Capcom/RE5 racist?

Maverick

Maverick

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I saw this story on AOTS and G4TV.com, and I thought I'd share it with you guys. " . . . activist/media analyst/blogger Kym Platt is seeing red over the trailer to Resident Evil 5. According to Platt (and others on the web) the trailer shown at this year's E3 is 'problematic on so many levels.' The vid, according to Platt, depicts black people as 'inhuman savages, the killing of Black people by a white man in military clothing, and the fact that this video game is marketed to children and young adults. Start them young… fearing, hating, and destroying Black people.'"

So, if you've seen the RE5 trailer what do you think? After I saw the trailer I just knew it would cause trouble. I'll save my opinion until after I get back from vacation, but I'm very interested to hear what everyone has to say on the subject.

I will say this though, as a gamer who would be best described as an African American, I knew people would have a problem with the trailer. For a lot of black people it's damn near impossible to get past race, and when you show a white man killing black men and women you are going to have a problem in America. Race is and always will be a sensitive topic for some- plain and simple. Someone at the American branch of Capcom should've brought this issue up as a potential media disaster. RE5 doesn't come out until '08 or '09 (can't remember which) so the game has a lot of time to gather mountains of bad press. The gaming industry really doesn't need this problem right now, not with all the Rockstar dealings and so forth. Anyway, like I said, I will share my opinion on whether I think the trailer is racist when I have more time, but I hope the rest of you all will share yours as you see fit.
 
Well, I think I did see that trailer a while back, but I hardly remember it. Although I'm a pretty big RE fan, I guess that's why I'm not so pumped about RE5 right now (didn't really stand out), but as for the question of the killing of black people, not sure. I'll have to watch the trailer again. But my initial inclination is that maybe context is the key to this and should be considered, either by Capcom or we the gamers or both.

I'm going to try and look at this from a creative standpoint. A common creative approach from my observations in movies or games (or anything else really) is to arrive at some idea/notion/concept that you can then build around. It seeds everything thereafter. In regards to the RE series (and probably most games), location/setting is one such seeding idea that spawns everything else. With a new type of location, you can exploit interactively all kinds of new things that are inherent to that environment. The guys at Capcom landed on a desert environment, maybe because they saw opportunities that haven't been exploited for the sake of gameplay yet in such a place (dealing with heat stroke issues, eyes have to adjust to light/dark, etc). Next comes determining the details so that the location is justified logically. One such justification is to set the game in an arid African region. This may be informed by current events or the collective knowledge about the region so that there is some amount of recognition and initial attachment the gamer wil have when they first play it; or they choose it so that they can then provide some parallel commentary relevant to today's reality.

The fact that black people are being killed and are the main enemies is incidental, just a detail that helps to logically justify the game world--you wouldn't want, say, aristocratic white guys with monacles and canes running around in the desert unless you're going for a more surrealist/absurdist approach. They could set it in the Middle East and have the main character (Chris is it?) kill middle-eastern zombies. Would that make it better or more just, for us Western gamers to kill the "terrorists" instead of black people?

Basically, my stance is wait and see and give the benfit of the doubt to Capcom. Sure, they could have created a politically correct trailer, but that might have been hard to do and convey the reality of the gameplay that they are crafting, thus defeating the point of making a trailer to begin with. You also might have to consider the relative racial homogeneity of Japan, as stated by someone out there regarding this topic.
 
Maverick said:
I saw this story on AOTS and G4TV.com, and I thought I'd share it with you guys. " . . . activist/media analyst/blogger Kym Platt is seeing red over the trailer to Resident Evil 5. According to Platt (and others on the web) the trailer shown at this year's E3 is 'problematic on so many levels.' The vid, according to Platt, depicts black people as 'inhuman savages, the killing of Black people by a white man in military clothing, and the fact that this video game is marketed to children and young adults. Start them young… fearing, hating, and destroying Black people.'"

So, if you've seen the RE5 trailer what do you think? After I saw the trailer I just knew it would cause trouble. I'll save my opinion until after I get back from vacation, but I'm very interested to hear what everyone has to say on the subject.

I will say this though, as a gamer who would be best described as an African American, I knew people would have a problem with the trailer. For a lot of black people it's damn near impossible to get past race, and when you show a white man killing black men and women you are going to have a problem in America. Race is and always will be a sensitive topic for some- plain and simple. Someone at the American branch of Capcom should've brought this issue up as a potential media disaster. RE5 doesn't come out until '08 or '09 (can't remember which) so the game has a lot of time to gather mountains of bad press. The gaming industry really doesn't need this problem right now, not with all the Rockstar dealings and so forth. Anyway, like I said, I will share my opinion on whether I think the trailer is racist when I have more time, but I hope the rest of you all will share yours as you see fit.
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Yeah, as soon as I saw that the game was taking place in what was probably Africa, I immediately thought that somebody would call racism. Though, I still think it is pretty cool that a game is actually going to take place in Africa. Because, outside a stretch in SOCOM, I can't think of a game that ever took place in Africa.

