Resident Evil 4's Ada Wong Responds to Social Media Abuse

So ive played a good chunk of the remake and have seen a few of the Ada scenes. Is the VA bad? Not at all. Is she Ada Wong or at least what I believe to be Ada. No. Again shes a fine VA and didn't deserve the hate she got but she is the most noticable change id say. I'm honestly surprised Capcom got so many good replacements in the remake, especially the merchant considering how he is the stand out voice in the original.

End of the day, VAs are just doing their jobs and shouldn't get abuse if you didn't like the performance. The missus always complains about Sepharoths new voice or Zachs new voice in the Crisis Core remaster but she didnt go and burn their houses down. She just said I prefer the original VA and moved on

While the comments she received are disgusting, I don't agree with her that we need "authentic" representation in voice acting. If you can act as a black guy as a white guy you should get the part. If you can act as a white guy as a black guy you should get the part because your range in acting is impressive.

@Nepp67 I have to agree. As long as you sound convincing it's all good in my book. So, Asian voice actors can play white characters, etc. Just be better than Chris Pratt and you got my vote.

Personally didn't like her acting myself. But that most likely comes down to myself, and not her. But there's no way in hell I would ever tell someone whatever they did sucked. The internet can be so disgusting at times thinking doing something like this is okay. It is not.

@Nepp67 Exactly. That's literally what acting is and should be. This whole "We need to be authentic" thing is getting so insane.

I thought she was awful but is because of inexperience more than anything, many times it sounded like she was bored and just wanted to say her lines and go home.

That said it's still no excuse to harass her, that said I didn't agree with her statements about casting. The best person for the job should get it regardless of their race and what race they are playing.

Her voice acting is bad, and she should feel bad about this statement trying to blame constructive criticism on racism.

On the other hand, the people who harassed her are garbage, you should never ever harass someone. Harass Capcom instead since they're the ones who change the VA.

Id blame capcom for picking her its not her fault but all the voice artists are awful in the remake everyones got the rose tinted glasses on its a poor remake for a poor resident evil game

When did people start getting upset at poor voice acting in resident evil games? I thought it's always been a given.

I played the remake without noticing any difference in Ada's voice. I guess the VA just fits naturally for me. RE games aren't really known for having over the top voice acting in the 1st place anyway and harassing the VA is so stupid and unnecessary. Capcom hired them and they did their job. That's all there is to it. No reason to take this personally.

Zero issue with her voice in the remake and doesn't ruin my experience with the game at all. Voice actors change all the time. Pretty sure Leon's voice in RE2remake and RE4remake is a different actors voice in RE6 and this is just one example out of many hundreds. If you want bad voice acting just play the original 1996 RE debut, so bad it's hilarious

@Keyblade-Dan who let the betas out again?? lol XD

Oh FFS... I'm playing RE4 right now, in a cutscene with Ada, and was just literally wondering who her VA was as she sounded familiar, and then I have to go and read this? Bravo, internet — you've met your daily quota of toxicity. Carry on...

@Nepp67 A perfect example being Chris Judge as Kratos.

She has some very good taste in films.

From an implicit standpoint, I can totally see the perspective that the "boring, monotone" complaints stem for her not sounding flirtatious as in prior depictions of Ada, and how that has connotations to the "Dragon Lady" stereotype; I just don't how many people making those complaints even have that dynamic in their mind. Is it fair to say those people are guilty of racial fetishism?

Of course none of us have access to her DMs so it's entirely possible - and quite likely - that she's been sent personal messages that are quite racially charged, I don't doubt that. It seems silly to me, that there are some people out there that would throw hate towards an asian actress for portraying an asian character. Again, I'm not denying it's happened to her, it's just fascinating to think there's people actually like that. Spectacular levels of stupidity on their part. The sexism part goes without saying, we absolutely know how some people are with that.

@Keyblade-Dan An interesting point. I've not heard of any hate about Street Fighter 6 and Chun Li's voice. But the game isn't out yet so who knows if that'll change. I know there's been a beta, but I'm sure not everyone who will buy it has played those. I don't play much SF these days but it's also not as story heavy unless 6 changes this, so would a subpar voice performance matter as much?

Yeah but, did she receive hate because she's Asian or because her voice acting was bad? I don't know if the comments she received were racist, but if not, this seems like a deflection.

