Playstation 3 News, PS3 Games Screenshots, Videos, Cheats, Walkthroughs, Release Dates & Pre-Order Info

Anytime a developer takes a step from making an updated video game version of “Heart of Darkness,” we should all breath a sigh of relief.

This is absurd. Sorry that they made a game in Africa. They made a game in spain where everyone was spanish. You didnt see everyone throwing the race card around then. I hate developers having to be politically correct. Its set in the midst of Africa, thus there are not likely to be white people just as in RE4 there were only Spaniards. Saying that this game is racist is ignorant.

So… you can kill spaniards, but you can’t kill africans? Sound racist, right? Fuck all of these guys looking for racism everywhere! Damn even the “dark side” from Star wars was a target in my country! It would translate to “lado negro” and “negro” would be “black”, that was enough to classify it under racism!

With all due respect to the previous posters, I just want to provide a different perspective about why some might perceive RE 5 trailer as racist.
I can’t speak for N’gai Croal and all the others who have different(and much more eloquent) perspectives, but I’d like to try.
My main point is that one reason why killing black/dark-skinned characters (obviously African, b/c of RE 5’s plot) is that black/dark-skinned characters are often portrayed in a negative light in media, be it in TV, films or video games.
How many black (male or female) protagonists are there in video games? Yes, I understand the RE 4 and tonnes of other games are chock full of white villains, but there’s a tonne of white protagonists/”good guys” too. However, the black character in media is usually the comedy relief (Rush Hour), or the big, burly, usually uneducated muscle (Mr T), and usually violent and sexualized (usually as a threat to white women).
So, some feel that there’s a lot at stake when a black character is portrayed in media, because there are so few examples. There’s a million white characters on TV, films and games, so when someone watches a white character on TV, they’re exposed to a variety of characters, from the intelligent, ivy league-educated lawyer, to the inner-city single mom, to the teenager from the suburbs, to the hardened criminal, etc etc. The viewing public is therefore not predisposed to attach any stereotypes to “white”ness, because there’s a variety of white characters.
However, there is less variety in the portrayal of black characters, which like I said are generally restricted to the violent muscle (Barrett from FF7), and now, zombie-like villains in RE 5. Because there are so few portrayals of positive black characters (a black lawyer, black protagonist in an adventure game, etc), there is a fear that the viewing public attaches a negative stereotype to black people because that’s all they’re exposed to through media.

This is not necessarily anyone’s “fault”, and things like BET are as guilty as Hollywood for perpetuating the sexualized, violent black male. But that’s just my take on why might perceive the RE 5 trailer as perpetuating negative stereotypes of blacks.
Of course, the ideal situation would be where there is an equal number of positive and negative portrayals of blacks in media, which is pretty much the case for whites.
And I agree, its unfair to shoulder all the responsibility for correcting the negative portrayals of blacks with positive portrayals.
However, Capcom, like the rest of us, have the choice to be part of the solution or the problem.
And as much as they have the choice to do that, so do we, as consumers, have the right to feel offended or unaffected, and vote accordingly with our $$$.

I hope that helps to explain one perspective, and thanks for reading.

sorry, I meant that it’s unfair to ask Capcom to shoulder all the responsibility.
I’ve just been thinking about this for a while.

Though I think that this whole fiasco is daft and that lots of the shouting isn’t coming from indignant black people who feel targeted but from self righteous idiots who fancy an opportunity to take what they perceive as the moral high ground, I do agree that there are too few positive portrayals of black characters in the media and particularly in games.

There has been CJ from GTA, but he isn’t even really the classic hero and as far as the GTA franchise goes, CJ was the most cartoonish protagonist yet (especially with all the possibilities for dressing him up in silly costumes).

Fracture and Crackdown both have a heroic black protagonist so I suppose some devs are pushing things forward.

I think a simple solution for Capcom would have been to make the protagonist of Res 5 African as well, creating a heroic black protagonist (perhaps he could come from the area that the zombie plague has arisen in, so that there is some internal conflict – to the protagonist the zombies aren’t faceless marauding killing machines, but his old friends and neighbors that he must kill or be killed by)

Anyway, this debate will go on well past the game’s release so…

Bottom line….this is ridiculous….the game is set in africa…which means there are going to be alot of africans in the game as zombies. If you had it set in England with a african as your lead character there would be no talk about racism. So there shouldnt be any talk about racism here.

everytime there is a black guy in a game which is not the hero they called this racism .. this is niggers shit .. they always feel offended i dont know why .. i have a nice advice to capcom : let the game be as it is and let us enjoy killing niggers .. thats a good solution to the matter ..

Good job, Moh. Here people are, having meaningful discussion and you just barge in with the exact shit that probably caused all of this in the first place.

Anyways, I’m not going to get into that. I’ll just say what I wanted to say about the matter. Personally, I see no reason to be upset about the lack of “racial diversity,” because it does NOT perpetuate the stereotype of the black antagonist or enemy. They are ZOMBIES. Once that comes into the picture, race goes right out the window. White, black, spanish, it doesn’t matter. Technically speaking, all zombies are the same, regardless of skin color (which is rotting, anyways). Zombies don’t base others on skin color, so why should we? Maybe the world should be more like zombies.

>_>

Ok, maybe not, but I hope you get the picture.

First off, While these people are yelling “racists”, you’re removing any remote local towards this. That would mean the equivalence of WW2 games being racists towards Germans or Japanese because they took place in Europe or Pacific, CoD4 being racist towards Middle Eastern people since it takes place in that area, RE4 racist towards Spanish, etc and so on. I don’t know why these people think that it’s ok for other games to “seem” racist, but not this one, because of the enemies he’s against. I think the lines that go along about all this is:

People calling other racists are just as bad, because if the problem wasn’t intended, you just made it a problem.

