Of Race and Resident Evil 5 at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture

Of Race and Resident Evil 5

by Latoya Peterson

Resident Evil 5 is set in Africa. This was done intentionally, according to producer Jun Takeuchi, as Africa is considered the birthplace of civilization.* Since that is where humanity began, the development team thought it would be interesting to explore the origins of the T-Virus basing the plot in Africa.

And just like that, another twist is added to the increasingly infuriating puzzle that is Resident Evil 5.

The game is not even scheduled to be released until 2009 and already the controversy has raged on for close to a year.

In a fifteen minute video, (h/t Ikue) the Capcom blog features game producer Jun Takeuchi explaining some of the ideas surrounding the plot and updates to the gameplay. (Note: Resident Evil is the US title; the game is called Biohazard in Japan.) Unfortunately, there still is not much insight to be had. Chris Redfield is still the main character and this is definitely his story playing out against an exotic backdrop.

Nothing close to the kind of insight I was looking for from Capcom. As such, I am still withholding a judgment call on the game until I actually play. (Which, dear readers, will actually be a huge struggle for me - I am not great at first person shooters and I have never been a fan of survival horror. While I enjoyed watching the past few games, playing them will be an exercise in frustration.)

However, I was directed to a wonderful article on the MTV Multiplayer blog, in which N’Gai Croal of Newsweek’s Level Up blog spoke very frankly on images, racial history, and gaming.

Here’s an excerpt:

There was stuff like even before the point in the trailer where the crowd turned into zombies. There sort of being, in sort of post-modern parlance, they’re sort of “othered.” They’re hidden in shadows, you can barely see their eyes, and the perspective of the trailer is not even someone who’s coming to help the people. It’s like they’re all dangerous; they all need to be killed. It’s not even like one cute African — or Haitian or Caribbean — child could be saved. They’re all dangerous men, women and children. They all have to be killed. And given the history, given the not so distant post-colonial history, you would say to yourself, why would you uncritically put up those images? It’s not as simple as saying, “Oh, they shot Spanish zombies in ‘Resident Evil 4,’ and now ‘black zombies and that’s why people are getting upset.” The imagery is not the same. It doesn’t carry the same history, it doesn’t carry the same weight. I don’t know how to explain it more clearly than that.

[…]

Even if you are familiar with the franchise, if you are familiar with those images and their historical weight, you look at it and say, “Man, that’s kind of messed up.” Then you look at the music that was used in the trailers, that’s one of the things that was sort of funny in so that you had those people who were saying, “It’s not even Africa, it’s Haiti or somewhere in the Caribbean.” The music that they’re using in the trailer is very reminiscent of the music used in Black Hawk Down** which was set in Africa — Somalia. That actually was one of the things that was most disturbing because it sort of had a feeling as like, “Wow, what research did this team do? Did they only watch Black Hawk Down and give it this kind of vibe?”

I don’t want to put down the Capcom team that’s working on it. I hope they did more research than that. But based on that trailer, it’s very difficult to tell. And Black Hawk Down was a very problematic film among a handful of critics and particularly among African-American viewers and African viewers when it came out because of the sort of narrow focus of its portrayal.

That’s the whole thing where only Chris Redfield appears to be human before they turn into zombies; the humanity of other people is in question. It’s like you barely see their faces, he doesn’t really interact with them, he sort of walks through this thing and it’s sort of, “Is he there? Is he not?” It’s a very strange thing, and it taps into sort of this very racist iconography. I think that’s the only way I’m describing it. I’m not saying that was their intent. But it seems that a lot of people who were up in arms about the trailer couldn’t see that and didn’t want to engage it.

I highly encourage you to read the full piece.

The fallout starts on the MTV blog, but gets picked up by Kotaku and Destructoid. Comment chaos ensues to the point where Destructoid posts a different perspective and Kotaku tells its readers to quit it or else.

(Also of interest: Pat M. over at Token Minorities weighs in with a fun quiz! And there is a good discussion/games as art perspective here.)

There are many issues to get into concerning this type of subject (including Japanese game development and the transmission of global images) but for right now, let’s just start by actually examining the basic arguments.

1. How do you perceive the trailer? (Please indicate if you are familiar with the Resident Evil franchise.)

2. What conclusions do you draw about the content of the game?

3. Do you think that marketing companies have a responsibility to adjust trailers and promotional materials for the markets that they enter?

4. I have noticed that quite a few gamers of color have accepted the RE5 trailer as not racist because the gameplay and basic plot points are consistent throughout the series. To them, race of the villagers/zombies/las plagas controlled fiends would naturally change to suit the environment. Do you accept or challenge this line of reasoning?

—-

*I am aware this is contested, by a number of groups for various reasons. For the intents and purposes of this piece, we are working with Takeuchi’s statement.

** The issues surrounding Black Hawk Down are briefly summarized here.

Trackbacks & Pings

Expectations: Sheva Alomar at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture on 01 Aug 2008 at 4:38 pm

[…] Of Race and Resident Evil 5 (Latoya) Moving Gaming Forward: Having Meaningful Conversations about Social Issues (Latoya) Video Games and the Usual Amount of Racism (Tekanji, Official Shurb/Cerise) Blackface Goes HD: The Case of Resident Evil 5 (Jason/Microscopiq) […]

Comments

Persia wrote:

That quiz is awesome.

I still haven’t watched the trailer– every time it comes up I’m at work (yeah, I know) and I forget to watch it at home. It sounds terrible, though. But I think the trailer was clearly poorly-conceived. And I think companies absolutely have a responsibility to keep their markets in mind when they produce a trailer (and hell, I’d like to think that trailer would be offensive to the Japanese market as well, but that’s probably asking too much).

At the same time, the trailer does not equal the game, and I’ve seen some terrible trailers for good games and vice versa. I’m still mired halfway through REIV, and they show the trailer if you take too long to load the game– boy is it awful, and it makes the game look significantly more sexist than it actually is (IMO of course).

The last one– the ‘natural’ progression of having different people to mow down– is the toughest for me. I mean, it’d be insane if the game was set in Haiti and there were no people of color. At the same time, why set it in Haiti? (But then, if the games are only set in ‘white’ countries, isn’t that problematic too, especially if there are no non-white allies showing up?) What I would like to see is a black protagonist or two.

Posted 15 Apr 2008 at 8:12 am ¶
Josh wrote:

no,no,no! resident evil, THE greatest shoot em up of all times has always had retarded plots and settings. the last one took place in spain, therefore the zombies were spaniards who would be saying unintelligible things in spanish and, since theyre zombies, look ugly, limp and be violent. no outcries there. you cant say that simply because the next one takes place in africa there is racism involved. youre talking about the video game community here! these people - lets call em nerds - are the most tolerant, least racist “group” there is. resident evil rocks and i am looking forward to playing the next one. if anyone is a RE 4 nerd, my time record is 3:13:19 and my mercenary record (wesker) is 152, 670. 8 kills, 78 in a row!!!

