On this week’s episode of Rebel FM, we’re jumping into the debate along with pretty much every other gaming site out there to discuss our feelings on Resident Evil 5 and race. The point of this topic is not “Is Resident Evil 5 racist?” Rather we want to take a close look at how the issue of race is addressed or not addressed in RE5 and videogames in general. How Resident Evil 5 presents black people is one issue, but how does the game present the African culture and setting as a whole? Is there a reason for some gamers to be disturbed by that? And is there a reason for this discussion at all?
Share your thoughts in the comments below, and we’ll pick some of them to read on air! And please keep it civil. We’re trying to dig into this issue in-depth instead of treating it as a shallow shock story like a lot of other media sources. Be a part of that by writing something more than “NOT RACIST, SHUT UP ALREADY” please. We’ll be recording Episode 11 on Wednesday, and we’ll also be recording the final edition of the Call of Cthulhu Game Club tonight, so watch for both of these shows this week!
I think it’s funny that RE5 brings up these race discussions while the fact that we (gamers) have been shooting/killing/blowing away German Nazi’s for years in video games and not once have I heard anyone say boo about that. Don’t get me wrong, I am not supporting Nazi’s in ANY way and I too love to blow there little Nazi heads off as much as the next guy but wouldn’t you think German people might have a problem with this. Again, I’m not saying all German people are Nazi’s, in fact it was a small proportion of the population but this race issue seems to be “acceptable” if you go by how it has been talked about (or not talked about).
I think we should look at this issue in a similar way that we would for movies. There are clearly racist movies out there, or seam-ably racist, some of them blockbusters (American History X, Romper Stomper (an Australian film)) both of which ended up having an anti-racist message that made them “ok”. The question then is, if RE5 is racist, does it have a message? Does it need a message? Are games still viewed as “for kids” and does that play into the need to have all games be suitable (in morality/message it’s giving) for all ages even with the rating system.
I’m sure some people might find what I’ve said to be offensive (the Nazi stuff) which is not my intention at all, but if we are going to talk about race in game, how can we overlook this.
EDIT – Maybe I should have said “I think it’s interesting” (not funny).
As someone who hasn’t played much RE since RE1, I did have a few issues with RE5′s “enemies”. Playing along split screen with a friend one of the first things I commented on was how we weren’t really fighting zombies any more, but just poor, diseased africans, and the stereotype didn’t get any better as the game went on, replacing the poor suburban africans from the first few chapters with savage tribal africans in later stages.
I’m cautious to criticise the game too harshly on this though. The game is set in africa, and therefore the mutated enemies you encounter are africans. There really isn’t a work around for that (unless you change the location of the game). However I do think they could have made enemies more zombie like and less life-like. Some of the guys I was killing were barely mutated at all (until a big tongue came out of their heads which was very unexpected), and I do think they could have done a better portrayal then what they did in this game.
Not to mention the other stereotypes in the game, like the buff white army soldier (who can push over boulders, nice), and the african american unit commander. It was interesting having sheva as the partner in the game rather than a white or a black partner. I’m not really sure what race she was in the end, but she was definately an interesting choice (though I did get sick of the SHEVA! yelling while waiting at a door and spamming circle til my partner got there).
And while I’m on it, the storyline and voice acting in that game is atrocious, but doing it co-op made it so much fun.
I agree with your point about the possibility of making them more Zombie like however, why should they have to. Are we that sensitive that we can’t portray ANY race in games unless they are made to be ‘non human’. I’m sorry but to me this is ridicules (not your point, the issue itself. I agree with most of what you’re saying).
In all that I said, i didn’t say whether I thought RE5 was racist.
I have to say, playing through the game (am almost finished) the “race” factor never came into it for me. Maybe that’s saying something bad about me (i hope not). I grew up in Melbourne, Australia which is a predominately white city (well it was then, it is very multicultural now, which is great by the way) and while we (Australia) have had our fair share of race related issues, it always seemed like a problem that was far removed from daily life. For me, gaming is another form of entertainment, one that I take seriously (maybe too much) and when people try to impose issues on the medium like race, religion, blaming games for just about everything that’s bad with society, I feel like ‘that’ is an attack on the way “I” live my life (as a gamer).
(Sorry about all the ( ), it’s just the way I write.)
This’ll be short, but what the hell. Before saying somethings racist, why not ask where they are, how many stereotypes they enforce, and what they say to the enemies while killing them?
They’re in Africa. May be a surprise to some people, but most people in Africa are black. Would a white guy fit in in an African village wearing a dashiki? No.
I haven’t beaten the game yet, but so far, I haven’t seen any black dude with big lips, eating fried chicken, and dancing. I don’t think it’s gonna happen either.
