Support NeoGAF

[perfectchaos007]

i dont care.

as long there are white/black/yellow characters in the game, it doesnt matter to me, if they are also voiced by such a person (with same skincolour)

Same. I'm also not outraged that many boys are voiced by adult women. If their voice fits the part who cares what race/gender/age they are? none of my business

 

[A Link to the Past]

How do you feel about straight actors playing gay characters in films. In that case outward appearance definitely doesn't matter, but it could be argued that it is not an authentic performance unless portrayed by someone who understands what it is like being gay. Tom Hanks in Philadelphia for example, were you able to enjoy that performance?

I felt that Tom Hanks did a good performance in Philadelphia, yes. I'd sooner have an LGB actor portray and :LGB character though. And I would -much- sooner have a T actor portray a T character.

This gave me quite the chuckle.

 

[AyanFaust]

I can see the thread devolving a little as it goes on sadly.

As for white characters in gaming played by black folks:

Rucks from Bastion is one, and he absolutely, positively kills it in the role. They bring him back for Transistor I believe where he, once again, slays it. I think he technically plays a white person there as well. Hope Super Giant brings him back for future games, his narration/voice are always a highlight of their already great games for me.

 

[Aaronrules380]

Sure, but...

1. What about the lack of jobs for non-White actors in the games industry?
2. What about the fact that a diverse workforce and voice talent result in better and more creative experiences?
3. The video games industry is in dire need of non-White, non-cisdude talent at all levels of development and voice acting

Is it a lack of jobs, or a lack of PoC going into the field in the first place?
2. Given how voice acting works, I think diversity amongst voice actors is far, far less important then diversity at other stages of development. Especially since no matter a voice actor's interpretation, it still needs to be oked by some sort of director.

 

[Syriel]

The whole Nadine situation sucks.

As a black man, seeing Nadine kick ass is great, and Laura Bailey is one of my favorite voice actors; I absolutely love her take on the character. Her playing Nadine doesn't really bother me, but I can absolutely see why others wouldn't like it--mainly because it's emblematic of a much larger systemic issue of a lack of representation, both in terms of the games and the studios making them. It stands out a lot more because we rarely see characters like Nadine in big AAA productions, or in general really.

What makes it stand out that much more here though is that Nadine is the spitting image of Kandyse McClure.

Everyone I know thought it was her playing the role the first time they saw the UC4 screens.

 

[narutomaki04]

Why not?
Honest question.

For me, regardless of the skin color, If the voice actor does a good job, they do a good job.

 

[A Link to the Past]

I can see the thread devolving a little as it goes on sadly.

As for white characters in gaming played by black folks:

Rucks from Bastion is one, and he absolutely, positively kills it in the role. They bring him back for Transistor I believe where he, once again, slays it. I think he technically plays a white person there as well. Hope Super Giant brings him back for future games, his narration/voice are always a highlight of their already great games for me.

Ehh?? I always thought of Rucks as being non-white. Or at the very least designed to be whatever ethnicity you want him to be.

 

[Aaronrules380]

Question: How many people can accurately judge the race of the VA without having any idea who a given VA is? Obviously this is harder in an industry where the same talent is voicing a shit ton of characters and thus it's often possible to identify who a VA is (and by extension race) from voice alone. But if you can't tell the difference without knowing it in advance, how can you argue that it's an issue and is affecting quality?

 

[NinjaCoachZ]

Is it a lack of jobs, or a lack of PoC going into the field in the first place?

I can tell you for a fact that are hundreds of black actors in the voice acting field. VO is a competitive field absolutely, and there are just as many struggling white actors. It just seems telling that when I look at all the big names statistically, it seems so much harder for black actors to make it to the big leagues compared to white VAs.

Also diversity is still pretty important. Just because the director okays it says nothing about their thought processes.

 

[Scientist Supreme!]

