Diversity in MPQ and Comics - Split thread

System

This discussion was created from comments split from: All-New Cos-June Collection! *Updated (6/10/19).

purplemur

Can we get any comment on why they whitewashed Riri in her costume?  That's not bleaching cream; that's some art department tinykitty. 

those little things add up to a lot of bigger issues about race and depiction of marketable images. If Black Panther taught The Media anything is awareness that the paradigm of what is broadly appealing has shifted. It doesn't need to look like what may be in the mirror. A hero from an African nation should not be lightened to appeal to Americans. This type of subtle erasing of black images can also cause harm to vulnerable populations like bleaching cream and hair "treatment". Knock it off art department - you are the shining stars of the dev team and this type of shenanigans is disgraceful


EDIT: yep put the wrong name down....but if you knew who I was referencing and you still felt the need to throw out the rest is a lame-o logical fallacy. 

Yepyep

OJSP said:

purplemur said:

Can we get any comment on why they whitewashed Riri in her costume?  

Did you mean Shuri? Riri is always in her Iron suit except on the character selection screen.

...

There is an extremely caustic "joke" playing on racism that my rare, benighted filter is filtering for me (thank the goddess)...

But, @purplemur, while I agree with the larger theme of your lecture -- when giving a lecture on race you just have to get the factual details right...

tiomono

purplemur said:

Can we get any comment on why they whitewashed Riri in her costume?  That's not bleaching cream; that's some art department tinykitty. 

those little things add up to a lot of bigger issues about race and depiction of marketable images. If Black Panther taught The Media anything is awareness that the paradigm of what is broadly appealing has shifted. It doesn't need to look like what may be in the mirror. A hero from an African nation should not be lightened to appeal to Americans. This type of subtle erasing of black images can also cause harm to vulnerable populations like bleaching cream and hair "treatment". Knock it off art department - you are the shining stars of the dev team and this type of shenanigans is disgraceful

It's the same skin tone. And by the way "white" people aren't white so wouldnt the term whitewashed in this context be racist?

bluewolf

I could be wrong, but it looks to me like the basic skin color for Shuri in both costumes is the same.  But putting lighter color clothes on her makes it look lighter as well as changing the headress for hair.  I don't know how much her face is supposed to be showing a light source from her energy gauntlets which could be making her look lighter.  But maybe nothing changed except literally her clothing and the contrast looks a lot different to the eye.

Back on the topic of the Daredevil costume....I am curious how enticing 70K Iso is to someone that would spend 300 CP on a cover and costume....(not at all to me; I could do it but have no interest in trading 12 Latest pulls for one cover).

HoundofShadow

I guess they got the idea from this scene where Black Panther arrived in Wakanda or the one where Shuri pointed middle finger at Black Panther. Shuri was wearing this particular outfit/costume shown in the post and the sun ray was shining at her, thus, showing her skin to be lighter than usual.

Just go to YouTube and search for Black Panther Wakanda Arrival scene.

Probably the artist overdid with the "brightness".

jp1

purplemur said:

Can we get any comment on why they whitewashed Riri in her costume?  That's not bleaching cream; that's some art department tinykitty. 

those little things add up to a lot of bigger issues about race and depiction of marketable images. If Black Panther taught The Media anything is awareness that the paradigm of what is broadly appealing has shifted. It doesn't need to look like what may be in the mirror. A hero from an African nation should not be lightened to appeal to Americans. This type of subtle erasing of black images can also cause harm to vulnerable populations like bleaching cream and hair "treatment". Knock it off art department - you are the shining stars of the dev team and this type of shenanigans is disgraceful

They look the same on my iPhone. I hadn’t noticed so I went to look again and the only possible minuscule difference in tone I could even consider was just due to the face painting being removed and that opens the highlights that were already in place. In any case she certainly doesn’t look “whitewashed”. That said, her original costume is much more appealing to me than this casual Friday look.

