The Gamer's Quarter

[silentmatt]

But that goes back to the question, if the protagonist wasn't either a) someone you knew already and/r b) white, would that change this perception?

I'm assuming most of the viewers watching the trailer won't have any clue about Chris and his prior experience, so I don't know if his back-story plays a huge role in the current discussion (I might be completely wrong here, but I imagine that the level of character insight on a gaming forum is completely different than in the popular press).

RE4 had Leon infiltrate a Spanish country under the pretense that the President's daughter was kidnapped and noone complained (very much). If they included a tidbit of story like this to show why the protagonist is there in RE5, would that change matters?
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[extrabastardformula]

Yes, changing the protagonist would have a huge impact on the reaction.
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[ryan]

I'm sorry, Chris, but you aren't allowed in some places. Because of your looks? Oh no! No, no, no! It's not that at all! It's ... erm ... your shirt. It's too tight. Way too tight. Regulations, you understand.
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[Shapermc]

[Adilegian]

You know, now that I think about it, the international settings factor into the Resident Evil series' accidental criticism of corporate America.

Everything in the series has pretty heavy-handedly moralized against big business, particularly regarding its roles as paramilitary and arms developers. Everything in the trailer seems like the opposite of a colonialist fantasy. In other words, Chris Redfield has to go take stop the ill effects of American corporate capitalism in an area already suffering under colonialism.

I can also imagine complains from that angle too, though. Kind of like how I heard someone calling for the removal of To Kill a Mockingbird from school reading lists because he didn't want black kids to get the idea that they needed a white man to help them out of trouble.

[Scratchmonkey]

The fact that many Japanese videogames, the most technological of mainstream mediums, are centered around distrust of technology is something that deserves a nice fat dissertation (that might already exist, for all I know).

For sure this should be connected to a certain extent to the technological fear that you would develop from having a nuclear bomb exploded on your country, the question to me is how much can really be tied directly to this and what other factors are involved.

[Shapermc]

[Adilegian]

[Isfet]

the idea makes sense from a sort of Black Panthers perspective, but at the same time the book is pretty much a period piece so it's kind of a grey area.


Resident Evil 5 can go in a lot of different directions at this point and we don't really know enough about what's involved in it to come to any real, cohesive conclusions about it. i think the only thing i can really state about it though, is that moving the game to a foreign location simply to make the experience "different" or add to the sense of alienation for the player is really very problematic.

even if this game is supposed to be some allegory for the uses and abuses of the citizens of impoverished nations, there are still going to be a lot of underlying issues with how this game approaches it. and once again, i just don't believe that current developers have the vocabulary and ability to handle something like this intelligently and responsibly.

[dongle]

maybe this is only the first area and then chris goes to vietnam or the middle east. then a native american reservation.

have we had a thread about racism and imperialism in tom clancy games yet?

[dhex]

[Cycle]

i remember there was this big hub-bub about soldier of fortune when it came out, because if you killed civilians in america you'd fail a mission, but if you were in some middle eastern country, you could kill them willy nilly without reprecusions.
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[Shapermc]

[helicopterp]

[Adilegian]

[Cycle]

[dizzyjosh]

dagnabit.

i done wrote a whole thing about this (http://dizzyjosh.wordpress.com/2007/08/09/zombi-part-1/) and there'll be more later;


i don't trust capcom to do anything particularly brilliant but i would hope that there's at least some superficial insight or sociopolitical framework. Iono, 4 was the first RE game i'd played in a long, long time. Does anyone else find it particularly strange that the gameplay is (and probably will always be) a political non-issue here?

[Dracko]

Christ, sorry for being a white established character, guys.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Harveyjames]

The thing is, this shit is not even a subtext in RE4: 'You Americans think you can police the world forever!'

[dizzyjosh]

[Dracko]

Man, no-one bitches enough about Barret Wallace any more. Square needs to get rimmed more often.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[helicopterp]

People with machine gun arms have never received a fair potrayal in videogames.
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[Joe]

we can't make a game that isn't brain training that won't offend anyone

[dizzyjosh]

so last night i sat and down watched dawn of the dead, and i realized part of why I;m so interested in this. For me (and I think for others, although I could be wrong), the history of the zombie movie has *always* had social and political overtones, and I think it's at least fair to consider another zombie work from such angle. the birth of the modern genre,night of the living dead, is a totally fucking rad allegory about political tensions and racism and the distrust that some folk have of other folk. And the introduction to dawn of the dead is a great counterpoint to what the RE5 trailer looks like. and i'm sorry for harping on this, but zombies are something I care about way too much.l

you've got a project in a major city (philadelphia, i think?) finally being raided/rescued by a SWAT team. You've got white guys and black guys coming in to this megabuilding which has largely been on its own during the early stages of the zombie epidemic-- a trigger-happy racist asscop go nuts and starts shooting everyone until his own team puts him down, black cops putting down black zombies, families who've boarded their kids in their bedroom once they've been infected, etc. And it works and is disturbing, but on some level it's pointing to how the housing project was ignored by the police until they had to go in, and in the meantime the people inside dealt with it their own way. They were people without a ton of guns, without the infrastructure that let them fly away, and they seemed to be dealing with it (until the cops break down the barricaded basement and let all the zombies out). In Dawn, you've got a bunch of different people, different reactions, everything is fucked and it seems like a fair, if terribly sad, portrayal of what would happen.

contrast that with the fear that RE5 will be one white dude (with a mysterious pseudogypsy arms dealing stalker) who wanders around a village/castle/gov lab putting down these no-longer-human folk who are storyless, placeless victims. I'm hoping that it's not that blatantly crap (There are scenes of what look like in-game footage of a normal-ish village during the daytime, with women carrying fabrics and pots on their heads etc), and zombie stories are hella excellent places to get into this exact kind of debate, and i bet most of the political commentators aren't giving them any credit whatsoever, but i am saying there's a lot of baggage Capcom acquires by doing this, and that baggage always implies a certain amount of uncomfortability.

bleh. barret watson is totally fucked up and isfet gets more points for pointing out the stereotype that japanese media culture has ridiculous portraits of black folk etc.

((( note: i am not good at talking about race, but i do think it's important. so at the least thanks for letting me vent here.)))

edit: i only played the first 25 minutes of final fantasy seven or so, up to the scene with the tutorial thingie. i played it four times, though. my brother didn't have memory card, and i kept falling asleep and my mom would turn off the machine. so yeah.

[Dracko]

Rufus Shinra was the only reason to play Final Fantasy VII anyway.

lol aryans
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[dizzyjosh]

[Dracko]

They're not coming round to save you.
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"This is the most fun I've ever had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"

[Harveyjames]

My favorite Capcom black person has got to be Big Landman from Burning Rangers.


I live in a predominantly black community but I've yet to meet anyone with the first name 'Big'.

'Hi, I'm Big, nice to meet you. No, it's my real name. Second name Landman. There's my sister Little. My grandma Tiny. My cousin's a psychic, we call him Medium. Yo, what's so funny motherfucker?'

Don't get me started on Dogs Bowser.