Oh Lord Capcom accused of Racism for RE5

[foont]

Ok. Let's put it this way:

Would it be appropriate to have a game set in a fictional American city (similar to New York, but NOT New York) in which one of your missions in the game is to knock down two tall, identical buildings (or towers, if you will) with a couple of airplanes? Oh, and you play as characters from the middle east. But it's TOTALLY just a coincidence that it looks like 9/11 because the enemies in the buildings are aliens or locusts or goombas or something...

Or would some people be understandably offended by that? I think a lot of people would be, and I think they would be justified in feeling that way.


It's easy to say, "It's fictional. You're just reading too much into it", but that's an answer that too quickly brushes aside much more complex problems and questions.

Shouldn't creators be responsible for the choices they make in their work? Shouldn't audiences be responsible to criticize and discuss?

For me this isn't even an argument about video games, racism, equality or social ills. It's simply a question as to whether or not the imagery in RE5 is potentially offensive.


I don't know if I can make it much clearer than that without launching into a pretentious lecture on semiotics and symbolism, and sounding like a total douchebag instead of just a partial douchebag.