108 réponses à ce sujet

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 OP is currently thinking: "OH SHII-- ... YA'LL TURNED UP"

[Revan Reborn]

So you know there are black hispanics but you weren't aware that Cortez was black because you thought he was hispanic ? I'm not sure I follow. With a name like Cortez it's pretty obvious that he's supposed to be latino, but he's also got the darkest skintone available (same as Jacob's) so I don't think it's that surprising to think he's black as well. 

Having a dark pigmentation of the skin does not make one black. He could be Indian. He could be Filipino. He could be Native American. They all tend to have dark skin tones, yet none of them would be considered black. My point is, a black person generally has certain facial features that makes them recognizable as such. The color of one's skin is not enough to determine whether someone is black, white, etc.

 

Cortez does not look black, in my opinion. He obviously is hispanic or latino, but his facial features never gave me the impression he was black. He very well could be, but I never got that sense from the character. I honestly don't think he is black, but only the writer who created the character would be able to confirm or deny the actual origins of Steve Cortez, as the game never got into any of those types of specifics.

 

Ultimately, it's a moot point because this thread is about the handling of Jacob and not Steve.

[von uber]

Is Jacob African-American? Checked wiki and it says nothing about his birthplace.

[Gothfather]

In fairness, while BioWare started out as a Canadian company, all of the developers who work there aren't Canadian. The game director on Mass Effect Andromeda who just recently left, Chris Wynn, is American. I'm fairly certain the lead writer who just left is also an American. BioWare is a subsidiary of Electronic Arts, an American company, so you better believe they've diversified the company extensively and the studio isn't just comprised of Canadians anymore.

 

While it might seem unfair for BioWare to have to get an African American represented properly in their games, the American market for their video games is much larger than the Canadian market. At the very least, BioWare should be cognizant of that and try to make a game that is more reflective of the market they are catering to rather than making a weak excuse that "we don't have a lot of minorities here so we can't write them." That has never stopped BioWare from writing bisexual, homosexual, and pansexual romances. You better believe most of BioWare's writers have always been white, heterosexual males.

 

[Face palm]

 

I am pretty fraking sure that "exposure" to the LGBT community is greater for Edmonton than Black people. Write what you know. My exposure to Black people is they hate basketball love hockey and don't give a rats bottom about rap music. Why? because I don't know any African Americans I only know a hand full of Black Canadians. And meeting a Canadian that hates basketball and loves hockey isn't rare. So if I wrote about a Black guy he isn't going to resonate with any African Americans and will seem fake but will be entirely authentic. I have only known a handful of black people my entire life. now in the states that must sound like i am a racist git but seriously there are less than 24,000 in my entire city. In my high school there was one black person that graduated the year before entered the school and 1 Black guy the year after i graduated. So tell me what opportunities would Canadian writers have at getting to know Black people and black culture? I'll grant the Edmonton has 30,000 black people so it is more than Vancouver but we are talking about tiny population sizes.

 

yes there are some Americans that work in Bioware studios but the MAJORITY are Canadian and just because an American company owns a Canadian studio doesn't magically turn that studio American. Doesn't matter what market the games are selling in. The cultural backdrop of the creators is going to be the culture the game was produced in.

 

The magnitude of just how different Canada is culturally and demographically is completely lost on Americans i tried to use facts and numbers but in the opinion age facts don't matter. Canada should be representative of America race issues period. Pfffft. 

 

 

[source]https://en.wikipedia...cs_of_Vancouver

https://en.wikipedia...ics_of_Edmonton

[Revan Reborn]

Is Jacob African-American? Checked wiki and it says nothing about his birthplace.

We don't know. It's never been explored or explained in the game. However, based on his mannerisms and how he conducts himself, there are some assumptions that he may be an African American. The person who voiced Jacob in ME2 and ME3, Adam Lazarre-White, is African American, which would provide more evidence the character likely is as well.

[Revan Reborn]

<reasons>

My post completely flew over your head. Let me say this in more simpler terms. BioWare is not a Canadian-only company anymore. It hasn't been for eight years. Heck, one of BioWare's studios is in the US, BioWare Austin, developed SWTOR, and it's predominantly made up of Americans. I already gave you two examples of two key developers who were, in fact, American, and not Canadian. My point about the writing team trying to write homosexual/pansexual/bisexual characters is the fact that most of the writers weren't any of those things. Sexuality or race, they are writing for something they, themselves, are not.

 

Your own preconceived notion of what Africans Americans are or even stereotypes are not germane to the question being presented. My point is BioWare is a global company by extension of being a part of Electronic Arts. They have resources that allow them to voice over their game in multiple languages and translate them into even more. Again, given America's population is much larger than Canada's, it wouldn't be difficult for them to actually properly apply racial minorities into their game successfully. Also, the voice actor of Jacob is an African American, so getting feedback from him wouldn't have exactly been difficult.

