blog

I'd have to say that since the evil character of the series is Wesker (a white man), then maybe we should start questioning his racism.

FarCry 2 has black people that I am shooting at constantly because it takes place in Africa. Why aren't they up to their asses in controversy?

I remember shooting some white people in RE2.

oh long form sarcasm, will i ever tire of you?

Really, Voyou San? He was making a point that I guess you missed.

some people think way too much into this stuff..

and chris, if the trailer truly offended you..... sigh

Very well said, Chris.

I just watched the trailer for the first time, and here's what I saw:

A young, good-looking white guy arrives in a run-down ghetto town. Could be an African village, could be El Paso. The location isn't disclosed, so it must be unimportant.

The young white guy, introduced as Chris Redfield, carries a gun and some sort of supplies pack, and wears a radio headset. His voice-over dialogue mentions "casualties" and having "a job to do", so it's safe to assume he's some sort of law enforcement agent, or special federal agent, or maybe even a mecenary for hire. Again, it isn't disclosed, so it must be unimportant.

Upon further inspection of the scene, Chris Redfield realizes that he is all alone in the center of town (or at least, the center of the part of town in which he is standing). So he dips into the nearest drinking hole to talk to the barkeep, and maybe find out some information about what it is that has brought him here.

When he enters the bar, however, a group of locals (dark-skinned) take offense at his presence and attack him outright. Indeed, it seems like the entire town becomes engulfed in the Campaign to Rid the Village of the White Guy -- they attack with sticks, clubs, and a plethora of dangerous farming equipment, so there's no question that they are trying to inflict mortal damage. Lucky for Chris, though, he came armed, and is trained in the arts of self-defense and self-preservation.

Then, the trailer ends. Now, I'm no marketing genius, but I don't know how effective this trailer can be when it is simply a celebration of racial violence. A group of indigenous blacks trying their damndest to slaughter a lone white guy -- because of his skin color! Perhaps, in their minds, his whiteness represents the evil and oppression that has kept these people in poverty for generations. So they don't want to kill him because he's white, but because THE MAN is white, and the loner who just drifted into town happens to share that skin color.

I think Capcom had better rethink their advertising strategy here, because as a Caucasian male, I am offended.

How funny would it be if there was like one white family on vacation that was also zombified. Like wearing luau print shirts and binoculars and a safari hat... Just as an appeasement, and also a jab at the people who think the game is racist.

amen ninja

I know it doesn't say so in the wikipedia article or anything, but, if you look into the original reasons N'Gai brought up this issue was because of a blog by an African woman who claimed that the "black people are supposed to be zombies" and it's the "white man's job" to destroy them. You can find the post here:

http://www.blacklooks.org/2007/07/resident_evil_5.html

Yes, almost anything can be taken as racist if you look for it hard enough. But, that's the thing, you have to take everything in context and that's what most people miss. Last time it was in Spain. The villagers you have to kill? Spanish. This time in Africa. The villagers you have to kill? African. Sure, she might not have known the context. Sure, it can look somewhat racist a first glance. But it's ignorant to spout off with accusations without looking at the context first. Maybe they should have made a new black character to fill Redfield's shoes? Possibly, but that's plain pandering. Plus, it would lose half the buzz of the game because every fan of the series what's to continue the story of their beloved characters. If we start pandering to that level for certain people then we are only going to get worse. Like starting to delay games because a song in it makes a religious reference and some people might not like it. Oops.

Now, if Chris starts burning crosses, saying the N word, and shooting anybody who is black even if they aren't zombies, then I might agree that it's pretty damn racist. For anything, not just this, if you wonder "wtf?" about something and makes you feel somewhat offended, sit back, ask "does it make sense in the context and would it make less sense if they changed it" and then make your judgment.

I think that just has to do with where it takes place. It seems like it's in some ghetto in like Nairobi or something. There's not a whole lot of white people in Kenya last I heard.

You just know the next RE will be set in Sweden, just to avoid this stupid issue.

It is so goofy that this is even being discussed. The setting is in a town that is primarily black and the town gets infected. Maybe they should have thurned white as a side effect from the infection? would that have been ok? Now black people aren't good enough to be zombies Sean? Simmer down. Barak Obama is our president. We are past this.

@Sean: No, thinking that it's racist without knowing better doesn't mean you aren't intelligent, but people who complain about it being racist without researching are.

@Coop: there's a difference between our context (i.e. as gamers) and the context of the rest of the world. I don't think that a non-gamer who views the trailer and deems it racist is not intelligent, they are just starting from a different P.O.V.

i think the true lesson to be learned here is if a pretty looking white man comes into your remote town with guns, dont try to fight him, just run :)

I agree that the trailer, if taken out of context, is racist. But that's taking it out of context, which I think is sort of a bad way to address intelligent thought.

I never saw that trailer before just now. I guess Sean is trying to say that the trailer didn't drive home the point that the natives had some kind of zombie infection, and it just looked like wanton old school tall tree-cutting. Whether its percieved as racist is subjective, because a RE fan would know the premise, whereas someone less familiar with it could still be left in the dark.

Ditto on the settings/population point. I wouldn't expect a gay romp in Ireland to exclude white people. Although, I think anyone would have to be absolutely mad to think that the industry would condone a game about black genocide...

@Coop: I can't tell, did you just agree with me or not?

Again, and not to belabor the point: the game is separate from the trailer. To an outside observer, whose only "context" is the imagery in the trailer, it appears racist.

That's not to say the game is racist. That's not to say Capcom is racist. However, the trailer, for all appearances, is slanted.

@Sean: So what you're saying is, completely out of context in every way, it could be said that the trailer seems racist.

Alright, that's true.

But in context, which is much, much more important, it isn't. Out of context it might look like "sick, deranged, poor agrarian Africans," but in context, as a resident evil game, they are infected with something that turns them into zombielike creatures.

So, it's saying that "Based SOLELY on what it looks like, I'd say that this is like this."

Hey, that sounds a lot like racism.