Is Resident Evil 5 racist?
Posted by Victor Godinez 
6:43 AM, April 12, 2008
6:43 AM, April 12, 2008
As I discussed in my game column in the paper this morning, here's a link to the comments from N'Gai Croal at Newsweek about the portrayal of race in the upcoming Resident Evil 5.
And here's a video of the preview in question (a high-res version is available here):
You might also want to check out this video interview with the producer of RE5. He doesn't address the topic of race specifically, but does say the developers decided to set the game in Africa because the game explores the origins of the zombie virus and Africa is considered the birthplace of the human race.
So what do y'all think?
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It's funny reading those comments. It always amazes me when people find elements that aren't there or overemphasize things. The Japanese didn't create black zombies on the game becuase they like seeing that race of people dying or fulfilling a stereotype. Resident Evil has had all type of zombies in the past. They've had many locations. Are they somehow barred from having Africa as a location? I mean Africa is the location where they found the oldest human remains. The individuals who dig up racist conspiracies are usually the people that are in themselves most racist of all. These people limit society from having fruitful discussions about race becuase if you disagree with any views of theirs it's countered by calling you racist.
This is utterly absurd to bring an issue like this up. I see nothing hateful nor racist from this preview nor noticed due to the fact that IT'S A JUST A GAME (Japanese at that). This game is simply geographicly correct and shows the gamers some reality of modern wartorn life in Africa.
many people like to say that no one was complaining when the zombies were white or spaniards. but blacks never enslaved or oppressed either group, or at least not on the scale that whites have. people who can't see that are just plain dumb.
Wow! But high-res version not running
Obviously things depend on the broader context of the game and the plot. If the only black characters in the game are zombies, then yes, it becomes one of those ridiculous Hollywood tropes about predominantly white heroes trudging their way out of a dark savage continent (a good film example of this is The Congo, Indiana Jones films, and any action adventure movie set in 'exotic' lands).
The more ridiculous thing is though is how quickly people come to the knee jerk defense of just about anything that comes out and sold on a disc. I love video games, and I've been playing them since I first held an NES controller in my hands. But I don't feel the need to defend every stupid over the top game, and shill for multimillion dollar companies (I'm looking at you Take Two) just because they want to stir up controversy.