Posted 15 Apr 2008 at 8:55 am ¶
emfole wrote:

I just watched the trailer and it is very disturbing to see a white man go around killing all the black people he can. I feel sick. btw. what a ridiculous thing to say, Josh “nerds - are the most tolerant, least racist “group” there is”– video games are the misogynistic and racist on top of being grossly violent. I played Grand Theft Auto a few times and afterwards, I did feel strangely violent and had to really be careful to remind myself to drive safely and carefully. These games get into a person’s head - they color the way one thinks….whether making a person more racist or violent…scary….

Posted 15 Apr 2008 at 9:07 am ¶
ceecee wrote:

@ Josh you do understand that it’s the historical context surrounding RE5 that’s causing this uproar?
Please take five minutes and put yourselves in others shoes while re-reading the above quoted article, perhaps you’d see the other point of view.

Posted 15 Apr 2008 at 9:13 am ¶
Mitch Krpata wrote:

Thanks for the link.

I am actually optimistic that the full game will be less troublesome than the trailer, simply because the Resident Evil mythos has always been about the exploitation of the poor by the powerful (usually in the form of ethics-free corporations, but RE4 took a shot at religious-based authoritarianism). In that sense, Africa is an ideal setting, because of the long, long history of governments and companies exploiting the people who live there. I don’t doubt that when the storyline is fleshed out more, we’ll see that the zombies are supposed to be victims in their own way.

But even so, there’s sort of a “have your cake and eat it too” thing happening here: on one hand, they can criticize those who would infect an entire population for scientific research, and on the other hand they’re still basing an entire game around racially-tinted bloodshed. Even if the storyline and themes do turn out to be a little more sensitive than the trailer shows, that doesn’t necessarily excuse its missteps — in particular, the ominous depiction of the pre-infection villagers.

But the real reason I’m commenting on this post is because Josh’s assertion that gamers “are the most tolerant, least racist ‘group’ there is” ought to be immediately false to anybody who’s ever spent five minutes on Xbox Live, and been subjected to the racist and homophobic slurs that get handed out like complimentary breath mints. He must be playing without a headset.

Posted 15 Apr 2008 at 9:58 am ¶
EH wrote:

Ya I really had to disagree with Jonathan. Playing xbox live and mmorpgs for years there are MANY racist, homophobic, and especially sexist gamers.

Gamers are some of the worst racists because like most racists they’re emboldened by anonymunity. Hell look at youtube.

Posted 15 Apr 2008 at 10:47 am ¶
Erica wrote:

Josh: Speaking as a gamer for the last twelve years, I have encountered disguisting, bigoted, vile people in the gaming community — just like there are in any community. There’s plenty of intelligent, open-minded folks, too, but don’t be blind to reality. One of the reasons I prefer single-player games over massively multi-player games is because it really cuts down on the amount of morons you have to deal with — I’d rather play a game than listen to their dysfunctions.

Back on point:
I have watched many parts of the Resident Evil games, but never played them myself.

Most of what disturbed me about the trailer were subtle. A bunch of black zombies attack a white guy, a white guy shoots a bunch of black zombies, general mayhem and violence ensue. What I found more unsettling was the creepy expressions and positions of the black non-zombie people lurking in the shadows in the beginning — weird.

Context (it’s a game about infectious zombieism [?] and has included many ethnicities of zombies in previous versions) helps understand what they’re trying to show in this trailer. But if seen as an isolated work, with no understanding of the game plot or backstory, it is disturbing.

As for question 2: I expect that there’s going to be one strangely-shaped white guy killing lots of black zombie-people. And there’ll be lots of black zombie-people killing the white guy. That’s all I get from the trailer.

Posted 15 Apr 2008 at 12:37 pm ¶
Ansel wrote:

Racism is a system, and in that context this game is racist. I played Resident Evil 4 and more or less loved it, but Capcom needs to check itself on this one. You want to set the story in Africa, okay. So all the zombies are black, fine. But they should actually look like rotting and bloody zombies, rather than poor or crazy Africans. And a question: Why isn’t the protagonist an African-American (RE heroes tend to be American intelligence agents)? Or an African trying to liberate his/her homeland? Why is it still a cocky white dude? What business does he have in Africa shooting black folks?

Posted 15 Apr 2008 at 1:16 pm ¶
team wrote:

Ansel -

Why isn’t the protagonist an African-American (RE heroes tend to be American intelligence agents)? Or an African trying to liberate his/her homeland? Why is it still a cocky white dude?

Exactly. I think Chris Redfield is supposed to be in the grips of an existential crisis, but it does make the trailer seem even more callous. I am still waiting to see if Capcom unveils any other characters, but it looks like Chris - and perhaps Jill - are going to be the main characters.

What I did think was interesting was the deliberate decision to put Re5 in Africa as a way to explore beginnings. That was dope, and used a good historical nod. So why didn’t that sentiment apply to the marketing? Does Capcom USA think that the story has an adequate explanation for the trailer and that they don’t need to do anything else?

I’m going to post a bit more on this later in the week…

-Latoya Peterson

Posted 15 Apr 2008 at 1:32 pm ¶
Roy wrote:

these people - lets call em nerds - are the most tolerant, least racist “group” there is.

Not. Even. Close.

I think that manufacturers and developers have a responsibility to consider their wider audiences when making games. It’s great to have a game set in Africa that features black characters, but taken in context of a white military guy killing them, the fact that they’re zombies substantially alters the perception of the game. You can’t, as many fans have, just point and say “but it’s set in Africa, of course the zombies are black!”

Why is it set there? It’s not like this is a documentary and the creators had to follow the source- it’s a game. They *chose* to set it in certain places. And if they have to be black zombies, why isn’t the main character black? Yes, the main character has been in previous games… so? It wouldn’t be the first time that RE introduced a new character. Again, choices were made.

And, as the large quoted section you included points out, and related to Josh’s comment, as problematic as the trailer itself may be, the reaction of the gaming community to potential criticism was, at best, extremely troubling.

Posted 15 Apr 2008 at 1:56 pm ¶
Keke wrote:

I really did not get context at all in the trailer. Just like some others have pointed out, the zombies didn’t look like zombies and it looked more like a crowd of angry people than zombies getting trying to get their grub on.

Many of the zombies seemed too well-coordinated. I mean, what was up with them throwing machetes and a grappling hook? One of the zombies even had a megaphone and some glasses on. WTH? I’m with a few other posters on this one. I just always thought that, well, zombies were re-animated corpses that were rotting and filthy and had trouble with the whole “let’s use a megaphone and throw some grappling hooks, machetes and other stuff at that dude over there.”

I think the trailer would have been better had it contained: rotting zombies with slime, goo, and other zombie-like attributes, other characters of color, or places where he interacted with African survivors and possibly teamed up with them. If the trailer is setting up any kind of precedent for the game, I would be hard pressed to buy it. This disappoints me greatly because I love gaming.

Posted 15 Apr 2008 at 4:02 pm ¶
harrumph wrote:

Self-described nerds like to imagine themselves to be extremely tolerant and free of all prejudices, but the truth is that their tolerance often goes only skin deep (no lousy pun intended). The quintessential nerd refrain is “I don’t find it offensive, so why would anybody else?”