Waddles_Pines

Yepyep said:

OJSP said:

purplemur said:

Can we get any comment on why they whitewashed Riri in her costume?  

Did you mean Shuri? Riri is always in her Iron suit except on the character selection screen.

...

There is an extremely caustic "joke" playing on racism that my rare, benighted filter is filtering for me (thank the goddess)...

But, @purplemur, while I agree with the larger theme of your lecture -- when giving a lecture on race you just have to get the factual details right...

<edit from @Borstock comment>

 Fact, there's 4.5 Asians in the entire playable roster.   

Chulk
Jubilation
Nico 
Kamala
Psylocke (she's the half, the whole body switching yadda yadda... they're even turned her back to a white Brit in comics)

4.5 out of 188... 

Thinking a white costume whitewashes a character... I'll leave it at that....

Borstock

Nico is Asian, too. Doesn't make a huge difference to your point, though.

Waddles_Pines

Borstock said:

Nico is Asian, too. Doesn't make a huge difference to your point, though.

My bad, I know on the TV show she's Asian, but I guess I haven't read enough of the comics.  Thanks for clarifying.  

purplemur

Whitewashing is a term look it up- there is no reverse racism in the term. just stop. I am NOT talking about changing the color of her clothes. to insinuate that above @ waddles is an unnecessary and pointedly weak gotcha.

It describes a situation in which the skin tone of non-white people – when depicted in magazine covers, advertisements, commercials, music videos, etc. – is, digitally retouched or physically modified to appear whiter. ... Whitewashing has been seen for centuries in the media, through film, photography, advertising, etc.

It may be subjective- I used the PITR test (people in the room) and some did say they couldn't be sure but mostly people on first look noticed.

Really, though. ya'll rushed to shout it down so fast......wonder why? those players took a defensive stance against  are rushing to cry fake news about it. Or attacking me for bringing it up. 
it reflects yourselves - rather poorly

racist depictions in video games is real. whitewashing comic book heroes has a history to it. This forum shushing down any discussion of race or gender issues continues.....

jp1

Who is rushing to shut it down? I don’t happen to agree that they whitewashed her, or that they have some agenda as far as race is concerned. However, I was simply saying it wasn’t a visible difference on my device. 

You can have a discussion about something all you like, it isn’t being shut down because others don’t share your views. That’s the whole point of a discussion isn’t it?

I would agree that representation for minorities is low, but based on the pool they have to pull from I’m not sure what they might do about it.

ThaRoadWarrior

On my iPhone 7, the only difference between Costume Shuri and Standard Shuri's skin tone is that there is a small bit of rim lighting that was added to the jawline on her left side. Otherwise, it's just an optical illusion caused by the switch from the Vibranium dark tones to the more tan tones present in the librarian cardi she has on. As previously mentioned, the removal of the face paint has also changed the perceived contrast.

The way costume changes like this are typically accomplished digitally (when done correctly) is very similar to the idea of paper dolls - you create your base, un-costumed character on one layer or group of layers, typically without adornment or hair, and then over the top of it you create layers that can be turned on or off that have different accessories or features. It's very obvious (to me) that this is how Shuri was done. Whether or not the original source art was constructed in this way is likely going to vary from character to character and artist to artist, but you can see that some of the "lazy" variant characters were absolutely done this way in antiquity. Looking at 2 and 3* storm, cap, Thor (probably even Ragnarok).

Representation IS important, and this kind of skin-lightening does happen out there in the world (and should not), I just don't think it's what happened here personally. 

Malcrof

Hi, Waiting on a response, but i think the diversity statements/complaints should be moved to a different thread.. I think having this conversation in a thread about costumes may be the absolute wrong place for it.  Please stay on topic, when the new thread is ready, you will have a chance to speak on it. 

Thanks all. 

