Genghis Khan Portrayal: Offensive or Not?

[Harlan]

Here are a couple of pics of what Mongol warriors looked like back in the day. This is from the Osprey book on the Mongols. The Osprey books are fanatical about getting every detail correct - serious grognard stuff. Note the insects buzzing around the guy in the summer picture (though not in the other one, which takes place with snow on the ground). Note one of the few teeth we see is knocked out in the summer pic. No doubt Ghengis looked much more like these guys than the propaganda portrait commissioned by Kublai Khan.

[Hohenzollern]

Captain is one of those pathetic types that use forums to stir up trouble.
you are incredibly ridiculous, anyone with any sense can see you have made this and others like you, a flame war and its all gone, all your 'proper etiquette' crap is pointless.
PS i love how you cut and pasted your way through my posts, real classic of the person you are. thanks.

[civman2000]

those pictures look better than the leaderhead though...

[ChaotikVisions]

Going to the lake for the weekend, be back monday evenin'. I'll reply to anything posted then.

[Darkworld Ark]

Thanks Harlan!

As for the Chinese painting of Ghengis, how do we know that he doesn't have bad teath from that? I'm sure that if that paiting were to smile, his teeth would be just as bad as they are in Firaxis' portail of Ghengis.

[siredgar]

Harlan,

1. You still haven't shown an alternative picture of Genghis Khan to the ones I have posted.

2. I find nothing offensive about the picture of the Mongolians you have shown. If Genghis Khan was portrayed anything like either of those men, I would have no problem. He is not.

3. It seems that you are relying on guesses and "probably"s more than anything else. If you were to make the same assumptions about Elizabeth I, I am sure she would truly look like a toothless "hag".

4. I believe you stated that Genghis Khan should have been portrayed during his later years of rule and questioned the judgment of the people at Firaxis on this matter. I wonder why they did that, too. Let's think...

Ed

P.S. I have to go play tennis now, so I'll have to reply to other posts later.

[Spiffor]

I won't take position in the argument again, I'll discuss the rhetorics :

Captain & KhaoticVisions do show their point, explain how they think and so on. They have both good reasons to think their way, and they show these reasons.

Hohenzollern is indeed a bearer of anger. Thanks Siredgar for pinpointing me who the angry ones were, I really felt lazy to browse the whole thread again.

Siredgar is way too emotive, compared to Captain : he thinks Genghis is Chimp-like (while many others, including myself, consider him very humanly ugly), and seems not to understand people can have a different representation of the same thing. That's sad, and Siredgar is a kind of pendant to Hohenzollern : no rational discussion.


OK, now, to the point.
I don't think it's possible to portray a minority without it being racist. The true message is what people percieve : if you depict an ugly "minoritarian", the "majoritarian" who sees the picture might think : "Oh ! The ugly minoritarian ! No doubt he and his likes are inferior !" or such a thing.

Many won't. But some will. I suspect that diehard antiracists, who see racism everywhere, suffer from these racist misrepresentations (Siredgar, I'm not talking specifically about you, but you could enter the category... I can't say, because I don't know you enough). If you were subtly taught the Blacks are inferior to the Whites, then any representation of a Black person can seem offensive to you, if this person has obvious flaws (uglyness, mischievous or something).

If you have no subtle racism in your culture, you might just think : "oh, someone ugly".
But, I highly doubt any culture has no racism, or at least no discrimination about what's different from the norm. Personally, I have racist tensions, which I fight, but which are deeply rooted in my psyche. Racism is bad and I know it, but it's hard to fight against your subconscious.

[Darkworld Ark]

Originally posted by siredgar
3. It seems that you are relying on guesses and "probably"s more than anything else. If you were to make the same assumptions about Elizabeth I, I am sure she would truly look like a toothless "hag".

Since we know the paintings of Ghengis Khan are propoganda, you're relying on guesses and "probably"s just as much as anybody who says that that's how he looked. As for Liz, she proboly should have had bad teath, although she's already a 'hag'.

[FrantzX]

The masses have spoken. Civ leaders can be ugly.

[Carver]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Siredgar is way too emotive, compared to Captain : he thinks Genghis is Chimp-like (while many others, including myself, consider him very humanly ugly), and seems not to understand people can have a different representation of the same thing.

Well let's look at a Nazi death camp in the 1940s. Who was emotional there? The Nazi soldiers were probably very calm and cool as they went about their jobs of killing Jews. The Jews, who were seeing their family members taken, tortured, mutilated, experimented on and killed, would have been very emotional. Suffering and hate cause emotions. Being emotional about an issue does not negate one's argument, not in the least.

