Talk:Sheva Alomar

Costumes

I can't see how winning an outfit of the year award and such is any "pushing it" - it's a perfectly good reception of her looks in the game, nothing more or less. Do you really have some problem with any reception not focusing on one's personality or tits? I don't get it. An outfit is an integral part of the character and this one happened to get quite famous (and infamous), including a major award. I thought it would be pretty obvious, maybe it's now. --194.145.185.229 (talk) 16:01, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

The problem is it's not talking about character design but an alternate piece of attire based solely on the fact it's a) revealing and b) represents tribal attire on a character in an African setting. Compare it to Elena's outfit which is an aspect of her character design. To someone playing any other game or encountering the character in any other format, it's meaningless and applies more to the game.

You want character reception, discuss the character. You're welcome to bring it to the VG project talk page to discuss, but I'm staying firm on this matter till then.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 19:16, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

This whole bit about receiving positive critical acclaim is a joke. I expected to see some quotes about her having depth, a good backstory, etc., but then to justify the claim that she was received in a positive manner, almost every comment is about how sites found her to be hot. The whole section is a joke... quite embarrassing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.105.30.158 (talk) 11:21, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

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Academic sources

Many academic sources comment on Alomar, though none are currently being used in the article. I'm going to start listing sources and quotes that can be used here. Freikorp (talk) 02:45, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

• Brock, André (September 2011). "When Keeping it Real Goes Wrong: Resident Evil 5, Racial Representation, and Gamers". Games and Culture. 6 (5): 429–452. doi:10.1177/1555412011402676. ISSN 1555-4120.

• "“The player must organize her inventory, ration her ammunition, and heal her. Thisdoes little to encourage sympathy for Sheva; in fact, her move set and the game’s inventory system encourages players to minimize her agency and treat her as a beast of burden"
• "There are no visual cues or game mechanics signaling any depth in the relationship between Sheva and Chris"
• "Sheva’s invisibility in the narrative and limited role in the gameplay read as a reduction of Black and of female agency to a story that is already problematic for its depiction of Blackness"
• "Sheva is simply a game mechanic; incorporated to shunt aside criticism of the game’s racial overtones"
• "RE5, however, utilizes a character set more frequently seen in action movies: a skilled, laconic White mercenary type teamed up with an exotic female partner."
• "In her role as support person, Sheva does little to challenge gendered and racialized stereotypes of women in media."
• "The costumes, along with her largely superficial character development contribute to her objectification. Thus, the advances of having a woman of color in a leading role in an AAA videogame are diminished by her minor narrative presence and reduction to a sexualized Amazon as a reward for completing the game."
• "Sheva is only sexualized by association within RE5; although her costumes leave her nearly naked, there is no mechanic for sexual contact within the game"
• "Sheva is the videogame equivalent of Pocahontas: a woman of color coerced into ‘‘guiding’’ White explorers across a foreign land that she is presumed to be familiar with because of her ethnic heritage.
• "Sheva’s alternate costumes make it clear that she is window-dressing; a sexualized mule that lovingly carries tools of domination and death for her White partner to use against her people."
• "Whiteness at any cost is exactly what Sheva gets in RE5. Upon Chris’command, she is willing to eradicate all things black from her home continent, until whiteblonde Jill is resurrected towards the end of the game and Sheva is history. She has never been more than a plot device to begin with"

• Geyser, Hanli; Tshabalala, Pippa (2011). "Return to Darkness: Representations of Africa in Resident Evil 5" (PDF). Digital Games Research Association. Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 October 2017. Retrieved 16 October 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

• "Remaining in chapter 1, on Chris Redfield‘s arrival at the fictional town, Kijuju, he is greeted by a beautiful woman who appears in the cutscene with her buttocks monopolising the view, before it pans out to reveal her full figure. This fragmented introduction to the female lead, and the other playable character, immediately objectifies and characterises her. She introduces herself as Sheva Alomar, a local BSAA agent who has been assigned to Redfield"
• "However, if Sheva was supposed to be a link between the Western and the African her appearance, accent and social position betray her. Dan Whitehead, in his review of the game for Eurogamer perfectly highlights this where he writes: ―That Sheva neatly fits the approved Hollywood model of the light-skinned black heroine, and talks more like Lara Croft than her thickly-accented foes, merely compounds the problem rather than easing it.‖ (Whitehead, 2009) In Figures 2 and 3 the physical contrast between Sheva and the other locals is starkly visible. Her skin tone, dress and fine features all conform, like her role as a BSAA agent, to the West."

• Harrer, Sibene; Martine, Pichlmair (2015). "Black Skin White Guns - Becoming Colonizer in Resident Evil 5" (PDF). The Philosophy of Computer Games Conference. Archived from the original (PDF) on October 21, 2017. Retrieved October 21, 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