But this is justifiable in the plot. Something that's been a bit of a theme in RE of late is using isolated, low-population, heavily rural areas. Be they Code Veronica or RE4. Did Capcom decide to put RE5 into Africa because they saw it as a great chance to really drive home an underlying theme of racism present throughout the entire game. They just wanted to put it in a place similar-but-different-from the old Mediterranean Isles, military bases in Antarctica, or a village in the Pyrenees. I mean, they could do something like a small place out in the Yukon Territory in Canada, but who would want to play a game about ::shudder:: Canada?

The most obvious locations for places that are desolate, low-tech, and have isolated villages would be some of the islands in the Indian Ocean, Indonesia or Central America (all three of which could spawn similar cries of racism), Alaska or the Yukon (though Capcom already has a next-gen game that focuses heavily on dealing with being waste-deep in snow), Africa (which is what they're doing) or the middle-east (which would also also be called racist). And yeah, Africa is definitely the best locale for a new RE because it would be the most unique from any other in the series.

But yeah, RE has had white people, black people, hispanic people and REALLY white people (like those guys from the castle in RE4). Capcom is just reminding us that ALL people, regardless of race, are evil.

But be honest, Roach. YOu aren't looking forward to RE5 cuz you're a crazy bastard who didn't like RE4.

But it isn't coming out until 2009. Which makes me sad :(
 
Yeah I saw this coming too.

If you think about it in that woman's perspective, she probably doesn't play games and probably hasn't seen the previous RE's, so she wouldn't understand that they're zombies. That or she does understand but just doesn't care. The other thing is the zombies don't really look like zombies anymore. Most look fairly normal and act fairly normal now.

And of course there are always the sick people who'll buy RE5 only to be able to kill Africans...
Like someone said in the Gametrailers forums: "Their complaining only makes me more eager to gun them down".
 
Spudz: Well, I wouldn't say I didn't like RE4. I just ain't as crazy about it as everyone else is. You can understand that, cuz I think we agree on the same kind of thing regarding God of War. And of course I'm looking forward to it. It's RE. They're going to carry over a lot of intangible things from game to game that I like, and I've always liked RE, so yeah.

But Spudz' argument compliments mine. With a new location brings new ways to engage the players, both in terms of interactivity and aesthetics. But the game designers have to maintain the franchise's world logic, or what you could call cosmology. It's the inner logic by which the games operate, which is invariably different from real life or other games. Movies, games, books, any fictional thing has a cosmology--some more defined and consistent than others. So, the inner logic of RE needs to maintain a level of realism to be consistent. So, game designers have to be true to the real-life geographic region up to a certain extent, at which point they interject the stuff that makes their game unique. Although, I must say that RE4 seems to have taken this 'inner logic' in a different direction and established a different precendent. :p But this usually happens when the formula isn't as fresh and money needs to made, so they change some things around to allow for adjustments in the gameplay or game design to appeal to a wider audience.

Now, we'll have to wait and see the final product before you can honestly evaluate the game to be racist. Obviously, there is not going to be any intentional racism. Corporate powers wouldn't allow blatant or intentional racism, naturally. Unintentional racism, a result of inconsiderate game design? Maybe. But that tends to be in the eye of the beholder.

Wouldn't it be something if RE5 actually provided a conscious social commentary, much like the first true zombie movie did, Night of the Living Dead? Maybe the game will call 'us' on what we're doing at some point and bring us to question what we're doing in some manner. Don't count on it though. :p
 
So, Cheeba...you DO think the game is propagating racism, then?

Like I said, I think that they chose an Africa-like locale because of a desert environment adds alot of things that could really make the gameplay unique.
 
I think this is just a bunch of BS and the need for something new to bitch and moan about. Just like Jack Thompsons rally agianst Bully, they saw a glimpse of the freaking thing and they found their new evil cause they must rise up agianst. The same would happen with a short clip from the Roots series. Let's be honest, Bully was nothing like what these people claimed. So now RE5 has black zombies, big freaking deal, LULAC didn't cause riots during the release of RE4, and as if you didn't know those zombies or whatever the hell they were, spoke spanish. The deal is this, why do you shoot Germans and Japanese soldiers in the WWII shooters?

Exactly, so the setting is Africa, Ok understandable, but I gaurantee you this, all these "black" people you will be shooting will all pop up in the first few levels, followed by monsters, mutants, and flesh eating elephants. I sure hope PETA doesn't get their panties in a bunch over that, as was stated. This is RE people! Now everyone has bitched on how they want their games to have an enhanced feeling of realism, well if this game was set in Mexico and I was shooting penguins I'd be pretty pissed.

Now as far as the whole shooting black people for the sake of shooting black people, well, correct me if I'm wrong, but is this the first game that contains black people getting shot? Hell ever heard of a game called "Ethnic Cleansing" or something similiar? Sure ignorant bastards are still around, so is the KKK, just not in the same numbers. Is this game going to ignite a racewar the likes that haven't been seen since Stan's father dropped the "N" word during wheel of fortune? or will everything settle down if we see people of other races getting shot in this game, just like when the colors of the South Park flag were changed due to the same issue?

