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    Final Fantasy VII

    Game » consists of 20 releases. Released Jan 31, 1997

    The seventh numbered entry in the Final Fantasy franchise brings the series into 3D with a landmark title that set new industry standards for cinematic storytelling. Mercenary Cloud Strife joins the rebel group AVALANCHE in their fight against the power-hungry Shinra Company, but their struggle soon becomes a race to save the entire Planet from an impending cataclysm.

    Why is Cloud dressing up as a lady transphobic?

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    Bocam

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    #1  Edited By Bocam

    While I do think Square will rework parts of FF7 (hopefully limited to gameplay and translation). One thing I see repeatedly mentioned is that some people want them to change Barret's character as well as remove the sequence where you find items for Cloud to crossdress in order to save Tifa. I'm not saying that they're wrong but I do want to understand why these elements are so offensive.

    Edit: For a great take on the subject check out this piece by Sarah Nyberg

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    71Ranchero

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    #2  Edited By 71Ranchero

    Barret is fucking awesome, do people really have an issue with him?

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    Bocam

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    @cale: Tumblr can find anything offensive

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    Turambar

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    #5  Edited By Turambar

    Barret has long been viewed as a stereotypical angry black man with a gun. I personally think that is selling his character short, but that particular complaint does have some history to it, and isn't just tumblr being offended by something it just discovered.

    Can't say I've heard anything complaints about the Cloud dress up scenario though.

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    bongchilla

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    If I recall correctly, it was not Cloud dressing up as a woman that offended people, it was the conversations you had with the NPC's and their feelings about it. There were a few NPC characters that outright made fun of Cloud for wearing women's clothing which could have people read into that sequence of the game being trans phobic.

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    CDUB901

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    Maybe Barret is just an angry man with a gun? Maybe the ones bringing up the fact that he's black are the stereotypical ones, not square themselves. I think his skin color is and always has been irrelevant. He's just a pissed off man who's seen some shit and fought in a lot of battles. That could make anyone angry all the time.

    Also, I have seen people bring up the Cloud in a dress thing and the fact that it made them uncomfortable. They're weird and they can get over it, keep that scene in I say.

    I really do want that snowboarding scene gone though. Terrible mini game. Also, keep the escape from midgar mortorcycle scene, but just make it a cutscene, not a mini game.

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    IamTerics

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    I haven't heard of that moment being called offensive though I can understand the reasoning behind it. I did see some disappointment at the quick Fallout 4 guy in a dress bit, which is similar. From what I understand its about how its framed. In the (brief) Fallout 4 moment It was framed less as "you can where all of these costumes, how cool is that!" and more like laugh at this man in a dress. I've never played FF7 so I can't really say anything about that particular scene.

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    Canteu

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    #9  Edited By Canteu

    Barrett has pretty good reason's for being pissed off. His skin colour has nothing to do with it.

    Of course Cloud is going to be made fun of for dressing like a girl. He's in the slums of a megacity, in a rough night life area with a brothel. You think the people there are going to be open minded? The dudes in the Gym are totally on board with the entire venture though, so there's people there who support you, not to mention the people who make you the dress, give you the perfect wig and the perfume.

    Cloud is also very androgynous, so come on, he's a pretty lady.

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    thatpinguino

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    #11 thatpinguino  Moderator

    I haven't heard of that moment being called offensive though I can understand the reasoning behind it. I did see some disappointment at the quick Fallout 4 guy in a dress bit, which is similar. From what I understand its about how its framed. In the (brief) Fallout 4 moment It was framed less as "you can where all of these costumes, how cool is that!" and more like laugh at this man in a dress. I've never played FF7 so I can't really say anything about that particular scene.

    That is the argument I've heard. The punchline of the Cloud in drag scene is just "look at that dude in a dress and how silly he looks!" or "look at how dumb Don Corneo is for thinking Cloud is a girl!" I think the scene could be done in a way that isn't gross, but that whole sequence is kinda messed up. I mean Don Corneo is a sexual predator and he's comic relief multiple times. That shit is kinda fucked.