 

You are using poor excuses and have a misconceived bias of what BioWare is now due to the fact that they were originally a Canadian company and you happen to be Canadian.

[Display Name Owner]

Honestly all that stuff about stereotypes in Jacob's story went over my head. I just liked the fact that he handled it emotionally on his own without needing a pep talk from Shep.

 

...Not really addressing the topic I realise, but, you know... something.

 

Still, as I always say when representation comes up as an issue in ME, if anything what I would like to see is more not American/Canadian people. If we've got black characters, why not let them be African or from the West Indies or something? I know Bioware is Canadian, so it's only natural that their VOs come from there and the States, but yeah.

[Angry_Elcor]

We need better handling that this fam

 

 

You'll want to go with the Vacca, then. Paint it pink, which adds 5% to its maximum speed.

[vbibbi]

And how exactly does bioware handle a "Brother" that won't come across as wrong?

 

Canada just doesn't have a large Black population. Period. Black minorities make up around 3% of our population. In Alberta there were less than 75,000 black people in the entire province as of the last census, the province that Mass Effect was made in.  This is just one of those ways that Canada is very different from the US. Outside Toronto, Halifax and Montreal there are very few Black communities of significant percent of the population. Which leads some racists leaders in the US to think Canada is lilly white sanctuary. It isn't we just don't have a large population of African descendants because we never grew cash crops that required intensive manpower hence slavery had little economic advantage in the north.  Vancouver has around 40% of its population made up of people from Asia (the entire continent not just people from east asia), but when the basketball team left Vancouver we lost half our black population or so the joke goes.

 

A Black Canadian isn't going to be culturally the same as a African American. And that cultural difference will make it appear like Bioware is trying to "white wash" black culture. i don't think Americans really understand just how few black people there in Canada outside the cities I mentioned so it isn't like just hire a black writer because well in a pool of less than 75,000 people how many of them have writing experience? How many have game industry experience?

 

The minorities of Canada are different from the States because we have different histories. Expecting a CANADIAN company to be representative of a Foreign country is a little unfair don't you think? To help put this into perspective there are more people that are actually of Chinese decent (not just east asian looking) than there are of Black and Latin American decent combined in Canada. We just don't look the same as America because our citizens are from different parts of the world thus our cultures are divergent. The two largest minorities in the US are tiny in Canada. That is just how different a single boarder can make a country. Hell i don't even consider latin Amricans to be minorities they are just white people to me. last time I looked Spain was filled with WHITE Europeans and Latin America is filled with the descendants of those WHITE Europeans. but that is because I don't belong to the culture of the US that has a history of turning white people into minorities, the irish, the jews, the italians... the list goes on.

 

[Source]https://en.wikipedia...phics_of_Canada

 

 

[Face palm]

 

I am pretty fraking sure that "exposure" to the LGBT community is greater for Edmonton than Black people. Write what you know. My exposure to Black people is they hate basketball love hockey and don't give a rats bottom about rap music. Why? because I don't know any African Americans I only know a hand full of Black Canadians. And meeting a Canadian that hates basketball and loves hockey isn't rare. So if I wrote about a Black guy he isn't going to resonate with any African Americans and will seem fake but will be entirely authentic. I have only known a handful of black people my entire life. now in the states that must sound like i am a racist git but seriously there are less than 24,000 in my entire city. In my high school there was one black person that graduated the year before entered the school and 1 Black guy the year after i graduated. So tell me what opportunities would Canadian writers have at getting to know Black people and black culture? I'll grant the Edmonton has 30,000 black people so it is more than Vancouver but we are talking about tiny population sizes.

 

yes there are some Americans that work in Bioware studios but the MAJORITY are Canadian and just because an American company owns a Canadian studio doesn't magically turn that studio American. Doesn't matter what market the games are selling in. The cultural backdrop of the creators is going to be the culture the game was produced in.

 

The magnitude of just how different Canada is culturally and demographically is completely lost on Americans i tried to use facts and numbers but in the opinion age facts don't matter. Canada should be representative of America race issues period. Pfffft. 

 

 

[source]https://en.wikipedia...cs_of_Vancouver

https://en.wikipedia...ics_of_Edmonton

 

Okay...in the fictional setting of ME, Earth has become more culturally mixed and less emphasis is given to nationality. The Systems Alliance is comprised of large nations, not just Canada. If Bioware is going to be faithful to the lore they've created, they should be treating human characters as coming from this more global culture than from today's culture. Jacob is a person raised when the Systems Alliance is dominant in extraterrestrial politics.

