All Channels
Popular
470°

Is Mortal Kombat Racist?

The Faster Times: "Regrettably, Mortal Kombat‘s wide spectrum of exposure suffers from racial pratfalls that sully each of its entertainment mediums, raising questions about its architects’ commitment to the Asian essence of its universe.

Mortal Kombat‘s two white creators, Ed Boon and John Tobias, brought a deliberately Asian air to the first game in 1992, and built upon it in their follow-up games. Elements related to or inspired by Far East culture, such as the use of certain symbols (specifically the trademark dragon logo and the taijitu yin and yang pattern), environments (involving imperial architecture and décor), the garb and appearance of pivotal characters (distinguished by the likes of the conical hat, sash, ninja mask, high ponytail, or long and thin beard) and even the soundtrack (including imitations of the gong, traditional plucked instruments, etc.) contributed to an unmistakably Asian atmosphere.

With that in mind, the unmistakably Eastern mark stamped...

Read Full Story >>
thefastertimes.com
blackbeld5423d ago

Why stupid.

If you actually read the article then you noticed that he got some interesting points.

The characters are whitening just like Dragon Ball and Street fighter movies.

thisguywithhair5422d ago

@blackbeld

This is a stupid and racist article. Every single one of his points is punctuated by him saying some form of "this character would have been better if he/she was non-white." That is his entire argument.

The only game that even come close to "real" racism is Resident Evil 5. Even that game isn't that bad as almost everything racist is actually explained in the game, it doesn't make much sense but it is there. It seems to be the thing to do nowadays to nit-pick the race of every single character in every form of media. Just read an article a few weeks ago claiming that the new X-Men movie is racist.

My theory is that until all characters are played by blank slates no one will be happy.

bruddahmanmatt5422d ago

It's VERY racist. Those of us in the four armed community have always felt underrepresented. I mean Sheeva, WTF dude she sucks?

Lovable5422d ago

@bruddahmanmatt

LOL. Dude you made my day...Good shit

Army_of_Darkness5422d ago

What!? How does Re5 even come close!?!? Just cause your shooting zombies which happen to be black this time!? Lol! Oh please.... I'm sure there are games out there that are intentionally racist, just not so obvious...

zeeshan5422d ago

I don't know anything about MK but I do know that this article is racist!

AngryTypingGuy5422d ago (Edited 5422d ago )

I'm tired of minorities and "guilty-white people" always playing the race card. No one cares. Why do white people always have to be the racist ones?

Other races are just as racist, it just doesn't get played out in the media. If a white person attacks a minority, then it's AUTOMATICALLY a hate crime in the media, where if black or Latinos attack a white person, it's a case of "unruly teenagers". Many news sources are too politically correct to even GIVE THE RACE of an attacker if he's a minority. They have no problem doing so if it's a white guy though. "Be on the lookout for a man in a red hoodie sweatshirt". Yeah, that narrows it down. The stupid media doesn't realize that they're making things worse.

XRider5422d ago

Most racist dosn't know their being racist. You can clearly see that in this article. Usualy the person screaming "racism" the loudest has some sort of hate, which turns into racism.

JohnnyMann4205422d ago

Does it use stereotypes? Sure! Is it racist? Hell no. Most videogame characters are stereotypical anyways.

DeadlyFire5422d ago

EVERYTHING is Racist!!! Cry, Cry, Cry.

Its racist because white game creators made white characters? Really? They could have been other. Yes could have been. Yet they are not. The universe isn't dead. Its still kicking and likely new characters can and will exist in the future.

DaTruth5422d ago (Edited 5422d ago )

It's not the developers who are racist, it's the public! White people buy more stuff and the developers will get more sales if they appeal more to white people!

White people have given media producers the impression that they prefer their media to star white people or the media producers are just playing it safe!

There are more white people in Asian Anime than there are Asian people! Asian people will watch Anime no matter who is in it! But anime producers have the impresion that they will attract more white people to their product, if they have more white people in their product!

Bruce Lee lost his part to David Carradine in Kung-fu: The Legend Continues over this! Fact! Chun-Li is a white woman in Legend of Chun-Li and The Last Airbender: the movie took many Asian characters and made them white

Main_Street_Saint5422d ago

@datruth, Hey you got the Bruce Lee thing right but the show was just named, "Kung Fu." "Kung Fu: The legend continues," was the name of the sequel series back in the 90's.

pixelsword5422d ago (Edited 5422d ago )

The writer is a little off only because in terms of the game, the characters are right and was done a good service by the creators of the game; the movie however is a little out of whack, but the developers of MK probably could not cast people in the game because if I'm not mistaken, that is done by a casting director. The MK devs themselves said that the original MK was based upon movies and you can see a lot of the characters' real life counterparts.

Sonya = Cynthia Rothrock

Raiden = Lightning from Big Trouble in Little China

Liu Kang = Bruce lee

Johnny Cage = Jean Claude VanDamme

Kano = (likely Baal from Metalstorm 3D)

Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Shang Tsung (random fighters from kung-fu movies, I reckon)

Reptile (glitch, I think)

As far as the later games that the writer addresses, by then, they probably weren't as involved in the later games as they were in the earlier ones (cool drinks by a pool of supermodels won't sip themselves, you know), so any complaints there would likely fall on writers and art directors.

One pretty good point that was made from the article was that Argus god in the MK game; that's a Greek name, he shouldn't be there, unless they did a mash-up like the Marvel vs. DC universe. That would have been sweet to see ancient Greek counterparts to MK's universe.