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    Brendan

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    #12  Edited By Brendan

    Ehh, I don't know if you peeps in here are seeing the whole picture with Barrett. His dialogue is basically chock full of lazy Blaxploitation style stereotypes, and the fact that no one else in that world even remotely talks like him makes it impossible for his character to have developed naturally in a way that makes him believable. Even if you're the "I hate SJW's" type, I don't see how you couldn't find Barrett's character in need of improvement.

    The dress-up sequence containing transphobic elements I can't speak to. Even though I replayed FF7 earlier this year I have no recollection of anything objectionable.

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    Hunter5024

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    #13  Edited By Hunter5024

    Aeris seems pretty into it supportive.

    Edit: Fuck. I just realized they're totally going to call her Aerith.

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    alistercat

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    #14  Edited By alistercat

    One of my trans friends finds transvestites highly offensive, but I disagree (as much as my opinion on this can count for anything, right?) and it isn't a universal view from the trans community obviously. In this case it is simply cross dressing, a different but related thing, but I can see her point of view that it is an assault on her identity because it causes people to continue to view it as pretending to be something you're not. It's an insecurity that shouldn't dictate whether it is right or wrong for anyone of any gender to cross dress for their own personal enjoyment, kink or comfort.

    In the case of FF7, it is to fool someone. There is what I see as a legitimate split between people who find the idea of a 'trap' offensive, and those who embrace it. Again though, in this scenario it isn't 'fooling' for the sake of humiliation. It's for infiltration purposes. There will still be disagreement on this but that is always the case, you can't convince everyone. It's an acceptable part of the story that makes some missteps but that doesn't invalidate the entire idea.

    I think transvestites are open to conversation because it is making a spectacle of gender norms mixing for mockery. I might still side with the ability for someone to enjoy being seen as the opposite gender in an exaggerated way for entertainment value. Though TV can make it super gross (there was some "shemale or female" segment on an american show that is horrible).

    I hope that elaborates on the issue in a more digestible way.

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    bigsocrates

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    Barrett's dialogue is clearly patterned after stereotypes about how African American men speak and act. I'm not sure how you can really read it and not think it's racist. His fundamental character is fine, even likeable, but all that dialogue has to be rewritten or it's going to be a huge problem.

    The cloud transvestite sequence is played for laughs and also contains transphobic comments and attitudes. It's not that you could never do that in a game in a sensitive manner, but no attempt to be sensitive is made in FFVII. It's hard to do it right, and they just sort of don't worry about it and play it for fun. This is cis privilege. It's not intended as transphobic but it comes off as insensitive. It's hard to do it right. My guess, and this is not my preference just my prediction, is that they just cut the whole thing to avoid the headaches of doing it well.

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    beforet

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    #16  Edited By beforet

    Playing men crossdressing as comedy is considered transphobic. I am not as educated as I would like in order to eloquently explain why, but basically its the entire idea "oh a MAN dressed as a WOMAN oh and he's doing it to make a FOOL of and DECIEVE another man, hohoho!" comedy is harmful to the trans community, especially because it touches upon stereotypes and assumptions trans folk have had to contend with for decades now (in particular the deception angle). I'd be sad to see the sequence go, as it's a part of my child hood, and similarly I'd be sad if they changed Barret, but I also won't mourn too loudly if they are heavily changed and updated to fit better with a modern context. There are other wacky ways to break into the Don's mansion that would keep that sequence's lighthearted, funny tone, which I am way more worried about losing than anything to do with crossdressing.

    Also, Barret, even then, was hella racist. I love Barret. I'm a little racist. I can let this one go.

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    donchipotle

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    #17  Edited By donchipotle

    If they cut it from the game then they cut out the Honey Bee Inn and no one wants that.

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    Oldirtybearon

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    #19  Edited By Oldirtybearon

    Why is Cloud crossdressing transphobic? Short answer is: it isn't.

