Racism, arguments, and Resident Evil 5: A Primer.
If there’s one thing I’ve noticed in my time here and on the Internet that brings the trolls and fanboys in droves, it’s calling big-name games racist or sexist. The GTA IV pile-up and now the zombie-like devotion of fans in defending Resident Evil 5 are bringing out the worst in fans when they start calling whoever wrote an article racist slurs, sexist slurs, or just questioning their intelligence all along… without bothering to reply to their argument.
Again, this is the Internet, and apparently to “win” an argument you just have to shout louder and declare victory, even though the concerns raised about the game are valid. Looking on at the RE5 thread argument here* and hopping around links to other feminist sites, Something Awful, Kotaku, and even Destructoid, I’m starting to get an idea of the arguments and counter-arguments that fans, trolls, apologists, and the people calling them out on it are saying.
That’s why I’m going to make a short, FAQ-like list like Mighty Ponygirl made on the main page. I’ll address the common arguments of the RE5 defenders, and my own replies with basis on what others have taken concern with.
- You killed white people in Resident Evil 4! How is this one racist?
Possibly the argument used most often in defense of Resident Evil 5. In the previous numbered game (RE has a similar policy towards numbers and titles like the GTA series), the (white) protagonist traveled to an unspecified village in Europe to save the (white) president’s (white) daughter. Along the way, many (white) zombie-like enemies stepped up to stop the hero, and they were disturbingly normal-human-looking. So what’s the problem with this, the defender may ask? The problem is that the imagery, the history behind European/white people doesn’t carry the same weight as colonial Africa, exploited by whites. If Resident Evil 4 had a black protagonist and he/she shot up a bunch of white people, you can bet that there would be an outcry against it, much like people were surprised that GTA San Andreas had a black protagonist for the first time in the series’s history.
A second problem arises from the protagonist of Resident Evil 5. Chris Redfield, who is white, seems to be the “lone savior” amongst the throngs of zombie-fied blacks, and even the black woman he meets is much fairer-looking than the hordes of black zombies they must shoot down. It would be a very poignant and potentially good story if the protagonist was black as well, and his/her ambitions didn’t extend past “defeat Umbrella’s newest threat”. While we don’t have the entire story of the game, we know that the Resident Evil series has some pretty bad writing. If we must be content with the white guy mowing down black people, there had better be some deep and conscience-provoking social ramifications in there instead of “they’re a lost cause, gun ‘em all down.”
It’s very difficult to talk about race in the United States and in the Western world in general. People like to think that racism is a thing of the past, and that we’re all more enlightened and progressive today. That is not the case, because otherwise, a hell of a lot more people would be calling Capcom out on this.
- A black African woman joins the white guy! Doesn’t that even it out?
No, it does not. Not unless she adds a convincing layer of sincere humanity to the already-precarious setting and white hero. It doesn’t matter if she’s a girl or if she’s black and able to take care of herself if she’s treated like a dispensable sidekick.
Moreover, we seem to be getting quite a lot of trailer info where Chris Redfield alone is the protagonist, and that this mysterious woman seems to be just a helper to get him out of a jam, much like Ada Wong. Sorry, Capcom, but leaving it like that won’t make me happy. Female gamers do exist, you know.
- The Japanese are equally xenophobic and racist towards blacks and whites.
That does not excuse an international gaming company for having racist undertones in their games because their developers are racist. The history between Europe and the West against Japan and the East is very different, but that exact lack of historical awareness and the imagery that this game contains makes them all the guiltier for playing up such a clusterfuck and ignoring the potential of offending a number of gamers. And if it’s really their fault for doing so, then the gamers and consumers should speak out about the very palpable problems that this game raises instead of enjoying the games they do now.
TheBends made a very good point in the Resident Evil 5 thread that if the situation was reversed, he’d feel offended. How would you feel if the next game had a black guy killing whites, or playing a game from the point of view of a terrorist to threaten an unspecified English-speaking nation?
- Playing the game doesn’t make me racist! I can tell reality from fantasy.
First off, racism is not just a bunch of white supremacists calling black people “n—–s” and going around praising Adolf Hitler and clamoring for apartheid. That is an extreme case of racism in society. In reality, racism in society is the systematic, casual, reinforced stereotyping of any ethnic, gender, or class group based on the dominant culture’s perspective of that group. In our current Western case, a male, patriarchal, white, straight, protestant world view shapes the games we play, the shows we watch, the ads we are subjected to, workplace relations, and even your schooling and education. This cultural aspect is the truly worrisome part of our entertainment and lives: it sets the norms that forces people to adhere to them, and has society punish those who deviate from it.
Now, with that out of the way, we have to view this from the problem of this reinforced, “soft” racism. By playing a game like this and not bothering to question what you see, you’re not contributing anything to the deconstruction of this patriarchal, white western society we live in (again, this is a feminist site). By trying to defend games like this and shut down dialogue that people are having concerning troublesome imagery and aspects of the game, you’re contributing to the cultural norms. By ignoring the argument altogether… well, you get the point by now.
Keeping quiet about something (or actively defending it) won’t make it go away. Do you really think that we’re wrong on this? Then first look at your own life and your own beliefs, and then prepare to reply.
- It’s just a game! Why do you care?
Mighty Ponygirl has had the foresight to give this VERY common question its own page right off the bat. Instead of reading it attacking sexism, read it as attacking racism.
Think about all I said above about the cultural norms. The games you play are a part of this. The imagery in RE5 is a part of it, and carries a weight on its own thanks to history.
Lastly, we care BECAUSE we’re gamers. We are not censors or minions of Jack Thompson. We are fans of the games we play, and we question those very same games despite their faults. If we’re going to play games and ignore their impact on our own lives, then it’s very dishonest to defend them when someone calls out its potential problems.
*I apologize for not entering the fray, especially since I don’t find I could add any more insights than what has already been said. The regular readers here are way too intelligent to miss something I could have caught. 
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Very good points against those common [weak argument] cards to play. The “fantasy versus reality” card is one I often have to tear apart when debating about games with friends.
Many times when I’ve gotten in an argument about GTA, people will pull that “I know fantasy from reality” card immediately as if I were attacking them personally (when I’m not). To me that over-defensive attitude says a lot about how they feel about games — To me a game you play doesn’t define who you are as a person… how you perceive the events in the game and react does. Subtle difference perhaps, but as we are seeing here with the “subtle” racism, subtle can wreak just as much if not more damage.
So why so defensive? Do these people really not see the issues? Or do they identify so much with the concept that labeling it as morally wrong hits them in their personal beliefs?
As for that last one, apathy, I’d respond with “Why DON’T you care?” (or maybe just a “WTF?!”) There’s gotta be something fundamentally wrong with a person if they can’t even recognize when and where there’s an issue, and if and when they do, they subsequently ignore it.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:46 pm
I’m just curious. Where do we all fit? Who or what group should be the zombies in the game? I’m intrigued by the fact that nothing has ever been said on the subject of the zombies in Resident Evil games until we started capping Spanish people in RE4. I remember at least five previous games where I was wailing on white people and no one ever said a thing. I guess male whities are totally dispensible. I don’t care, but it’s just interesting. Maybe the protagonist should be a blue pigmented alien bent on the destruction of the head of the white american christian family.
June 3rd, 2008 at 2:52 pm
The “fantasy versus reality” argument would hold weight if everyone who dared to raise the question of how games reinforce racist or sexist mores wasn’t immediately trolled by a bunch of racist and sexist idiots who seem hell-bent on proving people like Jack Thompson right.
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:03 pm
kilroy: A Resident Evil game set in Africa with black zombies and a white protagonist could work… IF, and ONLY IF, Capcom paid attention to the very real history and culture of the area. The way it is now, it seems to be pictured as a savage place where everyone wants to kill you and the “exoticism” is a very classic racist picture.
