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You Filthy Gaijin...
April 12th 2008, 02:05 CEST by Greg The Japanese are at it again, showing they have no idea how to broach racially sensitive topics in games. Recently, Capcom released a trailer for Resident Evil 5. In it, Chris Redfield is in a town which looks to be Caribbean, populated by black people who apparently turn into zombies. Which he then has to kill, or something. The imagery from the trailer is controversial. Is it meant to reflect history? Is it yet another example of Japanese game developers playing off of racial stereotypes (ala Barret in FFVII, hell the topic name "filthy gaijin" is yet another Japanese stereotype)? |
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Topic: You Filthy Gaijin...
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#98 by Marsh Davies so accusations are premature. I think that's been said quite a few times in this thread even, we have to wait for the game to judge the game. And, y'know what, I gotta say it's kind of an obvious point, of course any reactions to the trailer is about… the trailer. It can't be any different. In that light I feel your point is as irrelevant as anywhere else that line of reasoning is used, we're obviously talking about the trailer and the context it provides (i.e. none to little), and if talk about the trailer equals talking about the whole game then we can't ever talk about anything until the full product is in our hands. "the accusations are such nonsense that I have found it difficult to treat them with the contempt that they deserve." - Clarke
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Yes, you are right about us only about the trailer. If the megaphone man turns out to be yelling "Kill the whitebread and I'll give you something to eat!", that'll change things. "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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us talking only "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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If Format was showing off his cleavage in a borderline S&M black latex outfit, then maybe I would listen to him. |
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…any, uh, mention of a gender swap as well or are you implying something there pilgrim? "the accusations are such nonsense that I have found it difficult to treat them with the contempt that they deserve." - Clarke
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I can wear a strap-on for you, too. "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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I'm pretty disappointed that anyone is reading the stuff people are saying about the imagery in the trailer and coming away with ""We're accusing RE 5 of being racist!". That strikes me, at this point, as a pretty willful misreading of the sentiment being expressed. "Bioshock, sadly, is no Painkiller." - BobJustBob
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you know, I see the....potential racist issue in the images. But I don't see racism in the context of the trailer. I think that's the real issue. Certainly, the trailer mirrors racially charged events, but...zombies. To me, that doesn't make it racist, but does make it an interesting parallel. If i'm just looking at the imagery of it, yeah, it looks like a rednecks wet dream. But - without play the game, mind - I cannot just call it racist based on what context I understand is the intent. Sloppy in execution, maybe. I think we are both too quick to pull the racist trigger, and too quick to call something non racist, usually depending on who you are. And I think for me personally, I need to see the whole package to judge better what is there. Because I hate hate hate when racist is thrown around too much, and I hate when it's ignored when something clearly is racist. I think racism is such a charged topic that the slower we are in determining whether something is racist or not, the better off we'd be in general. "Testiculos habet et bene pendentes" - "He has testicles, and they dangle nicely."
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Italics......ATTACK!! "Testiculos habet et bene pendentes" - "He has testicles, and they dangle nicely."
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I still haven't seen any mention of what imagery in particular is problematic. Then again I haven't read the entire article nor even watched the trailer (or maybe I did, months ago). The bottom line is it's resident evil, the last one had a boss that looked about 8 years old, and this is a game where all the real villains are corrupt/evil white guys. I think the main reason they're setting it in Africa is just for a change of scenery, same reason as they went to Europe for the last one, maybe 6 will take place in China, who knows. Dead Rising on the other hand had excellent ethnic diversity in its zombies, if I remember correctly, and zombies of all shapes and sizes for the generic white guy protagonist to chop up with mini-chainsaws. I'm sure some of the imagery was problematic for certain people as well, for instance if you have a fear of clowns, or a love of clowns, or if you've ever been involved with a cult. Insofar as the imagery is problematic, that's just a function of the setting. I don't think the concentration camp comparisons are very apt though, that's just too specific a situation. I also don't see how this imagery has anything to do with racism in america or the history thereof, assuming it takes place in present day Africa. If it was a game set in 19th century Virginia and you were a plantation owner under siege by a legion of zombie slaves, maybe I would think differently. Anyway, if we are just talking problematic as in "Al Sharpton et al are going to froth themselves silly, and that could hurt the bottom line" then yeah, I agree. I can see huge potential for controversy with this game, because there are people who make a living just stirring shit up, and any opportunity to do so will be taken advantage of. |
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Marsh - apparently there was some outcry over the depiction of people in RE4, though I'm not a good journalist nor lawyer so I have no sources. |^^^^^^^^^^^^ |||__
| こんにちは | ||'|"\,__. |_..._...______===|=||_|__|...,] (@)'(@)"""*|(@)*(@)*****(@) |
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Just re-read the entire thread and googled up "Stormfront". Damn, those guys are serious sickos. There was a link to a forum that's even worse than that. Those sites suggest the USA really seems to have a big racism problem. How aren't those sites shut down? Are there no laws against nazi propagating their hate there? Those sites would be shut down in hours and the people who run them would be in jail the next day over here. "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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Wow, torrentspy.com is history! "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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Signature from some idiot on that forum I mentioned: "I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people." –Abraham Lincoln Sept. 18, 1858 Did Lincoln really say that? "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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I never met lincoln, I couldn't tell you. But as to why it isn't banned, well, that's freedom of speech for you. There are 'hate crime' laws - if you kill someone just to kill them, it's just murder, if you killed them because they were black, it's a hate crime with additional penalties (over simplified). But the first amendment pretty much prevents the kind of banning of nazi symbolism you have in germany. "Testiculos habet et bene pendentes" - "He has testicles, and they dangle nicely."
