Resident Evil Racism

[marmar]

from HuffPost:




Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Political Analyst and Social Issues Commentator
Posted March 14, 2009 | 07:56 PM (EST)
Resident Evil Racism


The well-worn script reads like this. A protest group blasts a video game manufacturer, its designers, actors, and writers for dumping a game on the market loaded with racially insulting and demeaning stereotypes. The video game team yelps that the game is pure entertainment, has some blacks or Latinos in on the design and production, and gets high marks from the industry. That script is trotted out so often that it can be recited while counting sleep.

So it was no surprise that Jun Takeuchi yanked out that script to defend his video game brainchild Resident Evil 5 from the charge that it's racist. But what else could one call it? It features a white male (modern day Bawana) mowing down a pack of poor, primitive disease challenged Africans. The white killer is on a search and destroy mission to stop the spread of a deadly virus. The racist game reinforces the worst of the worst ancient stereotypes against and about Africans.

Yet, the relatively mild protest over the game's racist depictions was just enough to set off a brief scramble in the boardroom of the Osaka based video game conglomerate Capcom. Company CEO Kenzo Tsujimoto assured that there was no intention to racially demean anyone and simply chalked up the controversy to cultural differences and perceptions. That's a rehash of the popular line that Japanese product manufacturers who have been called on the carpet for pumping out offensive racial items--dolls, cartoons, and posters-- fall back on. The flap over Resident Evil 5 even caused the brass at Sony a slight twitch. Sony does a lot of business with Capcom.

The video industry flacks gleefully noted that the game has racked up a string of positive reviews including a top rating on the industry's review aggregation site metacritic.com. That's always good for business; in fact, a little controversy always guarantees a louder tingle in the cash registers. But dollars notwithstanding, racist groups have used video and computer games to market racist messages to kids and even more sinister used them as a sneaky organizing ploy. In 2002, the Anti-Defamation League sounded a loud warning that video and computer games could be the cyber tool to bump up recruits. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/resident-evil-racism_b_175010.html

[rcrush]

1. What? Zombies are a race now?

I didnt know it was racist to shoot zombies.

[davepc]

3. I think they set the game in Africa this time arround.

In Resident Evil 4 the setting was nondescript rural Eastern Europe. I guess nobody cares about a game detecting blasting away at swarms of zombie white people.

[Occam Bandage]

7. Zombies in America? Not racist.

Zombies in Europe? Not racist.
Zombies in Africa? OMG SO RACIST.

[DRoseDARs]

23. Of course, as soon as a game depicts zombie Japanese, these same people are going to dimiss it as...

...just a game.

Or worse, comeuppance.

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[fishwax]

37. they're not zombies

The majini are infected humans, not re-animated undead ...

[Occam Bandage]

68. You seem unfamiliar with zombies.

The post-Romero zombie is most commonly the result of an infection of some sort, and is not in fact a reanimated dead person. In fact, they aren't even necessarily called zombies any more; they weren't called zombies in RE4 either.

[tomreedtoon]

73. Since the only cure is death, they ARE zombies.

This is another "kill everybody" videogame anyway, what's the big controversy?

[inthebrain]

2. Isn't the setting supposed to be Afirca?

RE is a long running series. It's had many settings. The last was Europe and the first few in the series took place in the USA.

Sorry, but this is ridiculous. Resident Evil is not racist at all.

[paulsby]

5. bingo

nobody claimed that the game was racist, when it was set in europe. or the USA.

heck, it's equal opportunity carnage.

europeans and africans can both be zombies!

and everybody knows zombies need killin'

[DRoseDARs]

25. And what about all those poor animals that get turned? THES GAMES R RACEST AGINST AMINALSES!!1

[paulsby]

38. no. it's SPECIST again animals :)

[vadawg]

4. Idiots were not complaining when it was europeans or white americans being killed in the games

gonna have to get my copy of 4 out again and go kill me some infected.

[Name removed]

31. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Occam Bandage]

6. "Susceptible to zombification" is a stereotype of Africans?

I must have missed that one.

[vadawg]

8. no worries someone will tell you that this is racism at its worst

that to even infer that africans are in the least bit susceptible to zombification is reinforcing stereotypes, and that anybody who condones this game is a memeber in good standing of the klan.