Yepyep

purplemur said:

...
Really, though. ya'll rushed to shout it down so fast......wonder why? those players took a defensive stance against  are rushing to cry fake news about it. Or attacking me for bringing it up. 
it reflects yourselves - rather poorly

racist depictions in video games is real. whitewashing comic book heroes has a history to it. This forum shushing down any discussion of race or gender issues continues.....

Re point 1, above, a "shout down:" In reality, I think people mostly just disagreed with you -- that is, to their eyes it didn't look like anything had changed other than, perhaps, the overall color-use context of the art having changed. Comments were measured, politic, and pretty numerous given your premise (namely, that invidious racism was at hand in the game).

Re point 2, above, racism in video games and comics: like I said in my earlier comment (https://forums.d3go.com/discussion/comment/881431#Comment_881431), I agree with your overall theme. Which I read to be that there are historical injustices -- like racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc. -- built into comics and games that we should oppose and call out when we see it. If this is what you meant, then I agree with you and I bet MANY others here also do.

But it is perfectly legitimate to agree with your theme and disagree that this is clear evidence of racism. It might just be too subtle for a consensus opinion to arise...

Yepyep

Malcrof said:

Hi, Waiting on a response, but i think the diversity statements/complaints should be moved to a different thread.. I think having this conversation in a thread about costumes may be the absolute wrong place for it.  Please stay on topic, when the new thread is ready, you will have a chance to speak on it. 

Thanks all. 

Thanks for doing this, @Malcrof -- this is an extremely important subject (especially during June's Pride celebrations!). It would be a shame for it to get lost in a less weighty thread.

MegaBee

I just checked on my Android tablet, and the skin tones look the same to me.

MegaBee

purplemur said:

Whitewashing is a term look it up- there is no reverse racism in the term. just stop. I am NOT talking about changing the color of her clothes. to insinuate that above @ waddles is an unnecessary and pointedly weak gotcha.

It describes a situation in which the skin tone of non-white people – when depicted in magazine covers, advertisements, commercials, music videos, etc. – is, digitally retouched or physically modified to appear whiter. ... Whitewashing has been seen for centuries in the media, through film, photography, advertising, etc.

Thanks for posting this definition. It seems like it was needed!

ThaRoadWarrior

Here is an example from the following article: http://www.archimedes-lab.org/color_optical_illusions.html

Tiles A, B, and C are all the same color, but appear lighter and darker due to the surrounding context

ThaRoadWarrior

Here is the Shuri example side by side, screen grabs from my iPhone 7 with no processing on my end.

purplemur

I don't think  saying " nah, they are the same, I don't see any difference" is shouting down. I meant the rejection of the notion outright. Like arguing that whitewashing is racist or that sam L is blackwashing. The rate at which people decided to jump in and weigh their opinions in a gotcha type rebuttal was startling.

 A lot of the responses have been nuanced and helpful to offer suggestions about what is going on. I welcome the responses about color palettes and the perception of lightening that the change in costumes brings. My partner actually suggested it was also the glow from her vibranium Gauntlets, but where are they in this costume? she has bare arms (look at her elbows). I get that perception does not always equal reality especially with differences in phones and relevant backgrounds, etc. 

I messed up - for sure- and was too hasty in my original comment and gave the wrong name: mainly because I remember the backlash to Riri's "HitPoints" when she was first released. I guess I was just channeling. I accused the art team of shady practices - and even if it was real that they did lighten her skin tone- it may have been accidental or unintended. If that derailed the conversation at launch then I'm sorry for hurting my own cause. 

This was not an attempt to troll anyone - I was upset enough to ask a room full of non videogame people to see if I was just making it up. I got enough of a response in the yeah that looks bad that I brought it up here. I did feel mocked and ridiculed unnecessarily -even if i was completely mistaken. and my point was not that forumites are racist but that by rushing to deny a thing in it's entirety makes it seem like the motivation is fear which usually comes with the white sense of loss of hegemony. We are talking about a thing (something that has been widely discussed, studied and quantified), and if your only contribution is to mock the idea than perhaps that voice isn't needed in the discussion?