Resident Evil 5 - Due 13/03/09

[Hammer]

Boom. In-lint trailer.

[ame]http://www.gametrailers.com/player/22801.html[/ame]

You can see where Croal is coming from. It could be interpreted as racist even though it isn't intended to be. Poor show on the part for MCV for using inflammatory headlines though.

[MarkMono]

No-one gave a fuck about you exterminating a Spanish village full of people crying "i-yi-yi!" as they burn in the last one then?

Bollocks, start to finish. I hope this story disappears up its own arse where it belongs.

[Stem]

Well personally I was offended that they portrayed caucasian people as zombies in the first three outtings.

I mean seriously, it's a game set in a foreign country. What do they expect? Personally I enjoyed the Spanish village from 4, and I imagine that if they get over themselves this one can be just as good, if not miles better.

[katinacooker]

Well personally I was offended that they portrayed caucasian people as zombies in the first three outtings.

I mean seriously, it's a game set in a foreign country. What do they expect? Personally I enjoyed the Spanish village from 4, and I imagine that if they get over themselves this one can be just as good, if not miles better.

i heard a rumor that the 6th one will be set in a small english village. wanna go picket the offices?

[Hammer]

Bollocks, start to finish. I hope this story disappears up its own arse where it belongs.

We can hope it will, but I wouldn't count on it. The newest trailer is a year old and there were complaints about it at the time it was released. And as Croal says in the interview it would be easy to misunderstand what the trailer was about if you were seeing it without background knowledge of the franchise

And as Jack Thomson, the recent Mass Effect 'Alien Sex' controversy and the people who protested over ads for GTA San An demonstrate, there are always people prepared to shout about things they have no knowledge or understanding of.

[MarkMono]

How does having a special forces agent running through a village killing zombies 'dovetail' with racist iconography? Does this resemble any tragic/sensitive incidents from recent history that I'm unaware of?

Is it because they're black?

The Resident Evil series is famous for its imaginative and exotic locales. To presume that people will be white wherever in the world the game is set is extremely racist, but would oddly raise no media complaint. Gamers might complain about the lack of realism employed therein, but thats an entirely separate issue.

Is it because the protagonist is white?

He's no more or less white than he's been in any of the previous games.

Is it both?

Well, he's been reliably blasting the fuck out of zombies regardless of creed or colour for quite a few games now. You'd think that would buy Chris Redfield some credibility.

I call BULLSHIT

[Hammer]

Well, yes I would assume that those who find it racist do so because it involved a white man shooting a black man. In parts of the world that is powerful imagery. It's only 60 years since the American civil rights movement and 150 years since the end of slave owning. It's less then 20 years since the end of Apartide in SA. There are also those in the US and other countries who would argue that there is still discrimination against Black people.

These are people that feel incredibly strongly about these issues and it is easy to see how they might overreact to a videogame.

Not that I'm saying Capcom should change the game or anything like that, it's just I can see where they are coming from.

[MarkMono]

Its less than fifty years since the Bay Of Pigs and that nearly ended in nuclear warfare.

I get it, really I do. I understand the knee-jerk reaction, but it is a knee-jerk reaction. That shameless racist (read his interview if you haven't) actually tries to claim that seeing a black person being shot carries more weight than seeing a person of any other nationality being shot. This quote was nicely bookended by him claiming that he "Simply can't explain it any better than that." which really is a dead giveaway.

His complaints really are utterly idiotic: "It’s not even like one cute African — or Haitian or Caribbean — child could be saved. They’re all dangerous men, women and children." Of course everyone looks evil and sinister, its a fucking Resident Evil game. He also states that a game where you murder stereotypically Jewish people would be comparable, so we'd better stop him from finding out about Assassins Creed. Oh, wait, that had a warning at the beginning of the game assuring us that the game was developed by an ethnically diverse team of varying faiths and beliefs. PROBLEM SOLVED CAPCOM.

I stopped reading I think about halfway through, I knew there was going to be dumb objections, knee-jerk reactions as I said, to this game after seeing the trailer but I wasn't expecting it to be met with such overt racism.

[Connor O'Bain]

oh.
for.
fuck.
sake.

[Shannow]

New Trailer.

My fucking gods.

[ame]http://www.gametrailers.com/player/34647.html[/ame]

[endless psych]

How does having a special forces agent running through a village killing zombies 'dovetail' with racist iconography? Does this resemble any tragic/sensitive incidents from recent history that I'm unaware of?

Playing devils advocate a touch :- One of the things I thought when I watched the trailer posted by Shannow was about the Rwandan genocide. That and the images of screaming mobs of Africans weilding machetes and rising up is a hell of a loaded image that fits with the general prevelent Western view of Africa as a place of famine, civil war and corruption.

Essentially RE5 (from the evidence of the trailers thus far) leaves itself open to the same accussations of racism as Ridley Scotts Black hawk down.

I don't think it could be accussed of simple black and white (har har) white guy killing uppity black folks racism but perhaps a more subtle playing into the hands of people who want to paint Africa as a more barbaric or violent place...

EDIT:- By christ I've made the same points as him without reading it. yipes.

[Sgt Craig]

*fap fap fap*
Canny wait, would still rather have good ol' zombies rather than alien/parasite things but ach well.

[MarkMono]

Playing devils advocate a touch

Don't bother.

Please.

[Eve Bulloch]

Oh man, I LOVE Resident Evil - but i'll never be able to afford a PS3. Unless I go to Bright House or something. Hmm.

[Shannow]

Oh man, I LOVE Resident Evil - but i'll never be able to afford a PS3. Unless I go to Bright House or something. Hmm.

So buy a Xbox 360 like i plan to do.