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Persona 4 Accused of Being Anti-Gay in Gamespot article

L

Levito

Banned
Article in question: Denial of the Self: Queer Characters in Persona 4


Basically the article brings up both the Kanji and Naoto characters, and how the the author of the piece feels the game unfairly treats the LGBT community, stating things like: "Persona 4 sends the message that homosexuality is shameful and should not be accepted."


Since the comment section on Gamespot has gotten absolutely disgusting with overly defensive fans attacking the writer of the piece, Carolyn Petit. I thought it best not to actually try having a discussion over there, the topic is interesting to discuss nontheless.


So what doyou make of it GAF?
 
Levito said:
Article in question: Denial of the Self: Queer Characters in Persona 4


Basically the article brings up both the Kanji and Naoto characters, and how the the author of the piece feels the game unfairly treats the LGBT community, stating things like: "Persona 4 sends the message that homosexuality is shameful and should not be accepted."


Since the comment section on Gamespot has gotten absolutely disgusting with overly defensive fans attacking the writer of the piece, Carolyn Petit. I thought it best not to actually try having a discussion over there, the topic is interesting to discuss nontheless.


So what doyou make of it GAF?
Click to expand...
Carolyn Petit is transgender, right?
 
Heh. People have their opinions in real life, if a game that is replicating aspects of life plays those out then I have no problem. I don't take that sort of stuff as if it was gospel.
 
smh.

I mean, I can tell where they are coming from, but this is just exaggerated. boulevard press headline at its finest.
 
Seems to me like the author of the article is trying to get views by being controversial.

This is incredibly farfetched.
 
Huh. Did she not finish Kanji's social link where he admits that the "gay" Shadow is an undeniable part of himself? She also assumes that the player is supposed to agree with Yosuke's homophobic views, which is odd since Yosuke is portrayed as a tactless insecure wiener.
 
Huh.

Yosuke and friends act weirded out by Kanji's acts at the beginning, sure, but in the end they still thought of him as part of their group and a great friend. Isn't that what really counts?

It's not like they acted like "Eww he's a gay dude stayyy awayy you disgusting piece of shit!" after they befriended him.
 
By clearly raising the idea in the player's mind that Kanji is gay and then rejecting that idea, Persona 4 sends the message that homosexuality is shameful and should not be accepted.
Click to expand...

So if a game character struggles with their sexual identity the only choice a game designer has is to make them homosexual? Why can't they struggle with their identity, as Kanji does, and ultimately end up going a different way?
 
Even if the game was anti-gay, I don't really see the problem with that.

Writers should have the freedom to write what they want even if it upsets some people.
 
EuropeOG said:
Carolyn Petit is transgender, right?
Click to expand...

Yeah.

Still think she's stretching things here a bit.

The Kanji gay thing IS a bit over the top, but it's not like it has never been done before in any form of media. How many movies/tv shows have you seen a gay character that was FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABULOUSLY over the top that you just laugh at it for being absurd.
 
gerstmann gonna march down the hallway and crack some skulls

Berordn said:
Well, they kind of did during the camp sequence.
Click to expand...

Nah, they were more concerned with him being a weird piece of shit getting nosebleeds and stuff. Apart from Yosuke, who is straight up a fucking asshole.
 
But

what

The game specifically calls them out on how they shouldn't have been trying to hide themselves.

And

like

Kanji has been praised for the past 5 years on being the only reasonable video game representation of a character struggling with sexual identity.
 
eznark said:
So if a game character struggles with their sexual identity the only choice a game designer has is to make them homosexual? Why can't they struggle with their identity, as Kanji does, and ultimately end up going a different way?
Click to expand...

Apparently!

Because you know, no teenager questions their own sexuality at multiple times during puberty.
 
I don't remember coming across anything that would be considered anti-gay in the game. The worst thing I can remember is how they made his "gay side" incredibly stereotypical with that voice in the bath house, especially since his normal voice out in the world was nothing like that at all.
 
By introducing the idea that Kanji is gay and that Naoto is transgender and then backing away from embracing those characterizations, Persona 4 represents a betrayal of its central theme about people learning to accept themselves and each other for who they are, and sends the message that such sexual orientations and gender identities are too scary to accept.
Click to expand...

This is definitely jumping to conclusions quite a bit.
 
FluxWaveZ said:
Only Yosuke did.
Click to expand...

It's been a while since I've played it, but the scene only involves Youske, Kanji and the MC right? I remember the dialogue options for the MC being less than glowing as well.

But I don't really remember the context either. Youske being a complete asshole just sticks out in my mind for that whole part of the game.
 
Aside from the very Japanese concept that homosexuality and gender misidentification merely being phases one gets over, it seems fairly reasonable that a possibly teenager with a missing father (who told him to always be a man) might really struggle with the idea.
 
I think that a gender identity crisis shouldn't have to rely on stereotypes because it comes off as gimmicky. And to an extent, I wish that it could have gone in a different direction for Kanji.

ShockingAlberto said:
Aside from the very Japanese concept that homosexuality and gender misidentification merely being phases one gets over, it seems fairly reasonable that a possibly teenager with a missing father (who told him to always be a man) might really struggle with the idea.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, tell me more :)
 
Berordn said:
Well, they kind of did during the camp sequence.
Click to expand...

Yosuke does. And even then, it's a moment where you're supposed to go "Geeze, dude, stop being an asshole".

If you don't finish both Kanji and Naoto's social links, you can't really say that the game is being unfair to transgendered characters. They and the characters surrounding them go through quite a bit of growth as they eventually deal with the mistakes/hardships of their upbringings to become okay with how they feel about themselves and other people. It's not the game's fault if you chose not to finish up their stories.

