Culture Shock : Playing Characters from Different Cultures

[Morris]

@readingraebow 's starting post, concerning ethnic portrayals in media: I am part jewish by origin, and I have seen plenty of negative or highly exaggerated depictions of us... my personal reaction is to laugh it all off. Because, in my mind, all those jewish characters in films or in novels do not represent an entire people. They do not represent me. Just themselves.


I believe it is a very common fault in many people - including some relatives of mine - to presume that whenever a member of their ethnicity shows up in a work of fiction, that character is supposed to represent their people and culture, rather than focusing on what his/her true role in the story is. One can maintain that a character is badly written, or could have had a larger role because he/she is a relatable/entertaining person, which are fully legitimate arguments. But complaining about ethic portrayal is opening up a can of worms: in such a case, people may all too often skip over that character's in-universe motives and characterization in favour of an idealised portrayal of something.

 

[call me rae]

We wouldn't expect a black guy to play a white guy to be ethnically diverse, so why should it be the other way around for us? If you wanna go ahead. If you wanna research it go ahead, if you don't, then don't. So long as you aren't pretending to be a black dude yelling out the N word or pronouncing stuff like PREASE B0SS GIBBE DE PUSSI as an Asian you're fine.

I think your misunderstanding the question I was asking. I wasn't saying oh you have to play characters that are a different ethnicity or from a different culture to you. Some people prefer to role play what they know and that's fine. What I was asking is when your playing people unlike yourself how do you tackle it?


Do you do research or do you just wing it and hope for the best? When you see people who aren't white playing your ethnicity or nationality as a one dimensional stereotype does it bother you or do you go with it.


Personally I prefer to do at least a little research if I'm going to play a character of a different ethnicity/nationality. But that is because different cultures have different standards of conduct and what might seem rude to an American might be perfectly acceptable to a Japanese person and vice versa.


Now at the same time the roleplay context itself plays a role too. In a zombie apocalypse for instance survival trumps manners. But if your roleplaying something in Japan and your making everything American in function than you're missing the point of the setting.


Example - Japanese School roleplays - the school system in Japan is radically different to the one in America. So if your going to do something set in Japan in a school setting a little research on their education system doesn't seem unreasonable.


But of course that's just my personal opinion and in no way indicates what you should do with your own characters or roleplays.

 

[jamesshaford]

No I don't research at all, and I usually just go off of how they sound and act in general. Just to answer the question.

 

[call me rae]

No I don't research at all, and I usually just go off of how they sound and act in general. Just to answer the question.

And that's a fair way of doing things. I mean as long as your having fun with it and your not being deliberately hurtful to other people you can play your characters however you want.


Most of the time people seem to not get too bent out of shape unless your being deliberately hateful to people OOC. Or using a IC character to pass aggressively attack someone OOC.


Otherwise as long as it's all in good fun than people seem willing to go with jump the flow. lol. sorry mistyped as i was distracted by a patron.

 

[gogojojo331]

So I’m sure at some point or another we’ve all tried our hand at playing a culturally or ethnically diverse character. I’m pretty sure at the very least we’ve all been guilty of at least one character with a culturally significant name that was white washed to all get out.
Come on you know you made that white kid with three Japanese names and the inexplicable desire to say things like desu, kawaii, and notice me sempai!


Now as we get older a lot of us learn to do a bit of research when it comes to playing someone who is unlike ourself. Whether that’s something simple like researching a profession or complex like doing our best to immerse ourself in the cultural attitudes of a entirely different ethnicity we’ve all asked the All Mighty Google for a little help fleshing out our characters.


So my question to you is this -- what happens when the research pans out to be not as thorough as you would like and you inadvertently end up making Stereotype Sally despite your best efforts?


Do you get offended when you see this? Someone doing a caricature of your ethnicity/culture or do you accept that the person tried their best and have a good laugh about it?


For that matter do you think you should do your research when playing ethnically diverse characters or do you think playing them the same you would anyone else is fine? Basically we’re all people right so why should skin color or culture really matter?

I don't try and make ethnically diverse characters. I make characters.

 

[call me rae]

I don't try and make ethnically diverse characters. I make characters.

So u don't play people from other cultures or u just play whoever fits the plot.


Unfortunately I think the title is giVing people the wrong idea. I can't think of a better way to phrase it sadly.


The point of this is to ask how people play characters from different cultures or ethnicities.


For instance if your an American playing in a Japanese school based roleplay. Do u research the difference between Japanese and American schools or do u just play it the same as u would in any other school roleplay.


If ur playing for instance someone from the South and u live in California -do u use stereotypes like a thick accent or a good ole boy mentality or do u play the character the same regardless of nationality and location.

 

[gogojojo331]

I don't try to use accents that much. I admit I don't do much research on cultures, but school rp's are basically mostly the same from when I've played them.

 

[Sunbather]

Eh, it depends. If it's, say, a black person in, say, England, I'll play them the same as I'd do any other English person. But there's also factors like past lives, immigration and whatnot. If that's part of a character I make I'll include it. Like currently I'm playing a Swedish girl that moved to America in her early teens, so she now finds a lot of American customs a little silly.

 

[Coward]

If we're talking cultural rather than ethnic diversity maybe that should be the title @readingraebow? Ethnic to me seems to imply race rather than a different culture, which is what you seem more interested in.


Technically I am constantly playing 'culturally diverse' characters from myself by playing presumptive North American characters as an Aussie. I cope with it by mostly ignoring it, doing what I would do normally and trying to tone down the idiom-heavy phrasing.


Still I'll occasionally write something without thinking that baffles my partners - particularly the sense of humour is different. Aussies are massively self-deprecating and sarcastic in jokes, and especially in text it comes off as brash or even insulting to Americans. They read it one way and I read it another. And this is a problem even between two cultures that are quite similar. I'm sure I could never write a Japanese person that would come off as authentic to a Japanese reader, for example.


If you don't care about authenticity I say go for it anyway. We're not writing War and Peace here, no need to get too stuffy about it.

 

[call me rae]

If we're talking cultural rather than ethnic diversity maybe that should be the title @readingraebow? Ethnic to me seems to imply race rather than a different culture, which is what you seem more interested in.
Technically I am constantly playing 'culturally diverse' characters from myself by playing presumptive North American characters as an Aussie. I cope with it by mostly ignoring it, doing what I would do normally and trying to tone down the idiom-heavy phrasing.


Still I'll occasionally write something without thinking that baffles my partners - particularly the sense of humour is different. Aussies are massively self-deprecating and sarcastic in jokes, and especially in text it comes off as brash or even insulting to Americans. They read it one way and I read it another. And this is a problem even between two cultures that are quite similar. I'm sure I could never write a Japanese person that would come off as authentic to a Japanese reader, for example.


If you don't care about authenticity I say go for it anyway. We're not writing War and Peace here, no need to get too stuffy about it.

Yeah I went ahead and rewrote the beginning. Hopefully it clears up some of the confusion for people.