“The Legend of Zelda” is "classist, sexist and racist"

[Sicklyboy]

Mario kills turtles, Pokemon are slaves, and in grand theft auto you steal cars. Its a game for crying outloud! Its not real life! This is one of the stupidest posts ive seen on here. Thats all I have to say.

You take that back. Grand Theft Auto kills people.

 

[Damian666]

this is really stupid... trying to find things in a game that arent even there...

its a game for fuck sake... O.o

 

[ForteGospel]

The fact that this has been frontpage'd and the quantity of schoolboy level responses has made me a little ashamed of this forum. There is nothing wrong with criticism of art and the questions popping up around video games at the moment are extremely important. I would suggest that you consider these situations as a chance to strengthen and improve our favored medium. Criticism does not equal condemnation.

the problem about the article is not that it criticizes a game, the problem is that it does so in a stupid way.

he even goes to say that cows should not talk to link and give him their milk because of the exploitation they go through on lon lon ranch.

he is criticizing the game for the sake of making an article and nothing more.

hell you could even say the gorons are black people on steroids, but then it would not work for his stupid theory because then the game portraits them as a mighty tribe, strong people with big hearts that welcome the hero as one of them right after he is outcasted from his own people...

see? everyone can come up with make up crap twisting ingame events

 

[BrightNeko]

I actually enjoyed Samus's portrayal in "Other M". Sure, it was a tad oversexualized, but Nintendo themselves put in Samus in a swimsuit in the earlier games (if you finished the game the "right" way ) so it was hardly something outside of the norm and sure, she was talking about "the baby" too much, but for once it was attempted to show her as a human being and I personally liked it. People complain about her reliance on Adam, but Adam is not a new character - he was mentioned in Zero mission and we already know that the two had a "connection". All in all, they did a good job - a lot of the criticizm concerning "Other M" is ill-founded.

I want to add on to this. I know it isn't at the topic on hand though, but around the time fusion came out we saw a canon comic release with it. That goes into samus' past and explains far more than what we see in the games. Further explaining her PTSD, relying on Adam, and why she tends to do things alone. Unfortunately the company that was going to release the comic in english formats held onto the license for it instead not having enough money to print it. An when they did get the money the game was such a far off memory they just didn't feel like it.


As for the actual topic at hand, people read into things far to often even when the subtext isn't there are is completely accidental. If any zelda did come close to anything like this it would have been majora's mask or twilight princess. Which actually do stretch racism, and class to extremes. majora's mask having it littered everywhere in very small portions, and twilight princess making it part of a character arc for midna your supporting character. Who at the very start seems to press the idea of getting help from a human, loves treating you like a dog when you are one, and until her break down is a mighty bitch in general about everything. Really though that is all how you read into it >_>

 

[Auyx]

the problem about the article is not that it criticizes a game, the problem is that it does so in a stupid way.

he even goes to say that cows should not talk to link and give him their milk because of the exploitation they go through on lon lon ranch.

he is criticizing the game for the sake of making an article and nothing more.

hell you could even say the gorons are black people on steroids, but then it would not work for his stupid theory because then the game portraits them as a mighty tribe, strong people with big hearts that welcome the hero as one of them right after he is outcasted from his own people...

see? everyone can come up with make up crap twisting ingame events

The quality of the original article was not really what got under my skin but the fact that people took it not as an opportunity to dispute the points made and have a debate but to to debase the notion that a discussion is worth having. Rip apart his opinions as much as you want but the "its just a game, lulz" stuff makes me disappointed. Debates are not witch hunts they only help us to think broadly.

 

[MelodieOctavia]

The quality of the original article was not really what got under my skin but the fact that people took it not as an opportunity to dispute the points made and have a debate but to to debase the notion that a discussion is worth having. Rip apart his opinions as much as you want but the "its just a game, lulz" stuff makes me disappointed. Debates are not witch hunts they only help us to think broadly.

I could debate with you that the moon is made of cheese, and that Obama is a reptilian bent on the destruction of our planet because we shined a laser at one of their space ships in 1987 and have not apologized for it, and present to you bullet points on a 56 page PowerPoint presentation on why I believe it so. To me, the premise of this article is just as silly. There is nothing to debate here. This is clickbait sensationalism at it's finest. Debating the point of this article would be like debating the details of this week's National Inquirer. Debating for the sake of debating may be a fun activity, but let's not fool ourselves into believing it actively helps anyone broaden their views.

