I don't pretend to be knowledgeable about these issues, that's why I'm asking. Also, it started off as a question about Persona and kind of moved on to a question about games in general.
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Taking a look at the LGBT representation in Persona 5 (Light Spoilers)
- Thread starter Burbeting
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BreezyLimbo
Banned
.....Those portrayals are fucked up. Like Atlus went into the 80's and 90's to snatch the stereotypical views of gay men and put them in a game made in modern times(And taking place in modern times((?))).
Like, is that portrayal supposed to be funny?
Like, is that portrayal supposed to be funny?
Mystic Theurge
Member
It might have been true in the 90s that Japanese media was more progressive, but now? In 2017, Japan has fallen behind.
America certainly isn't perfect, but it's come a long way.
For one there's the way everyone except Toby treats her. Then she starts having the nightmares because the developers see her as a man and not a woman.
sensui-tomo
Member
everyone's an asshole so that point is kinda odd(seriously they're all assholes and toby's got the least asshole-ism (i think i can use this as a term?) of the bunch) but seriously them being assholes towards Erica shouldnt mean she should be gone as a result, also the nightmares targeted the sex of the person (which if i'm wording right i hope aka sex = birthed ) and i know that they mess that up in the localization because they say gender (which if i hope means what you place yourself being aka male/female) and because she could have no children (which by logic should rather affect every woman who cant bear children in a relationship instead of just people who were born with the sex of a male)
Again thats just my take on this and it should not matter as much as again i'm not the best candidate to vouch anything.
They didn't go the 80s or 90s, they probably got the portrayal from actual Japanese pop culture today. That's what "gays" are seen as. Even today in anime and J-dramas you will see the same thing. It's not even considered "offensive" because it's presented in a "cute" and "loving" way rather than actual rape or molest. They're not "sexual predators" but weird teddy bears who just want to chase you around and hug you, and you run and avoid them because "you don't swing that way". It's pretty fucked up.
Another way to see it is, the gross perception of gay stereotypes that is in Japanese culture is comparable to the unfortunate stereotype of transgenders in Thailand all being sex workers who might be "traps" trying to lure in prey who don't know any better until they see the dick.
The world still has a long way to go in terms of being understanding of certain things and knowing how to treat people with respect and dignity.
Yeah they're all assholes so why does she stick around them? What trans person would ever hang around with a bunch of people that constantly belittle them and remind them of the past? And the way they treat Erica is never really shown as a bad thing to do. It's like Yosuke's homophobia in P4.
Garrett Hawke
Member
oh wow, that's bad. i've never played catherine past the start so i didn't know any of this. i didn't even know she was trans until she was brought up in this thread. sucks they didn't treat her with respect, she's a pretty cool design to boot.
sensui-tomo
Member
Well technically its being overblown here, they dont outright call Erica ingame as Eric ever (except at the point in the true end where its found out that toby had sex with Erica and Erica never told Toby that she was a male at one point) and they generally say it like "Jonny asks, "Hey, is Toby really into Erica?" Orlando replies, "Well, kids drool over girls like that." Jonny then says, "Well... but... it's Erica."" and they refer to Erica as Her with the one exception where they tell Toby hey this did happen. Toby still seems to be with Erica if the end Credit picture is anything to go by.
Cast is basically men who suck though, we got a possible cheater (Main protagonist), a man who ruined his relationship with his wife through dumb business ideas and said she ruined the relationship by cheating on him(she didnt), and a guy contemplating stealing his friend's girlfriend. and toby
The game does need some slight changes in regards to wording that'd probably make things better ala change the dialog for the "gender" of the dreams to the "sex" of the dream (assuming i got these terms right) and probably have an Erica route in the case that her and toby dont have a fling.
cripterion
Member
I think it's interesting that this issue didn't come up before considering the game released a while ago in Japan. Probably wasn't an issue there in the first place. Just thought that was worth pointing out.
Yeah I think it's stereotypical portrayal coming from a Japanese pov. While I understand some may be offended, I see it as approached with a lack of tact rather than being intentionally offensive. It feels like they went with "la cage aux folles" type for these characters. I'd still have trouble characterizing this as hateful, especially considering the shit I've seen here in France, after what was said when people found out that the latest casualty of terrorism was a gay police officer.
The characters should probably have been written off for the western release, and it would have been fairly easy to cut out those sections and not lose anything of the story in the process.
