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Black characters have been a part of video games for quite some time, though just as in movies and other media, they were not stars in the genre until it had matured. According to Microscopiq (a famous video game and art blog and news site) the first black video game "star" as a playable character was Michael Jackson in Moonwalker. Jackson of course is not a man of fiction, but is used as a marketing ploy to get children and parents to buy games. Following the list from Microscopiq will note that the next two black stars after Jackson were Shaquille O'Neal in Shaq Fu, part of his rap and movie outreach projects, and Michael Jordan in Chaos in the Windy City. Finding a black lead in a video game that is not just a fictional outreach of a real life black star is actually fairly hard. Anastasia Goodstein notes in her article about youth culture that "this generation is the most marketed to in history, from a much younger ages and on several different screens at home, at school, and just about everywhere else" (Goodstein, Huffington Post). These first black star games follow right in line, and almost seem to give developers an excuse to use black stars for the games they are producing. Passive racism is truly alive in video games today, with the perpetuation of stereotypes and "black culture" in ways that do not truly represent blacks of today.
For this final paper, I've chosen to focus mainly on three characters that provide a fairly accurate cross-section of the way blacks are viewed in video game culture. The three characters chosen were Barret Wallace from Final Fantasy 7, Augustus "Cole Train" Cole from Gears of War, and Carl "CJ" Johnson from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Of these three, only one represents a leading character that must be played for the entire game. CJ is the main character of GTA: SA, while Barret Wallace must be played for parts of FF7 but is not a required character for the entire story, and Cole Train is a sidekick during Gears of War. The reason I've chosen these three is because of how they all represent a digital identity for blacks that play video games. According to our reading this year from Wikipedia, a digital identity is "the aspect of digital technology that is concerned with the mediation of people's experience of their own identity and the identity of other people and things. Digital identity also has another common usage as the digital representation of a set of claims made by one digital subject about itself or another digital subject" (Wikipedia). All of these characters are famous enough in the video game world to represent their race as well as create a digital identity, but in the case of these three, it is not necessarily a positive identity.
This topic relates to my major in a few major ways. First and foremost, as a Digital Technology and Culture major, we are tasked with looking at the cultural interactions and changes caused by technologies. Video games, as both an entertainment media and a voice for a generation, are becoming more and more popular with no real signs of slowing down. If a technology is every day becoming more the voice of your time, and you are not a significant part of its message or its actual makeup, you will in fact be left behind. How blacks are portrayed is also a large issue on this topic, and while books can be written on this subject, I will be focusing on the three mentioned above.
Barret Wallace is a tough talking, swearing tough guy with a gun grafted on to his arm. He is a playable character in Final Fantasy 7, a product of Squaresoft from 1997. Wallace is not the main character of the FF7 story, but he does play a large role in the lore that surrounds the game, as well as initially getting the story started. Aside from the beginning of the game, and a subplot that develops about midway through, you are not forced to use Wallace as you play. The character is full of passive racism, and is an almost humorous look at how the Japanese developers view black males in the 1990s. First, Barret is giant, overly muscular, and a spitting image of the A-Team's Mr. T. He swears constantly, has tattoos, has a troubled past, but all with a heart of gold. While he always tries his best to do what is "right" for the planet they are trying to save, he always manages to mess up somehow, or hurt someone along the way. The lines that can be drawn between Michael Clarke Duncan's portrayal of John Coffey in The Green Mile and Barret Wallace are amusing to say the least. The only difference would be that Wallace isn't supposed to be challenged.
The second character I've chosen to focus on is Augustus "Cole Train" Cole from Gears of War. Cole, much like Wallace, is over muscular and can't seem to control his language in any situation. He craves action and direct conflict, never flinching out of a fight. He is a former athlete gone military man; the boot straps out of the "hood" dream come true. He's also an outstanding example of passive racism in video games. Quotes from the hyperactive Cole throughout the game include loudly exclaiming that "This is bullshit!" and screaming "Yeah! Wooo! Bring it on, sucka! This is my kinda shit!" Morgan Gray, an active gamer and producer who is half white and half black, mentions of Augustus the following during an interview with MTV Multiplayer.
"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. Like here comes the urban stereotype. Where is this 1990's - not even 2000 - black slang, where does this fit in this futuristic world that doesn't even take place on Earth? They go really far to do a lot of fictional justifications for this culture that they've built, and they go right back to this urban stereotype for the black character. I'm not knocking Epic; the game was fun and gorgeous. But it's just a lack of thought, right? All it does is reinforce dumb stereotypes and it sort of reinforces casual racism. It's almost like, 'Cue the drum beat, here comes the black character.'" (Gray, MTV Multiplayer)
Gray brings up an excellent point about Cole, the game doesn't take place on earth. The same goes for Barret Wallace, the game takes place on a fictional planet in a fictional time, yet the urban stereotypes follow without missing a beat, no pun intended.
