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Red Dead Redemption 2's Redface Proves How Far Games Haven't Come

It’s nearly the end of 2018, and I have to write an article about blackface and redface in Red Dead Redemption 2.

That sucks.

It sucks, because it means no one bothered to interrogate the casting. It sucks, because I know the pushback I’ll get for being the one to call out readily apparent racism in a game that opened to $725 million in sales. It sucks, because we’re still having to have conversations about why the perpetuation of racist stereotypes and the dehumanization of people of color is bad. It sucks, because didn’t we just do this with Uncharted: The Lost Legacy?

And it sucks, because I hoped maybe we could do better than Charles, and as a Native woman who got her start pleading with games journalists and developers to do better, I wouldn’t need to keep writing these articles.

Charles Smith has a Black father and a Native mother. He doesn’t know the name of his tribe, his father was an alcoholic, and his mother was taken by soldiers. Charles is grateful to find a group of white outlaws to accept him. He uses every part of the buffalo. Charles sucks. He’s another racist Rockstar caricature, and honestly that should be enough. But there’s another issue with Charles.

The actor who portrays him is neither Black nor Indigenous.

But, that’s complicated, because as is not infrequently the case with Native characters in films, he is a person of color.

The two other major Native characters in Rockstar’s cinematic Western labor abuse disaster are voiced by Graham Greene (Oneida) and Jeremiah Bitsui (Navajo/Omaha). Notable Black characters like Lenny, Tilly and Anthony are voiced by Black actors Harron Atkins, Meeya Davis and David St. Louis, respectively. Tatanka Means (Lakota/Dine) and David Midthunder (Lakota/Dakota/Nakota), among others, add their voices to the long list of incidental characters. Rockstar could have chosen any of these actors, the ones providing incidental voices, or literally any Black and/or Indigenous actor in this role, but they didn’t.

They cast Noshir Dalal, a Japanese and Parsi actor, who claims his being “pretty damn ethnically ambiguous” as a selling point, and that his “look” covers a wide-range of ethnicities. I don’t really blame Dalal. Playing into this ambiguity is what white supremacy in the fiercely competitive space of acting demands of marginalized people.

Blackface and redface have been an unfortunate constant, particularly in what is currently called America, for centuries. From its inseparability from 19th century American theater to later Hollywood films, (usually, but not exclusively) white actors have been pretending to be Black and Indigenous, typically as radically offensive stereotypes. Now, with digitally created characters, we’ve shifted from the makeup and costuming to their CG counterparts. Mocap actors inhabit and voice constructs of Blackness and Indigeneity. It’s a violence that continues to dehumanize and perpetuate racist ideas about people of color.

In addition to the usual violence of black or redface, what this “alternative” to whites performing in black and redface communicates that people of color are entirely interchangeable. That our lives and experiences and understandings are not unique, that we are merely “Other.” It perpetuates white supremacy. And, in a way, it’s worse than if they’d simply cast only white actors. Due to the casting of other Native and Black actors elsewhere in Red Dead Redemption 2, it communicates “We know better, we just don’t care.”


But, of course, it’s not merely that another AAA blockbuster did digital red and blackface. The problem is this kind of low-key racialized aggression doesn’t end with the act itself. This casting means a Black, Native (or, god forbid, a Black Native actor) didn’t get to play an actual Black Native role (and since Rockstar likes lesser known actors, a potential breakthrough role for them). They didn’t get to offer any feedback or help guide the role away from the regressive stereotypes present in the game, like Michael Greyeyes (Plains Cree) was afforded with 2006’s Prey. By not casting an Indigenous actor in the role, there was no real challenge to the racism in Houser’s story or characters, and that means that challenge has to come from us, from journalists, critics, gamers. And, well, it hasn’t been.

The most biting criticisms it received are about the labor conditions that created it, which is important and good. But in the month after those critiques, indigenous people have had to watch as this game, this character (and Dan Houser for creating him) are praised. And when literally any games critic or journalist could have written this piece, it’s once again up to me, the indigenous woman, to raise these issues alone. And there’s the equally inevitable silence from developers, journalists, and gamers themselves after this piece is chewed up and forgotten in the constant churn of games discourse.

It’s 2018, and I’m really tired of having to write this piece, the reasons I have to write it, and everything having to write it says about the world we live in.
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https://www.pastemagazine.com/artic...edemption-2s-redface-proves-how-far-game.html

Seriously Charles was one of my favourite characters.
Some people will complain about everything and anything.
 
