(no subject)

[pearwaldorf]

Hey cabell, I don't know if you've seen this, but I thought it might be of interest: White woman wants to know if it's "OK" to play as a person of another race in MMO.

Given that you can play as a talking cow, a troll, or an elf in World of Warcraft, I'm not sure that skin color should be as much of an issue as this woman seems to make it. In an MMO, skin color is usually a question of aesthetics, not of the assumption or appropriation of the experiences of a certain ethnic group, which is where I think this woman's discomfort stems from. Not to say that people don't make assumptions based on appearances in MMOs, but in an environment where anybody could be behind your avatar, it doesn't seem like it should be that big a deal.

Random links that I have not read yet but look interesting: Review/critique of Lisa Nakamura, Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet - the concepts of "identity tourism," "techno-orientalism"

The Internet as a way of re-evaluating and exploring parts of personality, and how people of color have been doing this forever

Comments

[3-14159.livejournal.com]

This reminds me how my siblings fussed when Halle Berry was cast to play Catwoman, who is a white woman in the comic books.

I didn't really care one way or the other.

[sonatine.livejournal.com]

Apparently people also fussed when they cast Jessica Alba as Sue Storm in Fantastic 4. Of course, given how whitified she is nowadays, I don't why it was even an issue. I miss her Dark Angel brunette days.

[cabell.livejournal.com]

Oooh, thanks for the link.

I don't think there's anything wrong with playing a different race than you are, although I do think it's different from playing an elf or a Tauran because of the way that people, despite their knowledge that the avatar has nothing to do with the player, IN PRACTICE tend to act as if it did. And certainly there are tendencies among some players to believe that playing a female character makes them understand what it's like to be a woman, so some people might also imagine that playing a Black character allows them to know what it's like to be Black. These people are deluded.

Anyway, I don't know if you've seen my post on WickedQueen about it, but I have a Black female controller (Marie Laveau) who has gotten comments on her afro when no one ever says anything about my main toon's wild pink 'do...

[sonatine.livejournal.com]

so some people might also imagine that playing a Black character allows them to know what it's like to be Black

I read through the link on Nakamura's book, and she discusses this very thing--she calls it identity tourism, and that's about as apt a description for it as anything. I think it's admirable that the aforementioned woman wants to avoid anything like that, but when you won't play Redguards in Oblivion just because they're phenotypically black, it seems a bit silly. But then again, racism and the concept of Other tends to crop up in the strangest places...

[redgreenblue.livejournal.com]

On a slightly related note, all my avatars in WoW (all six of them!) are female. This is a fairly common practice of course, but you wouldn't believe how many players (with male avatars) hit on me thinking that it's a girl on the other end. And I'm not talking about just the /flirt emote--I mean actual messages. It's pretty creepy.

Then again, I've also made the mistake of saying "man" and "dude" to a player with a male avatar, only to find out that it was a female player later.