Is it a lack of jobs, or a lack of PoC going into the field in the first place?
2. Given how voice acting works, I think diversity amongst voice actors is far, far less important then diversity at other stages of development. Especially since no matter a voice actor's interpretation, it still needs to be oked by some sort of director.

1. Both
2. I totally disagree, especially based on the role.

 

[Aaronrules380]

I can tell you for a fact that are hundreds of black actors in the voice acting field. VO is a competitive field absolutely, and there are just as many struggling white actors. It just seems telling that when I look at all the big names statistically, it seems so much harder for black actors to make it to the big leagues compared to white VAs.

Fair enough. Though relative numbers are way more helpful than absolutes. 100s of black actors isn't necessarily a lot if they're competing against 10s of 1000s of white VAs for instance.

 

[WordsintheWater]

Would those that take issue with this specific situation, have preferred if they just changed Nadine to white? I personally would rather have a strong black female character being played by anyone then not having a strong black female character in the game at all

 

[AyanFaust]

Ehh?? I always thought of Rucks as being non-white. Or at the very least designed to be whatever ethnicity you want him to be.

He was part of Caelondia which I thought was representative of Europe/West since they had the Ura which were definitively representative of the Eastern/Asian side of the world.

Also his picture made him look white/European IMO:

 

[Replicant]

Nah.Give it to the best actor for the role. Otherwise people like Johnny Yong Bosch will be restricted to voicing Asian characters.

 

[Apt101]

The SAG should have numbers regarding the number of non-white voice actors auditioning for and landing roles in comparison to white voice actors in the United States - right? If those figures are available they'd reveal whether or not white voice actors are enjoying a disproportionate opportunity for roles.

 

[Neiteio]

To avoid accusations of racism, maybe the people who hire voice actors should listen to auditions in a studio where they can't see the person auditioning. They also shouldn't have access to the name of the actor or actress. They would just listen to the recordings of every applicant, and choose the best performance.

I wonder if the proportion of white vs. black would change under these circumstances. I doubt it, but who knows.

 

[SolidSnakex]

In this respect I agree

Though on a completely different level, I'd argue that they hired Laura Bailey (whom I think is fantastic) in some part because she's famous

But what would that even mean as far as voice acting goes? It's not like hiring a well known person somehow gives the game more appeal. That's one of the big differences between Hollywood and the game industry. Hollywood will go as far as to mislead by making you think that someone who has a small role in a movie actually has a big one simply because of their starpower. You really don't hear about videogame voice actors at all. I mean look at Emily Rose (Elena in Uncharted). Had anyone heard of her before Uncharted? And while Ashley Johnson was known for Growing Pains, most of her work since then has been fairly low key. Her biggest gaming projects before TLoU were Ben 10 games. So i'd imagine it's fairly safe to say that neither of them got it for their fame. And i'd say most of the other casts from ND games fit into that mold. I really don't think they give a shit about fame because fame really doesn't mean anything in games.

 

[L Thammy]

The way that I look at it is this. If we assume that white and non-white voice actors have roughly the same skill on average, and that the selection of voice actors actually was actually fair, then the proportion of roles going to non-white actors in the industry should be roughly the same as the population proportion on average. If that isn't true, it indicates that there's a flaw somewhere, and anyone claiming that hiring processes are fair without going through specific efforts to correct them are wrong.

But singling out a single hire is never really a great idea. The problem is a lot larger than just one hire, and you're inevitably going to have people undermine the larger problem to justify the single hire (which may actually be reasonable).

 

[BahamutPT]

Is it a lack of jobs, or a lack of PoC going into the field in the first place?

I see it as the same vicious cycle as, for example, technology-related fields and women:
Less equal opportunities/acceptance from people already in that field for a certain demographic will often lower the interest from that demographic. Less people getting in -> less people trying -> less people getting in

I felt that Tom Hanks did a good performance in Philadelphia, yes. I'd sooner have an LGB actor portray and :LGB character though. And I would -much- sooner have a T actor portray a T character.

