seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from Argentina
seen from Germany
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Morocco
its been a while oops
JOSH STONE ⸻ resident evil 5, 2009.
Where's BSAA West Africa partner game with these two Capcom?
Resident Evil and the Case of the Absent Black Protagonist(s)
I feel like, since Resident Evil 7, the series has leaned heavily on the cliché where Black characters are barely minor characters who pass on information, or minor characters who get killed off in situations their oft white protagonists get to survive on the merit of being The Protagonist.
In Resident Evil 7, the only Black character to speak of was a Louisiana police officer who was quickly done away with via a shovel to the head (one that cut his skull in half). Unlike Marvin Branagh (in RE2, a minor character with a reoccurring role), this character was more or less feckless and out-of-sorts (playing into the revamped franchise's desire to be 'realistic' with appropriately terrified human beings). The "Ethan Winters saga" remained solidly within the realm of whiteness afterward.
In Requiem we got Nathan Dempsy (a "Black Chief" type), Grace's boss that sets off her [tragic] story, and then a disabled helicopter pilot named Harry (a leg injury left him unable to run), who gets speared through the chest as soon as they attempt an escape from the zombies and the chopper crashes.
Resident Evil isn't particularly known for its self-awareness. I can't even say that the bulk of their antagonists or villains, straight up eugenicists (white supremacists) trying to create the "perfect" (white) human being, is a commentary or criticism of either the United States or Japan's obsession with 'racial purity'.
Not when the writing tends to unironically preface their [white] characters as "special", and almost always leans into making them (genetically) exceptional as an answer to the genocidal ideals of its villains. (i.e., RE believes in genetic exceptionalism, believes it can be achieved without genocidal intent.)
Characters like Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, and Leon S. Kennedy snarkily address the fact that the United States govt will abandon people to certain death or blackmail them into working for them, but only in the context that authority figures (policemen and military) are sacrificed in the name of capitalism. (It's a very "respect the troops" type of messaging.)
Otherwise, an entire game set in West Africa in a ridiculously named locale (Kijuju) has little interest in avoiding unironic replications of old style colonialism, ideas of inherent poverty in Africa, within baldly racist depictions of Africans in a story about the shambles of a megacorp like Umbrella exploiting Black communities. (Sheva Alomar and Josh Stone's relatively humane depictions, in that sense, make them exceptional versus their countrymen.)
I never excepted to see hide nor hair of the Outbreak cast if wasn't in an oft hoped-for remake. That Alyssa Ashcroft was included in a major storyline at all was as exciting as it was disappointing.
Because it means that they made space for Aylssa's inclusion, even if it was just to justify a character like Grace (to then promptly kill Aylssa off). It's a kind of intentionality, based on how antiblackness operates in media, that wouldn't be extended to Mark Wilkins (security guard) and Jim Chapman (public transit employee). It's hard not to feel like the two are likely dead (esp if the RE9 is communicating that Raccoon City survivors have a latent T-Virus infections) or have been simply vanished.
That, because they represent very distinct stereotypes of Black men in media (the sexless fat man, the Black chief stereotype, and the clumsy comic relief), Kevin (the cop), David (the custodian), George (the doctor), and Cindy (the waitress) have a better chance to return to the series in narratives central to or aside from the main storyline.
To that end, Sheva Alomar and Josh Stone (secondary protagonists in RE5), feel like aberrations. So much so, that it's likely they'll be this franchise's only leading (and playable) Black characters with a stake in the central narrative. Sort've in the same fashion Ada Wong has been banished to the DLC/side story character realm.
All this to say, there really isn't a reason beyond the obvious that a franchise spanning almost twenty-thirty years hasn't developed games where Black leads are a normative point. Where they just show up, are a fact of the game's narrative, even in the face of Capcom's obsession with Leon and Chris and their habitual vanishing of white mainstays like *Jill and Claire Redfield.
Characters like Mark, Marvin, Jim, Nathan, Sheva and Josh should be rules, not exceptions.
Resident Evil 5 (2009)
⊹₊˚‧︵‿₊୨ᰔ୧₊‿︵‧˚₊⊹
RE5 toploader Keyhchains now avaliable!
RE as LPS part 3! RE4R, RE5, and RE6 as LPS!
Explanations below 😋
I reached the tag limit 💀💀💀 so here’s two tags I had to get rid of! Final part coming out tomorrow and I was gonna add Mike, but didn’t to keep the number even! Just know he’s a bird!
