A common complaint from many foam at the mouth types is that the imagery in popular culture is racist. I am not about to address this concern. But after sitting around playing Mike Tyson’s Punch Out during the recent vacation I can make a profound conclusion that the people who made this game are fucking racists.
You start the game as a little white kid from the Bronx. They don’t bother to tell you from where in the Bronx “Little Mac” comes from. Maybe they did this to protect him from hypothetical muggings that happen in this racist world of ours. I don’t know. I’m not a doctor. But right from the time you press start to the very end of the game you’re smacked over the head with a cavalcade of racial and ethnic stereotypes that would make Nazis blush. Tagging a long with “Little Mac” is a strung out, balding, and crack addicted black man that shows no enthusiasm for “Little Mac” in-between fights and tells him to go to other places for help. He can’t be bothered. Doc tells Little Mac to contact the “Nintendo Fun Club today” he says.
But “Doc” in the grand scheme of things is a minor player in this ethnocentric parade of hate. Your opponents are the worst offenders. Glass Joe is a weak Frenchman that begs for surrender and is easily defeated. Von Kaiser has a thick German mustache and threatens to conquer you in a hopefully non-sexual way in between rounds. Piston Honda is named and looks like every Japanese stereotype in the book. He even asks you questions about the cameras and asks for sushi. Don Flamenco has hair so greasy that bowling alleys pay him by the hour to wax their lanes. He has a Spanish rose in his mouth and dances to a cheap knock off of “La Cu Ca Racha.” And while it may be funny to get your ass beat to "La Cu Ca Racha" I don’t think people in Spain are laughing.
But it doesn’t stop there with your opponents. There is King Hippo who makes fun of the obese and may even offend people from Hippo Island. Tiger Sing teaches impressionable youths that Ski Indians can vanish and punch you at will. Bald Bull talks like a mental patient and gives off the impression that he may smell like a Turkish sailor. Soda Popinsky laughs like a Russian and has a mustache to rival Stalin and his wacky cohorts. And while I understand Nintendo made an effort to remove the often rumored “I’m going to drink and drive all over you” comment he says between rounds, I’m surprised they didn’t just correct the racism. Mr. Sandman is another black stereotype, and the Macho Man is a harsh take on aging steroid pushers from Hollywood.
Article comments
1 - RogerMDillon
your lack of paragraph breaks taught me how to hate
2 - Bennett
A valid topic to rage against. Decent job Brandon, keep it comming.
Salut!
3 - Mat Brewster
This game isn't racist. People from Hippo Island really are obese, ugly and poor boxers.
Kidding of course. I loved the game as a kid, heck I still love the game as an adult. Downloaded an emulator and play it often.
Good points though. Makes me wonder about other Nintendo games...
4 - Eric Berlin
I loved this game as well, have fond memories of getting it circa my 12th birthday or so.
I doubt that a 2005 release would have such blatant stereotypes, but none of them were mean spirited.
5 - RJ
Great satire! :)
6 - Doki Doki
Nintendo has a long history in this department
THe original Super mario bros. 2 (Doki Doki Paniku Attack
) Was filled with mammies and coons and other black caricatures. Street fighter has fighters from around the world fighting in the backdrop of the marvels of the rich culture of their region. But the black guy fights you in the streets of Las Vegas accompanied by pimps hookers and boom box music.
In one of nintendo's wrestling game you fight a character called
Coco savage. A black jungle man with a bone in his nose.
Although the Japanese have always had an obsession with black caricatures American game makers are no better. The most notorious example is Custers Revenge by Atari. The object of the game is for a Naked General Custer to dodge flying arrows in order to rape a naked indian maiden tied to a pole. Need I say more...
7 - toofunny
seriously, stop overanalyzing stupid shit already because if you really wanted to, you could overanalyze thousands of games and find something steryotypical. man, some people are way too sensative these days.
the characters in mike tyson's punch out were just what they were, CHARACTERS and they wouldn't have worked any other way than the way they were represented. the characters actually made the game what is was (fun to play) and besdies, if you didn't notice (which you obviously didn't), they were actually suppose to be looked at as more of a joke than anything else. the whole game, actually, is a big joke. that's what made it so great, but some people just have a lame sense of humor, i guess and are easily affended.
8 - Mike Unt
Poo poo. Poo. Shit.
9 - Big Daddy Nix
wow your an idiot ,stop crying racism .Grow up and have some fun playing a game.Its a game not politiclly correct module.People like you who are influenced by video games should sterilized.Go play Grand Theft Auto and kill a cop so you can go to jail and I wont have to read your stupid crap ever again.Thanks for wasting five minutes of life retard.Go hump a doorknob.
10 - Mike Rotch
I was seven when I got Mike Tyson's Punch out. La CuCaRacha is a Mexican song also. Don Flamenco, or as my friends called him, Don Flamingo. They weren't good spellers. Don Flamenco is from Spain.
There's a word for people like you too. anal retentive I think it is. You're the only person on the internet at least who thinks this game is racist. There was no boycott of this game.
It thought the game was made by the Japanese. There's a Japanes version. Not sure if it's an American game or a Japanese one. Might be either one. You could have written about something that maybe more than five people care about. I'm done.
11 - Castro
This is satire!! Don't get your panties in a bunch!
12 - David Mozealous
The reason I found this article is because I thought the same thing. Satire my ass, the game is racist. However, the Punch-out version sans Mike Tyson (with Mr. Dream) was released before Mike ran into trouble with the law.
13 - favian
tyson was removed because of an expired contract that they didn't want to renew. look it up.
14 - Jay
I just felt compelled to comment, even though it's an old article:
"Piston Honda is named and looks like every Japanese stereotype in the book. He even asks you questions about the cameras and asks for sushi."
The game was developed and published by Nintendo, which is and always has been a Japanese company.
The game is filled with light hearted humor, and if you learned how to hate from it, then you're probably the one with the issues. The fact that you got offended by it suggests that you didn't learn how to hate, but instead learned how to take offense at things on behalf of other people.
15 - Mechrobioticon
This article should have been about one paragraph long.
Tell me: how could one make a video game character "smell" better?
This read like a high-school English paper whose author abandoned it halfway through to go smoke a joint then came back to give it a half-hearted finish.
"La Cu Ca Racha" does not exist. It's called "La Cucaracha", and it's a Mexican (not Spanish) song. And anyway, Don Flamenco's entrance music is exactly the same Glass Joe's. You're grasping at 8-bit straws.
Did you even proofread this stuff?