Q:Re: that Mass Effect article, though I understand what the author is saying, and ultimately, I agree with them, I dislike the assertion that "the character was written with the expectation that most people will play it as a white dude". It makes it sound like Bioware/EA only cares about the white dude, when all other evidence the author brings up in the article makes it clear the developers wanted to be as neutral and inclusive as possible.
I think I probably agree with you. I don’t think there was a conscious “We’re going to write him like a white dude” thought. I believe they wrote a character who wasn’t treated in any certain way based on gender/race/sexuality, or rather, they wrote a character with the privilege that everyone deserves and should have (i.e. male/white/heterosexual) After all, this is a universe full of aliens, and in such a Sci-Fi world, suddenly being human is what makes a difference, not gender, race, sexuality, or any of that.
I do believe, however, that the character was written more or less “hetero marine man”, and it was only a semi-conscious decision at best that fem shep is treated the same as male shep, as rewriting and re-recording every line of dialogue for any slight permutation that might happen between how a man or woman, person of color, or non-heterosexual person would be treated for saying/doing a certain thing would be extremely costly and time-consuming.
No doubt, I think it works in the game’s favor in creating an extremely egalitarian society/universe that doesn’t appear to have issues with privilege. But, I think it was ultimately only tangentially intentional.
1 Notes/ Hide
-
absurdlakefront liked this
-
ifitseasy posted this
Making my life harder than it needs to be since 1986.