Haven’t heard any racial slurs yet. But hey! It’s a possibility… Yeah right.
Anyway, that’s all I have to say about that.
Put simply, I thought the whole issue was perpetrated by the Hyper Sensitive Gamers among us….then I saw the unlockable costume for Sheva….that would be the one with the leopard skin bikini and tribal paint and jewelery, its cliched shit from the early days of Cinema not for a new medium with so much potential.
Oh and blasting Zulu’s with automatic weapons wasn’t sporting in 1879 and is certainly distastful now.
oops there were no automatic weapons in 1879…Need an edit post button guys
Africa is mostly filled with black people. Who else is going to be the enemy in the game? The issue just went overboard on the premise of something to whine about. People are not just too sensitive, they are too immature in their thoughts on racism. It was just something to stir controversy.
I kill Umberlla-infected subjects indiscriminately. Whether it be in a mansion in a forest, a secret lab in the arctic or in some country in Africa, they gonna get a bullet in that their head. YEHAW!
Seriously people, it’s just a game. Whether its racist or not is a matter for each person to decide once they have played the FULL game. I’m about half way through, myself.
Oh, and that scene where the black infected is dragging the white woman into the house? I never even noticed their colours until it was told to me. But that cutscene made me think that the woman was either dead, going to be dead or mostly dead.
These are freaking people infected with some crazy shit! There is no doubt that it affects everyone, regardless or ethnicity! Like Michael Jackson said, “It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white”.
Sorry if I’ve brought up any points previously mentioned as I quickly tap this out before dashing off to work.
I haven’t played RE5, but I’m going to officially conclude: “not racist, shut up,” until at some point while playing the game, once I get it, I hear racial slurs being uttered.
I haven’t yet played a game that deals with race seriously, nor do I care if a game addresses it. I don’t want to play American History X, and I think most people have already evolved their views about race, and don’t need more enlightenment…
…that being said, the random morons you can run into on XBLive, calling things niggers and faggots while doing terrible, sexual things to your mother, probably NEEDS a game like that, but probably WOULD NOT PLAY it. Unless it had online muliplayer that would allow them to pwn some n00bs.
I cannot play RE5 yet, but how did Crysis escape this controversy?
So here’s what I know from high school about Africa. I know some white dudes ruled with an iron fist for a while, and that sucked, and I know that if a coke bottle falls out of a plane it can really screw up some tribe living there. Here’s what I know about Resident Evil five and Africa. I know that zombies need to be killed, and I know that (apparently) there are random tribes living in Africa.
Resident Evil has taught me that zombies need to be killed, and high school taught me that Africa still sports random tribes of people. If said tribes become infected and turn into zombies, those zombies need to be killed.
Why does it need to go any further?
I find interesting the question about how the game presents the African culture, because Africa it´s a fucking huge continent and there´s not ONE African culture. It is like speak about European culture when there is a huge difference between France and Italy, for example.
Capcom just takes a bunch of clichés and put them in the game. And I don´t think they even bother presenting something accurate. Just like they did with RE4, because I´m Spanish (or Spaniard… or whatever you dumb Americans call us) and I don´t know which country was that supposed to be but that´s not Spain, at all.
So, if there´s something, not offensive but annoying, maybe it´s that stuff and not the racist thing, which I find a little dumb by the way.
So now you are going to assume that all americans are dumb? there is a major cliche right there, and we “dumb Americans” would say your Spanish, not your a Spaniard.
You´re right. Sorry. I was just kidding but I think I shouldn´t.
From the very beginning the discussion of this has always seemed to be about whether mass media will pick up on this game as racist. It seemed more about people trying to predict outrage, rather then actually being outraged. So far there is no public outcry, so I’d have to say it’s been a big to-do about nothing.
when it comes to re5 i’m not looking at it as a killing scary black people game. that’s ridiculous. the scariest part about the “bad guys” is that they’re third world zombies. whether it be indians, africans or any other race; uncivilized/unmodernized people are more scary because most eveyone would assume they were savages. and savages are terrifying.
Where are the Asian protagonists in games? The last one I can think of, besides the games that let me customize my avatar, is Lo Wang from Shadow Warrior. Sure, Asians are well represented in fighting games, but why do Ryu and Sakura look so non-Asian? And there were Japanese and Chinese factions in Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 and Command and Conquer Generals respectively, but the only games that capture Asian perspectives so far that I can think of are the Shenmue and Yakuza games. I certainly don’t count Jade Empire, which while not as offensive as Shadow Warrior, still isn’t much better.
Has anyone heard anything about this game having racist imagery in mainstream press yet?
