More on Race Relations and RE5

Looks like I was right when I predicted controversy on the heels of the RE5 trailer. I'm pretty sure it'll continue to inspire heated discussion among gamers who are already hair-trigger defensive to any kind of criticism of our medium in general (and perhaps justifiably so). The hot item on Destructoid this morning surrounded a woman's post on a black interest site already taking umbrage at the trailer, and largely the community hastened to bring the hammer down on her, whoever she is.

Bonnie Ruberg, now of the Village Voice, tackled the whole touchy black zombies issue in a recent column, and she raises some interesting points in an even-handed way.

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.

Sounds familiar yet? Yup, we could be talking about the HIV/AIDS crisis, which has killed 15 million Africans, and infected 25 million others on the continent. Especially since one of the few sentences spoken in the Resident Evil 5 trailer is, “Casualties continue to mount over the long years I have struggled.”Whether you agree with her or not -- the setting as Africa, for one thing, as opposed to Haiti or even an entirely fictional place, is not, as far as I know, confirmed -- I can at least jive a little to the idea that, at the very least, the trailer makes me think about my ideas of what's foreign and frightening to people and why.

Still, my personal opinion, after some thought, is that it's probably more racist not to be able to set games in an ethnic environment; the best way to state we're over the whole black-versus-white thing and above discrimination is not to bat an eye at this. There are indeed places in the world that are ethnically homogenous, and this game just happens to be set in one of them. And at the end of the day, nobody's gunning them down for their color, but because they're flesh-eating lethal undead genetic mutants gone awry.

I suppose we won't know whether there's any blanket statement on race relations going on in this game until we play it. To be fair, for those with hackles raised and their finger on the reaction button (and god, in hindsight I am so relieved I didn't stick my neck out much on this)-- there's not enough evidence here to defend or attack it.

People bitch about whether or not games are art. But the one thing many games have in common with art is the idea of subjective experience; the game can influence you to feel afraid or euphoric, but the way you interpret that experience is highly personal. Whether or not people are uncomfortable, offended, or utterly unmoved by this game will probably have more to do with their own opinions and attitudes than any content, no matter how much suggestion is (or isn't) there.

Largely, I feel that people who fear racism -- whether that's as potential victims, or as sufferers of overly PC white guilt -- are probably the ones, deep down, with the most discriminatory attitudes.

And by the way, calling RE's monsters "zombies" is somewhat inaccurate. Their bodies have been ravaged by a mutant virus; they're not reanimated corpses. Man, I've always wanted to say that.