[UndertheOcean]

9. fuckit some people are stupid as dirt

[Deja Q]

10. Like Grand Theft Auto. Anybody supporting that game has to support this one too.

[DRoseDARs]

26. Vice City made me want to dress badly and listen to shitty 80s music. And San Andreas?

Don't get me started on how many times I've crashed that fucking plane out in the desert. Goddamn fucking computer laaag...



This game TOTALLY makes me want to fly out to Africa and kill the zombified locals.

...

Wait, no. Fly from one zombie-infested continent to another zombie-infested continent? Fuck that, I think I'll stay in my bunker and fend off the white (and black) (and Asian) (and Amerindian) zombies we have here on this continent, thank you very much.

[Posteritatis]

35. Grand Theft Resident Evil: Multicultural World Tour! (nt)

[Lost in CT]

62. Hell I dressed badly and listened to shitty eighties music in the eighties,,

Damn I miss me some Vice City.

[Bjorn Against]

11. I have played all the major Resident Evil games including 5...

I am now about half way through Resident Evil 5 and when viewed in the context of the series as a whole then I don't think that the game is racist. Every Resident Evil game has involved entire communities which were stricken by a virus which turned the people into zombies...or worse. Past Resident Evil games have taken place in predominantly white communities so the zombies were almost entirely white, this chapter takes place in Africa so the zombies are predominantly black (although there are several of them with lighter skin tones, I think Capcom may have added a little diversity in response to the criticism they were facing). If they are going to set a Resident Evil game in Africa then it would not make sense to have the game populated with white zombies, and Africa does seem like a logical place to bring the series. The next game however will probably go back to the United States or Europe again and the zombies will change with the setting, this is just one chapter in a much larger series.

Some may be surprised by my position on this because I have certainly not been shy about calling out racists in the past, and I have upset a few people here on DU when I have done so. In this case however I just don't see the racism. I understand why people who haven't played Resident Evil and only see the screenshots of Resident Evil 5 may believe that it looks very racist, but I think they would likely think differently if they not only played the game but viewed it in the context of the rest of the series.

[LiberalPersona]

12. This reminds me of the GTA: Vice City thing

where there was an in game comment that said "kill all the Haitians," (it was the text of a mission you pick up to kill Haitian gang members) people took it out of the context of the game and used it to accuse Take Two of advocating racism, and they got TT to remove this phrase from future copies of the game.

People need to look at games for what they are and start comprehending things in the context they're used.

Also, how come there was no similar outrage for Resident Evil 4, in which you mostly fight Spanish zombies?

[DRoseDARs]

18. Because according to BlooInBloo, you're a worthless fuck...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5256444&mesg_id=5258113

17. They're not *racist*, they just have a *different culture*....

:rofl:

Yah, it's a culture of racism you worthless fucks.

My favorite example:
http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2004/11/26/darkie-toothpaste

[MichaelHarris]

13. I've been working very hard

in unionizing zombies. They, more than anyone need better healthcare.

[vadawg]

14. No man those zombies need deadifying

[MichaelHarris]

15. I.B.O.D. and D. W.

International Brotherhood of Dead and Decaying Workers

[varkam]

28. They need a better dental plan, that's for sure.

[DRoseDARs]

16. Funny, I don't recall anyone having aneurysms over mowing down Europeans in RE4...

Something about Central European Spaniards with Mexican accents? Of course, this is a Japanese-produced series, so I'll chalk that up to Attack of the Engrish. :shrug:

[vadawg]

20. LOL i guess some people have nothing better to do than look to be offended.

[BlooInBloo]

17. They're not *racist*, they just have a *different culture*....

:rofl:

Yah, it's a culture of racism you worthless fucks.

My favorite example:
http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2004/11/26/darkie-toothpaste

[vadawg]

19. i get it they were racist when it was europeans and americans in the other chapters, yes thats it

i totally missed the inherent racism towards all non japanese, dam them no more killing zombies for me.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LiberalPersona]

22. Nah

Those things are tame compared to some of the other stuff they make in Japan.

[DRoseDARs]

24. Yes, but I want people to be able to sleep at night.

Telling them about the "GOOD" stuff will turn them all into a nation of sleepless...



...zombies.

[Name removed]

78. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Occam Bandage]

29. Wrong country, Bloo.

Darlie is Taiwanese.