I remember after the first trailer, people were concerned that this would have the same kind of mainstream press coverage as Mass Effect. Looking at it in a negative, and out of context kind of way. (and in Mass Effects case, lying about what you do in a game, and having very uninformed people talking about it.)
maybe its just me but can anyone else see that we have moved past zombies in the RE games. they are not zombies anymore they are infected drones. so its not some white dude killing blacks zombies its a white dude defending himself in search of the truth from these people that don’t even know what they are doing.
So its not a racist game Chris is not setting out to kill only the black ones he is on a search that took him to Africa, where the majority of the people there are black, hence why the infected are black.
Play the entire game, understand the story as it is presented, read the files, then make a judgement call. dont judge the game by the cover, or in this case color of the skin.
I heard a mammoth yowl from a cat during co-ops recent halo wars segment…. you guys have to mic that cat. Feline internet celebrity?
I think that in the long run, unless if it’s really obviously raciest, that no one will really care.
But i think people are more upset about the $5 DLC then the “racism” in the game.
100 comments already? wow. guess I better make it 101.
First off, I do not think RE5 was ever made with any racist intent. Capcom was just trying to submit a compelling installment into one of gaming’s hallowed franchises. Millions of people from around the world receive hours upon hours of entertainment and fun out of the Resident Evil franchise, and I don’t think Capcom would ever want to sully their breadwinner’s reputation with charges of racism. That being said, Capcom’s heavy-handed portrayal of a diseased and violence-ridden Africa and its inhabitants touches on a wide breadth of stereotypes and racial prejudice that permeates throughout our society and entertainment.
Nearly all of the protagonists of RE5 are white. At a casual glance, I really didn’t notice this until I realized the extreme lack of racial diversity on the side of the “good guys” and their saintly mission of cleansing the continent of the “virus.“ The connotations of this shocked and disgusted me and I could not believe that something so horrendously insensitive would find its way into a video game. Capcom should know better. Also, the somewhat half-assed inclusion of a half-African character only complicates the game’s insidious flaw instead of adding thematic depth to the narrative.
But most of all, the sheer footage of seeing a group of rabid and lecherous black men carrying away a screaming, blonde haired, white woman touches on the seedy undercurrent of racism in that spans back to the very first movie blockbuster, D. W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation.” RE5′s “dark continent” Africa is left wanting for good taste and it’s portrayal of an all-white force to the rescue reeks of the misconceptions of Western society that hearken back to the “white man’s burden” and the immoral reasons for European colonization of Africa in the late 1800′s.
On the whole, Capcom’s caricature of Africa and the African people is vile and crass. I would’ve thought Capcom would have had a little more scruples when it came down to the overall presentation of RE5 being set in an afflicted Africa. Instead of putting an original and new spin on the zombie-shooter-horror game mechanic, they opted for another bad guy with dark skin.
I wrote a small piece on this way back in september: http://news.gotgame.com/racism-is-undead-thoughts-resident-evil-5-racism/9346/.
Now that I’ve played it I pretty much feel the same way. Although Sheva and Josh are strong African protagonists, some of the imagery and design choices are a bit questionable.
I thought this article: http://www.racialicious.com/2009/03/16/expert-consulted-on-re5-racism-issue-not-an-expert-on-race-after-all/ explored the situation well, particularly the last few paragraphs. One of the commenters also seemed to share my views and presented them more eloquently than I am capable of.
Beth says: “Even if that attack is done by people in the community, the reactions are often vulgar and defensive. When people perceived to be on the outside critique it, the reaction rapidly becomes “us vs. them”, regardless of the validity of the complaints. These are people who don’t want to question what they are participating in, and any “expert” who tells them it’s okay not to will be publicized far and wide. It gives them permission to indulge their privilege.”
That all being said, I still looove playing the game. Like my post in September mentioned, I’m more offended by the gamer backlash and dismissal of sensitivity than the actual game content itself. All of this “Lol they’re in africa, so stop crying” nonsense is so naive and short-sighted. I don’t approve of journalists judging the game without having played it, but on the same token, gamers shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the sensitivities of others, even if they aren’t personally offended. I’m not black, but I acknowledge their place in the US/The World has a history of being less than ideal. Anyone (like Jim Sterling) who simply accuses anyone who calls RE5 racist as an idiot infuriates me like no other.
African American raceism is still a taboo subject. Many games in other settings with other races would not gather the same outcry (if a real outcry even exists as apposed to a media created one.) I for one like to see other cultures and areas used as settings in games.
If you want to look at more blatent uses of stereotypes… look at madworld or a whole host of other current games. The game industry is going to go through the same stage as movies. You no longer see blackface used in movies, and in games at some point the color of the skin will not be the defining personality of characters.
I just beat RE5 last night and I wanted to hold off on any conclusions until I beat it.
