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Next, Capcom apologise to the RSPCA for their portrayal of undead dobermans. Liberal Spokesman, Mr. I.F.Nosenseofproportion said "Whilst we understand the need for protagonists in the game, the inclusion of a breed normally used for Police work is not just upsetting to dog owners, but speaks of a deliberate attempt to aggravate violence against the Police." Mr. T.R.O.A.Evil, in response, has been quoted as saying "They're a bunch of freaking morons." | |
I just have a question, did RE4 get some controversy over most of its enemies being hispanic? (i'm assuming) If not then why start now? I can understand why people would think RE5 would be raccist, i was a little put off by the first couple of pieces of gameplay footage, but this is probably going to be the same case as the "Fat Princes" thread in the gaming discusion (not trying to be racist, i'm just saying) But i just can't wait to see what sort of crap FOX NEWS will come up with when the game launches. | |
How is the game content racist? It would be racist to not include black people in the cradle of civilization. | |
Amen! Fox News are the KINGS of no sense of proportion! | |
Why didn't anyone complain about the spanish villagers in R.E. 4, cause their spanish SUCKED :). But seriously, nobody screamed RACISM with that one, nope, they where just not black enough. | |
i don't really see the problem. yeah it's a white guy killing black people, but HE'S IN AFRICA.black people live in africa-- not JUST them mind you, but enough to be the significant majority. it would be racist if the character drove an APC into "the hood" and started cutting down the inhabitants with the mounted turret. | |
Does anyone think 50-Cent would be apologising if he was gutting whitey? This sort of thing just breeds more racism. | |
I just don't know. I'm well aware that no one was trying to be racist when they made the game because that's just a stupid train of thought to begin with. It still doesn't quiet my unease about the game. I don't know what it is...I just can't put my finger on it. Maybe it's because the trailers were meant to scare the crap out of the viewer and it worked a little too well? | |
I can imagine the conversation now: FOX MAN 1 "This game teaches our children to treat African Americans like crap! It also teaches our children to see women as mere objects because of the partner is a helpless woman! Plus there's SEX@!@#" FOX WOMAN 1 "I agree! We should make a rating system for these appaling monstrosoties directed specifically to our children!" Awesome Game Show Host "Errrmm, I'm sure the Japanese didn't mean for it to be offensive, they're a different culture. Plus, the female partner in the game can handle her own she just needs your help every now and again. And there's already a rating system. Wait what? Sex?" FNM 1"Quite you! You don't have statistical data that positively PROVES that these Video Games are curropting our children!" AGSH "Well with crap games like 'Barbie Horse Adventure' i'm not surprised!" FNM and FNW: "GASP!" Hehe, can't wait. | |
I really don't think it's intended to be racist, I think they just wanted to set the game in africa. | |
Ok, so RE5 gets all this flak for the baddies being African and yet nearly every war game made in America doesn't get any for constantly portraying the Russians and Iraqis as the enemy who constantly steal nukes and plot to blow some shit up? And like a few of you have said, no one got their kinickers in a twist about the Spainish in RE4. According to the press, everything is racist nowadays. They are just so scared of being seen as racist they decided that everything is bad. It's just political correctness gone mental. | |
I think that games need to cross boundaries now and again, and a setting in Africa is certainly unique and interesting (when was the last time you ever played a game set in Africa) but they are all ZOMBIES and regardless of color they want to vomit up their appendages and eat your brain. It's not racist because the enemies are not human, and logically, if you are in Africa, there are black people there. What would be racist would be if the game was set specifically in Harlem or something like that. Also, the Japanese culture does not include all of the superfluous political correctness that America has come to. PS Fox News wont say anything because they're all racist bozos so they wont care. | |
@Xiado: Actually, they're not zombies, they're infected humans. That's why most of them are fast and smarter than regular zombies. Just wanted to clear that up. | |
I think it's kinda feeble if your defense is "Hey! Black people worked on the game!" That's like going "I'm not racist; I have a black friend!" (subtext: "...who I trot out in order to prove I'm not racist"). I agree w/ Xiado's PS though. I don't think you guys watch enough FOX news. They're more concerned with liberal bashing than agreeing with political correctness. For instance, I could see them denouncing the use of a female helper protagonist as another instance of feminism stuffed down our throats. | |