The reason that the last two RE games have been under fire is because the zombies don’t look like zombies. They are very human-looking, and it becomes increasingly disturbing when fictional/virtual characters are as humanly realistic as possible. You can see the same sort of thing in the “uncanny valley”.
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Why won’t someone ever think of teh white menz?!?
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Kilroy: That’s right, it doesn’t matter until you set your sights on people whom Lou Dobbs tells you are menaces to public health and order, and then everyone gets up in arms. We white men have to stick together, I tell you: we only have the Congress, and the Presidency, and the police force, and the military, and West Point, and the Big Three game companies, and Rambo, and Luke Skywalker, and Band of Brothers, and such like things. We’re so deprived.
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:17 pm
I wish I’d read this ten minutes ago. It would have saved me typing out half of a very long-winded comment. Oh well.
Terrific post. Although (as said at length in the other thread) I’m genuinely surprised that people would be bothered by a black protagonist killing nigh-exclusively white enemies. The parallel with playing a terrorist plotting the downfall of a Western democracy is an excellent one, though.
June 3rd, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Women that think they don’t run America are fooling themselves. Men are growing increasingly apathetic and lazy while women are slowly but surely taking over the work force. More grants are given to women to start small businesses because their success rate is so much higher than that of men. Plus, 60% of marriages end in divorce thereby leaving 60% of boys basically fatherless. Raise them to think whatever you want ladies, and there you have it: the country is yours. But on a serious note, I have no problem shooting or role playing anyone on a video game. I would never kill anyone and the fact that anyone would sit around debating what group of people they would rather kill is appalling. Just kill them all and let Gaea sort them out. I personally would like to see a true zombie infested game where you kill infected babies, toddlers, women, African Americans, Mexicans, Indians, Asians, etc. Just as long as they are zombies who are tryng to eat me, its cool. Right?
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Also, while it’s true that there’s a healthy heaping of racism, stereotyping and xenophobia from Japan, they [here I go, lumping everyone into one hive mind] do not, in fact, stereotype white people and black people the same way.
They are both exoticized, but black people are exoticized in a markedly different and definitely more negative light. For example, while not everyone is happy about Asian/White interracial relationships, Asian/Black interracial relationships are nigh scandalous.
June 3rd, 2008 at 6:54 pm
Falconer, you made me lol.
This site is like a cool, refreshing beverage on a brutally hot day…
June 3rd, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Falconer, at least we women get Han Solo.
Hell yeah. Take that, white men!
June 4th, 2008 at 2:36 am
Reading this makes me wonder what would make a story with a white guy gunning down black zombies in africa ok.
Don’t get me wrong I can clearly see why the game can be called racist, or if not racist, EXTREMELY clumzy about the story.
Now I haven’t played any RE games.. no wait I actually played RE2 I think, but anyway, I’m far from an expert or a fan of the series so I’m mostly just trying to play with thoughts here.
What if: This Redford guy, instead of some action packed rambo-wannabe (I get the picture of) was a young idealistic doctor (still white though) working in africa for the Médecins Sans Frontières where he discovers rumors about the zombie virus and decides to investigate. It turns out to be true but when he contacts the government (of the african country) they try to cover it up (as they’re pawns of umbrela corp.) or just simply don’t believe him.
Alone (maybe some added info over radio or internet from other characters with more knowledge what this virus is) he decides to try get in and save anyone not yet infected and try end the threat the virus poses.
Now this scenario is probably very far from the game, but would this be an ok story? Or am I missing out on something?
June 4th, 2008 at 7:52 am
Sammiel: I guess I would respond to that with “why is it so important to make a story about a white guy gunning down people in Africa that’s ‘OK’”
What you’ve described still has problems because you’re looking at the white person as a more civilized, intellectual “savior” to a stereotypically savage population.
Here’s the thing, that people like Uber are glossing over.*
Games like RE5 require realism. If this were truly a “fantasy Africa,” there would be unicorns, and 10-foot-long swords weilded by bishies, and airships. But instead, Capcom has created a very realistic African city that is something that most people who have seen Black Hawk Down or watched any sort of world service reports on the area would recognize as “real Africa.” They did this because a realistic survival horror game is typically better when the player feels that they are not far removed from reality. And real Africa has a very brutal, fucked-up history because of white slavers, white colonialism, and continued white/western economic meddling. It has out-of-control AIDS, it has genocide. The public will to alleviate these problems is not there because of the racist stereotype that Africa is a populated by a bunch of savages. So to create a game set in a realistic-looking Africa where a white man is gunning down a bunch of black people is AT BEST willfully ignoring that history, and AT WORST capitalizing on the public’s deep-seated sentiments about the continent.
It bothers me, a lot when people come in and try to postulate scenarios when killing a marginalized group would be “ok.” I can understand the sentiment behind trying to come up with a scenario in which you teach the world to sing and buy the world a Coke. But in the meantime, Africa continues to suffer, and no Dr. Bashir To The Rescue games are going to change that, they’re simply going to trivialize that suffering. More to the point, it’s been pretty well-documented that attempting to get the gaming public to actually think deeply about the games they play is an exercise in futility.
If racism really wasn’t a big deal anymore, you wouldn’t have the sort of racist posts (like calling Black Looks a “n-gger cotton ho” when she dared to point out that the original RE5 trailer made her uncomfortable, or dismissing N’Gai’s concerns because “when the negros start breaking out the glocks and fried chicken, then you have a right to be upset”) in nearly every discussion about the game’s content, much less those viewpoints being tollerated. Once the gaming community can police itself and clean this shit up, I’ll start to take arguments that it’s “time we evolved beyond racism.”
*Well, that and their compulsion to decry us for banning games because that’s the only narrative they have in their bag of tricks and they’ll use it even if it doesn’t apply, dammit!
June 4th, 2008 at 9:13 am
I agree that the level of ‘realism’ in RE5 is a big factor. In the old RE games, the zombies looked like zombies: shambling wrecks with rotten skin, missing eyeballs, dragging intestines and other features that removed any real indication of race, ethnicity or in general humanity. They were all shades of blue-grey, green and other bloated dead fish colors with all identify able features chewed or rotted off. Now they look like living people. In RE4 the villagers speak, wield weapons and move like human beings. No moaning, shuffling mindless creatures barely able to moan ‘braaaaiiiinnnssssss’ let along wield a chainsaw. And they’re rendered in shiny CGI that makes them look as close to real as possible, not clunky right-angle blocks like my old PS1 and 2 versions. This makes them less of a fantasy monster like their cousins in Castlevania and Silent Hill and into the ‘other’ people that society tells us we need to be afraid because they’re not like us and just don’t understand how to be good citizens. Combine with the rest of Capcon’s staggering ignorance piled into this game and you have a glowing example of how to dehumanize an entire continent for someone’s personal enjoyment.
June 4th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Yeah, I had be mulling over the differences in the old zombies and these new ones (Plagas/Ganados whatever). The technology part was the one I was thinking about, because the older games had not only more traditional “undead” type of zombies, they were on older systems that couldnt make them as unique as they were now. You could tell they were just zombie type a, b, c etc placed throughout the game, just mainly with different attire. Now not only with the new graphics, are they more unique and identifiable instead of smeared pixels, they also look and behave very much like humans (Apart from when the plagas thing pops out of their head and starts lashing around of course). Even without such an insensitive choice about the setting, I figure since games are becoming more and more realistic it would have been cause to be cautious no matter what is being done.
June 4th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
I think this might be the online equivalent of throwing rocks at a hornet’s nest.
June 4th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
“the funniest part was that the uproar was mostly overly sensitive people looking for PC acceptance, not necessarily black people being offend by white people shooting black zombies.”
