Jade is Latina, Asian, Black ... who knows?
by Alexander Sliwinski 
{ Feb 11th 2007 at 3:15PM }
Earlier this week, a story by Jason Ellis traveled around the intertubes listing 11 black video game stars. The list was tragic, highlighting that black leading characters, especially original intellectual properties, are few and far between. However, the topic of most debate had to do with the appearance of Jade, from Beyond Good and Evil, on the list. Jade was black?
It was the immediate thing we wondered about on our staff. Latina, Asian and "just tan," were terms we came up with. The crew over at Wired apparently had a similar issue. Writing up a column on racially ambiguous characters. Chris Kohler says, "The reaction to Ellis' piece would suggest that Michel Ancel and his team got it perfect with Jade. Because only a few people are suggesting that Jade 'looks' black or 'seems' Asian. They say with conviction that she is black, is Asian, is 'clearly' Latina. Everyone is right, and no one is right."
Half-Life is also master of the racially ambiguous. Alyx Vance could be a mix of anything, her look is truly exotic. Then there is always the question of Gordon Freeman. Not the most stereotypically "white" name, you never actually see him, and other than the box art -- we'd never know. Was making Freeman white, or showing him at all, a last minute marketing decision? It's a fun experiment to take Freeman and just change the pigment of his skin, it's amazing how well it works. The main point is when things are ambiguous, we see what we want to see. Personally, we don't care what race Jade is, we just want to see that girl in a sequel!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
lil jamie p @ Feb 11th 2007 3:27PM
A sequel? And how!
Jason Lynch @ Feb 11th 2007 3:28PM
Alyx Vance could be a mix of anything as long as black is in the equation. Her father, featured in the game, is definitely black.
Justin U @ Feb 11th 2007 3:32PM
Upon looking at her ... Definately, I doubt she's black.
Drop A Load @ Feb 11th 2007 3:33PM
Don't care just give me a number 2
jaysins @ Feb 11th 2007 3:44PM
Cole train baby!
Dr. Strangel0ve @ Feb 11th 2007 3:44PM
Technically the Master Chief could be anything as well (assuming one is going only by the games)
Morder @ Feb 11th 2007 3:41PM
she is clearly a video game character. what does it matter what 'race' she is?
Fancy @ Feb 11th 2007 3:43PM
lest we forget the most ambiguous case that is actively thriving: halo. master chief? turn's out he's korean.
wait, was he even human at all?
robotplague @ Feb 11th 2007 3:48PM
It's called being a smart designer. You make your character as ambiguous as possible so it can succeed in different territories throughout the world and the majority of people can relate to the character by believing they're their race. It's intentionally done that way. If Jade were exclusively "white" it may have turned off other nations even more so. This is commonly done, I recall Pixar talking about it with their "Boo" character from Monsters Inc. Keep it vague/open and it'll do better globally.
ZenGaijin @ Feb 11th 2007 3:51PM
It's sad that there can never be a minority lead in a game because developers are to afraid that it will alienate people from purchasing it. If there is going to be a black charcter as a lead the title better have Def JAm in the title or it better be a sports game. Its really sad and it will probably never change.
Shagittarius @ Feb 11th 2007 4:25PM
Clearly shes blackanese.
LongshotX @ Feb 11th 2007 3:55PM
She look like a red bone to me. My Girlfriend is "red", or a light skinned African American (perhaps with something else mixed in there as well. Or she could be a "high yellow" another African American color (usually very light). Definitely not my "red-brown skin" color. Nor my friends milk chocolate skin or my other friends dark chocolate skin. I don't know why we are called BLACK when there is so many different variations. I think African American sounds better.
Hey look at that BLACK GIRL!!! Just sounds so wrong and incorrect. I guess I should go around and say to the nearest asian HEY YELLOW MAN!! Or even the INDIAN and SAY HEY RED MEN. I wish we could get off the colors seriously. It sucks.
njnets311 @ Feb 11th 2007 4:04PM
who needs race?
JR @ Feb 11th 2007 4:05PM
I always assumed she was Latina, seeing as the game has such a huge spanish influence.
Grunge @ Feb 11th 2007 4:06PM
Notice how all other racial indicators are left out of the equation too - she's always wearing lipstick, so you can't tell whether her lips are pink or brown, her hair is black, which leaves open the possibility for any race, and her eyes are brown too.
Also, *SPOILERS* she turns out to have been created by the aliens (or rather, is an alien), so the whole discussion is kind of moot because we know her ancestry.
That said, Jade happens to be one of my favorite videogame leads, mostly because she defies most of the female stereotypes as well (of which there are two ends: Princess Peach as the helpless virgin and Lara Croft as the hyper-sexualized whore).
rodney ramero @ Feb 11th 2007 4:27PM
Gordon is clearly of caucasian descent. He may not have a model in Half-life 2, but you can see his model with cheats in Half-life 1's single player campaign. You can also see him in the multi-player portion of the game.