Wait, you mean I can't say I'm not racist, because I have a black cousin?! Seriously though, This entire thing started, because a soccor mom (who also actually happened to be black) saw her child watching the RE5 trailer, and thought 'zomgs! They are creating a game that teachers our children to kill black people!'. | |
In response, Mr. Not-a-Strawman commented: Just because Capcom didn't meant anything racist doesn't mean people who see these images as racist are psychotic. It's perfectly possible for an image to communicate something you didn't intend it to. It's like that episode of South Park where the principal says Cartman can't wear a Hitler outfit for Halloween and instead makes him a ghost costume, but the way she cuts up the white sheets it makes him look like he's a KKK Klansman. That's what happened here with Capcom--sure they didn't have any racist intent. That doesn't mean that people who saw the image and said "that's f*cked up" are nutjobs. Sometimes life can be just that simple: rational decent people misunderstanding each other. Sometimes there's no need to jump to explanations that involve crypto-racists at video game companies or screeching radical left-wingers, as much as so many people would prefer as that gives them the opportunity to talk about every issue as if it were so. | |
I still fail to see the racism. Ok, you're killing black people and you're white. You're an old character in the series and you're in Africa. It would be racist if they suddenly turned you black and inhabited Africa with white people. | |
That I think is the main problem: the trailer was made for *gamers*: people who know this game and the history of it and have the same context in which to understand it as the people who made it. The people who see racism--and aren't nutjobs--I think tend to be people who have no experience with gaming let alone would think anything but that song by Rhianna if they heard the word 'Umbrella'. They are seeing that image in a different context. We all have different contexts for interpreting media. I think in large part this is a result of those differences and the fact that Capcom never realized that this image was going to be seen by non-gamers. We never had to worry about anyone but us seeing this stuff, but now that we're basically mainstream people with no context for our media are going to start seeing our media. It's like an outsider seeing a group of skinheads. They could be ARA skinheads on their way to beat up some fascists, but a person not familiar with skinhead culture is just going to see a bunch of business crippling nazi youth. Much the same thing happened here where Capcom was talking to gamers who know this series inside and out but the message was seen by people who think Raccoon City is the setting of Animal Crossing. | |
My personal opinion is, that the vast majority will understand that the game is just set in Africa, ergo your enemies will be African. So it stand to reason the vast majority of them is black. Nothing unreasonable about that, just plain correct. Now, the true gripe is (according to my personal opinion), will they execute the characterization of Africans (i don't know the exact country just yet) as badly as they did with the Spanish farming community? RE4's version of Spain was beyond incorrect and threw all verisimilitude overboard as soon as it had the chance. I wonder how many people believed that this was more or less a correct interpretion of the Spanish countryside and will now shun Spain as a tourist destination since they are scared of their crumbling wooden houses and its flaming Madrilenian police squad. Enfin, let us hope they restrain themselves a bit in the stereotype-department. | |
It wasn't a "free standing" response: it was a direct response to N'Gai Croal who wrote that he didn't "feel like anybody black worked on this game."
Not only that, but a BLACK female, stuffing multiculturalism down our throats. Yeah--people are pretty confused about what FOX news is about. The only reaction FOX News would have to a game where a white person shoots down a horde of black people is to use it as wank material. | |
They could try to spin this, and say they just see it as a man killing a legion of zombies, and the colour of their skin doesn't really matter, seeing as how they're ZOMBIES!!! Really, making disctinctions like this is still racism. Saying that its okay to depict one part of humanity in a certain way but not another is still saying there is a fundamental difference between the worlds people, and thats racism. Although they could have lessened the impact by making the main character African too. is there any reason why they couldn't have tried that? | |
We have a winner. -- Alex | |
It's not necessarily saying that there's a fundamental difference. It could also be saying that there's a difference in the lens through which we view media and that until we live in a society free of racism certain depictions are not acceptable even though they are just the converse of another acceptable image. Not saying that's a *sound* argument, just that there are *valid* arguments for what you're talking about that don't say there is a fundamental difference between people.