Yeah I think it's stereotypical portrayal coming from a Japanese pov. While I understand some may be offended, I see it as approached with a lack of tact rather than being intentionally offensive. It feels like they went with "la cage aux folles" type for these characters. I'd still have trouble characterizing this as hateful, especially considering the shit I've seen here in France, after what was said when people found out that the latest casualty of terrorism was a gay police officer.
The characters should probably have been written off for the western release, and it would have been fairly easy to cut out those sections and not lose anything of the story in the process.
Crimson_Echidna
Banned
And then we get all those delicious cries of censorship.
cripterion
Member
I'm not advocating for it, I said maybe they would have been better off.
Iva Demilcol
Member
I believe we talked about them in the import OT, but the conversation was more like "I think GAF won't like this". At least that's the first thing that crossed my mind when I met those characters.
The scene with Yusuke is surprisingly accurate in some countries. I had a Korean friend and we used to go to different places to have dinner just the two of us quite often because our Japanese lab mates were too shy to hang out with us (we were studying in Tokyo). He said to me a couple of times he kind of felt uncomfortable because (in his words) "this is the kind of place where a guy should bring his girlfriend... they are probably thinking it's weird that two guys came in here together". I always said to him "well, I'm pretty sure they can tell I'm a foreigner, that should be enough for them to think we are just friends". Ha, good memories.
cripterion
Member
Yeah I can totally imagine. It's definitely the same in Japan.
Also with the crepe line too. It goes with the plant-eating type guy thing they have going on there.
Brawly Likes to Brawl
Member
It's not that weird when the writer responsible for P1-P2 left the series afterward. The writing in general has never been the same.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
Yeah, no defending the portrayal of the 2 gay man in the game. It's a very "japanese anime" type of comedy, such a shame they can't think of something else.
Messofanego
Banned
Agreed. People would have had to buy it and see the extent of what it entails to bring out the criticism. Unless if the queerphobic stuff had been part of the pre-release marketing.
Mystic Theurge
Member
Well, it's their choice not to listen.
But as a response, I'll make the choice of not buying anymore Atlus products.
DR2K
Banned
Yes, but this isn't bad writing at fault or pursuit of a different style of game. It's maliciously backwards.
Yea the stuff in P5 is downright hateful.
I also find it hard to believe Atlus are completely unaware about all that's been written about the Kanji thing. But apparently they've has learned nothing, don't care at all about any gay fans, and are just horrible. I find very little to like about the writing in the game in general to be honest. The style and battlesystem is great though
I also find it hard to believe Atlus are completely unaware about all that's been written about the Kanji thing. But apparently they've has learned nothing, don't care at all about any gay fans, and are just horrible. I find very little to like about the writing in the game in general to be honest. The style and battlesystem is great though
SolicitorPirate
Member
While it's not terribly surprising to see so called anime games that are pretty backwards socially, the Persona series stands out because those games are generally forward thinking and critical of overly conservative Japanese society.
It's not surprising to see Senran Kagura failing to be a bastion of feminism. It's another to see Persona 5, whose central theme is rebellion against social oppression then turn around and shit on other oppressed groups
IDKAboutThat
Member
It's not great. They didn't need stereotypically gay joke characters in the first place, and then of all the gay stereotypes they could go with, they go with FF7 gym patron sex pests? Really Atlus? It's a damn shame that such a fantastic game, which I'd bet is going to end up a classic, has this embarrassing bullshit in it.
I see a lot of people says this, and they make it sounds all good. But you don't need that much gay imagery and subtext to tell a story about how it's ok for a guy to like sewing. The whole thing is just insultingly stupid whether you're gay or not. And because the story isn't about him actually being gay, the negative gay stereotypes is never challenged within the story, but it tells you that yes it's ok to like fucking sewing and that doesn't mean you're gay. Actually being gay though? That's still seen as bad and creepy
Sucks. P5 is in my top 3 for this gen, but stupid shit like this keeps people away from your game Atlus. And Atlus USA are stupid enough to include it in the localization. People knew from the JP release that it was a terrible scene, yet it's still here. Like I'm genuinely curious as to why this was left in, were they not allowed to alter anything, were they forced to etc.
