Taking Stereotypes to the World

As a greenhorn to the hostel, I must admit a cool thing about them is you meet all sorts of people, from everywhere, either just passing through for a day or have been here for many months. Most of them are cool, though I wouldn’t put it past annoying people to roll around and completely destroy someone else’s vacation.

I met an African American lady who was staying for a day on her way to teach English in South Korea. As newcomers to Taipei, we decided to trek out together seeing some sights, while engaging in lots of discussion, mostly surrounding our traveling experiences and how different countries viewed African Americans.

She had an interesting barometer for measuring her like for different countries: her amount of love for a country was reversely related to how much she was stared at. Apparently Hong Kong*, Japan and Taiwan scored high. Korea didn’t fare so well, and unfortunately China, specifically Shanghai, was the bottom of the barrel. Then again, when people talk about you, stare at you, and take pictures of you, it’s hard to play devil’s advocate. Which surprises me, it’s Shanghai. Then again, it’s China.

I learned two things from spending that day with her: America isn’t done with race, not yet. I knew this, but it brings new meaning to you when you hear even more distressing facts about an already dire situation.*2 African Americans followed in stores? Black women never going missing because they’re never reported? Crash isn’t quite the amazing movie about race that everyone said it was?

The second thing was slightly more revealing. I’ve always known that media portrayal of African Americans, or any race for that matter, was far from fair and true, that it would damage the way all Americans might view their fellow neighbors. It never dawned on me though, that as the number one exporter of all kinds of media, we would also in some seemingly devious fashion also be the number one exporter of cultural stereotypes to the rest of the world.

This lady told me, she spoke with local Koreans about their views on Black people, and to her dismay, they revealed that in many ways, what they believe about all Black people is what they see them do in our movies. Barring any possible exaggeration on her part…how tragic. We’ve done a great disservice to African Americans in our own country. Apparently, we’re also risking ingraining our biases into the minds of everyone else.

While I don’t put it past any other country to be able to differentiate between archetypes in American movies and real people they might meet, Americans can come across real counterparts to media figures everyday and still succumb to media portrayal. I wonder what it’s like for those who cannot interact with those they see on screen; those, who their only exposure to African Americans is the man from the ghetto, looting, killing, and being everything that many African Americans are not.

“It is hard being Black and a woman, Dan.”

I told her I would never deny that.

* – Though she did relay an unfortunate story about being followed in a shop by an employee, who she proceeded to yell at because she couldn’t believe that Hong Kongers, suffering from equal Black hysteria, would be like Americans and believe all Black-skinned humans are prone to theft. I kindly told her this happens to everyone in Hong Kong. She felt better after that.

*2 – I’ve spoken with African Americans before, but never anyone from the South.

Resident Evil 5: African Safari

Gosh, what a breath of fresh air it is to not talk specifically about political issues. Well, almost.

As a small videogame nut, I do make an effort to stay up to date with the news of the videogame world. I guess it’s fitting that I bring up an issue that is sowing the seeds of uneasiness which could very well blossom into an ungodly upheaval by March, when a certain videogame releases.

I’m of course, referring to Resident Evil 5, the fifth iteration of the Resident Evil franchise, a series rooted in survival horror and has recently evolved into more of an action horror genre.

The series stars several protagonists who must survive against hordes of infected humans turned zombies. So what’s the big deal?

This iteration happens to be set in Africa. Because of its African setting, most of the zombies happen to be black. You star as white-man, Chris Redfield.

See the issue?

Lots of gamers had risen to the defense of Resident Evil 5 with a multitude of arguments:

-The team that made the game actually went to Africa to do primary research, and so this game is merely staying true to their first-hand observations.
-If you starred as a black character killing white zombies, nobody would give a wooden nickel. It’s unfair and a double standard to single this instance as racist.
-People who call this racist live in the past.
-It’s just a videogame.

I think that this issue exists goes to show despite how far we’ve come in terms of race relations, just how far we–as a whole world–have yet to go. Let me get this out there: I do not think this game is racist, but it is still guilty of something substantial–insensitivity.

Let’s lay some background first. The game is made by Capcom, a Japanese company famous for other titles like MegaMan, Marvel vs. Capcom, Zack & Wiki and others. Before we continue, let’s review an important fact: Capcom is a Japanese company. Capcom isn’t some company made up of overseas white Americans trying to secretly live out their unfulfilled ambitions of enslaving Africans. They are a Japanese company. They were not involved in Europe’s colonialism nor the slaves who were brought from Africa to America.

In other words, this isn’t an issue to the Japanese. Period. How can I be so sure? Look at previous titles. Resident Evil 4 starred another white character in Spain, fighting against…Spanish zombies. To the developers at Capcom, moving the setting to Africa meant an equally logical choice; make the zombies black.

It is also common on Japanese TV to have people to over-the-top impersonations of famous celebrities, including blacks, and in the USA would never be aired because it would be racist. Because with our history and our context, it is. But for them it is not. They do not inhabit the same historical context that we do.

Their fault then is, they didn’t do their homework. All Resident Evil games have been released worldwide, and as such, they must be mindful of the entire world as their audience. They didn’t realize that making the game this way could set off a potential firestorm because they are unaware of the history of race relations in other countries.

No one intended this game to be racist. But intentions can often be irrelevant in many peoples’ eyes, and unfortunately Capcom’s lack of diligence and thorough thinking make this game about as insensitive as they come.

If we lived in a vacuum this wouldn’t be an issue. But history and context exist together and they do affect how we view the world. Videogames are not just videogames.