The 25 Hottest Men in Gaming
April 2, 2008So Bonnie over at Heroine Sheik posted an interesting breakdown of the “types” of men generally found in this (admittedly rather lackluster, this-post-is-worthless-without-pics) list of the “25 Hottest Men in Gaming”. Do you like your men brawny? Slender and effeminate? Pyramid-headed? And so on.
The assumption that both sites leave untouched: white. That’s right, the list in question is full of cracka-ass-crackas, something that no one else seems to notice. While the original list doesn’t have any pictures, I scrounged up a few pics of the individuals who seemed to have promise as potential non-whiteys. Behold:
Altair from Assassin’s Creed:
Hwoarang from Tekken:
And Iori Yagami from King of Fighters:
Even the ostensibly Asian guys, Iori and Hwoarang, look pretty white to me. Incidentally, I didn’t know that Iori played bass guitar. Nice.
Looks like my next feature is going to have to be hottest men of color in video gaming.
pat m.
Tags: hot men, video games, white people
April 2, 2008 at 7:54 pm
“cracka-ass-crackas”
Wow, that made me laugh out loud here at work. The librarian is lookin’ at me all weird now!
Anyhow, I agree with what you are saying. It seems that now-a-days, we can’t get past the fact that all main roles MUST be played by someone who is white. But, you know what? we do it to ourselves also.
I’m Mexican, and I notice that those in my race seemingly make fun of those who are darker, within our own race. Just look at Mexican soaps, all the leads are white while the darker people are usually the ones cleaning the houses. Look at all the games coming from Japan, with the fairer skinned characters lining up the box art.
Of course, this isn’t always the case but it seems like it is more often than not.
April 2, 2008 at 9:45 pm
That’s ridiculous. The only white guy in any of these is Altair and even then I don’t know about his “whiteness.” Seems French or Spanish to me. Anyhow, just because they aren’t obviously Mexican or African doesn’t mean that they are simply “white.”
April 3, 2008 at 1:32 am
dear kidkobun,
try reading the whole piece - and maybe the pieces i linked to - before talking shit.
love and peace,
pat m.
April 3, 2008 at 10:13 am
Is Japanese considered white these days? Hwoarang, Iori Yagami, Mitsuhide Akechi, Squall, Cloud, Sephiroth… They’re pale-skinned but I wouldn’t call them White.
April 3, 2008 at 4:40 pm
[...] by Guest Contributor Pat M., originally published at Token Minorities [...]
April 4, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Weefz, most of the characters listed - except for Hwoarang, imo - have white features. Even Altair and the FF characters
April 15, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Hi Angel,
I was going to discuss this in more detail in my original comment but Latoya over at the Racialicious post on the same topic did it for me.
I’m not disputing Altair at all. He’s supposedly the dream-form of a modern white American male anyway.
Latoya pointed out that the Japanese characters tend to be drawn neutral and we fill in the rest ourselves. I agree - whenever I play any FF games, I don’t consciously think about the characters. As soon as a pre-rendered cut-scene pops up, I’m slightly jarred by the characters’ faces. To me, they look non-white and it’s often unexpected. Even the characters with blue eyes (eye colour is barely discernible on a PS2 anyway) - Scroll down to the pic of Tidus on the following link
http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=360
You honestly see white features there?
April 15, 2008 at 3:46 pm
[Apologies for the complete untimeliness of that response and yes, I realise that it's unlikely Angel H. is still checking this post for further comments. Still, gotta try...]