I don't think two flamboyant gay men sexually assaulting a teenager should be seen as acceptable anywhere in the world regardless of culture differences and whatnot. They're either being hateful or very, very, extremely damn stupid a childish, and in either case they have to stop.
I'm not sure if taking it out of the game would have been best, it's complicated, but if they were given a choice at all, outrage over "censorship" in games has been so rampant lately that I could see them being afraid of that.
Hell, when the US cover art was revealed, not an hour had passed and people were FURIOUS that Morgana was covering Ann's cleavage, claiming that it was censorship... Minutes later their PR manager had to explain that it was so Morgana wasn't covered by the ESRB rating lol.
A very small percentage of the actual damage from prejudice comes from real self-aware hateful bias. The majority of it is from preconceptions instilled by environment, upbringing, and culture which reinforces certain beliefs and attitudes. Saying that someone doesn't mean to be hateful or isn't trying to be hateful is meaningless. A white family in a rural area who have never interacted or seen an actual black person in their lives making jokes about racial stereotypes over dinner aren't trying to be hateful. When the son shares these jokes on Facebook he isn't trying to be hateful. When conservative Christians protest against gay rights or abortion clinics they aren't trying to be hateful. When nationalists show apathy towards immigrants due to xenophobia and insecurity they are not trying to be hateful. There are people who are actively hateful, they form the face of these negative movements, but the real weight behind the actual movements are not hateful people, it is ignorant people who genuinely believe that they are expressing normal views because the people around them believe the same thing, and it makes sense to them.
Funny answer considering the Persona 5 most people here are playing is published by Atlus USA, and distributed in the western territories. It has shipped over 1.5 million copies, of which about 600k were for the Asian market including Japan. That seems to suggest the primary audience is no longer the Japanese market...
Magicpaint
Member
Yep, at the end of Kanji's arc it's heavily implied that he's not gay, and you get this feeling that that's where the moral lies. As though, phew, at least he didn't actually turn out gay in the end! Great! All's well.
Naoto's arc has a similar problem.
Does it really matter what they are trying to be here? The fact is the stereotypical portrayal of gay people as demonstrated here stems from hate, and it's not like this is a one-off for this particular series. And editing it in the localisation isn't really helpful since it comes from the creators themselves and they need to be challenged that this should not be okay anywhere.
IDKAboutThat
Member
Yes, we all know why it's like this. The question is do we think it's okay that it's like this. And I would say the answer is no.
encephalon
Member
It's not like anyone would care about "censorship" if it didn't involve anime boobs.
Garrett Hawke
Member
You're the naughty troll of neogaf
There would have been no outrage as long as they don't remove underage sexualized animu girls.
Not only that, it turns out there are gay people in Japan and they don't like the way society treats them. Some people are quick to defend Glorious Nippon culture while throwing gay Japanese people under the bus. There's no excuse for this rubbish, really.
There was a lot of complaining when games like South Park, The Last of Us, Twisted Metal, Wolfenstein etc. were censored for violence/Nazi imagery in certain European countries and Australia. The fact of the matter is it's just more common for games to be censored in the west for sexual content, whereas in Japan games are frequently censored for violence. Though Japan gets games with actual nudity censored as well.
SolicitorPirate
Member
Does this answer even make sense anymore? From what I understand, more than half of P5's sales came from outside Japan. Whether Atlus likes it or not, their audience is no longer Japanese. It's global.
Besides, accepting this logic would require accepting that gay people either don't exist in Japan, or somehow aren't harmed by shit like this. And that seems insane to me.
Are there not gay people in Japan? And is this not a game that I can go into any major western retailer that sells games and find this on a shelf?
This isn't some niche game that got localized as some low budget bone being tossed to the western audience. The notion that this was "just meant for Japan" is incredibly ignorant to how this and other Japanese games are being made.
There are but also at the same time their culture is different from yours and mine and many others.
A game developed by Japanese people and using Japanese humor.. shocker
Yup to the rest of the world and some of them there. More on Fox at 10
encephalon
Member
Yes the culture here in Japan is "different" in that it's less progressive in terms of gay rights and has problems that have improved in the west.
"Different" is not a blank check. Nor does he mean that it is undeserving of attention. What, I wonder, is your incentive for attempt to shut down discussion regarding the game?
I bet my gay friends here in Japan would agree with you. Being the butt of a joke is just part of their culture, they will think it's fine!
What were you hoping to achieve by coming into this thread?