Equal Opportunity Violence
This past week, a blog was posted that caused quite a stir in the game world. The writer was deeply troubled by the upcoming game, "Resident Evil 5." The famous zombie-themed survival-horror franchise is moving into some generic African village setting. The populous has become infected/driven mad by something, and it’s up to the player (a white character) to fight through and discover the source of the mystery. Since the setting is in Africa, the player is inevitably gunning downs hordes of black people.
On the surface, it sounds horrible, encouraging a white player character to shoot black people because they are rabid killers bent on your destruction… but back up. This is not the first game that has the player in situations where they have to shoot black people. More important, most human-target games have the player killing white people (though admittedly, there are only a handful of cases where the player controls a black person doing the killing). Therefore, does this not mean that most black gamers have spent their lives virtually murdering white people for years? And let’s not even get into the number of aliens, mutants, and masked ninjas that are virtually slaughtered on a daily basis.
Obviously, these complaints are ridiculous. If the game’s entire premise was that ‘black people are bad and must be killed’, then of course there should be an outcry against it. However, this game’s premise isn’t racially motivated by any stretch. It just so happens the story's setting requires that there be black people to make it believable.
When it comes down to it, the only real-life group of humans that are universally acceptable to kill in video games are Nazis, and they are white (at least a good Nazi is). I can’t tell you how many I’ve killed in video games I’ve played; they make great bad guys, and who is going to care if you kill a virtual fascist? Maybe Illinois Nazis… I hate Illinois Nazis.
posted by Philip Cohen @ 1:16 PM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
I find your argument thin. Racism is the dirty little secret Americans don't or won't talk about. If the game portrays blacks as subhuman, or as having magical powers (voodoo), or being sexually threatening to white woman, the game has sociological problems.
Because other games mark some humans "universally acceptable to kill," that doesn't make the practice morally proper; it is unacceptable behavior—even in video games.
Nonetheless, your blog post is a good place to start a dialog about this issue.
Of course the act of killing, real or virtual, isn't morally acceptable. That's an entirely different topic for the overall 'violence in video games' discussion.
Part of my point is that it doesn't matter what the color of the person's skin is that you're killing in the game; the observations you brought up are, in the game developers eyes (Japanese developed game), are meant to evoke questions about all of humanity's base animal instincts and cause fear in us rational folk that keep the "animal" at bay. The setting just happens to dictate the color of the skin for these zombies; the actual violence being done is the same as in the previous games of this same franchise, but against a suburban white town in middle America, and a rural white town in Spain.
You unknowingly underscored my argument. Maybe Americans are more racially liberal than when I was a young man—maybe. Regardless, you're looking at this through your American eyes. Let's look at it through the developers' eyes, Japanese eyes.
Japanese culture is one of the most racist in the world. Typing in "japanese racism" into "The Google" yields 12,900 hits. Check out this blog or this New York Times article. Japanese racism is covert: have the black man being killed by a white shooter, and the Japanese appear inculpable of xenophobia and bigotry. If Koreans are treated as unclean in Japan, how well do the Japanese treat black Africans?
The games we play, like art we produce, are a reflection of our culture.
I wonder when they are going to make a game where I can slaughter some Jews...
That won't happen, since we control all media. Point taken, though.
I'm playing Resident Evil 4, Wii version, Yea! Anyway, in this version the zombies are mostly Mexican. I don't think there is any outcry about that. I wonder why?
Everyone has some stereotype they bring with them. Humans are great at finding patterns, and we tend to make out patterns about how other people look and act. If your good at living, your good at making stereotypes. With that assumption, I think everyone is racist (to an extent).
As far as racism in the US, I do think that "our" generation may be different. I don't think we DON'T talk about it because it's a secret, rather we don't want it to be an issue. It's a form of affirmative action - don't bring up racism because no good could come from it. (weak argument I know)
This next generation may be the bridge between two cultures. The previous generation felt a level of pride and respect for "their own" culture at the expense of others. The next generation seems to belittle the differences in culture, at least to the point where we can say, "Yea, your different and that is not any worse or better than me." I have a sense that racism stems from a perversion of cultural pride. I hope that we tend to loose that trait when living in a multi-cultural and ever more connected world.
As far as video games (art) is concerned, I don't think there is anything wrong with depicting zombies in Africa as being black.
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