[Solon]

30. If you can't tell the difference between Cantonese and Japanese, well, I guess you are a racist.

Or at least ignorant. Just saying. :shrug:

[Baikonour]

33. Why are you such an angry person? n/t

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

57. It's just a gimmick

He's the Riley Freeman of DU.

[Godhumor]

34. Well, yes, the Japanese are a different culture from the people who made the product you linked to

Ironic.

[BlooInBloo]

36. No irony, as I never said that they made it....

I never conflated China and Japan. The example was chosen because it exists throughout Asia. I first came across the product in the Philippines. My first link is in reference to China. Here is another link referencing the same product in Japan:

http://www.prmuseum.com/kendrix/abroad.html

I suppose it would have been helpful, in avoiding specious rebuttal, to have said this from the start. Oh well.



EDIT: Clarified subject.

[Baikonour]

43. So you're saying the entire Asian culture is xenophobic, then?

Hmm.

[Occam Bandage]

61. If your goal is to show xenophobia in Japan,

a product that is manufactured in Hong Kong by a Taiwan-based company owned by Colgate-Palmolive is not a very good example. It is, in fact, a terrible example, and one that only makes the remotest degree of sense if you believe that Asians are all the same. Never mind that there are scattered claims of the product being sold on a limited basis in Japan; I didn't see it when I was in Tokyo, and I suspect that Darlie is sold much in the same way it is sold in America: on a very limited basis, entirely through the import market, and to people who acquired that brand preference in a foreign country.

I mean, if you want to point out Japanese xenophobia, there are a hundred modern examples involving Koreans and Chinese you could have used. I suppose, though, that an apologist manga in which a Japanese claims "It’s not an exaggeration to say that Japan built the South Korea of today!" is nowhere near as useful a bludgeon on an American internet forum as a picture calling on specifically American racist imagery (which, I might add, is not meaningful in Asia in the same way it is in America) with Asian-looking writing all over it.

What I can't understand, however, is why you still insist that there is no irony in tossing all of Asia into one blame-worthy pot to complain about Japanese xenophobia.

[Lost in CT]

63. Um that looks like Chinese writing....

I love dem crazy Japanese...

[varkam]

27. I've played the game...and people need to lighten up a little bit.

I've played RE5 and I didn't get the sense that it was racist at all. I mean, I understand why people are trying to say that it is since it is set in Africa, but it really didn't seem to me that the creators made a big deal of it at all. I mean hell, all the bad guys that you have to go up against are about as white as the driven snow. Plus, the article seemed to neglect to mention the fact that your partner who sticks with you the whole game (and can be played by another person cooperatively) is...well...African. I honestly thought Africa was an interesting setting that the creators did well with creating in the RE universe. There are also some distinctly pro-African plot-points that run throughout the game that I won't spoil for anyone.

I'm all for calling out racism where it exists - but I honestly think that it's just not here. I mean I can understand where people might think that just by hearing a couple things about the game ("It's set in Africa with zombies, and you have to kill African zombies? That's racism!!!one!") - but I don't think that anyone who is seriously advancing that charge has actually played it.

[paulsby]

40. this also shows the stampede to assume racism

assume there never WAS a RE I, 2, 3 or 4.

iow, this was the first resident evil, and it was placed in africa.

then people (even moreso) would be assuming it was racist.

racism will truly be dead when people don't assume a portrayal of a minority group is motivated by racism, as much when the portrayal itself isn't motivated by racism.

iow, the existence of racism also forces many to assume racist motivations even absent evidence of same apart from the fact that the negatively portrayed person(s) are a particular minority.

[petronius]

39. Forget the so-called racism - I'm pissed that the protagonist is a white MALE

What happened to the smokin' hot minidress-wearing killing-machine chick!? :grr:

[Jamastiene]

48. W00t!

Lara Croft, Tomb Raider. :woohoo:

[Lost in CT]

64. She is in the co-op. nt

[ButterflyBlood]

83. It's got a male and female character

Like every RE game in the past too.

[anonymous171]

41. Wow. The controversy over this game is actually helping racists more than the game itself.

[fishwax]

42. how ridiculous is it to think a game where the player is a white guy shooting crowds of rabid

black people might have anything to do with racism?

