Mario Kart racist, Tomodachi Life homophobic

[Julius Seeker]

MARIO KART 8
This comes from a reviewer who writes that Mario Kart 8 lacks racial diversity:

After 30 years there are still zero Mario characters of color, a problem that Mario Kart 8 highlights by lining up all the characters on a single screen. When it comes to human characters, Mario Kart 8 is overwhelmingly white. Of the 29 drivers, 14 are human (including Toad and Toadette), and every single one of them is white. While it’d be atypical of Nintendo to introduce new characters into a Mario Kart game, it’s also where the deficit is the most obvious, and during play I found myself disappointed that Nintendo’s stable of characters so painfully fails to reflect the diversity of its audience.

Personally, I never really thought about the race of the characters a great deal outside of the fact that Mario and Luigi are Italian. I would have never considered Toads to be of the European race, they're mushrooms! Even Wario and Waluigi seem to be some sort of evil Orc/Elf humanoids. When it comes to Japan in general, they often draw their characters with white skin, blue eyes, blonde/red hair, etc... Although I have heard from anime fans that Japanese people do not consider these characters to be European; http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/20 ... -as-white/

Either way, I think this guy's counter argument really nailed the point:

Discounting Toad and Toadette, there are indeed 12 white playable human characters. However, several are doubles of each other. For instance, Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach and Princess Daisy are all also playable in “baby” form. Since each of these characters is white, their doubles are also white.

Even so, both Mario and Peach are playable as metallic versions of themselves. Metal Mario and Pink Gold Peach should hardly be considered “white” characters.

Two other characters, Wario and Waluigi, are simply evil alternate versions of Mario and Luigi. Since the famed plumber brothers are ethnically Italian, so too are Wario and Waluigi.

Malone’s analysis also glosses over the significant number of “green” minority characters: the reptilian King Bowser Koopa and his seven children.

The game also includes Yoshi, a dinosaur; Lakitu, a cloud-riding lizard; Donkey Kong, an ape; and Shy Guy, a masked character of unknown race, color and gender.

And while at their core, the few unique human characters are indeed white, they are ethnically distinct. Mario and Luigi are Italian and from New York, whereas Peach is a natural-born citizen of the Mushroom Kingdom. And the cast is quite gender diverse, featuring at least five distinct female characters.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/05/16/its-a ... z32AKIv1kK

TOMODACHI LIFE
The other issue that popped up is Nintendo's upcoming Animal-Crossing-like game - that features Mii characters - got a lot of criticism for not including homosexual romantic relationships in the game.

http://www.polygon.com/2014/5/7/5692064 ... do-bigotry

I apply a simple principle to statements like these: The more words a company needs to use to justify its exclusionary choices, the more simple its motivations. Call it a queer version of Occam's razor. Behind all the corporate jargon and flowery public-relations language lies hatred, pure and simple.

The beating, bigoted heart of Nintendo's statement is this: Nintendo does not care about its lesbian, gay and bisexual audience.

Nintendo later issued this response "We are committed to advancing our longtime company values of fun and entertainment for everyone," Nintendo said on Friday. "We pledge that if we create a next installment in the 'Tomodachi' series, we will strive to design a game-play experience from the ground up that is more inclusive, and better represents all players."

[Shrinweck]

Man, if you want to see some vile, accidentally racist shit come out of Japan, then yeah make them create virtual depictions of minorities they know next to nothing about against their will. Just look at the Caucasians they've already put out there. And, yeah, they don't really consider them European in the first place. It's the same thing with anime that seemingly depicts white people. It's just the art style that they appropriated from American/European influences and then went off running with. That default human being thing is kind of funny though.

But, yeah, anyone who has consumed enough anime and manga to see what they think of, say, Americans or Africans, knows that the Japanese have alarmingly stereotypical views of foreigners. Their art will caricature what they see because that's what they do. Expect black people to be... unhappy at best.

[Julius Seeker]

Man, if you want to see some vile, accidentally racist shit come out of Japan, then yeah make them create virtual depictions of minorities they know next to nothing about against their will. Just look at the Caucasians they've already put out there. And, yeah, they don't really consider them European in the first place. It's the same thing with anime that seemingly depicts white people. It's just the art style that they appropriated from American/European influences and then went off running with. That default human being thing is kind of funny though.

But, yeah, anyone who has consumed enough anime and manga to see what they think of, say, Americans or Africans, knows that the Japanese have alarmingly stereotypical views of foreigners. Their art will caricature what they see because that's what they do. Expect black people to be... unhappy at best.

Haha, yeah, white people always have gigantic noses and neanderthal features. It doesn't bother me at all though.

I think the criticism is amusing; the critics think the developers are perpetuating white-privilege, even though the devs likely do not see most of the associated characters as white. I also wouldn't say anything about the design of Mario and Luigi - or their evil counterparts Wario or Waluigi - really pushes the white privilege agenda; particularly considering the characters are stylized and cartoony, and not portrayed as dominant and powerful.

[Shrinweck]

Yeah white people tend to be depicted as giants with exaggerated features. Black people are basically always depicted as big lipped and dramatic (i.e. loud). They don't have the hundreds of years of racial interaction that other countries have, so it literally shouldn't be thought of as insulting. It's just more of the United States pushing their values on others. Japan should certainly become more accepting of other cultures (and in some ways, it is), but forcing them to do it before they're ready is just going to cause head aches on both sides.

People complain about political correctness gone wild, but when you're a citizen of a country that used to basically legally murder minorities, then going wild with political correctness is just a natural over-correcting action.