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Do you think that's good or bad? I'm honestly curious about this. "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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Pushing ideas underground is always, always bad. but watching changes every fact
and your curves are best described by mathematical approximation anyway so I use fingertips to trace our play |
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N'Gai should know better, frankly. The thing about this imagery is that it is only racially charged out of context. As soon as engage with the explanation - that these villagers are likely being manipulated by a malevolent force just like the Spanish villagers in the previous game - then clearly the decision to kill them isn't racist. Was Resi 4 racist against the Spanish? Here's the thing, if the Kotaku/Joystiq/etc. comment threads are taken as samples, then most people are attributing things to N'Gai that he didn't say. His point was specifically that, if someone didn't have the context that this was a game about zombies and didn't know about the story of the previous games, then it could look racist to have the one Aryan-prototype white guy killing off a tribe of crazed, savage black people without any context. Maybe they should have done the trailer differently to avoid that sort of thing or explain it further. What people heard in their mind's ear was apparently "Resident Evil 5 is racist because you're allowed to kill black people", thus the defensive "Oh god not again! When will black people let us forget about this whole racism thing!! We said we're sorry, gosh! Leave us alone! Reverse Racism! Reverse Racism!" responses in the comments. However this wasn't his point at all, and he explicitly refutes this view in the article. Okay, that's not what was actually said, but I was surprised how put upon and defensive some of the responses were. We may pick on format, but there are thousands out there on the internet who reacted the exact same way. |
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For once, I didn't think I was being picked on. We have had a nice discussion so far. "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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finished crysis what game should i start next people ??? the quicker i start it the less posts i make here... the games i can play are listed on my site under "the list" eh !? ps: there are many many many blacks in crysis. ...why? § Pimp of Mario's World. Hater of society. §
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What's that noise? "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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That sounds like something Lincoln would have said to get votes from southern states. |
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Also, free speech is free speech. Silly German. |
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How aren't those sites shut down? Are there no laws against nazi propagating their hate there? I prefer our way. |
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Also, free speech is free speech. Silly German. I'm sure Hugin will agree with you next time somebody calls him a n..... "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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"I do not agree with the words you say, but I will defend until death your right to say them." Or something to that effect. |
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But just because you CAN say something doesn't mean you SHOULD say something. Diplomacy, etiquette and all that. Seems pretty logical to me. Invention is the Green Goblin of Necessary Lemonade.
--Flowers |
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There's a difference between getting thrown in jail for saying something and being punched in the face for saying something. Calling Hugin the n-word would get you punched in the face, but the government can't throw you in jail for saying it. |^^^^^^^^^^^^ |||__
| こんにちは | ||'|"\,__. |_..._...______===|=||_|__|...,] (@)'(@)"""*|(@)*(@)*****(@) |
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What we now call "political correctness" used to be called courtesy and civility. And I define those as the most hateful words you can say before the person you're calling those words will punch you in the face. Unfortunately I believe society has forgotten this. Funk. |
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Basically, I think society would be better with more face punching. Funk. |
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Or at least, the old glove face slap followed by "Good day, sir!" |
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Squeaky- It was Voltaire who said that. |
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Thanks Mr. Cruz! :-) |
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That's Santa Cruz, Mr. Goi. |
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Format, freedom means putting up with stupid shit you don't like. Otherwise, it isn't freedom. "Testiculos habet et bene pendentes" - "He has testicles, and they dangle nicely."