I work among many nerds (QA at a major publisher of PC & console games) and find among them an almost universal lack of empathy and a shallow or non-existent understanding of causality and systemic prejudice. Rape? It can’t be that bad, it’s just sex! Reparations? Whatever! Slavery was like a million years ago, it’s time for the blacks to get their act together. There is, among this overwhelmingly white and male group, no malice towards people based on their appearance or cultural background (gender is a different story; sexism here can be pretty awful), but rather an inability to understand why “they” can’t just be more like “us” in other ways. “We” didn’t have any trouble getting into college, “we’ve” never had problems finding work, “we” are responsible with money and abide by the law — why can’t “they” just do the same?

“They” are always “inner-city people” or “immigrants,” never “blacks” or “Mexicans” explicitly.

As for the game, I don’t know that I have much to say that others haven’t said better. The developers are playing off of xenophobia and fear of the unknown, of the other, in the exact same way they were in RE4, that much is true. White American hero arrives in foreign town, everybody’s a little shifty, everybody speaks a different language, everything seems to be shutting him out, everyone seems to be conspiring against him. What it says about the devs and the consumers that this is a popular, effective storytelling paradigm is for another discussion entirely; as far as racism goes, I don’t think the Japanese devs had any more racist intent with this than they did with RE4 (which is to say: just a little bit), but whoever packaged that trailer and decided to use it for marketing in the US, man, I don’t even know.

The trailer seems to me to step beyond the bounds of “well gosh, I didn’t really think about historical depictions of black people as mindless savages or about historical violence perpetrated against blacks by whites” insensitivity and into the realm of absolutely deliberate racism. The way the uninfected villagers move, the way they carry themselves, the ways the shots in which they appear are angled and lit — they’re meant to look scary and inhuman, lurking in the shadows, jabbering in animal tongues, waiting for a chance to attack. The imagery dovetails way too neatly with old racist fears and perceptions to be immediately dismissed as coincidence.

And for what it’s worth, if I didn’t know the RE series, I don’t think I’d be giving the game the benefit of the doubt and attributing the blatant racism only to a poorly(and possibly maliciously) assembled trailer.

Posted 15 Apr 2008 at 4:16 pm ¶
TJ wrote:

I directed Racialicious to the following blog, which discusses the controversy, quotes N’Gai’s article, and points out the U.S. historical context that makes the imagery offensive and racist.

It was amazingly written and illuminating, please check it out (click above, or cut and paste URL below):

http://dubiousquality.blogspot.com/2008/04/race-and-resident-evil-5-trailer.html

Posted 15 Apr 2008 at 8:34 pm ¶
Cat wrote:

I’m not familiar with the RE series outside of the movies, so I don’t know how much weight my opinion will have.
But, to me, this is just a really bad idea all around.

Setting: No one in the States is thinking about Africa as the beginning of civilization, what we are thinking of is slavery, Darfur, blood diamonds, and AIDS. So for REV to be in Africa makes a big difference than for REIV to be set in Spain, where yes, we may think of the Inquisition, but it’s not as fresh culturally.

Portrayal of Africans: I was also bothered with the way they were portrayed before and after the T-Virus infection, because in the beginning they did not look like innocent people. I felt like they were all dangerous. I also agree with Keke that they didn’t look like zombies after the infection, just a mob of angry crazy black people. The man in the sunglasses and megaphone was probably the worst.

White savior: Was anyone else bothered by the last line? “I only know one thing, I’ve got work to do.”

I’m so frightened by this trailer, I couldn’t even try to watch it again to pinpoint specific things that bothered

Posted 15 Apr 2008 at 8:53 pm ¶
Cat wrote:

bothered me.^

Posted 15 Apr 2008 at 8:54 pm ¶
MouseJunior wrote:

Admittedly I’m neither black nor American, but I do game a lot (I wandered over after a previous RE5 post was linked from somewhere and stayed to lurk).

The only reason for delurking is to point out something I don’t think I’ve seen mentioned, which is that the trailer seemed basically identical to every other FPS trailer I’ve ever seen: the main character wanders through some town with creepy looking locals lurking in shadows, the whatever it is you’re going to be killing lots of attacks an innocent for you to find, the shooting starts, insert random scenes to show off combat and graphics here. The fact that it is so bog standard may be why so many gamers don’t see it as racist.

The thing that struck me most about the trailer was that the dev team really needs to find a few blacks and revamp the character models, because the faces were worse than the usual CGI mess. There’s an interesting argument for racism there, but by absence: so few black characters appear in games anywhere that no one has bothered to do any serious modelling on their facial phenotypes.

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 2:22 am ¶
Jaye wrote:

“I have a job to do. And I’m going to see it through.” Wow. I was rooting for the zombies.

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 3:09 am ¶
InJM wrote:

@Kekek

They aren’t all zombies but all look more or less like one, which is one of the points of N’Gai’s piece, I think. I was under the influence that Megaphone Man was not a zombie.

As for the throwing of stuff and using of tools, RE zombies seem to have gotten a bit more dexterious over the years. They’ve evolved from stumbling brain eating undead to more human like monsters. This could be story related (evolution of the virus) but is still unexplained as far as I know.

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 4:44 am ¶
Roy wrote:

RE zombies seem to have gotten a bit more dexterious over the years. They’ve evolved from stumbling brain eating undead to more human like monsters.

True. To the point where, in the last game, they were using tools like pitchforks and chainsaws, I think?
But, yeah, you’d need to have played most of the games in order to get that context.

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 7:53 am ¶
Persia wrote:

Yeah, I’ve been decapitated with a chainsaw about six times in REIV, so the megaphone doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

as problematic as the trailer itself may be, the reaction of the gaming community to potential criticism was, at best, extremely troubling.

That, I think, is the really heartbreaking/angry-making part of this mess for me. I mean, people screw up. They screw up all the time, and that’s okay. It’s the fact that so many people– including the US game team– are unwilling to see and/or admit they screwed up that’s upsetting.

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 8:31 am ¶
Eric wrote:

Point 1) Just to reiterate, the idea that gamers are ‘the least racist group’ is hilarious. As many others have stated, its the most openly racist, homophobic and misogynist group of people I’ve ever been around.

When you play games like WoW, or hang on XBox Live, the presupposition that everyone makes is that you are a white male, and if/when they find out you’re not in that demo, they’re shocked (and usually regret some of previous statements they’ve made)

Point 2) This trailer fits right in with the ethos of the RE series. You guys should *really* educate yourselves to the nature of this game. Maybe you don’t need to play all the games to catch up, but at least read the story behind the game (available via Wikipedia).

An earlier poster brought up the question wondering why the zombies look more like poor africans than ‘traditional’ zombies. The answer is actually clear to anyone who’s actually played the game.

The main virus that infected the Zombies in the first couple of RE’s was called the “T-Virus”. This virus was successful in creating zombies, but also caused severe decay in the bodies of the subjects (it also destroyed their frontal lobe, making them the shambling husks of flesh they were).

In RE:4, There was a new virus called “Las Plagas”, and this virus was a bit more evolved in the sense that those infected with it could organize and work together and it caused less decay (hence the guys you fight inside the castle of RE:4 didn’t look as decayed, and would collectively work together to try and kill you).

From what I understand in RE:5, they’re searching for the origins of the virus, so presumably we’ll be seeing a new strain of virus. I also understand that these zombies will have the best AI of them all, so it would stand to reason that there may even be less decay present on their bodes.