I mean, sure it's true that western culture has often expressed its anxiety about non-whiteness through metaphors of contagion, but how on earth could someone bring racism into this just because black people are depicted as infected by some strange disease that turns them into savage, bloodthirsty mutants? After all, it wasn’t racist to depict white Americans as zombies, so how could it be racist to depict black Africans as—well, not exactly zombies, since they aren’t undead—but just as being susceptible to infection and threatening to spread that infection to white folk like the protagonist ...

But how on earth could someone bring racism into this just because the infected Majini, unlike the zombies in earlier games from the series, can be largely indistinguishable from their fellow black humans?

How on earth could someone bring racism into this just because there’s a scene where a gang of infected black folk drag a screaming white blond woman away? And is there anything to suggest racism in the fact that the screaming blond woman gets rescued, but because of her contact with the infected black people it’s too late to save her so she has to be killed?

But how on earth could someone think the game is racist when the white guy’s helper is actually black herself? I mean, sure, she’s lighter skinned than the bad black Africans, and she doesn’t talk like they do, but still ... and just because the game apparently shows uninfected Africans engaging in random acts of senseless violence and brutality, as though they weren't really much different from the infected majini in the first place--how on earth could anyone associate that with racism?

I mean lol it's just a video game :eyes:

[Toasterlad]

44. Resident Evil Is DEFINITELY a Racist Game

Also racist: The Kool-Aid dude. In the last commercial I saw, he broke through the wall of a home owned by an African-American family. This clearly perpetuates the stereotype that African-American homes are shoddy and invite structural damage from large animated pitchers.

[fishwax]

46. yeah, that's almost the same thing

:eyes:

[Toasterlad]

49. Exactly.

[Roadless]

56. That is hilarious

good enough to make the Daily Show or the Onion.

[mitchum]

80. But the Kool Aid dude is gay!

He is a pitcher, isn't he?

[varkam]

47. Have you played the game?

I'm gonna guess...not.

As I posted above, your partner is African, the main bad guys are white as hell, your "other partner" is also African (and he's dark!), and the infected range in color from black to white. There is no indication that Africans are somehow uniquely susceptible to infection (indeed, it seems to work just fine on pretty blond women, as well), and there are what seem to be uniquely pro-African plot points throughout the game.

Wait! What am I doing! I don't want to be a racist apologist!

:eyes:

[fishwax]

59. I've only seen the demo

You're right that I haven't played the game, but I did read your post upthread, and you may be right on all points. You mentioned that it is decidedly pro-Africa in certain points, and I've read other reviews that suggested it very much had an anti-colonial slant. Of course, it could be true that the game both advances an anti-colonial message and still employs or reinforces various longstanding racist tropes from the West's imagination of Africa, whether intentionally or not.

[varkam]

79. I've got to say that beyond the game featuring black people and being set in Africa...

there's really nothing in it that I can point to relies on stereotyping. So far, all that I have seen from the blogosphere accusing the game of being a racist creation is relying on a lot of bluster and straw men (like the assertion that the game makes it out that Africans are somehow uniquely susceptible to infection. I have played the entire game through from start to finish, and nowhere between those two points is it even implied. In fact, as I referenced in my previous post, there's a point in the game where a very blond--and very white--woman gets infected just as easily as the Africans do and you have to mow her down, as well).

And your point about your partner being light-skinned is well taken. In fact, that has always sort of annoyed me that African-Americans in pop culture tend to be light skinned. Which is why I thought it was pretty cool that another one of the folks on your team, who is also African, is darkly skinned. But anyway, that's an issue that seems to go way beyond RE5.

Additionally, I was playing it again yesterday and noticed that a good number of the zombies that you face are not, in fact, black at all. Indeed, the skin tones of the zombies seem to range from very dark to gamer. Many of the infected seem strangely reminiscent of RE4 -- I'm guessing because the creators hate the Spanish.

Honestly, I'm all for calling out racism where it exists, and it exists in a lot of places, but this whole episode just seems to me that a bunch of people are falling over themselves to proclaim outrage when there's really nothing there. In my opinion, it really diminishes their credibility when it comes to a broader view of race-relations. I think a big part of it, too, is because it's a video game. The older generation has an axe to grind with video games in much the same way that the generation before them had an axe to grind with rock and roll music. Maybe when it comes to the critical evaluation of such things, some folks just toss their reasoning ability out the window and figure that, since it's video games we're talking about, it must be racist/evil/devil worship, et cetera (that is not directed at you, but I'm just speaking generally)

[backscatter712]

53. Some people read too much into this.

Yes, as a matter of fact, it is just a video game.

