As part of our recent examination of racism in videogames, we interviewed a number of people from within the industry who could provide and insider’s take on the issue. While much of the feedback was included in the original feature, two additional interviews supplied enough information that we thought they warranted their own entry on the site. First off we have Sue Clark, a representative of the BBFC, the UK’s classification board. Secondly, we have Dr. Griseldis Kirsch, a lecturer in Contemporary Japanese Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies. They give us there insights into how racism is dealt with by the classification board, and how the Japanese market responds to it respectively.
Enjoy, and make sure you read the main feature for the full story.
Gameplayer: How do you approach classifying racist content in videogames?
Sue Clark: There are two issues. Obviously the BBFC takes racial issues into account. There is a law about this, which is about incitement to racial hatred, and that’s a stiff test.
Racist matters do occur in all sorts of guises, and we classify them accordingly. If we had any concerns about incitement to racial hatred then, of course, we would intervene. But, as I say, that’s a stiff test, and the law requires it to be a stiff test. The law is designed not to create mischief-making complaints. It has to be a tough test to make sure that things that people just find offensive are not swept into it. We are very alert to racist language and we flag that up, and it is likely that things will get a higher rating if it contains racist or potentially racist material.
A good example is a DVD we had in last year, which is a boxset of the terribly dated ’70s comedy Love Thy Neighbour, which was littered with racist comments because, at the time, that was just what people said. At the time the series was around, it went out at 7pm peak time, and everybody thought it was hugely amusing. At the time it would have probably got a PG, but we bumped it up to a 12, because we were concerned that young children might watch that kind of thing and come out with the racist comments, but we thought that young teenagers would know that it was inappropriate. So we will classify things higher if they contain racist comments.
Gameplayer: Have any games ever been flagged up for racist content? Sue Clark:We’ve seen works that people have flagged up and said ‘this is racist’, but we’ve looked at it and we’ve said, ‘well, you may find it offensive, and we will rate it higher, but it’s not going to incite racial hatred’. That is what the law says, and that is what we have to work on. We would flag it up if we thought it was an issue.
For instance, the Resident Evil 5 trailer was given a 15 certificate. What we have to do, as far as incitement to racial hatred is concerned, is look at a game that is actively saying, ‘black people are zombies, go out and kill them’, which this doesn’t do. You might find it makes your edges curl and you might think it is offensive, but that is not the test.
