Resident Evil 5 is "racist"

[Lard]

http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/runninscared/archives/2007/07/zombies_in_afri.php

It was just a matter of time until someone played the race card over this.

A) It's a trailer.

B) She says "the fact that this video game is marketed to children and young adults. Start them young… fearing, hating, and destroying Black people."

It's not marketed to children, you dumb cow. She sounds like another Jack Thompson. Wonder how long until Sharpton jumps on this thing.

[Shiguma]

Wow, this site ("The Village Voice," lmao) is full of excellent journalism:

Council Takes (Symbolic) Aim at the Words 'Bitch' and 'Ho'

"Whereas, The Council recognizes that the word “bitch,” primarily defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as “female canine animal, especially a dog,” carries a legitimately non-pejorative definition, but the Council further recognizes that in 1811, Francis Grose, in his “Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue,” described “bitch” as “A she dog, or doggess; the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman, even more provoking than that of whore,” thus documenting a long-standing tradition of the word’s use for purposes of degradation; and Whereas, The word “ho” is commonly used to refer to a whore or woman of loose sexual reputation."

[D-Rider]

The new Resident Evil is a negro murder simulator?  My wet dreams have finally come true.

[Masamune]

I think everybody already knew it was only a matter of time.  For the setting of the game, majority of the population really is black, so I don't see how this can be called racist.  Begs the question, does a game have to be racially diverse to avoid being called racist?  I'm not so sure these days.

[Eusis]

The Japanese are most probably, for better or worse, simply racially insensitive. It's been predicted something like this would happen, and it's disappointing it happened this quickly.

[Cauton]

Surprised it took this long.

As usual it's just people getting upset over nothing. Shooting black people because they are zombies/mutants/whatever the hell they are in Resident Evil 5 isn't racisms. Just in the same way that shooting Spaniards in Resident Evil 4 wasn't. Or white people in all the previous Resident Evil games.

Free publicity isall it's about.

[D-Rider]

You know, I think this would go better in the general boards.  It's not so much about the game as it is about the reaction to it.

*punt*

[Ashtrot]

So basically:

Resident Evil 1 to 3, you kill white guys out to eat your ass. Perfectly fine, nobody complains.

Resident Evil 4, you murder Spaniards out for your blood. A-OK, it's just a game!

Resident Evil 5, you kill black zombie dudes. RACIST.

Evidently black people are above equality.

[Marshmallow]

I'd be more inclined to kill them if they were rappers.

[Sensei Phoenix]

Honestly, I'm neither surprised nor outraged at the game being called racist. Frankly, the moment I saw the trailer I was like, wow, Capcom made the latest RE game about zombie AIDS in Africa. Because when I think of horrible plagues ravaging the world I think about HIV and Ebola, and bam, Africa.

Now, how Africans will be portrayed in game (the non-zombie ones) will make or break it for me.

[everluck]

The sad part is, despite its overwhelming retardedness, this isn't the stupidest criticism of games I've ever heard.

RE4 - anti-religious, anti-European propaganda :oooo

[Eusis]

RE4 - anti-religious, anti-Mexican propaganda :oooo

Fixed. Not that it took place in Mexico, I know it took place in Spain. But some asshole could bullshit how it's anti-Mexican because you're shooting up a bunch of people who speak Spanish, and illegal immigration's a major topic at the moment.

Actually, that brings up something else - you might not even see many non-infected Africans except for one or two. You only saw Luis Sera as far as that went in RE4 afterall.

[everluck]

Either way, I think this argument is being blown way out of proportion- by gamers.

It was just a blog post. A ridiculously uninformed, judgmental blog post. I don't really think anything's going to become of it.

[Takezo]

Not that I agree with what they're saying.... but the situations aren't entirely equal. It's not like we're all playing on a level board where the images of white guys destroying white people bear the same historical connotations, fears, and stigmas as white people destroying blacks. Some issues are more sensitive than others. A game with a German protagonist killing jewish zombies. Can we agree this might be a bit prickly? No he is not a nazi, the RE5 protagonist is not a klansman, but it's still a soft spot for many minorities. Not that I'd ever expect a board of cynical white twenty-somethings to think about that before raging.




>:[

[Losfer]

Aren't zombies mythically centered around Voodoo though?  And isn't Voodoo...  From Africa?