This year fans of the video game franchises Resident Evil were treated to news of the next game in the series. Released as Biohazard 5 the game was set and released March 5, 2009 and then March 13, 2009 in the states selling well over 2 million units alone.
For anyone who has not heard of the Resident Evil games they may have heard of the movie of the same name which is a spin off of the popular games and features Milla Jovovich as the main character; Alice. The Resident Evil movies follows the general story plot of the original games where the action is set in Raccoon City and a series of bizarre murdered have been occurring along side with strange signs of cannibalism. Because of this the Raccoon Police Department's Special Tactics And Rescue Service (STARS) are assigned to investigate the murders, which is comprised of two teams, Alpha and Bravo. Bravo Team is sent first, but after contact with them is lost, the city's officials deploy Alpha Team to investigate their disappearance. This is where you pick up and begin game play. The main action of the original game is placed within a huge mansion.
The plot is simple enough, after the first and second game and the code series the following Resident Evils has since spread out of mansions and have allowed players to investigate small towns and cities that are plagued with "zombies". An example of this is Resident Evil 4 which was placed within a small town in Europe. Through out the game players fight Hispanics townspeople who are plagued with a disease that makes them eat flesh after joining the cult Los Illuminados. The main objective of the game is to find and protect the president's daughter, Ashley.
Now the set of Resident Evil 5 plot revolves around Chris Redfield and Sheva Alomar (pictured below) as they investigate a terrorist threat in Kijuju, a fictional town in Africa.
So, what makes Resident Evil 5 so different that it's worth studying especially in a blog about media? Well the reason why this game is so different is because of the controversy surrounding the game before it's debut launch which started with the launch of the games official trailer seen below:
Before the game could even come out bloggers were buzzing with conversation over the setting of the game; Africa. While the game had never had a problem before when players were asked to shoot Hispanic or European zombies there now was a problem with players having to shoot African zombies. The main problem for many people was that in the game these African zombies were being shot at by a Caucasian male who was placed in an authority role, even though in the game Chris's counterpart is the African female Sheva. It's interesting to see what kind of conversations were happening over this slight change in location.
As stated by Kim Platt of Black Looks, an internet blog dedicated to the outlook of a strong independent and feminist Black woman:
"This is problematic on so many levels, including the depiction of Black people as inhuman savages, the killing of Black people by a white man in military clothing, and the fact that this video game is marketed to children and young adults. Start them young... fearing, hating, and destroying Black people."
Or the writer of The Black Sentinel, another blog who's author is a strong Black woman and mother of two as she comments:
"The game portrays a Caucasian in army fatigues as the so called hero or “savior” who is let loose to run roughshod over those diseased Africans. We know that there are people in the U.S. who are touting that in order to stave off AIDS we should start “exterminating” those with the disease in Africa."
Yet, I believe this is just some of the EXTREME view point of what the game is trying to do here. This game is after all a survivor game where the point is to survive from zombies. Where do zombies originate from? Zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the people being controlled as laborers by a powerful sorcerer. According to the tenets of Vodou, a dead person can be revived by a bokor, or sorcerer. Zombies would then remain under the control of the bokor since they have no will. "Zombi" is also another name of the Vodou snake lwa Damballah Wedo, of Niger-Congo origin; it is akin to the Kikongo word nzambi, which means "god". There also exists within the vodou tradition the zombi astral which is a human soul that is captured by a bokor and used to enhance the bokor's power. Looking at where the story of the zombie comes from it would only make sense that the creators would place the latest game in a place where these legends come from.
It's foolish to say that the makers did not chosen a touchy place to have as the location of the game but I do believe that it is ridiculous to say that the creators were trying to be racist. This is a case of institutionalized assumptions made not only about the game and the creators themselves but about how people view black people within media such as video games. What does this say about how people of color should view themselves in media? If we'd assume the game really was racist as these bloggers made us to believe then why include African soldiers who work for the government? Why include a strong black female role who you can play as? Why even care?
So I pose, is this really just a harmless video game? Or do you think the mass media of video games and bloggers are just keeping up and reinforcing stereotypes?
I definitely think stereotypes in video games are prevalent, especially the depiction of female characters. Not only is Sheeva an African female, she has a British accent and has a fair complexion reminiscent of a white girl. This is pretty unrealistic for an African native. Sheeva even has an alternate "clubbin" outfit that gamers can change into during game play. Of course the outfit is skimpy and suggestive. I mean, what would a video game be without sexualization of the female character?
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I would respond back to is that it would NOT be unrealistic for an African native to have a British accent depending on WHERE they grew up in Africa. While it's a bit horrible they did give her a British accent we can't forget that Africa was colonization by The French, The British, and the Belgians.
ReplyDeleteLike in Africa many people speak French, such as in the regions of Central African Republic, Chad, and Comoros to name a few. So, would it be unrealistic to make her a French speaker? But then that would be racist cause she'd still be speaking a "white" East European language, right?
And so many people in Southern Africa have British accents themselves. Usually this is just a different dialect of traditional British that's common in England and Europe. An example of this would be in Jamaica, many people speak the Kings English which is a dialect version of English.
I will agree that she has a fairer complexion than someone you'd consider "African" but I think that skin tone as a representation of "How white or black" she is stretching it a bit. It's kinda unfair when you try to hold up a candle against debating what you consider black or not since people are made of many different pigments. Plus if she is from south Africa maybe her mother was white? I mean there's tons of things you could throw up there.
I think you're main point of the clubbing outfit is what really hits home. I think it's more important to look at that sexuality and sexual nature attached to Sheva and her character design. The producers even mentioned that they were trying to make a hot companion but someone who wouldn't take away from gameplay by distracting the player. I think it's pretty pathetic but I think again it can be thrown on the other foot. Think about all the pretty boys in video games?
Eh, I think it's more important to look at how that ties in to the image men receive of women and how they view that image in their own self image. How do men then respond when trying to "court" these kind of sexual charged images of women? Do they think then that brute force is the correct way to interact with these women?
Sorry that this is a lot, I just think people forget to look at a much larger picture.