Now the thing about this game, is that from what aylien said, people could get a negative sterotype portrayal from this game. However, if you take your values from a video game/television show/etc to begin with, you have some issues you need to take care of. The funny thing is that the 2nd character revealed that assists Chris can be considered African as well, but no one paid attention to that. Instead they looked at the generalized, overall picture, and called it out. Also, from what dude stated, they aren’t even the regular people, they’re taken over by parasites.

What an over-sensitive and whiny group these people who cry racism are. Are video games going to have to practice affirmative action now?

The only reason they think its a solution to add more whites is because whites aren’t going to whine like a baby, throwing a temper tantrum about racism in a video game.

Couple of things,

It really doesn’t matter *who* is saying whether something is racist or not, what matters is the underlying issue. Before Brown v. Board came down, the majority of the United States, who were white, were absolutely fine with segregated schools. Does that alone mean that segregation should have been continued? Likewise, just because some people might not think that this is an issue about race doesn’t mean the issue itself is without merit. Debate the issue, not the people presenting it.

And yes, I realize that RE 5 is set in Africa, and that obviously the majority of the enemies are going to be African, and majority black-African at that. However, the quote in the post above, from Gamespot, said “It’s not just that these zombies are black, but that the uninfected black villagers are zombie-like too,””
Obviously if you’re a zombie then you’ll act like a zombie. But why are the uninfected black villagers also “zombie-like”?

And as for people getting their stereotypes from media, lets face it, media is one of the strongest forces shaping our opinion today. Apart from your family and friends, it’s a huge force in how we view the world. Why else has Hollywood been traditionally so reticent to portray a “bad” US army soldier? I know that nowadays its common place to have negative military characters, but right after WWII, most if not all of the portrayals of US military characters were positive, valiant and courageous, self-sacrificing, etc etc. Heck, were there any negative portrayals of US troops during the war itself? I doubt it. Image is immensely important in shaping beliefs.

finally, i like Fraser’s idea, about having a protagonist from Africa and the village itself, it would definitely add a lot of tension as the “hero” would have to attack former friends/family.
and as for 2nd character that assists Chris, I’m pretty sure her identity/character was NOT released by Capcom in their initial trailer (the one which sparked the reactions). It’s only been in subsequent trailers that her character was revealed.

The uninfected villagers are ‘zombie-like’ because they live in a sweltering inferno, close to the equator. Ever seen working laborers out in the sun? They look a bit like the ‘zombie-like’ characters being referred to here, right?

If they put in more white zombies, they need to include some anti-white violence coming from the residents of the country, to make it more like real Africa.

Too bad, you’d make a lot more money with a game about shooting black people. There’s a huge market for that.

aylien: You’re the most ignorant person I’ve ever encountered in my life. Black people are stereotyped in the media? Are you crazy? Black people are given every possible positive role you can imagine, which is the exact opposite of real life. In pretty much any TV series or movie, the black guy is presented as the hero, while the villain is a rich, white man. There is far more negative stereotyping towards whites than there is to blacks. You can depict white people as evil, rich old men, muggers or trailer trash, and no one says anything, but the moment a black person is shown negatively, the media is in an uproar. Black people are also overexposed in the media. Did you know they only make up 12% of the US population, which makes them a vast minority, yet you see them absolutely all the time on TV.
Don’t give me that crap about black people being stereotyped, it’s just not true. If anything, they’re shown in a much more positive light than they deserve.

First of all, the game is set in Haiti, NOT Africa. And Haitian’s do not consider themselves as Africans or Black, just as Irish wouldn’t consider themselves to be Italian.

Secondly, I am a black man and I kind of liked the trailers. Don’t see what all the fuss is about. I will admit that sometimes racial tension and sensitivity can get way out of hand. Some or even most of this can be chalked up to racial insecurity and psychological issues, seriously. To put it bluntly, “Black people are very sensitive about racial issues and it’s not going to go away soon!”

Thirdly, Chud, I understand what point you’re trying to get across, but others may not. You might want to tone it down before you’re considered being racist! ;P (Not by me… just saying)

Fourthly, I JUST WANNA PLAY THE DAMN GAME! CAN THEY LEAVE IT ALONE AND HURRY UP AND BRING IT OUT!?!

Big Willie, you sir, have earned my seal of approval.

QFT.

Gunmonkey36, Spanards are generally white; They’re not mexicans or anything racially different from a man in Germany. Granted, the ruling class of Moors were of African Descent, but they were mostly driven out.

Jax alternate costume in mka is sterotypical along with a couple other black characters.

aylien, i agree with you man.

haha, thanks fog9, I was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed there. RE 5 has obligation to be a racially sensitive game, but how great would it be if it was an awesome game AND racially sensitive?
pipe dreams, perhaps, but gotta start somewhere.

oh, and Chud, I guess you haven’t encountered many people in your life, then.

All I care about is whether or not this whole thing is going to push back the release date or something…

i find the whole thing pointless, the game is set in haiti or africa or whatever. of course it’s gonna have dark skinned people as they most likely make up the larger part of the population. and from the one trailer i’ve seen i assume this game is taking place in a village that is probably populated by people of lower economical status. maybe they can throw in some white missionaries for fun and start an anti-christian thing going too. any one want to join me in a rally of the re series because ada wong is “sterotyped” as the chinadoll who could kung fu kick. seriously wtf is with this bs. to be quite honestly i believe it is because african americans are quicker to be “up in arms” as they have been wronged in the past. think of the n-word. it’s so taboo to say it in almost any situation which is in vast contrast of using other racial slurs

Totally excellent content. I just stumbled upon your blog and wanted to say that I have truly really liked checking the blogposts. Naturally I’ll be signing up on your rss feed.