Nothing in it gave me a feeling of unease until I got to the village. The fact that I was the only white guy for miles fighting an entire village full of African males was a little off-puting. However, they did explain why there weren’t any women and children in that village and why they were dressed that way.
During the game, one thought kept coming up. This company is taking advantage of African people. I think that’s what Capcom wanted to portray (even just a little bit) in RE5.
This made me realize that America still has serious and deep-seeded issues with race and stereotypes because had this game taken place in a third world country located somewhere in east asia, it wouldn’t have drawn up the same type of controversy. I think more people would have seen it as a big pharmaceutical company taking advantage of a dire situation in a poor country.
Racism is something that I hope video games can help tackle. Now that the community wants better stories in games I would like to see a game based in the slavery era of America. More importantly, I want games about the underground railroad and all the actions taken to free slaves in America. Unfortunately, that probably won’t happen unless it’s coming from a dev team with black people at key design positions and I could only imagine the perils of trying to get a publisher to actually back the game.
And I just remembered another thing. The riot in Chapter 1 needed more context. It just showed them rioting and beheading the guy, but never explains why. You don’t even know what any of the people are saying and I guess that’s supposed to make you nervous, but if it had any context it might have had the chance to let the player relate to what this village is going through.
Resident Evil has always amplified the fear factor by making you feel unsure and uncomfortable and not quite confident in what you are doing. It’s just that they used to accomplish that with bad controls and awkward camera angles.
Now they are doing that with context, setting, and awkward cultural angles. Seriously!
I don’t think that any racism was intended, but it’s certainly understandable why some people can get squicked by imagery. There is a long tradition of racist iconography in the states depicting blacks as savage, inhuman, and filled with bloodlust… so they’re going to look to some people like racist caricatures.
There are already way too many great posts on this topic to choose from, so I doubt I’ll have this read on air, though I’d like to put my thoughts out there nonetheless.
I’ve been intrigued by the discussion of race surrounding this game, and so, have tried to stay up to date with what most outlets are saying on the issue. While I generally don’t rely on Xplay for game buying advice, I do enjoy hearing Adam’s take on a variety of gaming issues, as he is a very intelligent and prominent figure in the area of games journalism.
Needless to say, I strongly disagree with their vicious review that I feel grossly underrepresents what the game has to offer due to astronomically high expectations (they did list RE4 as #1 on their “Greatest Games Ever” segment), but I digress.
What bugged me most was how RE5′s perceived issue of race and racism was handled in the review. Right off the bat, one sees that “Some Questionable use of Stereotype” is featured as one of the three bulleted “Cons” of the game, as if the controversy surrounding this issue somehow reduces the quality of the game itself, as if the game is objectively worse because a very vocal minority have taken issue with the use of Africans in the game.
The main complaint on the subject in the video portion of the review was that the use of black people in RE5 “lacks a point of view.” To me it seems that this is precisely how it should be: the use of Africans in the game should be solely for the purpose of providing a more authentic gaming experience. This game takes place in Africa and, as most people hopefully know, Africans live in–wait for it–Africa! As soon as race is used to make some sort of outside message (as the review repeatedly suggests it should) that, to me, would seem to cross the line into questionable territory by intentionally using the fact that these zombie-like creatures are Africans to make some sort of point. But the game doesn’t! That’s the thing here.
Capcom has stated that they wanted to place this game in Africa for story purposes; in order to end this saga where everything started (referring both to the origin of man and the origin of the progenitor virus). Setting part of the game in a shady African village would expectedly result in the inclusion of shady African villagers, much as setting part in tribal Africa would result in the inclusion of tribal Africans, and setting RE4 in Spain would result in the inclusion of Hispanics. I still fail to see how including a specific ethnicity of people based solely on the location in which both those people reside and the game takes place is in any way offensive or racist and the controversy seems (to me, at least) completely unwarranted and juvenile.
Thanks for providing a place to type out my thoughts. I realize this a huge post, but hey, this is (for whatever reason) a huge issue. I look forward to hearing the discussion on the show.
I forgot to cite their site for the review I quoted. Sorry ’bout that.
http://g4tv.com/xplay/reviews/1944/Resident-Evil-5-Review.html
When I attended university (taking engineering) I had quite a few friends from Japan and China. The discussion came up about race divides in Asian countries, and this is what they told me about their cultures views on African Americans:
The Asian countries, like China and Japan, see a lot of american TV and movies. The problem with this form of entertainement is the African Americans are seen as gansters, and criminals because they are portrayed as such in the media. Most of these Asian people have never met an African American, but buy into the steriotype that is so often portrayed in these movies and tv shows.
In their opinion this has led to many asian countries not really trusting African Americans, and portraying Black skined people in their forms of entertainment as a lower class of person. think Mr. Popo from Dragon Ball Z….. he appears to be a slave to his master Kaimai.
