Now imagine if an actual African actress got to play that part.
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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
Now imagine if an actual African actress got to play that part.
It's not a good look and they should have recast of change the character's skin colour. Imho.
However why bring this up at this right now?
Laura Bailey is being harassed on twitter right now because she played a muscled character in TLOU2.
In fact people are photoshooting images saying that Druckman stepped in to mocap a sex scene with her.
However why bring this up at this right now?
Laura Bailey is being harassed on twitter right now because she played a muscled character in TLOU2.
In fact people are photoshooting images saying that Druckman stepped in to mocap a sex scene with her.
Really? That many people voted yes? What the hell is going on?
I think it's super obvious that AAA games are seriously lacking in representation, and this just shows how even in the super rare occasion, when a game features a black protagonist, AAA developers will still find a way to fuck it up.
I think it's super obvious that AAA games are seriously lacking in representation, and this just shows how even in the super rare occasion, when a game features a black protagonist, AAA developers will still find a way to fuck it up.
Not necessarily, no one ever batted an eye at Troy Baker playing a native american man. I really hope going into next gen devs do better when it comes to casting. SP already is considering that none of the cast of GoT is white. ND has also done a way better job with TLOU2's casting.
Both Kratos' are voiced by black men.
U4 had a Merle Dandridge as the old lady
where is that quote from?
Ross is played by white actor Laura Bailey, and this caused some controversy in the wake of The Game Awards; people of colour are pretty under-represented in voice acting. Director Neil Druckmann met this question head-on, saying the Bailey was chosen after a general casting call was made. He said the development team was worried about the casting too, but that he elected to go with it after seeing Bailey's performance in-game.
Druckmann said that not having cast actors based on their physical appearances is a strength of video games as a medium, as with Troy Baker's role as Joel in The Last of Us, and that elsewhere in Uncharted 4 there's a white character played by a black voice actor.
Uncharted 4 PSX panel reveals more about Nadine Ross, addresses casting controversy
Uncharted 4 features an ass-kicking South African mercenary.www.vg247.com
"I wouldn't change anything," Uncharted 4 creative director Neil Druckmann said during a panel today at the PlayStation Experience event in San Francisco, when asked about having a white actress play a black character in the upcoming PS4 game. The casting had drawn some controversy in the last two days, since the character's debut, but Druckmann said he saw the casting as a sign of gaming's distinct strengths.
"That, to me, is what's so awesome about our medium," he continued, describing the ability to have actors play characters that don't look like them. "Your awkward appearance doesn't matter at all. If it did, Troy [Baker] couldn't play Joel in The Last of Us. Ashley Johnson couldn't play Ellie. In a movie version they couldn't play those roles, but they played them to perfection."
Uncharted 4 Designer Stands By Having White Actor Voice Black Character
“I wouldn’t change anything,” Uncharted 4 creative director Neil Druckmann said during a panel today at the PlayStation Experience event in San Francisco, when asked about having a white actress play a black character in the upcoming PS4 game. The casting had drawn some controversy in the last...kotaku.com
also google this
''neil on casting nadine ross for uncharted 4''
it is all flowers and rainbows, no controversy at all
we have being through this before
I didn't play this game but did apartheid have no bearing on her character at all? That would seem like a pretty central part to a South African character that age and a big identifyer of what race she is.
There were black voice actors casted for white characters in UC4
Nobody should be angry at Laura herself. She got hired to do a job, she did the job. This is entirely on Naughty Dog and more specifically Neil and the art team for not having their character design finalized before hiring an actress.
i was VERY disappointed to hear her voice in TLOU 2. I like Laura Bailey a lot, but ND absolutely needs to diversify their VA portfolio imo. Sam Drake shouldn't have been Troy Baker either. Give some lesser known people a chance.
When this was first brought up years ago, I was of two minds about it. I thought a black actress should be the primary person given the role but then I thought about how so many Asian characters in anime, who share a big voice talent pull with videogames, are voices by white actors and that didn't seem so bad to me. But then I thought Scarlett Johansson being cast in the role of Major Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell and as Asian person, I thought it was wrong because not only was an Asian character being changed into a white person but also because it was also denying Asian actors a role in a Hollywood blockbuster movie. So image for a lot of people, Nadine is the same way. There are so few black characters in games and few black actresses proportional to their white counterparts. By casting Laura Bailey as Nadine, that took away from under represented community a chance to have a major role in a big AAA game.
Why are you stunned at the poll results ?
That's on brand for this site.
Agreed. The best decision for Bailey would have been to step down in light of the design. But the larger failure belongs to Naughty Dog as a studio and Druckmann as CD/lead co-writer.
even worse is how nadine shares some of Bailey's facial features so she ends up looking off.