Point 3) Regarding the black people “disappearing into shadows”. This has been the Ethos of RE since the beginning of the game. When you play RE, a limited number of thoughts run through your mind, among those would be:

TOO MANY ZOMBIES
NOT ENOUGH AMMO

The game keeps you in perpetual fear and anxiety. It’s either too quiet and you wonder what’s coming for you, or its too raucous and your scrambling to think how to use your 15 bullets to effectively kill the 50 zombies swarming you.

The reason this whole debate is particularly disappointing from my perspective (a black man who’s been an avid gamer since the early 80s) is that we’re pre-judging a game that hasn’t even come out yet. There’s all kinds of comments from people who’ve clearly never even played the game, anyone who knows ANYTHING about the game understands the representation of the images we see on the trailer is nothing but the standard images we see from every RE game.

-Eric

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 8:50 am ¶
Celeste wrote:

Just a quick question. A chiansaw is a weapo, you can cut off some tasty human flesh with that. I totally understand a relatively coordianted zombie with a chainsaw. Why is he using a megaphone? I can’t see the trailer but is the zombie actually holding the megaphone up to his mouth. WTF could he be saying? Can zombies deliver inflammatory oratory to whip the other zombies up into a feeding frenzy? If I’m out to eat someone, how is the megaphone helping me? Or are they just borrowing images from what they imagine a rebel leader or something to look like.

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 8:55 am ¶
Roy wrote:

Point 2) This trailer fits right in with the ethos of the RE series. You guys should *really* educate yourselves to the nature of this game…

The fact is that there are plenty of people who are familiar with the game pointing out that it’s problematic, though. I’ve played through RE 2 and am relatively familiar with RE 4, even though I havne’t beaten it yet. I know other people who’ve played most of the RE games, and still found the trailer troubling.

And, ultimately, the trailer isn’t just intended for long-term fans of the games, it’s also attempting to draw in new audiences and it’s fact that people unfamiliar with the previous games are going to see the trailer. I don’t expect that all of the mysteries of the games should be reveiled in the trailer, but, still…

The reason this whole debate is particularly disappointing from my perspective (a black man who’s been an avid gamer since the early 80s) is that we’re pre-judging a game that hasn’t even come out yet. There’s all kinds of comments from people who’ve clearly never even played the game, anyone who knows ANYTHING about the game understands the representation of the images we see on the trailer is nothing but the standard images we see from every RE game.

But they’re not, quite. Similar, but not exactly the same. White guy shooting Africans is not the same thing we’ve seen in other games. And I think that there’s a big difference between saying “This is the most racist horrible game ever” (which nobody seems to really be saying, that I’ve seen), and “This trailer is really effed up and troubling, and the imagery is drawing on some nasty, nasty racism”.

I don’t think that I have to play the game to critique the trailer.

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 10:41 am ¶
Juan wrote:

I don’t think you need to play the game to critique the trailer either when a trailer is trying to sale you on the game in the first place, not the other way around.

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 10:54 am ¶
Eric wrote:

Roy,

Then what would you propose be done? If the “White guy shooting at Africans” is the issue, then should the protagonist of RE:5 be black? Would that make it better?

Is the representation of the africans the issue? In that case, should the location not be in a shanty town? If it were in an upscale mansion, would that suffice?

Is the solution never to show any type of African/Africa-American/Person of color in any video game?

I think the assertion that you’re making (as well as most people) that “the imagery is drawing on some nasty, nasty racism” is flawed. At best you’re implying that in a video game a white character should never harm any black character ever, or else its subconsciously harkening to some horrible past, at worst you’re implying that the developers of the game sat in a room and decided that the way to sell the new RE:5 is to make white people kill blacks.

I appreciate peoples interest in keeping an eye out for equality/fairness in video games, but I just think in this case, people are *way* off the mark.

To be honest, I really wish that everyone so worked up about these perceived issues in RE:5 would turn their attention to the actual problems that exist in video games today.

Making the argument that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is racist, and draws on the worst stereotypes of African-Americans would actually be a legitimate accusation, as well as the fact that most of the ‘black’ themed video games revolve around themes of sports, drugs, killing, and in some cases (The Def Jam series comes to mind) all of the above.

-Eric

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 12:57 pm ¶
Roy wrote:

Then what would you propose be done? If the “White guy shooting at Africans” is the issue, then should the protagonist of RE:5 be black? Would that make it better?

It might. There are several things that could have been done. The zombies could look more like zombies. There could be heroes that are black, instead of just the villains.

Or, you know, Capcom could have made some kind of comment that they were at least aware of some of conversations/concerns that were being issued.

Or they could have set the game someplace where there were people of a variety of ethnicities. Or, or, or. Of course, those are just off the top of my head. Then again, I’m not designing the game, I’m reacting to the trailer that they released.

Is the representation of the africans the issue? In that case, should the location not be in a shanty town? If it were in an upscale mansion, would that suffice?

Is the solution never to show any type of African/Africa-American/Person of color in any video game?

Where has anyone suggested that the solution to racism in gaming culture was to throw up our arms and say “I give up!”? I’m especially unsure of why you’d take expressions of concern over the ways that this trailer depicts things as a suggestion that we should have fewer people of color in video games. If there were more representations of people of color- particularly, more depictions of people of color as the heroes in games rather than as villains or nasty racial stereotypes- this might be less troubling.

I think the assertion that you’re making (as well as most people) that “the imagery is drawing on some nasty, nasty racism” is flawed. At best you’re implying that in a video game a white character should never harm any black character ever, or else its subconsciously harkening to some horrible past, at worst you’re implying that the developers of the game sat in a room and decided that the way to sell the new RE:5 is to make white people kill blacks.

That’s patently untrue. As to your “at best” implication: pointing out that a white guy in military get-up killing black Africans that have been made to look savage involves some pretty nasty racist imagry is a pretty specific claim. It’s not the same as claiming that all examples of a white video game character inflicting harm upon, say, a black video game character is the same. You’re taking a claim about a very specific trailer for a very specific game and pretending that any random scene from a random game is the same. It’s not.

As far as the “worst case” goes: Again, untrue. I’ve never once claimed that the people making RE5 have some racist agenda that they’re working towards. It’s entirely possible that they never even considered the racial implications of the trailer. That doesn’t mean that the trailer isn’t problematic or troubling to some people, though. Racism perpetrated through ignorance isn’t really “better” than intentional racism, imo.

To be honest, I really wish that everyone so worked up about these perceived issues in RE:5 would turn their attention to the actual problems that exist in video games today.

What makes you think we’re not? I’ve written many times about problems in video games and just got back from a conference where I co-delivered a session talking about sexism and gender representations in video games.

GTA may be an easy target, and the racism more overt, but I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with discussing the issues around RE5, too. And it’s triggered enough of a reaction in enough people to suggest that it’s worth at least taking a look at it and talking about it, rather than shutting it down with “I don’t see it so it must not exist.”

