As a personal fan of the horror genre, including movies, books and video games, this writer has consumed lots of works in that field.
And for most of my life, the only -ism that horror could really be accused of was nihilism — not racism, sexism or any of the usual -isms proffered by the left.
However, as has become an annoyingly common trend as time trudges forward, people have inevitably found all of those other -isms in the horror genre because of course they have.
Now, in fairness, some conversations about race and horror are uncomfortable and inevitable. The godfather of cosmic horror, H.P. Lovecraft appears (“appears” being the operative word, I’ve never met or spoken to the man) to have been a capital “R” racist.
However, those should be nuanced conversations about how to separate the art from the artist, not some platform to air out perceived racial grievances.
But even the most brain-dead version of the Lovecraft debate is worlds better than whatever this dreck from video game outlet IGN is.
Before that, however, an explanation of “Resident Evil” for the unfamiliar: RE is a survival horror video game franchise that debuted in 1996 and is published by venerable Japanese video game titan Capcom. The games generally pit the protagonist against countless zombified monstrosities, while managing limited resources.
The games are popular enough where the franchise is up to its eighth numbered installment (and that doesn’t include countless spin-offs and offshoots), but Capcom has recently found success by double dipping into their catalog. Capcom has modernized and remade the first four games in the franchise, and all of the games have been well-received. With the fourth RE game being the most recent to get the remake treatment, many assumed the fifth game would be next.
And that leads us to IGN.
Have you played any Resident Evil games?
Titled “The Resident Evil Game That Can’t Be Remade,” the world’s biggest video game site effectively argued against remaking “Resident Evil 5,” and instead rewriting it entirely.
“The big question is: where next? The obvious answer is a remake of Resident Evil 5,” IGN UK editor Matt Purslow argues. “But on the game’s 15th anniversary, it’s clear that moving forward chronologically will take Capcom’s remakes into the series’ weakest era – an era of gameplay and narrative decisions best left in the past. Resident Evil 5 simply can’t be remade, at least not to the standards of Capcom’s best work.
“And so the answer is not to remake, but to rewrite.”
Now, had Purslow simply stuck with criticisms that the game was a sharp turn away from “survival horror” and towards “horror action,” this article might’ve had some legs. Longtime fans of the series will typically admit that RE5 and RE6 are generally the weakest entries in the series due to the de-emphasis on survival, and doubling down on bombastic action.
But of course, those (valid) complaints were but a small part of this nonsensical screed.
“And so you could argue that Resident Evil 5 is actually the Resident Evil most in need of a remake,” Purslow writes. “A whole new environmental structure and scenario design that reigns in the action and dials up the horror would bring it in-line with Capcom’s other remakes.
“But all of this doesn’t account for Resident Evil 5’s most notorious problem: racism.”
Oh boy.
Purslow argues: “Set in a fictional West African country, Resident Evil 5’s primary antagonists are Black people. Yes, technically it’s the Uroboros virus that protagonist Chris Redfield is fighting, but the parasite’s host is depicted as a nation of mobs and primitives who are violent even before their infection. Intentionally or not, Resident Evil 5 positions Africa as the ‘Dark Continent’, an uncivilised world harbouring a diseased population that needs gunning down via Western intervention in the name of global security.”
Uh… what?
Purslow does seem to acknowledge that the feral zombies in Africa are, in fact, zombies, but then somehow argues that the non-zombie aggressors make the game racist?
Is Purslow aware that some of the most twisted, devious and evil non-zombies in the franchise are white people? Police Chief Brian Irons, Dr. Annette Birkin, the Ashfield family, and Albert Wesker (the latter two eventually become monsters, but are plenty evil before said transformations) are all objectively portrayed far worse than nondescript NPC’s from the fifth game.
Where’s the outcry for those “primitives who are violent even before their infection”?
Perhaps most damning, I’m going to have to question if this Purslow fella actually even played this game.
“And if you take Africa out of Resident Evil 5, is it Resident Evil 5 anymore?” Purslow ponders. “Even with a vastly improved, more sensitive take on the continent – perhaps one with a Black protagonist and more empathetic look at the outbreak – the experience would simply be too divorced from the original to hold the name ‘Resident Evil 5’.”
The phrase I want to hone in on is “perhaps one with a Black protagonist.”
Because if Purslow spent even five minutes with the game, he would know that one of the co-protagonists (and a playable character) of this story is Sheva Alomar, an African operative.
And more so, Alomar is presented much, much better than her cohort (and other playable character), Chris Redfield — a white male.
Redfield is presented as a well-meaning meathead who solves problems by punching boulders (literally) while Alomar is presented as the cool, calm, collected and highly capable foil.
Look, this is all to say: If you go looking for “racism” in every corner and under every rock, you will inevitably “find” it.
But just because you “find” it, doesn’t mean you should publish it, lest you be mercilessly mocked.