Because so long as black people aren’t offended, it isn’t racism. Your black friends don’t care, so obviously you’re in the clear. Hey, and some black people use the word “nigga,” so that’s probably kosher, too, right? Anyway, I’m sure the secret black council is meeting as we speak to determine what the official response to RE5 will be. They’ll also decide whether or not to kick Will Smith out for his recent forays into scientology.
“Also, you want to know what is racist? Equal opportunity employment. Why should anyone of any race get a job over anybody else solely based on race?”
Ah, the real racism is apparently affirmative action. Very close to bingo here. All I need is one more “The main character could be [insert color that does not actually cover the range of human pigment....let's say green with pink polkadots for the sake of argument] for all it matters” Because of course, there’s a long history of people who are green with pink polkadots and the way that they’ve been alienated and mistreated in part due to that history, as well as the ethnicity that goes along with it.
MPG, next time you throw rocks at hornets, could you at least find hornets who make something resembling an original argument? I know that’s a pretty tall order on the internet, but man.
Also, is there a racial equivalent of the feminism 101 blog? Because it seems in the coming weeks it might be useful to have premade rebuttals.
June 4th, 2008 at 2:23 pm
The responses are just absolutely precious. Now I’m being accused of wanting to start a race war, and why can’t I just shut up because certainly racism will just go away on its own accord if people just pretend it doesn’t exist.
June 4th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
I’d just like to say again that it would make me very sad if any of my friends turned into zombies.
June 4th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
“Also, you want to know what is racist? Equal opportunity employment. Why should anyone of any race get a job over anybody else solely based on race?”
Yeah, why do all them white men get hired by white male bosses all the time? Even when there are equally qualified non-white non-male candidates for the same job? I hate how white people always seem to hire white people.
Oh, that’s not what you meant, was it?
June 4th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Oh god, the Joystiq comments section. You know, if they cleaned up the comments and gave Griffin McElroy a crash course in how to be funny without being bigoted, the site would be great. (The podcast is really fun, and Justin and Ludwig are talented writers.)
I realized something earlier today (which y’all probably already did, but I’ll state it anyway): the majority of American gamers don’t see a problem with the way the pre-virus Africans are portrayed in the first RE5 trailer because that’s how they already think of Africans–as savage, uncivilized, subhuman people. Most American gamers know nothing about Africa* and hold the stereotypical misconception that its people are primitive; they think–maybe not consciously–that they are better and more advanced than people who live in Africa because they have more advanced technology and so on, when they’re just privileged. So they don’t see how wrong the initial depiction of the people in the village is, they just think it’s realistic due to their gross misconceptions. (Contrast this with the reaction of Stephen Totilo**, who has actually visited a town in Tanzania.)
* (which I partially blame on public school education; why do we get 15 years of American history from elementary school through high school and ONE of “world” history–if we’re lucky? I was taught the American revolution so many times it’s a wonder I don’t have it memorized)
**Link: http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2007/08/03/that-notorious-resident-evil-5-trailer-and-the-people-i-met-in-africa/
June 4th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Why is one of the responses to pointing out racism/sexism/homophobia is to be accused of being racist/sexist/homophobic for doing it? It’s a little like diagnosing someone with cancer and being blamed for causing it. And then there’s the ever popular “You just need to stop seeing/looking for the problem EVERYWHERE….” argument like you’ve got some kind of political correctness tunnel vision mixed with a heavy dose of paranoid schizophrenia over the issue at hand.
June 4th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Dungeon Keeper: I think the “nuh-uh, YOU’RE the racist!” defense comes out of two needs. The first is for the game-defender to prove themselves as totally not racist and to try to suggest that anyone else who does have a problem with it is a racist for pointing out that the game has racist undertones (yes, I know, it boggles the mind). The second is to discredit the person who is complaining by trying to paint them as a troll or an idiot for trying to make a problem out of everything.
Funny. I thought for people that called themselves not racist, they’d stop trying to get defensive (protesting about RE4’s whiteness is quite common) and at least admit that it looks wrong to see a white man kill tons of black zombies who don’t even LOOK like zombies.
June 4th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Partly I think it’s defensiveness - partly it’s that people seem unwilling or unable to see anything short of a game starring a group of white-hooded Ubermensch chanting “Keep darkie down!” as “racist”. People seem to find themselves falling into the mindset of “Well, I’m not a racist so if I don’t see any problem with this anyone who does is obviously ovesensitive/hysterical/has an agenda.”
I mean Christ, if someone as self-evidently intelligent, moderate and articulate as N’Gai Croal can be treated so utterly shamefully when he broaches this subject, what chance do the rest of us have?
June 4th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
And people don’t like to criticize something they love (I’ve encountered this same phenomenon at the site Anti-Shurtugal.com, which pretty much tears apart the Inheritance (Eragon, Eldest) books and is often visited by rabid fans); they take it personally. I mean, I was the same way in middle school. So if you call something someone really likes (or wants to like) racist, it’s tantamount to calling THEM racist, which isn’t true at all.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:13 am
“Sammiel: I guess I would respond to that with “why is it so important to make a story about a white guy gunning down people in Africa that’s ‘OK’”
What you’ve described still has problems because you’re looking at the white person as a more civilized, intellectual “savior” to a stereotypically savage population. ”
Why? I dunno, I suppose I like to puzzle.
Well the Médecins Sans Frontières are real and often white but I don’t think of them as a racist organization anyway. Altough in a story it could just as easily be a black local doctor, but that would be too easy. And well, savage, the zombies wouldn’t be very zombielike if they weren’t.
June 5th, 2008 at 7:17 am
Sammiel — If you don’t recognize the difference between an organization like Doctors Without Borders, which seeks to serve, and create tangible differences, and doesn’t make it a point to start killing people; and a fictional game that exists in your head wherein a white savior swoops in an makes everything better for the poor savages in Africa so that you can feel better about what’s going on there, I’m not sure you’re going to understand much on this site.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:03 am
…and gone.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:50 am
Wow, I just witnessed a right-clicking and a troll being dumped out the nearest portal. What a great way to start the morning!
It’s really disturbing when someone thinks Chris Renfield and Leon Kennedy (who have apparently sold out to the NSA and are obviously showing signs of ‘roid rage) get confused with humanitarian agencies like Doctors Without Borders. I’m not sure what’s worse: denying there is an elephant in the living room, pretending its okay that there’s an elephant in the living room or confusing the elephant for the friendly family dog while its trampling the furniture.
June 5th, 2008 at 8:52 am
[...] Racism, arguments, and Resident Evil 5: A Primer. from Feminist Gamers: excellent post and comment discussion (tags: gaming racism) [...]
June 5th, 2008 at 9:18 am
DK, you took the words right out of my blog.
June 5th, 2008 at 9:22 am
I’m sorry, no.
“When a white guy shoots white zombies, it’s fine. When a white guy shoots black zombies, we demand a game about zombies become a lesson in African culture and blah blah blah blah”
Just no.
It’s safe to say you don’t know what you’re talking about. At all.
June 5th, 2008 at 9:46 am
D: Oh yes! You’re completely right! Well, excuse my obviously throw-away, self-righteous, indignant post, and let us get started immediately on shutting down all discussion of the game’s troublesome imagery that uses years of oppressive and destructive history of an entire continent (and lumping it together into one stereotyped pastiche of “exotic Africa”), exploiting it for cheap thrills in a big-name video game!
Sorry, but I’m more self-conscious than that.
June 5th, 2008 at 10:04 am
My arguments, let me show you them.
June 5th, 2008 at 11:24 am
It has no “troublesome imagery”, aside from taking place in Africa, and involving African people. The game is not about slavery, nor is it about any sort of societal race problems. It’s about zombies. The game does not use “years of oppressive and destructive history” nor “exotic Africa” nor any “exploitation”.
