“I could kiss you, you bitch.” – Race, gender and sexuality in Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse

This is an article written by Stephen Harper in the spring of 2007.

The article talks about the perspective that the two films give the viewer of race gender and sexuality and offers critique on them.

I chose this article to look into as its title caught my interest and after reading through it, I felt it was suitable.

NOTES:

Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse noted as first two in Resident Evil series.
Put into action based video game films subgenre
Reference made to director’s past work Mortal Kombat (1995), The Lara Croft films (West, 2001) and Cradle of Life (de Bont, 2003)

Resident Evil (Anderson, 2002) generically simple action film
Bob Rehak (2003) - “pieced together from Aliens (1986), Night of the Living Dead (1990), Predator (1987), even Die Hard (1988).”

However, article says “despite its conceptual simplicity, the film does make a fair bid for cultural capital with its numerous references to Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (which were added by Anderson and are not present in the video game).”

Article also talks about the chess motif within the film while the Red Queen controls the underground Hive entered by the team in the film. The ‘Red Queen’ is noted to be a reference to “the Red Queen Principle proposed by evolutionary biologist Leigh van Valen in 1973 to describe the fact that evolutionary systems must continually develop just to maintain their relative fitness to the systems with which they are co-evolving (Van Valen, 1973).”

Article relates this to the Alice references and comments that it might otherwise be considered (as zombie films so often are) formulaic and mediocre.

Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse (Witt, 2004) is also made reference to when talking about the narrative of the films.
“while narratively closer to the video games than the first film, substitutes fast-moving action for the claustrophobic intensity and intellectual pretensions of its precursor.”

Despite difference, both films said can be viewed as postmodern and postfeminist texts.
Generate commercial synergy with video games.
Presents ambiguous perspective on corporate power + issues of race, gender and sexuality.

Mentions of purpose for article:
Critique of gender, sexual and racial politics of the films by focusing on the lead females of the films – Alice (Milla Jovovich), Rain (Michelle Rodriguez) and Alice’s accomplice in the sequel, Jill (Sienna Guillory).

Mentions future comparisons to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
“I will also draw comparisons with the hugely popular television drama Buffy the Vampire Slayer, on the grounds that, like the contemporary Resident Evil films, Buffy is a text which combines representations of violent and confident femininity with problematic constructions of gender, race and sexuality.”

...

I personally think the article is quite insightful on these issues, however I cannot give an opinion on the points made as I am not familiar with the film series or the references to other medias.