• While the singleplayer mode mediates the “adventure” experience through the lens of Chris, casting Sheva in the roleof a decorative side character (Brock 2011), the coop experience translates their relationship to the level of a more direct dialogue. What Sheva can and can’t do, then,what she feels towards Chris, and how she contributes to game progression becomesmore tangible. This allows us to investigate how the relationship between Chris and Sheva bleeds into the very heart of the game’s functionality: weapon upgrades andresource management.
• "The next shot exhibits a female silhouette from a low angle. I see Sheva’s behind before I know her name. “Welcome toAfrica” she says, her slim physique, straight hair and Western clothes easily conforming to what my white Austrian sister and brothers would recognise as “beautiful”. A second later I watch Sheva get groped by a black security man. I do nothing - the cutscene tells me to focus on Sheva’s tightly filled jeans instead. Intermission by loading screen - and Sheva is gone.
• "In the first example, Sheva’s complicated entering anchors ourimpression that this game is “Chris’s space”. Sheva needs an extra invitation, which, if we take the detour, will lead to a compromising of “Chris’ space”. This technical detourinfringes the message conveyed on the narrative level: Sheva is “African”. However, technically speaking, Chris was here first. The constant repetition of this haptic hierarchy stigmatizes Sheva as a side character, a role that is confirmed throughout countless other aspects of the game"
• Sheva’s helplessness extends to the role ofplayer 2, who has to beg player 1 for help. This communicative act externalizes Sheva’s subordination to Chris, along the lines of an abusive heteronormative relationship. The player controlling Chris, then, silently and thus “naturally” comes to be in charge of managing the resources Chris and Sheva have collected in the course of their team killing exercises. This dynamic, as we can see above, does not come without humiliation for Sheva. While she fights side by side with Chris as an equally strong character, she relies on his grace to get some weapon upgrades."
• "Sheva’s loyalty to Chris - whom she only knows “by reputation” in the beginning of RE5, can be identified as a lactification project. What she desperately wishes for is to frame herself as a “partner”, a term that Chris himself never uses in reference to her. On the contrary, when Sheva is introduced and talks for the very first time about “partnership”, it triggers Chris’ flashback of Jill - the white woman that ought to be on his side, and who is the main motivation for his trip to Africa."
• "Sheva can be “won” as a protagonist, and is thereby established as Herrensafari “trophy”
• "gendered and racialized hierarchies between the protagonists Chris Redford nor Sheva Alomar have been shown to materialize through the game’s controls, unnecessarily casting Sheva as inferior and less important."

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Sheva Alomar/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: TarkusAB (talk · contribs) 13:34, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Design and portrayal

• "to combine two qualities, feminine attraction and the strength of a fighting woman" - recommended change: to combine the qualities of "feminine attraction" and the "strength of a fighiting woman"

• Done. Freikorp (talk) 01:23, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Appearances

• Alomar accepted and, within months, she was speaking fluent English - If my memory serves me right, Alomar has a non-American accent, implying that she didn't learn English in the United States. Are there any details being left out here or is this inconsistency Capcom's fault?

• She definitely has a non-American accent in the game. Capcom aren't renowned for consistency in their plotlines. That being said, the source says that after moving to America she "even learn[ed] English to a native level in a mere six months". It doesn't explicitly say she didn't speak English to some degree before moving there though. Happy to reword this in any manner you see fit accordingly. Freikorp (talk) 01:23, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

• If that's the case, I think the current wording is the best we are gonna get. TarkusAB^talk 02:09, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Reception

• In 2012, GamesRadar's Matt Cundy found her BSAA uniform to be one of the most practical outfits in the series, describing her as "the absolute antithesis of vulnerable, Sheva is a walking fortress that is equal parts kick-ass and intimidating feminine sexuality,"[24] and Lisa Foiles of The Escapist praised Alomar among other characters for having a hairstyle that is practical for fighting, unlike many video game heroines.[25] - This passage seems to imply, but does not explicitly state, that other female characters in Resident Evil are often wearing clothing that is not practical for their situation. I think that is a common complaint across the series, so it should probably be mentioned in a little more brief detail here. I could be OK with the current wording though, you wrote the Jill Valentine article so you're probably more familiar with this issue than me.
• I picked out some quotes that I think can be re-worded so the quote itself isn't needed. See what you're able to do:

• PlayStation: The Official Magazine opined "Sheva isn't just beautiful, she's smart and tough" and her addition "is probably the highlight of the Resident Evil 5 experience"
• Portal Play Game considered her as "extremely annoying" during gameplay
• Alomar's performance was a bit "hit and miss"
• which "immediately objectifies and characterises her"
• Alomar "neatly fits the approved Hollywood model of the light-skinned black heroine"
• "unlike many AI companions, she's great at getting out of the way when you're moving and shooting, but she's quick to offer assistance when you're running low on health or ammo."

• I've tried to reword all of these concerns. The "extremely annoying" quote is actually a translation so probably shouldn't have been in quote marks anyway; I simply removed them. Let me know if you'd like any further improvements. Freikorp (talk) 01:23, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

Conclusion

• Overall nice job. The most common issue I feel is the excessive quotes, especially in the Reception section. While many of them are necessary, I think others can be worked in to read more smoothly with a little engineering. I will check back later. TarkusAB^talk 17:36, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks so much for your review TarkusAB. I've tried to address all your concerns. Let me know if you have any more. :) Freikorp (talk) 01:23, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

• @Freikorp: OK. Only other suggestion I have is to footnote the japanese name or remove it. Especially since her name isn't native Japanese, this is pretty useless. If people want the Japanese spelling, they can go to the Japanese wiki. Other than that, all links are archived, didn't find any copyvio issues. I think this meets the GA criteria. Pass. TarkusAB^talk 02:09, 1 November 2017 (UTC)

• Good point about the Japanese translation. Can't believe I missed that haha. Thanks so much for your review. :) Freikorp (talk) 08:46, 1 November 2017 (UTC)