The game takes place outside of the US, because the company involved was responsible for things too big to cover up in the US. The destruction of at least one major city, for instance. They would no longer be allowed to operate within US borders. Now, as an international company, of very shady dealings, chances are they’d have offices and dealings all around the world.
Hiding something shady is easy in a country such as Africa, as it is very large, and a great deal of it is not industrialized, or heavily populated in a city-style.
Moving on, African people live in Africa. If a company that manufactures various viruses that alter humans into undead zombies/other forms of abominations, and often has leaks…The local people are going to be affected by this.
They can’t ruin the overarching storyline of the game just to satisfy your sensibilities. Calling out racism where there is none, is, in fact, racist. You’re calling attention to something that isn’t there, because you desperately want it to be.
The game can’t pause and give you a speech on slavery, or have you dispose of zombies in a non-violent way, just because they’re black.
You create a clever no-win situation. When a game has only white people, it’s called out as racist. When a game puts black people in the same situations it previously put whites (i.e. being zombies and being shot at), what happens? It’s called racist, because gasp, you’re shooting zombies that are also black!
What did you expect? Since they’re black, the game should allow you to only avoid the black zombies, and not harm them, simply because they’re black? No. To expect special treatment simply based on their race…is racist.
Again, you’re trying to find something that isn’t there to find.
You complain that it’s “defeat Umbrella’s newest threat”. That’s the story of the game, that’s the story of all of them. It isn’t going to be some poignant story of black oppression and culture, because that is not what these games are about, and frankly, expecting it to become such a story just because it has blacks in it, is racist, and offensive.
There were no deep, conscience provoking ramifications when it was a white guy gunning down white zombies, so why does there need to be one now?
June 5th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
If you really don’t see what the problem is with a trailer of a white guy gunning down a bunch of savage-looking Africans, then you need a serious reality check.
June 5th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
The fact that you’re trying to find a problem with it IS the problem.
You’re specifically trying to make connections where there aren’t any, in order to fit your flawed view of reality.
Equality is not making a special world where black people are not allowed to be portrayed in any negative way, while white people are demonized.
June 5th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
OK, let’s take these in turn.
Which is a problem when you consider the context of the game. First off, consider your claim that it is about zombies and a shady uber-corporation, not about societal problems or anything like that. Who the hell is the guy on the megaphone in the trailer, ranting on about how “(city name) is our home!” to fervent screams of wild-looking, angry blacks? What sort of mental image do you get when you see the people attacking themselves violently while Chris claims that “there is no humanity here”? How about when they move and behave much more fluidly and savagely than the Ganados of RE4?
Capcom has a very good chance to make the best of both worlds here: create a game where the root of the problem arises from the very same neo-colonial policies that have plagued the African continent for decades, and also make a zombie shooter where it doesn’t matter who the zombies are, they must die before you do. However, Capcom seems to be building on the premise of “new locations!” and “more enemies on-screen than ever before!” instead of pausing to consider that what they are creating may be, in fact, very offensive.
How is this offensive? Consider the ongoing genocide and brutality in Congo or Sudan. Those violent images are the only ones that make it out of Africa into the airwaves (if they ever do), and Capcom is just reinforcing the image that all of Africa (it’s not just one big sun-stained savanna village) is that violent and threatening by replacing people with zombies. They may not mean it, but it trivializes the history and the current violence going on there RIGHT NOW. It is, at best, distasteful and ignorant, and at the worst, downright racist. It is simply not cool to take something that many people are still living through and make something entertaining out of it, excusing any complaints as being over-sensitive
By the by, one of the “hooks” of the revival of the zombie genre in movies and games recently is that zombies make a very good metaphor for our own self-destruction. Bioweaponry, environmental devastation, conspicuous consumption, corporate scientific secrecy… all of those can tie in with the zombies in some way or another. This makes it so that Resident Evil 5 has a very good potential to tell a story about the history of the region, even using your own points about Africa being a good place to test out these drugs, what with it being out of the public eye and all.
Strike one on the “it’s racist to talk about racism!” defense. But seriously, do you really think that we’re trying to look for racism where there isn’t any? For one, I’m not the one who first noticed this, and, by extension, got the brunt of the racist complaints on their blog. I’m a white guy, I’ll say that now in case it’s not clear, and you’ve the gall to call me racist when I am airing my own concerns that playing this game may make me feel uncomfortable?
As for the second paragraph, the game has all the potential to open up a very human story behind the zombies and strife in the region of the game via cutscenes, which are “pauses” in their own right. And what if the zombies are, in fact, able to be rescued a-la the Little Sisters in Bioshock? What if they’re still human beneath their monstrous, savage appearance and in fact are trying to be released from the virus’s/plaga’s control? Never mind that they’re black, it’d be great to have an option where you capture and neutralize them for medical attention later instead of blowing them away.
Before anything else, I never said anything about not harming the zombies just because they’re black. Ever. It may have been some other commenter, but that’s beside the point since we never get an option to avoid combat or “save” zombies via choice or some quick-time event.
Now, why is a white-only game racist? Simple: because you’re creating an insular, all-white world, and completely ignoring the majority (that’s right, the majority) of the world. Even the second and third Resident Evils were racist in that way because Raccoon City, a pretty big town, had whites-only except for Ada Wong and the dying black cop in the police station. Come on! The demographics of white-only towns are changing, and I expect a minimum of research from a foreign game company about some nation! You can read more about this in tekanji’s blog here.
Wow, that last paragraph cinches it. You seriously don’t see the problem in a trailer showing a white guy gunning down a bunch of black people? Especially when you consider that there are some people who have never played Resident Evil before, or that if the situations were reversed you’d have a bigger outcry? Were I part of Capcom, I’d have advised them to not release it as it is, but that’s not my call to make.
Also, you don’t seem to have read the actual post to the middle, where I touch on Resident Evil 4. I wrote: “The problem is that the imagery, the history behind European/white people doesn’t carry the same weight as colonial Africa, exploited by whites.”
If you don’t realize the fundamental difference between the two games and consider history and race, then it’s not intellectually honest, to borrow Cola’s (I think) phrase to defend the game from charges of racism.
June 5th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
create a game where the root of the problem arises from the very same neo-colonial policies that have plagued the African continent for decades,
Because it is not their problem, nor their responsibility to make a game that satisfies your desire for political correctness and such. It’s a medium of entertainment, not for your political views.
How is this offensive? Consider the ongoing genocide and brutality in Congo or Sudan. Those violent images are the only ones that make it out of Africa into the airwaves (if they ever do), and Capcom is just reinforcing the image that all of Africa (it’s not just one big sun-stained savanna village) is that violent and threatening by replacing people with zombies.
Context is key. All the games involve zombies. Again, you’re trying to make a connection where one simply does not exist. The series has the precedent of having happened in various other locations in the world prior to this. Your attempt to make a connection between “the genocide in the congo” and a fictitious company and zombies DO NOT WORK.
It is simply not cool to take something that many people are still living through and make something entertaining out of it, excusing any complaints as being over-sensitive
NO ONE is “still living through” zombie attacks from a fictional company. Zombies aren’t real.
Also, what, so in your opinion, nothing in media should ever have any black people, or ever involve an entire continent of the planet? Sounds pretty racist, if you ask me.
Strike one on the “it’s racist to talk about racism!” defense.
Strike one on “not reading before you speak”. I’m saying it is racist to say “You dared feature black people in a way that I don’t approve of, that you’ve been featuring white people for decades. RACISMMMMM!”. Also, accusing something of being racist, when it is not, is in fact, racist. You’re attempting to call out race as a motivator, and by that regard, claiming that the non-black creators or players of the game are racist for making it, thereby stereotyping people based on their race, which is, in fact, racist.