 

 

"Within a year of the discovery [of the Mars ruins], Earth's eighteen largest nations had drafted and ratified the Systems Alliance charter, establishing a representative political body to expand and defend human territory. Shortly thereafter, the various nations of Earth pooled their military resources to create the Systems Alliance Military."

 

 

Also, "write what you know" isn't an excuse to write poorly on subjects the writer isn't as familiar with. If no one at Bioware can realistically write a positive portrayal of a black man, whether he's African-American or not, they don't get a pass and write whatever cliches they want. First, it's remarkable that no one there was able to write the character well, and second, they are professional writers, they should have had the ability to make every squadmate interesting, regardless of race.

[The Twilight God]

There is no such thing as "black culture". There is Ethiopian cultures, Ghanaian culture, Zulu culture, Hip-hop culture, etc., but there is no black culture. So nothing to learn or understand. Black doesn't even mean anything anymore as anyone can be black no matter what they look like. Black has become the pee in the lemonade and this is viewed amooung people who classify themselves as black like it isn't an insult. If you're going to abide by a 1-drop rule you might as well embrace 3/5th person rule too. It's from the same book. Ugh. People like Rachel Dolezal couldn't convincingly pretend to be black otherwise. At this stage Bioware can just say Ashley, Kaidan, Steve, Chakwas, Udina, Jack, Kenneth, Gabriella, Hackett, Zaeed, Miranda, Joker, James or TIM are black and nullify any claims of racial bias.

 

If we are to say fathers abandoning their children and grown men acting like hypersexual adolescents is a black male trait; And promiscuity and having children out of wedlock is a black male trait then Bioware seems to have no issue channeling U.S. stereotypes so the argument that they are Canadian and have no experience with American blacks is moot. Assuming they were stereotyping when writing Jacob their Canadianism isn't an excuse. They would just write them like any other character. Like they did with Anderson.

 

For the record, I don't personally think Jacob was written in a way that screams US black stereotype. 

[von uber]

For what it is worth, Jacob's loyalty mission is one of my favourites from ME2.

[Revan Reborn]

For what it is worth, Jacob's loyalty mission is one of my favourites from ME2.

I thought BioWare handled Jacob well in ME2. My only issue is they completely forced him to be in a relationship with a new person in ME3, regardless of whether you were in a relationship with him previously or not.

[giveamanafish...]

Bioware Edmonton and later on Montreal were responsible for the ME series.

 

------------

 

Is Jacob a stereotype based on races or is his back story more a reflection of social class? Jacob's story would probably not be atypical for someone who started out in the military as a low ranking recruit, and not say someone who entered thru military college. Maybe they should have saved that background story for some one who wasn't black, but they also had what's-his-name-the-general-who-was-born-in-London. 

 

None of my female Shepards are into men (other than me) so I'm not really familiar with the story, but the fact that Jacob does take up with another woman even if Shepard romanced him seems a little stereotyped. There is a real world issue in the US involving issues of infidelity among black males, where families led by black single mothers are usually among the most disadvantaged in the society. Maybe the idea was that Jacob was still a reflection of his father, just didn't know it. Could have been expanded on in ME3.

[Gothfather]

My post completely flew over your head. Let me say this in more simpler terms. BioWare is not a Canadian-only company anymore. It hasn't been for eight years. Heck, one of BioWare's studios is in the US, BioWare Austin (developed SWTOR), which is predominantly made up of Americans. I already gave you two examples of two key developers who were, in fact, American, and not Canadian. My point about the writing team trying to write homosexual/pansexual/bisexual characters is the fact that most of the writers weren't any of those things. Sexuality or race, they are writing for something they, themselves, are not.

 

Your own preconceived notion of what Africans Americans are or even stereotypes are not germane to the question being presented. My point is BioWare is a global company by extension of being a part of Electronic Arts. They have resources that allow them to voice over their game in multiple languages and translate them into even more. Again, given America's population is much larger than Canada's, it wouldn't be difficult for them to actually properly apply racial minorities into their game successfully. Also, the voice actor of Jacob is an African American, so getting feedback from him wouldn't have exactly been difficult.

 

You are using poor excuses and have a misconceived bias of what BioWare is now due to the fact that they were originally a Canadian company and you happen to be Canadian.

 

The previous head writer was there for one project and that one example doesn't magically turn the studio American. The previous writers those for the ENTIRE original trilogy were Canadian. The principle Developers at Bioware Austin for SWTOR release were Canadian as was most of the lead writers. The majority of Bioware is Canadian that is very easy to determine. The fact that a 'couple' of people aren't doesn't magically prove your point.

