September 22, 2007 -
GamePolitics readers will no doubt recall last month's Resident Evil 5 race controversy which erupted across the online world as African-American bloggers took issue with the upcoming game's setting in Africa as well as the idea of a white protagonist mowing down waves of black villagers turned zombies.Although the furor over RE5 eventually died down, liberal website AlterNet has fanned the flames with an article posted earlier today.
'Resident Evil: Extinction' Flick Based on Racist Video Game Series takes the popular zombie shooter to task, and not just over RE5's gunning down of African villagers:
As they pack into theaters to watch the blockbuster Resident Evil: Extinction this weekend, moviegoers may first want to play one of the many blockbuster video games on which the film is based. Those that do will likely enter a world... increasingly populated with very dangerous depictions of non-whites.
...last year's smash-hit Resident Evil 4... places players in the position of fighting parasitically-controlled Spaniards (called "Los Ganados" or "the cattle") with stereotypical Mexican accents...
And, in what looks like it could be a training video for a white supremacist race war... players of the soon-to-be-released Resident Evil 5 video game are placed in what could be an African country or Haiti as they blow up armies of black zombies.
Although his time frame is way off, author Roberto Lovato also revives the 2003 Haitian controversy which eventually prompted GTA Vice City to be edited by Rockstar:
Players of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, this year's most popular video game... become characters in the virtual world who mouth such statements as "I hate these Haitians!,"and "Stinking nest of Haitians, we gonna kill 'em all!"
...Like many of the most popular games, including Kung Fu, Warcraft 3 and Shadow Warrior... most video games deny humanity to the non-white, especially Latinos. A comprehensive content analysis study of video games conducted by Children Now, found that while 56% of all human characters in the games were white, only 22% of all human characters were African American and only 2% were Latino...
Mallika Dutt, Director of Breakthrough, an organization which is developing ICED! a serious game which examines the plight of immigrants, told Lovato:
We've been tracking this (video game racism) for some time and we saw how effective games are for getting someone into the skin of someone experiencing something. Unfortunately, we also found that many of the most popular games give players the opportunity to experience what it's like to be a bigot...
The issues around video games are just one example of how very important it is to understand gaming and other new media. There are so many games that promote hate and prejudice. So, we decided to do something different.
Comments
Of course, yes, they're SO
Of course, yes, they're SO right, yano?
I mean, OF COURSE, the zombies is Resident Evil Zero, The Remake, 2, and 3, were ALL of different ethnicities and colors as well, and that's why it's such a big deal!
.....
Wrong. In all of those games, the character killed WHITE people. Those in the mansion- white. Those on the streets- white. Ever notice that? AND NO ONE MADE A BIG DEAL ABOUT IT. In all fairness, that should have been ranted against as well, because there were ONLY white zombies. And now, that Capcom has spread into killing everyone equally, people make a stink about it?
Jackasses, really. Wanna know something?
IT'S A GAME. GET OVER IT.
Sure, people "might be mad" and think it's racist... but no way in hell would Capcom scrap a game they can make money from. I'm not racist, I'd still buy the game (even if it was confirmed racist) because I love Resident Evil more than I love being politically correct. Sure, that sounds bad, but really, I'd rather be killing zombies than arguing with people who stopped me from killing zombies...
Well, what do they want spaniards to sound like in a spanish-speaking country, American? That doesn't make sense. Apparently every video game has to have every character use an american accent. Oh wait, that's racial bigotry by saying 'lol Americans r better dan j00' That's like saying Mario is racist against italians for looking stereotypically Italian. Total bullcrap.
"And, in what looks like it could be a training video for a white supremacist race war… players of the soon-to-be-released Resident Evil 5 video game are placed in what could be an African country or Haiti as they blow up armies of black zombies."
......THEY JUST FREAKING ADMITTED THAT THEY'RE ZOMBIES. Are these guys even listening to themselves?
