BBFC : Resident Evil 5 Racist ? Wat ?

[WeskerSexyCheez]

My only comment is that from the second people started going on about that bull crap, I was saying "Oh wow, there are black people in Africa? Who would have figured?" Which I guess roughly translates to "Duh."

(And for all intents and purposes, if somebody was running towards you with a machete screaming, you'd not stop to think "if I kill them, is it a hate crime?" before shooting them.)

[Sephiroth]

Im tired of hearing all this bullshit about about RE5 been racist I'm surten there are pepole out there who doint the the RE series and have been trying to get it band and they have been looking for year for an excuse to pick on RE and what do you know RE5 is in Africa and there are back peole who live so what happens they pull out the old Racist card on Capcom but in respect Capcom should have seen this comming when they decided to pick Africa for the next game.

[News Bot]

No, this isn't the end of the discussion just because you say so. Instead of shutting the idea out completely, answer my question when I ask if it was POSSIBLE? What the hell is so wrong with speculation?



How can you be so certain? With media outlets picking up on it, such a taboo thing as racism with everyone in the world sitting on their high horses and political correctness, you don't think that anyone at Capcom paid attention to what a lot of people were saying? Of course they did. And I don't think it's a coincidence that the first Majini we see attacking Chris in that June '08 trailer was the stark-white Eminem lookalike.

Yeah, you should just be quiet now.

This isn't some conspiracy, or even a real issue. Capcom took a trip to Africa for research purposes, saw that it was multi-ethical and decided to incorporate that fact, which they have done so since development began and even from the first trailer. The irony is that 99% of this racism bullshit is racist in itself.

Trying to argue "BUH IT WAZ A WHITEY THAT ATTACKED CHRIS 1ST" is laughable. Do you really think they specifically chose that enemy model to avoid any racism claims when the rest of the trailer is pretty much indiscriminate?

And to answer your question, no, it's not possible. Anyone that thinks otherwise is delusional. God forbid there be more than one ethnic populace in Africa.

[Jill's Boob]

Still, I just...I have my doubts. And to be honest, I don't blame them for adding in lots of white people to a small African village(even though it really doesn't make too much sense) and possibly adding in an African partner to answer the racism accusations...I just wonder.

You do know that Africa has a diverse population, right? Indians, Asians, Lebanese, etc; there are a large number of Caucasians in South Africa. The continent had a large influx of other races during colonization. And if you want real proof of white Africans, watch "Lethal Weapon 2."

As for Sheva being his African partner - good storytelling has the foreign hero character getting a local to guide him around. Heck, even the poor narrative of RE4 had Leon being escorted by 2 Spanish cops. (Unfortunately they weren't highly trained ninjas who could run up walls, and thus died in the first 5 minutes.) So, if RE5 was planned to be co-op, then the logical choice for a partner is of African origin. And the RE series has always been fond of male/female partnership, so...Sheva.

In that June trailer...we see Chris running in the 'tomb' area, and we see Majini pushing pillars over and Chris running, by himself. Later, we see Sheva make her brief appearance at the end of the trailer. Isn't it possible that Chris was originally alone, by himself in this game...no co-op...and they used the old footage of Chris running by himself, before unveiling Sheva at the end of the trailer?

Takeuchi has always been pretty adamant that the story for RE5 was the first thing completed. So you have the basic Chris -vs- Wesker plot, along with the theme of "partners," which the game seems to revolve around. Partners = Chris/Jill, Wesker/Excella, Chris/Sheva. That theme - for the BASIC story - tells me that co-op was definitely planned from the earliest stage.

Capcom may have just released the earliest trailer featuring Chris solo since they hadn't finalized Sheva's character model (in one interview, Takeuchi said they revised her look so many times, trying to give her the right feminine look, that it drove them crazy) OR they didn't want an uproar yet from fans who would bitch about a co-op game. Seeing the first trailer, RE5 looked just like a natural progression from RE4. And, as Ciaren said, maybe Capcom didn't want to ruin the surprise of the one element that distinguishes RE5 from RE4.

