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Days Before Resident Evil 5 Release, Race Debate Spikes Again
Denver, 6:39 AM
Mon Nov 16
24 posts in the last 24 hours
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Days Before Resident Evil 5 Release, Race Debate Spikes Again |
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03/11/09
Fucking epic.
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03/11/09
Look, it's obvious that a mainstream game has to be sensitive to whether or not they're pissing off a whole ethnicity. It's crazy to say "impossible for a game to be racist". It's all a matter of whether or not people get offended, justified or not. Just walking by the demo booth might not be enough to freak out some reasonable folks.
03/11/09
Anyway, just the thought of one particular "college professor," whatever the hell that means these days.
03/11/09
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03/11/09
It's like if they made a game set in China. Most of the enemies will of course be Chinese. Will I get offended? Hell no. Not unless they make 'em appear like they eat dirt and run around holding the sides of their eyes to appear as slits. Even then I wouldn't bitch about it too much.
Sheesh. If this is racist what about the new 50 cent game?
Seriously everyone's offended by something,somewhere all the time these days!
03/11/09
...I think I'd find it a little bit odd if the protagonist in a zombie game suddenly stopped trying to survive, and instead sparked up a complex debate with his African colleague musing about how he was white, and she was black, and how he was a white man in a black country.
03/11/09
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03/11/09
did RE4 have similar issues?
03/11/09
Yes, voices were raised and I disagreed with them in the same manner by stating it wasn't racist. The discussions never really got out of hand though, and it wasn't sensationalized as much as this one.
03/11/09
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03/11/09
That's the game plan for every zombie outbreak/infestation regardless of race.
Chris probably has a business plan in his pocket that says:
1. Kill zombies.
2. ?????
3. Profit.
03/11/09
03/11/09
03/11/09
Does it have some potentially problematic imagery that when taken out of context could be misconstrued as racist? Yes.
Discussing it like adults in forums such as this is what will, in the long run, help the public conception of the medium to evolve beyond the all too common misconception of gaming as juvenile and prurient.
03/11/09
03/11/09
I'd like to agree that public conception will change on the medium, but I don't see that happening from the public's outright criticism to blatantly describe the title as racist.
It is my opinion that simply pointing the finger at the game and calling it racist is something that doesn't help the medium, nor the situation of racism in life.
Yes, the images can be misconstrued, but I feel the blame of that is placed on the beholder of that point of view. That is an acceptance of their fault and ignorance that they could have educated theirselves about.
I don't believe the public wants difficult answers and feels everything must be black and white to avoid the long term process of helping to fix problems like this. They want easy "fixes" to these perceived problems and in their mind, it is "ban it."
I hope in the future, this doesn't happen again; because it will likely just make developers feel scared to produce any black antagonists for games in the future, unless you have covered yourself by trying to appeal to everyone to make it not "seem" racist. An impossible task is, and always has been, to please everyone.
03/11/09
But no let's just take ourselves really serious and get offended at every little thing that happens ever and always have to be socially/politically correct and blablablaba just so we can tell people "hey I play games and it's a mature medium!"
03/11/09
It is a mature medium, it is enjoyed by tons of adults that have grown from the 80s and 90s and still play. As I recall, there are more adults than children playing games, it is just the general public's opinion that believes games are for children.
03/11/09
Is the game racist? No.
Did Capcom fail to be culturally sensitive when they produced the trailer for the game? Yes.
For example, watch "When We Were Kings". They talk about how George Foreman took a German Sheppard with him to Zaire (now known as the Congo). German Sheppards happen to be the same dogs the Belgian colonials used to sick on the natives. Is George Foreman racist? Does he hate Congolese? No. But he pissed them off. They all rooted for Muhammed Ali. He failed to read up and look into the local culture. And so the local crowd cheered on his opponent as he got his ass beat. Capcom recycled classic racist imagery of a white fascist shooting a bunch of crazy African locals. Talking about what they meant or what they intended or what happened in Resident Evil 4 or Left 4 Dead or whatever context you want to talk about doesn't change what they did.
03/11/09
03/11/09
@etchasketchist: If we're gonna try to determine whether the game is, at its heart, racist like the post calls for, I think intent does matter.
Again, problematic imagery, coming from a country who, as I understand it, hasn't had to consider African colonialism the way western nations have.
I never said that Capcom and RE5 had some sort of mystical criticism-deflecting aura made of good intentions. :p
I think you read a lot into my comment that wasn't there. If anything, we seem to agree....?
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03/11/09
Fun.
I think that's what entertainment media's are supposed to be, but were losing that somehow.
Sorry if I'm not taking something that is just meant to be fun as seriously as politics, it clearly means I'm a child.
03/11/09
I play video games too. Duh, and I have fun. But I'm okay with examining them, and myself, from time to time.
03/11/09
Fun is subjective to the person in their own opinion. You have fun as to how you described above, but others may have fun with discussion or simply even chatting on a game. No one is losing the fun, unless the product in question is being regulated in some way. I think if we were to start saying that "this isn't ok" on something then it will reach that point of losing whatever may be fun to us on a game.
At this point, I feel the discussion is veering off-topic and hope we can go back to the debate.
03/11/09
Xp
I know, reeeeeeeal MATURE of me....
03/11/09
Actually, I give up. Time to talk about buttflaps.
03/11/09
I love Buttflaps!
03/11/09