As for the second paragraph, the game has all the potential to open up a very human story behind the zombies and strife in the region of the game via cutscenes, which are “pauses” in their own right. And what if the zombies are, in fact, able to be rescued a-la the Little Sisters in Bioshock? What if they’re still human beneath their monstrous, savage appearance and in fact are trying to be released from the virus’s/plaga’s control? Never mind that they’re black, it’d be great to have an option where you capture and neutralize them for medical attention later instead of blowing them away.
Because the game shouldn’t HAVE to specifically add some backstory about genocide and the Congo, and tribal warfare and starvation and other societal problems in Africa, just to quiet your sensibilities. Just because it takes place in Africa, doesn’t make it racist for not going into some deep detail about things TOTALLY UNRELATED to the game’s story.
Also, if it were possible to “save/kill”, you’d immediately clamor for the removal of the kill ability, because omg, that’s so racist!
Wow, that last paragraph cinches it. You seriously don’t see the problem in a trailer showing a white guy gunning down a bunch of black people?
No, because it’s the context of the game. Do you see a problem with a white guy gunning down white people?
Don’t be a hypocrite now. Stick to your guns.
The problem is that the imagery, the history behind European/white people doesn’t carry the same weight as colonial Africa, exploited by whites.”
Africans were the ones who sold their brothers and sisters to the whites. Also, whites and every other race have been slaves throughout history. Calling special attention to one, and saying it was more horrible because it was more recent is racist.
June 5th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
Before I begin, let’s get one thing straight here. I am not calling you a racist, nor I am not calling your love of the series or the particular game a racist characteristic of yours. Likewise, me calling the game racist does not mean I am calling you a racist. With that out of the way…
Any self-respecting company will go the length to not alienate any of their consumers: screw trying to please the consumer, they’re more worried about not pissing anyone off. Moreover, ignoring the region’s problems or diverting them to fuel a zombie outbreak is their responsibility when they cause a number of people to question the entire trailer. You can erroneously compare me to a concerned parent who feels that children shouldn’t play Grand Theft Auto because it’s violent, but my problem lies with the presentation of the game, not the game’s premise of shooting zombies.
Also, just a throw-away here: the idea of being “politically incorrect” is for people to air their prejudices while trying to act “edgy”. I’m not trying to be politically correct: I’m trying to point out a serious flaw that I see in the game, which really bothers me because I’m trying to stick to an anti-racist mindset. If you can’t respect that, then the discussion can end here.
Yes, all games involve zombies, so far in four or five locations (Raccoon City and the mansion, Antarctica and whatever facilities are in Code Veronica, an unidentified peasant Spanish village straight out of a renaissance fair, and now someplace in Africa).
The difference between the previous Resident Evil games and now 4 and 5 are that the zombies don’t look like zombies anymore. They are not human any longer, but they retain very human features and movements. They become something primal, something ugly, something disturbing to fight against. Not in a “that’s scary” kind of way, more a “that’s sick” feeling. The more realistic, or approaching humanity, something gets, the more disturbing it becomes to interact with it. This is the uncanny valley, something I’ve already mentioned before. It applies to more than just robotics.
Making a mockery of current events is not a good policy. Placing the game in Africa where strife exists is fine (and so is shooting zombies), but trying to work the violence as the cause of a zombie outbreak when so many problems already exist there is just stupid.
Jeez, how dense do you think I am? You hit me for not reading your comment properly, and now you misunderstand what I meant. I said that people in Africa are still living through outbreaks of civil violence and brutal massacres. Likening those massacres (initiated by humans, not zombies, OK?) to zombie attacks makes the problems there seem trivial and even a source of entertainment.
If we’re going to talk about the media, I could go on all day. I’ll humor you, as you still seem to be trying to paint me a racist even though I said nothing of the sort: I said that we in the West ONLY GET images of violence from Africa, IF WE EVER GET ANY. That imaging of Africans as bloody, poor, and violent is extremely stereotypical in its own way, much like we’re conditioned to think that all of the Middle East is comprised villages in sandy hills.
Our dear media seems more interested in reporting about a candidate’s $400 haircut, how much the presidential candidates love America, and the occasional Britney Spears update or some other shark attack somewhere.
So now I’m a self-hating white who hates blacks, who has an itchy trigger finger to call out racism (which we all know makes ME racist), and then have me claim that the Japanese are racist too? Damn, I’ll take this slow.
You did, in fact, call me racist for calling out racism (the “no, you’re the racist!” defense). I don’t understand how that makes me a racist. Is this some self-defense mechanism of the West or something so we don’t have to bring up the subtle racism in our society and culture? I am not being ironic or sarcastic here: I honestly don’t understand it.
Also, I never said, nor am I one of the people who are attacking the game by saying that the Japanese are xenophobic and racist. That is, in fact, a fanboy’s defense of the game. It’s not used often, but it is a staple defense to say that it’s not the U.S.’s fault for having a game like this, because it was developed by the Japanese. We clear on that?
Lastly, you must think I have a bizarre view of how blacks SHOULD be presented. It’s nothing much: I just ask that they’re presented humanely and devoid of stereotypical traits that lumps them into one category. Amazingly enough, that’s how much I demand they present gays, Jews, women, whites, men, Christians, Muslims, and every other human being in the planet. It’s surprisingly difficult to fulfill this demand, however, because making archetypes is easy.
What makes it racist, in my opinion, is the fact that there’s a white guy who is sent in to wipe out a bunch of black pseudo-zombies via heavy weaponry. The subtext that the only solution to the problems there is to kill everyone is very strong here. Moreover, the graphic design is very “classic racist”, by which I mean it resembles what the West (or, to be more specific, the East) think Africa looks like: a bunch of impoverished villagers living in a ramshackle city where violence is a way of life. It’d be great if the game turned this trope on its head, but so far, it’s racist.
And please, don’t try to put words or ideas in my mouth by saying I’d cry for a removal of the “kill” option if save/kill was available. As a gamer, I want more choices in my games, but more importantly, I want consequences for my actions. As a person, I’d be taking the “save” option a hell of a lot more often. That’s who I am.
First, it’s not correct to call it racist when the same “race” attacks each other, unless race is the catalyst for the fighting. Now white-on-white violence has become the norm, and that has its own problems and connotations in it. It is racist to portray white only worlds, where non-whites are completely non-existing, even as enemies. By the way, Resident Evil 4 had one black enemy. It was J.J., the big burly Mr. T-like Ganado who carried a minigun and tried to blast you to bits.
You, as a player (I am trying hard to drop my own prejudices, but I am taking a risk in assuming that you’re a white, middle-to-high class guy) have no problem jumping into the persona of the hero you’re playing because he resembles who you are in sex and race. There may be a slight bit of “omg!” involved when you take control of a different character from your own physical appearances, unless there’s first-person involved.
I tried really hard not to just write a “holy shit, learn history” and leave it at that for this part of my reply, but I find I have to be specific for the sake of all of us.
A number of African tribes and warlords did indeed sell black slaves to the Age of Exploration Europeans, but by-and-large the slaves were taken by the whites themselves and exported to the New World. Moreover, I know that many other races have been slaves, and not always under another race or just because they had a different skin color: it may have been ethnicity or religious beliefs, but you seem to know about that.
However, the way you readily dismiss recent slavery (it was only 150 years ago, and only 40 years ago did blacks even get civil rights in the U.S.) and state that it’s racist to give it “special reference” makes me wonder if you’re even aware of what you’re revealing about yourself. Two, count them, two generations ago is what separated American blacks from whites as equal citizens, and I argue that this classicism and segregation still exists today de facto.
