Nationless in Kijuju: 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.

This layout was generated with petrapixel's layout generator. You may remove the credit in the footer, but please leave the credit in the code. Thank you!

I will now show you how to use the most common HTML text elements: This is bold text. This is also bold text. This is italic text. This is also italic text. This is strikethrough text. This is underlined text. This is a link. This is a link that will open in a new tab. This is code (displayed in a monospace font). This is an abbreviation (Try hovering over it). This is highlighted text. This is a line break (The br stands for break.):
It's different from a paragraph because it does not add space inbetween the lines of text.

This is a paragraph. As you can see, there's a bit of space between it and the previous paragraph.

This is a blockquote. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor.

Heading 2

• Unsorted list
• Unsorted list
• Unsorted list

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

1. Sorted list
2. Sorted list
3. Sorted list

Heading 3

This is preformatted text, which means that     spaces    are preserved:
          :D

This is preformatted code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <body>
   <h1>My First Heading</h1>
   <p>My first paragraph.</p>
  </body>
</html>

This is a separator line / divider:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

Heading 4

Here are two columns:

Heading 5

This is an image:

This is a full-width image:

These are multiple images in a row:

Heading 6

Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat.