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There are moments that some will never connect with racism, but that others will see as clear use of racist iconography.

I don't begrudge anyone who finds the imagery in RE5 offensive. But I don't believe that vilifying Capcom for its artistic vision is appropriate. This controversy illustrates that race relations remain a major issue in America and Europe. Electing an African-American President doesn't suddenly wipe away the past few centuries of prejudice, nor does it create a level playing field for blacks in this country.

quote Tiger of Wu

Maybe if you took it in the right context it would. I never meant to say the past doesn't matter, I meant it doesn't have any relevance and doesn't matter to this game. This game is based upon WHITE people creating a virus that infects INNOCENT and CALM black people. There's a cut-scene at the start of the game with Chris in an African village with normal Africans who treat him like they do every other person before the zombie shit for *bleep*s sake.

Just get over stuff that happened many years ago and stop acting like Capcom are trying to say blacks are primitive. It's completely and utterly imbecilic to think that.

quote Tiger of Wu

Also, yes Spanish people do have the same history as blacks. Spanish people were enslaved by the British and suffered the EXACT same shit as Africans, including being thought of as primitive savages, the only difference is that it wasn't made into as much of a big deal. Learn about something before you preach it.

quote falcowned992

Yet I haven't seen you one time acknowledge the scene an the beginning with the sack.

quote Tiger of Wu

As for the menacing looks: if you were in a village that had recently been infested by zombies, wouldn't you be cautious of ANYONE considering they might want to eat your head?

quote falcowned992

They were not beating a zombie in that sack, they were beating some villager or animal, like with the lady at the cabin in the beginning of Re4.

quote Tiger of Wu

As for the menacing looks: if you were in a village that had recently been infested by zombies, wouldn't you be cautious of ANYONE considering they might want to eat your head?

They were giving menacing looks to Chris despite them not being infested, and I think it's obvious where that has led. And I'm pretty sure Chris didn't know they were zombies before they started to attack him, as he was suprised.

quote realmofthewolf

Wasnt it ignorance that started the racism thing ???YES!!!

quote Gothic Girl

Sure. I'll scrounge up some of the more recent complaints about the game. Some gaming sites have reviewed the first 3 chapters of RE5, and the first and third chapter seems to be where most of the complaints come from...

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One of the first things you see in the game, seconds after taking control of Chris Redfield, is a gang of African men brutally beating something in a sack. Animal or human, it's never revealed, but these are not infected Majini. There are no red bloodshot eyes. These are ordinary Africans, who stop and stare at you menacingly as you approach. Since the Majini are not undead corpses, and are capable of driving vehicles, handling weapons and even using guns, it makes the line between the infected monsters and African civilians uncomfortably vague. Where Africans are concerned, the game seems to be suggesting, bloodthirsty savagery just comes with the territory.

Later on, there's a cut-scene of a white blonde woman being dragged off, screaming, by black men. When you attempt to rescue her, she's been turned and must be killed. If this has any relevance to the story it's not apparent in the first three chapters, and it plays so blatantly into the old clichés of the dangerous "dark continent" and the primitive lust of its inhabitants that you'd swear the game was written in the 1920s. That Sheva neatly fits the approved Hollywood model of the light-skinned black heroine, and talks more like Lara Croft than her thickly-accented foes, merely compounds the problem rather than easing it. There are even more outrageous and outdated images to be found later in the game, stuff that I was honestly surprised to see in 2009, but Capcom has specifically asked that details of these scenes remain under wraps for now, whether for these reasons we don't know.

There will be plenty of people who refuse to see anything untoward in this material. "It wasn't racist when the enemies were Spanish in Resident Evil 4," goes the argument, but then the Spanish don't have the baggage of being stereotyped as subhuman animals for the past two hundred years. It's perfectly possible to use Africa as the setting for a powerful and troubling horror story, but when you're applying the concept of people being turned into savage monsters onto an actual ethnic group that has long been misrepresented as savage monsters, it's hard to see how elements of race weren't going to be a factor.

All it will take is for one mainstream media outlet to show the heroic Chris Redfield stamping on the face of a black woman, splattering her skull, and the controversy over Manhunt 2 will seem quaint by comparison.

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I looked at the "Resident Evil 5 trailer and I was like, "Wow, clearly no one black worked on this game." Because I wonder, and I haven't sort of really dug into it that much, but I wonder what sort of advice Capcom gave them. There was a lot of imagery in that trailer that dovetailed with classic racist imagery.

There was stuff like even before the point in the trailer where the crowd turned into zombies. They're hidden in shadows, you can barely see their eyes, and the perspective of the trailer is not even someone who's coming to help the people. It's like they're all dangerous; they all need to be killed. It's not even like one cute African — or Haitian or Caribbean — child could be saved. They're all dangerous men, women and children. They all have to be killed. And given the history, given the not so distant post-colonial history, you would say to yourself, why would you uncritically put up those images?

It's not as simple as saying, "Oh, they shot Spanish zombies in 'Resident Evil 4,' and now 'black zombies and that's why people are getting upset." The imagery is not the same. It doesn't carry the same history, it doesn't carry the same weight. I don't know how to explain it more clearly than that.

