Resident Racist
August 9th, 2007I read this story in the morning and felt sick to my stomach after having completed it.
The makers of “Resident Evil 5,” to be released sometime next year, have been accused of racist game design. The game’s trailer shows Chris Redfield, a protagonist of past “Resident Evil” games, on the run from swarms of bloodthirsty zombies in a desert African setting. Redfield ducks and dodges his attackers while unloading rounds on them when he has the space, but the pack of pick-wielding undead only seems to swell. […..] It should be noted, however, that Redfield’s enemies may not even be zombies. “Resident Evil 4” broke with previous games in the series by replacing the undead with parasite-controlled humans, so next year’s title could introduce a new fiendish species.
But early critics of “Resident Evil 5” couldn’t care less what type of creature will haunt Redfield throughout the game. They’re concerned by the color of his enemies’ skin. Kym Platt of Black Looks, a blog penned by African women about African women, says of the game, “This is problematic on so many levels, including the depiction of black people as inhuman savages, the killing of black people by a white man in military clothing, and the fact that this video game is marketed to children and young adults. Start them young - fearing, hating, and destroying black people.”
The image Platt constructs is indeed unsettling, particularly to an American public that has heard endless stories about police brutality toward blacks and even watched New Orleans officers beat down a black man on TV. But Platt misrepresents the mission of “Resident Evil 5.” Like all earlier games in the series, the enemies aren’t people depicted as inhuman savages, they are inhuman savages. A zombifying virus or cerebral parasite mutates them into mindless creatures of the night.
In the first three “Resident Evil” games, those creatures were mostly white, metropolitan Americans dressed in street clothes, police uniforms and three-piece suits. “Resident Evil 4” was set in the dreary Spanish countryside, where lower-class farmers and villagers swung their axes and pitchforks at the protagonist. Are the makers of these games to blame for breeding fear and hatred toward whites and Spaniards?
It’s so ridiculous that I thought, Kym Platt has got to be kidding but she’s not. Platt truly believes that this is a racist game, and that disturbs me so much that I must be a racist. I suppose Kym Platt believes that no one who happens to be black should ever be written as a villain in a story under any circumstance. I suppose Kym Platt believes that no one who happens to be black can ever be criticized, either. I suppose she would have us consider the color of someone’s skin at all times, with the first and foremost goal being to avoid ever portraying any black person in a negative light or allowing a black person to be seen in a negative situation because that’s racist!
Listen: it’s not. They’re zombies or they’re controlled by aliens, and it’s set in Africa. Why would the characters be white if they’re in Africa unless it’s South Africa and even that’s a stretch. What kind of person sits around criticizing a video game series for the color of the character’s skin? It’s such an absurd criticism that I considered completely ignoring it but it’s such a great illustration of racist hypocrisy that I thought I’d comment.
The goal, with regards to race, is to have a world where we don’t have to judge others based on what color they are and don’t. If Platt truly desires that, she needs to reconsider her methods because she’s judging her comments on what race the characters involved are and not much else and that leads to terrible ideas and stupid comments.