Poll: Is Resident Evil 5 Racist?
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Ha, ha. Pretty good. But seriously:anti_strunt said:
I was never really sure if the Umbrella Corporation was actually out to conquer the world. It just seemed that they like causing trouble. Or maybe it's all building up to something, I don't know.
I'd say the moral is, rich white guys in positions of power with zombie viruses are the root of all evil in those games. But we'll just have to see when the game comes out.
Rutawitz said:
He's gonna punch someone in the month!
I mean, im no expert but thats probably a little bit of overkill.
The mouth, sure. You can punch someone in the mouth.
But the month... dude, uncalled for.
Even if RE turns out to be not the slightest bit racist, it could still end up being in very poor taste...Hevoo said:
Damnit, for a second there I thought you ment the debate was going a lot better... WHY DO I EVEN BOTHER :*-(Hevoo said:
Swedish, by the way. International paragon of virtue...
No and no and the original blog that brought all of this up in the first place was written by a feminist that had no idea what the series was about or the concept of Resident Evil, other than the minute long trailer she only watched some of or, rather, enough to be able to type "White man shooting blacks" or something along the lines of that.
On top of it, the actual blog entry isn't even a paragraph long. News stations and internet media just sort of took the entry and ran with it, painting a picture that RE 5 is racially unacceptable even though Capcom is really only trying to do something new and add a little diversity into the mix (You know, like having the setting and stuff happening OUTSIDE of Raccoon City, a city that was nuked almost ten years ago, a formula that worked VERY WELL in Resident Evil 4).
Can't come up with the link right now
, read it a month ago.
Also, I don't think your sidekick being black has anything to do with "making up for the racism". This game was being developed well before idiots started making accusations.
Honestly, this is the same argument as the Fat Princess game being "fatist", a term that can't be found even in my own dictionary at home. Objections dealing with racism should be met with a quick "lolwat?"
On top of it, the actual blog entry isn't even a paragraph long. News stations and internet media just sort of took the entry and ran with it, painting a picture that RE 5 is racially unacceptable even though Capcom is really only trying to do something new and add a little diversity into the mix (You know, like having the setting and stuff happening OUTSIDE of Raccoon City, a city that was nuked almost ten years ago, a formula that worked VERY WELL in Resident Evil 4).
Can't come up with the link right now
, read it a month ago. Also, I don't think your sidekick being black has anything to do with "making up for the racism". This game was being developed well before idiots started making accusations.
Honestly, this is the same argument as the Fat Princess game being "fatist", a term that can't be found even in my own dictionary at home. Objections dealing with racism should be met with a quick "lolwat?"
But this isn't history, and this isn't a court case. It's a video game. As such, we know the motivations and the context of the situation: Virus released in country, citizens turn into zombies, hero comes to save day. That could be placed on any locale, with any group of people. Where does race come into this?anti_strunt said:
If it was a predominantly white country or state that this happened to, and we were killing all white zombies, would there be an outcry? No! And I'm not saying there should be. But you can't have a double standard with different races.
You say look at the context and I fully agree. If the REASON that the killings are going on are because of race, then we have a problem. But if race has nothing to do with it (And nothing that has been shown about the game that suggests that it does), then at the risk of sounding redundant: Race has nothing to do with it.
Actually, I think it's almost exactly the opposite - while obviously every race should be treated equally and recieve the same defense against deflamation, there is still the issue of hundreds of years of history, with all the ideological, mythological and other mental baggage that goes with it. There is a unique history of relationships between every two pairs of "races" which must be considered separately when evaluating if something is racist or not.Baby Tea said:
If I portrayed a black person eating watermellon and chicken and dancing like crazy, it would play to certain stereotypes. If I portrayed an asian person doing the same, the situation would be completely different. The former may not even be racist in intent, but would still have to be considered in the light of history.
There is a very unfortunate history of negative steretypes with single white heroes struggling against hordes of brownish locals and inevitably triumphing - just like there is a history of stories about white heroes saving natives from themselves, because they are too uncivilised to do it on their own; white mans burden, and all that.
