The Indian cab driver was immediately noticeable to me too. I'd give CDPr the benefit of the doubt, but coming off of TW3... eh.
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I am disappointed that even in the year 2077 , Indians seem to be represented mostly as taxi drivers
- Thread starter Toriko
- Start date
Like many of you I am super excited about Cyberpunk 2077 and generally loved the trailer that was shown during E3. There was however one tiny bit of footage in the trailer that I was disappointed by
Now this may be better explained in the game with more context but even if it is, I am disappointed that of all the images they could have gone with to represent an Indian in a game during a major conference they decided to go with a stereotypical taxi driver.
Indian representation in games media is pretty piss poor as it is.. We rarely see Indian characters playing central roles in games and even when they do they are reduced to a stereotype - either a taxi driver or a hacker... It is disappointing CD Projekt Red would fall into the same trap.
Like why cant we have an Indian man or woman who is a diplomat,, banker, artist etc... why does it always have to be a taxi driver.
Uncharted LL was one of the only few games that actually had an Indian as the main protagonists and handled it well ( even though It was disappointing that it was ultimately a white woman voicing Chloe ) and I was hoping it would kickstart a trend that would get more Indian characters into the mainstream but I guess we will forever be relegated to taxi drivers or spiritual gurus ala BGE2
Not a big deal I am assuming for most people but just irritates me a bit as an Indian....
I would love it if we had more varied representation.
Thought the quick intro of the turban-clad gentleman maintaining his calm despite having hostile passengers with a gun pointed at him was a cool shot.
I don't know if Indian princess is a reoccuring stereotype. The only other place I have seen this is in POP (first Trilogy). I do agree with what you're saying. The Order 1887 set in the time of the British Raj would have been absolutely phenomenal since it is in direct timeline with the Industrial Era and since they already had their own order it could have been an Indian protag. Looks like we'll have to wait for Ubisoft with Assassin's Creed to do some justice to the Subcontinent (so far Far Cry 4 was a pretty good representation except for its shit protag)... Ajay Ghale - American Indian badass who learns it all in a day... like wtf?
it's a combat cab he should be used to people carrying weapons. but still yeah i think this was just a shot inserted to give a bit of humour. of course you'll get people complaining that it's stereotypical or offense.
I think people should chill a bit and wait for a proper gameplay. It's one character, we saw asians, arabic and black people in the trailer, that's a lot of diversity, we just need to see more before jumping on the: "CDPR is racist", because this forum already did the same thing with TW3.
It makes sense because the director of The Order is a South Asian dude.
I really think ND did the best job here and gave us Chloe Fraser who, despite being only half Indian and voiced by a white actress, was more "Indian" than anyone I've ever seen before. She seemed culturally aware of India as an Indian rather than being culturally aware of India as an outsider.
If Cyberpunk 2077 has a good cyberpunk story it will explore a racial divide in the class of its setting. I'm not saying this definitely will or wont happen, but I hope it can explore these themes maturely and if it just avoids them entirely, while relying on that aesthetic and world building style, I will be very disappointed.
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Not sure if it's supposed to give people the Deadpool's Bopinder-sque humor
There's nothing wrong with the vocation itself as much as noticeably relegating a group of people to it in popular media. It births the stereotype which then continues to feed and propagate the cycle. I have no doubt that there'll be cab drivers of other ethnicities in the game but CDPR chose to align the trailer with a recognizable stereotype.
Sometimes outrage culture can truly be appalling especially when things are premature and in that regard, I hope everyone waits for the full game to make any sort of judgement. No one (rational) wants this game to fail. It is looking to redefine a genre and is might be a watershed moment for gaming as a whole. This is the reason why some folks are disappointed at the stereotypical content of the trailer.
Also, and this is more on a general note to some posters here: Why do some of you keep bringing "Westerners" when talking about marketability of the game? And someone mentioned how "Finnish" folks are not represented (which I agree is a crap deal). I think people are mistaking ethnicity for nationality. People of multiple ethnicity can belong to a single country and culture and so that defense really doesn't stand.
As a non white Canadian, the lack of representation while at times irritating (and it's slowly changin) in popular culture, I find perpetuating racial stereotypes and promulgating it as "inclusion", pernicious.
"Name in Sanskrit" you mean Hindi/Urdu, Sanskrit has been dead for centuries. Anyways Henry Green is not his real name, his real name is Jayadeep Mir, son of Arbaaz Mir (protagonist of AC: Chronicles India). He took the alias for some reason I can't remember atm.