Laverne Cox in OITNB is a good step in that direction, but seems like it's the only mainstream one.

 

[Aaronrules380]

I think a study about people who knew nothing about video game voice acting trying to identify the race of voice actors could be very interesting. It's easy to argue that performances are less authentic or somehow worse, but this is something that would actually be reasonably easy to do a study on and actually try to find evidence. After all, if people can't tell without prior knowledge, can we really say it affects quality?

 

[zsynqx]

Slightly off topic, but I did chuckle at the end of the podcast when Dave Fennoy said he was in an upcoming game which would revolutionise how game creators handle narratives in games. He was talking about Mafia 3.

I mean I'd love for that to be true but I'm definitely sceptical.

 

[Genuflections]

For the former I can think of Tara Strong, Jennifer Hale, Laura Bailey, Kari Wahlgren, Kate Higgins, Grey DeLisle, Claudia Black, the list goes on... For the latter I can only think of Kimberly Brooks from the top of my head (I almost named Cree Summer and GK Bowes but I believe the former's First Nations and the latter is Polynesian + Middle Eastern). Now do you see why not everyone has the same opportunities after all?

The names you listed were, I assume, 7 white people and 1 black person. But, in light of the fact that African Americans make up 13%~ of the US population, wouldn't we expect these kinds of numbers? It reminds me of the Oscars So White movement, and how it's focus on Black americans has largely ignored the much greater disparity that exists in the Latino population.

Something is lost in these arguments when people want equal representation based upon the racial population of earth or based upon the history of modern media, rather than based upon the current population of the US, or the racial makeup of individuals that are actively searching for voice acting jobs. Actual data or statistics would be extremely helpful in this kind of situation, rather than how many actors we can name off the top of our head, if we want to see where inequality exists.

 

[Lightning Count]

Anyone knows examples of Black actors voicing white characters ?

The closest I can think is Kratos ....

The voice actress for Ashley in Mass Effect is black, she's voiced other white characters as well.

 

[Aaronrules380]

The names you listed were, I assume, 7 white people and 1 black person. But, in light of the fact that African Americans make up 13%~ of the US population, wouldn't we expect these kinds of numbers? It reminds me of the Oscars So White movement, and how it's focus on Black americans has largely ignored the much greater disparity that exists in the Latino population.



Something is lost in these arguments when people want equal representation based upon the racial population of earth or based upon the history of modern media, rather than based upon the current population of the US, or the racial makeup of individuals that are actively searching for voice acting jobs. Actual data or statistics would be extremely helpful in this kind of situation, rather than how many actors we can name off the top of our head, if we want to see where inequality exists.

I agree completely

 

[WrenchNinja]

In this respect I agree

Though on a completely different level, I'd argue that they hired Laura Bailey (whom I think is fantastic) in some part because she's famous

that and she's troy's good friend (his best friend's wife) so they work well together and she's worked on other sony stuff like infamous

really wish they had gone with less known people for Sam and nadine instead using the same people over and over again

 

[A Link to the Past]

I think a study about people who knew nothing about video game voice acting trying to identify the race of voice actors could be very interesting. It's easy to argue that performances are less authentic or somehow worse, but this is something that would actually be reasonably easy to do a study on and actually try to find evidence. After all, if people can't tell without prior knowledge, can we really say it affects quality?

Effectively, it's objective to say that it's less authentic - really, the only authentic role Laura Bailey does is any role that sounds like how she normally sounds.

It's always a trifle to discuss authenticity wrt black voices because it implies that black people have "certain voices" when in reality they're influenced by the region they're in just as much as any voice actor.

 

[Kinyou]

In this respect I agree

Though on a completely different level, I'd argue that they hired Laura Bailey (whom I think is fantastic) in some part because she's famous

I really, really doubt that was a reason. Laura Bailey's fame is very limited. If they wanted someone famous they would have cast a known TV/Movie actor.