Other than that, I don't know about those other characters other people on this thread are talking about because I don't know about the air-bender and those other movies. I never watched those movies.

+ Show (10) more repliesLast reply 5422d ago
Kurylo3d5423d ago

i think the author of this article is the only racist here.. he just hates white people.

Bonobo123455422d ago

It could have been written better.

Although I always thought a white raiden was kinda dumb, and the white actors that play raiden never convince me.

The counter argument for this article is that MK was written for a white audience primarily, so they made the characters white.

Kurylo3d5422d ago

dude.. its christopher lambert... he can be black for all i care. If its Christopher Lambert playing raiden.. its awesome.

And also whose to say some of these characters had to be asian.. like shao kahn... hes from a fictious universe named outworld... i mean.. do u mean to tell me everyone in outworld is asian? I think baraka would have something against that :) lol.

nirwanda5422d ago

At bonobo if raiden been white is so daft just ask yourself what colour lightning actually is then you will see why i think raiden should be white, anyway isn't mortal kombat about bringin the greatest warrior's from around the earth to fight for the planet

MariaHelFutura5423d ago (Edited 5423d ago )

I'm only racist towards the human race.

pixelsword5422d ago

lol

people really need to google your name along with "Metropolis"...

showtimefolks5422d ago

ITS BRUTAL AND BLOODY BUT ITS NOT RACIST

PirosThe4th5422d ago

Yep they all get chopped into pieces equally!

TrollPCFanboy5422d ago

your stupid this guy who wrote this is telling the truth

ChrisW5422d ago

It has the air of an Ethnic Studies report.

I hope he at least got a "B-" on it. It was well written, but had some rather stupid overtones.

subtenko5422d ago (Edited 5422d ago )

Mario is RACISTS! wtf, why they all gotta be Italian?! There are plenty of good non Italian plumbers too! :P

Like Jersey shore....wait...wat..

pixelsword5422d ago

Hey, I know you're trying to be funny, but I know a lot of Italian/Sicilian people and they don't even remotely relate to the characters of Jersey Shore.

slaton245422d ago

Lets see if it is being racist why do i see Jax a black man who has stayed black and cyrax was black b4 becoming a machine...and if u think about it how can u make creatures like goro and sheeva and reptile different races when they are creatures they have lots of american ppl in the series to that are white so what we should turn johnny cage black sonya mexican and stryker irish. This is purely a racists article that needs to be takin down b4 it starts a huge racists war on here

+ Show (5) more repliesLast reply 5422d ago
Cajun Chicken5423d ago

As much as John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China is 'racist'.

ChrisW5422d ago

Who the hell disagreed that Big Trouble in Little China was an awesome movie?!? Some kid who was born this millennium? That movie is a cult classic! I highly suggest watching it.

RXL5422d ago

don't you dare speak ill of such a classic American piece of cinematography

awi59515422d ago

But i like that movie lol.

5423d ago Replies(1)
femshep5423d ago

i find it funny how people seem to find a way to pull the race card on every game now

like zombie island, a hanging zombie....so clearly it's racist against zombies, by that logic were commiting zombie genocide =p

Cenobia5423d ago

Technically it is genocide, but they were done building our railroads anyway.

Show all comments (150)
40°

15 Years Ago, Mortal Kombat (2011) Saved Gaming’s Biggest Fighting Franchise

A brutal reset, a smarter story, and a return to what made it great—Mortal Kombat (2011) revived the series.

Read Full Story >>
fortressofsolitude.co.za
italiangamer26d ago

"Gaming’s Biggest Fighting Franchise"

Press X to (seriously) doubt.

DarXyde24d ago

Underrated comment. I used to hate that game so much that any time my siblings asked me to play it, I just picked Hom and shut myself down mid-match.

Soy24d ago

And then MK1 killed it again.

DivineHand12524d ago (Edited 24d ago )

15 years went by so fast. I remember playing through the story mode at launch.

350°

Mortal Kombat: Flawless Victory Announced

A new book detailing the artwork of the franchise has been announced

robtion289d ago

Let me fix this title to something less click baity for you:

New Book: Mortal Kombat: Flawless Victory Announced.

Garethvk289d ago (Edited 289d ago )

The description clearly says what it is. It is not like people have to click to the site. They just have to read.

robtion289d ago

Sure they don't have to go to the site but to get to the description they already have to have clicked on it. Thus the term 'click bait'.

Rebel_Scum289d ago (Edited 289d ago )

If its a book say its a book in the article title. Everyone’s gonna think this is a new game and get annoyed reading your description.

Garethvk289d ago (Edited 289d ago )

The Mods had no issues with the title.
The first line under the image says new book and you can see it in the preview windows without even having to click to read the description.

It also says a Visual History on the image.

Rebel_Scum289d ago

On desktop and mobile the text a visual history is not visible in the thumbnail on the homepage.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 289d ago
cloganart288d ago (Edited 288d ago )

I grew up on this stuff. Adding it to the art collection!

I do hope the next MK iteration goes back to the core of what made these characters appeal in the first place. A few of them lost their edge - I think I've had enough with some of the auntie designs 😂

70°

Fortnite Gives a First Look at Mortal Kombat Skins Ahead of Official Release

Ahead of the release of the new Mortal Kombat skins in Fortnite, Epic Games has given players a first look at Scorpion, Kitana, and Raiden.

Read Full Story >>
nerd-talk.com