How The Walking Dead Deconstructs Race
By Dario Toval
Pull-quotes: “Despite being a video game seemingly all about choice, Lee is designed and programmed to be an empathetic, caring Black father figure. This means that, even if the player controlling Lee wanted him to exhibit some sort of hostility towards Clementine, this simply isn’t possible.”
“By the end of the scene, Lee will always stare down at Clementine as she dozes off, his brow furrowed with fatherly concern. In scenes like this one, the emotional and physical staging of the two characters established within the non-interactive cutscene, serves as powerful critical retraction of dominant negative imagery around Black father figures as irresponsible, incompetent, and absentee.”
“Unlike other video game franchises, that force the player to engage in mindless violence in order to progress, The Walking Dead sets up emotional set pieces where the player controlling Lee must decide how they want to enact race. Through the various scenarios set up by Telltale, the player can decide how to respond to racism how they see fit, whether it be through forgiving, or vengeful actions.”
Author Intro: I had played Telltales’ “The Walking Dead” as a young teen, and it had an everlasting impact on me that I wasn’t able to put into words until recently. I knew Telltales’ TWD had a profound, emotional narrative about the redemption of its main character, Lee Everett, and his eventual sacrifice to save his adopted daughter, Clementine. But what I did not realize was how groundbreaking Lee was as a character at the time. The decision to make Lee Everett a Black man was unprecedented considering how uncommon Black protagonists were in the games industry in 2011 (and even until this day). Not only did Telltale place a Black man in a prominent role, they went out of their way to not write Lee stereotypically and portrayed him as a corrective image of Black father figures – greatly opposing how Black fathers are unfortunately usually depicted within media. While Telltales’ The Walking Dead is not a game about race, the politics of race and as put by the developers “the social facts of the American Southeast” all inform Lee’s perceptions of other characters and how other characters perceive and treat him. Lee Everett is, in my opinion, one of the best examples of diversity in the games industry.
Faculty nominator intro: n/a (student-submitted)
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