(no subject)

[prog]

I've written before about my observation that Japanese-produced video games seem to care far less about portraying or even acknowledging ethnic diversity than American-made games do. I've started to notice that this can also be said about European tabletop games.

I was introducing a friend to the German-originating Citadels this morning, and while going over the role cards she made a disgusted face at the Merchant. This started a conversation about an unfortunate aspect of one of my favorite games: this particular card depicts - let's be quite frank - an obvious charicature of a conniving Jew, right down to the period-appropriate red cap. I guess because it has the neutral label "Merchant" I've been able to mentally ignore the artwork, but now that I've talked about it I really can't any more. Really, would it have been so hard to draw the Merchant as, I don't know, anything else? I mean, let him keep his hat if you must, but we could have done without the full-bore Shylock posture.

In the Italian-produced Bang!, on the other hand, I have always cringed whenever the "Indians" card comes out, with its depiction of a screaming horde of warpainted braves who immediately engage in a shootout with all the active players. These are the only Native Americans who show up in the game. Now, you could argue that they are actually no more violent than every other character in the game (which after all has the goal of being the first to gun down all your friends), but if an American repackaged this game for mainstream distribution you can bet that card would turn into, I dunno, "Bandit Gang" or something, and I would have no problem at all with that.

Again, I can only theorize that these things are so because America is so much more of a polyculture than not just Japan with its video games but individual European countries with their card games, enough that what seems like a perfectly good thematic twist yonder seems over here like hair-raising insensitivity at worst and plain tackiness at best. Interesting, is all.

Comments

[cnoocy]

I wonder: are there things that show up in American games that other cultures find similarly shocking?

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Swastikas.

[prog.livejournal.com]

I thought of this, but, I dunno. The taboo on Nazi-related things is, if I'm not mistaken, limited to Germany, and feels like an artificial aversion that was installed from the top down after the war.

America's growing intolerance for intolerance feels like a more organic process that has taken decades to get where it is now, with its roots in the mid-20th century civil rights movement. It's more like a national consensus that some attitudes and postures are really counterproductive, and so we choose to grow out of them. It's a struggle and it takes a long time but it happens. Germany is more OK THIS IS ILLEGAL NOW STOP THINKING ABOUT IT. VERBOTEN!! OK

[daerr.livejournal.com]

And France, at least.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Yes, though the examples that immediately come to mind are a little less specific. I believe that the digital-game rating system that many European countries use has, from our own ESRB's perspective, a reverse sense of how objectionable sex and violence are, respectively. So our gore-soaked first-person shooters look utterly depraved over there. The whole genre actually don't sell very well outside of the US, and this is a contributing factor.

(This kind of makes me go buh because have you ever seen one of those Italian zombie movies? But anyway.)

[jadelennox]

I have a set of brown-skinned playmobil (from Germany). The light-skinned ones were labelled "family", and the brown-skinned ones "ethnic family".

I'd like to think that wouldn't work here, but mebbe not?

[prog.livejournal.com]

Aw, that actually makes me smile... because I want to give the makers of wonderful toys the benefit of the doubt, I immediately envision the Playmobil people trying to be inclusive with this offering, and being honestly flabbergasted at some of the feedback they get. But... what do these people want?!

Funny

[taskboy3000.livejournal.com]

When I look at that picture, I think of a malignant Cardinal Richelieu.

Stereotypes are a hard thing for illustrators to avoid, since they are asked to come up with iconic graphics. That particular Shylock-esque image of the sly money grubber is potent. However, I suggest almost any image will offend some ethnic group. When you think about, is it really better so show, say, a scotsman in a kilt hording gold? An asian? An sub-Saharan African? If you cop out and say "just draw a typical white guy," ought I to be offended by this negative character?

I do understand your disgust at the card, but perhaps we should just all relax a bit. Real, violent racism is all around us. When that's eliminated, let's work on the fine strokes, including jokes and games.

Re: Funny

[prog.livejournal.com]

I'm not really offended at the card; I just find it in poor taste, the sort that makes me a little embarrassed for the game.

What would have been more clever would be to subtly suggest that the character was Jewish (entirely appropriate given his profession and the setting) by employing features like the red cap but avoiding stereotypic features like the hook-nose, hunchback, and hideous, greedy rictus. These just seem childish and ignorant.

Re: Funny

[prog.livejournal.com]

And anyway, how I felt wasn't the point of my post. It was more being interested in graphics and attitudes that would probably never fly if the game were produced in the US. I think it's an interesting tell of cultural difference.

[ahkond.livejournal.com]

Another case in point that has become a somewhat canonical example of racial insensitivity is the brown "settlers" (read: slaves) in Puerto Rico. Of course, they're not illustrations, they're just little bits of wood. But still.

There are a lot of national/cultural stereotypes in a few other games that have cards representing individuals, such as the actors in Show Manager or, especially, nationalities and political parties in Koalition.

The images of Koalition on BoardGameGeek.com seem to be a different edition than the one I've played (the cover is definitely different), so maybe they toned it down a bit.

[prog.livejournal.com]

That looks like the version I have played, too.

I enjoyed that game the one time I played it, many years ago and before I really got into gaming. "When I have money" I'll pick up a copy.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Also, I'm prepared to approach the Puerto Rico thing differently; it's clear that the publishers were treading carefully, and the fact is that the suggestion human exploitation is thematically appropriate for the game anyway. There is a world of difference to me between this and dropping (what looks to me like) racist artwork into your game for the LOLs.

(And you can choose to think of the little brown tokens as having fair wages, weekends off, and good dental benefits if you want to, and the abstractness of the game will support that.)