Month: October 2016

Okay, now we’ve all been assured that Mercy’s sexy witch outfit was not even a little bit sexualized or made to pander to a particular demographic…

…and that Blizzard only makes these special events for “fun” and certainly not as part of a larger strategy to make money and promote themselves…

…let’s talk about the other aspect of the Halloween event: White washing and placing a lower value on characters of color, especially female characters of color (so much so they forget that they’re skin is brown).

For those already frantically typing apologies:

• Hanzo got to keep his tattoos, they even recolored them for him to better fit his “demon” persona (and his grey skin tone matches his regular)
• So how many of you noticed that Pharah, Symmetra and Hanzo are

  Possessed ,Vampire and Demon respectively but generic white guy Soldier 76 is “immortal”? That’s not generic “Immortal” that’s “homage to Michael Jackson’s Thriller” btw.

• Now you’ve typed your bit about the Summer Games Event did you happen to notice how Mei got completely left out of that too?
• So Symmetra’s vampire form having pale white skin is not whitewashing… Because all vampires/undead ever, regardless ethnicity, are supposed to be pale white? How so? Who makes up rules on how vampires work other than people who write them? Regardless of so many better options? If we’re obligated to imitate previous imagery, why don’t more vampires look like Count Orlock? 

• Lastly, Blizzard recently announced they’re going to make potentially dramatic changes to one character to make them viable (and they don’t yet seem to be sure what changes those will be). Can you guess which character? If you guessed the brown lady in the sexy cocktail dress who’s recently been white-washed for Halloween you’d be right!

Here’s the reality: Blizzard makes games with a very big focus on making money, and with Overwatch they’ve been promoting themselves as being more concerned about representation – but they haven’t been following through.  Not for women, not for other cultures and not for people of color.  It’s basically an going mess of glorification of white men at the expense of others, this leads to a certain demographic having a relationship with the media that’s well…

tl;dr: Blizzard’s depictions of women in general are terrible, but their treatment of female characters of color is even worse. Blizzard is pretty blatant about using brown skin tones as an optional accessory in their ongoing quest to make money via highly commercial video games and that is not okay no matter how many half-arsed excuses are made on their behalf.

– wincenworks

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