Deus Ex: Human Revolution Racially Stereotyping Claim Causes Square Enix to Respond

Post by Steve Farrelly @ 10:10am 02/09/11 | 31 Comments

Claims that a non-player character in Deus Ex: Human Revolution by the name of Letitia the "trash lady", is a racially charged stereotype that crosses the line, has caused Square Enix to issue an official statement.

"Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a fictional story which reflects the diversity of the world's future population by featuring characters of various cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds," the publisher said. "While these characters are meant to portray people living in the year 2027, it has never been our intention to represent any particular ethnic group in a negative light."

Check out the embedded example below - what do you think? Too far? Or overreaction?

Thanks Industry Gamers.

deus ex: human revolution square enix racism stereotyping

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Latest Comments

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Scooter
Posted 10:11am 02/9/11

The whining has gone too far, yes.

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glynd
Posted 10:22am 02/9/11

The whining has gone too far, yes.

.

if she was talking like that while eating watermelon and chicken, then that's too far. I'm sure Australians could make claims against multiple gaming companies for stereotypes.

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rec
Posted 10:22am 02/9/11

Trash lady? I thought that was a man.

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Midda
Posted 10:22am 02/9/11

Comment from YouTube:

I’m black and a lot of black people talk like that

god, f*****g white people feel that they need to get offended for us

I’ve shown this to all of my black friends too and they see no problem with it either

Who gives a f***?

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deadlyf
Posted 10:28am 02/9/11

Wow the voice acting in that game is horrible.

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Manst
Posted 10:28am 02/9/11

Given the fact there are also white and Asian people in this game going through bins I cannot see the issue. People are getting offended by the stupidest s*** these days.

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d^
Posted 10:39am 02/9/11

Agreed Manst, you see several people of different ethnicity throughout the game not only going through trash but that are also hobos.

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DM
Posted 10:42am 02/9/11

racially charged stereotype

For those of you who have never seen a black person before, specificly an american black person... some do talk differently to us. It didn't even enter my mind when talking to her ingame that it was racist. Some people will f*****g whine about anything. Next someone will complain the chinese characters are all racist because they talk in slightly broken english.

Now if she had been holding a drumstick, eating watermelon while commiting a crime we'd have something to talk about.

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dazedandconfused
Posted 11:11am 02/9/11

Oh look, the cultural Marxists are at it again. I never hear anyone whinging about how many white guys are portrayed as criminals in James Bond films. D*******s.

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Ganker
Posted 11:34am 02/9/11

I'm appalled that they put her in that jumper. Square Enix must be stopped!

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Mantorok
Posted 11:39am 02/9/11

Now if she had been holding a drumstick, eating watermelon while commiting a crime we'd have something to talk about.

How about the fact she's the only homeless person you really interact with, and you just give her booze or credits for information? They could easily have avoided any criticism if they'd simply had more than one homeless person that you interact with.

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Khel
Posted 12:25pm 02/9/11

How about the fact she's the only homeless person you really interact with, and you just give her booze or credits for information?

Hows that racist though? I'm sure hobos of any race would be happy to trade info for booze and money.

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ravn0s
Posted 12:38pm 02/9/11

heh i actually thought she was a black dude in drag.

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Mantorok
Posted 12:45pm 02/9/11

Hows that racist though? I'm sure hobos of any race would be happy to trade info for booze and money.

I didn't say it made it racist, but it's pretty f*****g stupid to lump everything onto one NPC who is a racial stereotype.

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Enska
Posted 12:53pm 02/9/11

Haha, I like the comment midda spotted. I was working in the CBD this week and a group of dudes walked past, obviously on holiday from the states speaking just like that.
they even bummed a ciggy off me and done one of those funky handshakes, haha.
tldr - they were champions, albeit smokeless ones :P

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skythra
Posted 01:00pm 02/9/11

I didn't realize all hobo's were black. Does it stop being racist if you play "find the ethnicity that has no homeless"? I don't think thats going to work.

Maybe they only had one black person and he is homeless, I could consider that racist. It would be saying square thinks all black people look homeless.

