Gamer Review: Race in Video Games - Are Video Games Racist

In my last article my editor thought the acronym RPG meant Real Playing Game when it actually stood for Role Playing Game. I just wanted to clarify that before you all thought I was some incompetent casual gamer type bugger. Good, now that that’s over with, let’s play some Fat Person Shooters or FPS!

Let me ask you something, have you ever played a videogame as a white character? Now, have you ever played a videogame as a black character? Now, that black character, did they eat chicken and watermelon and use slang words signifying their non-existent education? I’m exaggerating, but I think you get my point. Videogames, like all other media, are race sensitive. You’ll be hard pressed to find a Sidney Poitier in videogames, especially in the still racist Japanese videogame market. To prove the racist tendencies in games, let’s look at two specific videogame characters, CJ from Grand Theft Auto San Andreas and Barret from Final Fantasy VII.

If you’ve ever played a GTA game, you know they tend to be on the controversial side. Essentially these games are Scarface meets Miami Vice, The Godfather or Boyz N the Hood. San Andreas draws from the later with its main characters being black in a Los Angeles inspired city. Unfortunately these characters are gang members doing a ton of gangster bullocks. CJ, the protagonist returns home after his mother dies and becomes embroiled in a conflict of race, gangs and class. Along the way he pilfers cars, murders innocent pedestrians, police officers, animals, prostitutes and many more stereotypical things. Now this is by no means solely present in the only GTA game wholly populated with black characters, but it is important to note that black people are portrayed as corrupt – is there one upstanding black character in the game? You tell me. I’m not claiming that RockStar (makers of GTA) are perpetuating racist notions, but I am saying that isn’t it time for a positive black character in one of their games? Are we not tired of seeing blacks stealing cars, and making nothing of their lives? Tommy Vercetti of GTA Vice City is no different from CJ, except that he’s white. Yet there are a ton of video games out there with positive white characters. Look at everyone’s favorite plumber, Mario from Super Mario. All he wants to do is rescue his princess. Metaphorically speaking, he just desires to do the right thing. It’s not farfetched to motivate for change of presentation. If one side is presented, then the other should be represented as well.

Barret from Final Fantasy VII is not as offensive a character as CJ, but he manages to hold his own. First off, Final Fantasy VII is about a group of resistance members fighting an evil electric power company that is stealing land and energy from the planet itself and selling this energy back to the people. Barret heads this group of misfits up until our protagonist, a blond hair blue eyed white boy named Cloud (can you say Arian race) assumes control of the gang (not to be confused with gangsters).

I'm still here sucker!!!

Barret lost his family and an arm to the evil company after it sent hitmen out to destroy his village because they refused to cooperate. Barret literally has a gun for half his arm – a gun. Not to mention the fact that he looks like Mr.T and uses language that would make any parent do a double take at the T rated game. However, considering the fact that the Japanese like to draw blacks with big pink lips and blond hair, I’ll gladly accept the Mr.T look any day. The latest black Final Fantasy character is not as offensive as Barret and actually shows progress.

There are a slew of minor black characters cast in video games including the Mike Tyson inspired Balrog from Street Fighter 2, Jax from Mortal Kombat 2, just to name a few. I could go into detail how Drebin from Metal Gear Solid 4, who is followed by his monkey companion, is a quintessential metaphor for how the Japanese view blacks, but it’s just too offensive. I ask you dear readers, what do you value in your video game experience? I know that we really just want to be entertained, but I ask you to be mindful of the commentary these games make of our society.

Blood

So I wrote this play a while back that has some wild things happening in it. The main character is a psychopath and has a fix for blood. It's been a long time since I worked on it so I'm super psyched to make some headway. I feel I've finally reached a satisfactory draft and I hope that it reaches the stage sometime next year. For now here's a brief scene.

Colin
Well are we doing this?

Suzanna
I’m not in the mood right now. Maybe later. I just went back home last night and…

Colin
Is cool. (pause) Look I’m sorry if I came off kinda…

Suzanna
Perverted?