Neil's excuse is bullshit, I want to say this is a side effect of UC4's fucked development but I think Nadine was always going to be a merc from fucking south africa so nah.
I didn't know she grew up in the apartheid because her character is bland as fuck. Probably rewrote that after the bailey casting.
Neil's excuse is bullshit, I want to say this is a side effect of UC4's fucked development but I think Nadine was always going to be a merc from fucking south africa so nah.
I didn't know she grew up in the apartheid because her character is bland as fuck. Probably rewrote that after the bailey casting.
There was literally a thread about this and all over Twitter to the point that Naughty Dog was trending. They didn't get a free pass.
The poll results aren't surprising. The amount of people defending naughty dog from Jason Schrierer's article about their crunch among other things
It was very prevalent in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. Pretty sure a majority of the Mexican characters were played by people who were not actually Mexican.
it's astounding. how is NO not a common sense answer.
era, you're disappointing.
User Banned (3 months): false equivalencies surrounding racism
Are guys also against a Brit playing an American Spiderman?
An Aussie playing Thor?
Or British actors in lead American roles such as House?
How about Matt Damon playing a South African with the accent and all?
A British born (despite his heritage), authentic Brit accent and all playing Ghandi?
How about Americans playing all Asian roles in English dubs of games and movies?
Where do you draw the line?
An Aussie playing Thor?
Or British actors in lead American roles such as House?
How about Matt Damon playing a South African with the accent and all?
A British born (despite his heritage), authentic Brit accent and all playing Ghandi?
How about Americans playing all Asian roles in English dubs of games and movies?
Where do you draw the line?
You could just as easily argue the character could've been redesigned to be white, given there's plenty of white South Africans. Both ideas miss the root of the issue though: White actors shouldn't be playing black characters, and if that was respected and taken seriously, there wouldn't be a problem to begin with.
Yes but that really isn't any different than what happened with Nadine, where they cast a white actress before defining the character, then made her a black character without changing the actress. Same goes for Chloe, they retconned her into being Indian but kept the white voice actress. There is 0 reason why they should recast Nadine but not Chloe, both characters have the same issue.
I think the poll would have gotten more "yes" votes if it had asked a better question: Do you think the games industry should create more voice acting opportunities for POC? or Should more voice acting roles go to POC?
First off, I'd like to be clear that I support the recent moves from white actors and actresses to abdicate their roles so that POC can fill them. But the reason I'm for that is because it creates more opportunities for POC to get into the industry and diversify it. Having said that, I'm not really into this whole "stay in your lane" approach to voice acting. The great thing about voice acting is that actors aren't bound by their physical appearance. Everyone only being able to play their own race is frankly kind of regressive in my eyes.
Should Kratos only be played by a Greek man? No, of course not, it's great that he's been played by two amazing black actors because it means more diversity in the industry. I'm perfectly fine with lauding examples of POC getting more equality and chances in the industry, but I'm not into tearing other places down for doing what voice acting has been about since forever. People inhabiting different roles.
All that aside, I don't think Laura Bailey was right for that role, and the performance probably would have been more believable with a POC in the role. Or at least someone better trained in a South African accent. (Or ideally, a South African.)
First off, I'd like to be clear that I support the recent moves from white actors and actresses to abdicate their roles so that POC can fill them. But the reason I'm for that is because it creates more opportunities for POC to get into the industry and diversify it. Having said that, I'm not really into this whole "stay in your lane" approach to voice acting. The great thing about voice acting is that actors aren't bound by their physical appearance. Everyone only being able to play their own race is frankly kind of regressive in my eyes.
Should Kratos only be played by a Greek man? No, of course not, it's great that he's been played by two amazing black actors because it means more diversity in the industry. I'm perfectly fine with lauding examples of POC getting more equality and chances in the industry, but I'm not into tearing other places down for doing what voice acting has been about since forever. People inhabiting different roles.
All that aside, I don't think Laura Bailey was right for that role, and the performance probably would have been more believable with a POC in the role. Or at least someone better trained in a South African accent. (Or ideally, a South African.)
Part of the reason is the SAG rules.
A single VA is allowed to voice up to 3 characters in a movie, episode, or game without having to pay them more. Often when they cast actors they're also thinking about what bit parts or other characters they can voice.
Disgusting and unacceptable -- further made worse by their justification.
Over 200 people voting yes in this poll is yet another affirmation of the privilege and ignorance from the white gaming community when it comes to matters like this.
Over 200 people voting yes in this poll is yet another affirmation of the privilege and ignorance from the white gaming community when it comes to matters like this.
The issue very clearly has to do with race, not nationality. Don't be dense.
