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Race, colonial history and national identity: Resident Evil 5 as a Japanese game

Martin, Paul

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Authors

Paul Martin



Abstract

Resident Evil 5 is a zombie game made by Capcom featuring a White American protagonist and set in Africa. This paper argues that approaching this as a Japanese game reveals aspects of a Japanese racial and colonial social imaginary that are missed if this context of production is ignored. In terms of race, the game presents hybrid racial subjectivities that can be related to Japanese perspectives of Blackness and Whiteness where these terms are two poles of difference and identity through which an essentialised Japanese identity is constructed in what Iwabuchi calls “strategic hybridism” (Iwabuchi, 2002). In terms of colonialism, the game echoes structures of Japanese colonialism through which Japanese colonialism is obliquely memorialised and a “normal” Japanese global subjectivity can be performed.

Citation

Martin, P. (in press). Race, colonial history and national identity: Resident Evil 5 as a Japanese game. Games and Culture, https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412016631648

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Jan 1, 2016
Online Publication Date Feb 22, 2016
Deposit Date Jan 4, 2018
Publicly Available Date Jan 4, 2018
Journal Games and Culture
Print ISSN 1555-4120
Electronic ISSN 1555-4139
Publisher SAGE Publications
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
DOI https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412016631648
Keywords race, postcolonialism, Japan, memory, Resident Evil, normal country, avatar, social imaginary, implied player, hybridism
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/775605
Publisher URL http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1555412016631648
Contract Date Jan 4, 2018

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