Colin
Y-Yeah. I can appreciate ya vibe. Truin when my ol man was dead I used ta feel the same way.

Suzanna
Whatever, it’s natural for men to hang out with other men right?

Colin
Sure. Why you asking me as if you een sure?

Suzanna
Truly there is a brain in there? I’m sort of amazed now. Fascinated even. What else don’t I know about you?

Colin
Is it true you beat Jeanette ova da head wit her own dildo?

Suzanna
Well, Jeanette and I couldn’t see eye to eye as it were.

Colin
Yeah…wa happen, I een see her in a minute so you mussy beat her dead bad.

Suzanna

Well it was a pretty hard dildo and you wouldn’t understand Colin, no matter how many times I try to explain it to you and your dick.

Decompression beats depression.

Now these pictures that we left behind are just memories of a different time -- something made us laugh, something made us cry...

And so A Midsummer Night's Dream came to an end earlier this week. Honestly it was a pleasure to work with the fine actors that made our cast, as well as our stage managers - my wife included. It was a tedious process to get to the stage. Filled with mayhem, desperate searching for characters, preproduction party mischief, post-production party mischief and everything in between. It was a wild ride into the strange and unknown fathoms of the human soul to recreate something authentic and exciting.

After all of that, it's recovery time, or as a college student -- catchup time. Yet the memories never leave me of rehearsals, of the production or the awesome after party on Monday.

OMG!!!

I find myself reciting lines from the show almost everyday. Not my lines mind you, just everyone else's. "Away you serpent!"

As one cast member said, "I don't know what to do with all the time in the afternoon anymore," and I heartily concur. Well, to some extent, I've got essays, exams and presentations up to my ears. Yet there is this void in my gut. Patti sent this awesome email on overcoming this void. Gotta love the woman, she certainly is a sage isn't she? ='( Anyway enough of this emo ranting business.

It was an honor to work on AMND 2010 and this production only reinforces my love for theatre and my passion to make this my career. I look forward to many more adventures down the rabbit hole. Till then, take pains, be perfect, adieu.

CLICK ME

That's for the Midsummer Cast -- just substitute 'you' for 'you guys' and I think you get the picture. =)

Farewell guys...till next time.

My Bad Habits.

So while I'm attending college, like every student (or the good ones) I'm multitasking. Yes multitasking! Because if you want to make it in this world you have to multitask!

Right now I'm playing Star Ocean Second Evolution.

I'm listening to The Bird and The Bee. Garden State Soundtrack and Franz Ferdinand's self title debut.

I'm a part of SiP's Midsummer Night's Dream. I'm Francis Flute/Thisbe. "Nay...faith/fuck let not me cross dress on stage!"

I'm currently researching sources for my Senior Thesis class focusing of Bahamian theatre.

And....

I'm trying to blog more, because it's one of the few ways of writing beyond school papers and PR stuff.

My dearly departed play

I've been working on my play for nearly over a year now. I've got a third draft out there and I want to do another reading for the bastard. Now, it's exciting - this playwriting business. I've been using this book to help me out.

The help this book provides is invaluable information. Especially in The Bahamas where there aren't many areas of expert theatre help aside from Dr.Bethel, Dr. Strachan or Phillip and David. Sometimes ones own insights into research are rewarding as well.

With so many new and exciting interests occurring in the last year - Shakespeare In Paradise, an Introduction to Theatre course at COB, at least three student/amateur productions since SiP- theatre in The Bahamas is making a slow, yet eminent comeback. I'd like to be a part of this with my play.

The Melancholy of Suzanna Turnquest

What started out as a muse about the life of my cousin turned into the basic premise of my play. It was to feature a young girl, shy and very much introverted living with her older brothers. I played with the idea of introducing a Grandfather whom I made an Uncle. A few months later I ended up with a different idea. Suzanna became torn, outspoken and rash. She had an older sister, Eve and an Uncle, Michael with whom she shared a home. My play now followed the life of these people after Suzanna and Eve's father dies. I've made some exciting changes to my last draft dated August 2010. Hopefully this play will become something interesting.