    To reduce the complicated mess of gender dysphoria into something so inelegant as "man wearing women's clothing = trans" is to discredit a lot of the groundwork that has been laid out for growing acceptance of transgender individuals. The bit with Cloud crossdressing is not transphobic, because crossdressing in and of itself has no bearing at all on trans-ness. To borrow a phrase; it's not about your hardware, but the software in your heart. Cloud is male. Cloud is a man. Cloud finds himself in a weird situation where he does something outside of his comfort zone (dressing up as the opposite gender) in order to complete a task. Hilarity ensues because in comedy, often the best laughs stem from breaking social taboos and, still to this day, crossdressing is a pretty big one. It's cute. It's cheeky. It's humorous. The one thing that it is not is a commentary on trans individuals. In fact I'd venture to say it has nothing to do with transgender individuals. Crossdressing is its own thing.

    As far as Barrett goes, that's a whole other can of worms. I'd like to see him remain unchanged because I liked the guy, but if Square caves to the wailing I won't blame them. It is, in the context of an American audience, a rather insensitive portrayal of a black man.

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    NeoCalypso

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    They aren't going to cut that part from the game come on people. This is a japanese game and they clearly don't give a FUCK about western gender politics. Also the sheer work required would be crazy. As DonChipotle said they'd have to remove the whole Honeybee Inn thing, they'd have to find some other reason Tifa goes into Don Cornelio's hideout, have to come up with some other way to get into the hideout entirely, etc, etc. There is just too much work to try and appease a vocal but still niche group when they can just leave it in let everyone just deal with it.

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    astrozombie

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    @cdub901 said:

    Maybe Barret is just an angry man with a gun? Maybe the ones bringing up the fact that he's black are the stereotypical ones, not square themselves. I think his skin color is and always has been irrelevant. He's just a pissed off man who's seen some shit and fought in a lot of battles. That could make anyone angry all the time.

    THIS. THIS. A THOUSAND TIMES THIS.

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    ImmortalSaiyan

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    I would say it is transphobic as it plays on the whole trap stereotype. Which is admittedly harmful. The whole framing of it as a joke is also not great, but less an issue for me personally.

    It would be really cool if Square addressed this scene and done something different, for example using Tifa or Aerith in that same role. but that is never gonna happen.

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    teaoverlord

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    @cdub901 said:

    Maybe Barret is just an angry man with a gun? Maybe the ones bringing up the fact that he's black are the stereotypical ones, not square themselves. I think his skin color is and always has been irrelevant. He's just a pissed off man who's seen some shit and fought in a lot of battles. That could make anyone angry all the time.

    THIS. THIS. A THOUSAND TIMES THIS.

    Yeah, if you acknowledge that racism might exist then obviously you're the real racist.

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    astrozombie

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    @metalthrashingmatt said:
    @cdub901 said:

    Maybe Barret is just an angry man with a gun? Maybe the ones bringing up the fact that he's black are the stereotypical ones, not square themselves. I think his skin color is and always has been irrelevant. He's just a pissed off man who's seen some shit and fought in a lot of battles. That could make anyone angry all the time.

    THIS. THIS. A THOUSAND TIMES THIS.

    Yeah, if you acknowledge that racism might exist then obviously you're the real racist.

    Not really the part I was talking about there buddy. I mean that in the grand scheme of who Barret is, his skin color has always been damn near completely irrelevant. I have never thought of him as "the black guy from FFVII" because there is a lot more to who he is.

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    thatpinguino

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    #25 thatpinguino  Moderator

    @metalthrashingmatt: There is a good deal of depth in Barret's character. However, the parts of his character that stand out as being stereotypical have almost nothing to do with his compelling character arcs. He can still have a complex relationship with his adoptive daughter and her biological father and not say shit like "Shit! The hell you so calm about? You bustin' up my rhythm..." on a regular basis. He is the only person that talks that way in ordinary conversation and I think it was a bit of lazy writing on Square's part.

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    teaoverlord

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    #26  Edited By teaoverlord

    @thatpinguino said:

    @metalthrashingmatt: There is a good deal of depth in Barret's character. However, the parts of his character that stand out as being stereotypical have almost nothing to do with his compelling character arcs. He can still have a complex relationship with his adoptive daughter and her biological father and not say shit like "Shit! The hell you so calm about? You bustin' up my rhythm..." on a regular basis. He is the only person that talks that way in ordinary conversation and I think it was a bit of lazy writing on Square's part.

    Was this in the original or part of the localization? The remake will probably have a new translation anyway.

