Tiny Tina’s Racism Reference In The New Borderlands 2 DLC


“BOOYAH. Not racist,” exclaims Tiny Tina in the newest Borderlands 2 DLC, out today. It’s not every day you hear video game characters discussing racism. Especially those who have had history with the concept, warranted or not.

For the record, I do not think Tiny Tina’s personality conveys any sort of racism. If you are familiar with writer Anthony Burch and his sister Ashly Burch — who voices Tiny Tina — you’ll recognise it’s part of their natural banter/humor.

I already wrote about this (awesome) DLC a few times, but I wanted to share an interesting clip that happens a good chunk of the way through the main campaign. So, minor dialogue spoilers in case you’re worried about preserving the entire experience.

Is the clip above a friendly jab at the heat writer Burch took back in February?

I reached out to Gearbox, figuring it was a self-aware, tongue-in-cheek joke meant to lighten the mood of the angry tweets against Tiny Tina. Something of an inside jab. They declined to comment.

While there may be no intended thought put into tying the two together — the two instances of supposed racism come from, after all, completely different contexts — it’s not a difficult connection to make. At the least it’s interesting to see a video game character discuss racism at all in a game, however in passing or jokingly it may have been.

I turn it over to you guys. What do you think?


The Cheapest NBN 1000 Plans

Looking to bump up your internet connection and save a few bucks? Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Kotaku, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.

Comments


17 responses to “Tiny Tina’s Racism Reference In The New Borderlands 2 DLC”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *