I’m American. Born and raised. Never left the country save for a weekend in Canada. I’m curious about this because, as we all know, Street Fighter isn’t exactly the most… Culturally sensitive property out there. I just want to know if Guile is to America as Honda or Sakura is to Japan or Vega is to Spain. I want to see the other side of the coin.
Of course he does, that’s the point. Capcom even went on record saying that Guile was a character made to appeal to American gamers. he’s so over the top with Americaness that it’s hallariously awesome.
I’m English and I moved to America last year. I’ve been playing Guile since the start of SF4. He was also the first character I ever beat arcade mode on SF2 with back in like 1992 or whatever it was when I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I’ve never really looked at him as the stereotypical “Mr America” regardless of the tattoos. He always just made me think of Top Gun.
Like Wikum; i’m British, i’ve played mainly as Guile since SF4 and i’ve played SF since the 90’s. I’ve also never seen him as a “Mr. America” caricature or as someone meant to represent the USA in the SF universe, i’ve just always thought of him as cool acting/looking with his hairstyle, comb, sunglasses etc. The flag tattoos and any other patriotism he may display has never been significant to how i see the character. I don’t naturally associate him with the USA like Vega to Spain etc.
You can really appreciate just how bad the series is about cliches and racist stereotypes by reading the older character bios for the character from your country.
One other thing I wonder is how Guile was framed/perceived in other countries. To me (an American), Guile was effectively the main character of 2. He was on the cover of CE, star of the cartoon, the movie, the toy line and a major character in the animated movie. He is even the canon winner of the SF2 tournament.
It caught me off guard when I was younger when the character was basically dropped from the series for 3/Alpha in favor of others.
Guile is an “idealized” caricature of America.
The reality is more like Rufus, except female, with dyed hair and mental problems.
Charlie is the real American.
right to the point where he gets fucked over by his own military.
Guile = bandit keith = hulk hogan = america
I mean, I guess? I never saw anything particularly MURRIKA about Guile. He has a tattoo of the flag and is in the military. That’s about it. Maybe if he draped himself in the American flag like Jax or something. Most of his American attributes seem to be things that Americans have chosen to attribute to him themselves rather than actual parts of his character. Gief likes cossack dancing, wrestles bears and names his moves after stereotypical Russian shit, Honda is a sumo wrestler obsessed with chanko, Dhalsim is YOGAYOGAYOGA, and Chun-Li is extremely Chinese. Guile is just a pretty generic “gotta git muh revenge” animu character that happens to be American. He doesn’t have a particular fondness of cheeseburgers, God, guns or monster trucks as far as I know. When I think stereotypical American, I think of someone like Stone Cold Steve Austin or Hulk Hogan. Over the top, jingoistic, loud, brash and overly confident. Not a relatively quiet, reserved and calculated guy. So yeah, to me Guile is about as stereotypically American as Blanka is stereotypically Brazilian.
If anything, the most stereotypical American character is probably Balrog, even if he has a lot of the negative stereotypes (loud, rude, uneducated) associated with him. Boxing feels very American even if the sport didn’t originate there, he’s flashy, he’s ripped, gets more thuggish in his later appearances, and so on. Unfortunately he also has a bit of a racist caricature mixed in, and he’s a bad guy, so you’re probably not as eager to have him represent your country as Guile. And look, I get it. You latch on to characters that are “yours”. I’m a Swede, all we have in fighting games is Lars from Tekken and Chris from KoF, both of whom are about as Swedish as the people of Minnesota. All I’m asking is for Lars to drink tons of coffee, eat meatballs, listen to ABBA and have exceedingly polite win quotes, damn it!
Boxer is much more of a caricature of American than Guile. Especially in the post-Trump era.
We’re still in the pre-trump era bud