The Musings of a Colorblind on the Nature of Rainbows

…something begins

(This first section is more of an introduction, and it’s gotten pretty lengthy with my penchant for wandering thoughts. I would advise you to read it, but if you’re the busy sort, then the meat of the essay begins at the next subtitle.)

(I would also recommend, if this essay is to be judged, for it to be judged as a whole, and not merely snippets of it. Context is important, even though I know plenty will ignore this plea.)

(and do excuse the slight errors in this essay, English is not my first language)

It is that time of the year again? Or maybe it’s that time of the month, or maybe week, day, hour? I don’t know. The sheer volume of it all makes one loose track of things pretty fast. Yes, another day, another Polygon article decrying some work of art or the other racist/misogynist/sexist/________ (add your own derogatory adjective accusing someone of being an existentially bad person here). There is even a hashtag revolving around the whole thing, called “GamesSoWhite”. I can’t exactly tell you much about it, I dreaded clicking on it, so I never did.

Anyway, I did not start writing this piece to tell you about things I know very little of(since doing research on all the drama would subject me to inordinate amounts of cringing, and I just don’t want that). I instead did it to throw my own opinion into the ring. Not a reactionary one, not something criticizing others, not a reply, not a rebuttal, merely a simple opinion which may or may not(my money’s on the latter) help you look at this from a different perspective. After all, I’m not someone you’re likely to meet often. I’m not from the United States, nor Western Europe. I am from Romania.

Though I’m not Romanian myself. I’m Hungarian, a minority in this country, but I think I’ll spare you the history lesson on complicated ethnic relations. Yes, sadly, before anyone wades into an issue like this, they have to hold up their “oppression credentials” to be taken even remotely seriously or actually have their voices heard(by either side, mind you, another white dude from ‘murica who disagrees with the progressive mindset is of no use to the anti-movement. However someone who qualifies as a minority is often a useful prop. I have seen enough minorities propped up by various factions, not based on merits, not because they added to the conversation, but simply because they qualified as a minority). So here’s mine: I’m a minority in me own country, quite often at the wrong end of the political beating stick. And if I’m traveling with my Romanian passport, the situation ain’t exactly puppies and unicorns either. I either run into the racist(xenophobe to be accurate, who’ll likely check their pocket after meeting me) or the I’m-trying desperately-not-to-be-racist(as an aside: I can’t tell which one is worse.) So there, my “oppression credentials” are hopefully in order. Or are they? Thing is, if you speak too much out of term, it matters not if you’re papers are in order, you’ll probably be branded a traitor and treated worse than the actual enemy regardless, by one type of extremist or the other. So there’s that.

Because believe it or not, this whole brouhaha about race and gender and representation and diversity is not really about any of those. It’s not about the actual people involved. It’s about ideology and politics. There is a brilliant breakdown of all this written by Scott Alexander, over at Slate Star Codex, and I’d recommend you read it. Yes, it’s very long(but if you’re reading this, you’re probably not averse to longreads), but also incredibly well written from a quite intelligent person, and worth every minute of your time. I won’t go into all of this, since that is not the point of this blog, it’s actually about video games, and I’m getting to it(promise!), albeit quite slowly. The reason for the slowness is that I thought I would give a little bit of introduction and context to this whole debacle from my perspective. Not in the form of concrete examples, but more of a general feeling of the environment: everyone is twitchy and everyone is biased(everyone being an obvious hyperbole, there are exceptions to the rule). Speak slightly out of term with the accepted narrative of one faction or the other, and you’ll likely end up on the wrong end of a lynch mob. No, not everyone is equal in degree or severity, not everyone uses the same tactics, but after a while watching all of this unfold, it all kind of molds together.

So anyways, themz video games, huh? You might have heard by now that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, developed by the Polish company CDProjekt Red, came under scrutiny by a certain site first for having an “oppressively misogynist world” and now for not having a single person of color in the game, aside from a few succubi(? I think is the plural of succubus). And this whole thing bothered me to no end. The “discussion” around this bothered me to no end. So I’d like to just vent my own thoughts around the entire notion. Just to clarify: I will be using my own thoughts and experiences to examine these issues. After all I’m not black and I don’t try and speak on behalf of others(unlike some people on social media these days). But I am in a similar boat when it comes to representation in western media. That is: not very often. Now that’s settled, onward to the actual meat of this.

