[Previous entry: "Jew throws Quran down toilet, incenses Muslims"] [Next entry: "Global warming melting Siberia"]
08/01/2007: "Black death in video game sparks outrage"
An African women's blog has taken offense to the new Resident Evil 5 trailer depicting a "white man in what appears to be Africa killing Black people." The blog post goes on to say that the black people "are supposed to be zombies" and that it's "the white man's job" to destroy them and save humanity. There are some other issues the writer has, but she ties it all up by saying "this video game is marketed to children and young adults. Start them young ... fearing, hating, and destroying Black people."
As the Village Voice notes:
"Though the full details of the storyline aren’t public yet, the trailer makes a few things clear: you play as a white Chris Redfield, the same all-American boy who has been taking down old-school leg-draggers for years. And the zombies? You guessed it: the local villagers. Which means that the hordes of undead you’ll be pumping round after round of ammo into—they’re all black.
But looking again at the trailer, I see a different message: it’s not just that these zombies are black, but that the uninfected black villagers are zombie-like too. See all those spooky shots of the villagers before they get infected? It’s as if race itself were a disease. The white protagonist has to fight back or be infected.
And that’s the other issue with setting a zombie movie in Africa. The whole idea of zombies is based on our fear of contamination. Get bitten by a zombie, or just drop a tiny bit of undead blood in an open wound, and you’re a goner. Soon you too will carry the disease of the living dead."
[ 99% of video games feature white characters killing white characters. That's diversity, folks. The people who protest or whine about this game need to have their one-sided heads examined. As a good fascist, I'd like to note that I'd ban 99% of video games for a different reason: they're uncreative, unredeeming, unpleasant and ugly destruction-based monetary analogues. ]
http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/runninscared/archives/2007/07/zombies_in_afri.php
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/08/01/african-womens-blog-upset-over-resident-evil-5/