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 2:00 pm ¶
Jenn wrote:

I’ve played all the Resident Evil Games, along with many other video games from the age of 5 to the present (I’m 22). I’ve seen the trailer, and yes I can see how some people may fine that trailer disturbing, but I believe it depends on how you view it. If you’re looking at the trailer as what I believe it is, a trailer for an upcoming video game, that happens to take place in Africa, then the gameplay and graphics look pretty amazing and it looks like it could be another great installment in the RE series. If you look at the history of RE, most of the games have taken place in Racoon City, where it seems the majority of the population is white. So in turn, you have white zombies and white protaginists, but in 3, which also took place in Racoon City, you also have Carlos, who i’m assuming by the name and his accent in the game that he is a minority. In RE4 they kind of broke away from Racoon City, and moved to a different country, which i thought was a nice refreshing way to up the series, not to mention with all the style changes that they made just for the actual gameplay.

I think the real issue is the fact that this game isnt being seen for what it is, which is a game. The questions I think we should really be asking is what kind of society do we live in where everything is nit-picked when it comes to race. Why is it, white guy going around shooting black people? why isnt it Chris Redfield who is orignially from Racoon City, (which as I said seems to have a white majority population) going to take out yet another threat of the Umbrella Corporation? Yes there are things in pop culture that perpetuate stereotypes, and even in video games, and yes there are people that play video games that are racist. Play some Halo matchmaking if you don’t believe me.

If you want to take this approach that RE5 has racial undertones, what about RE4 as people have said? If RE5 had white zombies instead of black, and was still set in Africa, we would be having the same discussion because the majority of the population in Africa is African-American. So the arguement would then become the lack of African-Americans in a game that takes place in Africa.

I’m not saying that there arent racial issues in todays society, being korean and white, i know that. But sometimes “a good cigar, is just a good cigar.”

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 2:27 pm ¶
Taylor wrote:

Eric and Jenn,

Thank you for your perspectives on this game which I believe are the right ones. I am as racially progressive as anyone and would be one of the first to condemn this game if it evidenced any racism. I am not a gamer so I cannot speak with as much authority as I would like. However, the vew presented by Eric and Jenn as well as the opinion posts in an article on this subject from Alternet from gamers of all races who are aware of the RE series seem to indicate that this game is not racially offensive and that the storyline is actually very sympathetic to and humanizes the zombies, who are apparently the victim of some sort of disease.

Not that video games don’t have their own institutional racism problems. I just don’t think RE is a good example.

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 3:52 pm ¶
Juan wrote:

Taylor, I really think your racial progressiveness really needs work then. Not only that but you don’t really seem to be paying attention to ‘gamers of all races’ when you say they ‘indicate that this game is not racially offensive.’

Really needs work.

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 4:48 pm ¶
Eric wrote:

It might. There are several things that could have been done. The zombies could look more like zombies. There could be heroes that are black, instead of just the villains.

Seeing as how no one outside of Japan has played the game, I don’t think we know exactly what the zombies look like yet. But I already explained why they may look less like zombies. It’s part of the history of the game. The antagonists in RE are trying to perfect a virus to turn humans into zombie-slaves. As the virus evolves and gets stronger/better, the people who get infected look less like mindless zombies and more normal people. RE:4 Clearly shows this once you get into the castle, and you’re fighting all the guys who are using those big shields and whatnot.

Where has anyone suggested that the solution to racism in gaming culture was to throw up our arms and say “I give up!”? I’m especially unsure of why you’d take expressions of concern over the ways that this trailer depicts things as a suggestion that we should have fewer people of color in video games. If there were more representations of people of color- particularly, more depictions of people of color as the heroes in games rather than as villains or nasty racial stereotypes- this might be less troubling.

What I’m fishing for is what ‘you’ (the community of you, not you in particular) think should happen, how this problem (as ‘you’ perceive it) can be rectified, or how we can start going down a path to fix the problem. I see lots of people taking issue with the trailer, but I don’t see many responses as to what would ‘fix’ the issue. There just seems to be a general outrage associated with the trailer, but what is it, the fact it’s a white guy killing zombies with darker skins then before, the fact that the town is depicted as a shanty town, the fact the zombies don’t look enough like zombies? Without someone pointing out a specific issue, there’s no way to adequately resolve it.

That’s patently untrue. As to your “at best” implication: pointing out that a white guy in military get-up killing black Africans that have been made to look savage involves some pretty nasty racist imagry is a pretty specific claim. It’s not the same as claiming that all examples of a white video game character inflicting harm upon, say, a black video game character is the same. You’re taking a claim about a very specific trailer for a very specific game and pretending that any random scene from a random game is the same. It’s not.

The protagonists in the RE series are “always” wearing military get-up, they’re in a military squad called S.T.A.R.S, and they’ve previously “always” been killing white or spanish folks made to look savage. There’s nothing different then what’s come before. It’s completely in-line with the ethos of the game.

What makes you think we’re not? I’ve written many times about problems in video games and just got back from a conference where I co-delivered a session talking about sexism and gender representations in video games.

There was nowhere near the furor over GTA:SA when it came out compared to the trailer of RE:5.

GTA may be an easy target, and the racism more overt, but I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with discussing the issues around RE5, too. And it’s triggered enough of a reaction in enough people to suggest that it’s worth at least taking a look at it and talking about it, rather than shutting it down with “I don’t see it so it must not exist.”

I’m not saying I don’t ’see’ what you guys could be talking about, I just think people are reaching too far on this one. RE is completely keeping in line with the canon and feel of the game. My fear is that when people cry racism/sexism on things that are a stretch at best, it shuts down the other side when it comes time to discuss racism when it actually is present/matters. Like I said before, if people were outraged about GTA:SA, I’d be completely on board, but this just seems like such a stretch that it can only hinder the progress you’re hoping to achieve.

-Eric

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 5:11 pm ¶
Juan wrote:

http://cube.ign.com/articles/635/635139p1.html

. . .

“The enemies are meant to come after players in great numbers, conveying the sense of insanity of hoards of natives that Takeuchi took away from Black Hawk Down. We can apparently expect something along the lines of the primary enemy in Resident Evil 4, who spoke a language that you were unable to understand and were more advanced than the zombies that have appeared in previous survival horror games. Takeuchi and crew are actually working on ways to make the enemy even more expressive this time around.”

Just wow…

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 5:11 pm ¶
Anonymous wrote:

To Jenn:

People in Africa are not African-American, they are African.

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 5:59 pm ¶
harrumph wrote:

A lot of gamers involved in these debates seem to have a very hard time approaching the issue from any perspective other than their own. Disengage yourself from your knowledge of and feelings about the RE series and look at the trailer (not the game — it’s the trailer that’s at issue; nobody knows exactly what the game will contain) just as it is.

If you need a more extreme (and, I will admit, not completely fair — but still effective — analogy):

Imagine (if you are white) that somebody burns a cross on your lawn. How do you feel about this? Why, given that you probably don’t give a shit, wouldn’t you do the same thing on your black neighbor’s lawn?

Imagine (if you are black*) that somebody burns a cross on your lawn; several people who know this person assure you that he arrived at the idea to burn the cross there completely independently of any knowledge of the history of cross-burning. How comforting is that?

The context and history of images and their subjective meaning and value to different people under different circumstances cannot be dismissed the way so many people are willing to dismiss the imagery in the RE5 trailer.

