The Legend of Zelda (1986-2023)

The Legend of Zelda is an almost forty year old fantasy series. Throughout the series history, the characters have been constantly redesigned. There are several fantasy species in the series, including Hylians(white elves), and the Gerudo(vaguely middle eastern elves). There are three main characters, two of which are Hylians and one is a Gerudo. The two Hylians are blonde haired and blue eyed heros, while the Gerudo is a dark man who is the villain. The entire race of Gerudo are not only villainized, but also extremely sexualized. They are all almost exclusively female (not counting the main villain) and are said to be dependent on male hylians. They live in a empty desert and are also known as the thief tribe. Pictured above is the concept art for the Gerudo in the most recent game, showing how orientalist the designs are. In addition to this, in older games the symbol of the gerudo was the crescent and star, the symbol of Islam.

Video Games

The Call of Duty series is a first person shooter game that has a long history of containing offensive content and disrespecting Middle Eastern people. Many locations across the games are Middle Eastern countries, which the player character often goes into and fights other characters. these characters usually Middle Eastern terrorists. Along with these racist enemies, within the environment there are several Islamophobic things. The biggest example is pictured above, in which the game shows a torn up Quran and its pages scattered across the ground, covered in blood, for the player to trample over.

Cyberpunk is a RPG that revolves around the aesthetic of “Cyberpunk”. Cyberpunk born out of the Yellow Peril and is also known as “Techno-Orientalism”. This is a modern type of Orientalism, it is using imagery(such as neon signs with Chinese lettering) to invoke ideas of Asian cultures and to express the fear of being taken over by Asian countries such as China. Cyberpunk 2077 leans into this, featuring Katanas and other items of Eastern origin. However the game does not engage this genre critically, instead pushing the idea of the Yellow Peril.