^my summary of that is that it could be the North American Take on African Americans in our multimedia that is causing the negative steriotype of African Americans in other parts of the world, which seeps into their culture
And thus seeps into their video games. Man I got to work on completing my thought in 1 post lol.
I’ve read through every comment on this thread and only two people who commented said they were of African descent. I think that if you yourself are not of African descent (I was born in London and have African parents), have not grown up in an African household with parents who have come from Africa to a western country and have not gone back to Africa to see what it’s like, a number of times your view is going to be very different to most other people and you may not fully understand what it’s like to see this game and feel like it is being slightly racially offensive or insensitive (not racist).
Now I’m not saying that if you do not fit into one of the things I’ve mentioned above your views/opinions/thoughts/feelings are not valid or meaningful because that’s not true. It just means that you will not FULLY understand what it’s like. People are saying that Capcom did not intend for all of this but then what does that say about them or about the developers of RE5? If you create a game that depicts a country and it’s culture and then people start to read it as racially insensitive or even racist, it just exposes how much you know about the subject you are dealing with and the manner in which you approached it.
I’ve played RE5 and If anyone has seen the latest episode of Co-op by the guys at area5.tv, they talk about a specific area which is very disturbing. I don’t think the game is ‘racist’ but parts like that are very insensitive and even though they give an explanation to why the people are dressed the way they are it doesn’t make everything okay. And I’m not sure if anyone else has ever felt this way but I’m one of those people who people who blame games and make them a scapegoat for most social problems and the like, but regarding this topic I feel almost pressured by the gaming community to conform to the view of “NOT RACIST, SHUT UP ALREADY” which is what alot of gamers are saying but just in really elaborate ways.
Race in games is a very sensitive topic and I feel that no matter what way it is approached there will always be some debate on it because it’s just that sort of topic.
I will say this. Everyone seems to be mentioning the portrayal of the Africans but not the Hispanic with mustache, Meth addict skinny white kid, or shorter Asian models. This, to me, is more offensive than if they left them out.
The actual issue of race in RE5 has been beaten to death, so I want to talk about something that I think is more important: the fact that 90-95% of the comments on this topic don’t actually know what the topic is. The problem is not “a white man is shooting black people”, and if you think that’s what the problem is then you’ve missed the point pretty much entirely. The problem is *the specific set of images* used to represent those black people.
One of the biggest problems with this issue is that it’s become quite apparent that most of the people discussing this don’t have any idea what racism is. They think that as long as you don’t call someone a dirty n***** that you’re not racist, which is entirely untrue. Racism operates on many levels, and the most dangerous of those are sub-conscious. The fact that so many people can’t even understand what the issue is here completely underscores that. And it’s absolutely absurd when people make comments like “Obama is president, can we stop with this racism stuff now?” Umm . . . no! Obama is still the recipient of blatantly racist treatment from even the mainstream media like Fox News, and I certainly hope no one is foolish enough to pretend that one man is indicative of the state of an entire race of people.
The other thing that really bothers me about this is that it becomes more and more apparent to me every day that it’s just not possible to have an intelligent conversation about video games in a public forum. A huge part of the backlash to N’Gai’s comments was basically in the form of “stop bashing video games! They’re my favourite!” I’m reminded of a comment thread on Kotaku, where a statement by Jonathan Blow about “American fiat dollars” turned into a flame-war about how video game makers shouldn’t talk politics and lefties all hate America. It’s sad, but that’s just the state of conversations around video games right now.
Is everyone seriously freaking out about the Sheva alternate costume being tribal? Seriously? Seriously?! Since people are bitching about this, I am going to bitch over the way that Spanish owning Castelleans where wrongly depicted in RE4. As a descendant from Spain I will throw this comment out “It is obvious that no Spaniards worked on RE4″. I mean come on no self respecting 21st Century Spaniard who owns a Castle would wear 18th century Garments like the ones that Salazar wore. Hell I will say that I am certain that when you go to a rural Spanish town you will not find an angry mob of forked natives only dressed in tan & brown yelling “Mierda” while trying to kill you. I feel wronged. I feel that Capcom should address this matter ASAP.
Hell lets dig deeper, the fact that the Spaniards in RE4 were going to try to conquer the world and push their religion to everyone else in the world leaves me to believe that the developers of RE4 where trying to hint at the actions that the conquistadors of the 1400s committed on the Inca and Aztec people. I am insulted by all these subtle references (SARCASM for anyone not able to detect it).