* If you’re neither white nor black, well, use your imagination.

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 6:29 pm ¶
Rabidkeebler wrote:

I’m offended….by Croal’s comments. Croal’s being offended by the images show just how far he has to go before we can all start truly tolerating each other.

Croal basis much of his being offended on images in 1950s movies. These movies portrayed Africa as a dark and violent place. But this is the problem. Croal is a young guy. He was not born when Africa was being actively portrayed this way. That means that, to be able to reference what he needed to be offended about, he had to do research. He was not offended by something hin history (slavery), nor was he offended by something in today’s culture(n-word). Instead he chose (whether willingly or subconsciously) to reference an idea that had no place in being referenced to begin with.

Now here is my problem, and I feel it is even worse with everyones comments. Would this trailer be acceptable next year? What about 10 years? 100 years? As it stands, as long as some one can actively reference what they “should” be offended of, regardless of the fact that it may or may not even fit in this senario, then it will never be okay. We will never move beyond where we are right now. And it will only grow worse as the list of things we can’t say, images we can’t show, themes we can’t grow upon, only grows.

If you don’t believe me, then consider the minor league baseball team that named its pig themed mascot “Pork Chop” and the fact that they had to change the name because pork chop was a word used at one time to label Puerto Ricans.

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 6:34 pm ¶
Juan wrote:

I’m offended by people being offended by people pointing out [actual] racism. As in this case.

You need to re-read that article because he referenced Black Hawk Down as well, which still treats Africa as a dark and violent place.

And he is using history to help people understand why others take offense to it because art does not seperate itself from neither history or cultural or criticism.

“This imagery has a history. It has a history and you can’t pretend otherwise.”

So stop pretending.

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 6:54 pm ¶
DivergentDana wrote:

“These movies portrayed Africa as a dark and violent place. But this is the problem. Croal is a young guy. He was not born when Africa was being actively portrayed this way.”

What? Suri Cruise was born when Africa was being actively portrayed that way!

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 8:56 pm ¶
Jenn wrote:

I don’t think you can talk about the images of the trailer without talking about the context of the games.. example.. take American History X, if you didn’t know the context of the movie, and just saw certian images from that movie, you could say the movie is racist. You have to look at the context.

Posted 16 Apr 2008 at 10:10 pm ¶
Roy wrote:

Seeing as how no one outside of Japan has played the game, I don’t think we know exactly what the zombies look like yet. But I already explained why they may look less like zombies. It’s part of the history of the game.

Yes… and? Look, I’ve played the RE games before. I understand the premise of the games and the idea behind the virus. So what? Again, it’s not a documentary- it’s a game that they’re creating. They make choices regarding how and why things happen. They’re making a choice to put together the trailer in the way that they did, and they chose what kind of imagry to use. That they’ve got a plot point that explains why the zombies don’t look like zombies was a choice they made, and it’s not beyond critique just because “Hey, they’ve got a explanation for that.”

What I’m fishing for is what ‘you’ (the community of you, not you in particular) think should happen, how this problem (as ‘you’ perceive it) can be rectified, or how we can start going down a path to fix the problem. I see lots of people taking issue with the trailer, but I don’t see many responses as to what would ‘fix’ the issue. There just seems to be a general outrage associated with the trailer, but what is it, the fact it’s a white guy killing zombies with darker skins then before, the fact that the town is depicted as a shanty town, the fact the zombies don’t look enough like zombies? Without someone pointing out a specific issue, there’s no way to adequately resolve it.

I disagree. For the most part, people are just saying “Hey, this is raising some red flags.” Even Latoya said in the OP “I am still withholding a judgment call on the game until I actually play.”

And people have been pointing out things that are raising the flags, some of which you mentioned. There’s not necessarily an easy solution. There are things that would improve the situation- having more heroes that are people of color, having more games that don’t just rely on tired and hurtful stereotypes for characters of color, etc.

The protagonists in the RE series are “always” wearing military get-up, they’re in a military squad called S.T.A.R.S, and they’ve previously “always” been killing white or spanish folks made to look savage. There’s nothing different then what’s come before. It’s completely in-line with the ethos of the game.

Again… so? First of all, one of the two main characters in RE2 was not, in fact, wearing military gear, but, even if we accept that most of them do, that doesn’t matter. They’re still making choices and those choices change when you change the context. When you place characters in different situations and you’ve got them interacting with different groups, the context changes, and, yeah, I’m sorry, but there’s a big difference between a white guy in military gear in Racoon City shooting and killing a bunch of white zombies that look like traditional zombies, and a white guy in military gear in an African nation shooting and killing a bunch of black zombies don’t really look like zombies. There’s context there, and it’s raising flags.

There was nowhere near the furor over GTA:SA when it came out compared to the trailer of RE:5.

Really? Because, as I recall, there were protests from SWOP-USA, from Haitian and Cuban advocacy groups in Miami, and it was pretty much all over the mainstream press about how racist and sexist the game was. And that wasn’t people saying “Well, I’m not sure but this is raising flags” it was flat-out “this is racist and sexist and we’re protesting it.”

My fear is that when people cry racism/sexism on things that are a stretch at best, it shuts down the other side when it comes time to discuss racism when it actually is present/matters. Like I said before, if people were outraged about GTA:SA, I’d be completely on board, but this just seems like such a stretch that it can only hinder the progress you’re hoping to achieve.

And I think that only pointing out racism and sexism on the easy targets makes it too easy for people to ignore or dismiss more subtle forms of racism or sexism when it shows up. People get so used to seeing arguments about GTA that you point to something like this and people say “But, this isn’t like GTA, so it can’t really be racist…”

-Eric

Posted 17 Apr 2008 at 11:25 am ¶
Rabidkeebler wrote:

@Juan

Man you missed the point INTIRELY

Black Hawk Down is a trully poor excuse for the arguement of the Dark, Violent, Africa due to the fact that it is based on a narrow piece of timeline in which the helicopter went down. The main complaints about the movie were never about it being “Dark” but that it never went into the broader context of why the Somalians were so upset with the old government that they rebelled the way they did. Thus seperating itself from the arguement of the “Dark, Violent” Africa of which Croal speaks of, UNLESS he is drawing these conclusions himself, which may very well be the case.

But drawing conclusions himself does not make them true, accurate, or in any way shape or form useful for the conversation. On top of this, if BHD is the only movie that he can draw a connection to without having to dip into the movie history of the 1950s, then my argument is still valid about having to actively search for images to understand what he should be offended about, which defeats the purpose of being naturally offended.

In this case it is still perceived racism because of the lack of an actual connection. In historical terms Croal was not offended by connections of slavery, white on black crime, or the state of Africa. Instead he is offended based upon the way Hollywood portrayed Africa at one time.

And please keep in consideration that history itself, while needing to be remembered, should not be the basis for our feeling and gut reactions. It is because Croal goes with he gut reaction, instead of calling on higher thinking, like many others we are not learning from history. If you take your comment “This imagery has a history. It has a history and you can’t pretend otherwise.”
And apply it to other portions of history, you will see what I mean.