Also, the master chief is white as described in one of the books. I can't bring up the exact quote, but he does have pale skin, but I am not sure if the Eric Nylund describes his heritage. He could be any race with light skin.
Eric @ Feb 11th 2007 4:15PM
Definitely 1/4 Chinese, 1/4 Black, 1/4 Norweigan, 1/4 Spanish. I know all.
Khash @ Feb 11th 2007 4:18PM
I don't see race. People say I'm white and I believe them because police officers call me 'sir'.
Eric @ Feb 11th 2007 4:17PM
I always thought she was asian. Never really thought much about it. Most certainly would have never thought her to be black though.
Allister Howe @ Feb 11th 2007 4:18PM
I remember trying to figure out her race as I played the game, but I never got it figured out. The game was just too good to distract me with questions such as race.
...Or too buggy. This game taught me to always have two save games in Ubisoft Xbox games. Anyway face that horrible bug where the Agent guy disappeared in the factory (Been a while since I played the game, haha)?
Anyway, bring on number 2! Never going to happen, but this game so deserves a sequel more than almost any other game I can think of.
Pat @ Feb 11th 2007 4:20PM
She is Mediterranean
Shockz @ Feb 11th 2007 4:21PM
"Also, *SPOILERS* she turns out to have been created by the aliens (or rather, is an alien), so the whole discussion is kind of moot because we know her ancestry."
AHHHHH! *tries to wipe brain*
Please, a spoiler warning space of more than a single tap of the spacebar next time. Some of us have just discovered this awesome game...
Hoffy @ Feb 11th 2007 4:21PM
LongshotX, what the heck are you even talking about? The point of the article was that she's racially ambiguous.
You're black. I'm white. What's the big deal?
And if you're gonna get all PC on us, do us a favor and make it equal. Indian refers to people from India; what you're talking about are native americans.
uros @ Feb 11th 2007 4:32PM
I honestly never thought about it. Yet, Jade seems more asian than latin or black, to me at least.
Spartan 1308 @ Feb 11th 2007 4:33PM
to LongshotX: African American is a misnomer unless you are talking about someone who is from Africa and is now an American or the reverse maybe. What would you then call a black person in France or anywhere other than the Americas? That's not a joke, and I'm not asking for a punchline. Unless you want to go around labeling everyone by their current location and country of their ancestors' origin, this description just doesn't make sense.
Should one go around saying, "Hey look at that BLACK GIRL!!!"? I think not. However, I don't think it would sound right or correct to say, "Hey look at that AFRICAN AMERICAN girl!!!", either. It's not the description of the girl but the context in which you are using the description. If someone asks you for a description of a girl and she is what we all know as white, then simply say she is white. If she is what we all know as black, then say she is black. In reality, you would need to use more specific adjectives around both white and black to come up with a good composite of the person described. I hate to say this if you are still so innocent as to think otherwise, but there will always be discrimination amongst people as long as we don't look like clones. If we all had the same color in every way, it might be eye shape or hair texture. Unfortunately discrimination is a fact of life just as certain as death and taxes.
sjenky @ Feb 11th 2007 4:36PM
Wait, wait.. we seem to be missing one small detail, she's from Hyllis, wich would make her Hyllean. Wildly linking that to Medea, Jason and the Argonauts, the Hyllean coast is assumed to be located somewhere near Sweden. So I'd say she's Swedish :D
I've never been there, so I can't say for sure if they have talking pigs and laser-shooting hovercrafts, but if anyone can do better, let's hear it!
Phil @ Feb 11th 2007 4:54PM
Race is sooooo Last Gen guys.
Get with the program, race never mattered in games anyway.
Everyone is the same and everyone is different.
miles foreman @ Feb 11th 2007 5:03PM
Obviously when someone says "Hey, look at that black/white girl/guy!" it's because that's the easiest way to describe what you're looking at and wish to draw attention to. I'd rather hear something short and simple as opposed to waiting for a complete and in-depth description of whatever it is I'm supposed to be looking at.
Spartan 1308 @ Feb 11th 2007 5:10PM
I think Nylund also mentioned Master Chief having red hair in the books at some point.
kjartan @ Feb 11th 2007 5:15PM
I swear there's a picture sitting around somewhere in Half-Life 2 where you see Alyx's father (who is obviously black) and her *ASIAN* mother.
Jeff @ Feb 11th 2007 5:17PM
"It's sad that there can never be a minority lead in a game because developers are to afraid that it will alienate people from purchasing it."
