Black Characters in Gaming- Lebron James (NBA Live/2K/Street/Jam/Shootout/Courtside/Ballers)

Now seems like the perfect time to choose a real life black athlete who plays like a video game created player. That player, of course, is Lebron James. He has taken his game and legacy to new heights with this championship (#ALLIN, #DROUGHTSOVER, #BELIEVELAND) and put up numbers in the NBA Finals this year that seemingly could only be done in NBA 2K. He did it against another game breaking player in Steph Curry (who famously ruined NBA 2K because he can hit 3’s from anywhere at anytime and that ruins video game balance).

I will give you the abridged version of why Lebron matters in real life and then why in video games. Lebron was born in North East, Ohio. Was a legend for the people of Akron. He was the prophet seemingly born to bring a championship to the Cleveland. He was drafted by the Cavs and started an epic stat filling career. Lebron went to the Finals early, got ruined by the Spurs but gave hope. Then Lebron dumped Cleveland for Miami, won some rings and came home. He didn’t just come home, he came back to Cleveland and promised a ring (no pressure right?) and he pulled it off.

Lebron in video games is a very interesting thing, to give context he exists in a world where gamer’s grew up not having access to the greatest players of all time. Michael Jordan was in “Jordan vs. Bird” back in the early Genesis era but after that he disappeared.

In NBA Jam, there was no Jordan. It was crazy, the most fun basketball game ever made didn’t have Jordan. A game about glorifying the dunk was missing his airness… but that was the 90’s.

I remember feeling cheated in NBA Live ’98 when the Bulls would trot out “Player” who was a bald black SG but was not MJ.

It cheapened an entire generation of games because the biggest icon in the league was missing. Cut to Lebron James. He had every right to not be in video games but that wasn’t the case. He was as accessible in games as he was off the court. He was seemingly a real life game character that leaped out of the Xbox 360 and onto TNT Thursday nights. I envy kids who got to grow up using Lebron in NBA 2K.

LBJ is a fascinating figure in games. He basically broke 2K ratings from the jump. He was rated a human 78 overall because he a kid coming out of High School. Who knew he would be able to man up at 18 the way he did. NBA2K4 has a human 78 Lebron who can’t shoot a jumper but is athletic and can dunk. He was also listed as a PG in that game! We all know he was a center masquerading as a small forward.

From his second year on Lebrons rise in ratings in 2K is meteoric. 88 to 97 to basically 100’s. How do you rate a guy who can dribble like Anthony Mason, Pass like Magic Johnson, Shoot like Charles Oakley, and defend/rebound like Rodman. He’s a gamebreaker and who doesn’t want to play with the gamebreaker! 

Significance of Lebron as a black video game character- Lebron is the rare combination of a transcendent athlete and a masterful role model. He accomplishes this by not conforming to white standards or losing his “realness”. Lebron is covered in tattoos and rolls around with a crew of his boys from the hood yet still connects with everybody. Where Iverson was/is a polarizing hyper black figure that is incorrectly and offensively labeled a thug, Lebron avoided all of this. He was liked by white people and emulated by black people. He has Jordan-like shoes without the Jordan-like stigman. He’s married and didn’t cheat on his wife. He shows the world that a black man with tattoos from a low income environment isn’t a criminal in waiting.

Lebron also forced a generation of devs to constantly work on their representations of tattoos.

Stereotypes

Black Athlete as thug- As stated above, he’s stayed out of trouble. He’s been authentic. He’s stayed true to his roots.

Black Athlete as womanizer/rapist- He is a great father and is happily married.

Black Athlete as selfish (unwilling to pass, doesn’t care about his people)- Lebron’s biggest crime is he passes too much. He is willing to let guys like JR Smith shine, hence the high rating in passing every year for LBJ.

Black man as criminal- He has a few speeding tickets?

