Ready for a Biohazard 6 teaser?

[rehunk88]

resident evil 5 is not racist the end !

[Smiley]

Okay. So are you chalking everything up to a bunch of coincidences? Cause that's fine with me if you are.

[Zombie Fred]

My name is Chris Redfield, and I am a racist

[rehunk88]

Let me lossen the mood up

[Smiley]

XD Always got a laugh out of that parody.

But my case isn't that it's racist because infected are killing Chris and he's defending himself. I think we RE fans all know zombies are zombies regardless of the rotting color of their flesh (or in this case 'Majini'). It's really about how Capcom has handled appeasing to the black community after that trailer came out and people cried afoul.

[Darkmoon]

I swear, I am going to set fire to half of you with pure hatred at this point. People, and I am not going to bother saying who because you fucking know who you are, stop trying to wind other members up because I am allowed to use my own judgement, and my judgement is saying 'Ban them until you can feel like dealing with this - sometime next month.'

I believe Alexia also has words for a couple of you.

So, we can't make a Biohazard game in Africa, then.

Because I don't think there are plenty of ways to show Biohazard protaganists fighting infected africans other than what we saw in RE5.

This polemic is just silly. Why is it such a big deal to fight infected africans anyway? Clearly, I only see that in this game. I think RE5 was a good thing on this matter, because Capcom had the balls to do what they wanted despite some people who seemed too concern about a past (colonial era) they didn't even live.

The thing is, this level of thinking is racist. The whole deal with racism is not with acknowledging that people have a different skin colour, it's treating those people differently because of it. So far in the BH series, not one person of any race is treated any more or any less equally as any white character.

Misconstruing something to find racist undertones is racist in and of itself. The only way to satisfy that level of thinking is to develop VANILLA: THE GAME.

The problem is history. You can't just say, 'Well, that doesn't count now, it's in the past.' History shapes the now and the history in Africa? A big issue. I mean, RE5 hits a lot of sore spots;

- Slavery. Brain controlling parasites count.
- Genocide. There's a lot of dead African folk in that area - likely all of them. And yes, they were infected with a parasite. They were plenty of reasons for why it happens in real life too. Admittedly, not usually as good, but we're looking at it from the people who might get offended's view point.
- White control. Chris is in charge of the good guys - Wesker the bad. Black folks are, at best, supporting characters. Sheva could have been missing entirely and the story could have been nearly identical.

Which isn't saying, 'My word, those Japanese, what white supremacists they all are!' It's quite likely Capcom simply didn't understand all this, in the same way most of us don't get the racial issues and tensions in Asia. But the issues are in the game - simply being ignorant of the issue does not make the issue go away, just like not knowing that last slice of pizza was mine will stop me smiting the shit outta you.

And yes, thinking differently about people because of there skin colour sucks. And when we actually live in a better world where races are equal, it won't be a problem. Right now? We really don't. And so we need to be mindful of this stuff, and consider whether having Golliwog dolls or dressing up like a Native American with no knowledge of there culture and traditions is going to cause issues for people of that race. Ignoring racial issues isn't going to make them go away, as any number of 'everyone is equal now hush' government campaigns have shown, so we need to actually try tackling them.

EDIT: Which is not to say that Capcom should never feature black people or African folks in a game. But having them all enslaved by one white guy and murdered by another with a black sidekick? Not really racially sensitive.

[Smiley]

That's my point Darkmoon. We can't ignore it. Cultural acceptance has improved, from my point of view stereotypes will never go away. People grow up and think differently. They rationalize and base things on what they learn, but also what they see as well.

I don't think Capcom intended to offend, but they had to have considered ways to promote their game without causing any sort of backlash. The irony is they made a huge profit out of their decisions which influenced the game play's direction. Co-op, whether we liked it in our survival horror series or not, did play a role in the sales for this game.

[PracticalAl]

I'm 100% with News Bot on this one. Crazy times we live in, when the people accusing things of being racist are actually the racist ones themselves...

People who find "racist" things in RE5 are either oversensitive or looking way too into it.. Making a connection between the plagas and slavery? That's just ridiculous.. If Wesker and Chris were black, would everything be better? Why should their skin color matter at all? It's the people who have to obnoxiously point this out that keep racism alive.

I read an article a few moths ago about a Hostess cupcake commercial that got pulled for the air for being racist, because it featured chocolate cupcakes singing a hip hop song...

I second Professor Farnsworth. I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

[News Bot]

Interpretation and misconstrued perceptions do not mean the material itself or the developers are at fault. It is the person viewing that material who makes the connections and determines there to be any sort of issue. Likewise, history isn't as important to one person as it is to the next. Calling something "racist" is to imply that it was actively going out of its way to be racist, that is the meaning people attribute to the term and in this case, it's completely non-applicable.

To go with the banality that every race should be equally represented (by number and roles) in fiction is a fool's idea. That makes most works of fiction "racist" among other things by sheer virtue. Unrealistic doesn't even begin to describe how utterly ridiculous the notion is. I could find as many "undertones" as I like in an uncountable number of fictional works. Does that make them true? Not at all.

[Darkmoon]

That's my point Darkmoon. We can't ignore it. Cultural acceptance has improved, from my point of view stereotypes will never go away. People grow up and think differently. They rationalize and base things on what they learn, but also what they see as well.

I don't think Capcom intended to offend, but they had to have considered ways to promote their game without causing any sort of backlash. The irony is they made a huge profit out of their decisions which influenced the game play's direction. Co-op, whether we liked it in our survival horror series or not, did play a role in the sales for this game.

Well, whether co-op was a side effect of the backlash or not is up in the air...but it certainly helped. Of course, the AI really sucked.

