Resident Evil 5 Racism
Posted by favonianexegesis on March 6, 2009
Resident Evil 5 Racism
This is a topic that has bugged me since the beginning. Videogamer.com has played through the first three stages of RE5, and a top expert on racism is giving their verdict. Is Resident Evil 5 racist?
First of all, I have to commend this person for ACTUALLY PLAYING THE GAME. Unlike all of these other people judging the game without even knowing the storyline and only judging based on what they seen from pictures. Calling Resident Evil 5 racism is nothing short of stupid. Saying a “White militaristic man in Africa murdering thousands of Africans portrayed as savage”. Ridiculous. When it was a white guy killing people in Spain, people had no problem there. The expert had this to say “I don’t think it’s racist. I think people are looking too quickly to be able to jam that label onto it.”, and I agree completely. He makes a point where black people in RE5 are sort of portrayed as victims, and why the setting doesn’t make it racist.
nick said
I think what allot of people are worried about has to do with the fact that because people play this game, they will develop racist stereotypes or go crazy and shoot people they don’t like.
However, this is a very biased and not very well thought through. According to the AAP, people develop their personality types and general stereotypes when they’re very young (1-8). Violence, racism, and sexist stereotypes in a game or movie can extremely alter a person’s later personality for the worst. Fortunately, this doesn’t apply to older adults…which accounts for it’s M rating
My advice to anyone is to follow the ratings. If your kid is 8, don’t buy the game for him/her because it CAN cause issues with his personality and education. If your kid is older than 16, than it won’t have a huge affect on him/her. Plus, if the game makes you feel uncomfortable, good, that’s what horror videogames are for.
peace,
-nick
Abbie said
Ever noticed you have to kill white people as well? It’s a game; if Capcom thought that it was racist, I doubt they’d have published it.