But, getting back to RE5 they are right African American people are portrayed in a racist manner. African Americans should not live in poverty in Africa, never be the majority never get angry, look, act, & speak the way they do in RE5 unless they had some sort of parasite in them that inhibits them from….. yeah. Oh yeah if you feel that there is racism you are a.)looking for racism b.)feel guilty about something you did in the past to a colored person c.)overly-sensitive and are looking for any sort of movement to attach yourself to/have something to bitch about. At the same time I think someone should make a game where you play White heroes dressed up in white robes with pointy hats taking African American zombies down. That way we can give overly sensitive people something to analyze and complain about. Bleh.
I think that it’s interesting that the issue of race seems to only apply to the Africans. I spent hours in Rainbow 6: Vegas 1 & 2 killing Mexicans. CoD:WaW lets you waste time killing the Japanese. RE4 had you killing Spaniards (or wherever the hell that game took place). Almost the entirety of Crysis was spent killing Koreans. I don’t remember that much of an uproar over any of those games.
I’m about as white as you can get, but I don’t get offended when a game like FEAR or Fracture have people killing streams of white people in order to progress. Sure games can have a lot of hidden meaning, but it’s hard to imply much of anything in the basic gameplay mechanics. Unless the game gives me a hotkey that lets my character shout “White power!” I’m willing to bet that it’s probably not racist.
Nobody seemed to have a problem when Capcom generalized and made blatant racist remarks about American culture in Dead Rising, but they do in Resident Evil 5?
I’m glad Capcom is pushing the envelope, intentional or not, I think the fact that RE5 and Dead Rising never make a big deal about the races you fight, shows that they never thought twice about it. The game takes place in Africa, so guess what, there are black people in Africa. They’re not obligated to represent a culture accurately. Hell, Braveheart didn’t represent scottish culture accurately.
The point is no game has ever said “________ is inferior” and that’s what racism is. Capcom is treating everyone equally, so this whole fuss is insane.
The question of “Is RE5 Racist?” is ridiculous. Symantecaly the question is all wrong. And more over the propper question should really be, “Are the creators of RE5 racist?”. That question might have more traction. But in the end playing RE5, not just making comments about a trailer that came out a long time ago is what needs to be done. Based on the locations in the game they had a realistic mix of ethnicities in the game the factory stages have white people and so does the oil field and the quarry. The slum and the marsh land are all black, heck the marshland the people there look like caribs, indigenous people to the carribean (seen in Pirates of the Carribean 2).
Also the idea of Pharmaceutical companies testings out products on rural africans is not soo far fetched, that is going on right now as we speak with malaria and AIDS drugs.
Now on to the topic as a whole, which was how is the issue of RACE delt with as a whole in gaming.
And i think that most games if not all avoid race as part of the dialogue since it angers people so much.
Only because of N’gai has it even begun to be brought up recently, and that is unfortunant since his take on it has been so ignorant. Video Games treat Race and sexuality as a 3rd rail to be avoided at all costs. For the most part games present to you a world of white people. black people seem to make it into sports games and as supporting characters only. in condemed you beat hundreds of homeless junkies to death, how many were black? if i remember correctly none, is that racist? Is it racist that the main character in every final fantasy is white?
Other than a few pc titles that came out in 1999-2000 that were blatantly racist most just ignore the subject. It is aparent that gaming needs to grow more when the only games that present african americans as a lead character are 50 cent and def jam titles.
The truth of the gaming landscape is that it tends to be racist by omission. That real black characters tend to not be an option, and even when they are available are about criminals or individuals with dark backgrounds (trying to remember a PS2 game where you played a black guy getting out of prision with some supernatural shit thrown in).
The conversation of race is a difficult one. In video games it is especially difficult since the main objective in many games is to provide the player with fun gameplay. Story and character development are just window dressing to what the experience is…just a game.
As a black person I cannot recall a time when I felt personally offended by the portrayal of a black video game character. When I saw the trailer to RE5 that started the controversy, I thought nothing of it. I feel video games have come a long way in addressing race. Very few if any games today have all white characters as the cast. However, it has always been the trend to cast a white male as the lead character. RE5 breaks new ground here because one of the playable characters in RE5, Sheva, is a black woman. What’s another video game you can think of in which you can play as a black female? I can’t think of one. Although most of the leading characters in games are white males, that’s becoming even less of an issue with so many games (e.g. Fallout 3 or Mass Effect) making the player create his own character.
So, in short I think games have made excellent strides in diversity overall, but it would be nice to see more diversity in the leading characters for games today.
I don’t think things like race should be a big deal in games and other media. If it is used to convey a story line they should be no problem with it. But race should NEVER be used in a derogatory manor and one that is not there to convey a relevant message / story line. If it is used in the correct manor I do have a problem with it, however in games such as RE5 (whilst uncomfortable playing) it shouldn’t be that much of an issue because they is a story line to back the reason why they put it in… not just some random racist slur!