It’s fiction, mate.

There is this common misconception, or rather disingenuous argument, that since it’s fiction, everything flies. Not in the literal sense, but in the sense that everything is acceptable. Since there are dragons in this medieval game, why not a black guy from Compton, complete with an afro and a boombox(an obvious hyperbole, and 90's stereotype, in case you missed it). Hyperbole, yes, but also accurate in depicting why that argument is nonsense. Believability in fiction has nothing to do with magic or the lack-thereof.

A fable(short stories with personified animals, for the uninitiated) can be far more realistic than a work grounded in reality, with no magic and featuring actual human characters. It all depends on whether the story, the character interactions, character motivations, actions, the world and it’s consistency are probable(in the context of the world’s rules) and relatable(to the reader). The two are not separate requirements for the world to be believable. They both rest on the reader’s own biases and subconscious associations, usually instilled by their own(and sometime others’s) culture and history. Longships are often associated with vikings and northern people. If you create a story with Japanese people in horned helmets(yes, I know, viking helmets didn’t actually have horns, that’s not the point) sailing longships in the Caribbeans, it suddenly becomes a lot less relatable, and consequently less believable, than if bearded vikings were sailing longships in icy waters. Similarly, the Loch Ness Monster is very relatable and probable in a Scottish environment, but wouldn’t be in the Middle East. Ol‘Nessy just doesn’t have the same ring to it in Arabic…

Worse offenders are the contradictory character actions and motivations, unrealistic interactions between different people and the like, but that has little bearing on the current subject, except to illustrate the inaccuracy of the “everything flies in fiction” argument.

Obviously, this all means that not every game is for everyone. Since they all rely, more or less, on certain cultural references, some works of art will be less appealing to some than to others. Some might actually be offensive. I can’t imagine that the Hungarian literature, in which the Turks were presented as evil conquerors, that I read, would be especially welcomed by Turks. But more on that later.

I suppose the example of Japanese longboat sailors would suffice, but I’ll take it further and discuss the racial make-up of Medieval Europe to clear up any misunderstandings regarding historical accuracy of people of color in eastern Europe.

Baby, you’re white as snow…

(…willing to sacrifice our love.)

It’s 2015 Romania and not a single black person in sight. Honest. The only black people I’ve met in this country are foreign exchange students and professional basketball players(there is this slight positive racism thing going on with basketball teams in eastern Europe, where half of every one of them is made up of African-Americans, because, ya know, NBA). But that’s it. Here’s the most recent census for Romania: 88.9% Romanians, 6% Hungarians, 3% Romani(or Gypsies), and the rest are below the 0.1% margin. Funny thing: the census never even makes mention of black people. Why? Because they’re virtually non-existent in this country. The story is the same for many other eastern European countries, including Poland.

So why am I going on about this? Well, to emphasize just how few people of color lived or traveled anywhere near this side of the world in the Middle Ages. If there are so few, and the overwhelming majority of which recent immigrants, black people now, how few were there 600–700 years ago? Well, saying they were nonexistent would (maybe) be wrong, but saying they were very rare would be an exaggeration. At that time, the majority of African kingdoms were not particularly advanced. They did not have ships capable of wide-scale maritime trade(well, no one had before the 16th century) at their disposal, and the journey from the closest major kingdoms to eastern Europe on foot was extremely long, quite deadly and not monetarily beneficial. Far better was to trade with the Arabic nations and they in turn to trade those goods with Europeans. Therefore Turkish and Arabic people were more common, because of their proximity, but due to religious tensions and wars between Muslims and Christians they didn’t venture too far into Europe either, preferring rather to trade with the southern countries of Spain, Italy and France. The Ottoman Empire, again, did not become a major player in Europe till after the 16th century, after conquering the Kingdom of Hungary.

Simply put, the make-up of medieval Europe was very white overall, with the occasional Moors or Turks showing up. That whole argument of “but there were plenty of people of color in Medieval Poland” is just dead wrong. There might have been a few in Spain, but I’ve yet to see the legend of the black viking. And in all my time studying the literature and history of either my country or my ethnicity(they’re not the same, as I have said previously), not once did I come across a mention of a black person. Not even in works from 18th/19th century. If I were to desperately seek them, I may come across a few, but needles and haystacks and all that. The African slave trade never happened on this side of the world. We were the play-things of major nations(Ottomans, Russians and Austrians mostly) as well, so that mass forced immigration? Never happened here. And the medieval landscape was pretty homogeneous due to racial, cultural and religious intolerance of the times.