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    excast

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    Barrett is an interestingly designed character with a good story, but I do think that some of his dialogue comes off as a lazy stereotype of what a translator probably though "a guy from the hood" would sound like. They can still maintain his personality without going down that road, and as I assume the characters will be voice acted we will hopefully see that come through.

    The cross dressing business has always been something that came to mind when I thought of what a remake might look like. The game is kind of quirky in a lot of ways that I am not sure everyone remembers. I'm not sure if that entire bit, from him dressing up, to the reaction of the party members, to the burly "bear" NPCs you deal with, would make much sense with the more realistic graphics they seem to be going for.

    Things have changed a bit in the 20 years or so since this stuff was conceived and there is nothing wrong with acknowledging it a bit and changing things up to fit the times. It happens in remakes of classic movies all the time.

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    thatpinguino

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    #28 thatpinguino  Moderator

    @thatpinguino said:

    @metalthrashingmatt: There is a good deal of depth in Barret's character. However, the parts of his character that stand out as being stereotypical have almost nothing to do with his compelling character arcs. He can still have a complex relationship with his adoptive daughter and her biological father and not say shit like "Shit! The hell you so calm about? You bustin' up my rhythm..." on a regular basis. He is the only person that talks that way in ordinary conversation and I think it was a bit of lazy writing on Square's part.

    Was this in the original or part of the localization? The remake will probably have a new translation anyway.

    I haven't played the game in Japanese so I have no idea.

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    Haruko

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    @bocam said:

    @cale: Tumblr can find anything offensive

    Yup!

    But seriously crossdressing is not inherently offensive unless its portrayed as "deviant behaviour". The hot tub scene is the one that uhhh might need some work.

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    deactivated-5f90eabee6bba

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    @teaoverlord: The retranslation project that just came out doesn't have him talking like that. I heard this was the case because the original translation doesn't have him talk like Mr. T. In Advent Children, even though he only has like 3 lines, he speaks normally. I don't really care how he speaks.

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    musubi

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    Why is Cloud crossdressing transphobic? Short answer is: it isn't.

    To reduce the complicated mess of gender dysphoria into something so inelegant as "man wearing women's clothing = trans" is to discredit a lot of the groundwork that has been laid out for growing acceptance of transgender individuals. The bit with Cloud crossdressing is not transphobic, because crossdressing in and of itself has no bearing at all on trans-ness. To borrow a phrase; it's not about your hardware, but the software in your heart. Cloud is male. Cloud is a man. Cloud finds himself in a weird situation where he does something outside of his comfort zone (dressing up as the opposite gender) in order to complete a task. Hilarity ensues because in comedy, often the best laughs stem from breaking social taboos and, still to this day, crossdressing is a pretty big one. It's cute. It's cheeky. It's humorous. The one thing that it is not is a commentary on trans individuals. In fact I'd venture to say it has nothing to do with transgender individuals. Crossdressing is its own thing.

    As far as Barrett goes, that's a whole other can of worms. I'd like to see him remain unchanged because I liked the guy, but if Square caves to the wailing I won't blame them. It is, in the context of an American audience, a rather insensitive portrayal of a black man.

    Aye. Best response here.

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    Hunter5024

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    #33  Edited By Hunter5024

    I'm sure they'll retranslate the script. Localization and voice acting will probably clear up most of the issues people have with Barret's style of speech. Text has a way of making that stuff seem exaggerated. Though admittedly the couple lines they gave Barret in Advent Children weren't much better.

    I don't think they have any idea that the cross dressing scene might offend some people though. Jokes about cross dressing don't seem at all uncommon in modern anime and Japanese video games. Though like with Barret I suppose they might try to clean it up a bit in localization.

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    WalkerD

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    Changing any part of the game beyond graphics and UI usability seems idiotic and antithetical to what people have wanted for years.

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    deactivated-5e49e9175da37

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    @marokai: The basketball and the hiphop wasn't necessarily the racist part... having porny sub-Commodores funk music follow him everywhere he goes might be. Depicting modern black people as liking basketball isn't different than depicting some white kid as liking baseball... but most white kids don't summon bluegrass jug music when they walk around. I think.