When will you realize that gamers are the MAJORITY of citizens in the world now. Finding someone who doesn't play video games, even just casually once a week (or even just once a month) is nearly impossible now considering that that average age of a 'gamer' is 18-24 (someone correct me if I'm wrong).
To take a bold stance like this isn't making you a hero or a martyr, it's making an ASS of yourself for the sake of some heated race debate.
All of the Resident evil games are originally created by Japanese companies. White Supremacy is out of the question there, since I don't think Japan has a KKK.
If you want to talk about a serious issue I suggest addressing the increasing amount of both legal and illegal immigrants coming to this country and refusing the adapt to the culture. I work in retail, so every day I deal with all kinds of customers and the worst are the families that have one child who knows English and thus has to translate between me and the parent. Meanwhile, the parent is staring vacantly at me, having NO idea what I'm saying.
What I'm getting at is, you go the France, they speak French. You go to Italy, they speak Italian. In America, we shouldn't have to become a quadlingual country just because the immigrants we accept into our country don't want to learn a new language.
If video games have taught us anything, it's that we are all equally vulnerable to be turned into zombies, no matter what race or creed we come from. That's the truth and I'm sticking to it :p
... no, wait... that doesn't sound right.
岩「…I can see why Hasselbeck's worried about fake guns killing fake people. afterall, she's a fake journalist on a fake news channel」
Idiots, also why is it these morons can't tell the difference white Spaniards, (the zombies in RE4) from Spain, and Mexicans. Speaking Spanish DOES NOT mean that you are Mexican ffs!
Well, at least, most of the comments I saw on Alternet were well-written and civilian. That's a big progress since the RE5 fiasco.
Thanks a lot, you jerks. You've made me embarassed to live in this continent.
....only around 15% +/- 5% of americans are black anyways....
But the article assumes the game was made by racist white people depicting spaniards as zombies. How's that for prejudice?
And why cannot a single person in the world every point out that it was CUBANS killing HAITIANS in Vice City helped by an ITALIAN man?
HORROR.
You set a game in Europe, then guess what; there are going to be Europeans in it. This is not rocket science. Nor is it racism.
Stereotyping nationalities is something that has been done in the movies a gazillion times and continues to be done, ESPECIALLY in cheesy action flicks where the criminals are usually accent-bearing Europeans. Yet again, games are treated as a special case for no reason at all.
What a crock.
no one is getting klilled (pixels are merely dissapearing from the screen)
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!?
That having been said, lets see the industry prove them wrong and make came that are more culturally diverse.
@Ashton
Since call of duty is based off a historical event, I don't think it falls under the same scrutiny. Same with games in Vietnam. However, one could look at them as reinforcing a set of cultural narratives. No one is going to make a game where you are Vietnamese fighting against Americans. At the same time, I doubt Vietnamese designers would make a game with Americans as the heroes. Just like the...Syrian I think... game about the battle against Israel. Games are a story, a narrative, and each culture will naturally make games within their own frame of reference or their own meta narrative. I think this is what AlterNet is picking up on.
Can anybody prove that there's been a rising hatred of Spaniards linked to the release of this game nearly 3 years ago?
also, Spaniards all talk like Jackie Chan, not like Antonio Banderas.
*headdesk*
I know this was raised when the first ruckus went up but its goddamn hypocritical.
Its alright to shoot white zombies but not black zombies? spanish zombies? THEYRE ZOMBIES for christs sake, Its one bigotry we're allowed.
Give these people theyre way and in the next game they'll be th e'Vitally Impaired' and you cant shoot them, youll have to try and teach them to play football while they try eating your face.
How about the circulatory disabled?
Oh God, now I've got a nice mental image of that stuck in my head! XD
Will you PLEASE do your research before bashing a whole series based on two games?
Resident evil 4, the only (repeat, ONLY) game in the resident evil series where the people you shoot are Spanish, makes it ABUNDANTLY clear that the villagers were once normal, nice people.
