Resident Evil 5 just dropped on Friday. It's not without problems, but it's still pretty great. (The addition of coop really goes a long way to making it feel fresh!) All people want to talk about is the racism issue though... and that's good because it's pretty effing important.The New York Times has weighed in on it. Their call? Not Racist.
Bullocks. :(
It's been about a full year since RE5 was first announced. I remember watching the first trailer. Being your average white privileged American male I didn't pick up on anything racist. Africa seemed like a shocking new setting to put zombies in; a far cry from the spooky mansions, castles, laboratories, and Raccoon City streets of Resident Evil's past. I was stoked for it!
And then the internet had some objections.
My initial reaction, like a lot of gamers, was a knee-jerk defense. It was very similar to Seth Schiesel's: zombie viruses don't give a shit what color you are. Anyone can be a zombie and these zombies just happen to be black because the game is in Africa. I was offended that people were really digging for a racist agenda in the game.
But after reading the arguments and talking to people that are much smarter than myself I began to realize that this is a pretty shallow mentality. Just because it doesn't personally affront me with a racist message doesn't mean that it's not racist.
It seems like the big issue is that RE5 preys on century-long fears of Africa as the "Dark Continent." Africans have been depicted as savages forever... the fact that Capcom has justified this imagery for their game by injecting them with zombie viruses (oh I'm sorry... Las Plagas parasites) does not make this imagery ok. And after playing the game they really leverage this imagery to great effect, particularly in the first act. That's not ok.
Seth even points out in his article that a game like this could not have been made in the States because of the social ramifictions. How could that possibly mean that it's ok for it to be made somewhere else? Poorly played, Seth.
I also wonder if there are places in the States where a game like this is actually craved. Are there racist players out there that really want a game where they get to play a white guy shooting black zombies in the face? That also seems to make the game Not Ok.
Overall this article reads more like something I would expect to find in the enthusiast game press... kind of sensationalist and full of defensive posturing. No one's trying to come after games for being racist. No one's trying to take our games away. These conversations are important... and not just because racism is important. I hope that these conversations are important because games are important. They influence people just like other respected media. If we want to be held up next to these other types of media then we should create more thoughtful products and we should certainly be ready to receive the same criticisms.
-Brad!