I'd also like to point out I don't think RE5 is a racist game - just that it handles several racial issues so poorly it makes my sociologist wife weep and laugh alternatively.

[Smiley]

It made my black friend chuckle. I didn't even have to point anything out when we played. He remembers the trailers and saw the progression just as I and countless others did. But does he hate the game? Neither of us do. I'm team Chris after all. Josh Stone is a player in his eyes. Hitting on Jill so smoothly in Desperate Escape when in the main campaign he was more or less a straight up goody-two-shoes.

People who find "racist" things in RE5 are either oversensitive or looking way too into it.. Making a connection between the plagas and slavery? That's just ridiculous.. If Wesker and Chris were black, would everything be better? Why should their skin color matter at all? It's the people who have to obnoxiously point this out that keep racism alive.

Skin color continuity would be the issue. But I would say that if the game was in Africa and there was nearly more whites with black characters shooting them up. Then changes were made to accommodate the opposite.... Well what reason would I have for not thinking the same? Doesn't make me a racist. It makes me aware.

[News Bot]

Skin color continuity would be the issue. But I would say that if the game was in Africa and there was nearly more whites with black characters shooting them up. Then changes were made to accommodate the opposite.... Well what reason would I have for not thinking the same? Doesn't make me a racist. It makes me aware.

The first trailer for the game has every single model featured in the final build, and the exact same "distribution of skin colour" (whatever you want to call it). Outside of set enemies, all of the Majini are completely randomized when they appear. There is no way to tell that "there was nearly more whites" since the game doesn't even discriminate regardless of what you want to think. It is unfair to compare a trailer (a pre-set of randomized models) to the game (a live selection of randomized models which spawn at... random).

And again, do I really need to point out that in some regions of Africa, whites actually do outnumber blacks by a very large margin? And almost all regions are verrrry multi-cultural?

[Gambit]

My name is Chris Redfield, and I am a racist

Haaa, I remember watching this very long ago. Favorite Resident Evil parody to date.

[Darkmoon]

I'm 100% with News Bot on this one. Crazy times we live in, when the people accusing things of being racist are actually the racist ones themselves...

People who find "racist" things in RE5 are either oversensitive or looking way too into it.. Making a connection between the plagas and slavery? That's just ridiculous.. If Wesker and Chris were black, would everything be better? Why should their skin color matter at all? It's the people who have to obnoxiously point this out that keep racism alive.

I read an article a few moths ago about a Hostess cupcake commercial that got pulled for the air for being racist, because it featured chocolate cupcakes singing a hip hop song...

I second Professor Farnsworth. I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

As I said - this world is far from perfect. As much as we want it to be otherwise, and believe me, I truly wish it was, skin colour matters. When a racial issue arises the answer is not to yell, 'Nothing to see here!' and ignore it. No, RE5 is not racist. Yes, it does have have some racial issues. Of course Las Plagas can be linked to slavery - Las Plagas is basically the ultimate form of slavery, robbing you of all free will to be used as the person in control wishes. It was unfortunate that the person in control was Captain Blondie.

For the record, I wouldn't have changed the location of the game, or Chris and Wesker. I would have changed some of the NPC characters and Sheva - Sheva should have been more important, and perhaps had an African accent. And not had a tribal get up. Wesker could have done with an ally who was from Africa too, maybe a Krasuer clone. And I'd made the folks in Kijuju more obviously racially diverse in the early parts of the game.

The cupcake thing is just weird, though.

Interpretation and misconstrued perceptions do not mean the material itself or the developers are at fault. It is the person viewing that material who makes the connections and determines there to be any sort of issue. Likewise, history isn't as important to one person as it is to the next. Calling something "racist" is to imply that it was actively going out of its way to be racist, that is the meaning people attribute to the term and in this case, it's completely non-applicable.

To go with the banality that every race should be equally represented (by number and roles) in fiction is a fool's idea. That makes most works of fiction "racist" among other things by sheer virtue. Unrealistic doesn't even begin to describe how utterly ridiculous the notion is. I could find as many "undertones" as I like in an uncountable number of fictional works. Does that make them true? Not at all.

I'm trying not to call the game racist...unlike folks who are calling me racist. Which leaves me with an nice, boiling rage like feeling, by the way. I'm saying the game has racial issues. Which, to put it simply, means they fucked up a few bits. No one's saying the game shouldn't have Chris or Wesker, or that there shouldn't be black enemies - I made the point of how badly racist that would have been a while back.

On the other hand, could Capcom have made some of the black characters in the game have a bigger role? Yes, they certainly could. In the middle of Africa the story is two white guys fighting.

And I strongly disagree with you that history isn't as important to some folks, but I'm biased. History is why most sound thinking people believe black people should be allowed to sit on a bus and not be forced into the back part, why most sane people think Hitler's policies are insane and why most people think you don't get to own people now. History is all we were and shows the way to what we will be. But, as I said, I'm pretty biased on this - archaeologist, after all.

[Smiley]

Don't let the racist comments get to you Darkmoon. I work with stand up comedians on a day to day basis. Stereotypes are a dime a dozen, and people that come to watch comedy roll with it unless the comedian is downright raging or ranting for the sake of being mean. It's how you approach people's awareness on the issue. People are influenced by them even if they don't realize it. Do you look at this commercial and not see a stereotype even if the artist's intentions were noble based on the setting?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FftZt-Dw_hQ
You laugh because you can see how people would be offended even if you know it's not trying to be.

Same with Capcom. I'm not saying they made RE5 so Chris could stick it to Africa. But in trying to make up for it with Sheva and the other examples they did make the situation all the more awkward for them.