And that is cinematography at play right there. Foreshadowing techniques, ‘otherness’ techniques and dehumanising of future and current enemies are all the tools of the trade for books, film and art (perhaps even games).

Like i said, it depends on how you view the world. What you’ve been taught growing up and what you’ve experienced.

“Ask yourself, if you’re a white gamer who thinks this is all a big stink over nothing, who thinks that it’s ridiculous to talk about historical imagery and context and so forth when it’s just a game, who thinks we should all just look past race and get over history:

How would you feel if someone burned a cross on your lawn?”

I don’t think it’s ridiculous to talk about these things (you’re putting words into my mouth there)… what i do think is that it’s pointless jumping to conclusions about things. Like you mention in the quote above this one, if you look hard enough you will see it. Sometimes we all look too hard and see things that aren’t there.

As to the question? I’m very much a believer in treat others as you want to be treated yourself. As a religious i’ve been unfairly persecuted (to no where near the degree that minorities have been in the past and even today) because my ‘way’ is different from others. I’d be very angry if anyone touched my property with no good cause - but i wouldn’t jump to condemn all people that belong to those who had… not their children or their grandchildren.

The way to heal wounds quickly is to leave them open to the air - don’t pick at them but do examine them and apply liberal amounts of cleasing washes to help the process.

You just can’t see it. Or you’re not looking hard enough.

The way the villagers are framed and lit, skulking around in the shadows, staring out at Chris from sunken eyes; the difficulty one has in telling the difference between the uninfected villagers and the zombies (look at any comment thread in the current shitstorm about this and notice that nobody can tell whether the fellow with the shades and the megaphone is supposed to be infected or not); the fact that Chris doesn’t engage the villagers in any way — it all comes together to create a sense of these African villagers being less than human, which happens to play right into every fear and stereotype white people have ever had about blacks: they’re inhuman savages, they’re violent, they’re dangerous, they’re not like us. It’s the white man’s journey into Darkest Africa, with the menacing natives gathering around and then attacking in a mob (hence all of the references people have made to Heart of Darkness and Black Hawk Down).

Unfortunately, gamers (in addition to frequently being fiercely, unreasonably defensive about their favorite products) often come up short on empathy and perspective. “It’s not offensive to me,” they say, “so why should anybody be offended by it?”

Ask yourself, if you’re a white gamer who thinks this is all a big stink over nothing, who thinks that it’s ridiculous to talk about historical imagery and context and so forth when it’s just a game, who thinks we should all just look past race and get over history:

How would you feel if someone burned a cross on your lawn?

The only thing i really take issue with in the trailer is perhaps the voice-over.

Maybe one day we can move past all this stuff…

As someone who has tried to do exactly that, it seems to me at times to be a lost cause. The people screeching about “ZOMG teh reverse racism/sexism/homophobia”, are nearly always completely entrenched in their sheltered worldview, and the only effect posting evidence that say minorities and women are more likely to be poor in the US than men only prompts them to add a “well so?” before restating their “argument”.

To be honest, I’ve just given up on tiring to explain to people who are supposedly in my peer group why it’s considered impolite (to say the least) to use racial epithets. They don’t care if the face they present to the public is an immature, socially maladjusted, screeching stereotype of what a gamer is, fine, I don’t really care anymore. (similarly nuts to the general gay “community” if they wont accept me or some of my friends just because we’re either bi or transsexual)

In short:
“But on the flip side? A lot of gamers seem to be very, very stupid.”

Agreed.

But on the flip side? A lot of gamers seem to be very, very stupid.

“Racism” is not any situation in which a darker-skinned person is portrayed in a negative light. It is the belief in the inherent inferiority of a group of people based upon superficial aspects such as skin color–in this case, the game is not “racist.”

The fact that you continue to extremely overanalyze (redundant, I know, but your article about this topic was quite redundant, as well) the subject and proclaim “racism” this and “racism” that about what YOU see in the trailer says much more about your own ignorant and insecurity than anyone else’s. The fact that you cannot take a game’s setting at face value and go with it shows the hallmark of an immature mind. You clearly have some personal issues you need to take care of, else I’m not sure you’ll appreciate this game at all.

Let’s use one of your quotes: “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?”

Why yes, it does. It sounds like a zombie film. BUT OH NO! Because the zombies in this case happen to be that most horrific of things to you–black–IT’S RACISM.

“Or maybe we’re reminded of the “one drop rule,”"

“We”? No, sorry, but that’s just you and other race-baiting fools with too much time on their hands.

It must be really great to live in a country where we can ignore real problems and instead overanalyze non-existent ones in video games like RE5. Get a clue.

I know exactly what you mean about the sex v.s. violence. A friend of mine is high school, whose parents loved “the Matrix,” wouldn’t let him watch “Shakespeare and Love” because it had sex in it. Seriously, we have our priorities backwards.

As to resident Evil 5, you and Croal both got it right. It isn’t that the intent is racist, or that it is racist to kill black zombies; it is that the imagery is frighteningly familiar to certain racist images and ideas.

Loving what I have read of your stuff,
Tristram Draper