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[deadeye]

This has nothing to do with the fact that the way black people are depicted in the game could be construed as or actually is racist, and that either way it reminds some of us of traditional racist depictions of black people.

Don't you mean misconstrued?  If you think it looks racist, you're not thinking about it hard enough.  It takes place in a location that has black residents.  The fact that they're black is totally beside the point.  What would you have them do?  Change the facts to fit your PC sensibilities?

So say they did put in an equal amount of white people, just to be fair.  Never mind the fact that it doesn't make any sense to do it, because that's not a true representation of the population.  But why stop there?  Why not add in an equal number of every race?  Go planet!

Oh, wait... we're ignoring  representatives from different age groups, religions, and classes.  We should be equal opportunity in who we kill, right?  I should be able to kill the rich and poor alike, young and old, Catholics and Jews and atheists and Buddhists... now we're getting somewhere.

But killing... killing is so inhumane.  So let's have Chris Redfield instead hand out invitations to a cuddle-party and everyone can have milk and cookies and talk about how nice it is to all be hanging out in a dingy shanty town in Haiti together, and wondering what kind of knee-jerk reactionary PC bullshit landed them there.

How's that for a slippery slope?

So in your mind, things can only be racist when they're made by the KKK. Gotcha.

Haha, what?

[Smithy]

The difficulty here is, who is the audience?  Can Capcom safely assume that everyone who sees this trailer is familiar enough with the series already to be able to place the events into the game's context rather than seeing the more general cultural context?

Can CAPCOM safely assume that everyone who sees this trailer knows what a video game is?
... or that they know that games aren't real?
... or that they know where Africa is?
... or that they can read and write?
... or that they can tie their own shoelaces?

Actually, Joshg has basically summed up the point N'Gai makes that keeps getting lost in the whole "It's not racist" and "It's racist" arguments that we keep drawing.

It may seem silly to the young and hip members of our generation that there are any people anywhere who aren't as familiar with the five resident evil games as they are with hundreds of years of western history, but such people do exist. I think once you get above the 20 or 30 age group the people familiar with the games and pop-culture movies geared towards teens starts thinning dramatically. They're the people who aren't going to see zombies, even after you explain it to them. In their first impression of the trailer they're just going to see a bunch of creepy black people getting shot by a rampaging white guy.

It might not actually be designed to be racist, but there are going to be many old people who will see things that way and potentially start complaining to and picketing retailers. I think that's the main point.

Their only fault was that they're not as exposed to the video games (or the shitty movies based upon them) as we youngsters are.

[Zaphos]

How's that for a slippery slope?

That's not really a relevant or plausible slippery slope.  It's just not in line with what N'Gai was talking about -- as he said, "The point isn’t that you can’t have black zombies. There was a lot of imagery in that trailer that dovetailed with classic racist imagery."

He elaborates on what specifically concerns him, beyond the ethnicity of the zombies:

There was stuff like even before the point in the trailer where the crowd turned into zombies. There sort of being, in sort of post-modern parlance, they’re sort of “othered.” They’re hidden in shadows, you can barely see their eyes, and the perspective of the trailer is not even someone who’s coming to help the people. It’s like they’re all dangerous; they all need to be killed. It’s not even like one cute African — or Haitian or Caribbean — child could be saved. They’re all dangerous men, women and children. They all have to be killed. And given the history, given the not so distant post-colonial history, you would say to yourself, why would you uncritically put up those images?

N'Gai's view is very political in a sense; he is predicting that it will have trouble in the public perception because Capcom seems oblivious of the historic parallels of the imagery they have created.  He's explicitly not saying, 'they should not make this game,' he's saying, 'they should handle this game carefully, with an awareness of the history of the imagery.'

I think, again, the point is not that Capcom can’t or shouldn’t make a zombie game set in what appears to be an impoverished country where the majority of residents are black. I’m not saying that. But what I am saying is that if I was Capcom, I wouldn’t have suggested to put out that trailer. I would have said, “You know what, this has tremendous capacity for being misunderstood, and we want to signal that this is not what you might think it is” — and they didn’t do that. That’s what I’m saying.

[deadeye]

That's not really a relevant or plausible slippery slope.

I know, I was being totally sarcastic.  I should probably just drop it.

[Movius]

Actually, Joshg has basically summed up the point N'Gai makes that keeps getting lost in the whole "It's not racist" and "It's racist" arguments that we keep drawing.

It may seem silly to the young and hip members of our generation that there are any people anywhere who aren't as familiar with the five resident evil games as they are with hundreds of years of western history, but such people do exist. I think once you get above the 20 or 30 age group the people familiar with the games and pop-culture movies geared towards teens starts thinning dramatically. They're the people who aren't going to see zombies, even after you explain it to them. In their first impression of the trailer they're just going to see a bunch of creepy black people getting shot by a rampaging white guy.

It might not actually be designed to be racist, but there are going to be many old people who will see things that way and potentially start complaining to and picketing retailers. I think that's the main point.

Their only fault was that they're not as exposed to the video games (or the shitty movies based upon them) as we youngsters are.