 

[NinjaCoachZ]

To avoid accusations of racism, maybe the people who hire voice actors should listen to auditions in a studio where they can't see the person auditioning. They also shouldn't have access to the name of the actor or actress. They would just listen to the recordings of every applicant, and choose the best performance.

I wonder if the proportion of white vs. black would change under these circumstances. I doubt it, but who knows.

Sometimes it may not just be auditions.

A lot of voice directors usually go into a project with a list of people they have in mind for a project. Then they bring those people in to audition if not hiring them directly.

This is why often, for games and other such projects directed by the same person, you tend to see a lot of the same names in the cast lists. For example, I can usually tell if Kris Zimmerman has directed something just by looking at who was involved. She does Metal Gear, No More Heroes, Bayonetta, and a host of others.

I'm not sure how common blind auditions are in the industry though.

But what would that even mean as far as voice acting goes? It's not like hiring a well known person somehow gives the game more appeal. That's one of the big differences between Hollywood and the game industry. Hollywood will go as far as to mislead by making you think that someone who has a small role in a movie actually has a big one simply because of their starpower. You really don't hear about videogame voice actors at all. I mean look at Emily Rose (Elena in Uncharted). Had anyone heard of her before Uncharted? And while Ashley Johnson was known for Growing Pains, most of her work since then has been fairly low key. Her biggest gaming projects before TLoU were Ben 10 games. So i'd imagine it's fairly safe to say that neither of them got it for their fame. And i'd say most of the other casts from ND games fit into that mold.

Perhaps "fame" might not be the right word, but a lot of the VO industry comes down to connections. People like Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, and Troy Baker (and of course people like Nolan North and Robin Atkin Downes) have worked on so many games with so many directors and companies, and are versatile enough that I'm sure most people who are involved in that side of production are familiar with her and regard her as a reliable talent. It's easy for them to just ring her up and have her in for a gig of any sort, basically.

The names you listed were, I assume, 7 white people and 1 black person. But, in light of the fact that African Americans make up 13%~ of the US population, wouldn't we expect these kinds of numbers? It reminds me of the Oscars So White movement, and how it's focus on Black americans has largely ignored the much greater disparity that exists in the Latino population.



Something is lost in these arguments when people want equal representation based upon the racial population of earth or based upon the history of modern media, rather than based upon the current population of the US, or the racial makeup of individuals that are actively searching for voice acting jobs. Actual data or statistics would be extremely helpful in this kind of situation, rather than how many actors we can name off the top of our head, if we want to see where inequality exists.

The problem is that this mentality of "proportional representation" is what allows the cycle to continue and ensure that white people remain dominant in society and that the playing ground remains uneven. The conversation seems largely about black actors which is why I mentioned them specifically.

 

[Data West]

Anyone knows examples of Black actors voicing white characters ?

The closest I can think is Kratos ....

the majority of Cree Summer's work

 

[Nanashrew]

One thing is for certain in regards to the diversity of voice acting talent in the games industry: The insane prevalence of Nolan North and Troy Baker highlights how disastrously uncreative the video games industry is at character diversity.

Troy Baker + Nolan North = Hegemony of the 20-30 year old White Dude

Same for other parts of the VA industry. The bigger roles go to the bigger actors and they're all mostly white.

People brought up Beau Billingslea but he doesn't get much work. Barret is a major role for him, as is Jet Black, but not much else as it's mostly characters here and there and side characters.

Like Joel or Delsin, right?

And Ocelot and his rat face.

 

[Famassu]

Question: How many people can accurately judge the race of the VA without having any idea who a given VA is? Obviously this is harder in an industry where the same talent is voicing a shit ton of characters and thus it's often possible to identify who a VA is (and by extension race) from voice alone. But if you can't tell the difference without knowing it in advance, how can you argue that it's an issue and is affecting quality?

No one is arguing it affects quality (though having a larger pool of talent to choose from is NEVER a bad thing). People ARE arguing that it's possibly a sign of there being a bit of a bias against non-white voice actors at some point in the chain of decisions that lead to choosing who is picked to voice act the roles of game characters. Not necessarily Druckmann or anyone at Naughty Dog, but maybe some voice talent agents are less likely to represent black actors or they are more likely to first offer roles to white actors or something. And such social issues ARE something that we DO need to do something about.

If you are trying to argue that there is clearly no bias against black people when it's a proven fact even in more liberal, "progressive" societies that black people are still at an disadvantage when trying to find jobs, then you are just being ignorant.

 

[Aaronrules380]

Effectively, it's objective to say that it's less authentic - really, the only authentic role Laura Bailey does is any role that sounds like how she normally sounds.

It's always a trifle to discuss authenticity wrt black voices because it implies that black people have "certain voices" when in reality they're influenced by the region they're in just as much as any voice actor.

Then what's the issue? You can argue diversity for the sake of equal opportunity and that's fine, but don't bring quality into it if it isn't relevant. I see people arguing that the quality of voice acting is worse off for this, and if so, then they need to explain why

 

[Morrigan Stark]

To avoid accusations of racism, maybe the people who hire voice actors should listen to auditions in a studio where they can't see the person auditioning. They also shouldn't have access to the name of the actor or actress. They would just listen to the recordings of every applicant, and choose the best performance.

I wonder if the proportion of white vs. black would change under these circumstances. I doubt it, but who knows.

Hah, I don't know how feasible/practical that would be, but in the interest of science and statistics, I'd definitely like to see such an experiment. Blind tests FTW.

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

Voice actors aren't hired for how they look in relation to the character, if the voice fits then it doesn't matter. I would rather have a movement to get more non-white VAs more work in general (as in any race) rather than a movement to segregate voice roles so only VAs of the same ethnicity as the character are allowed to play them.

 

[A Link to the Past]

Then what's the issue? You can argue diversity for the sake of equal opportunity and that's fine, but don't bring quality into it if it isn't relevant. I see people arguing that the quality of voice acting is worse off for this, and if so, then they need to explain why

Because Laura Bailey is in everything. Just on that virtue it's a reduction of quality. Do you remember that video where Nolan North talks to himself in GTAV?

 

[MikeBreezy92]

I do like how the issue just goes right over the heads of so many.

Kinda hard to choose the best of the best when the pool of VA's isn't really diverse.

 

[NinjaCoachZ]

Voice actors aren't hired for how they look in relation to the character, if the voice fits then it doesn't matter. I would rather have a movement to get more non-white VAs more work in general (as in any race) rather than a movement to segregate voice roles so only VAs of the same ethnicity as the character are allowed to play them.

Absolutely no one is asking for that. People just think it's a shame that opportunities for non-white VAs are limited enough as they are and the few that come around still tend to be snatched up by white actors - and usually the white actors who are not exactly hurting for a gig compared to the many struggling non-white actors out there. People can bring up "but a black actor voiced this white character this one time" but those are the minority.

 

[Neiteio]

The voice actress for Ashley in Mass Effect is black, she's voiced other white characters as well.

That's neat. I only played Mass Effect 1 (she was my waifu), but I never would've guessed she was voiced by a black person. Just goes to show how people of all colors can voice characters of all colors.

 

[L Thammy]

To avoid accusations of racism, maybe the people who hire voice actors should listen to auditions in a studio where they can't see the person auditioning. They also shouldn't have access to the name of the actor or actress. They would just listen to the recordings of every applicant, and choose the best performance.

I wonder if the proportion of white vs. black would change under these circumstances. I doubt it, but who knows.

I like that idea, but that might not even be enough to actually eliminate bias. There are also studies that show that people with names that sound white tend to get more responses to their resumes.

 

[Aaronrules380]

No one is arguing it affects quality (though having a larger pool of talent to choose from is NEVER a bad thing). People ARE arguing that it's possibly a sign of there being a bit of a bias against non-white voice actors at some point in the chain of decisions that lead to choosing who is picked to voice act the roles of game characters. Not necessarily Druckmann or anyone at Naughty Dog, but maybe some voice talent agents are less likely to represent black actors or they are more likely to first offer roles to white actors or something. And such social issues ARE something that we DO need to do something about.

