That said, every single book, television series, movie, game, or other piece of character driven narrative fiction can be held guilty for stereotyping someone, somehow. Is criticizing Gears of War on this front particularly valid? Not in my opinion.
I feel sad for you. You're watching terrible movies, playing terrible games and reading terrible books. Anything that settles for stereotypes is artistically lacking and lazy. Read Knockemstiff for a non-stereotypical look at the brutal side of characters from very small, midwestern towns. Pollock is able to paint characters close to a stereotype without giving in to it and they soar as real people. Play Bioshock. (Keep in mind that I'm only using non-spoiler info here) Atlus is Irish, but that's beside the point. He doesn't cater to any sort of a predefined template. Watch Babel. You have rich kids, poor kids, deaf people, white people, Arabic people, Mexican people, etc., that all have a complexity that is not in any way a stereotype.
Back into the fray.
People need to keep in mind that the comment SPECIFICALLY says:
Here's the thing: Cole Train on his own, no harm no foul. But what is Cole Train? Cole Train is basically like every other effin' black character in a video game
Epic doesn't need to apologize, it's not a horrible depiction, it's not insulting, it's not derogative. It is simply how nearly every single black male is portrayed in videogames. With MINIMAL exceptions, black men are not very well educated, from either the ghetto or a glamor job (football, rapper, whatever), or both, and speak in hip-hop jargon. Yes, there are plenty of people out there like this. No, it's not necessarily offensive. The problem is that nearly every-single-black character is portrayed the same way. I can only think of a handful of black characters in videogames that DON'T fall into this.
The problem, and this is why he refers to it as "casual racism" is that when you view the medium and almost every single person is being portrayed as the same thing, you have effectively said (in very small, non-offensive, not-meant-to-be-racist-in-any-way pieces, acumulated) that almost all black men are this way. Again. This isn't because the depictions are BAD, or necessarily wrong or even at all offensive. The problem is that they are all the same.
Stop calling each other racists, stop calling the devs racist, stop all of the bickering like kids. You have to take a step back, realize that these innocuous characters (and, come on, who DIDN'T like Coletrain? He's cool!) do paint an overall same picture which is harmful.
The moral isn't to get all in arms and point fingers, but to encourage (with yo wallet) developers to have developed characters that defy stereotypical behaviors, that are more well rounded, etc. Buy games which explore character in psychologically mature ways(such as HL2, Bioshock, Fahrenheit(Indigo Prophecy in teh US), etc.).
That isn't TOO much to ask is it?
~Jason
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