Representation in Resident Evil 5 Trailer

Okay, this week I want to talk about representation of black people in Resident Evil 5, the trailer Kevin should us in class last week Tuesday. So, it quite clear that the video is racist but what’s more interesting and problematic is that whoever edited the trailer thought it was a good idea to have Arabic prayers as the non diegetic music to help create the mood and atmosphere of the story. Well it certainly did. The trailer opens to shots of abandoned, isolated places. Black people are already beginning to be casted as the ‘other’, well before they have become zombies.

There is not logical or significant value of playing Arabic prayers. In the middles east these prayers are playing live on loud speaker, from the Mosque where local citizens can hear them. They may not be important to non Arab or Muslim people and may not understand them they certainly are quite important to other people, it’s quite disrespectful. I’m not Muslim myself but if someone had used Sikh prayers in a video game to help cast out black people, well I’d be quite insulted and pissed off.

From a non black and non Muslim perspective, the non diegetic music used in Resident Evil 5 trailer is ‘foreign’. Through specific framing by isolating the black people as ‘evil’ before they've even turned into zombies is reinforced by unfamiliar language. There is no reasonable explanation why indigenous people are framed this way or why only white people are framed ‘good’. It’s so typical watching this, it’s just like a ‘white saviour film’ where indigenous people just happen to be incapable of doing anything themselves and need to be rescued by the big, tall, buff, white man.

It’s just reinforcing discourse; white people presumably hold the power. And yet again it’s being practiced everyday unconsciously. My friend played this game and when we discussed this game he failed to realise this whole time that the game its self is so racist.

Furthermore, stereotypes are not bad; there are certain characters traits that people identify certain minorities and help categorise them. Stereotypes are certainly bad when a whole minority is shunned in bad light. In this case the black people portrayed in the trailer are stereotyped as criminals well before they actually are zombies. For example there is one low angle mid shot of black adolescent shot behind a barbwire fence. Portrays him as strong and dangerous and using symbolic key features such as a barbwire fence symbolising that’s where he presumably belongs; behind bars and locked up.

This is colour blind racism; contemporary racial inequalities that are practiced very subtly. Colour blind racism still transmits the ideology of white supremacy and normativity but in subtle, symbolic and polite ways.