You should probably google apartheid if you're curious as to why people are taking issue with Naughty Dog writing a South African character and not knowing whether they'd be white or black until after all the voice work was done recording, then keeping the white actress anyway.
I'll go ahead and admit when this first happened I didn't see an issue with it because they changed the look of the character after she already did her performance, but that was a mistake born out of me not understanding just how wrong it was.
I'd like to think they learned their lesson, and The Last of US II shows a step froward, I don't think there's any dumb casting like this.
I'd like to think they learned their lesson, and The Last of US II shows a step froward, I don't think there's any dumb casting like this.
User Banned (Permanent): Dismissive and inflammatory commentary in a sensitive thread. Long history of being dismissive towards concerns of bigotry.
you know... i have to ask. Knowing that the casting was done differently for Part II. What is the point of this thread now? Is this to drum up controversy to keep the Naughty Dog employee harassment train going?
I really hope the intent of this thread is not cynical and is actually intended to highlight an industry wide issue.
absolutely agree that black roles should be played by black people, and more POC roles in general need to exist.
I really hope the intent of this thread is not cynical and is actually intended to highlight an industry wide issue.
absolutely agree that black roles should be played by black people, and more POC roles in general need to exist.
Naw this is a shitty take when the VO industry is filled with the same white actors getting all the roles over and over again and POC voice actors don't have a fair shot
The same thing was bugging me about Jackie since he was revealed in cyberpunk 2077. I seriously thought they got someone to do the caricature accent and all that. I guess Jason Hightower is Mexican American.
That was exactly it, in further interviews about the process, Neil talked about how the game was coming together at an accelerated schedule because of the way the production had been. Nadine was a relatively late addition compared to other characters. Normally they would have been more open to casting someone with less experience doing mocap, taking the time to help them get acquainted to the process and do extensive chemistry tests, specifically with Nolan North and Warren Cole. But in this case, they cast Laura, and by the time they finalized the design it was late enough in their production timeline that recasting would have been more of an undertaking and effort that could be focused elsewhere.
Nadine is one of my favorite characters in the game, especially after The Lost Legacy (which btw, to anyone with the art book for Uncharted 2, you'd know that Chloe's background was not a "retcon", especially since the information didn't contradict anything previously hard established in canon), I do love Laura and Claudia's chemistry, and I really do want another game starring those characters. When casting voice roles usually whoever fits the energy in mind of the character, or even brings something unexpected yet appropriate to the character ends up getting the role. That all being said I'd be open to Nadine, or potentially both being recast in a way that gives people more deserving a chance to portray the characters, as long as it doesn't result in a lacking performance by comparison.
The ideal situation would be something akin to the casting of TJ Ramona as Salim in Uncharted 3. He recently mentioned on twitter how dearly he feels about that character and that experience even as a small side character, because of how Salim is still the only heroic Arab character he's played in his 25 years of acting. So despite my own affection for the established voices we have as these characters I'm very fond of, it's worth noting how much of a positive opportunity they could provide for people who match their in canon background more. Visually they're already an underrated push forward for representation. A typically male, white-passing led franchise, now led by two women of color, one of which is bisexual? That's really cool and arguably one of the more unappreciated elements of The Lost Legacy. But it could be even more.
I think the reason this never took off is because they insisted that they had done the same for a black actor who'd play a white woman. Marlene's actress played an old white woman. Which you can actually see in action here at 1:28
However, that is an incredibly small role compared to Nadine and does little to address the core argument about how often POC get shafted when it comes to acting roles.
Yeah those folks that voted yes are awfully quiet. They know it's a bad take but their naughty gods can do no wrong. It's probably a lot of the same ppl that had no problem with the crunch culture at ND. This is a more sensitive subject though and they don't want to show their ass
Maybe I'm misremembering but I think people did actually have a problem with this.
^^^
Also I feel like I'm increasingly learning that Druckmann just seems like kind of a dweeb.
I think there is a pretty massive difference between a white actor playing a white character from a different region than them and a white actor playing a non-white character, both because of the cultural history of white people playing non-white characters (hint: it's a very racist history) and the broader professional context of non-white performers being underrepresented in media/the industry
Well hopefully they learn from this going forward because yes, they should be bringing in more talented voice actors of colour to play these characters rather than just relying on the same old (very talented) actors who don't represent the characters to their fullest. Laura did a great job and really showed her range, but yeah time for some long overdue change.
Voice actors get cast for all sortA of characters white black etc. directors are just trying to match a voice with character that is the only goal. Black voice actors have played white characters white voice actors have played black characters it's about how the character voice matched with visual. Also multiple performers will play man character for gamplay etc. the idea that in voice the the actor should match the race of the character is ridiculous. I'm black and work in the industry and I don't have problem with this.