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Kasz216 on 13 February 2009
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windbane said:
foont said:
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.



To make that analogy work: the building would have to be infested with ZOMBIES. Furthermore, you'll have to point to a specific event that RE5 mimics. Is it Hotel Rwanda? Is it Blood Diamond (which btw had a good guy with a gun that happened to be white and some bad guys that were black...and the white guy ended up with a black side-kick!)? Were those offensive?

You can't just say "what if a video game depicted this very specific incident?" RE5 is no more offensive than RE4 or RE3 or RE2 or RE1 or RE0 or Code Veronica or Academy Award nominated Blood Diamond. The setting is somewhere in Africa. Some people are black. One of the main characters happens to be a white male.

When is the last time a white male went to Africa and shot a bunch of people, much less zombies? Can you tell me that? I'm not up to date on African wars so there might very well be a specific incident. Perhaps fighting against South African apartide? I'm sure there was at least 1 white guy shooting some black guys. You tell me.

Everything in the world is offensive to someone, we can't help that, but please show me all the black people that are offended that a game in Africa features black people.

 

The zombies are using machetes.  The last time a bunch of africans killed a bunch of people not like them with machetes in africa was.... actually probably right at this moment.

Your missing the point.

But sure.

Also people would be offended at the above game.... even if the building were empty, ful of zombies and you crashed a plane into a building in Europe before.