Altaire
Warrior
This is probably the weirdest, most irrelevant rant I'll ever go on in my entire life, so just bear with me. Alternatively, go back to the topic list and don't bear with me, I guess you could do that if you'd prefer it.
So for whatever reason, I've been on an SF2 kick lately. Nostalgia got the better of me, so I decided to go way back to 1990 and see if I still remember how to rip shit up with Ken and Bison (Dictator, for anyone who insists on being so politically correct). It's been fun, but something stood out to me that I'd never really thought about before:
Why in the FUCK is Balrog a white guy in SF2?
Like, I don't even understand this. He's black in the instruction manual. He's black in all promotional material. He's black in every OTHER game, and he was black in the original SF if you subscribe to the theory that Mike and Balrog are the same character (Balrog's name IS Mike Bison in Japan, and Capcom executives are actually divided on this because no one remembers anymore). I won't even really complain about how arbitrary this is in retrospect: What bothers me most is how fucking stupid Balrog looks as a white guy.
You might be thinking "Huh, I don't remember him looking THAT dumb."
Let this set the tone for what's to come.
Yes, I realize this is incredibly racist by all realistic standards, but fucked if I care. I'm white, everyone is allowed to take jabs at their own ethnicity. If I'm offending anyone here, I apologize in advance; I'm just pointing out something that seems equal parts hilarious and incomprehensibly stupid from the nineties. To be blunt, white Balrog, Balrog circa 1990, just looks fucking dumb. When you see Balrog in SF4, the Capcom vs. games or the Alpha series, you're just like "Okay, cool, so he's a big ripped black dude like Evander Holyfield". We're used to seeing big black dudes in boxing who you would NOT want to fuck with, and that's probably the only saving grace for what is otherwise one of the most bland, boring and all-around unredeemable designs in the SF series: At the very least, he's pretty intimidating.
White Balrog isn't intimidating, man. This is a guy who looks like he can't even spell his own fucking name, how am I supposed to take him seriously? Christ, Blanka looks more literate than this assclown does. I suppose the big issue, beyond the stupid expression on his face, is the fact that he looks like a stereotypical movie thug. This guy looks like that guy who gets bodied by the main guy in every action movie ever made, and that's not helping his case. The best part is the missing teeth: When you see black Balrog's missing teeth, you figure he must've lost that in the ring, and that gives him tough guy cred. When you see white Balrog's missing teeth, you figure him paw musta knocked it outta him for puttin' him seed in they cousin's belly.
The bottom line is, I just don't understand the point of this. Like, what was Capcom going for here? More than that, why would they give him two different ethnicities in the same game? Like, I'm genuinely curious as to how this came about, now. I'm starting to think that someone didn't get the memo that he's black in everything to do with the game that isn't the game itself, and somehow he wound up looking like a hairless orangutan.
Was there a point to this whole rant? No, not in the least; I suppose I just wanted to get this out because it perplexes the shit out of me every time I come up against Balrog in SF2, and because I'm curious as to what everyone else thinks about this. I swear I can't be the only one who eventually realized there are two different Balrogs, and thought it was really stupid.
And now, in closing, I'd just like to present you with the crown jewel of Balrog's short-lived stint as a white dude:
Sweet mother of christ, it's countless generations of sibling union at work in my vidya games.
Discuss!
So for whatever reason, I've been on an SF2 kick lately. Nostalgia got the better of me, so I decided to go way back to 1990 and see if I still remember how to rip shit up with Ken and Bison (Dictator, for anyone who insists on being so politically correct). It's been fun, but something stood out to me that I'd never really thought about before:
Why in the FUCK is Balrog a white guy in SF2?
Like, I don't even understand this. He's black in the instruction manual. He's black in all promotional material. He's black in every OTHER game, and he was black in the original SF if you subscribe to the theory that Mike and Balrog are the same character (Balrog's name IS Mike Bison in Japan, and Capcom executives are actually divided on this because no one remembers anymore). I won't even really complain about how arbitrary this is in retrospect: What bothers me most is how fucking stupid Balrog looks as a white guy.
You might be thinking "Huh, I don't remember him looking THAT dumb."
Let this set the tone for what's to come.
Yes, I realize this is incredibly racist by all realistic standards, but fucked if I care. I'm white, everyone is allowed to take jabs at their own ethnicity. If I'm offending anyone here, I apologize in advance; I'm just pointing out something that seems equal parts hilarious and incomprehensibly stupid from the nineties. To be blunt, white Balrog, Balrog circa 1990, just looks fucking dumb. When you see Balrog in SF4, the Capcom vs. games or the Alpha series, you're just like "Okay, cool, so he's a big ripped black dude like Evander Holyfield". We're used to seeing big black dudes in boxing who you would NOT want to fuck with, and that's probably the only saving grace for what is otherwise one of the most bland, boring and all-around unredeemable designs in the SF series: At the very least, he's pretty intimidating.
White Balrog isn't intimidating, man. This is a guy who looks like he can't even spell his own fucking name, how am I supposed to take him seriously? Christ, Blanka looks more literate than this assclown does. I suppose the big issue, beyond the stupid expression on his face, is the fact that he looks like a stereotypical movie thug. This guy looks like that guy who gets bodied by the main guy in every action movie ever made, and that's not helping his case. The best part is the missing teeth: When you see black Balrog's missing teeth, you figure he must've lost that in the ring, and that gives him tough guy cred. When you see white Balrog's missing teeth, you figure him paw musta knocked it outta him for puttin' him seed in they cousin's belly.
The bottom line is, I just don't understand the point of this. Like, what was Capcom going for here? More than that, why would they give him two different ethnicities in the same game? Like, I'm genuinely curious as to how this came about, now. I'm starting to think that someone didn't get the memo that he's black in everything to do with the game that isn't the game itself, and somehow he wound up looking like a hairless orangutan.
Was there a point to this whole rant? No, not in the least; I suppose I just wanted to get this out because it perplexes the shit out of me every time I come up against Balrog in SF2, and because I'm curious as to what everyone else thinks about this. I swear I can't be the only one who eventually realized there are two different Balrogs, and thought it was really stupid.
And now, in closing, I'd just like to present you with the crown jewel of Balrog's short-lived stint as a white dude:
Sweet mother of christ, it's countless generations of sibling union at work in my vidya games.
Discuss!