As for The Order 1886, yea I see this happen a lot when the voice actor speaks a broken version of native language. It's because of the voice actor themselves not being able to speak it properly. Makes me wonder why not just hire someone who speaks that language in the first place? That way you get a proper native accent and the English is accented according to that native accent. Rather than having a British Indian, who usually speaks with a British accent, speak English with a make believe Indian accent and a fucked up native language accent. Or atleast hire a British Indian who can speak the native language properly...there are plenty of those.
Good representation.
Shit language voice actress for main female protag. Everytime I heard the princess speak I cringed a little. Broke the immersion for me entirely.
Wonder if he casted someone he owed a favor to. So I agree with your whole statement above.
Sanskrit = Mother language of almost 300 languages. Hindi/Bangla are a direct evolution. Urdu is a mix of Sanskrit, Farsi and English. It's not a dead language in the sense you're saying it.
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Dont you think that the occupation plays some role in it? Would it be seen as the same if the guy in the trailer was a doctor instead (which is also an indian stereotype if i'm not mistaken)?
There are differences as to how each and every vocation is judged based on earning and desirability potential. As such, perhaps a brown person shown engaging in one of the most noble professions, would, whilst feeding the said cycle, be comparatively somewhat less annoying (personally speaking). Stuff like this in popular media shows the world what socio-economic strata each ethnicity is tied to.
That is irrelevant, the fact that the premier trailer reinforces the stereotype is the problem, there being other indians doesn't change this. OP felt like that for a reason, step out of the bubble.
I don't know, I kind of hope CDPR address a bunch of these kinds of stereotypes in the story given the nature of the class system in Cyberpunk and the major conglomerates controlling the city. I think it could be really interesting.
Cool thread. I agree completely.
Asian representation is completely ignored. It's a point that "A problem with Apu" makes well.
The representation of Jin Yang in Silicon Valley is offensive as hell.
Indians are often depicted as cab drivers or clerks at a store.
There's no reason they can't be depicted as doctors, bankers, artists, stand up comedians, scientists, or any other profession beyond offensive stereotypical ones.
Asian representation is completely ignored. It's a point that "A problem with Apu" makes well.
The representation of Jin Yang in Silicon Valley is offensive as hell.
Indians are often depicted as cab drivers or clerks at a store.
There's no reason they can't be depicted as doctors, bankers, artists, stand up comedians, scientists, or any other profession beyond offensive stereotypical ones.
Mate Hindi is my native language (and perhaps yours too), I'm aware of these things.
Sanskrit is dead in the same way Latin is dead, they aren't extinct languages because they have descendants and are spoken in novelty but they are dead languages. A French name is a French name, you won't call it a Latin name because French is based on Latin now would you?
Btw Urdu is a language derived off Khariboli and Persian, it's not a mix of sanksrit, persian and english as you put it...that's not quite the correct way to put it since it was never really influenced by English but rather the opposite. And an often forgotten fact is that Hindi was the exact same thing originally as Urdu but written in Devnagri script. The Hindu-Muslim division in the 19th century and onwards led to Hindi and Urdu having a bit of a gap with Hindi leaning towards Sanskrit and Urdu leaning towards Persian which has only widened with times especially after Independence. But ofcourse everyday spoken dialect of both of these are almost mutually indistinguishable.
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Sikhism is a religion, it's very different. Actually, most Sikh people in the world are Indians.
I see some people point out that it might be a bit "too soon" to claim anything based on the trailer, these people don't get the point that "when they do show an Indian NPC the character is a cab driver".
Not saying they're wilfully downplaying the (larger) issue at hand (enforcing stereotypes), but it does come across as a bit tone deaf.
To the OP: yeah it kinda sucks to see all these stereotypes being repeated in media over and over. Why not make the cab driver a white guy? And put in an Indian NPC as something else?
Hope we get to see more people of colour in dominant roles in the game when it comes out (I do think they will, the CP setting has many different gangs, corporations etc. with different ethnic backgrounds).
Not saying they're wilfully downplaying the (larger) issue at hand (enforcing stereotypes), but it does come across as a bit tone deaf.
To the OP: yeah it kinda sucks to see all these stereotypes being repeated in media over and over. Why not make the cab driver a white guy? And put in an Indian NPC as something else?
Hope we get to see more people of colour in dominant roles in the game when it comes out (I do think they will, the CP setting has many different gangs, corporations etc. with different ethnic backgrounds).
This is definitely a new one to me. Going by your username, I assume you are Muslim which makes what you said even more perplexing.