If you are trying to argue that there is clearly no bias against black people when it's a proven fact even in more liberal, "progressive" societies that black people are still at an disadvantage when trying to find jobs, then you are just being ignorant.

I definitely saw people here arguing that it affects quality

And yeah, I know that black people and many other minorities will often have a harder time getting jobs. But it's an issue that can vary between different industries, and fair representation is also not necessarily an even split (Because a fair split should have each race getting roles proportional to how much of the population they make up). And sometimes, cultural factors that may differ between different racial groups could mean certain groups are simply less interested in certain jobs, regardless of ease of entry

 

[Complicated]

What makes it stand out that much more here though is that Nadine is the spitting image of Kandyse McClure.

Everyone I know thought it was her playing the role the first time they saw the UC4 screens.

It's really weird that Naughty Dog keeps doing that. They insist that they're not intentional, but I don't really know of any game of similar size that does this and then claims they're not at least inspired by real people.

 

[Neiteio]

I like that idea, but that might not even be enough to actually eliminate bias. There are also studies that show that people with names that sound white tend to get more responses to their resumes.

Hire a third-party agency that takes resumes according to merit-based criteria and then replaces the names with generic "Applicant 1," "Applicant 2," etc, before handing them off to the casting agency that will hear the auditions (in blind audition format) and make the choices.

 

[zsynqx]

It's really weird that Naughty Dog keeps doing that. They insist that they're not intentional, but I don't really know of any game of similar size that does this and then claims they're not at least inspired by real people.

Keeps doing this as in Ellie looked like Ellen Page and they changed it.

 

[Aaronrules380]

Because Laura Bailey is in everything. Just on that virtue it's a reduction of quality. Do you remember that video where Nolan North talks to himself in GTAV?

A shallow pool of talent is definitely an issue, but that has nothing to do with race.

 

[Scientist Supreme!]

Would those that take issue with this specific situation, have preferred if they just changed Nadine to white? I personally would rather have a strong black female character being played by anyone then not having a strong black female character in the game at all

It's basically the same to me.

Voice actors aren't hired for how they look in relation to the character, if the voice fits then it doesn't matter. I would rather have a movement to get more non-white VAs more work in general (as in any race) rather than a movement to segregate voice roles so only VAs of the same ethnicity as the character are allowed to play them.

I don't know where people are getting this. The article and myself want the few leading people of colour characters to be played by their respective race.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Because Laura Bailey is in everything. Just on that virtue it's a reduction of quality. Do you remember that video where Nolan North talks to himself in GTAV?

Haha I tried to youtube that, but I found a Mafia 2 clip instead, is that the game you meant? Anyway, pretty silly.

I like that idea, but that might not even be enough to actually eliminate bias. There are also studies that show that people with names that sound white tend to get more responses to their resumes.

The post you quoted actually specified blanking out the names too.

 

[Nightbird]

Guys, this whole thing iasn't about this particular case, its about the whole thing.

Nobody minds if a character of colour is occasionally played by a white actor, there are not much after all. However, there should be a larger push for minorities beind played by people of the same ethnicity. THIS is what this is about.

 

[L Thammy]

The post you quoted actually specified blanking out the names too.

Oh, I read it a bit too fast. Sorry. But I do think it's a good idea. If I ever had to hire voice actors - and I probably never will - that's how I'd like to do it. Make me choose between different numbers like an eye exam.

 

[Creaking]

Greg Eagles is the original voice of Gray Fox in MGS1.

Still the best, the remake vo fucking sucked.

I was kind of put off when Gray Fox didn't actually turn out to be black.

 

[Intheflorsh]

I've noticed this happens a lot with Asian characters too. It was pretty bad in Shadow Warrior.