Nintendo's lack of diversity

[kidfresh]

We just need to start being tolerant of intolerance obvs.

[smurdd]

There is vivian from paper mario and the thousand year door. She is a transgender woman that isn't there for the player to laugh at. She has a small arch with her sisters making fun of her and at the end accepting her. If Nintendo ever gets around to doing gamecube virtual console, I hope they restore her story for international releases.
I also wish Nintendo would acknowledge Birdo as a transgender woman and say something like, "In the mario world no one is a jerk to her about it, and accept her fully."

[kidfresh]

There is vivian from paper mario and the thousand year door. She is a transgender woman that isn't there for the player to laugh at. She has a small arch with her sisters making fun of her and at the end accepting her. If Nintendo ever gets around to doing gamecube virtual console, I hope they restore her story for international releases.
I also wish Nintendo would acknowledge Birdo as a transgender woman and say something like, "In the mario world no one is a jerk to her about it, and accept her fully."

But realize that the Japanese are much more lenient on sexual matters than we are in America or Europe. Sexualization of children happens often, for example. These are two different cultures, and NoA realizes this. If they prominently acknowledged Birdo as a transgender woman, they might alienate a portion of their market (ex: parents looking for family friendly games for their children).

Wish for diversity all you want. I'm not against playing a video game with multiple ethnic groups or homosexual/transgendered characters. But Nintendo is a business - money talks and bullshit walks.

[pepharytheworm]

Wish for diversity all you want. I'm not against playing a video game with multiple ethnic groups or homosexual/transgendered characters. But Nintendo is a business - money talks and bullshit walks.

And that is one of the greatest faults of the capitalistic mindset.

(ex: parents looking for family friendly games for their children).

Also I really have to ask everyone here please try and rationalize this outlook, not excuses? I see no rational reason. How is a transgender or a homosexual person being in a game make it now not family friendly?

[Gunstar Green]

I won't try to rationalize it because it isn't rational. It's thanks to what "family values" means to the puritanical mindset of mainstream western culture.

Change is coming, and we've made a lot of progress, but we're not there yet. I do hope that one day this won't be a big deal because you're completely right. It shouldn't be.

[kidfresh]

Also I really have to ask everyone here please try and rationalize this outlook, not excuses. How is a transgender or a homosexual person being in a game make it now not family friendly?

I think there could be two possible reasons;

1. Your kid starts asking you *why* someone could be homosexual or transgendered, and explaining that to a 7 or 8 year old who doesn't need to know what sex even is can be tough.

2. LGBT is something that's only recently gained support. Homosexuality has been shunned in many cultures for hundreds of years, and that's changing only in the last generation. It's still a touchy subject for a lot of people, particularly those with the PC stick a little too far up their ass.

[AppleQueso]

If anything, in my experience kids tend to "get" gay and transgender stuff a lot easier than adults do. Pretending that we don't exist doesn't do anything to "protect" them, it just makes it harder to accept us when they're older, have already built up a lifetime of cultural expectations and being told that we effectively shouldn't exist, and suddenly have to fit us into that world view. That's not even getting into the issues with young trans people who don't get a chance to actualize because the fact that they even can transition is hidden from them.

Really it's the adults that have hangups, not the kids.

There is vivian from paper mario and the thousand year door. She is a transgender woman that isn't there for the player to laugh at. She has a small arch with her sisters making fun of her and at the end accepting her. If Nintendo ever gets around to doing gamecube virtual console, I hope they restore her story for international releases.
I also wish Nintendo would acknowledge Birdo as a transgender woman and say something like, "In the mario world no one is a jerk to her about it, and accept her fully."

I considered bringing up Vivian earlier. NoA has always been pretty conservative, I mean this is the same company that demanded crosses be removed from NES games and wouldn't let the original Mortal Kombat be released on SNES with blood intact. I'm not surprised that they get ansy about trans stuff, they are afraid of backlash from conservative parents, and the sad thing is that that fear isn't exactly unfounded.

[darsparx]

And the same company that released several versions of OoT, though the company as a whole recommended removal of all religious references in it(but all is still really evident in OoT from what I recall just not directly evident)

[Michi]

If anything, in my experience kids tend to "get" gay and transgender stuff a lot easier than adults do. Pretending that we don't exist doesn't do anything to "protect" them, it just makes it harder to accept us when they're older, have already built up a lifetime of cultural expectations and being told that we effectively shouldn't exist, and suddenly have to fit us into that world view.

Exactly. Ignoring the issue entirely just turns the people you're ignoring into "the other", which doesn't do anybody any good and can create a form of unconscious or even conscious hostility. Like it or not, humanity is suspicious of anything we're not used to (I'm sure it's some primitive defense mechanism) which is why we have to be bombarded at an early age to "treat people the way you want to be treated", with a measure of equality and respect. That's why I find it a little heartwarming whenever I read anything or see surveys about the younger generation (30 and under) and how they seem so much more accepting of the LGBT community. Perhaps all those 80's and 90's PSAs did some good.