Black man as lazy- There is this idea that black greatness is a result of talent and not hard work. Watching Lebron grow as a player and athletically has been incredible. His 2K ratings show it in the gaming world but the eye test shows how much Lebron has improved. Hard work personified is Lyndon B. Johnson, I mean LBJ. Lebron James.

Black man loves white women- He married a black woman so BOOM! Take that society! Lebron bucking all the trends!

Ain’t that some racist shit….

Is Lebron James (and his representation in video games) problematic?

Being able to select a Cleveland team in a video game and know that they are the reigning champs will be magical. It has never been done before. Lebron has been the most accessible transcendent talent in gaming since Bo Jackson, Mike Vick, and Kobe. James has been the small market hero sports gaming needs. So to answer the question, No. Lebron is not problematic and frankly most sports game are in a position to not present him in a problematic light. There really isn’t a story mode where you can be Lebron and take through Cleveland. MyPlayer mode might have a chance interaction with a real pro but most of the interactions happen on the court. Except in NBA Ballers. That shit was problematic! That is a post for another time. Peace! Go Cavs! Lebron did it big! 3-1 to 4-3! 52 year drought OVER!!!!

Really hard to find a Cleveland version of this…

I’m just playin…

Black Characters in Gaming- Balrog

I want to take a look at my favorite black characters in Videogames. I want to parse out why they matter to me, and look at what they reinforce on a larger scale. Let us delve into how they are problematic characters for black people or good for us. I have to start with my first black experience in video games; Balrog from Street Fighter II. Balrog, the boxer turned Shadaloo muscle working for M. Bison in Street Fighter II.

He is named M. Bison in Japan (think Mike Tyson) but that wasn’t going to fly here due to copyright issues etc. Balrog looks a lot like Mike Tyson, big muscles, tough mug, ripped clothes and boxing gloves. Balrog is a charge character with no kicks. All punches, and a devastating headbutt grab. Why does Balrog matter to me? He was my first.

As a young kid (8, 9 years old maybe) he was the first character I have ever seen who looked like me! I’m not a Japanese woman, or a large white Russian man, but I am a black kid and Balrogs looks like me. He was black, he was powerful, he was won fights. Balrog looked like what I thought a man should look like. He was too big for clothes! He was a super hero for me. I could beat anybody with Balrog, and watching my black avatar beat up these other ethnic stereoptypes was a big deal for me as a kid and frankly still holds weight now. When you beat the game (depending on the version) Balrog’s ending animation shows him with riches and white women! Made sense to me as a kid! He was a role model. He is a role model, every once and a while at the gym I look at myself and think, “I am one step closer to looking like Balrog”. Balrog represents pure power to me and he is power I can replicate. He doesn’t shoot orbs or create fire, he uses his fist. I have fist. I can punch. He headbutts, I can headbutt. He is as realistic as a character gets in Street Fighter, hell he looks like a clone of THE Mr. O Ronnie Coleman. As I got older I had to ask…..Is he problematic? Is my hero a mocking stereotype of a black athlete and a black man? Short answer yes, long answer…still yes but that doesn’t mean he is all bad!

What do I mean when I say Balrog is problematic? In the games industry the biggest issue with representations of race is that certain races are represented a very limited basis. If those representations are negative it can have harmful effects. To elaborate, White characters are represented in every capacity in games. They are protagonist, antagonist, drug dealers, and cops. You see enough positive white figures in games that the negative ones don’t stand out. For black characters that is simply not the case. Balrog becomes one of very few black representations we have in gaming. If he was the only black person a white kid in the suburbs saw in ’94 what are they going to think about black people? It’s problematic.

Let’s look closer at who Balrog is and what stereotypes he reinforces.

Stereotype: Lazy Black Man

Balrog got barred from professional boxing due to cheating and gambling. He wanted to get rich the easy way instead of winning and building a career.

Stereotype: UnIntelligent Black Man

In a lot of the versions of Street Fighter II if you beat the game with Balrog they will tell you how he took over Shadaloo and ruined the empire due to his stupidity. Sigh… at least we have a black president who isn’t running the country into the groun…never mind.