Is there a reason Capcom should care about these obvious misguided/irrational and delusional people? The answer is of course no, aside from perhaps hurting their own bottom line, there isn't.

The finances of Capcom are their own, practical concern. Anyone else who insists that the trailer shouldn't have been released on moral grounds should either take the time to educate themselves about the content in the trailer or perhaps consider that there might be something wrong with their own personal ethics.

It isn't foolish to see 'racist imagery' in the trailer, but it is foolish to still consider it 'racist' after understanding the context and even more foolish to say "Well I don't find it racist, but some people might. So they shouldn't have made it."

Which is what I find so disturbing about the whole debate. The constant undertone to the original article, that it is wrong to not alter your actions based on the most ridiculous and offensive prejudices of others.

[Ivan]

As I said before, to me, it's just about the sheer thoughtlessness with which these images are presented. You have to be completely ignorant to not see why some people might have a problem with this imagery. I am all for equality and forgetting that racism even exists, but it's simply not true. As N'Gai said, these images are bound through our psyche and through our history to hundreds of years of systematic oppression, rape and murder. As someone said before, you cannot just plug different races into the same equation in a naive self righteous belief that racism should be ignored by all and then it will disappear. It is very much present in our every day life and considering even our very recent history, some people just need to watch their mouth, figuratively speaking.

[joshg]

It may seem silly to the young and hip members of our generation that there are any people anywhere who aren't as familiar with the five resident evil games as they are with hundreds of years of western history, but such people do exist. ... They're the people who aren't going to see zombies, even after you explain it to them. In their first impression of the trailer they're just going to see a bunch of creepy black people getting shot by a rampaging white guy.

Is there a reason Capcom should care about these obvious misguided/irrational and delusional people? The answer is of course no, aside from perhaps hurting their own bottom line, there isn't.

Wow, so anyone who hasn't played the Resident Evil series (or anyone who isn't a hardcore gamer) is irrational and delusional?

Game trailers are getting played in non-gamer targeted settings all the time these days.  TV spots, pre-movie ads, it's happening all the time.  Saying that everyone who matters will see this and immediately place it into the game series' context is ludicrous.

Plus, I just looked at the trailer again, and unless you recognize the name Resident Evil there is *nothing* to indicate that this is even a video game setting until the final XBox 360 screen (other than shit CGI graphics, I guess).  (For that matter, since 'Resident Evil' has also been the name of two movies, the name alone isn't really enough to give it away to the casual non-gamer observer.)

It isn't foolish to see 'racist imagery' in the trailer, but it is foolish to still consider it 'racist' after understanding the context and even more foolish to say "Well I don't find it racist, but some people might. So they shouldn't have made it."

Which is what I find so disturbing about the whole debate. The constant undertone to the original article, that it is wrong to not alter your actions based on the most ridiculous and offensive prejudices of others.

Okay, keep in mind that we're talking about a piece of advertising here.  This is not a game itself, or a novel, or a movie.  We aren't talking about people coming with pitchforks and censors trying to stifle free speech because it pushes somebody's racism buttons.

N'Gai analyzed this from the perspective of whether or not this was good advertising.  And as advertising, the only thing that matters is whether this trailer is effective advertising for Capcom.  That means not only "Does it sell RE5?", but "Does it help Capcom's image?"

If this trailer pushes people's buttons by seeming racist at first glance, it is not going to be effective at selling RE5 to those people.  It's reducing the potential audience.  It also makes Capcom look bad.

This is advertising - the bottom line is all that matters.  And N'Gai wasn't saying, "They should not release this, it is immoral."  He was acting as a games journalist analyzing the trailer for what it is - poor advertising.

That imagery still has a history that has to be engaged, that has to be understood. … If you’re going to engage imagery that has that potential, the onus is on the creator to be aware of that because there will be repercussions in the marketplace. - N'Gai Croal

[Smithy]

Is there a reason Capcom should care about these obvious misguided/irrational and delusional people? The answer is of course no, aside from perhaps hurting their own bottom line, there isn't.

That's exactly the reason they should be concerned. It's bad for the general retailer's business when people are boycotting (or potentially will boycott) their stores over something like this. It's easier for them to just keep from shelving the items in question, regardless of how misguided you feel the protesters are, and in the end that hurts the original publisher because then the audience who want to buy their product has limited access to it.

This concept isn't new. It's happened to many forms of media.

It isn't foolish to see 'racist imagery' in the trailer, but it is foolish to still consider it 'racist' after understanding the context and even more foolish to say "Well I don't find it racist, but some people might. So they shouldn't have made it."

I'm not saying they shouldn't make the game, nor is anyone here. You're reading between the lines and misunderstanding everyone. Heck, as part of the "gamer" audience, I might actually want to see the game in whatever way they want to present it. Thing is, they could have put together the trailer in a different fashion to tone down these vibes that people unfamiliar with the premise are feeling and thus avoid compromising the game itself. Now they have to figure out a way to explain themselves, which is a heckuva lot harder once they've already made their first impression. They've thrown the product into an up-in-the-air kind of jeopardy, which is why the fans are somewhat concerned.