Oops, The Mask Slipped | Contextualizing Critiques Of Persona 5’s Representation
(Just a heads-up, I now post on Wednesdays in addition to once during the weekend.)
I am, at best, an amateur at discourse. Keep in mind the dictionary definition of “amateur” involves doing something for the love of it rather than money. On that level, the term perfectly describes me. When I say something, rest assured that it comes from my heart with no other motive.
Well, changing people’s minds would be nice, I guess.
I’ve mentioned previously that I am politically on the left; not a “Medicare For All” social democrat, but a hardcore “stateless, classless, moneyless society with worker ownership and control over the means of production” communist. However, as you may have previously seen, I also tend to stray from the status quo on quite a few leftist ideas, exclusively on social issues. A lot of those disagreements revolve around media; tropes, representation, that sort of thing.
I don’t consider myself any one thing, like a gamer or a movie buff. I take in whatever media interests me at the time, and is easily accessible (I’ll talk about the layers and nuances of accessibility features some other time). As for discourse SURROUNDING media, well, I’ll just jump in whenever I feel like.
Unfortunately, I can never seem to properly pick my battles. It’s a complete toss-up as to whether or not I’ll be able to just “let it go”, but when I can’t, it’s usually because something just doesn’t feel right, like there’s something not being said. Often, it’s the between-the-line messaging that I can sense, but need to further investigate. It does a good job of capturing my interest, reading between the lines and interpreting people’s true intentions.
And when I read between the lines, I don’t always like what I see.
Take, for instance, Persona 5, a game that’s pretty popular in the circles I run in. Now, just because you like something, doesn’t mean it’s immune from criticism … as I have been constantly reminded. The thing is, just because you can criticize something doesn’t mean you have to. Even if you had to, just putting out criticism as per obligation doesn’t make it valid. Schools have to feed kids hot lunches, but that doesn’t mean they have to make the lunch taste good.
Anyway, Persona 5. People love it, but won’t hesitate to call it “problematic”. Why? Well, it HATES the LGBT+ community! Haven’t you heard? Yeah, there was this one mini-storyline where a gay couple is hitting on and attempting to abduct minors.
People complained, and Atlus took notice. They changed the scene in Persona 5: Royal to the gay creepers seeking to force the boys into cross-dressing rather than implied sexual assault. Some people didn’t think this was good enough. And by people, I mean hack journalism sites like Polygon. Anyway, the difference between the two scenarios is that forcing boys into dresses isn’t a stereotype commonly historically associated with gay people, but being sexual predators is (and the literal first story arc is about a guy sexually abusing a female transfer student, so it’s not like the only creeps in this world are LGBT+ people). So in my eyes, they fixed the core issue. At the very least, that’s all I’m willing to say on the topic.
Now, this wasn’t exactly unprecedented for people to take issue with. Persona 3 included a short scene on the beach that seemed to both make fun of trans people and painted them all as predators. An NPC is shown to be flirting, again, with teenagers (even if they are 17–18, it is weird that this woman is just picking these random high school students on a beach to flirt with. Even if it’s not technically or legally pedophilia, it’s still weird) before her trans status is figured out after one of them notices hair on her chin. Given the language and the model used, it’s safe to rule her out as a crossdresser. So yes, this is a trans woman.
Obviously, it was incredibly narrow to suggest that there is something suspicious about a lady having facial hair. That said, this was a pretty short scene. A significantly more important part of the game is the romance route that the *female* protagonist can take with Aigis. That’s right, the game contains a same-sex dating option. For the record, it’s not homophobic to not have same-sex dating options, but it is good to have them. Only bringing this up because people say that Persona 2 had the best LGBT+ representation ever and the series has since regressed in its treatment of LGBT+ characters. ‘Course, what most people don’t remember is that there was a trans NPC in Persona 2 who was portrayed in a less than ideal manner, and the differences in representation across the series have to do with the fact that the games have many different staff members over time (but, you know, maybe if we had *more* representation of gay and trans people being slimy to drill it into your thick skulls that they’re not all perfect, then James Charles would have faced actual consequences.)
Now, you can’t talk about LGBT+ themes in Persona, or in video games in general, without bringing up Naoko and Kanji from Persona 4. Everybody’s already weighed in on this, so I’m going to make this quick: their arcs weren’t about being trans or gay, they were more about gender expectations and toxic masculinity. Regardless of the LGBT+ status of either character (Kanji is pretty clearly bi from my perspective), the themes of the game are still very supportive of the values that the LGBT+ community holds dear (and before anybody says anything, the “are you sure we’re safe with you?” line in the game wasn’t meant to be something the player was supposed to like or agree with).
Back to Persona 5, when people talk about “q***r” representation, I notice that Lala Escargot is a character that never comes up. It’s up for debate whether they are a cross-dresser, but regardless it still counts as breaking barriers in regards to conforming to the gender you were assigned at birth. We’ve gone from a generic NPC in a short beach episode scene to a genderq***r character (with an actual name) who is still portrayed as a kind and motherly figure who genuinely cares for the protagonist. The idea that the Persona games have regressed with LGBT+ representation over time really doesn’t hold up. It’s been mixed since it started.
So does “good” and “bad” representation within the same media cancel each other out (by the way, for the sake of argument, we’re counting a lack of same-sex dating options as neutral, neither good nor bad)? Is there a point system of some sort? Does being able to romance Aigis as a female cancel out the Beautiful Lady? Does Lala Escargot cancel out the attempted abduction of minors by some gay creepers? Look, I’m not an expert on this shit. Just ask my six Reddit bans. What I do know is that in the West, the existence of Love, Simon was seemingly enough to atone for all the dead TV lesbians (not that I actually care about either of those things), but if Eastern media commits a representation no-no, that’s a definitive statement of what their culture always has been and always will be. Time stands still for over half the world’s population, apparently.
But on the subject of Atlus, let’s go further into their catalogue to examine their LBGT+ track record. The game brought up the most is 2011’s Catherine. Just to briefly touch on the lesser of two gender-related evils, the trailer for Catherine: Full Body seemed to depict the “Unsettling Gender Reveal” trope (I’ll go over this at a later date), drawing some criticism from people who don’t seem terribly in touch with what rhetoric goes on in some sections of the trans community. If I was to believe that this trope was transphobic, I would have to ignore the not-insignificant portion of trans people who insist that cis people must sleep with them or be called transphobic. I would also need to ignore the fact that “give your body to whoever asks for it or be called a bigot” and “consent is mandatory, and must be freely mutually given, and trying to negotiating a person’s boundaries is predatory” are mutually exclusive. Also, Vincent from Catherine is supposed to be an antihero of sorts, meaning it’s more likely that the joke is the absurdity of his reaction rather than being a joke at the expense of Rin. Not to mention that Rin didn’t end up being trans at all, but that’s spoiler territory so let’s not touch on that here. That brings us to the actual trans character in the game, Erica Anderson, who has received plenty of acclaim and notoriety since her inception.
Some claimed that Erica as a character was treated terribly by the narrative, one instance being that she suffered nightmares that were said to only affect men. The most convincing reason I have stumbled upon for this is that the curse could be determined by chromosomes and not gender. It’s also worth noting that Erica is otherwise a fleshed-out, sympathetic character who many trans people have found validating. Sure, Erica was deadnamed multiple times in the written material for the game, but what matters is that it was fixed in the definitive version of the game (though I can understand feeling bothered that it happened at all), and her gender is still legitimized within the story, even with regards to the transphobia within the world of Catherine (p.s. In the only in-universe example of deadnaming, the book, there is evidence to suggest that it was a typo and not transphobia).
It’s important to distinguish between a problematic moment and a problematic portrayal as a whole.
Also, the ending of the remake featured in its “best case scenario” a timeline where Erica never transitioned. People took this to mean that the game was implying that Erica’s best life involved her never transitioning, and that gender dysphoria can just disappear. Since it was never stated whether Erica had gender dysphoria in this timeline, I interpreted it to mean that the best case scenario was Erica never having gender dysphoria in the first place. No trans person WANTS gender dysphoria. Many wish they could be happy as they are, as that would just be easier.
EDIT (8/7/2021): To further advance my thoughts on Erica being deadnamed: first of all, I would expect nothing less from a game revolving around a character (Vincent) who is purposely written as… not the most morally upstanding person. Second of all, there may actually be a reason for this. Here’s a quote from an Anime Feminist article written in 2018 regarding Catherine’s representation:
The usage of {Erica’s} deadname… is reflective of how unmarried trans{people} are currently unable to change the name on their birth certificate and registration without the permission of both parents, or through marriage…
I didn’t know that, but that puts a lot of things into perspective.