The last character I've chosen to focus on is a mixed back when it comes to the question, is this character enforcing racism? It is Carl "CJ" Johnson, from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. CJ, at first look, probably screams passive racism. He gets out of the hood, and gets thrown back in when family drama erupts, placing him in a cul-de-sac with his family as he must help them with gang related issues. This game and this character are different however because of the fact that the game is a sandbox style game. The game does have undertones of stereotypes, as most games (focused on white or black characters) do. The stereotypes don't really follow the main character however, they follow the community, and they actually depict parts of it in a very true to life fashion. In the case of Cole or Wallace, the stereotypes and passive racism follow them to completely unrelated worlds. In the case of CJ, the game takes place in a world that directly represents the real one, and situations that happen within it. Parts of the game do involve gang violence, but side missions that go back and focus directly on the gang lands later are avoidable. The game lets you change your clothing at any time, doesn't force you to wear a certain color or certain bandana, you can change your hair, have tattoos or not. A lot of this game is completely open, and left up to the player. In one aspect, you aren't a black gang banger; you're Carl Johnson, who is caught up in some family issues that he has to work out, who just happens to be a black man. While some people may disagree with that outlook, both of the previous versions of Grand Theft Auto III (III, Vice City, and San Andreas are all a collective part of the GTA III trilogy, though their stories all differ greatly) feature the same amounts of violence and star non black characters. The just released Grand Theft Auto IV also stars a Serbian white male, not a man of color. Whether or not CJ's character is actually racist is debatable by either side, he is involved in violence; he has a swearing problem, and can even participate in acts with women of the evening. At the same time he's a product of environment, company, and society, as well as a parody of an entire region, not just a single race.
So why are black characters generally overshadowed by video game developers? One of the theories is simple market pull. A USA Today article we read in class this year entitled "Digital divide still separates white and minority students" notes that "Two of every three white students - 67% -- use the Internet, but less than half of blacks and Hispanics do, according to federal data released Tuesday. For Hispanics the figure is 44%; for blacks, it's 47%" (Feller, USA Today). While this figure doesn't directly relate to video games, all of the current three major consoles (Nintendo Wii, Microsoft Xbox 360, and Sony PlayStation 3) have some form of access to internet based play. On top of that, the internet has played a giant role in the shaping of computer games for nearly a decade. While sad, many people play video games to feel like a hero, and they feel more a part of the game if they actually look and sound like the hero they are playing the role of. This is arguably a reason why black characters have always been in games, but more often as side or non playable characters.
Critics of this argument will note that there is a significant jump in internet usage for minorities between today and the late 1990s, when, according to a Pew national survey, "only 23 percent of African-American adults" used the Internet regularly. A more recent survey by the same group shows that "61 percent of African-Americans" (Marriott, New York Times) use the internet. This means that the internet is catching on in minority groups, but the usage is still less (and significantly less when considering market numbers).
The list from the beginning of this article has, since release, been annotated to include about 32 games staring black main or must-play characters (through early 2007). This is a strikingly low number considering just how many games have come out that have enough storyline to develop a main character. Many games on the list are also, as the first three, just video game marketing ploys for already popular or semi-popular groups or artists. Morgan Gray also says in his interview with MTV that he's "sick of playing the average white dude character. And I'm sick of playing a black stereotype" (Gray, MTV Multiplayer). At this point, gamers don't have much choice. On one hand it is hard to even find a black lead role character in a gaming industry that has literally thousands of games in existence. On the other hand if you do find a black character, main or otherwise, in many cases it turns out to be a horrible cross-section and stereotype representation of an entire race.
Back in the days of GALAGA and Space Invaders race was not much of an issue. Any race, any man or woman, adult or child, could be flying the ship destroying aliens to save their home world. It really didn't matter who was flying the ship, it was just about having fun. Games have come a long way since that time, and character development has played a key role in that, both good and bad. People want to feel in touch with the protagonist or antagonist they control, which is one reason why video games have become so popular. White gamers have, for the most part, had an easy task in picking at least one game lead they can relate to, in many cases having multiple choices. Black gamers have not been so lucky, in many cases having to adjust standards to relate to a character. There is also black gamers however that will say these characters directly relate to who they are or want to be, so it's a slippery slope for developers (many of whom aren't black). It was a giant movement forward for women in video games when the player found out at the end of Metroid that Samus was female. Hopefully minority players can latch on a positive role model that will get them more involved in gaming sometime in the near future, and as a side effect, get them involved in the development of games. Then they can shape who or what they play and create a more diverse industry as a whole.
Feller, Ben. "Digital Divide Still Separates White and Minority Students." USA Today. 5 Sept. 2006. The Associated Press. 10 Apr. 2008 <http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-09-05-digital-divide_x.htm>.
Goodstein, Anastasia. "Reflections on the Year in Youth Culture." Huffington Post. 28 Dec. 2006. 8 Apr. 2008 <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anastasia-goodstein/reflections-on-the-year-i_b_37332.html>.
Marriott, Michel. "Digital Divide Closing as Blacks Turn to Internet." The New York Times. 31 Mar. 2006. 08 Apr. 2008 <http://www.wsu.edu/~fking1/Marriot%20Digiital%20Divide%20Closing.pdf>.
"Digital Identity." Wikipedia. 23 Apr. 2008. 8 Apr. 2008 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_identity>.
Jason. "The First 11 Black Videogame Stars." Microsopiq. 12 Feb. 2007. 11 Apr. 2008 <http://microscopiq.com/2007/02/first-black-videogame-stars/>.
Gray, Morgan. "Black Professionals in Games: 'Tomb Raider' Producer Morgan Gray on Diversity, 'Resident Evil 5′ and the Problem with Cole Train." MTV Multiplayer. Ed. Tracey John. 8 Apr. 2008. MTV. 10 Apr. 2008 <http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/04/08/black-professionals-in-games-tomb-raider-producer-morgan-gray-on-diversity-resident-evil-5-and-the-problem-with-cole-train/>.