Morgan Gray & Racial Stereotyping in Games

There’s an interesting interview over at MTV Multiplayer with Morgan Gray, a Senior Producer at Crystal Dynamics. What makes this interview so interesting to me as a lesbian gamer are the obvious similarities between how Gray feels about racial stereotyping and diversity in games;  when contrasted to the lesbian dilemma-they’re very analogous. Gray is “half-black and half-Caucasian” and a seasoned gamer sick of what he’s seeing in games.

We kind of covered one of Gray’s points in an article awhile ago titled Alternate Realities – The Queer Question. Gray brings into question the Gears of War character of Cole Train by stating “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?”

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Cole goes on to state he’s “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.” A quote that could easily be transferred to a lesbian reference and casual homophobia or sexism.

Gray then talks about how women and racial minorities are underrepresented in the games industry and how he’d love for gaming to just be “socially acceptable for everyone of every age range to sit and use this box for their entertainment purposes across a variety of content.”

Interestingly when discussing further the problem of diversity in games Gray states “There’s no reason that Marcus Fenix in “Gears of War” couldn’t have been a black guy. Like there’s no reason that you can’t just take any character — like Gordon Freeman could have been a black guy. Easily. He doesn’t talk!” We’d certainly add to this shallow analysis that even without lesbian content, either of these characters could have been female, or at least the choice of a female counterpart would have been good. I’m sure a lot of you ladies would have loved to be the cool crowbar wielding dyke saving or chatting to Alyx Vance.

The Question of Social Narrative
This may well be the most interesting part of the interview and Gray pulls some fantastic points out of his hat here. He questions why the medium of video games can’t be used as a “medium to push social consciousness, social awareness? Why not try to make society better?” and adds “Why don’t we use it as a vehicle to more accurately reflect the real world?”. Why indeed! Are publishers so scared of backlash that the idea of a little social reflection that isn’t based on social stereotyping can’t be added in for no other reason than ‘that’s just the way the world is’. Yes, you’re never going to make everyone happy. The L Word pissed a lot of lesbians off because they felt it misrepresented them, overlooking the fact this was a primetime television series made up of an almost all lesbian character cast.

With gaming narratives that still-as Gray rightly points out-“rely on old stereotypes, run-of-the-mill archetypes, retelling the same basic story premises” isn’t it time that the games industry made that push forth out of what essentially comes down to trite / same old same old stories and characterizations, into something with more depth and social reflection.

The Age Old – ‘There’s One’ Counter Argument
This interview is great and I implore you all to take the time to read it and try and relate what Gray is saying about race, to the lesbian dilemma in gaming. Sadly the interview was met with more than one “example of a black character”, like having one or two out there somehow makes things alright.

The same thing happens with lesbians in games. You can’t speak up about being a lesbian gamer, or wanting more lesbian characters because people take that as you pushing an agenda (we’ve had a few emails regarding this fact because our site is called Lesbian Gamers). Some individuals will immediately pick out that one character that fits the mould as an example that you have no reproach, rather than realizing you’re talking about wanting diversity that reflects society (including them). This sort of blinkered response may be in some senses what keeps things stagnant and non stimulant in content with regards to diversity breakdown (age, race, gender, sexuality etc.) in gaming worlds.

On the upside it’s nice to know someone like Morgan Gray is out there and is thinking outside the box. One has to wonder whether that want for diversity would include gays however. It never ceases to amaze me when I see minorities banging on about human rights and freedoms only to then say “but you’re gay and that’s wrong”, never seeing the irony in that statement.

Oh on a side note a couple of other interesting points made, not by Gray but by commenters including a point about the male Shepherd being used a ‘the face’ of Mass Effect. I never really thought about this overly, other than when I was trying to source screenshots of a female Shepherd around the time of its release and there were none on the press sites. So you have a double edged sword in that the game plays a fantastic diversity hand, but the publishers chose a very narrow track with regards to publicity and marketing (as usual).

Let’s not also forget that whilst Gray discusses the African-American dilemma there are loads of races that you never see in video games.

We might try and contact Morgan and see what he thinks and also ask him about “cats”, which kind of stood out in the interview, probably for the wrong reasons.

This article based on an interview by Tracey John [MTV Multiplayer]

Comments

[Ashley-Yin]

"It never ceases to amaze me when I see minorities banging on about human rights and freedoms only to then say “but you’re gay and that’s wrong”, never seeing the irony in that statement."

I totally agree.

On the note of missing people etc. have you seen:

A lead black female in a game (No.1 Jade, No.2... errr?)
lead black male that isnt a gangster

black charater in soul calibur (I love Spawn *Sigh*)

the future implications of killing Noriko (i can see its not good. wasted opertunity)

Lara Croft has a tan(i think)and still no breast reduction.

Large people in serious games

b-girl creater in psp b-boy (around the time the psp came out) and (this is a big one) no female skater creation in the whole tony hawks series (correct me if im wrong,i stop playing years ago) whats more you cant play as a girl in SKATE despite having female character models in the game, coming out a year after the ps3's launch and last but not least also being on Blue Ray(how big is it?)

the unfortunate lack of diversity from Nintendo(if
they become like disney i will! boycott them.

ok one last thing lol(i do go on bit dont i)

british TV(i dont know about day to day TV in other countries)in a normal week there isnt one report
on women's sport(im gonna bio hazard a guess and say this is a british site so you know what im on about;)
and this is almost laughable the one bit of news i see in ages is about Netball(the most popular sport amongst women in the UK)which isnt even an Olympic sport.

I think ive said enough!
Go Lesbian Gamers xox

[Thefremen]

Where can I watch a netball game online? As a basketball fan the rules as described on wikipedia make it sound interesting.