@Total_Weirdo These are the same folks who complain that Ellie--an underage girl in-universe--"wasn't pretty enough" in the HBO series. Or malding that Abby was "too muscular/fit." Or calling anything that has PoC/LGBTQ representation in it "woke". Really petty. I'm not gonna say it but they're acting like the "i-word". Sad thing is, most of them now wear it as a badge of honor.

I hope this doesn't lead to her being recast in the new live-action reboot just because of a toxic loud minority.

@naruball to be fair - I don't think you need to work particularly hard to be better than Chris Pratt 🙂

I agree with her, because you rarely see an asian or black to play a white character.

Also, love the second photo from her ig. What an amazing movie Chungking Express is!

There’s maybe two scenes where her voice doesn’t seem to fit within the scene that were slightly off putting to me but that could easily be rectified with fixes. The way people have attacked her is so so wrong. She was excited about appearing in this game and suddenly having a load of bullying hate sent her way just shows how pathetic some of our community are.

@ArashiKageTaro At this point I'd be surprised if that movie still gets a sequel at all. I hope so because I didn't actually hate it, but it underperformed and there's been no real word on a sequel other than some actors saying they would like to come back. Apparently the first had a decent home video launch, but it's been almost two years and the director has other projects going now.

Regardless, I'm confident they wouldn't drop her if a new one does happen.

I finished the game and can't say that her voice performance stood out as being especially great. That said, I think what most people are complaining about probably came down to the director. If the director had told her to play up the sexuality of the character, she probably could have managed that. It was the director's job to tell her how to perform the lines.

I mean I haven't played the game, but is the criticism warranted because the performance is bad, or are they out of context of her voice acting?

First of all, screw everyone who bullied on this woman.
Second: her va is bad, straight up, nothing to do with racism or misoginy. I dont think the VA's or the character's race will ever have anything to do with the quality of the acting itself.
If anything, I would say its racist to say that a character has to be portrayed by someone from the same race. why wouldnt a black man be able to voice a white character or the other way around?

This woman does not deserve to go through this, but her statement is false and only represents a vocal minority that shouldnt even exist in this industry.

Another peak gamer meltdown. Ada doesn’t sound like she works at a phone sex hotline anymore and everyone’s mad as hell about it haha

For the complete freaks who harrased this poor woman, she was doing a job and believe it or not there was someone giving her direction. You don't just record your lines however you see fit and send them in. So next time, find out who did the voice and/or mo-cap direction and have a word with them.

Hmmmm a load of white games on the comments section question if racism is really an issue….

What can go wrong….

People seriously say it’s “it ok for a black man to play a white man” lol.

Missing the point somewhat and it doesn’t happen much.

@naruball Exactly, having a character's voice be exclusive to people of that race is not only pointless because you are never going to see that person, but it also limits people on who they can choose to voice.

I mean, blame it on Capcom for trying to remove most sexist development on Ada (a needed move), but failing to add anything else of a personality to this character.

@Stocksy
1. You're assuming these commenters are white. How do you know?
2. So what is the point then? Gao (who for the record doesn't deserve the harassment) said "Inauthentic casting perpetuates an unhealthy image that further dehumanises the community they seek to reflect." Seems to me she's saying the voice actor's race should match the character's. What is everyone missing here?

I love how she turned this into a race thing instead of the actual VA performance which was bad. She should stay away from VA again. Ada from the RE 2 remake was Asian Canadian and still did a better job.

I already heard ada voice acting in re4 remake and it's the most bland voice acting I heard in modern (ps3 and up) games. A survivor? She's just a bad voice actor!

Also as a asian person living in asian country I don't give a fu** about someone race in voice acting, I don't care if ada, an asian person, is voiced by actor that isn't asian, just like I don't care if kratos, a greek guy, is voiced by actor that isn't greek, I just want the best person for the job.

I honestly didn’t even notice her VA. The dialogue in the game is already so cheesy and over the top, Ada’s VA certainly didn’t stand out as being particularly bad. Feels like drama over nothing tbh.

@ItsBritneyB_tch I think the problem with her voice is she isn't cheesy or over the top or even good, she's just plain boring, it's like she's delivering her line while still sleepy in the bed.

