's past time to push VA of color. It's the very minimum to have them voice characters of color as it is. Need to do better and AAA studios need to lead by example.
I think they get away with it because many Western people haven't heard a real South African accent. Working with a few in my life, it isn't a good version of one for sure.
It still pales in comparison to Brad Pitt's attempt at patois in Meet Joe Black though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnBupO_Kjto. It might be the worst thing I've ever heard.
I think they get away with it because many Western people haven't heard a real South African accent. Working with a few in my life, it isn't a good version of one for sure.
It still pales in comparison to Brad Pitt's attempt at patois in Meet Joe Black though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnBupO_Kjto. It might be the worst thing I've ever heard.
That meet the voice-cast "reveal" from The Avengers game has to be one of the most embarrassing E3 moments.
And the worst decision from that game's marketing campaign until the "defaced monument protected by law enforcement drones" tweet.
OP
OP
Thinking about systemic issues doesn't seem to be Neil's strong suit as a writer. Apparently TLOU2's story and themes of revenge came from him accidentally seeing footage of a lynching as a kid. Like, bro, lynchings weren't a matter of personal grudges and revenge.
You should have made the poll reveal names of who voted for which option, OP.
The problem is you have a black character role that can be for a black actor, a group that struggle enough to land roles in their industry as it is, and they end up handing over to a white person.
The problem is you have a black character role that can be for a black actor, a group that struggle enough to land roles in their industry as it is, and they end up handing over to a white person.
This is completely subjective of course but I feel she did absolutely incredible in the role, despite the SA accent being a touch floaty. That doesn't touch the conversation at hand of course.
The "bling bling/bang bang" line in the trailers always killed me
User Banned (1 Month): Dismissive commentary in a sensitive thread. Something can still be an issue worth discussing even if other cases are more egregious.
I think it's a bit strange to treat VA the same as IRL acting when it comes to things like this. This isn't even a GHOST IN THE SHELL caliber blunder, considering the model was finalized after she was cast. Ideally, I would have loved for a black VA to get the shine that comes from starring in a ND joint, but I'm not going to kill the studio for this.
I hope we get a black lead in a ND game. They're games cross over in a way that so few do, so it would be a great look. IW brought Gaz back as a black British dude and they survived. No more excuses in this industry.
I hope we get a black lead in a ND game. They're games cross over in a way that so few do, so it would be a great look. IW brought Gaz back as a black British dude and they survived. No more excuses in this industry.
Yeah that's one of the reasons I'm not interested in that game. I don't dislike any of the VAs they picked, it's just that... you know... why pick all of those that we hear everywhere?
Well, ideally at that point the role should have been recast. Don't change the actor, but change the actor.
To be fair though this isn't Laura's fault. It's the people who did the casting who should have known better.
Lol at that poll. If this wasn't Naughty Dog they would be destroyed everywhere for doing this. It was fucked up then, it is even more fucked up now when you guys go all #BLM on your social's while saying A WHITE WOMAN PLAYING A BLACK ONE IS FINE. THE NAUGHTY GODS CAN'T DO NO WRONG #GODS. Get a grip. Anyone doing that is just damn wrong.
There's already a dearth of BIPOC main characters in games, especially black women, so to have her voiced by Laura Bailey is really shitty. Add to that the lack of roles given to BIPOC voice actors and it's a double whammy of shit.
Echoing above that the poll being anywhere near that high for Yes is pretty terrible.
Echoing above that the poll being anywhere near that high for Yes is pretty terrible.