Thought/Process: More on Resident Evil 5 and Uncomfortable Echoes
The discussion on race and RE5 continues, but are journalists missing the point?
3/16/2009 9:25 PM | 43 Comments | Page 1 of 3
Resident Evil 5 came out on Friday, and a few things happened this weekend.
Comment threads around the Web --
including our own -- burned with debate as to how racist
Resident Evil 5 may or may not be.
The New York Times review by Seth Schiesel bluntly declared that
Resident Evil 5 is not racist.
I think Schiesel's review misses the point of the "is it or isn't it" racism argument.
Resident Evil 5 is so close to the edge that it's fair to read it both ways -- so dismissing any concerns about racism on the basis of the game's interactive nature feels shallow. Every game stands as a cultural artifact filled with meaning by the people who make them and play them.
That's worth discussing.
For my part, I've never called
RE5 racist, and I probably won't. Throwing the word around oversimplifies what I think is a more complex reality. What I will stand by is my assertion that
this game will make plenty of people uncomfortable in racially specific ways.
That's worth discussing.
Schiesel's review says, "When you are in control of the action the racial or ethnic appearance of your enemies simply stops mattering. The basic mechanics of moving, shooting, using cover, solving puzzles, employing weapons properly and understanding the overall environment are universal, no matter whether the enemies are aliens or Nazis or zombies or gangsters or any of the other categories we use to denote 'acceptable to kill.'"
The subtext of race doesn't fall away so easily. Sure, you're concerned with your avatar's survival. And as Capcom's
Chris Kramer says, you may be playing to avenge the Majini, who are victims of bioterrorist experiments. But the game's not throwing waves of evil scientists and executives at you to kill. It's throwing zombies at you, and you grow to hate those zombies and where they come from. It's okay to shoot them because the game's cues tell you they're your enemies -- but the history of colonization is filled with propaganda and legislation that delivered similar cues. It's an uncomfortable parallel that doesn't recede just because you're playing a game with similar mechanics to other games.
And that's worth discussing.
I had a chance to
speak to Jun Takeuchi, the creative director on the game. I didn't interview Takeuchi so I could "out" him as a racist. I talked to him to see if he understood how some of the imagery in the game would come across to people. In talking to him, it seemed like his priority was to lead the crafting of a piece of entertainment. He said his team went to Africa, did its research, and talked about the game with Africans. All of that doesn't mean that the end user may not feel squirmy at some of the imagery.
Over at MTV Multiplayer, Stephen Totilo's assessment is that
Resident Evil 5 relies on stock characterization for the zombified African enemies. That's true, but stock characterizations of any people often rely on stereotypes, or otherwise shallow understandings of different cultures. The unique problem when playing
RE5 comes when you consider the legacy upon which it's building.
