We've mentioned before that movies still inexplicably revolve around prejudices that we thought we had outgrown decades ago, but that can at least be attributed to the age of the medium. Movies came into their own nearly a century ago; those prejudices are likely just strangely persistent moral throwbacks. But video games are different, because they're ours, right? There's no reason to inherit our grandparents' bigotry because we made these things up: We've set the standards, we've made the rules and we know that being racist, sexist, homophobic jerkholes is wrong ... don't we? Then how come this stuff is still happening all up in Mario's grill?
5Racism as a Gameplay Mechanic
Sure, there's the occasional obvious racism, like your classic stereotypes -- Barret Wallace in Final Fantasy VII is the only black character, and of course he uses heavy weapons, speaks in broken English and is vaguely homoerotic. City of Heroes has a similar problem, with the only in-story black character being the "Back Alley Brawler." Even the Mass Effect franchise, which is usually considered smarter and more progressive than most other games, has only one possible black romance option -- and if you pursue it, he cheats on you and gets another woman pregnant. Also, he's in charge of weapons on your ship and his father is a criminal. Also, he constantly says "dyno-mite!" like Jimmie Walker and kills aliens by slam-dunking over them. (We only made two of those things up.) One of the oldest villains in video game history is Ganondorf, and not only is he the only non-white character in the first few thousand iterations of the Zelda series, but he's also a member of the "thieving Gerudo race," which, like the Redguard, are obviously based off an existing people: Gypsies.
nintendo.wikia.com
It's like what Hitler probably thought Gypsies looked like.
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