Yeah, because nobody bought GTA: San Andreas.
Brad Lee @ Feb 11th 2007 5:30PM
"Clearly shes blackanese." by Shagittarius
You stole my post!
Seriously though, thats what I always thought. Shes got the supernatural martial arts powers of an asian, and the supernatural soul-filled sass-mouth of a black woman.
I know I know, stereotypes, but this post wasn't meant to be serious to begin with.
Pag @ Feb 11th 2007 5:41PM
Her uncle is a pig, I think that's more cause for concern...
Jose @ Feb 11th 2007 6:02PM
Jade is definitely not black. She could be Latina but Latinors in general are very rare in games. So she has to be Asian.
NintendoFanbot @ Feb 11th 2007 5:44PM
Jade used to be a man.
So did Lara Croft.
Jade is clearly the genetic summary of all of Earth's humanity's races. The better to be a freedom fighter. :D
Strike Man @ Feb 11th 2007 5:56PM
"Yeah, because nobody bought GTA: San Andreas."
Nice job at removing the second line from the part you quoted. The following sentence mentioned that there ARE videogame lead characters who are black males, but they're typically found in violent thug roles or in sports titles. Even though the quoted sentence was worded in a way that makes it sound different when taken out of context, clearly the intent was to say that developers, worried about possible poor sales of their title, will shy away from putting a black lead in a game that doesn't involve violence or sports.
I hardly think that Mr. Johnson did much of anything to improve that image, something that other videogame characters (such as Dr. Eli Vance, a supporting character who has been mentioned here already) have done to a limited extent.
OtakuCODE @ Feb 11th 2007 5:56PM
She's fictional. Couldn't care less what race she is. If you find yourself identifying with a certain genetic lineage, you need to look in a mirror and realize you are an individual. You cannot claim the virtues of that race. You cannot be held liable for the shortcomings of other members of the race. Whether anyone else in the world realizes this and lives by it or not is something you cannot control, but luckily the only thing important in your life is that you live it as yourself.
Justin U @ Feb 11th 2007 6:01PM
I find that Cole Train should be on there. He was more of a hero than I thought Marcus or Dom was... Honestly, I paid most attention to him, and his memorable lines, like,
"Back in ya Hole, bitch!"
And
"Its COLETRAIN TIME!"
Jomolungma @ Feb 11th 2007 6:06PM
ummm... haven't you guys seen the movie Domino? Clearly she is Japanic.
Dan @ Feb 11th 2007 6:12PM
I think she's blasian.
Not really, but I really wanted to use that term.
Dizz @ Feb 11th 2007 6:25PM
The day we stop talking about things like this and two black coaches in the super bowl is the day racism and stereotyping is over. honestly as an African American, i would rather a Japanese company like square, capcom or namco name a very good game (final fantasy maybe?) starring a black character then for someone to make a game like crackdown or halo starring a black lead character... but thats just me.
LongshotX @ Feb 11th 2007 6:22PM
@Spartan 1308
You know what I want you to go in a corner and shut the f*ck up. African American is not a misnomer. It is an accurate depiction of my ancestry which is mostly African. Since most of my heritage consists of Africans who were forcibly transplanted to America and some Native American and Spanish I should be called AfroSpaindianish but since I'm mostly African than African American is the correct term. An African descendant in France would be called an an African Frenchman. The point I am trying to make is that I hate being called a color, and an inaccurate color at that. If you want to describe me by a color then don't call me black if clearly my skin is the same color as a Mexican or a n Eastern Indian. When I look at my fellow African American friends I see a plethora of shades, not a single person appearing black. So back to my point I wish color wasn't always an issue. I wish when I filled out an Application it didn't look like this:
Caucasian
Latino
Asian
BLACK (or COLORED)
other
Last but least with your horrible example of describing the girl: How many shades of white are there? Lets see egg shell white, pearl white, paper white. White is white looks like. Also I dated a "white" girl or Caucasian, actually she was French-Canadian, but anyway I hated hearing: "Hey you date the white girl"? And I'd say "is that all you say, what happened to just saying that 'girl over there or whatever".
Now lets compare the shades of African Americans this can also go for Latino's: light yellow, high yellow, red, red brown, caramel brown, brown brown, medium brown, dark brown. Last time I checked in the Crayola box none of those colors looked like black to me.
Now Dig A Hole. Just Bury Yourself....
ShortFuse @ Feb 11th 2007 6:29PM
Personally, if I had to go choose, i'd say hispanic. there are a lot of spanish terms in the game.
"Chili con carne" ?
Just listen to Secundo speak.