However, does anything mentioned in these last few paragraphs matter even one bit? Well. No. Not really. Black character(s) in the game, in theory, would not be an issue. Why would they be? It’s not like it would break internal consistency, Zerakania is a black kingdom in the Witcher lore. I was merely out to show the ridiculousness of some people’s attempt to force the so-called “diversity” into every piece of art they can get their hands on. The lengths that these people go to, even as far as telling people that their own culture, history and mythology doesn’t exist(and then having the gall to inform them about said culture), is mind-boggling.

But here, I’ll offer you this as a token of condescending pandering.

On the other hand, would it have been sufficient to include the black character? The token one. The one which is nothing more than a repaint of some typically Medieval European white guy? If not, then would it have been good to make the character as close as possible in terms of culture, demeanor, philosophy to a historic counterpart? Or would that have been stereotypical/racist? There couldn’t be too many black characters, since the medieval eastern European culture, aesthetic, music even, would conflict with the historical associations in the minds of the player(any player). So how is this whole thing supposed to be done?

I obviously can’t speak on this in regards to black characters too much, but I can talk about Bogdan.

Bogdan is the Romanian character on Breaking Bad. He has a uni-brow, he speaks English in that the typical Russian accent, the one which sounds like someone stuffed his mouth full of tractor wheels, he’s a swindler, a chiseler… in short: someone a bit too stereotypical of my fellow countrymen. And not in the good way. Stereotypes can be done a right way, but that’s not this. Suffice to say, I am always annoyed by that kind of thing. But you know what I’m not annoyed about? Not seeing Bogdan. Yes, indeed, it’s always nice to see someone you can relate to in a piece of media you consume. But there’s a keyword in there: relate. If a character is so detached from what I can relate to, and then goes on to claim that in fact he/she is like me… well.. I’d rather have nothing than that.

Speaking of nothing, did I ever have a problem with not seeing a Romanian character in any western art/entertainment I was consuming? No. As I said earlier, the “fake” representation was far worse. The token characters(which have no actual business in that work of art, other than pandering) are annoying and the stereotypical ones even more so. Consuming media which contains no one representing me? It has never been a problem. It was something I always enjoyed seeing, provided it was done right, but never a barrier for entry. Not even close.

Diversity for it’s own sake

I guess it’s time to talk about this recent truism: “diversity is obviously good for everyone”. Is it though? I’ll lay down my cards in advance and proceed to explain them later: that statement is obviously an oversimplified platitude. It’s simplistic drivel made popular by pundits(read: useless, scum of the Earth), then widely adopted since humans tend to favor simplicity over the complexity which reality is(or widely adopted, because anyone who disagrees with that sentiment is mercilessly shamed into silence and irrelevance). It is a meaningless statement, more indicative of someone’s lack of care for/knowledge of this subject in general, rather than their care for/knowledge of it. It’s the equivalent of tying yourself to a tree, or taking part in a “guitarmy”, thinking you are actually accomplishing anything other than stroking your own ego/messiah-complex and looking like an imbecile while doing it. No, tying yourself to a tree is not saving the environment, to do that you’d actually have to work hard and do real things, like studying physics and working long nights trying to improve renewable energy, not getting the funding you need, failing time and time again, then drinking yourself into oblivion because of said failures… But I digress.

First of all, what is diversity? Is it skin-deep? Well, that kind of diversity is hit-and-miss. Some people will be placated by it, others, like myself, find it more annoying than the complete lack of it. And is that truly beneficial? Is the hit-and-miss aspect of it worth the benefit? Well, no, it doesn’t actually add anything, other than a new “coat of paint”, as it were. It doesn’t change anything substantial, nor does it improve art on it’s own, as much as certain people would like to claim that is does. So the benefits are a few placated people and negatives are other people annoyed by it.