I don’t personally like Anime Feminist for reasons I’ll get to someday, but just to be clear, this is not a case of somebody selectively quoting things when they make points you like (about 10% of any given article of mine is me anticipating and honestly addressing potential counterpoints). It’s about recognizing when people you don’t like make good points. It’s called emotional maturity.
END OF EDITED PORTION
My final verdict on Erica Anderson: it had some mistakes, but that’s what made her portrayal so notable. Every aspect of her is a reflection of the culture she grew up in, and it pays off.
But people’s hatred of Atlus goes beyond their portrayals of LGBT+ issues. They’ve also been accused of misogyny in their writing. I could touch on all the examples people bring up, but let’s just touch on the most prominent examples by getting back to Persona 5. People thought the female characters were designed too sexy for a game that made a big deal about being against child sexual abuse. Please stop acting like teenagers don’t dress in tight revealing clothes in real life. Whether these choices are influenced by culture is irrelevant to this discussion. It doesn’t matter if they were made to be appealing to men, since impact overrides intent. Impact? I really liked the female Phantom Thief designs. There are still things I might change, but I find them pretty cool.
(And before you get on them for “tits and ass” posing in any of there renders that aren’t the ones presented here, there are multiple renders of the characters in multiple poses, and the game itself is shot differently.)
Another sticking point for people regarding the game’s treatment of women is that the first arc of the game is about criticizing sexual harassment, and the arc right after is about forcing a sexual abuse victim to pose nude for an artist’s portrait. Counterpoint: the arc was about Yusuke being under the control of Madarambe. Shortly after the arc ends, Yusuke is nothing like his initial portrayal, implying his thoughts weren’t entirely his own.
It’s important to note that although skeptical, Ann was willing to pose nude as bait. That said, the story may have benefited from delving further into how Ann felt about the whole situation. At the very least, nothing came out of the proposition for her to pose nude for a crazed artist’s portrait, and she handled the situation very well. I’ll even link this article I found which explains this pretty well (though I don’t appreciate the “boring princess” jab at the end, given that anti-princess culture is merely another means of hating things that girls like, but that’s a topic for another day).
The last thing is the general “fan pandering” that seems to rub some people the wrong way. First of all, I’ve heard some bad takes that Persona 5 is hypocritical for criticizing gender roles and misogyny but including a harem romance option. What they neglect to mention is that not only is the presence of romance in Persona 5 greatly overstated by most people, but that you are punished at the end of the harem route. You’re punished more harshly in an emotional sense for the harem route in Persona 4, but you’re still not rewarded in any sense.
Brief note on being able to date a teacher after the first arc of the game was about taking down a sexually abusive teacher: the difference is context. The teenagers playing this game probably have fantasies about dating a teacher of theirs, consensually of course. I personally don’t like the idea of that, but I can’t stop people from dreaming. Better to take care of that desire in a fictional setting.
Stepping away from that, let’s touch on something a little easier to comprehend. There was a costume pack released that featured the characters in their swimsuits. People got mad because the characters are teenagers, and this is another case of Japanese media sexualizing kids for horny adults.
…what?
The Persona series is essentially a Shonen anime. The biggest group of its most vocal fans are teens and young adults. The only reason the games are M-rated are typically their themes and language. Fanservice of teens is most likely for teens. It’s pretty common for characters in fiction, especially animation, to be the same age as their target audience. That’s why Ash Ketchum is still ten, for example; it was a conscious marketing decision. This also factors into why the girls didn’t get as much screen time as some of the male characters, though this was fixed a bit in Persona 5: Strikers, if I’ve been told correctly.
By the way, the age of consent in Japan is not 13. It actually differs between the different regions of Japan, but it’s usually around 16–18, just like in the United States.
Some people say that Persona 5 failed at telling a serious story because of all its “anime tropes”. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that Persona 5 actually does taint all of its serious moments with anime titties, which I don’t think it does. This is a tone disconnect that should be treated like any other tone disconnect rather than sexism. If you’re mad about a beach episode in a story about teenage rebellion, but not the Gargoyles in Disney’s The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, please take a moment to consider whether you actually care about the integrity of a story’s tone or if you’re just a prude.