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I like how he used the .... . |
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Yot- My bad. |
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Heh. So, you comin' out this year? We still need to get together for some dinner and prayer sessions. Just don't e-mail me from the terminal telling me you're coming out. :) |
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I don't know if I'll be in the area any time soon. My last two trips were to Tuscon and I was coding almost the entire time I was there. |
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I suspect if someone called me nigger I'd just walk away. Not out of any preternatural zen or anything, just...it's 2008, and they're probably pitiful, and I don't want them to think they can make me behave the way they want me to by pressing the N-word button. I'll fight to protect myself physically or another person, not because some sad case on the wrong side of history thinks he knows who I am. "Bioshock, sadly, is no Painkiller." - BobJustBob
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#132 by yotsuya Squeaky- It was Voltaire who said that. Yeah, I know. |
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#131 by McBain Or at least, the old glove face slap followed by "Good day, sir!" I'm for this only if we also legalize the duel to the death it calls for. |
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Well, I DO know that Lincoln once was trying to implement his decision to incur war, when a person in political attire approached his home with a mlitary escort. His "secretary" or whatever opened the door and told him to sit down. He did so, and Lincoln watched him through a door seal for five minutes. He then told his sec to tell him he was not there, and would not be back for quite a length of time. She did so, and he left. When the sec asked him why he would not visit him, and Lincoln told her: "Faces refect character. I do not like his face." Hm. |
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what "I don't like story in games." - Soren Johnson
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Honestly, I'm not really joking about the face punching bit. People didn't insult each other past a certain point because they knew there would be repercussions. With all of the assault and battery laws in effect, these repercussions have been neutered. And now people believe they can say what they will and expect people to just take it. This has been harmful to society as a whole. My .02 anyways. Funk. |
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I agree. When I was a maybe 8 year old a kid, my father had a Corvette. Once, I was with him in the car and he was overtaking the typical retarded, never-drive-faster-than-30km/h-in-a-city German assfuck. As we were on the same height as him the guy started to accelerate, staring angrily at my father, and nearly forced us to crash head-on into another car, probably just because he was jealous of our car or thought because driving a Corvette automatically makes you a wreckless menace to society. Then, my father cut him, pulled the guy out of the car and punched him in the face. Bottom line? The guy filed a report, my father had to pay a hefty fine plus the guy's damages, and the guy who nearly killed an innocent driver and his child just out of jealously got away clean, plus he got to spend the money my father had to pay him. "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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#132 by yotsuya Squeaky- It was Voltaire who said that. No it wasn't. I would express my shock and surprise that they once let you teach English, but Voltaire was French. |
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I thought it was G-Man. "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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Face-punching is a pretty damn difficult topic. On the one hand we all know the feeling of violence being the answer to a given scenario. The driver in Formats story was an asshole, and it's not like the law is able to do anything about that sort of behavior (yet), so naturally one way of dealing with that is getting physical. On the other hand, you can't, you really can't, go around beating people up. Allowing it is a symptom of an unhealthy society. Hitting someone is what a six-year-old does when he gets frustrated and can't deal with the world, and as a species who are supposed to have the power of reason and understanding we can do better than fall back on regressed behavior. Think of the mob mentality we've always had, we still have, and a pattern against vigilantism seems pretty clear to me. Format's father got what he deserved, even if I sympathize with his actions. Unfortunately the argument against hitting people ends up sounding like hippie BS to many, and if someone's stuck in their "Some fuckers gotta die", "eye for an eye", "I'ma beat ya up for talkin' bout ma momma!" attitudes there's little to do. I know this post seems to be all holier-than-thou, but I do understand the feeling of wanting to punch someone. I like to think a little bit of face-punching (asshole at a bar, being called a nigger if that really upsets you, etc.) is acceptable without getting hit by lawsuits, and in this country I like to think that'd be the case. But I still don't want punching outright legalized. "the accusations are such nonsense that I have found it difficult to treat them with the contempt that they deserve." - Clarke
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I really wonder how many people stay away from face-punching or worse only out of fear of punishment. "Action stars of two decades ago shot .44 bullets out of their cocks. Honestly, if me and Charles Bronson were in the same room I'd kill myself just to make sure he didn't hurt me."
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