Racism

The readings and lecture this week were actually a real eye opener for me when it came to prejudice in video games. I know prejudice is everywhere in society, but I didn’t realize how blatant it was in video games.  As previously noted, I am the definition of a casual gamer, so in a sense the readings and lecture opened up a can of worms to a world that I had no real clue about.
 I guess deep down I have always known masculinity existed in games. The protaganist has always been a male in games. And yes, I did notice that Lara croft was some big sex symbol with her boobs emphasized and her but enlarged. I think what threw me was the racism that occurred in games, something that I had no idea about.

I found this article about the prejudices that exist in Games to be fair and interesting.

http://www.cracked.com/article_19922_5-prejudices-that-video-games-cant-seem-to-get-over.html I am not going to lie. I am disturbed by the racism in games that we were shown in the lecture, and the ignorance surrounding racism. “How is it racist?” and “I didn’t even notice,” Or “But of course the zombies are black they cant be white!” are some of the statements that I have heard regarding racism in games- in the lecture and from people I have talked to about it.

These are also some of the statements from the above site that are quite shocking.

Why is an event that occurred almost 150 years ago still a touchy “topic”?”

“Either the entire colour spectrum (as in humanity) is wrong to kill, and we should use aliens/dogs instead, or NO ONE is wrong to kill.”

“your views of the civil war are what’s [expletive]”

“Do you also get offended when you see a box of Count Chocula?”

“SHOOTING BLACK PEOPLE IN AFRICA IS WRONG, LETS FILL AFRICA WITH WHITE PEOPLE INSTEAD  ”

“i have to say when someone writes about killing African Americans in video games is wrong that is really stupid.”

“You have no problems killing the Japs”

“who is mystified that Mr. Jackson”  People shut down this discussion a lot because it reflects on them It is called Gas lighting. Anyone who argues for a change gets policed. It is easier in a sense to turn a blind eye, but when it is quite blatant, and you would still rather find an excuse for it is very sad and demeaning.   I read about the game “Left 4 Dead 2” and decided to look it up. The game, released in 2009, is about "survivors  who must fight their way through five campaigns, interspersed with safe houses that act as checkpoints with the goal of escape at each campaign's finale”It caused a lot of controversy on its release and I could see why. Most of the zombies are of course, black or african american. The setting is also similar to hurricane Katrina, a city of dead, floating bodies. As mentioned in the lecture, if you are going to incorporate history and real life events, then you need to be very very careful. I think this was definitely a bad call and I wouldn’t even touch the game when it is so similar to a horrific event that has happened in history, and not done in a nice way either.  I also looked up Ethnic Cleansing after the name of the game was mentioned in the lecture. Obviously by the name itself, the racism is blatant. So, if you actually buy the game then you are probably racist.  It was released in 2002, and developed by Resistance Records and the game lets you play as a Klansman or skinhead in the quest to kill Latinos, Blacks, and Jews. That pretty much speaks for itself. My question is how on earth something like this got released? I can’t imagine a film like that ever being released for the sake of killing ethic minorities. 

Here is racism at its worst, a site I came across: http://www.alwaysblack.com/?p=10  I believe as a whole, Video games need to be extremely careful when it comes to privilege and deserve to be scrutinized for the obvious prejudice. Agency allows the player to be involved in the game, and make his or her own decisions, so it’s a very dangerous territory.  Even more so then film and literature. Will there ever be change though?