All things considered, It’s hard for me to be mad at the characters being made to be appealing for their audience. I’ve heard some REALLY bad takes that Persona 5’s message about rebellion is meaningless because the characters fit in various archetypes to certain extents (and that this is just one more example of Japan being conformist and oppressive, which it isn’t any more so than the West, they just don’t hide it like we do). Hey dumbass, rebellion is more about what you do and what you stand for than who you are. There is so much more to Ann than being “the hot one”, and saying that that’s all there is to her, referring to her in the context of the “bimbo” archetype, and saying that being “the hot one” makes her hard to take seriously after her story of being a victim of sexual abuse is demeaning. That’s like saying feminists can’t wear makeup or dress up for guys. You could say that characters aren’t their own people and are puppets controlled by their writers, but that just proves that you know nothing about character design (I’ll talk about this some other day).
Overall, while “progressive” companies de facto do not exist, it’s hard for me, from my perspective as part of the LGBT+ community, to say that Atlus views homosexuality, same-sex relationships, and alternative gender identities in either a comedic or “gay panic” light. Like I said, same-sex romance options, while nice, are not a requirement for being “inclusive”, and LGBT+ characters’ portrayals aren’t necessarily a reflection of the writer’s views on everybody in that group, and it’s best to not take them personally.
But how does all this tie into reading in between the lines regarding media criticism? Well, to most people, things are tied to where they came from. The Olympics will never shake off its Greek origins, and anime is tightly associated with Japan (keep in mind that even in Japan, anime and manga are fairly niche interests). You probably have it in your mind that Japanese media is more “out there” than Western media. This includes it being seen as more sexual than Western media. People see teen anime girls in short skirts and 1,000 year old lolis and assume that Japan and its population is as weird and creepy as their fiction (they also do this in regards to Japanese portrayals of racial minorities, sexual minorities, etc.).
Except that’s just a made-up hypothetical. Thankfully, nobody actually ties “problematic” tropes in Japanese media to a moral and cultural deficiency on the part of Japanese people, right? Right?
Right?
And there it is, y’all. Certainly not all critics of Japanese media are bigots, but even among those who say they aren’t, it slips out sometimes. And don’t get me started on people who consider Japan uniquely racist/homophobic/etc. unlike the “liberal” West. Believe me, these are not the only comments I’ve seen like this. In this article, I’ve brought up several examples of Westerners being harder on Eastern media than Western media that aren’t strawmen. You only have to sift around for a second until you find people like this.
It’s a common mistake for people to make it their moral duty to criticize media through a political lens. Remember the days of “we can disagree on videogames/movies/tv shows/etc., but not basic human rights”? Well, this is just one way where liberal progressives blur that line. They demand that your representation be perfect, since art is activism, or else you’re setting civil rights back several years, forgetting that there are no perfect activists. You know there were BLM marches in Japan? Say what you will about the Japanese government, but please acknowledge that, at worst, the people there are products of the political messages they are fed, and at best, just as capable of being morally upstanding as those in the West.
I didn’t think I’d have to say that to people who claim to be “progressive” and “inclusive”.
But you don’t have to take my word on any of this. Just look at this disclaimer I found on a Resetera thread!
Please remember: there must be no generalizations about specific countries, regions, or creators from them; and no wild speculation about specific cultures.
This has unfortunately been a problem at times, particularly regarding Japan and other East Asian countries, and it has had the effect of making some minorities uncomfortable. This thread should be intersectional and welcoming to people from all around the world. This rule is a step towards that goal.
For example: If you want to criticize a character design from a Japanese game, that’s fine, but don’t make it about the country of Japan or its culture or its people.
Please do not look for loopholes that can infringe on the spirit of this rule. Your posts may be moderated if it appears that you’re trying to make inflammatory generalizations using dogwhistles in place of “Japanese” or “Asian.” To avoid misunderstandings and create better discussion, it’s always best to use specific examples, even when discussing larger trends. It is always okay to criticize individual games or designers.
If this is a disclaimer on *Resetera* of all places, then there is something seriously wrong with the way criticism of foreign media takes place.
Damn, that was a mouthful. Thank you for reading this far. To be honest, I’m not even sure if it makes sense. But it’s all I’ve got.
If it seems like most of the main point of the article was at the end, it’s because this will actually be a recurring theme in several articles of mine. Stay tuned if you’re interested.