Zelda accused of ‘racism’ over Link’s outfit choices
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has been criticised for depicting the Gerudo, with critics accusing Nintendo of perpetuating 'racism.'
09th Sep 2024 11:28
Images via Nintendo
Zelda accused of ‘racism’ over Link’s outfit choices
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has been criticised for depicting the Gerudo, with critics accusing Nintendo of perpetuating 'racism.'
09th Sep 2024 11:28
Images via Nintendo
While you might not think of Nintendo's long-running Zelda series as being problematic, a new discourse has erupted from Death Mountain and is spewing controversy over the fantasy favourite. Despite being one of the gaming giant's best-known IPs, it appears that not everyone is a fan of Hyrule's depiction of race.
The Zelda games have a weird and wonderful cast of colourful characters, with imaginative species like the Goron and Zora becoming synonymous with Hyrule. Unfortunately not everyone is a fan of the way Nintendo handles the Gerudo - accusing the developer of perpetuating some uncomfortable tropes about race.
Breath of the Wild accused of 'racism' due to Link's Gerudo outfit
The subject of the way the Gerudo are portrayed is a complaint we've heard before, but in a lengthy thread on X, one account has explained their issue with race. First introduced in Ocarina of Time, the Gerudo is a largely female race who live out in the desert, most infamous for Ganondorf being one of the males born every 100 years,
Claiming that the Gerudo borrow heavily from Arabic cultures, the OP points out the original symbol for them echoed Islanm's, how Sheikah comes from arab "sheikh", and accused Nintendo of perpetuating negative Arab stereotypes. They go on to say the outfits of Gerduo women fetishise Southwest Asian and North African culture.
This all culminates in Link's Gerudo outfit from Breath of the Wild, which is worn for the "Miss Vai Battle Pageant" quest. They say that the idea of men constantly trying to sneak into Gerudo Town is made worse by sexualising the women, while Link himself is encouraged to break in while disguised as a woman.
It's a lengthy thread that makes some important points, however, the comments are largely against the OP. It comes off the back of @sheikahchampion saying that Link's Zai outfit shouldn't be celebrated as queer representation but is 'offensive' to other cultures.
Responding to @sheikahchampion, someone wrote, "People want to deny that it’s offensive, but you can just from how the fandom treats vai Link. most fanart and fics of him in the vai outfit are of him being super submissive and sexual, which just perpetuates the stereotypes even more. it’s awful that people will brush this off."
Another added, "Thank you for speaking about this! i literally had to fight white people in my replies about how offensive the outfit was (esp in cosplays) and they just straight up denied it bc they wanted to fetishize Link 🤦🏻♀️."
While there are sure to be grumbles that 'woke' fans are complaining, the latest discussion comes after Author Byron J. Kimball discussed the "problematic" Gerudo and representing "Western colonialism" in a 2018 paper titled "The Gerudo Problem: The Ideology of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time".
If you fancy yourself as something of a Link cosplayer, you might want to think twice before you stick on a pair of pointy ears and step out in his Miss Vai outfit for Halloween.
About The Author
Tom Chapman
Tom is Trending News Editor at GGRecon, with an NCTJ qualification in Broadcast Journalism and over seven years of experience writing about film, gaming, and television. With bylines at IGN, Digital Spy, Den of Geek, and more, Tom’s love of horror means he's well-versed in all things Resident Evil, with aspirations to be the next Chris Redfield.