Not to mention, in Africa, they are still treated as somehow not deserving of attention from us here in the West because we’ve the privilege of thinking we’re better than them somehow. This makes it all the more infuriating when a bunch of gamers step up and say that something isn’t racist when it still exists in the world, to put it mildly.
June 6th, 2008 at 12:26 am
I don’t want to jump into this suddenly, but I did also want to reiterate to D that there are a few assumptions that no one here is arguing:
1. No one is arguing the game should be banned in any way, shape, or form. We’re just wanting to discuss some of the issues that we saw in the trailer. We all recognize that this is still preliminary, but what we’ve seen so far has troubled us, and we’re working through it with the means at our disposal.
2. No one is advocating that bad things never happen to black people in any way shape, or form in any media expression ever. For instance, it’s just as bad whenever a black (or gay or Indian or Hispanic or whatever) character is depicted as a flawless superhuman. When working race into a story, you have to find a careful balance of not ignoring it, but also not allowing it to be the sole focus.
3. We’re not advocating that the game simply be a powerpoint presentation detailing the history of colonialism and African violence. It’s a business, and Capcom needs to make an entertaining game. You’ve set up a false dichotomy where the game can EITHER be entertaining OR informed by history. It is possible to have both.
The biggest problem in the case of this trailer is that the depiction of Africans as savage, soulless zombies, is not too different from the standard media portrayals of Africans.
June 6th, 2008 at 2:33 am
D, why it is so very important to you to call anyone who criticizes RE5 a politically correct, white-guilt-riddled, politically-correct no fun epic failer?
June 6th, 2008 at 6:25 am
You did, in fact, call me racist for calling out racism (the “no, you’re the racist!” defense). I don’t understand how that makes me a racist. Is this some self-defense mechanism of the West or something so we don’t have to bring up the subtle racism in our society and culture? I am not being ironic or sarcastic here: I honestly don’t understand it.
I think the point he’s trying to make - and my apologies if I’m putting words in your mouth, D - is that if white people are “allowed” to be zombies and black people aren’t, then that’s discrimination. It’s tough to come up with a counter-argument to that which someone who won’t accept that images of a white Westerner gunning down a savage black mob has troublesome connotations will understand, but I’ll give it my best shot.
Imagine a traditional sword-and-sorcery RPG in which you’re allied to the cult of a particular volcano-god. That cult’s uniform is a long white robe and a tall white pointed hood. This cult sacrifice unwilling victims to their god. These victims are all humans with noticably dark skin, and the cult’s preferred method of execution is crucifixion on a burning wooden cross.
Would you still be OK with a developer using those images, because the cult have established in-game motivations for behaving that way, because “it’s just a game” or because “no-one in real-life is still living through sacrifice by volcano-god cultists. Volcano-god cultists aren’t real”?
If you would be OK with it, can you understand why some people (most people, I sincerely hope) would not be?
Nobody’s making the assertion that white people can be zombies (or any sort of action-game cannon-fodder) but black people can’t. All that’s being said is that portraying white people in a position to violently impose their authority on black people has a history and an emotional resonance that showing a white guy blowing other white guys away just doesn’t have, for whatever reason. As I’d hope my ludicrous example above makes clear, having an in-game rationale does not absolve developers of the responsibility to handle potentially deeply distressing images or memories with sensitivity, and it does not give them carte blanche to use whatever real-world resonances they choose - consciously or otherwise - in order to give gamers a cheap, dirty thrill.
June 6th, 2008 at 8:53 am
That last paragraph is exactly what needed to be said.
Rodafowa, it’s too bad that the people are coming in with a prejudice to ignore why the imagery is troublesome. If someone can read that and declare “nuh uh, is so not racist” then they’re pretty well established to not be arguing in good faith.
June 6th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Rodafowa: Thank you.
Also - the ‘but but but you only see it because you’re looking for it!’ accusations so often levelled at people who point out bigotry and prejudice - couldn’t one say the same of the people throwing sharp things at the messengers/ That is: you’re only not seeing it because you’re not looking at it. You’re looking past it. Or you’re still wearing your rose-coloured glasses and therefore you cannot see it even though you are looking at it.
Seriously, privilege exists, historical context exists, baggage exists. The people who have privilege - people who’ve not spent even a week of their lives looking down the barrel of society’s BS Cannon have NO business whatsoever telling people who lack that privilege whether or not they have a ‘right’ to be offended.
If you are white, you do not get to tell people of colour that they are/are not allowed to be offended by something. If you are a man, you do not get to tell women this. if you are straight, you do not get to tell queer people this. If you are able-bodied, you do not get to tell people with disabilities this. Et cetera.
Also, the BLOO BLOO FATHERLESS CHILDREN troll seems to have forgotten that it’s society’s bullshit sexism - the bullshit sexist idea that a man cannot be a good caregiver and that women are naturally good mothers because that’s how ~*NATURE MADE US*~ - that leads foolish, prejudiced, sexist judges to entrust children to mothers who can’t handle them.
Oh yeah, and the idea that men are stupid impulsive thugs who can’t keep their hand to themselves around a scantily-clad/drunk woman? That’s not a feminist idea.
That’s this broken fucked up bigoted societal structure talking, and feminists and women do not run society. (If we did, d’you think tampons and pads would be so goddamned expensive!? Come the hell on.) Stupid guys who can’t load a dishwasher or clean a house? Again, not a message perpetuated by TEH EV0L FEMNISTZ. If you honestly believe that it is, congratulations, a kool-ade drinker is you. You’ve just fallen for blatant, stupid finger-pointing tactics designed to take the blame away from where it belongs (bullshit mediacrats and societal mucketymucks who’ve probably never worked a day in their lives - and even they’re subject to the zero-sum bullcrap we’re fed daily) and place it on someone else, ANYONE else.
…Sorry. I’ve gone OT and been sarcastic and assy and blaaah. mea culpa. It just frustrates the pants off me that people will so happily go “NUH UH NO U BLAH BLAH BLAH D NILE *PLUG EARS*” and pretend that the screamingly obvious isn’t. I can understand, to an extent, people who are in denial because they can’t believe that in this supposedly-enlightened day and age that BS like this could still be going on - usually they wake up and smell the samosas.
But - yeah. We should know better. We don’t. It’s depressing.
June 6th, 2008 at 11:53 pm
Well, if feminists ran society I would hope that more women would be aware of and using alternatives to disposable menstruation products. And that the disposable ones would be put through more rigorous standards in order to be safe (toxic shock = not fun). But that’s neither here nor there
June 6th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Er, “And that the disposable ones would be put through more rigorous standards in order to be marketed as safe” is what I meant. I really shouldn’t make comments just after getting up.
June 7th, 2008 at 8:41 am
I understand it’s not difficult to find unbleached sanitary products in Europe.
Who the hell wants to put bleach up in there?
I don’t understand why you have to unearth the lost hippie graveyard to find them here in the U.S.
June 7th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Tekanji & M. Ponygirl Esq.: YES AAAGhhffftt. Bleach + nootch = ouch.
But - yeah. You guys are quite right in re: girlie supplies and the dearth thereof and the crappy safety standards and now I want to set things on fire. Dang.
*goes to blow things up with an emulator*
But - yeah. People in privilege telling me what I am/am not allowed to consider bigoted annoys me.
June 15th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Thanks for writing this so I don’t have to. I’ve been feeling the need to refute a lot of the common comments I’ve seen but have been dreading writing it.
I would only add that one other thing that I think is important to discuss is that it is not only the fact that there is a white guy killing black people it is also the way the black people in the RE5 trailer are depicted and how the video is edited. Compare the RE5 trailers to the RE34 trailers. THey are very different in style and the ways in which the people in it are shown.
