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have you seen ‘a girl like me‘? a young filmmaker named kiri davis was on to something when she made her 7 minute documentary. fast-forward to 2007 and the same question of ‘natural societal self-portrayal’ is resurrected in an article posted by gaming site joystiq.

users of a beta game called ‘Dance! Online’ noticed that the player customization feature, which gives gamers an opportunity to create a better self-representation, required a ‘purchase’ to enable the black character. the ‘purchase’ does not require any monetary exchange and only ‘costs’ a point or two. each player starts with 2000 points.

the funniest thing about this whole development, however, is acclaim’s, the game maker, response on the online forum for the game. a moderator is quoted as saying:

Black is an EXTRA feature. It makes your person look unique, so that is an EXTRA feature. Therefore, you having to PAY for it.

thats deep.

the conversation that followed on the joystiq comments board and the actual phpBB board is priceless. i’ve always believed that the majority of geeks in these environments rarely are sensitive to the reality and subconscious trauma the role of ‘default white’ plays in our world.

while i won’t get too high up on my soapbox, the images of beauty, purity, safety, success, and professionalism resemble smiling, lily white people with 2.5 kids and a golden retriever. the only way to change that is through challenging discussion and exposure, no matter how slight.

besides, having a white guy as a default character to a dancing game is false portrayal anyways. :-p

forum user madamecoco summed it up best (albeit a little grammatically incorrect):

I did not get to read what was originally said but some replies just enhance what I have thought over the two days I have been playing. I also thought wow I have to pay, albeit 1point it still should be a main feature as all skin tones should be.

Then to top it off I did not know how to access this feature until the next day, so basically was running around like a preppie looking britney spears then I stumbled across the map feature, and looking around found the stuff in the wardrobe, so as you can imagine there are a lot of surprised people today who see me with my new avatar, anyone who has a problem with that you know what you can do.

All I can say is I hope they get this game right if it is to be truly international.

Good luck

article via joystiq.