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Yellow Yam Scam said:
So is RDR2 online any good? Or is it just grinding for stuff?
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In Story Mode the Cattleman Revolver costs $37 or so. In Online it costs $377 and you make about $5 a mission, even in PvP matches. It's still an early beta and I hope to God they mean beta like it was meant in the 90's, because if they don't then I'm not expecting this to improve at all. I'm not expecting the character creator to improve -- which it needs to be improved on because it's an embarrassment compared to GTA Online's now that I've messed with it for over five hours or so, I'm not expecting missions to pay good money, I'm not gonna expect online gambling of in game money, I'm not gonna expect an abundance of wildlife - it feels dead despite there being thirty players on one map - and I'm not gonna expect cosmetics to improve since it costs up to 35 gold bars to make your entire pistol gold and it takes 20 hours to get just one gold bar at present. Plus some costumes and horses can only be bought with gold bars and that's trash.

Honestly, I'm messing around with it and you can have fun, but as it stands it suffers from the three G's: Griefers, Grinding and expensive Gear. I have no idea what Rockstar plans to do, but with an ad in the Catalogue saying prices will not go down it's like TakeTwo is telling us to go fuck ourselves. And I won't do that, no sir. That's a sin.
 
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Randy Lahey said:
Charles, Sadie and John are the only gang members I actually felt that Arthur could trust at the end.
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I thought that the evolution of Arthur's relationship with John going from Arthur constantly chastising John for the period when he left the gang to go off on his own and generally being a dick to him and eventually growing to like him a little and in the end becoming a good friend was done really well and in a manner that was respectful to both fans of John and Arthur. When I saw John in-game I was worried that the game was going to leave Arthur as a non-character and we'd get another game that was just about jerking off John's character but I was very wrong, both Arthur and John were really well-rounded characters and the game was mostly about Arthur. Especially the closure for the Arthur/John arc was "manly tears were shed" kind of moment.

With Sadie I was a bit disappointed in the beginning about how little we got to interact with her but from the Lemoyne chapter onwards she also started to get more characterization and besides having a bit of a crush on her physical attributes and such I think her character arc also worked wonderfully in the end and it actually managed to surprise me but in a positive way. I would've wanted a bit more interaction / missions with her but even as such I really liked her as a character.
 
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SiccDicc said:
In Story Mode the Cattleman Revolver costs $37 or so. In Online it costs $377 and you make about $5 a mission, even in PvP matches. It's still an early beta and I hope to God they mean beta like it was meant in the 90's, because if they don't then I'm not expecting this to improve at all. I'm not expecting the character creator to improve -- which it needs to be improved on because it's an embarrassment compared to GTA Online's now that I've messed with it for over five hours or so, I'm not expecting missions to pay good money, I'm not gonna expect online gambling of in game money, I'm not gonna expect an abundance of wildlife - it feels dead despite there being thirty players on one map - and I'm not gonna expect cosmetics to improve since it costs up to 35 gold bars to make your entire pistol gold and it takes 20 hours to get just one gold bar at present. Plus some costumes and horses can only be bought with gold bars and that's trash.

Honestly, I'm messing around with it and you can have fun, but as it stands it suffers from the three G's: Griefers, Grinding and expensive Gear. I have no idea what Rockstar plans to do, but with an ad in the Catalogue saying prices will not go down it's like TakeTwo is telling us to go fuck ourselves. And I won't do that, no sir. That's a sin.
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Great, so it's an even worse version of GTA Online. Fucking perfect.

Well, I guess Single Player DLC is now in jeopardy. At least the base game feels more complete than GTA V's.
 
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Vault Boy said:
Great, so it's an even worse version of GTA Online. Fucking perfect.

Well, I guess Single Player DLC is now in jeopardy. At least the base game feels more complete than GTA V's.
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they wont release single player dlc. they realized that online is vastly more profitable than single player content which is why the idea was scrapped for gtav. get ready for armored flying horses that cost 1.5 million dollars in the future
 
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Playing through the game for a second time now and taking things more slowly to take things in and explore the world more and I have to admit this game is amazing and is possibly even better that the first one.
I honestly cant say enough good things about it.
 
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My VG chat comment applies here too
purpleboy said:
the 2018 vga drama basically consists of "greek man bad, cowman good" vs. "cowman bad, greek man good". Meanwhile, most nonbrainlets don't give a shit because GOW and RDR2 are EXTREMELY different games
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Clown Doll said:
I thought that the evolution of Arthur's relationship with John going from Arthur constantly chastising John for the period when he left the gang to go off on his own and generally being a dick to him and eventually growing to like him a little and in the end becoming a good friend was done really well and in a manner that was respectful to both fans of John and Arthur. When I saw John in-game I was worried that the game was going to leave Arthur as a non-character and we'd get another game that was just about jerking off John's character but I was very wrong, both Arthur and John were really well-rounded characters and the game was mostly about Arthur. Especially the closure for the Arthur/John arc was "manly tears were shed" kind of moment.