July 6th, 2008 at 7:24 am
I think it’s too early to decide such things until we’ve played RE5 or know further details on the plot. There is little we know of the plot thus far, and the point of RE series having bad writing was remedied somewhat in RE4. It’s thoroughly possible that Capcom will smack us with some interesting twists and surprises in RE5 which put a whole new view on things.
All that discussions or essays on topics like this do are feed the hype and attract more attention to the game… if you’d really want to combat the issue of racism in a videogame, the trick would be to give it no attention. Just like the way to battle Paris Hilton is to ignore her and stop buying into any media which use her for “news”. (;
July 6th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Yeah– just like in real life. Like how the people who fought for civil rights did so by sitting on their ass and not challenging racism or the status quo, and how much better things got as a result. Except, not so much. Seriously, Wratts, do you believe what you’re saying?
Games like GTA and RE are not little fly-by-night titles looking for whatever publicity they can get, good or bad. They’re extremely profitable franchises, and somehow I doubt blogs like Feminist Gamers decrying racist and sexist themes in them is going to bring a bunch of new curious people to the title.
July 7th, 2008 at 4:13 am
This is just silly in my opinion. It almost as if in todays media you can’t have anyone of two differing races doing anything negative to each other without calls of racism. Honestly, True racism is trying assign rules to the behavior of people according to their race, Black heroes can only kill black villians/white heroes can only kill white vilians is a far more racist concept then anything I’ve seen in resident evil 5.
I’m jewish, 35% of my people were murdered in the span of 3 years of genocidal rampage (Not to mention for quite a while we weren’t served by the same joints that shunned blacks) and even I think you’re being to sensative to race.
“How would you feel if the next game had a black guy killing whites”
Erm…. I really would not care in the slightest, I would think they used a black guy in a very traditional action movie role, which happens all the time… by this definition I would find the movie “Blade” racially offensive
Racial equality isn’t having seperate roles for the races and keeping them out of each others setting, it’s having some guy kill a village full of zombies and no one really caring what color the hero’s skin is or the killed skin is.
Oh and for the record, I’m a gay slavic jew, so if some thinks theres some racist party being thrown in this post, I certainly wouldn’t be invited to it.
“Chris Redfield, who is white, seems to be the “lone savior” amongst the throngs of zombie-fied blacks, and even the black woman he meets is much fairer-looking than the hordes of black zombies they must shoot down. It would be a very poignant and potentially good story if the protagonist was black as well”
This quote says so much more then I could ever say in regard to this, We have to use a BLACK character for this role, The established main character of the series doesn’t have The right SKIN COLOR, if we don’t use the character with the right SKIN COLOR for this role we’ll be racist.
Hilarious, the people who are the most obessed about which color the main character is are the ones screaming racism.
July 7th, 2008 at 7:16 am
Yeah, being upset that a game glorifies a white westerner killing a bunch of Africans is hilarious.
The point of these articles, which you obviously didn’t bother to read but I expect nothing less, is not so much the imagery, but the underlying context, which as a “gay slavic jew” you should have some concept of, unless you’re totally pulling that out of your ass in order to try to make it sound like you have cred points. But no one lies on the internet, right? And until you can be bothered to read instead of pooping all over my forums with your illiterate misinformation, you won’t be posting here anymore.
July 7th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Rawrius, once again, one of the main concerns with RE5 that we’ve seen is that the depiction of Africans as soulless, savage zombies is not actually that different than the standard media depiction of Africans.
July 8th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Eh, while I do agree with the article’s stand point on the cultural norms, I don’t know….
Like the article states, the RE series has never really been known for it’s stellar writing. Not to mention, alot of the details that have been released so far haven’t really lead me to the belief that they’re going to be doing much of anything with social/racial/political commentary…take that as a blessing or a curse, it’s up to you.
I’m speaking as merely a fan, NOT a straight fan boy (I actually never really liked the series until RE 4, for game play reasons, hah). But, really, in RE 4, they weren’t white…they were spainards, yet no uproar was heard about that, now was there? I don’t know, I just don’t like the whole idea that “If they look white, it’s ok, right?”…now THAT’S definitely a problem I want addressed, lol.
July 9th, 2008 at 7:09 am
Fail. There were people complaining that Resident Evil 4 portrayed Spanish in a racist fashion… hell, they didn’t even get the right concept of “spanish” and made them a bunch of Mexicans. In fact, I would say that the racism in RE4 is just as bad because you’re basically just gunning down a bunch of spanish people because they’re analogs for dirty mexicans.
And no, saying “if they look white it’s ok right” is not the same sort of racism as “kill da n*ggers” because there isn’t an entrenched social system of economic, social, physical, and psychological oppression backing up the “if they look white” statement.
July 11th, 2008 at 6:38 pm
Hello, why have anyone not talked about Mirrors Edge, it seems very interesting from a feminist perspective, an action adventure game with a female protagonist who is not stereotypical in the way that Lara Croft is and the producers and directors of Mirrors Edge have said them self that they got inspired by Ellen Ripley “Alien” and Sarah Connor “Termintor” for the main Character of their new game. why does not anyone talk about this positive news. im trying to start a new thread. or what about Velvet Assassin.
peace/matucho =)
July 11th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Well, there’s more to this site than just this thread. I brought up Mirror’s Edge in another post. I’m a little cynical, I’m taking a wait-and-see approach on whether or not I get excited about it.
July 12th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Well i guess its wise to wait and see what becomes of this game since its to early in development and we can only speculate. But still I cant help myself getting exited about this game because all the picture and videos I have seen about this game seem very interesting. I really love the way the main character looks she is very cool, and i like the visuals and the design of the futuristic “1984″ styled city the game takes place in. You know this game is being developed by a swedish company called “DICE” and feminism has become very popular in sweden, I know this because i am from sweden myself. So i think this game has a good chance of being very interesting. I just hope the gameplay is good as well because it seems risky to make this kind of action adventure game that relies so much on jumping and grabbing and running in a first person perspective.
check out these videos if you have not all ready seen them. =)
http://www.gametrailers.com/game/6364.html
July 14th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Good news, MPG, this issue is finally dead (a little zombie humor there for ya). Yessirree, the fine folks at Gametrailers have put it to rest.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/36111.htm (wait until number 5)
Apparently we just need to STFU! Who knew? Also, since they’re ZOMBIES, it doesn’t matter if they’re black, white, orange, or blue, because of course there is a long history of troubled race relations between orange and blue people that is fraught with many modern social and political implications. But seriously, I’d NEVER heard these arguments before, and dagnabbit, they’re right! We’ve all been fools!
Seriously though, this Screwattack guy’s a tool. And really, it just reinforces why I don’t like most gamer humor. Too many gamers out there seem to think it’s funny enough just to talk about the videogames we’ve all played.
July 14th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Yeah, I’ve been trying to figure out how to best respond to a failed attempt at humor called Vagina Hero but it’s just more of the same bullshit, dumbass video game writers attempting to justify their own narrow-mindedness, misogyny, and bigotry by hiding behind “humor.”
You can’t reason with these people. As far as they’re concerned, the fact that they happen to like something automatically makes it above criticism and everyone else just needs to learn to be perfect, like them.
July 14th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
And yet gamers constantly wonder why they aren’t taken more seriously. While not as evident in the video posted, everything is about as mature as a goddamned kindergarten. Take VG Cats. I don’t know if there are any fans of it here, but half the humor is “Hey, remember this character? Well now they’re cussing!!! I bet you didn’t expect that!”
This would seem horrible if it weren’t for the OTHER half of the jokes which are, “Hey! Did you know that sometimes a man likes another man in the same way that men are supposed to like women! Isn’t that wild?! Look, here are some videogame characters doing just that!!!”
I could go hunt down examples, but I’m really lazy right now.
