Nothing excuses 0 black women in Blizzard’s lineup but Ashe could have been so much better if she was in her 60-70′s. Like.
White hair for a reason instead of fake albinism
Wrinkles/age lines and a leathered skin look because Blizzard isn’t half as cowardly when the woman is old and therefore past prime SFM material
Another older female character because you don’t need a reason to have more than 1
Helped found Deadlock and brought McCree in on a chance encounter instead of this fucked ‘1976 and 17 in Blackwatch′ timeline we have now
A matron figure to McCree and a parallel to Gabe in terms of parental-like impact on his life; someone who thought of him like a son but was still leading him down a path in life that would eventually ruin him
Following that, the picture still kept on her bike would have been so much more impactful
McCree’s close up has PORES. Visible PORES and he’s 37. Ashe is 39, lives in the desert, runs a gang, and has ZERO blemishes with her eyelashes replaced with plastic.
Blizzard knows that their core demo are boys ages 12 – 30 who have anime body pillows.
By far the most common certain demographic response seems to have been to claim that it’s fine that literally none of Overwatch’s 25 playable characters is a black woman because line up includes robots, an ape and a hamster… so naturally is the most diverse range possible.
That of course, is not even vaguely what “diversity” is about and even Blizzard executives Chris Metzen (now retired) and Jeff Kaplan (definitely not retired) understand that:
The problem is: Overwatch got prematurely rubber stamped for “good diversity” primarily for having higher than the (abysmal) industry standard for female, brown and old lady characters. (ie, some characters exist).
Now they’ve got that kudos, they’re not interested in actually delivering on promises or even maintaining the baseline.
Well it’s either that, or they decided that a key demographic who needs over representation is conventionally sexually attractive white women. Specifically ones who are almost identical to Widowmaker. [link]
Blizzard already has a bad track record for disregarding concepts of characters of color in favor of making them white and blonde (specifically Mercy and Junkrat) and otherwise ignored concepts for characters of color that they’ve showcased for PR but apparently will never develop
There is seriously no way that anyone can believe that Blizzard, as a company, have any interest in good representation and making everyone feel welcome beyond sound bytes and quick stunts they can do to seek publicity boosts.
I’m much paler than this Ashe palette-swap of a same-face character lady and I’m pretty sure I’m not an albino either.
“she’s albino!” going up there with “but she needs the costume that way to fight!” and “but it’s set in fantasy medieval times!” in the pantheon of cringe-inducing bullshit excuses i cannot believe multiple people would type in response to videogame nonsense without a shred of irony nor self-awareness
whitemanning critical 