Ethnic representations and character design.

Thank you Zero-Chan. I've never heard of that game. The guy should have kept his day job. Perhaps his departure was the cause for the improvement in character design for Street Fighter 3.

 

In reply to Filth topic, that's a example about the confusion to classify ethnic people (yellow, white, black). When it comes to classify tan skin people, this kind of concept becomes odd.

So far, I hardly see 3D fighting game including character who's from african country(other than Kenya, Egypt and Magreb).

 

Typical jamacian kickboxer...name ONE professional jamacan kickboxer...or thi-style kickboxer...

 

In the American or African-American sense...

 

What is interesting, is Jeffery fights using a style developed during the Greek empire (and then tweaked during the Roman empire)..

 

Another thing to ponder - absolutly NOTHING near this level of analyization came in to the design of ANY of these characters...more likely...They looked at the style, made a few concept designs on what would look appropriate representing their interpritation of the style in VF, and went from there...

 

Wow, I can't believe I missed this thread. Neat okay let me throw some hog wash into here. Black is not definitive, of african decent doesn't even touch the meaning of being "black."

For example arguably and according to many evolution theories, everyone comes from Africa. So that would classify everyone as black. Also decent from africa comes in degrees, there are people who consider themselves black and will be awfully upset if you call them otherwise that have close to/ straight hair and are very light complected with hazel eyes
So what makes someone black? Here's my take on blackness.

Anyone who genetically has documentation or oustanding features related to that of a negroid and wants to classify him/herself as black.

Allowing yourself to be considered "black" brings about a cultural identity, with good and bad consequences of having "documented or visually identifiable negroid genetics outside of africa." Which to some Africans means your "unpure" believe it or not and to the outside world equals whatever stereotype the media is peddling these days.

Remember according to the US one drop of black blood makes you black, which also makes sense of a recent study from the US that Brasil in fact has the worlds second largest population of black people outside of Africa. Now in Brasil, after the slaves were freed, the government wanted to promote a national identity and thusly developed a system, which would break up the "largely black population" by destroying the concept of blackness all together. There are over 100 classifications of race in Brasil today; however there probably are 20 commonly used. Each classification is used to describe what "percent you are." If you are white and black you are "mulatto" (yes the word has brasilian portuguese origins) if you are indian and black you are "quadran" if you are more white than black there is a classification for that, and if you have say 10% indian, 5% white, and 85% black there's a classification for that. I've seen people that look blacker than I am in Brasil that are not considered black at all!
If black americans didn't have such a strong cultural identity and America wasn't so pig headed and worried about racial purity then you'd probably have less "black people" today. If we went by Brasils standards, then none of my family is black due to a jewish grandmother of mine. In fact most black people in America are mixed to some degree whether it be with white/indian/latin. Some may say no way but how would they know really? I won't however applaud what Brasil has done which was fragment the people of african descent and call them simply "Brasilian." The white brasilians don't bother with all the confusing titles and they still retain all the wealth and power, and by destroying the racial identity of the slaves children they have no united front to stand on. They just so happen to be the poorer Brasilians....the poorer....darker...brasilians....with curly to nappy hair. Black people unite! I mean uhm....Mulattos!...err.....QUADROONS!....uhm Majines! errr...or at least if they tried to call everyone together they'd be out of breath going through all 120 classifications.

Look real hard at a African and then look at a black person. You can generally tell who's an African negroid. In fact most black people I know refer to Africans as Africans because there is a difference. Africans also know a black person when they see one generally.

Aboriginies I don't know to much about but genetically scientists have classified them as "negroid." Aborigine = original people, but who knows a long time ago they very likely were directly related to Africans, in fact could have been a tribe that migrated. And as people seperate they build their own distinct features of the years. Lots of aborigines do in fact identify with black people. They are basically getting their ass kicked over there by white folx to so go figure /versus/images/icons/wink.gif

Now as to the video game characters and what they are. You just don't know unless you ask them and we can't. Generally game developers don't go as deep as racial identity so there's no way to really know. This you do know however, if the character has dark brown skin, immediately black people are going to think they are black. We've been trained this way, and so has a good portion of the world. If you look at the many, many variations of black people in the US and in Brasil (course they just don't know their black, well by US standards anyway) it's a safe assumption. Since black has no standard except having negroid genetics outside of africa, Jeffry and Shawn fit here.

All in all I have to say that they are getting better as far as black characters go. Sadly MK4 had the most diverse group of black representation, but that's an American company that did that. The japanese just take what they see in the media, and add their racial humor to black characters and probably will continue to do so. Big black lips, pimps, homeboys etc...and you know what there are some black people that like it. On that note, have you ever listened to def comedy jam? And all the black people do this and black people do that jokes? That show went on for a few seasons and black people were rolling in their seats about those stereotypical degrading jokes...only difference is they were told by black people.

With video games, japanese are telling the jokes. SHit i wrote a novel.

 

Good post. Don't forget Africa is a continent.not a country. /versus/images/icons/wink.gif
It's common mistake to thik several Africans have the same culture which is definitively not true.For example, Kenyan is not Nigerian. There are different kind of negroids in African but the strong sense of society allows better contact. Rememer Rwanda genocyde, this is a example that allow to tell that Africa is about diversity.

 

Very true, there are many types of negroids in Africa. Some even have wavy hair, despite no historical reference to anglo domination in mass. (Sort of how the Black Moors had fun in Italy) It's not surprising though, caucasions have things they call a jewish nose, greek jaw structure etc. It's just most americans don't have the ability to notice the difference in physiology africans of different countries.

 

they really need to have a celtic warrior design. would be VERY interesting. possibly brutal also.

 

I still want a capoeira design, then again I'm a little partial since i'm a capoerista /versus/images/icons/wink.gif

Though I must say I think a street fighter, like thugged out hip hop nigga type character that just boxes and does evil street fight shit is my dream design huhuhuhu. He doesn't have to be an evil character just a mean assed fighter. He would have to have taunts too. There I go jumping into stereotypes again....but the way I'd design him would be to tight for people to complain about huhuhu.

 

Actually "Eagle" the English dude in Street Fighter 1 and CvS2 is a pretty controversial character design.

-White blonde guy
-Stereotypical moustache
-Homosexual
-Golf clubs and Castle in background.
-Not man enough to fight with bare hands

 

Not man enough to fight with bare hands

man that accent too....lol......j/k