Dear Readers,
I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but there’s discrimination in gaming.
No, I’m not talking about women being represented only by either prissy princesses in need of rescue by a brave and strong man, or by barely legal teens wearing what equates to dental floss around their most private of parts. No, I’m not talking about a lack of black heroes. Or a lack of gay heroes. Or a lack of Middle Eastern heroes. Or a lack of guy heroes with guy haircuts.
What I am talking about, of course, is facial hair.
(This is especially relevant now because, as you might know, Movember—the month of the moustache—started today. Check it out.)
(Also, the World Beard and Moustache Championships took place about a month ago in Berlin. Check them out, too.)
(I can’t make stuff like this up.)
This matter came up recently in a discussion between my beloved and myself, while we were figuring out who to dress up as for the upcoming vgXpo, formerly Philly Classic. She said I couldn’t dress up as Sora. Or as Phoenix Wright. Or as the Prince of All Cosmos. She said that, since none of those characters have any facial hair at all, my portrayal of them would be wildly inaccurate.
She’s right, of course, and after mulling it over for a little while, we couldn’t come up with a single gaming hero with anything more than a few whisks of facial hair.
As a Bearded-American, who do I have to look up to in the gaming universe? Who are my role models? Must I settle for the brothers Mario, who indeed sport moustaches, but nothing so ample as what grows on my face? Am I to be forever forsaken due to my luxurious beard? I’m having trouble coming to terms with the fact that I can never truly look just like Goemon without significantly altering my physical appearance.
It’s quite clear to me that some sort of discrimination is going on here. For whatever reason, those of us with beards are marked men, forced forever to be represented only by ne’er-do-wells and loveable side-characters who, quite frankly, are total weenies who usually get left out of the party anyway in favor of a bebossomed babe with healing powers. We never get to be the star. We never get to destroy the final boss. We never get to be in the show. I feel your pain, Lucy. I feel your pain.
What’s a boy to do when he has no heroes?
Love,
Paul Franzen
Editor-in-Chief
e-mail: pfranzen@gamecola.net
