Top Ten Unintentionally Racist Videogames - News

by VGChartz Staff , posted on 30 August 2011 / 19,976 Views

I’m not a big fan of the overuse of political correctness in modern society, but there are a few instances where one sees things that we should not be seeing in 2011, things that bring the whole racism/stereotyping argument to the forefront. Whether or not these things were put in maliciously or innocently enough, racist moments in videogames can make one uncomfortable and even ruin a game for many people. While I bet I could round up a whole list of intentionally racist things from racial separatist groups depicting grotesque acts and terrible storylines, I’m going to try to keep to mainstream game releases. Here are the top ten unintentionally racist videogames in no particular order.

Custer’s Revenge

While I wasn’t going to put this game on the list originally, I know that many immediately think of it when one mentions racist videogames. Custer’s Revenge was an Atari 2600 game intended for adults in a small market of pornographic videogames at the time. The game starred a caricaturized version of the infamous General George A. Custer as he gets “revenge” for his bloody death at the hands of The Lakota tribe. This “revenge” is basically raping all the “noble savage women” within the tribe for no apparent reason at all. Despite the inane and completely derogatory nature of the plot, this really isn’t the only pornographic material that sinks this low; in fact the porn industry was basically built on the same sort of storytelling.

Revelations: Persona

A few years ago Persona was finally released to English speaking countries in a form more like its original Japanese release. Missing quests were intact, and more importantly, character localizations were removed in favor of the Japanese versions. In the original American release, the game was once deemed “too Japanese” by the localization team at Atlus. Thus we ended up with American names, which honestly weren’t that bad, and American looks. Suddenly hair was lightened, skin was lightened, and in one case a character was made into a zany black stereotype.

The character Masao exists as the comic relief of the game, as he appears to be an uneducated kid “from the streets” that spouts goofy one-liners and doesn’t take things seriously. The localizers must have noticed that he was a graffiti artist and loved dancing and thought “I know what we should change him to!”, thus we got Mark, the Jar Jar Binks of the game. Mark could have been an okay change, but when his dialog was altered to consists on “street colloquialisms” that appear to be what people think black people talk like. Instead of decent dialog we have “ebonics.”

Pokémon

With over 600 Pokémon there is no doubt that at least a few might have some resemblance to a real life person or character. Problem is that one of the many that does happens to be Jynx. Jynx was based on a fashion style called yamanba from Japan. A decade ago a handful of Japanese girls started trying to emulate the looks of Hollywood starlets with blonde hair, light makeup, and even fake tans. This style, called Ganguro, further evolved into another style called yamanba. Yamanba ditches the semi-realistic coloring for an even more distorted look with brown skin, stark white makeup on the eyes and lips – problem is some yamanba sort of look like they are wearing blackface make-up ala Little Black Sambo, a series of books popular many years ago. Jynx has been re-colored purple for most of her (his?) Western appearances, but stays black in Japan.

Scribblenauts

Speaking of Little Black Sambo, What started as an innocent children’s book in the 1890’s turned into a racial slur not too soon after. This was largely in part due to the illustrations of Sambo that looked like he was wearing traditional blackface make-up. “Sambo” soon became a derogatory word for black people, and the titular book was all but banned not too long ago. The game Scribblenauts has images for over 1000 words, so I wonder what happens when you write “Sambo” into the game? That’s right a watermelon appears, thus combing a bad racial slur and a racial stereotype also from minstrel entertainment…nice job guys.

Miburi & Teburi

Leave it to Sega to sarcastically poke fun at American fetishism of Japan by having a character in a game that seems to be a mockery of the concept. Enter Miburi & Teburi , a game where one tries to solve crossword-like puzzles through “charades” styled gestures from live action characters on the screen. A few of those characters are presented as “typical American tourists” and as such are covered in hair, huge, and stupid. Just about everything they say is something like "I love Japan. I love Japanese people!" Yeesh!

Street Fighter

Whenever any company makes a game that contains characters from around the world 99% of the time this results in a grab-bag of silly racial stereotypes. In Street Fighter games we have just about everyone covered from a Sumo Wrestler, a huge Russian wrestler, to a Yoga master with shrunken heads, and even a U.S. Military officer with a flat-top. While I wouldn’t say that the series in itself is racist it does promote racial stereotypes that could be seen as racist, especially if moved to the extreme…

Punch Out!

… Like Punch Out! I mean seriously when you punch Glass Joe, the weakest guy in the game, he not only secretes croissants somehow, but he begs for surrender. Then we have characters like Great Tiger, an Indian man with a tiger and a magical turban. These stereotypes were mellowed out a bit in Super Punch Out! but we still had a hillbilly, a ninja, and a Jamaican guy that was basically Bob Marley.

Spanish For Everyone

One would think that an educational game about learning a language would teach about the culture of said foreign country in a non-racist way. Enter Spanish For Everyone, a game that throws logic out the window. We begin the game with a kid named Shawn playing a game on his DS, a friend named Miguel walks by asking if he can also play it. Shawn hands the game over only to have Miguel’s dad drive up in a limo telling him to get in. Miguel then steals the DS(accidentally I hope) and he and his dad drive away chased by cops. Shawn’s Aunt shows up and assumes that Miguel must have fled to Mexico, so they drive there. During the trip this woman comes across like a bad stereotype of a Mexican hooker or something as she keeps telling Shawn "I can teach you many things and Spanish is definitely one of them." And it’s all downhill from there folks.

