Oh hey, chained echoes DLC
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I always felt that the early criticisms of his delivery that were swirling around the release of Remake, where it was criticized or perhaps dismissed for being like a caricature of Mr. T or a baptist preacher, to be a bit weird, myself.
For one, Mr. T is awesome. Baptist preachers are, well, not uniformly awesome obviously, but thatās more of a fault of organized religion than religion, or even individual preachers. Removed from that, itās a method of oral performance that has become known and widespread for a reasonāitās charismatic, bombastic, it grabs attention, conveys passion, it has at least some emotional range, or maybe more of a pre-established emotional rise and fall than an emotional range lol, but still.
Bentley I think was keen in incorporating those vocal inflections into his performance, because, I personally feel that, even down to that it can be a bit of a caricature sometimes, these two vocal inspirations also fit the character like a glove. Barret is a man who is strong, and masculine, and he does flashily perform his strength, but itās not because he is trying to mask his weakness, itās because he wants people around him to know someone strong is at their side. Yet heās also not a cold or hard man either, his strength comes from love and kindness and warmth. So, yeah, you can easily hear him say that he pities the fool who doesnāt love their mama, but I think the writing behind the character makes that kind of inflection feel totally appropriate. Same with the preacher side of thingsāhe is a man with strong beliefs, of which he is unashamedly evangelical about. Of course it sounds like heās delivering a sermon, itās because thatās exactly what Barret is doing!
So while I do think the inspirations there are totally appropriate, and well performed, I suppose there is also the question about the appropriateness of his performance that is more complex and intricate, which is that, as such a high profile role (itās Barret Freaking Wallace from Final Freaking Fantasy VII) of a black man, it does to some degree have to reckon with the harrowing history of black people performing black cultural practices and thus performing blackness within mass media, and thus also to an audience that is, just statistically speaking, primarily not black. We donāt need to get into that history, but letās just say that I get that angle of the criticism. Itās a combination of how itās just such a high profile and much beloved character, who, letās be real, could certainly be argued to be a bit of a caricature in his original form, and now itās like, now that the character can be fully realized in hypermodern fidelity, it still incorporates caricature and stereotype to some degree.
I think this is a totally fair criticism, but at the same time, I think it kind of hangs on some assumptions that I donāt feel are totally fair. I think Barret Wallaceās existence as a character does indeed come at least partially out of Japanese ethnic homogeneity, and thus Nomura Tetsuya et. al probably not knowing any black people in real life when they were designing him as a character (see also, like literally any Japanese mass entertainment media from, uh, probably still to this day, but Iām sure @treefroggy will enjoy a reference to Tom from Shenmue), and basing him off of a mishmash of pop culture and sanitized American history as acquired through American mass media. To damn with faint praise, yeah, it could have been a lot worseāBarret Wallace at least in his original incarnation is more an awesome character despite having been created through a thick language and cultural barrier. I have some other thoughts about well-meaning but still dumb use of caricature and stereotype and appropriation here, but I am going to save expanding on those for a long form review of a game I have been picking away at for a long time. But, basically, I think it is fair to say that, yes, caricature and stereotype is there, and it isnāt a perfect situation, and it does require giving the Japanese people who created this fictional black man some measure of the benefit of the doubt, and some assumptions that the less elegantly characterized parts of the character were out of ignorance and not bigotry, to not at least feel a bit of a bitter taste in oneās mouth about what the character. Personally, Iām fine with that, but again, I can see why some people, especially black people of course, for who the existence of the character of Barret might raise the hairs on the back of their neck, so to speak.
So, then, in that context, we have a modern, fully realized, and strongly performed new incarnation of this character, and, we do also have that history of performance of blackness for a predominantly non-black audience to reckon with, and then, the question of how to portray and characterize Barret comes back. Surely there are people who have a problem with Remake Barret because they donāt want to hear a black man who sounds black, but, obviously we donāt care about them, they are a non-starter and have no legitimate criticisms anyway. But I think the question that lingers still is, where are these predominantly Japanese creators getting the source material and inspiration and intention in portraying a black man, especially when, again I think itās totally fair to say this, weāre drawing from original source material that isnāt completely unimpeachable to begin with. Not to mention, too, Bentley isnāt necessarily the first person whose input and performance is being considered for the character, since heās a localization (and letās not even get into the idea of Funaki Masato and Kobayashi Masahiro doing digital/vocal blackface (OR JOHN DIMAGGIO!!! WITH A CHARACTER WHO WASNāT EVEN BLACK!!!), thatās I think a whole other can of worms). Never mind remaking the iconic FINALFANTASYVIISPOILER, what if the most difficult thing the Remake trilogy had to accomplish was how to portray a fictional black man? And then through that, we need to reckon with how much Bentley may or may not have been urged by a producer or someone to sound black, or to sound blacker, which would obviously be bad.
But, there, I think, is the assumption. Bentley seems to be pretty passionate, and, like I said earlier, I think his performances are effective, genuine, and they fit the character very well. I can imagine him being prodded one way or another in the studio recording lines, it doesnāt seem at least on the surface that that is what has happened. Bentley is super enthusiastic and obviously loves the character and role, and while it is obviously over the top, I think we only have every reason to believe it was completely intentional. I mean, itād be just as bad if not worse in its own way if he had someone in the studio telling him to sound less black, too, no? But Bentleyās voice is authentically black in any delivery and even under the thickest code switching to White Voice possible, because, well, heās a black man, and a talented voice actor at that, and the inflections with which he applies to his vocal delivery donāt define the actor.