 

The culture that Mass effect was written in WAS and still is CANADIAN. Our exposure to American culture is extremely limited and of that the majority is through American Media which isn't exactly representative of Black America to begin with and what? Canada is expected to exceed the US on this issue? I proceeded to show the demographical issues that show just how divergent our minority populations are but that doesn't fit your narrative. i gave you an example of how few Black people i ran into and how different they are to an African American and you think that isn't germane? As a writer i can know a lot about LGBT culture and individuals because i am EXPOSED to people of the LGBT community all the fraking time. They are an integral part of Canadian culture. You know what isn't an integral part of Canadian culture? Africans and Latin Americans. Why? because they just don't have the population to make an impact. So having almost no exposure to Latinos and Black people means your ability to write about them is limited and when the Black peopel you meet are nothing like African Americans culturally how do you expect Canadian writers to write about African Americans? Ask the brother that voice acted the part? lol. The same isn't true about the LGBT examples you gave because there are interwoven into the thread of our culture. Chinese culture in an integral part of the culture of British Columbia because close to 20%, 1 in 5 people of the population is Chinese. And this only includes those people who self identified as Chinese. 29.7% of our population is from east or southeast asia, 11% is South Asian. There are more people from the middle east in Vancouver than either Latinos or Black people ALMOST as many are these two minorities combined.

 

A writer can only write and comment honestly on things they KNOW where in your own little world are Canadian writers running into black people to have some kind of actual first hand knowledge to be able to write something that isn't going to feel and seem contrived about black people? They can do this with the LGBT community because they have first hand experience with them even if they aren't part of the community themselves. And to be honest i don't know the sexuality of the writers on Bioware don't care who they bang so it isn't important to me to find out, so I can't even assert that your claim that they are heterosexual white men to be true.

 

I know I know. These "excuses" don't fit your narrative of how the world should be so they are meaningless. Just because a company is global doesn't magically turn all its employees into divergent nationalities evenly distributed though out all their subsidiaries. Bioware while owned by Americans is Canadian in staff and while yes some American and some British people work in their studios the majority are surprise surprise Canadian. Unless you have actual source material to dispute this. Please show us all how Bioware is not majority Canadian. Please show us all how a studio in Canada should have the exact same cultural experiences as the United states.  Please show us how a tiny population should exert the same cultural significance to Canada that is does in the States.

[MichaelN7]

I just think it's darkly funny how race is still an issue.

Since when has race ACTUALLY MATTERED?

I'm not talking about history, that was more people using "race" as an excuse to do bad things to people, like how terrorists pretend to be "religious" to excuse their evil actions.

 

Seriously, what does race have to do with anything?

Why do we have Black History Month?  Why not White History Month?  Hispanic History Month?  Asian History Month?  Llama History Month?

Why don't we have an N7 Day?

(oh wait, we do)

It's a little funny, but also very sad that this kind of thing still exists.

Didn't we solve this problem already?

 

Yes, I know the post, title, etc. is a satire, but I've run into folks who would say this seriously.

[Laughing_Man]

None of my female Shepards are into men (other than me) so I'm not really familiar with the story, but the fact that Jacob does take up with another woman even if Shepard romanced him seems a little stereotyped. There is a real world issue in the US involving issues of infidelity among black males, where families led by black single mothers are usually among the most disadvantaged in the society. Maybe the idea was that Jacob was still a reflection of his father, just didn't know it. Could have been expanded on in ME3.

 

Or maybe he was very much the picture of the ideal family man, and just wanted a normal family with kids, something that was unlikely to happen with Shepard due to her dangerous lifestyle.

 

This part of the story, disappointing for some though it may be, probably had nothing to do with the color of his skin.

[Panda]

I don't know if Jacobs bad handling had anything to do with race, I doubt it. But it would be nice to see better character from Bioware who is black and has romance that doesn't end up as trainwreck.

[von uber]

I thought BioWare handled Jacob well in ME2. My only issue is they completely forced him to be in a relationship with a new person in ME3, regardless of whether you were in a relationship with him previously or not.

 

This was my thoughts on it:

 

http://forum.bioware...2#entry19823913

[Akrabra]

I thought BioWare handled Jacob well in ME2. My only issue is they completely forced him to be in a relationship with a new person in ME3, regardless of whether you were in a relationship with him previously or not.

Well guess what? People cheat, regardless of skin colour or preferences. He made a mistake, or is just a terrible person, whichever you prefer. Did people that romance him get shafted? Yes, but it did add to the character and the conflict, and the resolution that followed in Citadel DLC. Not everything can turn out the way you want to, even in a game.