Anyway as a Sikh dude, it's hard to get upset about this kinda representation. It's like in Deadpool with the taxi driver, works well for cheap jokes. The trailer looks like a Muslim to me though but either way, you know what the studio were going for.
The stereotypes I've seen for us is we drive taxis, work in IT or are doctors/lawyers/engineers. Considering deal old mother said become a doctor and that's the route I took, these stereotypes exist for a reason. Sad reality.
Imo, it isn't so bad, if you take in account the context.
The context being, a cyberpunk setting that leans more in classical, old-school CP style than in modern cyberpunk, and it's in fact inspired partly in the '80s cyberpunk'. In a sense, this game should use a lot of tropes, like this one. I don't think it's going to be super modern and actual, it shouldn't be.
The context being, a cyberpunk setting that leans more in classical, old-school CP style than in modern cyberpunk, and it's in fact inspired partly in the '80s cyberpunk'. In a sense, this game should use a lot of tropes, like this one. I don't think it's going to be super modern and actual, it shouldn't be.
User Warned: Trolling
Just when you thought you'd seen every single possible insensitivity in video gaming they go and pull this atrocity. I'm appalled and will be blacklisting said game and hope you will all do the same and share the sentiment across social media to all your friends and strangers.
We need to band together to force some kind of legislation to prevent this type of blatant stereotyping in gaming and I for one will not rest until that end is achieved as these companies need to learn a little sensitivity. Sheesh guys, sheesh.
We need to band together to force some kind of legislation to prevent this type of blatant stereotyping in gaming and I for one will not rest until that end is achieved as these companies need to learn a little sensitivity. Sheesh guys, sheesh.
Bruv, this is actually a terrible, terrible idea especially since in your own words it is "inspired" by and is not a "copy" of the source material. There are plenty of good stuff to hold on to for the sake of nostalgia and authenticity- ethnic stereotyping and tropes are not two of them.
Yeah they did choose that particular cab driver to show off, that's the unfortunate part, which then leads to what you also said and something I agree with.
Premature outrage, I'm taking the wait and see approach, I would've preferred there be no complaints about it at this time because now I feel I won't know whether CDPR had all taxi drivers as indian or whether they added cab driver of other ethnicities as a response to this
With that being said it is something that should be talked about and I'm not going to come in like a smart arse and decry those who feel this is an important thing.
Good representation is key. As a Jamaican/Portuguese Englishman I feel I will never truly get represented lol. How do you represent Finnish lol? Anyone of any ethnicity can be born in Finland. I don't get people these days.
Seems like they took the wrong ques from Hollywood, where Indians are usually casted as the nerdy programmers or taxi drivers, i guess they can still be cool like the taxi driver in Deadpool for example but it's unfortunate that they're stuck in a type cast situation since forever.
I love CDPR but representation has never been their strong suit. I don't know if it's because they're based out of Poland or what but The Witcher series of games has always been almost overwhelmingly white, despite the book's having plenty of countries where POC come from. Just off the top of my head:
-The only Zerrikanian (who blend a lot of Southeast Asian and African cultures) in TW1 is the secondary villain, and he is explicitly a "savage" and a confirmed rapist.
2 and 3 didn't even have any Zerrikanians until outcry caused them to add a single NPC merchant in the Blood and Wine expansion. They also added the mage and his entourage in Hearts of Stone. I forget what country they were from in the game, but they were Arabic. Their only role is to capture Geralt and speak in a tongue he cannot understand to emphasize how foreign they are before getting butchered, so still not amazing.
Their progress since the first Witcher game in terms of representing women has improved a lot (compare TW1s sex cards to TW3s Yennefer, Ciri, etc) but they have a long way to go on POC.
With Cyberpunk they have no excuse to skimp out like someone tried to make for them with Witcher, so hopefully they step their game up. There seems to be a very nice variety of people shown, but the cab driver is just one example of how easy it is to stumble there.
-The only Zerrikanian (who blend a lot of Southeast Asian and African cultures) in TW1 is the secondary villain, and he is explicitly a "savage" and a confirmed rapist.
2 and 3 didn't even have any Zerrikanians until outcry caused them to add a single NPC merchant in the Blood and Wine expansion. They also added the mage and his entourage in Hearts of Stone. I forget what country they were from in the game, but they were Arabic. Their only role is to capture Geralt and speak in a tongue he cannot understand to emphasize how foreign they are before getting butchered, so still not amazing.
Their progress since the first Witcher game in terms of representing women has improved a lot (compare TW1s sex cards to TW3s Yennefer, Ciri, etc) but they have a long way to go on POC.
