The Vault of Horror has a post regarding the allegedly racist content of the upcoming RESIDENT EVIL 5 game, the trailer for which generated negative comment from Newsweek’s game critic. I already dealt with this topic months ago here, but I did want to deal with a couple things.
- Brian Solomon blames the perception of “racism” on “these days of political correctness.” I have a long history of disdain for this term, which is usually used by people who want to avoid having to cop to their racist/sexist/otherwise prejudiced attitudes.
- He suggests that, although the trailer can be viewed in racial terms, he does into believe that was the intention of the game makers. To paraphrase THE WILD BUNCH, what the makers meant shouldn’t concern us; what they actually did is the issue.
The larger issue here is context: How you interpret things depends on your cultural background, education, etc. People who make movies and games can pretend that history and racism do not exist, but they are fooling no one. Even without malicious intent you can tap into troubling veins that might disturb some people, and noticing these disturbances is not a matter of political correctness. As I said before:
When people object to branding some work of art as “racist,” I suspect they are defining the term very narrowly, to include only the most vile of prejudicial hatred. Racism, however, can exist in far less virulent forms, such as the (relatively) harmless stereotyping seen in popular art. To label such work “racist” is not to imply that the creators are clandestine members of the Nazi Part and/or the Klu Klux Klan; it is simply to point out that they are trafficking in stereotypes.
The other important thing to remember is that cultural artifacts do not exist in a vacuum; they exist within a culture with a certain set of beliefs, attitudes, background assumptions, and prejudices. Whatever the original intent of the creators, their work is going to be seen by people who will interpret it according to their cultural background. Thus, George Romero can insist that NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) is not making a conscious statement about racism, but the sight of the lone black protagonist – gunned down by white policeman who mistake him for a zombie – cannot help inspiring interpretations along those lines.