[Darkworld Ark]

Originally posted by Carver


Well let's look at a Nazi death camp in the 1940s. Who was emotional there? The Nazi soldiers were probably very calm and cool as they went about their jobs of killing Jews. The Jews, who were seeing their family members taken, tortured, mutilated, experimented on and killed, would have been very emotional. Suffering and hate cause emotions. Being emotional about an issue does not negate one's argument, not in the least.

There's a large difference between Ghengis Khan looking ugly & Nazis killing Jews...

[Carver]

Originally posted by Harlan
No doubt Ghengis looked much more like these guys than the propaganda portrait commissioned by Kublai Khan.

Harlan, the pictures you posted (of "genuine" Mongolians) look tasteful and respectful. These men look intelligent, determined and strong. The graphic racial slur Firaxis has handed us makes a mockery of the Mongolian people. And yes, when talking about a country as little understood as Mongolia in the US or Europe, the leaderhead very much represents his people.

Ghengis doesn't need to be "pretty". I don't much care about bad teeth or an imperfect complexion. But the expression on Ghengis' face (from the screenshot we have) is one of imature foolishness. Ghengis should not be the Jar Jar of civ3. You can give me a man who is poor, ugly and even dirty; but if he looks (most importantly, if the expression on his face looks) honorable, intelligent and delibrative it would not be a racist portrayal.

History is still with us and the media have an obligation to ensure that marginalized and/or unknown ethnicities are not portrayed as fools.

[Darkworld Ark]

Originally posted by Carver


Harlan, the pictures you posted (of "genuine" Mongolians) look tasteful and respectful. These men look intelligent, determined and strong. The graphic racial slur Firaxis has handed us makes a mockery of the Mongolian people. And yes, when talking about a country as little understood as Mongolia in the US or Europe, the leaderhead very much represents his people.

Ghengis doesn't need to be "pretty". I don't much care about bad teeth or an imperfect complexion. But the expression on Ghengis' face (from the screenshot we have) is one of imature foolishness. Ghengis should not be the Jar Jar of civ3. You can give me a man who is poor, ugly and even dirty; but if he looks (most importantly, if the expression on his face looks) honorable, intelligent and delibrative it would not be a racist portrayal.

History is still with us and the media have an obligation to ensure that marginalized and/or unknown ethnicities are not portrayed as fools.

The reason that he looks like a retard in the pic is because he's smiling, all the leaders looked stoned when they smile. I'm sure you'll fear for your life & immortal soul when he's annoyed or furious.

[Ninot]

Ok, I wanna restate my biggest point

In many of the Civ3 portraits, character traits are well displayed and seem to be the intention (thus Joan in an Army shirt in the modern age, cuz she was a warrior for the french).


Genghis was a warrior... he looks like hes been threw a war, its appropriate.

If they made him look like that Chinese propaganda, it would be the realists crying out bloody murder... hehehe.

Personally, I don't take the leader as representative of the group. If i did, I would believe that all Chinese folk were communistic (i have atleast a dozen very close chinese friends... none are communists that I know of).

So, to sum this up(again), I think there isn't anything that wrong with an ugly Khan. I think its just a bit of a coincidence that the most famous Mongol was ugly.

And for something Siredgar replied to something said about "Genghis Khan should have been portrayed during his later years of rule"... well, All of the leaders are portraid by when they were in their prime. Caesar isnt exactly a 54 year old in his portrait, Lincoln isn't a young lawyer, and Mao isn't a young revolutionary. If Civ3 wants to think that Khan did something important when he was 20 something, then thats fine with me. I think if he is shown as 40 or 50, then he would only be an older ugly guy.

oh... and as for the actual depiction, say ya take away the battle scars, and what might be dirt, and ya give him a bath... he might be an attractive leader... but im guessing the given pics are from the ancient age... and Khan did not have the luxuries of baths. Im guessing as soon as a modern era pic of Khan is released, it will be plain that Khan can look decent.

And a note on the thread

I completely respect Captain's posts. I wouldn't mind a rebuttle from him.
However
If siredgar replies to my post... well, lets just say im in a bit of agreeance with NYE. If Siredgar replies to me... i want some hard info, not just accusations of "probablies" and such.

[Harlan]

1. You still haven't shown an alternative picture of Genghis Khan to the ones I have posted.

I thought I had made it clear, and that Mongolia Today article makes, clear, that there are no other portraits of Ghengis. Given that the one portrait and the few descriptions of him come from incredibly biased sources, we have no way of knowing what he looked like. He could have looked like a complete idiot with drool running down his face. He could have looked so noble and brilliant that you'd break down and cry tears of joy to see such a face. There's just no way of knowing for sure. We can only make best guesses based on the evidence available to us and what we know about the Mongols and the time generally. That's all I'm trying to do.

2. I find nothing offensive about the picture of the Mongolians you have shown. If Genghis Khan was portrayed anything like either of those men, I would have no problem. He is not.