Oh, and you get to kill zombies of all races in that game, IIRC.

[Lost in CT]

65. This reminds me of all the self important screaming about

Mercenaries 2 cause it took place in Venezaula...

Would you prefer that no blacks are depicted at all....

I mean we can eliminate blacks from video games and then you couldn't accuse anyone of racism.

Kind of like we have done with much television and movies...

There was a reason the gang in the South Bronx in Death wish 3 was white punk rockers... cause hiring blacks to depict a Bronx gang would be racist.

[fishwax]

69. lol

"Would you prefer that no blacks are depicted at all...."

You wouldn't be the first to argue that this depiction is a sign of diversity and progress. After all, having more than one minority on the screen at once is revolutionary: http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/01/african-womens-blog-upset-over-resident-evil-5/

[Occam Bandage]

66. how ridiculous is it to think a game where the player is an American shooting crowds of rabid

European people might have anything to do with racism?

I mean, sure it's true that western culture has often expressed its anxiety about foreigners through metaphors of contagion, but how on earth could someone bring racism into this just becaus European people are depicted as infected by some strange disease that turns them into savage, bloodthirsty mutants? After all, it wasn’t racist to depict white Americans as zombies, so how could it be racist to depict Europeans as—well, not exactly zombies, since they aren’t undead—but just as being susceptible to infection and threatening to spread that infection to Americans like the protagonist ...

But how on earth could someone bring racism into this just because the infected Ganados, unlike the zombies in earlier games from the series, can be largely indistinguishable from their fellow European humans?

How on earth could someone bring racism into this just because there’s a scene where a gang of infected Europeans drag a screaming American girl away? And is there anything to suggest racism in the fact that the screaming American girl gets rescued, but her contact with the Europeans has infected her and she risks infecting the American WASP power structure with her foreign contagion?

But how on earth could someone think the game is racist when the American guy’s helper is actually foreign herself? I mean, sure, she’s a model minority Asian and not a European, and she doesn’t talk like they do, but still ... and just because the game apparently shows uninfected European cultists engaging in random acts of senseless violence and brutality, as though they weren't really much different from the infected Ganados in the first place--how on earth could anyone associate that with racism?

I mean lol it's like you haven't actually played any game in the series because that is the exact same plot as the last game that nobody called racist, only on a different continent.

[fishwax]

67. most of that doesn't really make sense

there's not the same history of representing Europeans in general as subhuman as exists with those in the African diaspora.

As for the Ganados, I do remember some discussion of racism when RE 4 came out, though certainly not to the degree that the issue was raised when the first images of RE 5 came out. But I remember discussion of the fact that these southern european bad guys were not, like in earlier versions, zombies, but rather carriers of contagion. I never played RE 4, and can't even remember seeing any screenshots or anything, so I can't really speak to that.

[Occam Bandage]

70. You're right, it doesn't make sense at all. But yet every bit of that is exactly

as true as regards RE4 as what you have written as regards RE5. The only difference is that you are sensitive to negative depictions of Africans, and you are not sensitive to negative depictions of Europeans. If you were an educated Irish-American in the 1870s, and were told about the two plotlines, you would find RE4's plot a blatant manifestation of historical racism aimed at European immigrants, and would find RE5's plotline not only sympathetic to the Africans but in fact far too much so, as the game ultimately blames their condition on a small cadre of rich white exploiters.

I can see why people would look at any game in which some black people are shot by some white people and immediately claim racism. If this game was released with no context but American depictions of Africans, then I would see it as racially charged. But if I add to that the context of the previous four RE games (especially number four) and the sympathetic context of the socially destructive nature of African colonialism (referenced in the fact that the infection and death of the Africans are found to be a direct result of malicious whites), I come to the conclusion that this is simply another step in the RE series. I don't believe that a well-worn story ought be seen as racist simply because a particular retelling of it takes place in Africa instead of in Europe.

[Lost in CT]

72. But RE4 took place in Spain not Ireland...

plus if you were to find an educated Irish American in the 1870's (I'm not claiming that is an oxymoron but it is no small task) I'm sure he would be more concerned and fascinated with the zombies, genetic engineering, and computers than any background color.