No, diversity, the true one, is that of mindsets, different cultures, new perspectives. But this one isn’t rosy either. First and foremost, it’s difficult to do. Writing from the perspective of someone whose life you never lived, whose hurdles and joys you never experienced, takes not only great effort, but also great skill. Not everyone is capable of it. In fact most aren’t. It takes time and effort to tune your mind to genuinely think like that person, and not merely pretend to mimic it. The other major problem with this is the problem in general with genuine diversity. We don’t like different people. Period. I’m not talking about shallow differences, like race. I’m talking about differences in thinking, habits, tradition. We’re fine with it at a distance, but the closer it gets, the more annoying it gets. Please don’t try to argue this point, since history has already proved you wrong. It’s littered with examples of people butchering eachother over the slightest of differences. And science is not on your side either. Studies have shown that ideological and cultural intolerance is quite powerful, i fact it’s far stronger than even racial intolerance(notice I was talking about the underlying psychology, not real world effects)(and please refer to the previously linked Slate Star Codex blog for the sources on those studies, I’ll not add them here, just to try and persuade you again to read it(lies, obviously, I’m just too lazy)). So it should come as no surprise that with diversity in games writing comes alienation as well. The more diverse a single game is, the more likely it is to alienate more and more people. Can it be done? The perfectly diverse game, which doesn’t alienate anyone? Possibly. But my money is on another old truism: there is no work of art which everyone likes. The appeal to everyone nonsense is, well nonsense. The more people you try and placate, the less people will actually enjoy your work. There are things which resonate with certain people and others which don’t.

And then again, this supposed perfectly diverse work of art, who do you include in it? Do you honestly including everyone, every culture, every subculture from Mongolia to the Canadian Arctic, because you have to? Or do you make the extra effort to include black people in a majority white game because you’re a culturally myopic ethnocentric American (Yes, that subtitle is coming as well, how could it not? After all, the entire kerfuffle arose from a simple misunderstanding stemming from American identity politics vs. the racial relationships in Europe) and that’s how the world looks like to you? Well, no, that would be ridiculous. The simplest answer to all this would be that not every game needs to include everyone. And once you actually take a step back and look at the demands made by certain American pundits(maybe yourself included), you’ll realize just how ridiculous the whole notion is to begin with.

But let’s entertain for a moment that that is the solution. Every single piece of art is diverse and contains people of all creeds. Does that mean that the landscape then becomes truly diverse? Well, no. It doesn’t, since then every work of art looks and feels the exact same, making the entire exercise extremely counterproductive. It’s why I’m always so amused by the people singling out works of art and demanding that they need more people of different races/creeds, and complaining when a single game is rather homogeneous.

No, the obvious solution to all of this are not single games which include everyone, but many games which offer something for everyone. It’s the extension of the library, not the pages of the books, that matters and which makes a genuine difference. And it’s not simply the case of white people trying to recreate the experiences of black people, for example, either. While, again, it’s not impossible to write different cultures/experiences, it is exceedingly difficult, and creators tend to bungle it, sometimes in rather spectacular fashion. So it has to be done by the people belonging to that culture/life if it is to make a difference. Ironically, when CDProjekt did that, create a world based on never-before featured culture(their own), well, this whole debacle happened.

My God given rights.

Before I move on, I have to stress something. It is not your God given right to be featured/represented in some work of art or the other. It is not your prerogative to demand to be included there. The creators have absolutely no obligation whatsoever to do anything, beside what they want, and above all else they have no obligation to fight the fight(whichever one that is). If they want to fight the fight, that’s their due(I don’t personally like the preachy kind of art, but whatever, those are merely my personal feelings on the matter). You may criticize, but only if it’s valid. If not, then prepare not to be taken seriously. Not including you, a Filipino, in a game set in the Middle East is not a valid criticism. If you’re represented in it, that’s great. But it’s also a mere luxury, not an entitlement. An artist who creates on demand and what other people tell him/her to create, is no longer an artist, but a servant. And this is coming from someone, who’d like nothing more than a Tarantino movie set in Romania with Romanian and possibly Hungarian characters in the leads. But my want does not give me the right to bang on the guy’s door and demand it. Period.

Somewhat related: art is not propaganda. It’s not a tool to reform/shape society/societal norms with. This seems to be an argument some imbeciles are actually proud to make. Well, you haven’t lived through those horrid moments in my country’s history when that was the case. The moment, the very moment that art is turned into propaganda, it all goes wrong. The quality of the works in general plummet. The enjoyment, the life, the experience, the soul of it all is sapped out of it instantly. Much like torture, it matters not how righteous you are, it matters not how just your cause is, the moment you do it, you become a vile, sick little wanker.

The soft bigotry of, well… soft bigotry.

