The Sims Just Did This Totally Racist Thing

The Sims

by Guest Contributor Quadmoniker, originally published at PostBourgie

So, I think everyone knows that I’m a big fan of the Sims. Though the third iteration of the game has had its problems, I still spend more money than I should adding on to it. Against my own better judgment, I just bought the most recent expansion pack. It created a whole new town, with new families already populating it.

The Sims has been pretty good about allowing for diversity. It’s easy to choose your own skin color and features, and because the characters speak their own made up language it’s not culturally specific.

They live in a suburban idyll, and weird classist things have troubled me in the past: there are “trailer parks” with characters uncomfortably close to white trash stereotypes. In the newest town, there is a black family with a single mom of two sons who has worked her way up by being a cook. She is overweight, and her bio talks about how hard it’s been to raise her boys on her own. Both the bios for the sons talk about how hard it’s been growing up without a father. I’d be willing to give it a pass if it didn’t involve every stereotype possible.

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Two Links of Interest: Racism in The Sims and Gender and Gaming Interview with Jennifer Jenson | Border House on 16 Jul 2010 at 4:03 pm

[...] Racialicious has a brief entry describing how The Sims just did this totally racist thing. I think it’s a good illustration of how small moments in a game may not seem important to a game [...]
A long time ago in a linkspam far, far away… (20th July, 2010) | Geek Feminism Blog on 20 Jul 2010 at 11:01 am

[...] The Sims Just Did This Totally Racist Thing: In the newest town, there is a black family with a single mom of two sons who has worked her way up by being a cook… I’d be willing to give it a pass if it didn’t involve every stereotype possible. [...]

Comments

Soirore wrote:

Yes this made me cringe as well. She’s ‘hotheaded’ too (obviously because she’s an utter cliche).

Plus the Goods are paler skinned/ haired than the Rottens. Check out Goodwin Good for the epitome of idealised whiteness

Posted 08 Jul 2010 at 8:46 am ¶
Greg Dragon wrote:

Heh… that’s the story of my life, a meme now to be exploited by game makers huh. Well it’s personal but that was my family sans the struggling without a father bit and mom was always in shape – which accounted for my constant fighting when guys on the football team would tell me how fine she was… thanks for re-opening old wounds Sims lol.

Why do we expect better from the gaming industry? Of all our media outlets gaming will be the last to try hard at not pushing stereotypes and hurt feelings, it’s the disjointed sub-culture that I am a part of though not so proud being a part of it. I do know my peers though and this is lightweight.

Any thugs sagging their pants outside of the home?

Posted 08 Jul 2010 at 10:11 am ¶
xenu01 wrote:

Did you also experience “World Adventures”? WOW the racefail on that one. I guess I should have known.

Posted 08 Jul 2010 at 11:01 am ¶
Ramona wrote:

Which Sims games are these from? I have both Sims 2 and 3, but this is new to me.

Posted 08 Jul 2010 at 11:04 am ¶
dotdotdot wrote:

Is it concerning that the Sims 3 has made a depiction of stereotypical class levels, or that they included a black family as well in that?

My Sims 3 stylist recently performed makeovers on a couple of folks from the swampy fog area, and they were definitely a white trashy kind of family, lots of members, and I’ve read on the forums that their bios include hints at inbreeding. Friendly enough people, but the guy’s outfits were predominantly camo.

Posted 08 Jul 2010 at 1:23 pm ¶
BSK wrote:

Is this the only black family in the neighborhood? If so, it’s problematic. In fact, it’d be problematic REGARDLESS of the depiction if they are just going to have a “token” family. If it is one of many families of color, depicted in a variety of ways, I’d actually applaud them for having such a family, which is a reality for many folks (black, white, or otherwise).

Can you give more context for this?

Posted 08 Jul 2010 at 6:43 pm ¶
jasmine wrote:

@ BSK
Theres another black family in the neighbourhood named the whelohffs who are married with a child & live in a mansion.
There’s also an interracial (bm/ww) couple in the game.
I cant say much more since i dont often play the pre-created families, but i do remember families of different races and classes being shown.

Posted 08 Jul 2010 at 7:34 pm ¶
moth wrote:

@bsk – Even if the family in question is one of three (or more) non-stereotypical families I would still say it was racist because it isn’t just a poor family or a single mom family or a family dealing with random, universal problems it’s a laundry line of culturally specific stereotypes. If the goal is to represent problems anyone can have, why are black people always the face of problems in media? I don’t think surrounding a stereotype with non-stereotypes negates the fact that a stereotypes a stereotype.

Posted 08 Jul 2010 at 11:44 pm ¶
ariadne wrote:

Wow, that is pretty damn problematic!

IIRC Sims 2 had a struggling (white) single Mom with two sons (Brandi Broke, I think?), but she certainly wasn’t depicted as overweight *or* hotheaded. She was the “nice” character in the pre-made neighbourhood.

So if you make a direct comparison between the two, Sims 3 seems to be at best reflecting unexamined privilege, and presenting racist stereotypes unchallenged.

Posted 09 Jul 2010 at 10:10 pm ¶
Nadine wrote:

It was in the Sims 2 where they, per usual, killed off the black mother (who haunts the house); gave the widower a non-black fiance (a Goth) and the son with a non-black girlfriend… my main problem was the killing off of the mother.

Then they had a fat “lite-skinned women named Wanda, who was the wife of a darker skinned man (per usual) and daughter who started out fat and had LAZY as a preset. It was also very difficult for her to get along with outside characters…

I’m sorry to hear that the SIMS 3 is still up to their old nonsense.

Has anyone seen the people working on the SIMS….NO DIVERSITY (and no, white “females” do not equal diversity).

I’m glad someone is saying something about it… I was horrified and when I saw the previews of the SIMS 3 and, without fail, they included a FAT, DARQUE woman. I decided not to continue playing.

They suck.

Posted 11 Jul 2010 at 5:21 pm ¶
lyze wrote:

So…what would have made it better, if she were skinny and in the journalism field and raised her kids alone? Or just the skinny part or just the cook part being changed?

You see stereotype and racism and I see a woman who overcame adversity, worked her way from the bottom to the top and made a good life for herself and her children.

As far as stereotyping in general goes in sims, the whole game is about stereotypical traits common in all people regardless of gender and race because it’s a very simplified life simulator. Inherently everything that is complex about a real life human has to be boiled down to a little digital person with no more than five distinctive things about their personalities.

Posted 23 Jul 2010 at 3:20 pm ¶