[Occam Bandage]

75. Three things:

1. So what? I picked Irish because Irish immigrants were the first to come to mind as regards Europeans who were subject to subhuman racial stereotyping in America. I might as well have picked Italian, Polish, whatever.

2. I think it is obvious I meant if you explained the plot in general terms, omitting anything based in modern science. Keep in mind we're discussing the background color, so I would think our hypothetical Irishman would probably be told about the background color, glossing over things unrelated to that aspect of the plot.

3. Nothing you wrote has anything to do with the discussion we were having except on the most superficial possible terms. It's mildly ironic you claim the that Irishman would not be interested in the unimportant background minutia, but yet your post focuses entirely on the unimportant background minutia of my own. I mean, if you want to play pedant, fine, I'm game, but I don't see what that has to do with the discussion we're having about Resident Evil 5 and race.

[Lost in CT]

77. Geez lighten up.... I was pointing out the obvious...

there were no zombies in 1870 (they were a 20th century invention)though perhaps calling them revenants would help. When you describe Resident Evil, you can gloss over the point that they used handheld automatic weapons or computers or the outfits the woman fought in but at some point your going to have to mention zombies.

Resident Evil 5 is no more racist than a film that takes place in Africa. Don't get me wrong people complain about films that have black people in them as well.

[fishwax]

74. well, I'm not sure whether all that is true for RE 4 or not

As I said, I don't know enough about RE 4 to speak authoritatively about it, but my understanding was that it was specifically southern europe (Spain) and this is where the concerns about racism were raised. I didn't dismiss any such claims, because I never played that version and don't even remember seeing screenshots.

"The only difference is that you are sensitive to negative depictions of Africans, and you are not sensitive to negative depictions of Europeans."

Actually, no. I'm well-versed in negative depictions of southern Europeans, of the Irish, and of Eastern Europeans; but your post transferred the stereotypes I mentioned to "Europeans," and "Europeans" in general have not historically been depicted as subhuman savages whose presence infects the culture. Had your post referred to such stereotypes about the Irish (as you mention in your last post) or Southern Europeans (who are apparently the subject of RE 4), I would have responded differently.

I'm not sure whether the exact situations are the same in RE4--whether, for instance, there is the grabbing of an American girl that you describe or whether noninfected southern Europeans engage in random acts of brutality that have no apparent bearing on the game or whether the infected Ganados are virtually indistinguishable from uninfected southern Europeans. (A quick glance at the wikipedia page suggests that this is not the case--it says they continue carrying out their agricultural duties but lose all interest in hygiene.) At any rate, all of that may or may not be true, but if you say that it is I'll happily concede that because it has no real bearing on my point. And if all that was true, I wouldn't automatically dismiss someone who saw that as problematic.

"I can see why people would look at any game in which some black people are shot by some white people and immediately claim racism. If this game was released with no context but American depictions of Africans, then I would see it as racially charged. But if I add to that the context of the previous four RE games (especially number four) and the sympathetic context of the socially destructive nature of African colonialism (referenced in the fact that the infection and death of the Africans are found to be a direct result of malicious whites), I come to the conclusion that this is simply another step in the RE series. I don't believe that a well-worn story ought be seen as racist simply because a particular retelling of it takes place in Africa instead of in Europe."

That all may well be correct. I'm not sure I fully agree that the apparently problematic aspects can be forgiven simply because it's part of a larger story, but this is clearly a more reasoned response than to simply dismiss the discussion because "it's just a video game" or "they're just zombies" (which isn't true) or "they killed white people in other games and that wasn't racist" and so on. And that, incidentally, was really the point of my initial post. I didn't say in that post that the game is inherently or intentionally racist, but rather that it does appear to speak to and interact with a number of historically racist tropes about Africa. And if that's the case (and I haven't seen anyone show otherwise) then it's wrong to dismiss the discussion out of hand.

[Occam Bandage]

76. The crux of our discussion is in your penultimate sentence:

I didn't say in that post that the game is inherently or intentionally racist, but rather that it does appear to speak to and interact with a number of historically racist tropes about Africa.

Never mind the particulars of analogies, nor of the way that eyerolls and sarcasm cloud precise points. It is late. As regards RE5, we agree on several two points, and I think that we can discard the rest as being unnecessary frill. The first is that there are many offensive historical depictions of Africans as the much-feared, brutal, malignant Other. The second is that the Resident Evil series is about zombies.