Not to accuse anyone of anything untoward… but who’s to say this whole thing hasn’t been orchestrated for attention? Some people are so desperate for attention these days and will do anything to be noticed. Juicy Smooyay anyone?

Can’t imagine being pissed at an Asian women playing an Asian women’s part. Damn. People are screwed up.

@Nepp67 What does acting like a black or white guy sound like?

@GreatAuk I think the problem isn't about the race swapping but the people that swapping the race usually do this to deflect critism, because they know what they make isn't good, they can just scream "racist" and be done with it rather than face critism (like this new ada voice actor).

@Phranctoast People aren't pissed because she is an asian, people are pissed because she's bad at her job. Heck, I'm an asian and I'm pissed because I really like this remake and think ada new voice is the worst part of the game lol.

@LN78 I care because if they wanted anyone to play the character then they could have not used a people's cultural creations to do it.

My family is from Greece but I'm an American so I have some skin in this game.

If a white character played any Black Panther main character the enlightened ones would blow a gasket, and that's just a made up comic book story created by two white men.

So yea I would find it extremely irritating that they used my family's cultural inheritance and creations as the basis of their product and then did the "progressive" thing and casted a minority in the role.

The hypocrisy is what bothers me the most.

What if a game was made about Ethiopian gods and they casted Ryan Reynolds to play the main god? Exactly.

@pharos_haven Ask the progressives, they seem to be able to hear race in addition to seeing it everywhere.

@wiiware I don’t know, her performance just didn’t seem good or bad to me. I was mostly like, ‘oh hey here’s Ada, cool.’

The dog stood out more for me tbh - I was so happy how they handled the dog in the remake 😄

sounds like people should be crying at capcom for the change in ada's portrayal and general voice acting direction. the actor takes cues from the director after all and this is what capcom wanted. now, if the acting itself is mediocre or not up to standard, some blame can be placed on the actor as well, but criticizing a poor performance is as far as it needs to go.

Well Lilly, I thought you did fine.

Shame you experienced the idiocy of the internet but at least take solace that next week it'll be someone else on the receiving end of troll bile for no proper reason.

@LN78

You say it's hypothetical but I'm already seeing "lists" of potential actors for the live action God Of War series and there are several black actors recommended to play Kratos. Which I think is absurd and insulting.

And my friend, the progressives can't even handle voice acting being out of the ethnicity or race of the pretend character, I promise you they'd lose their minds if a white actor played any person of color, doesn't matter if it's a pretend character.

Meh she was pretty lack luster

@LN78

You're not 100% wrong. I only get annoyed in certain situations. I don't care about voice acting unless you're trying to do accurate accents.

I only care about actors matching the character's appearance if it's a historical or cultural work.

Otherwise it's fine.

The "progressives" I keep harping about get upset about ANY white person playing a voice acting or live action role that they seem should go to a person of color. But they have zero problems with persons of color playing white characters of any type, whether fictional, historical, or cultural.

Black Little Mermaid? No problem!
Black Kratos No problem!
Black Alexander Hamilton? No problem!

The reverse would never happen, ever, even for completely made up characters created by white men 50 years ago (Black Panther.)

There would be protests and boycotts and other actions being called for on good ol' social media.

The hypocrisy bothers me the most.

I just want to say it was nice being able to go back and forth with LN78 in an amicable manner. Thank you sir.

Wow, such a professional response. I would have just told people to [expletive] off.

Not even related to what she said, but I saw the thumbnail and went:
"Ayo, why this chick has a mustache?"

@CielloArc Saw the same for a split second! 😆

I'd love to know what constitutes "abuse"? Trolls are trolls. Doesn't make their behavior morally right, but I feel like the best way to deal with that is just to ignore them. Maybe that's what she's doing?

Saying someone sucked at something isn't abuse. If that were the case, every sports commentator worth their salt would be out of a job.