More I feel that its racist against homeless, because there is only one homeless person, giving the impression square enix think that all homeless people want booze and chicken.

Lets be fair, if in the game square shows diversity between black people with them in roles from good to bad and varied personalities, isn't that the definition of being culturally aware? Realizing that thby can be all kind of things?

Edit; for auto correct

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Kf
Posted 01:13pm 02/9/11

What a load of bulls***... people need to grow up.

Also I thought it sounded like a man too...

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jconradr
Posted 01:52pm 02/9/11

Just another over-reaction to political correctness (it's not even offensive). Kinda like Radike Samo of the Wallabies and the fans imitating him being called racist (not racist at all, endearing if anything).

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taggs
Posted 01:54pm 02/9/11

Kinda like Radike Samo of the Wallabies and the fans imitating him being called racist (not racist at all, endearing if anything).

oh man, that was so infuriating.

people getting offended on behalf of other people is always so condescending and retarded.

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Dazhel
Posted 02:03pm 02/9/11

heh i actually thought she was a black dude in drag.

So true.
The solution to appease the PC crowd is obviously to make a simple texture patch to a scrawny white guy with a feather boa, but keep the voice recording as-is.

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DocterMoist
Posted 02:12pm 02/9/11

A black person.............. going through trash?!!? RACIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG RACISM! /political correctness

I guarantee if it was a white person, there would be no screams of racism.

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Sc00bs
Posted 02:37pm 02/9/11

being offended is a state of mind and who ever is offended by that has something wrong with their heads

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glynd
Posted 03:55pm 02/9/11

being offended is a state of mind and who ever is offended by that has something wrong with their heads

reminds me of Dee Snider interview with PMRC where he responds to Tipa Gore's accusation that song was about bondage by saying "if you're looking for bondage in a song, you'll find it somewhere".

@3.18 - 4:00

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eski
Posted 04:05pm 02/9/11

You do realise that it's not the fact that they're a black person going through trash, but the fact that they speak like a black slave from the 1800's, even going so far as to call Sarif "Mister" Sarif. It's a dialect pulled from an incredibly bad part of US history.

While it's not a huge deal, it's pretty f*****g weak on the part of the voice actor.

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WirlWind
Posted 12:19am 03/9/11

Eski, Half the chars in the GAME call him "Mr Sarif"

This is like that stupid chicken at the cricket ad-gate s*** that went on a while ago...

Bunch of whiners knee-jerking without any kind of context, so their own racist minds fill in the blanks.

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DM
Posted 09:56am 03/9/11

Slightly offtopic but Deus Ex related none the less...

My cunning plan for hiding bodies didn't go how i'd hoped

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/540652347996588562/F3D05D5D8455AE115E24B6FACDE8B6E6DBA93839/

Sorry for size, I took it from my uploaded steam cloud pics so it's kinda big.

last edited by DM at 09:56:31 03/Sep/11

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WetWired
Posted 10:07am 03/9/11

I ran into that character last night, I had no issue racially with her, I found her accent and the way she spoke conflicted with what she actually looked like, she sounded like a 50 something slightly overweight black woman but looked like a thin 22 year old.

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eski
Posted 11:35am 03/9/11

Eski, Half the chars in the GAME call him "Mr Sarif".

I know! That's whats so crazy!

When the other characters call him Mr Sarif the subtitles say "Mr Sarif", but when Letitia says it the subtitles say "Mister Sarif".

OH LORDY DAT MISTER SARIF DONE GONE ET ALL MA CHITLENS!

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DM
Posted 12:17pm 03/9/11

OH LORDY DAT MISTER SARIF DONE GONE ET ALL MA CHITLENS!

That was more racist than the character they complained about.

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Sc00bs
Posted 12:58pm 03/9/11

stop being so racist eski

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Khel
Posted 01:50pm 03/9/11

Mister Jensen, he so kind to me, he done got me a job workin' Mister Sarif's plantation. Gonna jump down, turn around and pick me a bale of cotton!

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