If it had been me in that situation, I wouldn't have put out a trailer like that. I think it's very easy to misunderstand what that game is about based on that trailer.

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There are moments that some will never connect with racism, but that others will see as clear use of racist iconography.

The game begins with Chris Redfield walking through an African village that appears uninfected. He sees some men kicking something in a sack. The implication is that even before the infection, these are bad people. If RE5 were set on another continent and these characters had white skin, no one would give it a second thought. Typical "village full of bad guys" gaming clich?. But these characters are black. And as such the imagery can be perceived to have racist undertones.

Later, there is a cutscene depicting a white woman being dragged into a house by an infected black man. In its recent hands-on, Eurogamer criticized this moment in particular for playing into traditional racist fear-mongering. To propagate fear of blacks from the time of slavery and through the Civil Rights movement in the United States, white society was warned that big black men are coming for your daughters.

Do these images and the fact that the core gameplay has you shooting black men and women make RE5 racist? The answer is going to vary greatly from one person to the next and, perhaps more significantly, from one region to the next. In Japan, for example, it's unlikely that the events depicted in Resident Evil 5 will be viewed as racist in any way. Japan and other Asian nations never experienced centuries of racist oppression against blacks. In Europe and America, where racism continues to be an issue to this day, and where, less than two centuries ago, slavery was legal, the imagery will likely resonate more substantially.

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It's easy to see why some will construe this game as racist. It may be easy to forget that these people are, in fact, infected with a parasite that alters their behavior. For the most part, the enemies in RE5 move and react in the same way as the enemies of RE4 -- the only difference? The color of their skin. The bodies of the infected disintegrate, and many will have plagas burst out of them.

Regardless, the imagery can be disturbing. It's unlikely that Capcom has any malicious intent by choosing Africa as the location for RE5.
Although most of the enemies in the game are black, there are a number of strong black heroes in the game as well.

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The scenes of something being beaten in a sack or of a blond woman being dragged off by black men aren't even regarded as the worst, or most-outdated in the game either. There are, reportedly, even more outrageous things displayed later in the game but Capcom has asked these be kept under wraps for the time being.

Villains and enemies in video games obviously come in all shapes, sizes, creeds, and religions. And thats fine because it mimics real life where everyone is capable of doing bad things. But by showing ordinary black people doing unspeakable things when they aren't necessarily the game's bad guys does seem a little beyond the realms of what is acceptable in this enlightened day and age.

Could Capcom be aiming for controversy in order to help sales?

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Despite all this, I don't think the game is racist. Capcom aren't trying to make gamers start hating all black people, and I highly doubt they think all black people live and act like this.
I think that alot of the critics are mistaking Capcom's view of black people with Capcom's view of North Africa. There have been plenty of good black characters in RE who are portrayed like any other RE character ... Same goes for other Capcom franchises. Sure, some of the racial imagery in RE5 might be a little questionable (or maybe even disturbing), but the unfortunate truth is that there are many people in North Africa who live like that. It's a Third World country, so of course we're going to see people hunting, scavenging, attacking enemies, and "glaring menacingly" at anything that is foreign or unfamiliar. These peoples' lives revolve around survival.

Though maybe Capcom could have been a little more discreet with the types of scenes they show in the game (and in the trailers). Black majini overpowering and "impregnating" a young white woman, a white man smashing black people's skulls, uninfected black men bashing something to death in a bag... Sure, it sets the scene of an imporverish African shanty town slowly being taken over by the virus, but maybe it wasn't wise for Capcom to include some of those more 'controversial' scenes in the game? Especially since there are apparently so many of them, and especially since they apparently aren't even relevant to the game's plot?

Meh. In the end I don't care. The game could end up being the most racist thing in the world, but all I'll be thinking is "when the hell do I get to kick the crap out of Wesker?"

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Villains and enemies in video games obviously come in all shapes, sizes, creeds, and religions. And thats fine because it mimics real life where everyone is capable of doing bad things. But by showing ordinary black people doing unspeakable things when they aren't necessarily the game's bad guys does seem a little beyond the realms of what is acceptable in this enlightened day and age

Could Capcom be aiming for controversy in order to help sales?

quote InFeeDel

I was wondering what anyone thought about the fact that Capcom situated RE5 in Africa, and it appears that most of the zombies are black. Does anyone think it's racism? Also, controversies have popped up on random web info sites, so it may be worth discussing here.

quote realmofthewolf

If the shoe was on the other foot would it be okay for a black man to slaughter the white man because well hes a slaver and deserves it. Society hasnt moved on from racism.

quote realmofthewolf

Your argument rely on social stigma of a past generation that seem to ignore the fact that there are tribes that live like that STILL apart from dragging white women away. Beating the sack could be a animal since well there hunters and its easier to kill lets say a boar with it netted or sacked. And You continue to say inhuman savages when they do live in the sort of way. These tribes are very shy and tend to stay away from that. D

and i don't really care about them staring menacingly at Chris everyone stares at the new guy.

quote Gothic Girl

Was it ignorance that continued the racism thing? No. The people who are pointing out the racism issues are gamers who write for gaming sites who have played more of RE5 than any of us here have.