The game depicts the TRUE villains as the people, who happened to be Spanish, who experimented with the parasites and infected the innocent villagers. Guess what? In the other umpteen Resident Evil games, the true villains are the people, who happened to be AMERICAN, who experimented with viruses and ending up infecting a whole city!
Notice the similarities. Also, notice that NO-ONE complained when the 'bad guys' and the zombies were AMERICAN, and notice that until now, NO-ONE complained about RE4. That's right, even the Spanish people that this game so 'hatefully' depicts. Are you Spanish? I somehow doubt it.
Let the Spaniards speak for themselves. If you are in fact Spanish, look into the game before deciding to pull the racist card. It's common courtesy.
Finally, you said Resident Evil 5 is "soon to be released"?
From what I last heard, it's out in 2009.
Actually, different dialects of Spanish have different accents. The dialect spoken in much of Spain (also known as Castilian, I believe) has a lisping quality on soft c and z sounds, whereas Mexican Spanish doesn't. For some reason, the Spaniards in the game are, in fact, speaking the Mexican dialect, which is something that confuses the hell out of me.
But yes, I agree that this whole argument is a giant load of crap.
A quick search of American racial demographics reveal that about 12% of the population is black. To what degree do they need to be over-represented in games, in order for that not to be taken as an indication of racism?
By the way, the same stats show that 68% of the population is white, making them under-represented in games. Is Mr. Lovato prepared to pick up his torch and decry this apparent "discrimination" against whites?
Mr. Lovato's use of these statistics at all is highly manipulative. On the one hand, depicting people of non-european background is racist (omg hispanics with hispanic accents!), and not representing them is also racist. Great.
Right. Close enough.
Quite true. Latinos are not in Warcraft III. I just can't accept that they're humans, you know? If they were "human", wouldn't they be in Warcraft III?
"have we developed a cure for stupid yet?"
What do you think..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoXgRtDysLY
Lack of research and substance. Synonymous with "dumb" or "stupid".
CJ has to be the only African-American i've ever.... wait.. Junior from Conflict: Vietnam.. Chris from Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction..
"Capcom has rather shot themselves in the foot by having the peasants this time around be African, thus prompting the inevitable demented honking from the politically correct. In an admittedly weak defense of Capcom, Resident Evil 4 wasn't to be less racist really what with all the Spaniard murdering and characters all ironically using the expression 'ay yai yai', but poverty stricken Africans are a somewhat different kettle of fish to greasy mainland Europeans. Still, the games are after all made by the Japanese and everyone knows what a bunch of xenophobic *bleep* they are."
"Part of me feels that from an artistic standpoint there may be some merit in RE5 because the point of a horror game is to be unnerving and forcing the player to do something they find distasteful as well as frightening is a rather ground breaking method of doing that. But then again, this is Resident Evil, the series that brought us squeaky-voiced midget Napoleon and if there's anything sophisticated in an idea of their's it's probably a total accident."
"There tends to be a kneejerk reaction to perceived racism these days regardless of intent or irony and I don't think we need to start worrying about RE5 until they start breaking out the fried chicken."
Only Pres. Bush could do that....
Riight..
First off, the enemies in RE4 did NOT have "stereotypical Mexican accents," they had Spanish accents. My BA is in Spanish and I'm familiar with many of the accents and the voice-over work in the game was actually pretty good at putting an Iberian accent on the Ganados. He actually sounds more ignorant by apparently thinking that Mexican is a language.
Secondly, he looks like an ignoramus because he's quoting Vice City (certainly NOT this year's most popular game since it came out in over 4 years ago), and he's taking the quote completely out of context. In the original context of the game, there's nothing racist about it. It's about two gangs and their violent rivalry, not about race.
I wish jackoffs like this guy would stop giving liberals like me a bad name. There actually are videogames with overt racism, there are people in videogame communities that are racists (remember when GTA:SA or Prey came out and the backlash at those main characters?), and there are people like the population of Jena, LA. Focus on those factors, and don't try to stir the pot on games that aren't racist.
Umm, I kinda thought Bioshock is the most popular game of this year at this point.