Thu 2 Aug 2007
1:24 am
Someone was bound to get offended by Resident Evil 5. One white guy on a killing spree in a third-world village filled with black zombie-like creatures isn't a particularly good image, despite nobody caring when the same white boy mowed down dozens of latino enemies. It's a big world, filled with many interesting places for zombie outbreaks, and expecting Leon to stay in Lilywhite Land is a bit much. Still, it was only a matter of time before the articles started.
The inevitable happened today. Kym Platt, one of the members of the Black Looks blog, posted her displeasure over the Resident Evil 5 imagery while displaying a lack of understanding of how the M rating works. "…this video game is marketed to children and young adults." isn't exactly true, but that's not really the point.
That's just so far, and doesn't count web sites I'm unfamiliar with or the innumerable threads in gaming forums the world over. I'd be very surprised if this didn't hit the mainstream news in the next day or two. It's summer, there isn't a whole lot is going on, and this would fill up column inches nicely.
The important thing here is that this is just a blog article. Or at least, it was a simple article until everyone decided to splatter this individual's viewpoint all over the web. I've got to admit, though, that I don't understand how an opinion written by someone who seems to believe all video games are for children is news. Kym Platt even goes so far as to admit that she doesn't know much about video games. She is, however, outraged, and apparently that's enough to make it news.
A slightly more informed opinion piece than the Black Looks commentary can be found over at Microscopiq. He cracks on the mojas in LocoRoco, though, so it probably shouldn't be taken too seriously.
Personal view- zombie-like creatures in (most likely) Africa being fought by current series protagonist Leon isn't racist. If you want to read racism into the game, by all means, have fun with it. Just be aware that it's all happening inside your own head, and don't try to tell me what a white imperialist bastard I am because I like having fun killing the undead of any ethnicity.
Leave a Reply
August 3rd, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Glad you posted this, as I hadn’t heard about it. The interesting thing is that the mythos behind zombies has been around for decades, so that whole piece about 1 drop reflecting aids is bunk. Zombies have always infected through the blood since Romero pioneered the genre, which happened to star an African American male as the protagonist. Another thing about zombies and the concept behind it is that it has always been colorblind and is in fact a social commentary on human nature in times of conflict. The graphic novel the Walking Dead is a perfect example of this. Zombies provide the perfect way to criticize humanity.
I totally agree that this is just not justified. I hate to try and get all philosophical about the zombie genre, but it is a very diverse one, that has often been used to provide a broader look at humanity, rather than at specific races.
I don’t buy this one bit. Leon is the same damn hero he has always been, and the fact that it is in Africa is really of no consequence. Plenty of white people have been killed in zombie games and movies and so have plenty of other races. The Japanese do indeed have a different view of race than we do, so the argument that white America is once again trying to oppress other races in subversive ways is not applicable at all.
August 3rd, 2007 at 10:46 pm
I think Kym didn’t know what she talking, but I can see where she was coming from. Someone not familiar with the series could easily take this the wrong way. She was doing her best to perpetuate negative stereotypes of gamers along with some hyperbole, but that doesn’t make her a stupid bitch who needs to STFU, just a person who leaped to the wrong conclusion based on prejudices, which pretty much everybody does, including a large portion of the gaming community, apparently. I think pointing out the errors in her reasoning would have been a lot moe ffective than start throwing around various racist and misogynistic slurs. My favorite argument was the one that black people are all stupid because they think that racism is still around. If you check todays posts on the GP thread, we now have some slavery apologists.
August 4th, 2007 at 9:49 pm
Actually, I think people who leap into a debate with no knowledge of the topic at hand qualify quite nicely as “stupid bitch who needs to STFU”. I don’t care about either Kym’s race or gender, because her ability to go from zero to riled without bothering to do any research doesn’t need either qualifier to be pathetic.