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Sheva Alomar Has No Nationality

Sheva Alomar, Colonial Imagery, and African Representation in Resident Evil 5

This page is a work-in-progress. It is not final and subject to change. With that being said, my thoughts on the topic are also subject to change. I am posting them here now because I feel like I'll explode if I don't start talking about it somewhere. My current plan is for the final work to be posted in the format of a YouTube video, so keep an eye out for that as well.

Resident Evil 5, as many people know, is a 2009 action/horror game developed by the Japanese company Capcom. With the recent and successful release of Resident Evil 4 Remake, and the upcoming new entry to the franchise, Resident Evil 9: Requiem, I have a lot of hope for a Resident Evil 5 Remake within the next five years. But unlike the other games in the series, the cotroversy with this entry is much more weighted.

Resident Evil 5 is racist.

Or is it?

Well...

My intent with this project is not to answer that question, despite that question being a part of the project. I'm doing this for a few reasons, but the main one is that, I don't think I'm qualified to answer it. I'm a white woman in the United States, for starters, which changes the framing of this altogether. I'm not subject to racism. Therefore, my say in this matter means a lot less than someone who is.

So why talk about this in the first place?

Well, the main reason is one you might be aware of: I like zombies! I love learning about them as a rhetorical figure, their representation in media, and where they come from. With Resident Evil being a zombie-franchise, it only makes sense that I would obsess over this.

And I also LOVE Sheva Alomar. Her representation is important to me because she's important to me.

I've heard many takes on Resident Evil 5, Africa, Sheva's inclusion, etc., but a lot of these discussions were soley focused on lore, and less-so the real-world implications of such a geopolitical-heavy game. With my critique of Resident Evil 5, I hope to represent a different aspect of this discussion by including the history of zombies and their roots to Africa, Zora Neale Hurston, and movies like White Zombie. These are not the only resources I'll be pulling from, but they are the first ones to come to mind.

In the same, or similar, vein to how Jakes's campaign in Resident Evil 6 should've been titled and treated as Sherry's campaign, I argue that the real heroes of Resident Evil 5 are Sheva and Josh, despite the game narrowing in on Chris as the protagonist and his relationships with Jill and Wesker taking priority. I also argue that Resident Evil 5 would benefit the perception of Chris' character by portraying him as the ally he is rather than the savior he isn't. By emphasizing the role of Sheva especially, but Josh not excluded, Resident Evil 5 could provide meaningful commentary on various issues, while deriving effective horror from the reaility they're commening on; all while maintaining the Chris-Jill-Wesker conflict as a backdrop to the game.

You can do both. It can be both a meaningful commentary and a Resident Evil game.

Some of the question's I'd like to answer include the following:

  • What is it like to be nationless?
  • Are there another characters in the Resident Evil franchise that are nationless?
  • What does it mean to be nationless in a game that is deeply geopolitical?
  • Is Sheva's lack of national identity erasure or narrative convienence? If the latter, does that make it okay?

"It's not that deep."

This phrase is funny in lighthearted contexts, but in this case I interpret it as: "I don't want to think about this critically." This is dangerous thinking, though, because media doesn't exist in a vacuum. Media is entanglements. It represents how we see the world, which fu6rther influences the sight of others.

Also, there are so many video essays out there. In the case of The Last of Us II, there are people who've covered Ellie's arc, the "Joel plus golf club incident," and the concept of revenge. These are in-depth analyses. If we can analyze The Last of Us II this deeply, then why can't we also analyze Resident Evil 5? Especially when it's one of the few triple-A games set on the continent of Africa. Analytic depth is not reserved to prestigious narratives. It is applicable to all media.

As a student of anthropology, I have a metaphorical gun to my head to study culture and understand how it is represented and understood. This means that media isn't just entertainment, but a view into how societies imagine one another. When the African co-protagonist is given no clear nationality, it can be seen as a statement about how Africa is percieved globally.

There are two different types of nationlessness

Carlos Oliviera is also nationless, and while we could leave it at that, I don't think it's that simple and I refuse to not look closer.

I argue that the ambiguity around Carlos functions differently than the ambiguity that surrounds Sheva. I'm not justifying his ambiguity, but explaining why Sheva's carries more weight.

Carlos Oliveira is listed as South American/Mestizo in the "nationality" category, but neither of these are a nationality. Instead, Mestizo (from my understanding) is an ethno-cultural identifier originating from a Spanish and Portuguese colonial caste system. He has an "ethnicized nationlessness," whereas Sheva does not. Basically, we are given more information to work with when it comes to pinpointing Carlos's nationality. Which contrasts directly to Sheva's situation.

One on hand, we have fans speculating where Carlos is from on the internet. On the other, I'm seemingly the only person asking about Sheva Alomar and also I'm locked in my apartment and trapped in a straightjacket and conversing with myself through the mirror.

I'm even going as far to say that this type of fandom activity is important cultural work. Fans are able to speculate where Carlos is from because his identity feels locatable. He has a name and a backstory that help signal recognzable regions to people. In the eyes of Western media, South Amerca is made up of internal parts and is more than just a continent. This differs greatly to Sheva. You don't see the same fan discourse. "Is she Kenyan? Nigerian? Ghanaian?" She is treated as self-evidently African and her identity becomes the continent itself.

Carlos and Sheva are both nationless, but in different ways. At no fault to the characters themselves, Carlos Oliveira's nationlessness invites localization. Sheva Alomar's nationlessness invites generalization.

Setting matters, too. Carlos appears in a game set in the United States, with an environment that is nationally specific. Sheva appears in a game set in an unnamed African country with an environment that lacks national specificity. She is essentially a local guide to a blurry place. I can't fully articulate it, but Sheva's nationlessness feels more harmful than Carlos's.

Carlos doesn't have a country, but he feels like he is from somewhere. He's nationless inside a nation. Sheva doesn't have a country, even though she's supposed to belong in the place that we're in. She's nationless inside a void. I'm not arguing that nationlessness is always bad, but I am trying to show that who gets to be ambiguous, where, and how is deeply political.

Thank you for reading. Wanna go back to the home page?