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rfmcdonaldOver at A Fistful of Euros, Douglas Muir asks what, exactly, it means that the designers of Grand Theft Auto IV chose as their protagonist Niko Bellic, a Serb (a Bosnian Serb, to be precise).
Some of the speculation in the comments area suggests that the Balkans might play a useful role for game designers and others of that like, as the collapse and subsequent criminalization of much of the region produced a criminal class that is--most conveniently--white.
[I]s this a simple-minded decision, reflecting a vulgar stereotype of Serbs as violent thugs with a taste for organized crime, ignorant peasants who are thrown into culture shock in the modern world? Or is it an inspired choice, allowing the writers to make the protagonist character more complex and morally ambiguous, and position him as a "fish out of water" observer of the madness that’s modern American street life?
Note that Niko Bellic is not inherently evil. Nor unsympathetic. In fact, you can play him as a hero, albeit a rather noir one. (Yes, you can also go around killing people at random, but that’s your problem, not Niko’s.) And he’s presented as likable, and even--in the first few episodes--somewhat innocent.
On the other hand, providing the protagonist of Grand Theft Auto is not exactly a point of national pride. Niko is now the planet’s most famous Serb, and he’s a small-time crook with issues.
Some of the speculation in the comments area suggests that the Balkans might play a useful role for game designers and others of that like, as the collapse and subsequent criminalization of much of the region produced a criminal class that is--most conveniently--white.