I don’t get the African tribal stuff. It seems like it was only in there solely for our amusement.
Well, I haven’t played RE5, so I can’t comment on that game specifically, but I will voice my opinion on race in games. If this point has been made previously, I apologize for not reading all the posts.
Do you think Cole Train’s character is.. a bit ridiculous? I always thought that could be considered racist. It seems like what they portray is a lack of education and articulation in that character. Of course, it’s totally reasonable that it’s supposed to only represent that character, in which case it wouldn’t be racist. Just as many people of other races are uneducated and inarticulate.
I don’t know, I am loathe to comment on the issue of racism, and posting about it here is against my better judgment.
The only racism, at least in my opinion, is evident in the people who started the cries of ‘racism in games’. I think you are being racist when you make the distinction between shooting at Europeans (re4) and Africans (re5). People don’t start up cries of racism when you only shoot Germans or Europeans in a game but as soon as your opponents are predominantly black then everyone takes notice. To me this is an extremely hypocritical stance to take.
Someone who is truly not racist would never really notice the color of characters in the game and just think of them as people not ‘White guy killing black guys’.
Sorry if this post is incoherent, I just wrote my immediate thoughts without taking time to structure my words
hey, it’s me Chris Redfield and i heard you’re talkin some mess about me and my afro-zombie bloodlust. you didn’t call Leon racist when he was mowing down Mexican zoms so wtf? i’m your old partner ya know?
my ex-partner Chris was always extremely racist. he was kicked out of S.T.A.R.S. when they found out he was in the KKK. plus, he loves Nascar.
in high school i had a black boyfriend. my brother Chris beat the hell out of him. yes, he’s racist
Ok, so I know I missed the show but I still wanted to throw my 2 cents on the pile. I think that the “racism” that people are pointing out in RE5 has alot more to do with trying to force a liberal guilt complex upon society than any sort of racism. No one complained about the white trash looking zombies we blasted in the first 3 REs, no one had any problem with the spanish zombie massacre of RE4.
No one would care if we were blasting our way through a million stereo typed chinese zombies in some major metropolitan chinatown or a bunch of native americans on some dusty plain. This has only become an issue because the zombies are black.
I suppose that the root issue I would call out here would be that in America there are HUGE disparities between what is considered racist content when it’s about blacks or african americans versus what is acceptable when leveled at other minority groups or whites. For some reason it’s much more acceptable to say certain things about non-black minorities… a perfect example would be your previous podcast and some of the things you said about mexicans/hispanics. Had you said those things about black/african-americans you never would have posted that podcast and if you did you’d still be sorting through the hate mail.
RE5 takes place in Africa, it’s a tale about a man made viral infection that turns people (of all races equally) into zombies. Africa, at least most of it by any study I can find is filled with black people. Hence black zombies, if your guilty conscience can’t handle it, take a pass on the game. If you do find yourself incensed to the point of complaining, while you’re lamenting the enslavement of africans by early American settlers please don’t forget the Chinese immigrants on the west coast who were all but enslaved by the railroad companies and were forbidden from citizenship/voting ect. (see Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882), or of course the systemic attempted genocide and relocations of the native peoples of this continent.
I suppose that anyone who finds deep racist images in RE5 must be the kind of person who can’t stand seeing Bruce Lee as Kato in the Green Hornet, or who’s hair stands on end when they see the Atlanta Braves fans performing the Tomohawk chop. They must be the kind of people that can’t watch any of the comedians on BET or listen to rap music where they talk about crackers.
I just wanted to point out a couple of things I thought of while listening to this segment.
1. I didn’t know the reason behind there were Africans with tribal masks and shields walking around was because they started to dress like the ancestors, I just thought they were some primitive villages.
I think this makes it worse, it’s basically saying the more primal and evil these people become the more “African” they are.
2. To Arthur’s comment about the Spanish Las Plagas doing “normal” things in RE 4.
The “normal” things they were doing when you walk into that first village was burning people at the stake in a giant fire in the middle of the village, that was kinda they cue to hey, shoot these guys.
And the bell was rung by Ada as a way to draw them away from you. When the bell rings, they leave, not attack you.
From playing RE5 to something like Rock Band, I can say that when I’m playing I don’t see anything but the puzzles or someone shooting at me. The game is about me winning, or surviving and not the AI enemies be they colored cubes or a human of some color with a venus flytrap in its mouth.
A video game in the hands of a normal gamer is a game. The game will not make you any different than you are to begin with. If you’re playing it becuase you like completing difficult tasks, then that’s why you will enjoy it. If you are a racist, then you may get something else from games.