 

[jayjay123]

This gripping analysis can be found below
Next they're going to be saying that it's too realistic. Given that the world is classist, sexist and racist...


Source

And no this isn't satire.

Next they'll be saying that it's too realistic for a fantasy game.
Given that the world is classist, sexist and racist...

 

[mthrnite]

Whether something is racist/sexist/x-ist depends on how much power you want to give to the words racist/sexist. If you label slightly racist stuff as racist, then equivocate it with all other racist stuff, then the term racism either loses most of it's power or you move into "systemic racism" where basically everything has racist connotations, and you have to find another term for racism, or use some sort of qualifier like "egregious" to set it apart.

Personally, I like conversations like this, even if the topic is pretty much impossible to flesh out without splitting infinite hairs.

 

[Gahars]

The fact that this has been frontpage'd and the quantity of schoolboy level responses has made me a little ashamed of this forum. There is nothing wrong with criticism of art and the questions popping up around video games at the moment are extremely important. I would suggest that you consider these situations as a chance to strengthen and improve our favored medium. Criticism does not equal condemnation.

I agree with you to a point. We can't claim that video games are an artistic medium one minute and then fall back on, "They're just video games, you can't look into them!" the next without losing some credibility. We can't have it both ways.

The problem isn't that the author of the article criticized a video game. Criticism isn't inherently bad. The problem is that he did it poorly (making sweeping generalizations, ignoring context, getting shit plain wrong, etc.) for the sake of easy controversy and blatant linkbait.

You wouldn't say there's no point in analyzing poetry just because someone talks out of their ass about "The Red Wheelbarrow" actually being about communism or whatever. This is pretty much the same case, except replace "Communism" with "Muh social justice feels!"

 

[TVL]

A communist vegan feminist... That just has to be the most miserable person on earth. And surprise, he/she found something to complain about.

 

[SuzieJoeBob]

We are talking about the Red Scare and the fear of Communism in my history class. Maybe I should print this shit well-thought and insightful piece and present it to the class.

 

[Smuff]

With reference to the source in the OP, if you found Zelda that offensive, for your own sake stay off the internet. !0 mins of random surfing and you'll most probably explode (literally!) with self righteous sanctimonious indignation.



And stay the fuck away from GTA, for the love of Jeebus.

 

[ForteGospel]

With reference to the source in the OP, if you found Zelda that offensive, for your own sake stay off the internet. !0 mins of random surfing and you'll most probably explode (literally!) with self righteous sanctimonious indignation.



And stay the fuck away from GTA, for the love of Jeebus.

actually that might give him some proportions....

 

[AlanJohn]

I read it at first as "Classiest" and "Sexiest".

 

[Transdude1996]

If you guys want another argument on the same article, go here:

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/631516-wii-u/67434100

 

[ThatDudeWithTheFood]

Social commentary in video games now being passed off as racism.

I wonder if the person who wrote this played GTA 5 and said the same thing about almost everything in the game.

 

[Deleted_171835]

Social commentary in video games now being passed off as racism.

Social commentary...in a Zelda game?

 

[shamiko_]

I'd also like to add that Mario games objectify women - they put Princess Peach in the position of a constant victim, completely unable to take care of herself without the help of a man to save her despite the fact that she's apparently capable of single-handedly ruling an entire realm.

What about Super Princess Peach? For once she stars in her own game and saves Mario herself. Though you could say that the use of emotions itself as a source of power is sexist in itself but that's just a typical feature of females.

Also I like how this person overlooks the simple fact that dark colours often have connotations of being negative overall anyway.

 

[ThatDudeWithTheFood]

Social commentary...in a Zelda game?

It's a reach but I didn't create the game so I can't say for certain it's not.
Video games are supposed to be an art form so we must treat it as such.

 

[3bbb7]

Seeing that he says “Ocarina” rather than “Ocarina of Time” makes it sound like the author has never touched this game let alone heard of it and has no idea what it is until now when he grabbed these quotes off of the internet and tried to make an article hoping to become heard and to put down a legendary series (which isnt going to happen)

o hey guys i have more bad games here
pikmin is racist because olimar and louie are white
animal crossing is supporting animal cruelity u can hit the animals with nets
mario kart is supporting cruelity against others because you throw shells at each other! it encourages road rage and that can cause accidents irl OMG

I can go on forever, this article is a joke