Resident Evil 5 Accused of Racism...

[stof]

naznatips said:

stof said:
What's racist is to assume that Africa can't be a setting for a videogame because of the continent's predominant race. It's a lesser form of racism; one born out of good intentions that springs from ignorance, but it's still racism.

The topic has sort of moved beyond this part of the discussion though stof.  I mean no one here (as is pretty obvious from the statements) believes that it's wrong to have a game set in Africa based on the race.  The original complaint is stupid and baseless, but as has been pointed out, given some of the slightly deeper political situations in Africa itself, the idea of a first world country going in and murdering a 3rd world country's populace to "save them from themselves" doesn't go over very well.  There are some valid complaints about the premise of the game.  Honestly my biggest complaint with it is I just think the writing is going to be bad.

 You're right naz. But I posted about that one too

 

stof said:
What's racist is to assume that Africa can't be a setting for a videogame because of the continent's predominant race. It's a lesser form of racism; one born out of good intentions that springs from ignorance, but it's still racism.

Non Sequor said:  I don't think anyone's saying that Africa can't be a setting for a videogame, just that they're inviting criticism by the way they've framed things. The trailer doesn't provide any details of the story, but they make it look like "white foreigner comes to save black people from destroying themselves." There are all sorts of ways they could change things to make this come across better. If they used a local hero rather than a foreigner and/or if they emphasized the Africans being used by Umbrella Corp they wouldn't be drawing this criticism. 

 

stof said:  I think that's the most important word right there. Trailer. We don't have any idea what the story is for this game. When the game comes out, it might actually be a rather scathing criticism of corporate abuse in Africa (Umbrella corp exploiting Africans)