Leave political correctness at the door. Let the crappy sales kill of offensive games. I loathe the idea of a group of do-gooders coming into my world and turning their noses up a say FPSs, so I lean away from the easily offended media whores.
The idea that dressing Africans in TRADITIONAL GARB is now suddenly racist actually makes me mad. Why? Well:
In newest Indiana Jones movie (I just barfed a little in my mouth saying that), we saw THE EXACT SAME THING! But it was South American zombies in traditional garb. No one cared.
We see a totally negative FAT person stereotype in the original FEAR game. (Complete with junk food wrappers everywhere the fat computer geek guy is found). No one cared.
We see Japanese games have monsters in traditional Japanese garb (samurai, etc), we see European games with monsters in traditional garb, (vikings, druids – heck the awesome movie “Hot Fuzz” makes European druids look stupid and evil), and no one cares.
We have a game like Onechanbara: Bikini Samurai Squad totally degrade woman, no one cares.
We have Far Cry 2 which takes place during a war in Africa, and so logically you should fight mostly black skinned people, yet the game has you kill at least 50% whites that are all profiteering – the only nice white person in the whole game is the Jackal WHO IS THE MAIN VILLAIN! All charitable people are black. (In my opinion this game makes whites look evil). And no one cares.
RE5 takes place in Africa, of course they will bring out something authentically African. Guys in Adidas shirts and soccer shorts is not really African, its Imperial. If they were running around doing something stereotypical like in the game Postal (which got in trouble more for violence than Middle Eastern stereotypes ill add), like throwing melons or it was guys in black face then you’d have a case. But the fact is people were (and still ARE), dressed like this in Africa more recently than people were dressed as druids in Europe.
If you are openly gay in the US military you get fired. if you are openly black they do not mind. There are bigger concerns in the world right now than a character design in a cool game; lets get news articles going about those OTHER topics.
Holy cow, sorry gotta reply again! Look up a few comments to “angel”‘s post… Its not just in his/her post (sorry to point you out), but the example is there.. This is something else that I can’t believe when I hear it:
The game takes place in Africa, do not call them AFRICAN AMERICANS! They are African or better yet black 9for this discussion). The fact that there ARE white people in Africa, (Dave Matthews is African), and we can call them white, and there are many skin colors in Africa makes it OKAY to call people with darker skin in Africa black. Saying African is NOT be synonymous with dark skin – which is the hot topic in RE5 – Northern Egyptians for instance do not look the same.. So when you say African “American”… They live in another continent for crying out loud. How PC do you have/need/want to be!? My sister in Law is born and raised in Nigeria, she is NOT a US citizen (and I actually get mad at her about it, she is kinda anti-American yet came over here to live? I tell her to become a citizen or leave if she hates it so much!). But she gets mad when people call her African American, she is only African. She says “black people” herself. Its okay. But don’t call Africans “African Americans”, you’ll probably actually make them mad, (the US is not the most beloved country in all of the world, surprise!).
I dont think its a really big issue. I agree with old dude with that Resident Evil has been presenting the last 100 years of history. They are in Africa and I personally dont know how people act in Africa then what I see on National Geography channel. Its nice to see a mix in any game with race,especially in a star-role.
Brevin stared at the far wall, Tykir at the table, Lanthan at Brevins back. As he did so, he saw the men on the ground moving toward each other. Why worry him? She wanted to be the one who took it in her mouth, pussy, or ass. She fucked all the unmated males. She gave him a shy smile. Needing reassurance, Eyrhaen glanced up at her former master. A soothing warmth pulsed within her, her goddesss spell primed. Or maybe her raw power from before had allowed her to read him more clearly. Hes loved you this entire time. I hope youll eventually forgive me, but I dont expect it to happen now. Yelping, she twisted aside to look at Nialdlye, who held her hands up, palms out. She arched her back as best she could and screamed. They still refused to relent. Whispering low in the smaller mans ear, he pulled Tykir away. One hand braced on his breastbone, she lifted higher on her knees. Theres no reason I should flourish. The three of them were much more comfortable on their own. Sex is one thing —which he very well knew— actual children is another. She twisted her grip as she slid her fist from root to tip.
Have you heard that Pokemon Gray is comming up? After the release of Pokemon Black and White due in March Nintendo team announced the release of Pokemon Gray for this holiday season. I can not wait for Pokemon Black and White to be released, of course I already purchased my copie just to be safe.
If i used a reg cleaner the safest one to use would be fix-it utilities it has a all in one thing
Casey Orson
Oh, superb text! No idea how you were able to say this report..it’d take me days. Well worth it though, I’d assume. Have you considered selling ads on your blog?
We want a polluted country with arsenic, mercury zinc and lots of heavy metals in our food. We want more lead in our diet. We are raving idiots that don’t understand science.