There is a peculiar irony to this whole kerfuffle. The avid multi-culturalists, the proponents of diversity, the fighters for equality are the xenophobes in this matter. They’re the ones who cannot understand or comprehend or accept the idea of different cultures, different ways of thinking, different life-experiences. It’s not surprising, really, to anyone who has studied even the basics of human behavioral sciences. After all, precious few actually manage to escape or resist the clutches and shackles of psychology and biology. And if there’s one thing that’s universal in humanity, that is hypocrisy.

This cultural myopia is visible in Americans, much more so than in other nations. And I really don’t intend this paragraph as something offensive or condescending towards Americans in general, I’m merely pointing out that the U.S. is very isolated from other cultures. Yes, immigrants do go to the States, but immigrants tend to pick up local customs quickly, and it’s not the same as living next door to various different cultures. For someone who experienced, if briefly, 20 different cultures by the time I became 20, it’s much easier to accept them, to understand the idea of different mindsets. The entertainment industry is also a one-way road out of the U.S. Very rarely does foreign entertainment make it over there, but American entertainment makes up 90% of the market here. This results in less sensitivity towards other life-experiences in Americans. It manifests differently in nationalists and progressives, but it’s there in both cases it seems. Which is rather odd when it comes to the American left, who constantly go on about how bad American cultural(or other kind of) imperialism is. But when it suits them and their “just cause”, which is totally more “just and righteous” than that of the American Right(which isn’t, like, at all), they seem to have no problem practicing it. It is a peculiarly annoying form of soft bigotry(and obviously, I’m over-simplifying this whole left-right dichotomy, so please don’ take it upon yourself, if you don’t fit the profile. This is by no means an exhaustive description of the American political landscape).

I should stress that I’m not making the fallacious argument that all cultures are equal, and there’s nothing wrong with either of them. I’m not saying that cultures practicing ritual sacrifice of humans(or animals), for example, cannot be criticized for it. But this here, is not that case. This is a case of different environments informing different standards and racial relations.

I am biased, no point denying it. This is a really prickly matter for me, since I adore the Witcher 3. It is something almost tailored made for me. I can see much of, not only my culture, but my line of thinking reflected in that, even though it was made in Poland(but a large number of Hungarians worked on it as well, and history does tie us quite close together. There are quite a number of themes and life-philosophies which are ubiquitous in most eastern Europeans: nihilism and the tendency to go with the World’s flow, rather than try to change it, both of which are present in the Witcher). And on top of that it’s a purely brilliant game, with some of the most memorable character moments in all of gaming’s history. I love the aesthetic, I love the music, I love most things about it. And even the character interactions hit much closer to home than they do in Dragon Age Inquisition, for example.

This might be because the subconscious associations and biases arising from culture and history are quite different for a European than they are for an American. Indeed, they are quite different for a French person than they are for a Romanian. While in France the current racial and cultural tensions are centered around Jewish people and Muslims, in Romania the tensions are centered around cultural differences between Hungarians and Romanians, and racial tensions between the white population and Gypsies(or Romani). If you look at only the Hungarians, then there comes the added baggage of antisemitism, which is on the rise recently. If it’s Romanians, then there’s the tensions over the country(not the region) of Moldavia, and whether that’s Romanian(as in: should it be a part of the country) or not. Plus no one really forgave Russia and the 50 years of Communist dictatorships. Just a few towns over in the former Yugoslavian territories, there is a completely different world of very different struggles and hatreds. These all arise from a complicated series of historical strifes and events which are as old as Europe itself(well, not really, but you get the point).

Thing is, none of these happen in the United States, and those that do, happen in different ways, under different circumstances. Yes, there are similarities, there are overlaps, but it is fundamentally different nonetheless. For us, the African slave trade never happened. Racial tensions between white and black people mean as much to me as racial tensions between Pakistanis and Indians mean to an American. It’s a far-away conflict to which you are not even remotely related. So when I hear this America-centric identity politics ideology(the merits of which can be debated another time) thrown around with the likes of “white privilege” thrown into the mix, I am completely lost. It means nothing to me. For me, privilege is determined by whether you were born on right side of the border or not. If I was born in Hungary, I would have had quite a few extra bonuses: no discrimination based on my ethnicity, I never would’ve heard my elected officials(people I voted for, mind you) blame me for the country’s economic struggles, I wouldn’t have had my teeth rearranged because I spoke the wrong language in the wrong country(which happened to a good friend on mine, I merely got a few punches as a kid for that offence) and so on. But I was born here, and now I’m an outsider even in Hungary(Hungarians from Transylvania(a province of Romania, where I live) are not treated the same there either). And it’s the same for most other European countries. The discrimination on this side of the pond(and especially on the eastern side of Europe) was carried out almost exclusively by white people on white people(with the notable exception of Gypsies, who kept drawing the shortest straw ever since they migrated to this continent).

