Resident Evil, Racism . . .and Comic Relief.

Okay, I blogged previously about how Comic Relief was really a celebration of money and capitalism. The basic gist of this was that rather than deal with the problems of poverty in the third world and the shortcomings of the social care system back home in a direct way we instead construct an elaborate theatre where a large amount of money has to be raised, displayed and celebrated. I compared this to the "trickle down" theory of socially responsible capitalism: we must rescue the banks, with no debate or vote, because the poor can only be helped when the financial institutions are strong, etc. Recent developments in other areas have caused me to consider the phenomenon of Comic Relief, Live Aid and the like, and so I find myself offering the same caveat before launching into my rant: of course lots of good is done by these events and organisations, they are perhaps the best way of making an omelet without breaking any eggs.

I have recently had my attention drawn to the new Resident Evil game, mainly by the protests of liberal friends and colleagues that are disgusted by its racist undertones. I have not played the game, so I can only resort to the media coverage, much like the people that are voicing their disgust, some calling for the game to be banned. The game franchise mainly centres around shooting zombies, it's a first person shoot 'em up much like the others. This time though, the game is set in Africa, where a bio-engineered virus has turned a large proportion of the population into zombies. You play a white western special operative and your task is to go to Africa on a mission to blow away black African zombies. Not only this, but you cant tell if they are zombies or not if they get up close to you and attack.

Okay, so this has been enough to get many people riled up and voice their discontent. Fair enough. However, for me it has been interesting watching intelligent, liberal people act like Daily Mail readers. The central concern many be different, anxiety about racism rather than crime or sex, but the pattern is remarkably similar. It turns out that none have played the game, and many seem to be reacting to loaded articles from secondary sources, well maybe "secondary" is generous because most of those sources haven't played the game either. It's also interesting that violence itself seems to be acceptable, but racially motivated violence is not. In the same way, the Daily Mail reader wont call for Saving Private Ryan to be banned for its violent content, but will become immediately agitated when the violence is conducted by working class people in ways that don't respect property rights, such as in the Grand Theft Auto series. This brings to mind Dennis Leary's monologue about dolphin friendly tuna: Don't eat tinned tuna, they catch dolphins in their nets! But what about the tuna? Fuck the tuna! Personally, my reaction on first hearing about the game was absolute incredulity at a western government intervening in African crisis.

As I've already pointed out, I haven't played the game so I wont venture my opinion about whether it is racist or not, but I will make some observations about how it may fit in with how our media portray Africa. Perhaps the most offensive factor is how a diverse continent is always though of as one uniform place with uniform charms and problems. "There wont be snow in Africa this Christmas time" apart from on Mount Kilimanjaro of course. This is of course where I'm heading, isn't the racism of RE5 not so much a continuation of racist prejudices within the West and more the obverse of the depiction of Africa by news agencies and charities as a place of great pain and suffering, often placed in comparison to our wealth? Aren't the images of African zombies attacking the player's first person vantage point reminiscent of segments during telethons such as Comic Relief and news reports that warn people beforehand that they concern disturbing images ( we will show you more comedy soon, but first we will make you watch disturbing images of suffering Africans. You must watch these images and feel pain and pity. If you donate money we will no longer torment you with these images and return to the mainly white comedians.) It may be bold for me to say so, but the horror imagery of diseased Africans attacking you from the other side of a television screen are actually playing on anxieties created by this tactic of engendering liberal guilt rather than more obvious far-right xenophobia about foreigners and minorities.

Part of this problem is intrinsically linked to how capitalist society deals with the problems of the third world. Rather than motivate the population to politically engage with how these problems can be solved there has instead been a strategy where citizens are encouraged to give to charity instead. This has lead to the technique of portraying problem areas in a certain sense to create an immediate effect of unease in order to secure an immediate contribution. While this attempt has been successful in raising money for these causes, it has done so at the expense of real political action and public consciousness about the third world. Racist video games mark the shallow end of this phenomenon, the perpetuation of these problems because of ignorance and short term solutions marks the deep end.

Zizek, Capitalism and Comic Relief

Last Monday I saw Slavoj Zizek deliver a lecture on the collapse of capitalism as part of the Revolution Now season at the Royal Festival Hall. Zizek is of course, a charismatic and brilliant lecturer, though one who seems to slip too slickly from one point to the next. It is only when I catch him talking about something I really know about that I often find he is not as well informed as he can seem. That said, Zizek is primarily a philosopher and one could argue that it is primarily the philosophers task to ask questions rather than give answers, or more importantly, to let us know when we are asking the wrong questions.

One of these wrong questions brought up by Zizek was " What did we do wrong in order to cause the current economic collapse, how did we wrongly apply capitalism to this end?" the question Zizek thinks we really should be asking is "What is inherently wrong within Capitalism itself?" In other words, in times of collapse do we try and find an excuse for capitalism itself? We have heard the apology for the last collapse, "boom/bust" being the key word, the tactical error being turned into a stepping stone in the application of capitalist policy rather than an inherent fault of capitalism itself.

It is from the supposition of this state of denial that Zizek went on to point out one of the most glaring inconsistencies in the policies of the world governments. When poverty, the environment and other major concerns are to be dealt with, the G8 convene for many days. What is the result? We have agreed that we will meet again to discuss these issues in 6 months time...

However, when the banks go up shit creek, the UK and US governments have been quick to put debate and democracy to one side and intervene immediately, with cash injections or covert nationalisations to take massive risks on the future in order to prevent the immediate collapse of these institutions.

It seems that this is part of the idea that we can only help the rest of the world by empowering the financial institutions, the trickle-down myth of socially-conscious capitalism. Zizek went on to point out the "fair trade" myth carried out by Starbucks and other companies wanting to portray themselves as socially responsible. His example was Ethos water, a brand of water that promised 5 cents from every bottle would go to help those in the third world. The bottles themselves were 40 cents more expensive than the standard brand...

It was with this sense of scepticism that I flicked in and out of Comic Relief last night. Isn't the telethon the ultimate way of socially rehabilitating money in times of financial doubt? Every half hour, a total of money is flashed across the screen and we applaud this princely sum and the good it will do. In between the back slappingly awful comic segments we get to see the more serious side, short films about the terrible situations at home and abroad and are told how these can be changed if we give our money.

When we really look at this though, doesn't it beg the question about what should be done to end these situations and why? Once we have identified the problem and what can be done about it, is a bi-annual post-modern television ritual really the only way of providing the solution? Of course there are many people campaigning for policies to change, and gratuitous or not, Comic Relief money will do a lot of good. But the point I am getting to here is not just the obvious one about not having all the right answers. It is far more desperate than that. If the comic relief, fairtrade culture is the only way we can conceive of facing some of the greatest issues affecting the world, as well as distracting ourselves from our current economic situation, are we even anywhere near asking the right questions?