Male Roles Vs. Female Roles in Fiction: Discussion/Analysis/Troperwank

Usually Street Fighter characters and other such over-the-top stereotypes at last reach the level of Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzalez, or water it down with other attributes so people stop minding. Dee Jay and T. Hawk are some of the few I can think of who haven't gotten there yet.

To wit, Blanka isn't even natively brazilian but from what I understand he's very popular here because brazilians are starved for representation.

It help he is not super steriotypical brazilian, I scientist who turn monster? sure why not.

I'm curious what Brazilian fans think of characters like Eddy Gordo and Christie Monteiro. They're not actively offensive but it makes me wonder about the heavy association with Brazilians and capoeira when they have other styles like jiu-jitsu.

Edited by AlleyOop on Aug 9th 2019 at 8:25:46 AM

Makes me wonder Sean from Street Fighter and his sister Laura in Brazil given she practices jui-jutsu and he uses the fighting style Ken and Ryu practice. They're also rare examples of Brazilian characters of Japanese descent in fighting games.

To keep somewhat on topic, what are people's thoughts on Kazumi Mishima from Tekken?

Laura is a bunch of positive stereotypes thrown together plus a Ms. Fanservice as well as Big Fun.

But Brazilians love them some Blanka.

I'm not overly familiar with Tekken but my cursory search suggests that while Eddy is comparatively less well-known than say Blanka, he's extremely well-liked by the brazilian videogame community and considered much better representation for multiple reasons: not being a super stereotypical character compared to many others in fighting games and elsewhere, his motion capture for Tekken 7 was done by a famous capoeira master giving his movements a level of authenticity, and he even speaks actual portuguese.

In fact he's so well-liked that I've seen multiple comments suggesting he might be the best brazilian character in games, period.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Aug 9th 2019 at 10:08:40 AM

Um, Laura's not so much Big Fun as she is big in other areas.

You can be both!

Boobs Of Steel

"positive stereotypes"

Yeah, that's a issue. Positive stereotypes can be pretty harmful. Imagine people insulting you because you don't fit your ethnic stereotype.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 9th 2019 at 9:21:15 AM

If you want to remove all stereotypes from the game, you have no Street Fighter.

No:

• Guile
• Ryu
• E. Honda
• Zangief
• Balrog
• Chun Li
• Fei Long

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 9th 2019 at 7:25:55 AM

I prefer to not use the word "Positive" honestly. I can have fun with stereotypes, I can't have it with the idea of Positive ones.

I feel that if you assign any country traits that you might include things you're proud of as a nation.

Even if it's all inaccurate.

positive steriotype are fun but sort of limiting.

A good example I express in diversity in media treat is how much of black chararter are athletes or have tech stick with them, but arent really scientist.

Like for example tony stark is the armour but he is something without it, while Warmachine is a soldier with a armour borrow for Tony.

What I said is that in general black chararter goes for being always athletes, kinda funny or handsome, which were negative trait turn into positve, is not a surprise at all Johnny reed was the one who get race lift because his archetype is the one easier to relate with a black man.

Yeah, I'm noticing that as well. And getting a bit uncomfortable that I felt/fall into similar (IDK which word use here)

Edited by KazuyaProta on Aug 9th 2019 at 12:04:27 PM

I'd point out that Blanka is in many ways a harmful stereotype. He echoes the stereotype that Brazilians are all jungle-dwelling savages who are one step removed from animals and all live in the Amazon Rainforest somehow. The fact his name is a corruption of "hombre blanco" (which is Spanish, not Portuguese) doesn't help. It's just the character is charismatic enough that he gets a pass. There's also a Grandfather Clause thing going on that Blanka comes from an era where Brazil was unheard of in pop culture, so he also filled a niche. Done today a character like Blanka would probably receive way more backlash. The character of Rikuo from Darkstalkers, who's also "Brazilian" by way of being a riff on the creature of the black lagoon, is one that basically embodies the same stereotypes but didn't manage to catch on.

Eddy is pretty much widely-beloved. At most, some people wonder why every Brazilian martial artist has to fight capoeira (rather than, say, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu), but yeah he is probably the best Brazilian character in video games.

Christie and Laura, from what I've seen, are also very well-received but somewhat less so than Eddy (who's basically the golden standard) because they very much lean on the over-sexualized, "exotic Brazilian woman" stereotype, which is a stereotype under varying shades of criticism (most obviously, from Brazilian feminists).

The animated series' version of Blanka (and the movie version) changed it so that he's an American soldier (Guile's friend Charlie) transformed by Bison's experiments.

They also played with Blanka in that he's a lovable mama's boy and harmless despite his fearsome appearance.

Sadly, I think that actually reduced his popularity a bit.

Was in the game also a result of experiments?.

I mean blanka does have points for not using any steriotypes in general even if the idea is rather....bad.

Blanka crashlanded in the jungle, was bit by an electric eel and mutated by the Amazon wildlife and flora he was exposed to.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 9th 2019 at 11:35:35 AM

I also can't help but notice that Christie and Laura also fall under But Not Too Black.

I can sort of understand it in Christie Monteiro's case as she's based off of Jennifer Lopez and is about as dark. Laura is a weird case because she's got dreadlocks, but her brother Sean is much darker skinned and obviously having black heritage compared to her.

I thought she was based on Tyra Banks.

Edited by windleopard on Aug 10th 2019 at 2:18:37 AM

Confirmed not.

Isn't Blanka's real name Billy or something?