As I said, I wouldn't have drawn him with that silly smile. My main point in posting those pictures was to contrast those with the Kublai Khan era propaganda portrait, to show how completely off that one is.

3. It seems that you are relying on guesses and "probably"s more than anything else. If you were to make the same assumptions about Elizabeth I, I am sure she would truly look like a toothless "hag".

I've done a lot of reading and studying about the Mongols. Feel free to read some quality books on the subject and then respond with your own probablies. If you still maintain that Ghengis looked anything like that portrait you posted, then I like my probablies a lot more than yours.

4. I believe you stated that Genghis Khan should have been portrayed during his later years of rule and questioned the judgment of the people at Firaxis on this matter. I wonder why they did that, too. Let's think...

If Firaxis had racist intentions in their portraits, why would they have wanted to make Cleopatra black skinned? There have been a number of black scholars for years trying to claim she was black - she's a very admired figure in history.

Yes, the Ghengis portrait is a charicature. But is there a clear pattern of racist malice towards non-white portraits? No. They're ALL charicatures, with overly exaggerated facial expressions. Some white ones look dumb, some non-white ones look dignified. As I said before, I have problems with all of their portraits because of inaccuracies and cartoonishness, and I don't see Ghengis so bad that he's in a class of his own. I certainly fail to see any chimp resemblance, and I haven't seen any other posters claiming to see that either (but I may have missed a few posts).

[Jon Shafer]

I agree with Harlan. That's why I voted "they're all offensive." They're not supposed to look like the real person.

[Carver]

Originally posted by Harlan
If Firaxis had racist intentions in their portraits, why would they have wanted to make Cleopatra black skinned? There have been a number of black scholars for years trying to claim she was black - she's a very admired figure in history.

She wasn't "black", as in sub-Saharan African. But she certainly was nowhere near as white as the western actresses that have portrayed her. The areas of Egypt and Sudan have long had "black" African and Arab populations living there. It seems most likely that Cleopatra had features from both. (which is why trying to put people in racial boxes is inherently unscientific and inaccurate - but that's a whole nother thread)

[Harlan]

Carver,
You're forgetting one important fact about Cleopatra: she was ethnically Greek. Starting with Alexander's general Ptolemy, the Greeks ruled Egypt from around 300 BC. Even prior to this time, there were many Greeks in Egypt (typically living in completely separate towns or neighborhoods), but once Ptolemy took over, big numbers of Greeks came in. They typically lived completely different lives, almost like two societies inhabiting the same space. Greeks and Egyptians were so separated that Cleopatra was the first (and only) Ptolemaic ruler who even bothered to learn Egyptian! The entire upper class was Greek (social classes were very ethically rigid in Egypt in those days - the Egyptians were relegated to being peasants by the conquering Greeks), which is why none of the rulers ever needed to speak Egyptian. Furthermore, the Ptolemaic dynasts quickly adopted the tradition of pharohs to marry only their sisters and other close relatives, so there's really no doubt at all that there was little to no Egyptian blood in Cleopatra, much less something one could call black.

Finally, there have been plenty of visual and written depictions of Cleopatra (and the other Ptolemaic rulers) from the time that confirm all this. Recently there was a minor story in the news that Cleopatra wasn't the beauty the stereotype makes her, but looked pretty ordinary. But this isn't news, just some people rediscovering/ popularizing what more educated scholars have long known.

Had you been talking about pre-Ptolemaic pharohs, you would have been right. Some of those were dark enough to be labelled "black" today. Egypt was conquered several times from the south, so whole dynasties would have looked black.

[zulu9812]

Oh my god. Why do people keep going on about racism and whatnot in Civ3?? Stop it!

[siredgar]

Originally posted by Spiffor
OK, now, to the point.
I don't think it's possible to portray a minority without it being racist. The true message is what people percieve : if you depict an ugly "minoritarian", the "majoritarian" who sees the picture might think : "Oh ! The ugly minoritarian ! No doubt he and his likes are inferior !" or such a thing.

Many won't. But some will. I suspect that diehard antiracists, who see racism everywhere, suffer from these racist misrepresentations (Siredgar, I'm not talking specifically about you, but you could enter the category... I can't say, because I don't know you enough). If you were subtly taught the Blacks are inferior to the Whites, then any representation of a Black person can seem offensive to you, if this person has obvious flaws (uglyness, mischievous or something).

If you have no subtle racism in your culture, you might just think : "oh, someone ugly".
But, I highly doubt any culture has no racism, or at least no discrimination about what's different from the norm. Personally, I have racist tensions, which I fight, but which are deeply rooted in my psyche. Racism is bad and I know it, but it's hard to fight against your subconscious.

I think this sounds like psycho-babble to me.

[siredgar]

Originally posted by Darkworld Ark


Since we know the paintings of Ghengis Khan are propoganda, you're relying on guesses and "probably"s just as much as anybody who says that that's how he looked. As for Liz, she proboly should have had bad teath, although she's already a 'hag'.