    For the record, is the problem with Barrett's speech that it's written with punctuation to convey an accent, or that it's often vulgar and aggressive? Is having him say "Where is its fucking head? This whole thing is stupid. Let's keep going." better than the accented version? Or would it be better if he were more erudite and better spoken in general? What about Cid Highwind?

    It would be bad if pressure to create 'better' black characters would inadvertently put a lot of scrutiny on any character who looks, talks or acts in any way that's identifiable as black.

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    shinjin977

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    #36  Edited By shinjin977

    @bigsocrates: that part about barrette is true, in the english version. In japanese he was just an angry dude because of story reason. This is a problem of questionable translation job.

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    Atwa

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    Its not, not at all.

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    Canteu

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    #38  Edited By Canteu

    Let's never forget btw, "this guy are sick". You can't really take the original translation seriously, since it's generally pretty terrible. The cross dressing part is whatever, it's nowhere close to being transphobic, but it will be interesting to see what a proper translation and localisation pass will do to Barrett.

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    SecondPersonShooter

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    I really don't think that it was intended as transphobic and I hate this trend of sanding down the edges of everything remotely un-PC so as not to offend anybody.

    I mean come on, JRPGs are probably the least transphobic game genre out there

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    Sidoran

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    #40  Edited By Sidoran

    I remember 12 year old me thinking that Barret's writing was pretty realistic, but race didn't come into it at all. It just reminded me of how a lot of people actually talk in a "not everyone speaks super eloquently all the time" sort of way. Much of Cid's dialogue is presented in a similar way yet I've never seen anyone bring that up in comparison to Barret except for @Brodehouse up above me.

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    IBurningStar

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    If they cut out the cross dressing segment then I will consider the entire remake a failure. At no point do they say anything bad about trans people. It is Cloud who has a very masculine personality being put in feminine clothes and it creates a series of awkward moments. Partially because he isn't the biggest fan of the idea in the first place, and also because he pulls it off shockingly well. It is goofy and lighthearted and something you would not see in a modern mainline FF game these days.

    The Barret stuff is probably just a bad translation job. I was never bothered by it because I understood what they were trying to do with him even if it wasn't done as well as it probably could have. I could understand why you would be bothered by it, though. Now, if they try to clean up his language and remove all his not T rated swearing then I will have a problem. Both Barret and Cid need to maintain their foul language. Especially Cid. Motherfucker better continue to curse like a sailor. Changing that stuff would be unfaithful to the characters.

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    topsteer

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    #44  Edited By topsteer

    @iburningstar: They kinda have to tone the swearing down a bit though don't they? I don't know how far they can push the T rating but Cid and Barret's cursing with everything else in the game could push it into a M rating which I'm sure they don't want.

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    geirr

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    I've never heard of anyone being offended by FF7, cept maybe the snowboarding part. I hate the idea of changing the past to make it fit our current sensitivities better, but in this case it's a remake(?) and everything is changing with it, so I'm all for change. I say we gender-swap the whole cast and assign a random skin tone to Cloud at the beginning of the game and the cast as its introduced.

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    konig_kei

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    Unless these complaints are in japanese I have a feeling they're not gonna give a shit.

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    thatdudeguy

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    #47  Edited By thatdudeguy

    I'd need to replay the cross-dressing portion to refresh my memory and form a better opinion, but nothing in that sequence stood out to me at the time as being transphobic or particularly disrespectful. Of course, in the intervening years, my understanding of gender identity and its surrounding issues has also grown. But if I were to randomly read a news story on this site saying that cross-dressing was being removed from the remake, I would have cynically assumed that it was being altered to appease the transphobic or homophobic fears of a portion of its audience. Instead of being altered to respect the dignity of a different portion. If anyone is offended by that part of the game, I'm certainly not going to argue that they're wrong to feel that way. I haven't delved into the Tumblr posts yet, but I'm interested in reconciling their thoughts with my current understanding.

    The Barret localization was pretty cringeworthy to me at the time, though. Neither Barret's character arc nor FF7's world at large explore any parallels to the history of African Americans. So adopting a stereotypical vernacular that has been used in the real world to exploit and denigrate that particular culture without a really good reason (and "his skin color is darker than the other characters" doesn't count) seems, well, a bit exploitative. Not that anyone involved had bad intentions, but an updated professional localization will surely take that into account. I think I remember hearing that FF7 was largely localized by one American dude in Japan with very little experience. Was he on an episode of the 8-4 Play podcast?