But yeah, gaming “culture” needs to grow up a lot if it wants any respect.
July 14th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Please excuse my bad spelling and grammar, English is not my first language.
I have been looking everywhere for any intelligent arguments against RE5 being racist but I cant find any, and stupid people trying to argue that RE5 is not racist just makes it seem even more racist, so here goes.
I agree that the first trailer and the second trailer did seem racist and disturbing because of the visuals of a white man killing black people in Africa, and the voice over saying that there is no humanity here and everywhere he looks he sees death and so on. I must admit, the first time I saw this trailer I reacted very strongly to this and thought oh my god this game is racist!
But then I have been thinking about several things:
1. Chris Redfield is the protagonist of this game, he was first introduced in the original Resident Evil so he goes back a long way with the fans of the Resident Evil Franchise. So if I would create a big new Resident Evil game then I would choose to have a familiar protagonist that the established fans could relate to, so they would not feel disappointed. And Having an established character makes the game more intense for the established fans of the game because they have a history with him and you don’t have to introduce a new character and build up an emotional bond between you and the character. Of course you can do the same with a new character but it takes time to develop that kind of emotional bond for a character. So naturally you end up with Chris Redfield a white man in Africa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Redfield#Chris_Redfield
2. The Location of the game – Africa.
The producer of this game said in an interview that they wanted to introduce a new and exiting environment that hasn’t been seen in previous games and they liked the idea of Africa because that is supposedly the birthplace of ”Humanity” all humans come from Africa and now the T-virus that transforms a human into something that is not human and no longer living, a monster ”a zombie”. That virus ”the end of humanity” has now reached the birthplace of humanity. Two opposites collide, who will be victorious its very dramatic!
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/32758.html
Africans being killed in the trailer.
I must agree that this was done with bad taste in the trailer and could have been done in a better way so it would not come of as racist.
If you inspect both trailers more carefully and new in game footage that has arisen recently you will see that this fictional place in Africa actually is filled with lots of different people and zombies, people of color, dark skinned, light dark skinned, causations, Asians, and more. And also non human looking monsters ass well.
And also the protagonist of this trailer don’t seem to kill any humans only zombies.
So the idea white man killing black humans is false.
The place itself in the trailer looks like a poor ghetto city of Africa,
The producers have said that they went to Africa and researched many places to create the environments of this game. The places in the game are fictional they do not exist in real life but they are based on research of real places in Africa.
No I don’t like the fact that all you see in the trailer is just this poor ghetto environment giving the impression that all of Africa is poor and they all live in misery witch of course is not true, there exist super high-tech cities with shimmering skyscrapers and the latest of technology in Africa as well but we don’t get to see that in the trailer. My argument to that is that nobody knows if that exist in the game or not until we get it in our hand to play and explore so its to soon to say that dose environments do not exist in the game and there for racist. But I could be wrong, who knows.
3. Sheva Alomar – Agent of the west African BSAA
”Sheva Alomar is a no-nonsense African-born lady who works for the West African division of the Bio-Terrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA), the same force that hero Chris Redfield works for. She was personally involved in a bio-terror attack once, and the experience has given her a deep-seated hatred of terrorism, one that’s inspired her to become a martial-arts expert and a well-trained firearms specialist. Screenshots revealed this week feature Sheva showing off a casual mastery of handguns, shotguns, and rifle; there’s also a knife slung on her waist, so it seems fair to expect she’ll use that as a close-range weapon.”
Sheva Alomar seem to have a big role in this game according to the producer of Resident Evil 5, she works for the south African division of BSAA the same organization that Chris Redfield works for and fights bio-terrorism just like Chris, she is his guide in this place because she knows this place better than him and without her he is lost. She is equally skillful in both combat and firearms as Chris and also supposedly has some moves that even Chris can not do. There is a two player co-op mode in resident evil 5 where you play through the hole game as both agents.
So the idea that Sheva Alomar is just a by standing helpless light dark skinned woman in this game is false. She can carry her own! And in fact without her help Chris is lost!
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/36199.html
The T-virus spread from Umbrella Corp a company owned by white rich men. They represent everything that’s bad with western society, greed, corruption, patriarch, heteronormality etc. And its there fault that the T-virus got unleashed on to the world and now humanity is being wiped out and everybody pays for it, westerners, Europeans, Africans everybody pays for the white mans crime on humanity. So the idea of a white and a black hero fighting to save humanity is not racist to me at all. Especially when the people who are responsible for this disaster is the white men.
This is to me political criticism of the way the white man is in fact destroying the earth in reality.
The fact that Capcom set this game in Africa is not racist at all, all a contrary
Is shows that Capcom views everybody equally all humans, all places could be victims of the T-virus as they would be if this happened in real life.
So the game is Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar of the BSAA fight against the zombie outbreak in an unknown place in Africa. That’s what we know so far and that is not racist.
I can agree that the first two trailer where poorly executed and gave the impression of a white man comes to Africa and slaughters the African people and that all of Africa is poor. So you can argue that these two trailers where racist but that doesn’t mean that the game itself is racist. No one knows if this game is racist or not because it has not been released and no one has played it. The only way we will know that is by playing the game.
Its like the old saying “you cant judge a book by its cover”
So my conclusion is:
1. The people that did the first two trailers where stupid and did a bad job.
2. The Game might still be very good and not racist at all.
No one can know for sure until its released.
Watch the latest trailer it does not have the same “racist” vibe as the first two trailers.
But you still only get to see one side of Africa “the poor side” witch I think is bad.
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/36228.html
July 14th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Could you make a new thread about Mirrors Edge if its possible because it seems to be turning out pretty good and everytime I see a new video about it I get more and more convinced of its awesomeness!
respectfully/Matucho =)
July 14th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
While those are good points, it still comes down to the game’s monumental insensitivity in the way that it portrays Africa, Africans, and the role of the White Savior.
You’re doing a lot of work to try to find roads around these huge problems, but the problems remain.
I’m disinclined to give this game the benefit of the doubt. We haven’t seen good writing from this series in the past, we have no reason to believe there will be good writing now. And if I hear “they’re not black people they’re ZOMBIES” I will personally stick a shiv in that person’s eye. The whole point is that they look human in order to make it more scary. If they were just the shuffling, cadaverous undead, the series wouldn’t care where something takes place. But they chose to put it in Africa, which means they chose to use representations of Africans.
Also, you’re making a lot of assumptions about our arguments which are false.
July 14th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
Good job ponygirl, because as progessives, the conversation we should have on race is questioning the credability of each others ethnic, religious and sexual backgrounds.
I am excatly what I say I am, and if you want proof so badly I could certainly email it to you.
Honestly, how Could I directly quote the OP in several parts of my arguement and then have you accuse me of not reading the post?
I’m honestly happy that the series has tried to move on beyond the typical video game setting option of “japan, old europe and america”, but it seems that any attempt to incoporate other settings is seen as racist… No wonder gaming companies so rarely do it.
July 15th, 2008 at 7:45 am
*snort* riiiight… because if you can email me a picture, that would PROVE you are who you say you are! But you’re right, I shouldn’t just automatically dismiss out-of-hand that you’re a gay slavic jew — after all, belonging to a particular minority group is certainly no vaccination against ignorance.
There’s reading, and there’s reading. You certainly did manage to assert that you can read a group of words actually manage to formulate something of an answer to two quotes completely out of context of the larger argument. GOOD FOR YOU!
Nice job, btw, of accusing the progressives for the ills they’re trying to treat. That’s like saying as long as we have chemotherapy, we’ll always have cancer.
You trolls aren’t even subtle. Go back to whatever forum linked to this article and play with your fellow mouth-breathers. I’m sick of you rehashing your tired old arguments that we’ve already debunked a billion times.