Stereotype: Prefers white women

This stereotype is a hot button issue both in the black community and white. The idea is that as soon as a black man gets successful they exclusively date white women. The rationale being they have wanted white women the whole time.  When you beat the game with balrog this image below is your reward….. he finally made it…

Stereotype: Athletically gifted

Think Black men are good at basketball and extrapolate that to other sports. It’s problematic because athletic success comes from hard work, and by attributing it to race it devalues the hard work and training black athletes put into their craft.

Stereotype: Black man as criminal

See mass incarceration of black men in America. Statistically 1 in 3 black men will be arrested in their lifetime. Watch the news….it’s a black prison beauty pageant.

This is problematic because Balrog is one of the few major recurring black figures in gaming. If we had more black people in games, negative images like this would not be so harmful but we are not there yet. As a kid this was one of very few options for me to look up to and that’s a shame. At least the white kids had Mario and Luigi!

That said, like  Tyler Perry film you have to love that he has persisted throughout the years as a main stay character in the Street Fighter franchise. He is still strong and still a menacing character to use in the game. Over the years Capcom has stuck with Balrog and I still use him to this day. I don’t hate that Balrog exist, I just wish he had a positive character to counter him (maybe DeeJay?). I also think it is important that he was made by a Japanese studio, and their perceptions and knowledge of race in America are limited compared to somebody from the states.

That’s all I got for Balrog! Peace.

And you think you know somebody….

Giantbomb.com has been a staple in my gaming life for years. I don’t know anybody who works there bu I consider them friends. The closest I have ever been to the crew is when i was playing Blur on 360 and we did a few races together. I sent them a message and they responded, one my favorite gaming experiences. I bomb in the A.M and I schedule my weeks around the bombcast. These guys (Patrick, Brad, Jeff, etc) are people that I truly think are good and really bring a lot of joy to the field.

They are the type of guys I would love to have a beer with, and that’s why it was so disappointing last week when the hiring “scandal” and twitter harassment ensued. A quick recap of events- Giantbomb has been an advocate for equality in game for years, Giantbomb has 2 openings, they hire 2 white men. While this may not seem like a shocking turn of events. It was really sad and a stark realization of the good ole boys network that is videogame journalism. They picked people who “fit in”. They hired people who they were “comfortable” with .  They picked “known commodities”. They did what people do to my sister, Dara, all the time.

My sister has CP and is in a wheelchair. She is super smart, has a master’s degree and has a large network of friends. This is all well and good until it comes to hire somebody and all of sudden she can’t find a job. She can’t get jobs that she is qualified or over-qualified for…and shes applying with people she knows and works with. They always choose a better fit or somebody who can hit the ground running (for lack of a better metaphor). The reality is they don’t want to hire somebody different. They don’t want to see a black woman in a wheelchair everyday. They don’t want to worry about how wide the doors are or if the light switches are accessible. These people will never say this to her but they don’t need to, their actions speak volumes. She is unemployed.

Taking this back to Giantbomb.com, it is just so disheartening that the hired 2 more white men. 2 qualified talented white men that I am sure I will like. But 2 more white men none the less. Rarely do people have a chance to make a difference but here was there shot. Hire a black guy, hire a woman, hire a veteran. They took the easy way out and thankfully got lambasted for it. It’s just so sad to see this play out. People talk about glass ceilings and what privilege looks like and this is it. Giantbomb can keep doing the status quo and be acceptable, they never have to hire anybody different and that’s ok. Giantbomb had a chance to put their money where there mouth was and they dropped the ball.

I still visit Gianbomb but it’s a somber experience. On some weird level I feel rejected by them. By there refusal to hire diverse people I feel like they don’t really care about my thoughts and feelings. It’s like when you best friend tells you he loves black people but he would never want his sister to date a black woman. That’s different. Giantbomb loves diversity and inclusiveness but not enough to date it…not enough to put money towards it. That’s a shame.