Whether it be colorism in making evil, darkness, and blackness synonymous, or making the crooks in a game of Cops and Robbers all coded as Black ( Battlefield: Hardline did this), it again puts us in a place of criminality. To round it out, game developers often rely on lazy stereotypes to identify Blackness as criminal. (These, by the way, are quite dated expressions.) The sentiment always feels the same: Black culture is simply a joke or device used to imitate low intelligence. It’s the same with slang like bling, crackalackin, fresh, or -izzle speak. I’m not sure if this is due to “Bros” adopting the dialect, but it is offputting to hear critics and fans adopt a “dumb voice” to use phrases like “yo yo yo” or “sup dawg” as a way to exhibit ignorance. Unfortunately, Black slang seems to be another punchline for people. In a similar vein, I’ve been struggling with interactions with other enthusiasts. There is always room for intersectionality. Taking my male privilege into account, there are more than a few women of color available who should also be represented, Black women especially. This may be me speaking a bit personally, but it hurts to see a panel of white dudes be derided for their lack of diversity, only to be replaced by a selection of white women. It became a Rock Band song, because parody was more important than a guy saving his sister. If hip-hop and rap are only used when characters perform violent acts, it enforces the idea that rap music, and by extension Black culture, is just a joke and a shorthand for violence. Again, his music is very obviously offensive, and hip-hop as well as every music genre is no stranger to problematic elements, but the issue arises in the isolation: hip-hop isn’t so commonly used in pop culture (outside of silly and extremely stereotypical situations). To be clear, I’m not here to defend a singular rapper. Unfortunately, the music and genre have become quickly linked with aggression and violence. The same DMX song is used in an episode of Rick & Morty, a parody-like science fiction cartoon, when two characters become extremely muscular and exact well-deserved street justice on villains. But here, his music is used as a proxy for an entire sound. DMX is an incredibly problematic rapper-his songs often have themes of misogyny and homophobia-but he is far from emblematic of rap as a genre. Then, once he mentions that he has some rage to express and shoots a guy through the head, a DMX song begins. As he prepares to, and does, casually and gleefully kill people, a song by Salt n’ Pepa plays in the background. The message is then interpreted as “hip-hop is something only a violent person would enjoy”. See, once Wade Wilson is upgraded into Deadpool and becomes violent, the background music changes to hip-hop. Content warning for language, sexual situations, and violence:Ĭool, right? For the most part, I agree! But it gets a little troubling after the turn. For the uninitiated, it is embedded below. However, I was a bit put off by the trailer. So, I’m really looking forward to the movie. But I also enjoy the character’s more diverse attributes. Now personally, I enjoy Deadpool, primarily from his appearance in Marvel vs. The topic that brought this to my attention rather strikingly was a recent Deadpool trailer. I want to discuss the cavalier treatment of Black identity and culture.īefore I get started, I want to state that I don’t speak for every Black person, or every person of color for that matter, but I think some of these themes are, unfortunately, fairly commonplace. No, I want to highlight a more nebulous problem. Lack of inclusion, while getting better, is nothing new it’s a relatively simple concept that needs to be fixed, but it isn’t the one I want to discuss today. There have been controversies about the lack of color in Mad Max, Splatoon, and the Witcher 3, among other titles. Unfortunately, we’ve seen that nerd culture has a ways to go in terms of racial diversity. Inclusion and proper treatment of women and girls can really boost a work into the public eye and enrich its quality. These second two proved that diversity can push a franchise. We’ve had amazing entries that were expected such as Avengers 2 and Metal Gear Solid V, as well as surprises such as Splatoon and Mad Max: Fury Road. 2015 so far has been an interesting year in nerdy media.
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