Perhaps, sometimes, there can be a thin line between what makes someone whose creative performances are considered to be stereotypical or based on caricature, and someone who is considered to be a character actor, or who delivers performances based on well known and organically understood historical or cultural touchstones, and, well, I think perhaps that sometimes that thin line is decided on whether or not the performer and/or the performance is based on somethinā white or not, if Iām being honest. To refer back to some other Final Fantasy performances, not even just FFVIIR performances, but was Auronās English localization performance not somewhat thickly performed, and based on pre-established vocal inflections, which were clearly heightened by the performer? Heās kinda like a taciturn, gruff, coolguy, but I think you could probably argue that the reason we understand him as such is based on pre-existing cultural touchstones that are just harder to deliberately point directly at than it is with someone like Barret, because of the sort of dominant culture imposition that white culture is ādefaultā culture, and everything else needs to be more taxonomically segregated. Like, I dunno, we could probably say itās got some Clint Eastwood in it, taciturn, mysterious, and hyper competent wanderer, like from a western. This is, uh, I dunno, a weird mishmash of American and then I guess also Italian culture via spaghetti westerns lol, but for some mysterious reason (the reason is white supremacy but never mind) we are less likely to point to that as something obviously stereotypical or to have originated from a specific culture or community. You could probably make a similar argument for, idk, Tidus, Lulu, Remake Cloud even, itās hard for me to explain but I think itās fair to say that we understand these performances as communicating personality or emotion, but without feeling the need to ascribe any particular cultural source for the style or inflection of the delivery, even though, yes, of course, we all speak a certain way in reference to a way of speaking we have heard or absorbed through osmosis. There is no ādefaultā voice in the same way that everyone on Earth speaks the language they speak in an accent, there is no such thing as a default or standard accent, even when theyāve tried to create ones on purpose it doesnāt work out like they intend it to.
Not to mention, Bentley had this to say during an interview with Comic Book when asked about the concerns with regards to Barret being created as a bit of a stereotype:
I was very much aware of the concerns many had about the character. As a Black man living in America I wanted to represent my people, race, culture, family and self with all the dignity, strength, compassion, leadership and pride that I could. I wanted to make sure that Barret wasnāt portrayed as a caricature or a stereotype. All of this is what I went for, while attempting to take the gamer along with the beginning, middle, and end of Barretās journey, as well as the storyās arc.
Again, we donāt know what may have happened behind the scenes with Bentley, but I mean, I think that sounds about the clearest confirmation that Bentley was doing exactly what he wanted to do, so, on some level, hearing a caricature or a stereotype when hearing his performance of Barret might say more about the listener, rather than the performance itself. I mean, Mr. T was a real guy and that was his real voice, even if, sure, yes, there was an element of performance and showmanship there, too. Baptist preachers are real people too! So, if Bentleyās intention was to inflect Barretās voice with those real inspirations, again, yeah, I think it might be saying more about the listener than him if one can only hear āstereotypeā or ācaricature.ā I heard love and respect and authenticity!
Anyway, yeah, Iāve always loved his performance, and I loved it for what it was, so itās awesome to see him get recognized for it.
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I like Barret.
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the two prior posts express the duality of insert credit.
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The single point at the center of that duality venn diagram is loving Barret
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āAre you a gaagaagiins or a herb?ā
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I never heard anything negative about him. Personally I was just really into his performance.
Reminder that mr.t barret Wallaceās birthday is this Sunday.
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Sometimes I write a whole bunch, and then I delete the text and just say what it boils down to. If you ever see me write a one line post, odds are 50:50 that Iāve written at least two paragraphs replete with detail before I thought, āNah, that doesnāt work,ā or āI just convinced myself out of the thing I was about to say,ā and I cut it back down.
But yeah, I appreciate you (Gaagaagiins) highlighting the distinction between incorporating elements from types that fit the character and stereotyping, as well as pointing out how the elements of the latter are endemic in the writing and not just the interpretations of one voice actor, who really knocked his rendition out of the park. There may be more to say, but it was great that you tried to walk through all that.
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New Digital Eclipse project just got announced:
Online support is cool to see. These games are more interesting than youād probably expect so Iām definitely gonna have to check this one out.
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Iām really interested in this, mostly because of how comprehensive it is! I say this as someone who knows exactly zero about Yu-gi-oh.
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saw an ad for Virtua Fighter 5 30th anniversary edition and felt the sudden weight of my own mortality, but then I realized that it refers to the 30th anniversary of the original VF, but then I realized further that VF 5 is itself 20 years old and then felt bad again, but not as bad as the first feeling. Still not great though 
ā:arrow_right:
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thanks for this been waiting on the steam page!
Yes, the Nintendo Switch 2 is rumored to support ray tracing and NVIDIA DLSS 3.5 Ray Reconstruction
Okay, so there is a tangible new graphical feature. Miyamotofication of ray tracing?
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unreal engine marioā¦ 
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And they said all Nintendo games were for goo goo gaa gaa diaper babiesā¦
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Butā¦ would a game for babies have ray tracing?
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remember when game consoles had shit that was different about them
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Somebody made a basketball platform fighter:
Itās been out for a few days but hasnāt picked up much steam. Seems neat though.
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