by Hanli Geyser
Co-authored with Pippa Tshabalala.
Paper presented at DiGRA 2011: THINK DESIGN PLAY. (http://gamesconference.hku.nl/)
“The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there –... more
“The earth seemed unearthly. We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there – there you could look at a thing monstrous and free. It was as unearthly as the men were... No they were not inhuman. Well, you know that was the worst of it – this suspicion of their not being inhuman.” Joseph Conrad – Heart of Darkness
Darkest Africa, the imagining of Colonial fantasy, in many ways still lives on. Popular cultural representations of Africa often draw from the rich imagery of the un-chartered, un-knowable other that Africa represents, fraught with Post-Colonial tensions. When Capcom made the decision to set the latest instalment of its Resident Evil series in an imagined African country it was merely looking for a new, unexplored setting. They were therefore surprised at the controversy that surrounded its release. The 2009 game Resident Evil 5 was accused of racial stereotyping of the black zombies and the white protagonist. These allegations have largely been put to rest, as this was never the intention of Capcom in developing the game or selecting the setting, however, the underlying questions remain. How is Africa represented in the game? How does the figure of the zombie resonate within that representation?
Drawing strongly from a Post-Colonial critical approach, the core of the report investigates the figure of the zombie in an African context through a close study of Resident Evil 5. The game itself is addressed as a completed text, but close attention is also paid to the impacts of the interactive and ludological elements on the reading. Games such as RE5 and Far Cry 2 perpetuate the myth of the homogeneous Africa with very little differentiation made between various cultures and countries. The zombies as presented to us in RE5 constitute what David Chalmers terms “Hollywood Zombies”, mindless, aggressive and bloodthirsty. This contradicts sharply with the ways zombies are represented in various African mythologies, where they are often depicted as subdued slaves, a concept extensively explored by Isak Niehaus as a parallel to the position of the native African under Colonialism. Historically the depiction of black Africans as the mindless mob reaches its zenith in works like Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. In RE5, many of the Conradian stereotypes of the native are re-enacted. In addition the land itself is implicated; when traversing the terrain of RE5, the player moves through the devastated relics of Colonial Africa, navigating the newer, yet impoverished appropriations of the Post-Colonial era. RE5 depicts the fictional Post-Colonial African state as vulnerable and the placement of the Western protagonist as a saviour echoes many of the paternalistic fantasies of Colonialism. This report engages with the manner in which the zombie genre lends itself to the myth of primitive Africa, as the zombie is, in many ways, representative of a return to the animalistic, unthinking and manipulated.
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