I'm not saying the game will actively try to play towards those stereotypes. I'm not saying the game will be racist, because right now, I don't think it will. However, changing the locale from Midwestern US to Darkest Africa does make a difference, quite simply by changing the framework of associated values and the history within which the game must be considered. To say that it's all the same is naïve.
Just my point - different races, different stereotypes, different issues to consider.mike1921 said:
Which is why it isn't necessarily the same if I'm shooting Pink Zombies or Purple Zombies.
I know that, I was thinking of the earlier games... Replace US with Spain and my point still stands.
Racism is a form of value system. But my phrasing was substandard, and still is after editing. I am refering to the sum total of all ideas and stereotypes associated with a certain race/continent. If you change the location, you get a whole new set of "values" to work with - so what worked just fine before might end up being racist when placed in a new context. Again, without any ill intent on the side of the creator.
But we aren't talking stereotypes (Unless you consider black people in Africa a stereotype). Yes there is a history of racism that is different for each ethnicity, and each have different stigmas and stereotypes that are associated with them, but that are harmless to other ethnicities. No debate there.anti_strunt said:
But we aren't seeing that in this game, which is what the big debate and hulla-balloo is about. I could concede that there may be perceived imagery with a white protagonist and black antagonists, but I would say you could say that about any movie or book or game where there are black bad guys and white good guys. Or Asian bad guys and white good guys.
If the ethnicity of the antagonist(s) is directly related to the setting of the game, and the ethnicity of the enemies is only because of the setting, then where is the racism? Keep in mind that we're talking about this game imparticular.
All of the controversy surrounding this subject is ridiculous. I bet nobody even claimed they were offended by the idea of shooting black zombies in Africa, it was just a PC nut trying to keep none existent people happy that propagated all this bollocks.
You're in Africa... the zombies are from Africa... where is the issue? (same thing goes for RE4...)
(if we're going to complain, why not complain that in RE4 you were a special agent sent to rescue the presidents daughter with nothing but a pistol?)
(if we're going to complain, why not complain that in RE4 you were a special agent sent to rescue the presidents daughter with nothing but a pistol?)
Welcome to equality politics. Its also silly how some consider it less racist now that leon will have someone else running about with him who looks like a halfcast African. However if Resident Evil 4 was anything to go by with all the "ay ay ay" going on it wouldn't surprise me if the character used the lines "Oh Lordy" or "we-sa all gona die".
The fact that its a white man shooting lots of Africans doesn't make it racist or stereotypical, however Capcom in the last one did make some pretty stereotypical and possibly offensive designs in the previous game that may be made in this game. I.e. Every character in the game never washed as seen by the dirt stains.
The fact that its a white man shooting lots of Africans doesn't make it racist or stereotypical, however Capcom in the last one did make some pretty stereotypical and possibly offensive designs in the previous game that may be made in this game. I.e. Every character in the game never washed as seen by the dirt stains.
Lordy, you built yourself quite a strawman to argue at. I have not brought up the issue of race at all. In fact, my original post went like this...Hevoo said:
If you need me to spell it out, I'm playing the Victim Card, not the Race Card. I consider it poor taste to kick a man while he's down, and right now I'm seeing exactly that in a "What If?" scenario, where a group of poor, starving people are infected with something that makes them less than human, and must be wiped out thusly. I don't give a damn that they're black, I give a damn that they're dehumanized, because unlike our dear Spaniards in RE4, this runs uncomfortably parallel to the real world; poverty, hunger, violence, and disease are very real, and very prevalent, in Africa today, and that's where I take issue with this. The Spaniards were doing fine until Las Plagas came around, but these people were suffering before the infection. See the difference?Eiseman said:
Now this probably sounds overly sensitive, but you know what? I think so too. I'm very much overreacting to nothing more than a singular screenshot I've seen of RE5. I would never actually act on a concern as trite as this over a fucking video game, especially Resident Evil. What I AM saying is that it doesn't give you the right to bite people's heads off whenever someone takes an issue that sounds like it might give our "precious vidjyah gamez" a bad name. Some of these concerns might actually be legitimate, but you'll be forever ignorant if you just dismiss them.