Still, there is some validity in your theory. The first RE5 trailer featured almost all black African villagers. There were still the character models for the mustached middle eastern dude (he gets falcon punched), and another Indian fellow (walking in the crowd), but they were missed if you blinked. I think Capcom increased the number of non-black character models due to the initial uproar of racism. But I think that's the extent of their "re-tooling." As I said, the other character models were there, just not as prevalent as the black ones.

Im tired of hearing all this bullshit about about RE5 been racist I'm surten there are pepole out there who doint the the RE series and have been trying to get it band and they have been looking for year for an excuse to pick on RE and what do you know RE5 is in Africa and there are back peole who live so what happens they pull out the old Racist card on Capcom but in respect Capcom should have seen this comming when they decided to pick Africa for the next game.

I can't make heads or tails of your post, so I will merely respond to the comment in bold.

Your logic is exactly why racism is even a big deal. You're saying that "Capcom should have expected this" since they chose to set the game in Africa. Just because the majority of Africa's population is black, that means games/movies/etc can't be set there? Anything involving black people needs to be tip-toed around?! Hey, I know! Let's just imagine Africa doesn't exist!

[Vector]

Yeah, you should just be quiet now.

Dude, there's no need for that type of attitude. I don't see what's wrong with being skeptical. I never said I was right, saying "you watch, man, you'll see in the Making-Of that the game was built as a solo adventure." I was just presenting an idea. If you disagree with that idea, that's fine, use grown-up language like you did for the most part...there's no need for you to throw in those wise-ass elitist lines.

Trying to argue "BUH IT WAZ A WHITEY THAT ATTACKED CHRIS 1ST" is laughable. Do you really think they specifically chose that enemy model to avoid any racism claims when the rest of the trailer is pretty much indiscriminate?

No, it was more of a "Look, we added some white people into the game...happy now?," but I see what you did there with the 'unintelligent' internet typing...very cool, man. Very cool.

And to answer your question, no, it's not possible. Anyone that thinks otherwise is delusional. God forbid there be more than one ethnic populace in Africa.

I know Africa has different ethnic groups. I just didn't think there would be all that many native white and hispanic people in a REMOTE African village.

I'm sorry I'm not sorry for questioning things. The journalist in me is skeptical and has doubts. Shame on fuckin' me.

[News Bot]

"Look, we added some white people into the game...happy now?,"

Except that's not the case.

You should really use more credible sources besides a beta, work in progress trailer that they only threw together to outline the very basics of the game.

I know Africa has different ethnic groups. I just didn't think there would be all that many native white and hispanic people in a REMOTE African village.

Kijuju isn't a village. It's quite an expansive town. It makes more sense for their to be a multi-ethnic population.

[Vector]

Except that's not the case.

How can you know that? This is what I'm talking about...you're refusing to question the possibility, as if it's the well-known almighty truth that Capcom didn't give two shits about the racism claims. How can you possibly know that? I don't know that they did, but I'm skeptical, and I question it -- that's all I'm doing here.

There's absolutely zero questioning the difference in the enemies from the July '07 trailer to the June '08 trailer...whether it was a beta or early production or not. And the fact is that there were a lot of stupid racism claims between the two trailers. So...


RE5 appears again, two years after its debut teaser:
July 2007 Trailer -- White man shooting black people, and two or three hispanic-looking people
RE5 isn't seen again for 11 months...amidst outrage and cries over 'apparent racism'...then:
June 2008 Trailer -- White man shooting black, white, hispanic- and asian-looking people, with a new black partner.


Do you see what I'm saying now? Don't you see how that looks?

You should really use more credible sources besides a beta, work in progress trailer that they only threw together to outline the very basics of the game.

Well, that's all there is.

Kijuju isn't a village. It's quite an expansive town. It makes more sense for their to be a multi-ethnic population.