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    Quantris

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    Was any of this cleaned up / did they get any flak for this stuff when they put up the old FF7 PC version on Steam (I don't know exactly what work was done for that, but I'm under the impression that it was minimal to get it to run on recent Windows and at modern resolutions)?

    If not I kind of doubt they'd bother for whatever the next-gen thing is going to be.

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    BananasFoster

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    @bocam: I'm not easily offended and Barett was completely offensive.

    He's the first black character in a Final Fantasy game, and he's a completely stereotype and character. He's dumb, violent, and angry all the time. The worst part about his character being that there is absolutely no cultural reason to behave the way he does except for the fact that he's black. Nobody ELSE talks or behaves like him. His whole characterization is that he's a big angry black man.

    Imagine if in the remake the added a new character named Tom who as white (as much as people don't like to think, the other characters are japanese). He's fat, lazy, and boorish. He can't work computers or machines and think's he better than everyone. He fights by using explosives and blowing everyone up at which point he celebrates with obnoxious "horse laughs", as the Japanese would say.

    Would that not be offensive to you? It should be. There's a point at which people are just a little too dull to even realize they are being made fun of. There's a ton of anime and video games that basically tell white people that they are slow witted, uncultured and uncivilized, and they don't quite pick up on it. It's really kind of fascinating. A lot of white people see themselves as being the main characters and stuff in video games when those characters are really japans. Pay attention to when a character is expressly American, like Guile or Alex in street fighter. They are typically depicted as macho thugs.

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    I'd need to replay the cross-dressing portion to refresh my memory and form a better opinion, but nothing in that sequence stood out to me at the time as being transphobic or particularly disrespectful. Of course, in the intervening years, my understanding of gender identity and its surrounding issues has also grown. But if I were to randomly read a news story on this site saying that cross-dressing was being removed from the remake, I would have cynically assumed that it was being altered to appease the transphobic or homophobic fears of a portion of its audience. Instead of being altered to respect the dignity of a different portion. If anyone is offended by that part of the game, I'm certainly not going to argue that they're wrong to feel that way. I haven't delved into the Tumblr posts yet, but I'm interested in reconciling their thoughts with my current understanding.

    The Barret localization was pretty cringeworthy to me at the time, though. Neither Barret's character arc nor FF7's world at large explore any parallels to the history of African Americans. So adopting a stereotypical vernacular that has been used in the real world to exploit and denigrate that particular culture without a really good reason (and "his skin color is darker than the other characters" doesn't count) seems, well, a bit exploitative. Not that anyone involved had bad intentions, but an updated professional localization will surely take that into account. I think I remember hearing that FF7 was largely localized by one American dude in Japan with very little experience. Was he on an episode of the 8-4 Play podcast?

    FFVII was localized by 3 people in 2 months, if I remember correctly from an old EGM.

    You are spot on about what makes Barrett offensive. You say that the localization of Barrett is due to bad translation, but that's not quite accurate. You have to remember, the Japanese don't have the cultural education or the growing pains that America has when dealing with other races. I think it's hard for some people to understand this, but most of what Japan and much of the rest of the world understands about black people is from media that was put out by europeans and americans. That is to say, Japanese people learned about black people from racist cartoons and movies. Here in America we had civil rights and later laws that went into effect to rehabilitate the image of black people, but in foreign countries, that never happened. For example, in America there may have been a company that sold bananas by having a picture of a black person who looked like a monkey eating it. In America, that label would have been changed in the 60s and 70s. But a lot of those companies never bothered to pay the cost to change the packaging and advertising in other countries. Characters like Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima still looked like slaves for decades longer in other countries than they did in the states.

    When, as a country, all you know about black people is what is depicted in the media, and all that is depicted in the media about black people is terrible, that's what Japanese people regurgitate without knowing they are making a mistake.

    I mean, heck, there are tons of white people in the US who only know about black people from TV. Why would we expect Japan to be any different?

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