Anonymous @ Feb 11th 2007 6:31PM
I'm not a racist, but sometimes having stereotypically black characters can be a put off. Such as the main character from Grand Theft Auto:San Andreas. He was the embodiment of the gang banging, drug dealing, murdering, inner-city thug that us suburb-jockeys abhor, and thus he was extremely unfun to play as, for me atleast. Maybe it's just because there is (Currently, was in the past) Italian mobsters around here that I'd much much rather play as one. But when on the news every night you see a murder in the inner city over drugs and gangs, you really don't feel that inclined to play the part.
Having been said, racial ambiguity is in all (basically) animated (rendered, whatever) characters these days. In the anime Bleach, there is a female character that is presented as Indian (from the Indian sub-continent) but with darkish/lightish skin, and some people think she is black and others Indian (she is obviously Indian, but that is beside the point, just like the girl from Beyond Good and Evil is nowhere close to Black)
You say Tomato, I say Tomato
Shockz @ Feb 11th 2007 6:37PM
Aaaaanyway, I think that by the point in the future where we've started colonizing planets, race will be a thing of the past anyway--humanity will be fairly homogeneous in terms of skin color and features. Jade's more or less a perfect example--she's like a Blacktino Semitasian with some white and Native American features.
In all seriousness, though, while Jade is definitely racially ambiguous, I don't see how she looks black at all. Asian, certainly, and some Latino, but black?
Ciaran Gallagher @ Feb 11th 2007 6:36PM
The stars of games are usually white!(eg. Max Payne, Gears of War, Die Hard, Duke Nukem, Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid, Time Crisis) It's nice to see when you see something different. Like in stranglehold, you've got some slick chinese dude, which is quite different. Any games with black lead characters are usually related to rap and hip-hop (Def Jam Icon, Saint Row, 50 Cent bulletproof... not great examples but anyway). I think it's great that in games like Oblivion and Saints Row you get the chance to choose things like race and gender.
Spartan 1308 @ Feb 11th 2007 6:37PM
"clearly the intent was to say that developers, worried about possible poor sales of their title, will shy away from putting a black lead in a game that doesn't involve violence or sports."
Dr. Eli Vance is a part of a game that involves violence. Very few games don't involve violence and have human characters. Most games that I can think of that don't include violence are puzzle games, and most of those don't have human characters.
I think his point is quickly becoming moot. More games are allowing people to craft their own characters. I currently own 7 360 games and had 2 others that I owned long enough to beat, then sold. I've also pre-purchased Crackdown.
COD2-----------------White Male
Prey-----------------Cherokee Male
Perfect Dark Zero----White Female
Burnout Revenge------Car
FEAR-----------------Unknown
Gears of War---------White Male, co-lead Hispanic male, additional main support roles by a Black Male and White Male
Lost Planet----------Asian Male
Saints Row-----------Player's Choice
Fight Night Round 3--Player's Choice
Crackdown------------Player's Choice as long as you want to be a Black, White or Asian Male.
There will likely be more and more games where the player chooses the race. Granted that none of those have black leads, but Fight Night Round 3 has plenty of black and hispanic characters as it should since it is a professional boxing game and black and hispanic men dominate the sport with the exception of the Klitschko's(primarily talking about Vitali). My point is that only 2 of the 10 have defined white male leads. Three allow the player to choose to some degree.
Dapper Dan @ Feb 11th 2007 6:44PM
of all the creative comments on here...why is it most people cannot spell "definitely" to save their lives?
scott @ Feb 11th 2007 6:51PM
Whatever "race" Alyx or Jade technically is, you fanboys love them because they clearly look Asian.
Jade is the kind of name uncreative males (writers, artists, game makers) give to their fictitious Asian female characters. In real life, it's a stripper name.
And what the hell does "seems Asian" mean anyway? Other than pointing out the ignorance of the whoever said it, I mean.
As for the African-American vs black issue, "black" is perfectly valid in the black community. No, you shouldn't say "Look at that BLACK girl," because pointing anyone out based on their race/ethnicity is pretty much wrong.
Spartan 1308 @ Feb 11th 2007 6:57PM
to LongshotX:
If you only make the distinction of using the continent of origin for black people then you are being racist. I believe you have seen an application that included the term "colored", but I haven't and that is different than calling someone black. African American is a misnomer unless you are from Africa or living in Africa. I've heard plenty of black people who agree with that idea.
How many generations removed are you from those ancestors from Africa? I would guess at least 3. Probably more like 6 or 7 generations. Did you ever meet your ancestors who were African American slaves. They were African American. Have you ever been a slave? Were your parents or even grandparents slaves? I'd bet that you've experienced racism and for that I am sorry for you. But that doesn't make you African American. Why don't we all start our descriptions of ourselves w/Pangaean? Because that would be ridiculous. I could then be Pangaean European Native American. If you want a more ridiculous title.