One Man's Struggle Review

On Sunday June 13^th the team at Redemption Productions closed their three day run of ‘One Man’s Struggle.’ The play follows the hardships of Edward Spence and his engagement to the vain Camille. The relationship sinks to loathsome lows when Eddie admits to Camille that he is addicted to pornography.

With a cast featuring Kirk Johnson (host of Matters of The Heart) and Pastor Mario Moxey, audiences enjoyed superb performances. The key issue addressed in the play centered on redemption. Essentially writer Radell Parks argues that because Eddie has given his life to Christ that those that haven’t persecute and undermine Eddie. Which, unfortunately is an old tried and true ideology.

For me this is where the play ran into problems. At 2 hours and 45 mins long I only saw 30-45 mins worth of actual plot progression, character development and sub-plot. Throughout the play there were small simple scenes that ran from 30 seconds to 3 minutes. The majority of these scenes required background changes, so often the time between the scenes were longer than the scenes. This should have been avoided.

Theatre is about characters in conflict. One of my favorite things about this play was the presence of the dramatic arc (begging, middle and the end). This is not a necessity of a fantastic production, but it separates good plays from bad, chaotic messy ones. Imagine watching a three hour play that spent one hour doing nothing but exposition; would you really enjoy that?

With that said I don’t think that a good job was done with Parks script. Unfortunately after the show was over, it was clear that she was beating the bush with the same stick. To me, a good work in any medium needs to be original and creative. Whilst creativity was present, Parks’ gleaning of Tyler Perry’s plot of forgiveness in a black Christian setting did not keep me interested in what most characters said – simply because there were too many stereotypes and overemphasized clichés. This play obviously deals with the drama in a Christian community, but does a good job of not saturating the audience with preachy dialogue. Although I don’t think the audience would have cared.

Now there is a distinct difference between theatre and movies. Actors in theatre must project themselves so that their action can be heard and seen by all members of the audience. Theatre is live and therefore every night of performance is different. In the movies, actors act for the camera and every time one views a movie, it never changes. The actors never grow old or change the way a line is delivered. With that said, I don’t think that prerecorded footage of scenes should be incorporated into stage plays as a means to substitute an actual scene. Essentially this issue boils down to, am I watching a play or a movie?

Now there were a lot of things I liked about this play too. Don’t get me wrong, One Man’s Struggle was a great attempt that has loads and loads of potential. I saw a cohesive cast work together to deliver a play, which is no simple task – simply because anything and everything can go wrong in a live production. I saw scenes that had me laughing, scenes that moved me and a character that actually delivered a monologue. I know that Redemption Productions will steadily learn more about the stage and when they do, theatre in The Bahamas will be all the more richer for it.

"Come servant Monster...Drink!!!"

Yeah, it's another SiP post - what a surprise! Day 5 of the festival has shown me something very important though - I can see myself doing this (theatre) for the rest of my life. But first I'll talk about my experience working with this festival in an all encompassing perspective.

I unofficially joined Shakespeare In Paradise sometime in February as apart of the dramaturge team that started on The Tempest. There were about 9 of us back then, and about a month later there were four, Dr. Bethel, Dr. Toni Francis, Reva and myself. We finished work on The Tempest sometime around June after a few months of off and on work. Ultimately Reva and I worked on the last two acts of the play ourselves and handed it in. The next week Shakespeare In Paradise held it's first meeting with interested persons which included Dr. Bethel (dux), Phillip Burrows, Reva, myself, David Burrows, Matthew Kelly, Rachel Whitehouse, Margot Bethel, Cookie Allen and some more (can't remember names bro).