Yeah...it makes sense, I guess. Well, depending how big the town/village/district/city-state/empire of Kijuju really is...but that's just silly logistics. We see them in the village at the start of the game...that's Kijuju. Then, as far as I know(from looking above the fence at the end of Shanty Town) the Oil Refinery is the next part. So, having something like a refinery($$$) that close to them would make the population more diverse. Although, I don't think Kijuju itself is all that big. Kijuju is the town/village that the first few stages take place in...and then Chris and Sheva make their way seemingly all over Africa. I'm just thinking out loud right now. Oh well, we'll see next week.

[A-J]

Do you see what I'm saying now? Don't you see how that looks?

yeah, it looks like you're paying too much attention to a subject that doesn't require it .. its not uncommon for developers to not show various things about a game until much later into production.

[News Bot]

you're refusing to question the possibility

Because there isn't any.

Do you see what I'm saying now? Don't you see how that looks?

Except it's wrong and you're trying to make connections to dots that don't exist.

[Vector]

Because there isn't any.

Once again, what makes you so sure? Were you there when they were developing RE5?

Except it's wrong and you're trying to make connections to dots that don't exist.

Whatever...you apparently know everything about the development process of RE5. I know my argument is pointless and there's no way to prove anything, but no one can deny the difference of the enemies in the two trailers. No one can deny the fact that there were racism accusations, and no one can deny the fact that Sheva was unveiled AFTER these accusations.

All I'm saying that there was a possibility that the cries of 'racism' had an effect on the development of RE5, that's all I'm saying. But apparently I'm wrong. There's no way any of us can know what happened while they made the game, except of course for you CiarenDevlin, who was there every step of the way, working closely with Capcom on developing RE5 and laughing off the 'racism' accusations with Jun Takeuchi and the rest of the development team, because no one cares about the negative coverage(no matter how off-base and stupid it was, negative attention is still attention, but nah, you guys all ignored it completely) that it brought to their game.


In summation, yes, it's pointless to argue about it, but that's what happens when there's 10 days left before the launch and there's nothing else to talk about. But, I digress. After this latest cold-hard evidence(presented by THIA's own CiarenDevlin), we now have undisputed truth that an incredible amount of white, hispanic and asian zombies were included in the game from day 1(yet they were miraculously missing in the July 2007 trailer), Sheva Alomar was included in the game from day 1(and was kept a huge secret to everyone outside of the game's development, only to be revealed almost a year before the game's release), and no one at Capcom gave a shit that their game had been given a 'black eye' by the racism accusations being picked up by media outlets all over the world.

[Corrin]

ChrisRedfield29, are you really that dumb? Capcom didn't show Sheva from the very beginning because they wanted to slowly reveal new things to help garner interest for the game. It's like saying "Why didn't Capcom reveal that Alfred was really crazy and cross-dressing from the start? They probably added it at the very end! Those bastards!!!"

[Vector]

ChrisRedfield29, are you really that dumb?

Are you really that closedminded and rude to insult someone else's opinion? Don't come in here throwing insults around, because I'm sure we can all play that game very well, but instead we're trying to have a civilized conversation.

But I apologize. It looks like we have yet another RE5 developer lurking on the boards here at THIA.
Can't wait for March 13th, man...I'm sure you guys created a GREAT game!

[Mr_Zombie]

No one can deny the fact that there were racism accusations, and no one can deny the fact that Sheva was unveiled AFTER these accusations.

Wesker, Irving, Excella, Spencer and the entire BSAA team were unveiled AFTER these accusations too. Man, what could that mean? >_>
Really, you're looking too hard into this.

As lots of people here have stated (me included), the entire game is build upon being co-op, and that's not a thing you add when the game is far into development, because that would mean redesigning the entire product. Just because they haven't showed Sheva back in the 2007 trailer doesn't mean she wasn't there.

[Mr. Kennedy]

Wesker, Irving, Excella, Spencer and the entire BSAA team were unveiled AFTER these accusations too. Man, what could that mean? >_>

He has a point.

[News Bot]

Being sarcastic doesn't earn you any brownie points and it certainly doesn't help your argument.

There is no issue. Why do you persist?