The point pretty much comes down to this, Not all Hispanics agree with LULAC, not all African Americans agree with the NAACP, and not all "White" people agree with the KKK.
 
I like the idea of flesh-eating elephants. You here stories of crazed elephants pulling people out of their living spaces and killing them, premeditated murder perhaps. So why not flesh-eating elephants?
 
But back on topic. The big thing to consider and remember is that when you take video footage and edit it together, you have the ability to establish a totally different point of view, stance, context, etc., intentionally or unintentionally. In fact, it happens all the time. Movie marketing companies bend context all the time to try and spin a movie a certain way in trailers and ads to maximize box office results. You arrive in theaters and boom--totally different movie than you expected (and a sharp dropoff the next weekend from word of mouth/reviews). My point is that it could have happened with RE5, that it appears racist due to the editing of the trailer. The full game will allow more time to establish everything. If you still see a racist streak while playing the finished product, well then it's either a matter of personal philosophy or Capcom is looking to stir up some controversy, because it just doesn't happen otherwise from a profit-driven company.

As for the discriminatory content against women in video games, that to me has been more of a reality in the industry. The source of this is well-documented, though, and gradually, this is changing, especially as the casual gaming market grows. Also, a lot of it stems from archetypical models that were established in movies, which were naturally carried over into video games. It's not so much active discrimination as it is embedded reference. As the years go by, so do some of the models.
 
Your right as far as the whole preview being edited and put together to seem a certain way, while I'd like to believe Capcom did this to acknowledge that fact that the setting would be in Africa, and not that they did this to have a game in which you could kill black people. Now let me play devils advocate and ask this, If the main character wasn't Chris Redfield, a white soldier/cop, and instead was......let's say Ving Rhames would it be as big of a deal? On a side note, he should have a killer dog as an ally just like in the real world.
 
To start off, lemme just say that flesh-eating elephants have already been done in Resident Evil. (It happened in Outbreak 2, to be precise)

resident-evil-outbreak-file-2-20050328032535925.jpg


kurruption said:
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I'd have to say that it would be as bad, either way, it's just that it wouldn't have that "white cop" aspect to it that would add slightly less "stupid" to the idea (since police discrimination against blacks adds a slightly realistic angle that police discrimination against zombies lacked). It'd have the same number of allegations of racism, either way, whether it's Chris from RE1 or Mark from Outbreak (the grim, black security guard), I think.

GGooDie said:
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Let me rephrase, then.

Do you think Capcom actually IS racist?
 
Do you think Capcom is going to address the issue at all, or will they not say anything until this whole controversy escalates?
I'm not saying it will escalate, but you never know.
 
silent_storm said:
Do you think Capcom is going to address the issue at all, or will they not say anything until this whole controversy escalates?
I'm not saying it will escalate, but you never know.
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In all honesty and all accuracy...it all depends on Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson.

The next time they make an idiot of themselves, and are just about to look like a complete dumbass, they'll look around for something new to point their finger at and everyone will forget about their latest embarassment and focus on that as the new model of racism.

Pretty much, RE5 will be one of the options for the next Don Imus to the next Duke Lacrosse.
 
Well, how about that. Flesh-eating elephants in a RE game that I didn't even know about. Of course I haven't played the Outbreak games. I was about to buy the first one for like $8 at EB the other day, but decided not to. I need to get it and the one above with the flesh-eating elephants now.
 
It's a fun way to spend a weekend. Though the online mode is still the selling point. REO2 is better, definitely. But yeah...both are worth picking up if they're cheap.
 
The ruins of Raccoon City! It could be a paradigm shift. Zombies now inexplicably move faster (28 Days Later and Dawn of the Dead remake) due to uh radioactivity causing mutations in the T-virus. Maybe in that aspect it's like The Hills Have Eyes. So, given that, and taking a few cues from the latest trends in horror movies these days, there will be plenty torture scenes, with the typical, gritty cinematography to boot. Zombies gain some semblance of intelligence back also (see Land of the Dead). The unfortunate side-effect for The Zombies is that the same neural pathways involved in intelligence and higher consciousness are also (and possibly) inexplicably connected to the pain pathways, something they never felt before. So, The Good Guys have to torture the zombies to get information. When all is said and done, the gov., being the bureaucratic mess they are, has to reluctantly pass laws that include the zombie race as having equal protection under the law. But The People find loop holes and continue to keep zombie punching bags in their basement. Little does The World know that zombies have evolved a mechanism to communicate telepathically with one another. The Next Rising is already underway...
 
Aw, c'mon, Spudz. Have you ever seen a grown zombie cry?

Alright, since they already have zombie elephants, the next logical step would be Hippos, cuz those guys are fierce. That's the last thing I'd want to run into, a zombie hippo.
 
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