The Pop Culture Relevance of Mudman from World Heroes

Having grown up in the ’90s, I played a lot of video games in which combatants from different countries meet up specifically with the intention of kicking the crap out of each other. As a result, I’ve encountered more than a few fighting game characters that amount to some kind of stereotype. Some are fairly benign. Some squeaked by back in the day but seem regrettable now. And some… well, it’s surprising that they made the cut back then, and there’s probably a larger conversation to be had about what one culture decides is acceptable versus what another says is not.Along these lines, I’d like to present to you Mudman, a fighter from Papua New Guinea that originated in World Heroes 2, released in arcades in 1993. His design seems like it’s going for a specific culture, but I feel like most kids in arcades back in the day — in the U.S., Japan or otherwise — would have trouble putting their finger on exactly what that was. Questions you may have looking at Mudman today:“Is this…