This is much of what the Witcher 3's world represents. The world I know. If I understand Sapkowski’s work(and this may be wrong), the Elves in the world represent, or at least are inspired by, the real world experiences of Gypsies. Dwarves are again inspired by the real world experiences of Jews. The various northern kingdoms(Temeria, Aedirn, Redania) are a representation of the landscape of medieval eastern/central Europe. The Skellige Islands are a mix between Medieval Irish and Scandinavian. And Nilfgard is, obviously the Holy Roman Empire. This is the world I know, this is the culture and history I developed a fondness for, with all it’s faults and stumbles, with all it’s strengths and achievements.

To be or not to be

So how do black or Arabic people and their experiences, fit into this culture, environment or historical point of reference? Well, they don’t. Not really. As much as Romanians have no place in 18th century America or feudal Japan, nor do black people have any place in 12-14th century eastern Europe. Is that right? Is that the way things ought to be? Well, no. Is that wrong then? Should things be different? Well, also no. It just is. Would it have been a problem for a black person to be present in the Witcher 3? Well, no. Is it a problem that there isn’t? Well, no. It just is(this became an extremely long article just to point out that this whole event was basically much ado about nothing, but the ado in this case was so much, that it seemed necessary). It is at the discretion of the creator whether they want to tell the story of a black person in medieval Europe, on top of the original story(and I already made my feelings clear about the simple “new coat of paint” token characters).

The Witcher 3 is a representation of eastern Europe, with allegories commenting on the past, the modern and the universal experiences, actions and philosophies of the people involved. It tells the experience and history of the eastern European man..ehrm.. woman..whichever, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. There is nothing right about it either. For some people, that is what they are looking for. For others it doesn’t click, because they don’t understand, or cannot relate to, those experiences. The fact that it did not include the experiences of medieval black people is not a problem.

But..but..but..you’re invalidating the life of people of color!!… I hear you scream in that nugget of yours. Well. No. That’s just pure nonsense. Again, if you’re an American, please try to understand just how little race means to us over here. We place a much greater emphasis on culture than we do on race. Because that is around which the struggles we experience center. Even the racial tensions between Gypsies and white Europeans stem more so from differences in culture, than they do from pure racial differences. And presenting the experiences of one culture does not in any way invalidate, remove or denigrate the experiences of others. It is just pure nonsense saying that a piece of fiction centered around, inspired by the culture and history of, and featuring exclusively Mongolians, would invalidate the life-experiences of Haitians. And that is what you’re basically saying about the Witcher 3 and black people.

I’ve heard this argument, that since the Witcher was sold in the western world as well, they had to include the sensibilities and contexts of western countries as well. But that is nonsense. That would be tantamount to pandering, and more importantly, it would conflict with the story’s internal consistency. Did they had to pander to Japanese people as well, include a samurai in medieval Europe, because they sold it there as well?(and sold quite well, as far as I’ve heard) No. That would be a ridiculous argument to make.

I made my feelings regarding this very clear previously, but I’ll reiterate. There is a place for the “inclusive” story. There is a place for the majority white story with the occasional black characters. There is a place for the majority black story with the occasional white characters. There is a place for the stories featuring exclusively black, Indian, Chinese or (gasp!) white characters(There are shades of white in this world, as much as there shades of black and not all shades of white or black were created equally, nor the exact same, thus justifying the racially homogeneous works of art). I would personally love to see those. I always found different cultures and environments and historical settings fascinating. I would very much like to see a story set in medieval Africa featuring exclusively black characters, as much as I like to see a story set in America featuring prominently or even exclusively white characters. However, the reason why so many people have a problem with the latter, or are at times even appalled by the latter, is partially because of the ethnocentrism of select Americans, but more so because of the fact that it is also the the most prominent in mass entertainment.

Shades of white

The reasons for the lack of other cultures and races in mass entertainment are numerous, but there is one which is more influential than the others: the people who can afford to create and the people who can afford to buy entertainment en masse are overwhelmingly white. Yes, there are plenty of minorities in those regions, but that’s just what they are: minorities, meaning they are not a majority(obviously). Therefore, the mass entertainment was created by and for white people. This has been a problem even with the shades of white, western white people(particularly American and British(of which most prominently the English)) being featured almost exclusively, while eastern ones relegated to evil communists at best, with those annoying mouth-full-of-tractor-wheels accents (please stop that, Hollywood). So it should come as no surprise that cultures even further detached from the western world have been featured even less.

This is not really anyone’s fault, and more importantly, nothing that anyone can do anything about. Again, it’s how things came to be. It’s history. I don’t blame the Americans for not featuring my culture more prominently, why would I? If there is anyone to blame, it’s us, for dropping the ball, and not keeping up with the western world in this regard. But that wouldn’t be fair either, since there is not much we could’ve done. Communism has taken a serious toll on the country, one which we are still recovering from. Again, there’s nothing right or wrong with it, it just is. It is a slightly different story with those cultures or people who were subjugated by the western world.

Some would argue that since that was the case, the western world owes these people reparations. One of which would be the inclusion of them in the western entertainment. Would the western world owe reparations to these nations? I’d argue, morally not. I don’t believe in guilt by association. And that is what I would be committing were I to make that demand of them. Beside the fact that I consider identity politics, in which people historically discriminated against are cast in an condescendingly positive light, to be utter nonsense. I know, unlike some others who, for ideological reasons refuse to accept it, that people of all creeds, colors, genders are capable of committing the most vile of atrocities. Believe you me, if the roles were reversed, the black kingdoms of Africa would have sold black/white/asian people in slavery just the same as white people did with black/white/asian people. And what do you know? Slave trade was booming well before the western nations showed up on the continent.(Yes, it’s a Wikipedia article, deal with it).

But that is not the strongest argument to make, as it can be debated and philosophized to no end, so instead I’ll move away from history and politics and make my case with art. Fact of the matter is, no American movie/book/video game ever captured the life experiences and the general sensibilities of Gypsies as well as Emir Kusturica’s movies(clip and music from Black Cat White Cat). At best the American depictions of Gypsies are not offensive, but they are never truly faithful. No American book could ever produce something resonating so well with eastern European people as Dostoyevsky’s works. That is the crust of the argument. That’s why western white people should not be the ones telling these stories, aside from them not having an obligation to do so(please refer to the “My God given rights” section). The chances of them getting it right are very slim. And history has shown that most often they screw it up.

Something ends…

So what is the answer to this? Should western companies start hiring more diversely(One Lithuanian here, one Nigerian there..)? Well, if that’s what they want, then yes. If they want to tell stories of different people in a single work of art, then they would be required to do it. But if it’s not, then they are under no obligation whatsoever do to so. Remember, people would rather consume media to which they can relate to, then media to which they cannot(and there’s nothing wrong with that, we like what we like, period). Therefore, in the currant global economic climate, where the most profitable markets are in the western, white countries, making something which appeals more to, say, African nations, might just be a giant money sink. Sure, it could succeed in western markets as well, but it’s not a guarantee. And in the high-risk market of video games, taking that extra risk is just suicidal. I already touched on the diversity for diversity’s sake argument, and whether diversity on it’s own is definite positive, so I won’t do it again.

The answer is, go make your own. Follow CDProjekt’s example. Do you think that it was easy for them as well? Do you honestly think that we’re flowing in money over here? The average salary of a Romanian is less than 500$/month. Poland’s merely marginally better. It’s not exactly easy to rise to prominence and succeed in the global market when the head start of someone in the U.S. is so much greater. So do your own thing. Tell your own story. Less privileged people will be fighting an uphill battle, but it is the way things have to happen.

P.S: Thanks to Adrian Chmielarz and others for sharing this, and more importantly, actually bothering to read my 30 minute-long rambling.

(by the way, if you’re not exhausted from all the reading I wrote this other extremely long thing critiquing the Witcher Wild Hunt.)

And if you’re not put off by my inflated sense of self-worth and the love I have for my own thoughts, then, at dawn, look to the East for my signal.. on Twitter. I should come up with a different line…