Ireland and Britain, Japan and China, Iraq and Iran, Kurdish Iraqis and Turkey. Or apply it to older history, Greece and Africa, Britain and France, Baptist and Catholic. Then playing hands off to so much of this brings up a serious issue. It isn’t until after we move beyond our gut reaction of “offensive” and look at it in a more pure light,all that is happening will be for nothing. People will keep going on as they are now, looking for the next image to go “That’s offensive because of a brief idea or image in a small piece of time line.”

Posted 17 Apr 2008 at 2:27 pm ¶
Taylor wrote:

Juan,

So I disagree with you about this one issue and suddenly my racial progressivism is in question? You base this knowledge on what exactly, who are you to draw this conclusion, what horsesh**.

Unfortunately I do not have time to find this Alternet article from two months ago but it was similar to the themes on this post. And every gamer who posted on that site about the article seemed to think the attack on RE for racism was completely wrong. And yes these were progressive left wing gamers of all races, who are quick to denounce real instances of racism when they see it. As someone who is not a gamer, I trust their judgment more than the judgment of folks posting on this site who have not played a video game in ages (which incidentally includes me).

Posted 17 Apr 2008 at 6:26 pm ¶
Roy wrote:

As someone who is not a gamer, I trust their judgment more than the judgment of folks posting on this site who have not played a video game in ages (which incidentally includes me).

Okay… but what about those of us commenting on it who do play games and consider ourselves gamers? I play games on a regular basis, and have for over two decades now. There’s not a clear line here of gamers on one side and non-gamers on the other.

Posted 17 Apr 2008 at 7:50 pm ¶
Josh wrote:

@emfole i do believe nerds are less likely to discriminate than “normal people.” nerds are the ones who have experiences of being discriminated by more popular kids in highschool. if youre leon kennedy and you hunt zombies in africa, youre a white guy shooting black undead. thats not racism. racism is when the white guy shoots the black people because theyre black. and simply because you cant handle playing gta doesnt mean that other people become more racist or violent from playing video games. (you sound like one of those people who says theres a link between violent video games and i.e. school shootings.)
@ceecee since my dad is african-american i think i do have an understanding of what racism is. i actually told my woman about this article (also a halfbreed with different colors tho) and she thought it was just as stupid to make that connection between RE and racism.
@Erica RE is mad fun. its one of those games where people even enjoy watching. ive played other games and i know that theres racists everywhere. but because nerds and gamers are more internet prone than average people, ive experienced more tolerance about them - also from the nerds i know in real life. at the same time, people talk lots of shit online, so someone might say something racist to just piss you off, not coz they mean it. im not denying racism among them, but, as a person of color, i have more faith in these kinds of people if you can speak of “them” as such.
@Ansel my point is that overly poliotically correct people would scream racism at any other setting as well; as long as its a white guy killing non-whites, there will always be you guys to say its racist. also, youre overinterpreting. its just a game. and if you make the connection of the zombies to “real” africans, then i think its you who has a one-sided impression of what “poor suffering africans” look like.

i think because this is in part a racism blog people here are over-sensitized to the issue and might see more racism than there is. but thats reality - i sometimes think im discriminated, when perhaps im not. anyway, teh reason the main char is white…thats the only racist thing i see. video games will (unless you can generate your own char) always a white guy as main char. but its the same in movies etc. so nothing to get worked up about.

Posted 20 Apr 2008 at 4:34 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:

Not commenting on the game or the new trailor - haven’t played. But Josh, your post is pretty damning on a few levels.

>nerds are the ones who have experiences of being discriminated by more popular kids in highschool

“Nerd” =/ Outsider. In some schools, nerds are the majority or at least the respected vocal minority - depends on the type of school and the focus. So let’s go with the Outsider archetype instead. Like many groups, there are heirarchies within the outsiders too - I’ve seen and experienced and to my shame sometimes participated in othering other people on the outside. “Nerds”, “Geeks,” etc. are not monolithic and therefore are not going to 1) respond to pressure the same way, 2) automatically have compassion for those who are different in DIFFERENT WAYS from themselves, 3) not have the “drowning sailor” response as a survival mechanism.

Cred: I ID as a nerd/geek, depending on what I’m talking about. I freely admit there are lots of things i’m not into - but among my circle, that’s OK. I’ve LARPed and RPGd via tabletop and creative writing, in costume and out; I’ve traveled long distance for cons of various types; I adore and collect several indie comic series; I consider myself a sci-fi geek for certain things. But before I was into any of that, I was an social outsider. Biracial, A-student, voracious reader, tall and heavy-set, lower socioeconomic class than the school majority - so yeah, deck socially stacked against me. My friends from 5-8th grade were all fellow outsiders, but we weren’t all the same.

>since my dad is african-american i think i do have an understanding of what racism is. i actually told my woman about this article (also a halfbreed with different colors tho

OK… halfbreed and “my woman” in one sentence. Yup, no racism or sexism here. Moving right along…

>because nerds and gamers are more internet prone than average people, ive experienced more tolerance about them - also from the nerds i know in real life. at the same time, people talk lots of shit online, so someone might say something racist to just piss you off, not coz they mean it.

You know they dont’ mean it? Funny, I’d think that you experience more “tolerance” because these people CAN’T tell your RL ethnicity online (tolerance? really? they ((and you assume they are mostly white-interesting)) evidently “put up with” you? That’s not really acceptance in my head.).

Funny thing about the ‘Net - it’s mostly-anonymity allows people to say (type, whatever) things they may not say out loud, especially when it will get a reaction and get them status or cred. I’ve heard lots of racist and sexist and homophobic trash-talk from self-professed gaming geeks online (given, it was Halo) and at cons.

>video games will (unless you can generate your own char) always a white guy as main char. but its the same in movies etc. so nothing to get worked up about.

Repeat after me: Racialicious is a pop culture blog with a race/ethnicity focus. It will be talking about video games, casting and content for movies, TV, news anchors, and other entertainment, cartoons, cultural trends, what have you, from a race and ethnicity focus. “Pop culture” is a reflection, abeit sometimes a funhouse version, and a distillation of the overall cultural fabric - it cannot be removed from the whole without losing all meaning. Context is PROVIDED BY the core parent culture. “Pop culture” serves as a subconcious, and sometimes the lizard brain/lowest common denominator. Which is why anyone cares about it in the first place. It’s a stand in that probably helps us bridge the gap between our brains that evolved to deal with 25-100 people at a time (as our cultural focus) and the reality of millions of people, most of which could probably be shoehorned into 25-100 “types”.

Nothing to get worked up about? Right… - the lack of diversity and inclusion in movies, TV, and the rest of the entertainment structures (and I mean in all levels, not just sports players and the occasional Morgan Freeman… see Chris Rock’s riff on the difference between “rich” and “wealthy.”) pretty much mirror the lack of inclusion and diversity in politics, economics, etc. etc. etc. So why should we care about all THAT - we should just be playing video games and all would be merry happy sunshine?