Anyway in short that's how I got involved. It just sorta happened by chance. My English 300 professor (Dr. Toni Francis) started the English Honors Society which was asked to help dramaturge The Tempest. For whatever reason only two of us ended up doing it but whatever. =o

Now as for the festival itself. The marketing for this thing has been phenomenal and there is no one that hasn't heard of this thing. It's a monster moving of it's own accord at this point. That is what we call it - a monster with a mind of it's own.

The shows themselves are terrific and diverse. Ken Corsbie (Guyanese American stand up comic) is a master of the West Indian stereotype. He kept his audience with him and when he left we all wished he wouldn't. One White One Black is a play written by Cayman Islands playwright Frank McField and directed by Henry Muttoo (Guyana). All I have to say about this play is...watch it for 'yaself' and prepare to stomach some deep shit. If you weak in mind and spirit, this play will hurt you to your core. A deep look at relationships between men and women. OWOB pulls no punches, paints no rainbows and fluffs no ass. It is direct, humorous, satirical and raw.

I haven't seen Zora, Love In Two Acts or Music of The Bahamas - but each of these have been reviewed by The Tribune and The Nassau Guardian. =D But kudos to Matthew and Kim regardless and hopefully I'll be able to buy my DVD copy of their work. I'll see MOTB on Monday and hopefully I'll see you there.

Now for The Tempest (the heart of the festival). What can I say? I worked on it, but I never imagined that it would be what it is tonight. Yes tonight as I sit backstage and await my turn to jump on stage and chase Caliban (Kennedy) Trinculo (Dion) and Stephano (Skeebo) into exile. MMM, lets start with Craig Pinder (co-director). Originally The Tempest was to be directed by Nicolette Bethel and Patti-Anne Ali, however Craig jumped at the opportunity to be a part of SiP. He was not asked to do this - he heard about it (In London) and called asking for the chance. Now Craig is a seasoned actor and director who has been doing Shakespeare plays for god knows how long. So naturally when I heard he was working with us I had a jolt of excitement shot down my intestines. =D. Meeting Craig was moving, working with Craig is beyond gratifying - it's an honor. He is serious, professional, upright and a splendid role model for any aspiring playwright and actor. On the other side Craig is playful, humorous and humble. He has his moments and I've seen the human behind the resume and I am speechless.

Now, for Patti. Patti, Patti, Patti. The principle director of The Tempest who motivated, inspired, cursed, cussed and kicked all our asses and we (the cast/stage managers) love her for it. Patti is a Trinidadian who has studied theatre in New York and staged numerous productions, television shows and movies. Patti is the heart of this production, she is our mother, sister, best friend and worst enemy.

Craig and Patti are what theatre in The Bahamas need more of and it is an honor to work with these wonderful and dynamic bastards!

Now for the cast of The Tempest. Damn! Dana (Ariel) is the show stealer, but she deserves that. Skeebo, Dion and Kennedy are the drunkards and they kept us warm and smiling throughout the rehearsals and productions. Yeah, they've been cussed a few times, but who hasn't. Gene and Nicole are in love on stage and they barely talk backstage. What I mean is, they are fucking great. Jane, Roger, Mik, David, Jovanna and Sean are professional, fun loving human beings. =p Chrystal, Mary and Stephanie are awesome, did you see them dance? Love that scene. Dylan is my new younger brother and Annee is my new little sister, cause they know they kill my ass with the hugs backstage. =S =)

Our stage managers are working their asses off (Rachel and Reva) and they need kudos brother. Rachel is melancholy if you really look at her - and that's ok because she's an awesome melancholy. (if that makes sense) She's been blinded by stage lights in front of a sold out audience, she's been accosted by drunk men and she's managed to come out of all this with a grim smile. Gotta love it. Reva is my wife, so I don't need to say how hard she works. But then again... She's our glue too!

mmmmm what else?

Oh that's right. My point. My point is that theatre is hard work and SiP is blood sweat and tears poured into a pot and there's nothing more humbling than seeing that work pay off.

Don't fret, SiP still has three more days of shows left, get your tickets before you miss something magical.