Resident Evil 5, or "How to insult a continent"

When I saw the trailer for Resident Evil 5 in the last lecture, it reminded me of the awkward impression it first left on me a few years back. At the time, I was a huge fan of the previous and fourth installment, which took place in rural Spain. The storylines of these two games are remarkably similar; White alphamale dude enters some remote exotic area, witnesses an outbreak and deducts that the appropriate solution is to massacre hordes of infected people (rather than, I don’t know, escaping and contacting authorities).

Even so, having the latest game set in Africa felt really shady in my opinion. I won’t go into historical exploitation or try to guilt-trip every white person reading this. That’s not the point. But there are some painfully stereotypical portrayals of blacks throughout the game, even before the outbreak. As Chris strolls down the streets flexing his massive chest and Arnoldesque biceps, the locals already act hostile and threatening as if to signal a clash between civilization and barbarism. I still remember one of the trailers, where Chris laments “There is no humanity here”, while a shot of ORDINARY Africans pans over the screen. Christ, so much for subtlety.

Not to mention, the virus causing the outbreak is not really making them zombies, just altering their behavior and cell structure. Which makes the hordes of enemies look more like a regular mass of blacks in all-out lynch mode.

Oh man. I love Capcom and Resident Evil, but this game was cringeworthy on a massive scale. It’s like the developers were happily unaware that some might see this bipolar divide between Western and African cultures as a wee-bit orientalist. Do I even need to mention Edward Said here? He always warned against creating polarities and exotic stereotypes of non-Western cultures, and here we are, letting it slide in a modern video game. But oh, wait. It gets even worse. In Resident Evil 5, you reach a point where Chris finds himself in the middle of a swamp-area. And, wouldn’t you know it, tribal and primitive natives come running out half-naked with wooden spears. They even yell the oh-so familiar “OOGA BOOGA”-kind of language. Oh god. The previous enemies were hard to accept, but this?

I don’t really care if anyone thinks I’m overreacting or pulling the racism card too eagerly. It’s just that the picture of some white guy ‘cleansing’ the helpless, violent natives by murdering every single one brings some very awkward connotations of a white man’s burden. C’mon, Capcom, this is some murky territory you should get out of while your dignity still hasn’t drowned.

Lars Hermans