Resident Evil 5: White Man Shoots Black Zombies

For nearly a decade, the popular video game series Resident Evil has been giving us excuses to shoot the living hell out of pale, pasty, flesh-eating zombies. Machine guns in hand, players have traditionally faced these nasty brain munchers in creepy old mansions, or (not-so) abandoned rural towns. The zombies themselves have been Westerners—unlucky ex-Americans or Europeans with undead faces as white as the series is dark.

Until now, that is. Development team Capcom recently released a trailer for Resident Evil 5, the newest incarnation of the survival horror game. It doesn’t take place in backwoods U.S.A., though. It seems to take place in Africa.

Though the full details of the storyline aren’t public yet, the trailer makes a few things clear: you play as a white Chris Redfield, the same all-American boy who has been taking down old-school leg-draggers for years. And the zombies? You guessed it: the local villagers. Which means that the hordes of undead you’ll be pumping round after round of ammo into—they’re all black.

Resident Evil 5 is already raising questions about racism (White good guys vs. black bad guys? Is this some kind of race war?), or maybe questions about Capcom’s judgment (Who okayed this for production?). As one forum commenter wrote, “Is it just me, or is there something subtly racist about gunning down mobs of angry Africans?”

But the point isn’t to smack one more label on mainstream video games (violent, sexist, racist). The point is that—for this white girl, at least—the Resident Evil 5 trailer is strangely disturbing.

Of course, it’s possible that Capcom is just throwing around novel combinations willy-nilly here (“I don’t know, how about a zombie game in Africa?”). When it comes to a piece of pop culture like Resident Evil though, we have to consider the possibility that our interest in the supernatural is actually mirroring our anxieties about real-life problems. So, in America — a country still tangling with the legacy of slavery, racism, and oppression—what does Resident Evil 5 give us to be anxious about?

First, there are the obvious cultural connections: otherness and race, blackness and monstrosity—as Public Enemy puts it the “Fear of a Black Planet.” It’s Heart of Darkness meets PlayStation.

Plenty of Resident Evil fanboys are standing up for the game by claiming that Africa is just a setting like any other. After all, why shouldn’t zombies be black? On one level, that’s true.

But looking again at the trailer, I see a different message: it’s not just that these zombies are black, but that the uninfected black villagers are zombie-like too. See all those spooky shots of the villagers before they get infected? It’s as if race itself were a disease. The white protagonist has to fight back or be infected.

And that’s the other issue with setting a zombie movie in Africa. The whole idea of zombies is based on our fear of contamination. Get bitten by a zombie, or just drop a tiny bit of undead blood in an open wound, and you’re a goner. Soon you too will carry the disease of the living dead.

Sounds familiar yet? Yup, we could be talking about the HIV/AIDS crisis, which has killed 15 million Africans, and infected 25 million others on the continent. Especially since one of the few sentences spoken in the Resident Evil 5 trailer is, “Casualties continue to mount over the long years I have struggled.”

Or maybe we’re reminded of the “one drop rule,” concocted by racists who feared miscegenation in the era of slavery and Jim Crow to create a definition of whiteness. Is that what’s lurking behind the premise of this game?

You, sir[ma’am? Pick a name, kthx], are an idiot. There is no single word great enough to describe the unspeakable stupidity that is you. I’m actually a little surprised and rather appalled by the fact that you managed to climb out of the slimy wallow that is your ignorance and figured out how to communicate to another, more highly advanced creature — obviously, you must’ve [and, indeed, this must be the reason for the two names], because you made a post on the internet. Someone had to turn on the computer!

Honestly, you should’ve just rolled over and gone back to bed. Then we wouldn’t be plagued with shit like this:

The new Resident Evil video game depicts a white man in what appears to be Africa killing Black people. The Black people are supposed to be zombies and the white man’s job is to destroy them and save humanity…

This is problematic on so many levels, including the depiction of Black people as inhuman savages, the killing of Black people by a white man in military clothing, and the fact that this video game is marketed to children and young adults. Start them young… fearing, hating, and destroying Black people.

I’m sure anyone reading this site can find the source all by themselves. I’m not giving any more hits to anyone who thinks that ‘black’ is a proper noun.

Let’s get the pointless out of the way first.

• It’s 2007, right? And the first Resident Evil was released in 1996? Well, I suppose over a decade is nearly a decade. I’ll have to let that one slide, won’t I?
• Machine guns? Don’t worry, it’s okay, I cheat too….
• Mansions and rural towns? Backwoods? What? I’ve never played these games and I know more about them.
• Does ‘westerner’ mean ‘white’? Wait, which way is west, again? I guess anyone could be a ‘westerner’ if you just keep stretching it….

I don’t think this article would bug me so much if the author didn’t come off as so ill-informed. Obviously, they know nothing about games, less than nothing about zombies, and all they care about is whether or not those black people think they’re racist.

I’d be shocked if the writer hasn’t uttered the phrase, ‘Why, I have lots of black friends. They’re really nice!’ at some point in their life.

That’s got to be what happened here. Some ignorant nongamer who only got near a zombie movie that one time one was playing at the same time as that Incredibly Funny Romantic Chickflick saw this and thought, “Oh dear, I need to be outraged and compare it to AIDS and cause a scandal. My Black Friends will love me for it. And look! Other people are outraged, too. That ‘is it just me’ comment couldn’t possibly be a JOKE!”

It’s time to get the fuck over it. Just admit that you’re creeped out by black people, and the only reason you can’t tell the difference between the zombies and the uninfected in the trailer is that some black people really do walk like that.

And while you’re at it, would you please just stop promoting the myth that the HIV positive wander around biting people? Honestly.

Oh, wait.

Hi, I’m Bonnie Ruberg, resident sex & games/tech expert. Nowadays, I work at The Village Voice, where I blog, help out with VillageVoice.com, and write a weekly cybersex advice column called “Click Me.” I recently graduated from college with a degree in creative writing and gender & sexuality studies.

If it’s the same person, then nevermind. There’s just no point, is there? She’s an expert.