[Revan Reborn]

<reasons>

Look. This is getting cyclical and you are repeating yourself. I never stated BioWare wasn't still predominantly Canadian. I only stated they aren't Canadian-only anymore. There is cultural diversity as well as various nationalities making up their studios, because it is a global company. Again, your excuse that hetero white men can write for sexual minorities because there are more of them in Canada versus racial minorities is lame and unconvincing. Yes, Drew Karpyshyn (lead writer on KotOR, ME1, ME2), David Gaider (lead writer on DAO, DAII, DAI), and Mike Laidlaw (lead writer on JE) are, in fact, hetero white men. I know this because they have stated they have wives and are married.

 

My point is BioWare doesn't make games only for Canada. They make games for the world, predominantly North America and Europe. There is absolutely no excuse for them to be able to write anything they want. These are professionals. Part of being a writer is being able to write characters who are, in fact, not you. Again, the fact the voice actor for Jacob is African American clearly shows they had exposure to African Americans, and likely the character was meant to represent that community. This isn't rocket scientist. This isn't difficult. BioWare researches about everything they do when they write characters. I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to learn some things about African American culture in the United States.

 

I think it's probably best if we end the discussion here, as you seem to be getting emotional and I feel such responses will only derail the thread and render what is a valid OP worthless.

[Han Shot First]

Jacob's romance arc was a casualty of the character being the least popular of ME2's squadmates. Bioware decided to cut the romance arc rather than devote additional content for the tiny fraction of the fanbase that would be importing a save where Jacob was the LI. It was just poorly handled.

 

Honestly if they were going to cut Jacob's romance arc it would have been better handled by having him be sincere with Fem Shep, but killed in action during his side mission. That would still raise the issue of there being a lack of male LIs for Fem Shep, so Vega should probably have been a LI.

[Dr. rotinaj]

There is no such thing as "black culture". There is Ethiopian cultures, Ghanaian culture, Zulu culture, Hip-hop culture, etc., but there is no black culture. So nothing to learn or understand. Black doesn't even mean anything anymore as anyone can be black no matter what they look like. Black has become the pee in the lemonade and this is viewed amooung people who classify themselves as black like it isn't an insult. If you're going to abide by a 1-drop rule you might as well embrace 3/5th person rule too. It's from the same book. Ugh. People like Rachel Dolezal couldn't convincingly pretend to be black otherwise. At this stage Bioware can just say Ashley, Kaidan, Steve, Chakwas, Udina, Jack, Kenneth, Gabriella, Hackett, Zaeed, Miranda, Joker, James or TIM are black and nullify any claims of racial bias.

 

In the US, "black culture" is very much a thing. "Black culture" just means "African-American culture".

[Revan Reborn]

Well guess what? People cheat, regardless of skin colour or preferences. He made a mistake, or is just a terrible person, whichever you prefer. Did people that romance him get shafted? Yes, but it did add to the character and the conflict, and the resolution that followed in Citadel DLC. Not everything can turn out the way you want to, even in a game.

That's a pretty lame excuse for what was obviously a botched relationship. This line of reasoning might be more valid had there been similar instances with other companions. Perhaps if Miranda left you for another man, or if Ashley left you for somebody else. Certainly for Miranda and Ashley, moving on to somebody else probably would have made more sense than Jacob. My point is while it didn't impact my playthrough because I played a hetero male, I empathize with those who romanced Jacob only to lose him to someone else.

[Han Shot First]

Well guess what? People cheat, regardless of skin colour or preferences. He made a mistake, or is just a terrible person, whichever you prefer. Did people that romance him get shafted? Yes, but it did add to the character and the conflict, and the resolution that followed in Citadel DLC. Not everything can turn out the way you want to, even in a game.

 

It was handled very poorly with Jacob's romance arc, and mainly because the infidelity wasn't planned from the beginning. They had Jacob do a dramatic shift in character as a means to end the romance arc, because of the character's unpopularity. It was rather ham-handed.

 

A good example of infidelity being handled well was in Kaliyo's romance arc in SWTOR. It's also entirely in character for her. 

[UniformGreyColor]

The previous head writer was there for one project and that one example doesn't magically turn the studio American. The previous writers those for the ENTIRE original trilogy were Canadian. The principle Developers at Bioware Austin for SWTOR release were Canadian as was most of the lead writers. The majority of Bioware is Canadian that is very easy to determine. The fact that a 'couple' of people aren't doesn't magically prove your point.

 

OKKKK... 

 

So your argument that Jacob was portrayed in a classical sense of U.S. racial profiling is because Americans are a minority for BW. What. The. Hell.