With Cyberpunk they have no excuse to skimp out like someone tried to make for them with Witcher, so hopefully they step their game up. There seems to be a very nice variety of people shown, but the cab driver is just one example of how easy it is to stumble there.
As far as I can tell from the trailer, this is kind of backwards? They didn't choose a taxi driver to represent an Indian character, they chose an Indian to represent a taxi driver.
Not trying to dismiss your concerns. It still reinforces the stereotype which is a Bad Thing, but it doesn't suggest that Indians are usually taxi drivers, only that taxi drivers are usually Indian.
(According to this 2013 study, roughly half of New York cabbies are from India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh: http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/downloads/pdf/2014_taxicab_fact_book.pdf)
Four Lions is the funniest movie I've seen in my life. No kidding. I thought about it a lot and couldnt come up with any other. I was on the floor durinf that "we'll blow up the internet" scene.
My position is that some stereotypes often times are based on real-life examples. For example if you take the "redneck stereotype", you will probably find a lot of people similar to that stereotypes in some parts of the US. It is similar with other stereotypes. Portraying characters that more or less fit those stereotypes in my opinion is not bad per se, as long as you do not represent the whole group like that. And in the context of what we've seen of Cyberpunk 2077, I think it is far too early to make any such calls based only on 1:40min. I highly doubt this will be the only character from India / with indian roots in CP77 and I highly doubt the other ones will also be based on stereotypes. But only time will tell.
It really miffed me that in Far Cry 4, whenever they had to represent the native language beyond a simple sign, they just used bullshit random text. There were some parts where the font was actually broken because they hadn't installed Devanagari packs on their development computers. At some points they couldn't decide if Kyrati was written in the Devanagari or Bengali script.
They wouldn't have pulled this shit if the game was set in, say, France or Germany.
how about we wait for the final product before we start throwing accusations here and there?
Are we going to start counting how many minorities, ethnicities and stereotypes are shown in a 90 second trailer of a massive open world RPG that is about to be released in 2-3 years from now?
Am I the only one who finds this ridiculous?
The final game can have taxi drivers of every single ethnicity out there, just because it ended up having an indian one in a trailer aint trying to suggest anything imo...
It feels like it has to be a nightmare for someone to try and direct a 90 minute trailer and avoid offending someone, either because he omitted to include someone or because he included someone... Come on guys lets judge the finished product. CDPR aint exactly known for using such practices anyway.
Are we going to start counting how many minorities, ethnicities and stereotypes are shown in a 90 second trailer of a massive open world RPG that is about to be released in 2-3 years from now?
Am I the only one who finds this ridiculous?
The final game can have taxi drivers of every single ethnicity out there, just because it ended up having an indian one in a trailer aint trying to suggest anything imo...
It feels like it has to be a nightmare for someone to try and direct a 90 minute trailer and avoid offending someone, either because he omitted to include someone or because he included someone... Come on guys lets judge the finished product. CDPR aint exactly known for using such practices anyway.
This crossed my mind the first time I saw the trailer. It's a stupid stereotype that exists and need to die already. I don't know why people are bending over backwards to explain it away. All the but but buts in this thread are ridiculous. The game could release and it turns out there's a variety of people who drive taxis. I doubt it though because of that very nature of open world games, they use same characters over and over again like that freaking merchant in the Witcher. I hated seeing his face everywhere.
That being said, can't wait to see the final product. I'm sure there won't be a shortage of stupid stereotypes in the game. We already saw a few in the trailer.
That being said, can't wait to see the final product. I'm sure there won't be a shortage of stupid stereotypes in the game. We already saw a few in the trailer.
I guess its not always an easy task, because people can have different opinion about it. Some might say that it shows inclusion by portraiting an indian doctor, while others might say that its a stereotype. But a so call "lower grade" occupation is likely more to stick out i think, although transportation can be a really important field of work, but its not something that is always considered. Its the same thing with cleaning and sanitation etc., its not always considered that those things are some of the most important jobs in the world (imagine how it would be if no one wanted to clean, handle garbage or manage a sewer system).
While true, i think its a safe bet to say that the majority of users here are from NeoGAF (myself included). I guess that is what he/she had in mind at least. Lots of the same people, just being on a different platform.
I think we need to see the final game before we jump to conclusions about stereotypes being used in the game. If every Indian you see is a cab driver, convenience store owner, etc. then I will agree with OP. But one snippet of an Indian man driving a cab isn't enough to jump to that kind of conclusion right now. There may be other characters in the game of Indian descent that provides more varied representation.