I don't think the Spanish count as Latino. I could be wrong.

I thought about that before i was going to put it in. but there are some spanish born mexicans out there so i left it there.

I'm black, white, and Indian and this is really pissing me off

People are reacting to this as if Rockstar put children in a GTA game. There are limits I understand that but a white person killing some black zombies goes over the limit? HOW?!!! I guess killing Spaniard zombies isn't going over anything at all (RE4)

All of this controversy makes me feel black people are too special to be used in content like a RE game. Why? Because they went threw hell back then? Jewish people went through hell back then too but if a RE game was made and took place in Israel, I bet nobody would even complain for some reason.

@ Final-Fan

Yeah, Stephen Lewis and AIDS pandemic are a whole other topic, but I just wanted to point out that sometimes racism takes more subtle forms than we typically think. It's a bit off topic, but Lewis has spent a lot of time in Africa, and has some very thought-provoking words about how to remedy many of the problems there.

On topic, I stand by my analogy. The history of white European relations with Africa is long, violent, and just as offensive as the holocaust. The fact that African people were captured and enslaved is a history that we still feel the repercussions of today.

That said, you're absolutely right. It's impossible to fully judge the content of a game that isn't even out yet. Though the Resident Evil series has never exactly been a work of great literature, maybe this game will end up having something important to say.

I think this all just comes down to cultural misunderstandings. Perhaps RE5's developers are simply oblivious to the fact that the images in the game carry such weight. Judging by a lot of the stuff that comes out of Japan (commercials, manga, games etc.), it's not uncommon for Japanese media to contain elements that would be considered racist in other countries. Racism by obliviousness?

I actually really liked N'Gai Croal's words about the whole issue. I think he's one of the most intelligent, well-read voices in the gaming world right now. Croal refers to RE5's early screenshots as "classic racist imagery", and out of the context of the game storyline, I tend to agree. Croal goes on to point out that "this imagery has a history. It has a history and you can't pretend otherwise."

(Whoa! I just re-read his article, and he used the holocaust example too.)

Anyway, a few walls of text later, thanks for the welcome, Final-Fan! :)

I think what's more disturbing is the very real CURRENT history.

The zombies and their leader in RE5 very much resemble current dictatorships who get their people crazy and send them on genocidal rampages.

Then the "white man" going in to fix things... well.

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/22801.html

Crazed gangs of africans in central africa running around with machetes and other knifes and weapons trying to murder people...?

Not the best image to be having what with the current genocides and all.

@foont

Good first posts, hope you stick around bro.

Totally! I completely forgot about that! It would actually be hilarious if it wasn't so horrible. I don't know why Capcom didn't just save themselves the trouble and place the game in a setting that doesn't lend itself so easily to controversy and symbolic interpretation. I know one of the developers said something about setting it in Africa because it was the birthplace of humanity and they wanted that to reflect the origins of the whole biohazard/Umbrella thing ... but still. Surely someone along the development process said, "Wait a minute, this might not be such a good idea."

@JGarret:

Thanks! I suppose my long days of lurking are over.

I don't think your example is as comparative as you do.  There is a rather large difference between slaughtering live innocent people in a gas chamber and protecting yourself from zombies.  If the folks being put into gas chambers were zombies I have no problem with it because they aren't people they are zombies.

The only real issue I see that can be made is the dehumanizing of a culture by depicting them as zombies, but I think the argument fails to gain merit by the fact that almost every culture has had this exact same depiction made in this very game series.  If it were a consistant depiction of a race of people as savage and ravenous thier might be a point.  But once they made the choice to go to Africa for this game I think it would be more racist for them to change representated skin colors with the issue of racism in mind than it would for them to simply make the most accurate setting they could, or any other goal they had in mind as a developer and not a group of people trying to avoid being labeled racists.

I believe that asking people to make these changes promotes racism as it seperates and distinguishes groups and tells people that you're supposed to treat them differently.  You don't bring about a world where people implicitly believe and act on the basis of equality by promoting this sort of distinction where one group or another is or isn't acceptable.

On the last point I quoted, I have to say that I have a hard time seeing how anyone who is not a racist would pull that same meaning from the imagery.  A racist who sees the imagery would surely come to those thoughts but then the game isn't promoting it, the person's worldview is.  A person who views skin color as most view hair color wouldn't see it as anything but human on human violence...and really it is my opinion that the only legitimate point to be made here is that this game contains human on human violence...the skin color of those people simply shouldn't matter and I think acting as if it does or should promotes racism far more than anything else being discussed here.

PS - Welcome to the boards =)

But heres the thing.  Unlike the US or Spain.....

these things DO happen in Africa.  They're happening right now.

It seems kinda sick to make a game where your shooting a bunch of genocidal zombies in an area where people are doing nothing about a bunch of genocidal people.

@Squrl

I think we might be saying the same thing. I meant that the image (removed from the context of the game's storyline), perpetuates and calls to mind a history of racial imagery. Like you said, it dehumanizes a culture.

For my imaginary game-set-in-Poland example, let's pretend that the enemies are still zombies-- that doesn't make the image less offensive. Images can carry a lot of weight, symbolism, and meaning, and I think that's how the controversy over RE5 started.

Here's an off-topic non-game example: I once went to a student art show, where the artist had arranged white pointed paper cones into a spiral shape on the floor. She thought it was just a pretty design, but it REALLY looked like a swastika made of Ku Klux hoods. She didn't mean for it to be offensive or racist, but it was possible to read the image that way, and people did. It's not her fault, but it didn't change the fact that a lot of people viewed it that way.

Also, did you just imply that I'm a racist? :) Well, I hope I'm not, but I think we live in a world where racism still exists, so it's impossible for anyone, not to be inadvertently racist sometimes (other than a child as pure as fresh fallen snow, untainted by the world).