That's the kicker of the whole thing--the other main character is Sheva Alomar, a black woman that is a member of the West African Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance. They could have lessened the impact just by showing the other main character (which is another reason I think there was no ill intent at all on Capcom's part)! | |
Bring back the days of Double Dragon where you beat on black guys, white guys, green guys and women and no one even batted an eyelid. Why? Because it's a game and most people know the difference between that and reality. Am I beating on the women in the game because they are women; no, it's because they are trying to kill me. However, if it was a game filled with only female or black antagonists then I'd be very worried. | |
Even Capcoms reply is racist, they should have referred to thier development team as "African American" not black. | |
This is only a problem in America, because people became too damn afraid of being prejudiced that now just about anything can be claimed as racist. No other country has ebonics. No other country has a special culture for people that are just black. But America? Oh yeah. Black people are SPECIAL. They have this deep culture, and ebonics is part of it! Etc. etc. They smallest thing can be labeled as racist, and the reason why Capcom is surprised is because people are completely retarded in America when it comes to whitey + blackey. | |
Capcom's reply is akin to the I'm not racist I have a black friend argument, when we all know full well said speaker is equating simply knowing a black person with friendship. Japan just doesn't understand the race issue in the same way that Americans can't understand why Koreans are an underclass in Japan. History is important, and when creating games for an international market it's important to keep these historical contexts in mind. I was willing to throw the Japanese a bone for cartoons imported over here with "sambo" depictions in them(DBZ) because I knew it was a naive ignorance and only intended for domestic consumption. But Resident Evil 5 is a major international release with an enormous American audience, many of whom will be sensitive to some of the images in the game. I'm not pointing this out because I think Capcom should be forced to change the game. If this is their vision, then they should move forward without any impediment. However I think a lot of this controversy is being generated out of profound cultural ignorance on their behalf, and I don't think it's controversy Capcom is interested in courting, so we need to be vocal in letting them know what they are getting into. | |
These sort of stories and whatnot for the lack of a better word piss me off to right on down to the bone. Anyone who thinks that this is racist is IGNORANT and needs to take a course in biology and world history. First off saying that killing a black person in a game is racist means that killing a Caucasian, Asian, Latino, or any other race be it HUMAN or OTHER should be labeled as racist in a game so long as the protagonist is of a different origin than the victim. Secondly generalizing all "whites" into one category is absurd when it comes to slavery, or any past injustices. For example I am Caucasian, BUT I'd rather be called a "Mutt" than white because I did not just spawn from one long line of a pure genetic chain as every one involved in these arguments seem to think; And by that I mean that my ethnic background is very diverse many of my ancestors are German but not all, as I have many Greek, Italian & French ancestors. I'm rambling of course and I hope at least some of what I am trying to convey comes through in my post. I honestly just do not understand how or why people even have this sort of mindset anymore. Honestly I feel this whole "issue" of racism will never go away even when we have all become one shade of gray; someones always going to be there to bring up something one's ancestors may have perpetrated centuries ago. .../end incoherent rant. | |
You do know that Africa is not the only country with black people and that they don't just live in america or africa, especially coming from Capcom, a japanese company that does their work in Japan. Using the term African American would be a wrong use to distinguish their race. | |
First of all, to quote someone a few posts above me. I fail to see the racism here. Second of all, it's ok to sit by and watch a black protagonist character mow down white people (GTA San Andreas), but yet when the tables are turned, everyone cries foul. | |
You bring up the one good thing about fox news, liberal bashing. Every other media outlet is so uber left wing, it is nice to see one that occasionally calls them on thier uber hippie bull shit. Having said that, Fox new is just as pants on head retarded as all the other media outlets, just in the other direction. As for this game being racists, yes people are going to raise a stink about it. No the developers did not make a game to breed racism. Yes the fuck-tards that screem this game is raccist are the asshats who are breeding more racism by calling everything racist. I would call out Jessie Jackson, the idiot who is so disconnected from his own race but claims to speak for them and calls them n-word behind thier back. I would just say to him "Fuck you, you have never helped anybody, ever." | |
That's not fair comparing the RE series to the GTA series, c'mon it's GTA of course it's going to be controversial no matter what. | |
Let's see here.. a white guy and a chinese chick blow up a bunch of backwoods spaniard cultists that're all infected with an ancient parasite thing. Totally not racist. But the sequel? A white guy and a black chick blow up a bunch of backwoods african (townies? cultists? do we know yet?) folks that are all infected with a similar and likely identical ancient parasite thing, as the story unfolds tracking said parasite back to its roots. Spain and Africa having had just a smidge of historical relations since .. basically always. B.b.but he's white! And there's black people! Break out the ship's bell because there's RACISM ahoy! Re-goddamn-diculous. | |
Nah, not exactly. One of the things that the GTA games have all had going for them is the fact that they don't discriminate. It's basically everyone vs everyone. You could be a white boy working against the Yakuza on tuesday, and by thursday you're working with them against your old buddies who sold you out AND a group of South American drug-runners at the same time. It's all one big dysfunctional family. | |
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Capcom Comments on Resident Evil Racism
Resident Evil 5's producer has confirmed that black people are participating in the game's development.
Jun Takeuchi talked to MTV's Stephen Totilo about the controversial racist undertones in Resident Evil 5. The adventure's action occurs in Africa, where many of the enemies are hostile villagers of black descent attacking a Caucasian protagonist.
Totilo's co-writer N'Gai Croal wrote on MTV's Multiplayer gaming blog that, after seeing RE5 for the first time, didn't "feel like anybody black worked on this game." Takeuchi was asked if the team had expected a reaction or had foreseen the racial issues.
He responded:
The lesson learned by Capcom was the cultural differences between countries and their views on race.
"Certainly the most important thing we have learned is that different countries do see the same things in different ways," explained Takeuchi. "I think it's very important as we go along and start other projects to learn from other countries and learn from other companies who are working in the video game and entertainment sectors, learn from their experiences, and not have the same problems again. You know, we have had the reverse problem with some games in Japan as well. But we're in the business of making entertainment. We're not out to make anything to deliberately shock anyone, so I think we can take a couple of lessons away from this experience."
Source: MTV Multiplayer
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