Nice attempt of suppression, though. See here: http://coffeeandink.livejournal.com/607897.html

Posted 20 Apr 2008 at 8:23 pm ¶
Josh wrote:

@Lyonside: please bear in mind that the premise of my revious post is that im replying to other people and that the remis of this entire discussion is that some people claim this game is racist. youre just picking out bits of my response, some is taken out of context and some is irrelevant. …like your rant on nerds. we can argue on the definition of nerdism and the heterogeny of nerds worldwide, but thats simply beside the point. those people ive met that i identify as nerds are better people than those ive identified as i.e. ‘jocks’ or ‘prom queens.’
‘>since my dad is african-american i think i do have an understanding of what racism is. i actually told my woman about this article (also a halfbreed with different colors tho

OK… halfbreed and “my woman” in one sentence. Yup, no racism or sexism here. Moving right along…’ wtf? this is just plain retarded. if im mixed, i can call myself halfbreed. (i shouldnt have to tell you: if youre white, you have no say on stuff like that and if youre not, identify your ethnicity or say something that qualifies you to make a statement on race labels) you tell black folks that say ‘nigga’ theyre racist as well? i understand some people use the term ‘girlfriend’ and others use the term ‘partner’. i prefer to refer to my lady as my woman because shes not a ‘girlfriend’ (something teenagers have) and im to humane to coldly call her my partner. also, maybe where i live thats not at all uncommon. who the hell are you deciding whats racist/sexist in communities of the world you probably dont even know that exist? in general your entire post is only attacking me with really little content, ending in a rant. reread your post and ask yourself if to another human being of approximately the same intelligence as you you make the impression that youre trying partake in a senseful discussion. and, sorry, but at at least watch the trailer to know what people here are talking about. ..seriously, you just turn up and join the gang of people hating on me and youre not even saying anything new - or topic-related.

Posted 23 Apr 2008 at 6:48 am ¶
eric wrote:

I wish this topic wasn’t buried down so deep now, cause I’d LOVE to know what everyone who was all up in arms about RE:5 is doing about GTA right now.

Posted 06 May 2008 at 11:08 am ¶
Latoya Peterson wrote:

You’ll get your wish in a couple days

Posted 06 May 2008 at 11:09 am ¶
Justin D. wrote:

Man, I’m late. The last comment posted here was done so in early May. Never the less I am still impressed by the level of actual intelligence in a forum that discusses this issue. Most of the comments on similar sights reflect a level of ignorance and insensitivity that is almost as disturbing as the trailer itself. I am elated to see that their are others that can discuss this issue with the level of respect it deserves, whether or not they agree with those of us who see something wrong with the trailer.

Anyway I love the RE series (RE4 was amazing) and it upsets me that the trailer for the 5th installment had to be like this. I have every intention on with holding a final judgement on the game until either a newer, more definitive trailer is revealed or until the game’s release. That said, the most recent trailer (seen here http://www.gametrailers.com/player/34647.html) doesn’t exactly fill me with hope. They do show people of lighter color as adversaries and reveal what appears to be a black female partner, but light skinned blacks are still black, and having one token black character isn’t going to make things better.

The new trailer confirms that the story is set in Africa. You’ve got the crazed leader from the first trailer yelling to throngs of angry villagers about Africa being their land and how it will lead them to “Paradise”. It still sounded like something a little too close to home, but it was the narration that followed that got to me.

“I knew it from the moment I arrived…there’s no reason here. No humanity. Everywhere I look I see vacant stares. All I see is death.”

This is, of course, Chris speaking. When I heard this I couldn’t help but recall the way he walked through the village in the first trailer. He didn’t look like he wanted to be there, nor did he seem to care about the people he was walking passed. It looked like he was thinking the very thing he narrated in this new trailer. While he’s narrating you are given scenes of villagers attacking and beating other people and in one instance forcing one of them to ingest some kind of creature. You then see the people going crazy and attacking him and now we get a glimpse of some people who’s heads transform into parasitic creatures (similar to Las Plagas in RE4). Then the angry leader again talking about killing trespassers and referencing the name of the village. Some shots of the maps in the game, fight scenes and that’s it.

Needless to say, it doesn’t explain much and doesn’t address many of the issues those of us who have issues with the first trailer raise. We do get to see the attackers as infected creatures now but there is still something unsettling about it all. Chris had a negative view of the place before the people went crazy. He saw no “humanity” in them. I’m sure the bug heads didn’t change his mind any.

I’m sure Capcom added the scenes of the creatures to remind people what the game is about but it doesn’t help much. If you remove those clips you get a scenario of a military agent in a disgruntled African village fighting his way through throngs of crazed humanity (or lack there of according to Mr. Redfield). I will still wait until the actual game comes out, or at least until a better trailer is released but I just wish I could shake this uneasy feeling from all this.

Posted 02 Jun 2008 at 4:06 pm ¶
Emperor Xur wrote:

I saw the new trailer, and thought it may stir up even more opinions immediatly upon viewing it. When I saw the first one, racism didnt even come into perspective until I found that news add that rendures RE5 a racist game. Are we all forgetting what was one of the most coolest enemies in 4. The black heavybarrel gunner on the island when you go after Ashley! These black zombies are awesome, they are more energenic and will be a challenge to kill, unlike the sluggish spainards. Also we are probably seeing the first half hour of gameplay here, what about all the aliens, monsters, and supernatural forces, that may await.The light skinned people look mexican or saudi arabian to me, not black.There is probably a mix of races between boudering countries to africa. Capcom is just showing us a new adventure, with new enemies in a dangerous lost part of the world. Also the voodoo aspect is something to consider. Some places in africa are known to be involved in pagan voodoo stuff, thats cool too. THE GAME IS MEANT TO BE COOL AWESOME FUN SCARY, and most important , a new adventure. I remember the first times a saw Night of the Living Dead Color 1989, I said to my self wouldnt it be cool if that did happen, and to be able to use weapons to kill off all the zombies, well now through video games I can.

Posted 11 Jun 2008 at 10:06 pm ¶
joseph wrote:

as far as the music is concerned, RE4 had mexican (not spanish) folk music playing while leon is in the POLICIA carro with the 2 interpol wusses.

as far as racism, i wasnt hurt because i’m spaniard, and i know the it was awesome mowing down spanish zombies. what can i say, i hate my people.

this is a new era where nothing can be done without offending some one or some people. and who here remembers Marvin Branagh? the african american cop from RE2 that turned into a raging fast zombie? where were these politically charged people and comments when that was done?

OH YEAH!! you need to have 100 white zombies to kill and one african american zombie to kill. i forgot about affirmative action. at least they put a female zombie (RE2) and an obese zombie (RE3 NEM). i didnt see or hear of any women or obese gamers complaining and i didnt see or hear about any chinese colmplaining about Fong Ling (the hottie character from RE dead aim) or hispanic/europeans complaining about killing DR. SALVADOR, DON JOSE,DON MIGUEL, DON ROBERTO, DON DIEGO, LUIS SERA, RAMON SLALZAR or the HERMANAS BELLAS (all baddies from RE4 with very “controversial” hispanic/latino names and not a single survivor).

the point is we all need to get over it and have fun, after all, chris redifield dies too. just leave the controller alone and let him get all hacked up. and not all of the zombies in the trailer are african/carribean/whatever (look closely at the guy with a red shirt, pale white skin, long black hair and shorts. see, i hope everyone feels better now. he’s in the full length trailer).

Posted 25 Jun 2008 at 1:53 pm ¶