Kung Fu Chaos

I’ll just let this video speak for itself…

Square’s Tom Sawyer

One has to wonder if the Japanese actually know what a person with dark skin looks like. While there has lately been an attempt to have positive black characters in games and other media such as anime, you still sometimes end up like questionable characters like Mr. Popo from Dragonball Z and our next entry. I’m sure most Americans on here have read Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn, most likely by force in school at some point. This game takes the plot of both The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and mashes them together into something vaguely like the original books.

If you have read the books you will know of the character “Jim”, a runaway slave that joins Tom and Huck on their adventures. While many in America have been trying to “clean up” the stories by removing all racist language, The Japanese game developers went the other direction by making “Jim” into a minstrel show styled, grotesque black-faced monster of a man. With huge lips that take up the entire character image and small beady eyes, one has to wonder “what were they thinking?”

And there you have it, are there any other games that deserve to be on the list?

52 Comments

blunty51 (on 30 August 2011)

I'm glad you didn't put RE5 up there, it would have re-ignited an arguement that never should have exsited in the first place.

spdk1 blunty51 (on 30 August 2011)

I nearly put it on, except citing the inclusion of token white people as being racist due to the backlash, but decided that it would be better not too...lol

RayCoone blunty51 (on 31 August 2011)

When I read the title I would've sworn that RE5 would be on the list. XD

-1

JPL78 (on 30 August 2011)

It actually bothers me when people think or say Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were racist. They aren't. They accurately reflect the racism of the times but the boys themselves become friends with Jim and view him as an equal. Really they don't even see him for his race and that was the positive part of it. But I haven't read it in forever so I don't know exactly. Nothing I ever read of Mark Twain's came across as racist to me though.

Kenology JPL78 (on 31 August 2011)

Mark Twain seemed to be very anti-racist and anti-war.

maximus22 JPL78 (on 31 August 2011)

Yeah everybody knows that. They are saying that the game is racist because of the overblown blackface of Jim in the game.

Tammi (on 31 August 2011)

Do we really need this article? I vote it gets deleted asap.

Teratus (on 01 September 2011)

Political Correctness is a joke

not to mention its always a one sided argument and complete double standards

people need to lighten up and get a sense of humour if they are soo easily offended by stuff thats been around for years and is nowhere near offencive

if this stupid political correctness system gets any worse then the world is going to become even more of a dull place to live

Slimebeast (on 31 August 2011)

Thanks for choking us with another dose of political correctness.

Teo (on 01 September 2011)

The Street Fighter explanation makes no sense. Is the character Balrog racist because he is a boxer implying all Americans like or know about boxing? What about the Japanese characters where Capcom is from, are they implying Sumo wrestling and Ryu is the only thing? Your argument is just plain out stupid. It's obvious the characters are built around a culture and its idea of power/skill/supernatural

kayoss (on 31 August 2011)

Honestly, racial stereotyping exist because a lot of time it is true. It have to come from some where for it become so well known. Racial and Stereotyping shouldnt belong in the same sentence. You can stereotype but that doesnt mean you're a racist.Have you ever seen a skinny sumo wrestler? Have you ever seen a japanese fighter who isnt Japanese? Back then most military men have crew cuts that looked like flat tops. Have some sense of humor, if you look closely at yourself no matter what ethnicity you are, you might find that some of the stereotypes to be true. My sisters and aunt are asian and she cant drive, Im asian I have chinky eyes and i do know martial arts.

Darth Tigris kayoss (on 01 September 2011)

You're like the asian Uncle Ruckus, lol.

Gamer_of_the_Year (on 30 August 2011)

Um, I think it's safe to say that Tom Sawyer game WAS INTENTIONALLY racist....lol

Kenology Gamer_of_the_Year (on 31 August 2011)

Absolutely. I mean, that was absolutely blatant.

-2

nanbanjim (on 30 August 2011)

lawlz, it's always fun to see someone's reaction when they suddenly realize the Japanese as a whole (not individuals) neither know about other ethnicities nor care to.

NightDragon83 (on 04 September 2011)

Wow I forgot all about Jynx... haven't played the original Pokemon games in forever!

Does anyone else think Jynx looks like Snooki from Jersey Shore??

duckypwns (on 03 September 2011)

It'sa me! Mario! I'mma gonna eata the spaghetti and make-a a pizza pie-a!

scottie (on 30 August 2011)

The scribblenauts thing is a lot more understandable than this article makes it out to be. Because of the racist connotations, Sambo became a brand of watermelon. So it worked in the same way that typing 'hoover' would get you a vacuum cleaner. It is still unintentionally racist, but much more difficult to notice, when a few people are charged with putting as many words as they can in a game.

ebw scottie (on 31 August 2011)

The official story is that sambo is not from the brand name Sambo Watermelon. 5th Cell traced their inclusion of 'sambo' to a Spanish word for the fig-leaf gourd, sort of an overgrown cucumber which looks a lot like a watermelon.

Smeags scottie (on 31 August 2011)

The more you know. rainbow appears

Kantor (on 30 August 2011)

I thought some of these were stretching a little (Street Fighter?) but Tom Sawyer... just what.

SONYisBP (on 30 August 2011)

I liked the article, stereotypes are so funny! people just need to relax and laugh! but as far as punch out being racist? what was super macho man? looked like an old white guy? or did you ever get that far?