To be clear on our terms, I do not say 'zombies' to mean magically reanimated corpses. I say 'zombies' to mean people who have become mindless, violent, soulless beings devoid of anything we might deem humanity through some catastrophic event, be that event magical, biological, chemical, or of some yet-unexplored pseudoscientific nature. These zombies, intellectual descendants of those fathered by George Romero in the movie Dawn of the Dead, are used for a number of purposes: occasionally to explore the nature of humanity vis-a-vis the soul, but more commonly to represent society, or more specifically a representation of a subset of society. The shuffling, ravenous, dangerous zombie horde is frequently meant to represent the underclass, or more specifically the terrifying threat of the underclass seen by those who consider themselves above it. Including and beyond that, zombie media has a long and rich tradition of using zombies to fill in for the fears of society. Zombies are a common representation of the threat of the Other: the Other cannot be reasoned with or understood, and our ultimately defenseless society will collapse if the Other ever breaks through and establishes the most tentative foothold.

The nature of the zombie established, we come to the problem: The depiction of Africans as a malign and subhuman Other exists, and is offensive. The depiction of zombies as an exploration of the Other exists, and is fair and enjoyable; Resident Evil has a fair and acceptable history of engaging in such themes in multiple locations across the world. So is the depiction of an African zombie horde--that is to say, an African face on a representation of the terrifying Other--ipso facto necessarily an reprehensible justification of the Othering of Africans?

Or to be more general, is it absolutely impossible to depict members of frequently-Othered groups in a situation in which those individuals represent the Other (for specific and justifiable reasons) without declaring that the Othering of the entire group is acceptable?

I say no to both; I think further context both within and outside of the depiction can and in this case does define and limit the Othering. Your point, as best I can tell, is that no such definition and limitation can occur, or at the very least that the probability of such occurring is low enough that it is irresponsible to dismiss claims of racism as ill-founded.

[mrbarber]

45. This game is no more racist..

Than Resident Evil 4 was racist for having hordes of white European villagers attacking the protagonist.

The Resident Evil series has alwasys been about The Umbrella Corporation (A huge multi-national organization run by affluent white men-don't believe me, read the novelizations on the series) not caring what effect their bio-weapon research has on the world around them, and the consequences of their irresponsible practices.

[burning rain]

50. There's rich irony in adults making a video game...

that involves killing zombies a significant part of their lives.

[Occam Bandage]

71. You can stop at "rich."

Resident Evil 4 grossed about three hundred million dollars. RE5 will beat that handily.

[MellowDem]

51. The stupid! It hurts!

Anyone who thinks this game is racist are themselves racist. If you are that ignorant, you pretty much have to be racist. Not to mention, you are ignoring all the previous games that had white people getting shot up, therefore exposing your hypocrisy and hate of whites, and your racism of course. You damn, dirty Klansmen/women you! :crazy:

[aikoaiko]

52. Hutchinson's case for racism seems weak to me given the context of the RE series.

To exclude Africa from the story because it might offend is patriachical at best.

[Lost in CT]

54. Zombies in Africa??? Maybe they escaped from a zoo....

[Roadless]

55. The last two games were white people as zombies

I think it all depends on location of the story line.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

58. In the future all movies, TV shows and video games.....

....will have to be made cast against type......IOW, "Goodfellas" will still be about the Italian mafia, but star only black actors......this game would be set in Africa but Italians would attack you....William Wallace would be played by Chun Yeo Fat.....

I guess that is the only way to make anyone happy.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

60. Oh fer' fuck's sake!

It's a video game, people!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

81. Somebody told me last week that huffingtonpost was of poor quality.

Now I know why.

[tangent90]

82. If this isn't proof that video games make people insane, nothing is.

Sure is a lot of whining over this silly shit...

[AB_Positive]

84. Uh, this 'outrage' started over a year ago...

...and in the VG world has been over, done with, and horse-beaten for months now.

Huffington Post JUST got wind of this? Do they mention that one of the two main characters is African-American herself? *shakes head*

Here's a thought - the game has an M rating. Make sure those under 17 don't play it. Or better yet - play a better game, Resident Evil hasn't been good since 2.