With Sadie I was a bit disappointed in the beginning about how little we got to interact with her but from the Lemoyne chapter onwards she also started to get more characterization and besides having a bit of a crush on her physical attributes and such I think her character arc also worked wonderfully in the end and it actually managed to surprise me but in a positive way. I would've wanted a bit more interaction / missions with her but even as such I really liked her as a character.
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I wouldn't call RDR1 a "John Marson Jerk off"
 
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ulsterscotsman said:
https://www.pastemagazine.com/artic...edemption-2s-redface-proves-how-far-game.html

Seriously Charles was one of my favourite characters.
Some people will complain about everything and anything.
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What an entitled snowflake. I guess we should condemn the latest God of War as well because it cast a black actor to portray a Greek demigod. Oh wait, it's only a crime against humanity when this sort of thing happens to a non-white character.

Anyway, it's been more than a month since I first bought this game, and I still haven't finished the main storyline (I'm on the second epilogue). To me, the sign of a good open-world game is how much time I spend on it before completing the primary narrative doing sidequests and exploring the world, and I don't think I've spent this long on any open-world game besides Mercenaries 2 (for comparison, I finished the main story of the first Red Dead in 1 1/2 weeks).

I'm also very impressed with how much Rockstar made me like Arthur Morgan to the point where I was actually disappointed that he dies and you play as John, who I'm already partial to, for the rest of the game. And now I finally see why "fuck Micah" has become such a meme: pre-Chapter 6 I found him merely irritating but now I wanna skin that son of a bitch alive and hang him from a tree Predator-style.
 
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purpleboy said:
I wouldn't call RDR1 a "John Marson Jerk off"
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I guess it was badly worded on my part. What I meant that I was worrying that RDR2 was going to lean too hard on John Marston fanservice but all things considering I think there was a good balance between building his character up and being substantial instead of him totally stealing the show.

Lensherr said:
What an entitled snowflake. I guess we should condemn the latest God of War as well because it cast a black actor to portray a Greek demigod. Oh wait, it's only a crime against humanity when this sort of thing happens to a non-white character.
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Never even bothered to read the article as soon as it was summarized for me I kinda knew it was one of those clickbait articles most people on either side of the political spectrum are very likely to dismiss as obnoxious overproblematizing bs.
 
Clown Doll said:
I guess it was badly worded on my part. What I meant that I was worrying that RDR2 was going to lean too hard on John Marston fanservice but all things considering I think there was a good balance between building his character up and being substantial instead of him totally stealing the show.
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If anything, he's not held in very high regard by the gang, mainly because he abandoned them for a year or so after Jack was born.

I was also really impressed by Rob Wiethoff's (sp?) voice acting for him in this game, since he made him come off as noticeably younger and less sophisticated as compared to his older self in the first game.
 
Did anyone else have (or still having?) a really hard time actually getting invested in the game? I bought it a couple weeks back and it feels like I've just investing hours into it trying to get to the fun part, instead of just having fun with it.
 
Lensherr said:
I was also really impressed by Rob Wiethoff's (sp?) voice acting for him in this game, since he made him come off as noticeably younger and less sophisticated as compared to his older self in the first game.
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The voice acting in general is really top notch. Roger Clark (the guy who does Arthur's voice) got an award for his voicework for Arthur and even though the rest of the cast was also top notch, to me Arthur and Dutch really stood out from the cast (there could be some bias because they were so central to the story so they had more screentime I guess) really well. Micah's VA was on-point as well.

KillThemCrackasBabies said:
Did anyone else have (or still having?) a really hard time actually getting invested in the game? I bought it a couple weeks back and it feels like I've just investing hours into it trying to get to the fun part, instead of just having fun with it.
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I don't know where exactly you are in the story but even as a HUGE fan of the game (and RDR1) I think it's got a really slow start (although granted it's also a massive game so it's understandable). The prologue in Ambarino while visually gorgeous, is sometimes a bit painful to sit through since you're not allowed to do anything until the game's given you the okay to do it and you have very limited tools, your deadeye sucks etc. I think the game really gets into speed around halfway through Chapter 2, before that the training wheels are locked in place rather tightly.
 
Clown Doll said:
I don't know where exactly you are in the story but even as a HUGE fan of the game (and RDR1) I think it's got a really slow start (although granted it's also a massive game so it's understandable). The prologue in Ambarino while visually gorgeous, is sometimes a bit painful to sit through since you're not allowed to do anything until the game's given you the okay to do it and you have very limited tools, your deadeye sucks etc. I think the game really gets into speed around halfway through Chapter 2, before that the training wheels are locked in place rather tightly.
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So did the first game though. Remember herding a Bonnie's ranch. Yeah, "fun shit"
 
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So a week back I read something about RDR1's story being merged into a DLC expansion for RDR2... Would this even be likely of a thing? Considering Rockstar doesn't or at least very very rarely does invest in remasters or remakes.
 
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