The old Ada, while more dynamic, sounds like a mustache twirling caricature without an ounce of vulnerability, an overly sexualized female video game stereotype. The new Ada sounds flatter, sure, with a couple moments that don’t sync well with the moment, but it’s generally more realistic with hints of having seen some ***** mixed with a more subdued allure. I would laugh out loud if in real life someone talked to me like the old Ada. Whereas the new Ada comes off like a more natural speech pattern for the most part because the sexualization is more subtle. The new wasn’t recorded as well, not the performer’s fault. Honestly, they’re both not amazing. They’re fine, and I probably prefer the newer voice because it doesn’t sound like sex phone line worker on the other end, which is ridiculous. Anyway, they’re not so drastically different in the grand scheme of things to cause a fuss whatsoever. Would never have crossed my mind if people never brought it up.

@LN78 You are correct! Here's hoping for a great series wrapup! 🍻

The "harassment" was literally just people saying how poor the performance was and her ego just couldn't handle that so she called every critic a racist/sexist and white people bad.

Nobody cares who voices a character as long as they are actually good but this VA actually got paid for terrible voice acting that sounded like a walmart shopper speaking through the earpiece they put with the original PS4's.

I see her point, to a point.
If you're talking about a movie role not specific to race, hire anyone with the best talent for the role.
But in games, why shouldn't they hire to match at least a little? (like she's not full on Chinese, she's Chinese Canadian.)
What possible reason could there be, say, to hire a white guy to do a black guy? What, there are no black actors out there to choose from looking for or wanting the part?
I didn't know, because I don't follow Resident Evil too close, Wong was never voiced by anyone Asian.
That is pretty odd, even more given it's a Japanese company.
But in this day and age with so many actors and so globally connected, why not connect the two?
Just like I have a hard time wrapping my head around an Asian actor voicing Elena Fisher in Uncharted.
It could be done, but why?
It did make me laugh that the one's who are racist (not here, I'm assuming it was mostly from Twitter) tried to say the performance was bad when not a peep about Leon.
I guess Leon has his charms in a campy way, but that guy's a terrible actor!
Nothing wrong with liking a bad actor, especially in a cheesy setting. But he is bad.
Silence on him and picking on this woman....it certainly doesn't look good or like a completely honest race blind take on the quality of the performance.
I don't think anyone exactly deserve awards in acting in Resident Evil, even with the better than before quality of the new one.
Still needs improvement across the board.

Sad. When we’re bullying the voice actors in video games, we have really reached the epitome of a entitled society.

I have 0 RE experience but isnt the game made by Japanese Capcom staff? Is she saying that they were racist with the initial characterization of Ada? Or Capcoms localization staff changed her from the japanese characterization?

I felt her VA was off somehow. But I don’t care since there are not many scenes with her anyway.

I'm not fussed with her version of Ada but she 100% does not deserve the abuse she got for it.

@Arminillo I think its more she's got racist abuse for playing Ada, she's not attacking Capcom.

I don't know how anybody could judge her entire performance as Ada before we get the DLC. She doesn't have the biggest part in the main game so I try not to form an opinion based on a small sample size. Did I love what I heard? No. However, I also didn't hate it, it was just there. And for all we know, she's just doing exactly what the director told her.
The only thing I think was a bit much here is Gao calling her Ada a survivor, kind, just, funny, intelligent, etc, because you can't get any of that from what we have so far. Looking forward to the DLC, that's when real judgment can be cast on what this version of Ada is.

I hope that all the harassment only elevates this woman’s career.

@Athrum the racial slurs thrown against her are by no means "constructive criticism". Let's be real here.

When a white voice actor does a bad job, he's attacked for his bad voice acting, not for his race.

@Deityjester "The "harassment" was literally just people saying how poor the performance was and her ego just couldn't handle that so she called every critic a racist/sexist and white people bad."

Sure, buddy. I'm sure you read her DMs too.

@ironcrow86 haha, true that!

WTF is wrong with people. Human beings suck.

@SamMR Probably because it IS a "race thing" considering she got racist comments?

@Orpheus79V I thoroughly enjoyed it too! It was a way better RE movie than the last series we got IMO. And way more accurate to the games. My only real big complaint was how much of a ***** Leon was lol. Then again, he WAS a rookie...

@ArashiKageTaro Yeah I think the script was a little weak in some areas like that with Leon and others feeling off from their game counterparts, but I liked what the director was going for. An old school Carpenter-esque take on Resident Evil.

They could have done with less CG and more practical effects too, if you're gonna make an old school horror film. Like that Cerberus looked like they just took the RE2 remake render when they could've just put some makeup on a dog or something.