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Resident Evil 5
Nodaisho:
...Johnny, are you trying to be the Devil's advocate here? Just wanting to know.
I don't really see how what you are talking about applies at all. It seems like your arguments are trying to draw people into debates that are related, if at all, by only the most tenuous of connections, debates that you can win, rather than ones that you can't.
This game isn't metal gear solid, we don't get a bunch of story and talking about anything more than what is trying to kill them next. We get a bit of the stereotype of hot worn-down Africa, with people dressed in a mix of traditional dresses and T-shirts and cargo shorts, but I think that part is accurate, at least for a certain part of Africa.
Seems to me like the issue at hand is that when we think of africa, we think of war-torn hellholes like Sudan and Darfur, child soldiers and poverty. When we think of the US, we think of an extremely violent dangerous city, or a bunch of backwoods rednecks named Bubba with their shotguns named betty. When we think of Russia, we think of a place permanently frozen and snowy, with grumpy and cold people and a thriving organized crime business. When we think of Scotland, we think of a bunch of loud drunk violent redheads in skirts. Everywhere has a stereotype, just not many stereotypes occupy such a large area.
Also seconding Ozy's question, which I think I asked, and I just now noticed you avoided answering. Care to answer it this time?
Johnny C:
That's not what I'm saying, I'm not saying "Don't ever go to Africa." I'm saying that like any setting it has to be treated with concern but, like every other narrative form, games particularly have to confront the harmful colonially-minded depictions of Africa in the past and move past them lest they be considered irresponsible at least and racist at worst.
Let me break it down.
* Fictional treatments of Africa were racist for hundreds of years, enforcing negative stereotypes about the people and the continent that can be traced back to the slave trade.
* Fictional works in the 21st century, set in Africa, must take this into account.
* Fictional works that successfully manage to avoid the pitfalls of colonial thinking are not racist.
* Fictional works that do not successfully manage to avoid the pitfalls of colonial thinking are racist.
You can set games in Africa and they can be racist, or they can be not racist.
Johnny C:
how does it have a "tenuous connection" you are an american in africa shooting africans
americans used to keep africans as slaves
martin luther king and malcom x, less than fifty years ago, were trying to achieve equal rights for blacks, who could not sit at the front of the bus or go to the same school or drink from the same fountain as white people because they weren't considered to be equal as people
america just elected its first black president who was accused, among various other things, of being secretly muslim, not an american citizen and also possibly the antichrist
race is still a concern! race is a concern
Nodaisho:
And I believe race will be a concern until nobody can even conceive of it being a concern (like... actually, redheads still have trouble in the UK, don't they?), but that isn't the point.
So what, you are playing an American in Africa, shooting Africans? They would kill you if you didn't shoot them. You also shoot white people, one of the first minibosses is a white person, and I would say more, but since you haven't played or seen it, I don't want to spoil it unless you are okay with it. If there was a Postal-ish game with an American lead set in Africa, I could see your point, but not a game like this. I think you might have a bit better position if you argued based off of the main villains probably still being an American pharmaceutical company, so the Africans aren't important. But that isn't so much racism as it is the villains having been established back when the games were set in Colorado.
Ozymandias:
--- Quote from: Johnny C on 17 Mar 2009, 19:18 ---martin luther king and malcom x, less than fifty years ago, were trying to achieve equal rights for blacks, who could not sit at the front of the bus or go to the same school or drink from the same fountain as white people because they weren't considered to be equal as people
--- End quote ---
And now they can be turned into zombies and shot like everyone else.
Equaaaaality!
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