Mortality Blog

It depicts a white protagonist going into an apparently poverty-stricken village (the location is unspecified) and killing throngs of black zombified men and women (see the trailer yourself)…

What was not funny, but sort of interesting, was that there were so many gamers who could not at all see it. Like literally couldn’t see it. So how could you have a conversation with people who don’t understand what you’re talking about and think that you’re sort of seeing race where nothing exists?

- Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal On The ‘Resident Evil 5′ Trailer: ‘This Imagery Has A History’ [multiplayerblog.mtv.com]

Let me help you out, N’Gai Croal - the reason so many gamers can’t see it is because it’s all in your head. It’s totally subjective. The trailer depicts the main character of a zombie killing game, killing zombies. The setting is some sort of impoverished african village. The zombies are zombies. This isn’t racism, it’s a classic zombie situation.

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.

It’s called ‘foreshadowing’ - the village is full of spooky looking people because they’re going to turn into zombies. No, you can’t spare any of them, because they’re zombies! Lack of redemption and compassion does not make this racist. Let me take a moment to brainstorm situations in which the game would be racist:

1. If the black people became zombies because being black they were too stupid to avoid getting infected
2. If the black people were zombies in the first place because only black people, having inferior physique and poor personal hygiene, are naturally more zombie-infection-prone.
3. If the protagonist called them ‘niggers’ as he was shooting them between the eyes.

Actually, even the last example wouldn’t make the game racist - it’d make the main character racist. It’d make the audience uneasy about their avatar in the game - they’d enjoy the thrill of making him fight his way through waves of zombies, but be a little uncomfortable with his overt bigotry. It could be an important lesson in the grey area of morality.

If it had been me in that situation, I wouldn’t have put out a trailer like that. I think it’s very easy to misunderstand what that game is about based on that trailer.

No kidding.

In an average round of Counter-Strike I kill about a dozen people, maybe more if I’m doing well. When I was playing through F.E.A.R I would fill twenty or thirty clone-soldiers full of lead per sitting - similar counts apply for Metal Gear Solid, Half Life, Kill Zone, Black, and a handful of others. In the last six months, I’ve probably killed hundreds if not thousands - I have no idea how many I’ve sent to an early grave over my life time.

But you know what? Guns scare me. I don’t like looking at them, I don’t like holding them, I especially don’t like seeing them pointed at people. It could be that I’m scared of fast-moving projectiles in general - rubber bands stretched tight, bb-guns, airsoft guns, all of that stuff sort of freaks me out. I feel like I’m constantly flinching whenever I’m around things with the capability to shoot me - I’m just waiting for that projectile to hit me. I hate how heavy handguns feel, how little effort it takes to squeeze the trigger with your index finger. I can’t quite get over the suspicion that even with the safety on, I could get it to shoot if I just squeezed hard enough. I hate armed guards in airports and outside of banks, and I hate armed police officers.

Today, while I was waiting for the bus, I saw some cops taking down a guy - one officer had his handgun out and was holding it straight armed diagonally at the man’s feet, and as the man held his hands up and knelt on the sidewalk, another officer shouldered a big shotgun and pointed the muzzle right at him. That wasn’t a good thing for me to watch - I could imagine exactly what would happen if the cop pulled the trigger, if he had some perverse desire just to put a little pressure on it, just to see how hard he could press before it fired… and the guy’s head would explode. I’ve shot enough zombies and seen enough counter-terrorists though sniper scopes that I know what a headshot looks like - a burst of red, and the other guy is dead. Only this would be in real life, and the inside of his head would’ve splattered all over the brick wall and concrete.

I felt conflicted - like I wanted to quickly hide behind something bullet proof, where even a ricochet couldn’t find me, and at the same time I wanted to run over to the officers and yell, “Calm down! Put your guns away! Don’t screw things up!”

He was only a skinny guy, no shirt, just a ragged pair of pants, and you could tell he was scared. Of course he was scared - one finger twitch and his life was over. I hate guns.