If you only watch the scene at the campsite or the weird awkwardness before Kanji gets thrown in the TV, you're only watching a very very very small portion of the story, specifically, the portion you're SUPPOSED to be angry about.
 
Cisce said:
Seems to me like the author of the article is trying to get views by being controversial.

This is incredibly farfetched.
Click to expand...

Regardless, I like the attempt at trying to analytically consider the themes expressed in a video game. It helps elevate the level of discourse surrounding the medium.

Ideally, I'd like it to achieve the maturity of critical analyses as seen in theater, film, and literature.
 
It really seems the author as an ulterior motive with this. Maybe it stems from a personal insecurity or perhaps their was just an article quota to meet. But it seems to be a internally-projected opinion that doesn't take much consideration to characterizations beyond what she would like to see.
 
I can only say so far at the 4th dungeon, there are times where certain characters have really weird reactions to Kanji. And the game, so far anyway, has never let me decide whether or not I agree with one main characters view that gay people are predatory.

One section in particular I found really bad.
During the camping trip, the game never let me stand up for Kanji and made me watch while Yosuke basically said that Kanji would try to rape us at night, and we couldn't trust him.
 
jello44 said:
Yeah.

Still think she's stretching things here a bit.

The Kanji gay thing IS a bit over the top, but it's not like it has never been done before in any form of media. How many movies/tv shows have you seen a gay character that was FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABULOUSLY over the top that you just laugh at it for being absurd.
Click to expand...
Now that you mention it Enchanted Arms had a character like this. Although most people that he was annoying rather than laugh-out-loud funny.
 
I like how her litmus test for whether something is psychologically true is whether she personally has experienced it.
 
Did she even play through to the end of Kanji's social link? I don't know how you could be under the impression that Persona 4 is even remotely anti-gay.

The whole midnight channel segment showed how Kanji was afraid the outside world would perceive him. In the end, he ended up accepting his sexuality, and so did the group.
 
Kanji and Naoto are constantly brought up but i always felt they are brought up by people that didnt fully get their stories or are just basing their opinions on cursorary glances. Naoto never had gender issues but acceptance issues. Kanji may be accused of being homophobic but never showed attraction to guys. His problem was more of gender role and overcompensation.

Now the two that are always overlooked by these opinion pieces that in my opinion werent fleshed out and had the actual homosexual setup improperly handled was Chie and Yukiko.
 
Still need to read that article, but I gotta admit that felt that in end, Atlus copped out of Kaji's homosexuality. In the end, he wasn't gay, just confused about his feelings for Naoto who pretended to be a boy. Once Naoto "became" a girl, Kanji wasn't gay anymore.
 
Persona 4's protrayal of Kanji actually illustrates sexuality can be more nuanced than black and white gay/straight delineation and the gender roles associated with those. I don't see how it's bashing homosexuality.
 
bd8lw5E.jpg


Oh okay, as if it's not normal for teenager's to spout homophobic words. Kids don't know better the game just portrays that.
 
I thought it was all rather well integrated into character building through acceptance of self and others, especially since the Investigation Team got first-hand looks into each other's psychological depths. Don't agree with the article at all.
 
Berordn said:
Well, they kind of did during the camp sequence.
Click to expand...

I don't know; despite the apparent lack of PCness from how Yosuke acts, it's just... how should I put it: he acts just like a normal teenager put into that kind of situation. And it's not like Yosuke hated Kanji--sure, a teasing here and there but he did it not because he considered Kanji an abomination or something like that.

Hell, even Chie chided him due to it at some point during the game.

SpaceBridge said:
Still need to read that article, but I gotta admit that felt that in end, Atlus copped out of Kanji's homosexuality. In the end, he wasn't gay, just confused about his feelings for Naoto who pretended to be a boy. Once Naoto "became" a girl, Kanji wasn't gay anymore.
Click to expand...

This is like saying that Kanji needed to be gay just so that we can have a gay person in the group.
 
I can see where she's coming from, and agree completely that Naoto was pretty soft-balled. But as a queer person myself, Kanji is INCREDIBLE and it felt phenomenal to have a character like that in gaming. Particularly in a way that sets him up so he's confronting those issues and trying to figure them out for himself.

Her main argument against him is that his s-link leads to just becoming more comfortable around other men, but I couldn't possibly disagree more. 0Extra Credits, in their episode about sexuality in gaming, mentions that the Japanese version is much more clear in the homosexual direction, but even in the US version without knowing any better, they certainly did NOT state that he wasn't attracted to men.

I feel like it's also impossible to lob such a heavy and potentially hurtful criticism to the game without talking about Catherine. SPOILERS
I'm not trans and can't speak from personal experience how her genuine her portrayal was depicted, but two games have both confronted alternate sexuality issues in very different ways. I'd argue this is a huge piece of evidence that he's not including them simply for set dressing or to ultimately insult LGBT people.

The idea of Persona 4 being full of wasted opportunities in regards to LGBT sexuality is in some ways perhaps a legitimate one if you set your sights astronomically high, but if you compare it to 99.99999999999% of other commercial games, it's incredibly progressive in an industry that is sadly getting further away from respectfully including queer characters and tackling queer issues head on.

Even if the director didn't knock them completely out of the park, he took a swing and certainly got a few runs.
 
It continues to amaze me how one of the game's messages of finding your true self isn't good enough unless it ends in a minority orientation result. I'd expect the kind of attitude from fundamentalist religeous types over the issues even existing in the game, but this is shocking.

At least it goes well with the recent Ken Levine threads about racism and religeon as themes and plot in video games. Same with Yosuke's homophobia.
 
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