No, I am not because I never said he "probably" looked like this or that. All I did was show two portraits of him.

[siredgar]

Originally posted by FrantzX
The masses have spoken. Civ leaders can be ugly.

The point of my poll was to see if there were any other people who would find Genghis Khan portrait offensive. Of course, knowing that most of the people who play the game and come to this forum are European or North American, I KNEW that the majority would disagree with me. I expected about 20%, possibly 30% (thinking the world has changed), optimistically. So, claiming that the majority opinion is the right opinion is not just. It's like taking a poll in the South years before the Civil Rights movement on whether blacks should be given equal rights as whites.

[siredgar]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Siredgar is way too emotive, compared to Captain : he thinks Genghis is Chimp-like (while many others, including myself, consider him very humanly ugly), and seems not to understand people can have a different representation of the same thing. That's sad, and Siredgar is a kind of pendant to Hohenzollern : no rational discussion.

Please do not compare me to someone who spews out hatred and anger and profanities (i.e. Hohenzollern).

Anyhow, because I am the one who is upset about the Genghis Khan portrait, that is why I have started this thread. Captain is contributing to the discussion, so he is likely not to be as upset as I am. Regardless, I believe he too used profanities in one of his earlier posts (sorry, Captain). Just because it doesn't upset you doesn't mean that you are more logical than I am. Please look and read the other posts to see who is being truly "emotive". It is apparent that you are a sloppy reader.

[siredgar]

Originally posted by Darkworld Ark


There's a large difference between Ghengis Khan looking ugly & Nazis killing Jews...

Duh.

Obviously, he is making an analogy. You must be one of those people who require a sign above Genghis Khan's portrait saying, "This is what all Mongolians look like." in order to see it as racist in anyway.

Duh...

[siredgar]

By the way, I don't reply to poorly conceived posts. So, don't worry your feeble little mind, Ninot.

[siredgar]

I do not expect people to agree or disagree with me. As I have stated before, I knew that the majority would disagree with me for obvious reasons.

I posted this thread to listen to other people's thoughts and address an issue that I felt was important.

Therefore, I should not be upset that other people disagree with me. However, I will defend myself and my thoughts when I am needlessly insulted on intelligence and beliefs. If I stated something completely idiotic or my message originated from Canada, then go ahead and respond in such a way. But I do not believe I did either.

[siredgar]

Originally posted by Harlan

I thought I had made it clear, and that Mongolia Today article makes, clear, that there are no other portraits of Ghengis.

We can only make best guesses based on the evidence available to us and what we know about the Mongols and the time generally. That's all I'm trying to do.

As I said, I wouldn't have drawn him with that silly smile.

Feel free to read some quality books on the subject and then respond with your own probablies.

If Firaxis had racist intentions in their portraits, why would they have wanted to make Cleopatra black skinned?

Harlan,

1. I have posted not one but two portraits of Genghis Khan. They look nothing like the Civ3 depiction. I am not arguing that that is exactly what he looked like. But I would say he looked closer to these pictures than he does in the Civ3 version.

2. So, your guesses are better than actual portraits that are supported by Mongolian authorities? Anyhow, if he was portrayed anything like the Mongol warriors in the picture that you posted, that would be fine. But that is not what was done. Regardless, you have to understand that leaders are generally better kept than their subjects. For example, not everyone in Elizabethan England looked as properly groomed as their ruler.

3. Yes, that is the key factor. That smile makes him look insanely idiotic. I agree with you here.

4. I read books all the time. I do not, however, engage in "probablies" to support an argument. That is called speculation. If I am speculating, then I say so instead of trying to pass it off as fact to a bunch of unsuspecting Apolytoners.

5. Cleopatra was Greek. It seems that they mixed European facial features with African skin tones. Perhaps it was a compromise. I don't know why they did that, but she looks beautiful.

[siredgar]

Originally posted by Carver
Harlan, the pictures you posted (of "genuine" Mongolians) look tasteful and respectful.

Ghengis doesn't need to be "pretty". I don't much care about bad teeth or an imperfect complexion. But the expression on Ghengis' face (from the screenshot we have) is one of imature foolishness. Ghengis should not be the Jar Jar of civ3.

I think what Carver has posted summarizes my thoughts better than I have in my posts.

[Darkworld Ark]

You know siredgar, you'd proboly get more support if you dropped the "Holier than thou" attitude, because it's REALLY annoying.

[siredgar]

Originally posted by Spiffor
Personally, I have racist tensions, which I fight, but which are deeply rooted in my psyche. Racism is bad and I know it, but it's hard to fight against your subconscious.

Perhaps that is why you find the depiction of Genghis Khan acceptable. In fact, it seems that you described your own reasons for this very well.