So yesterday, I tweeted a throwaway tweet. It… got some attention. Let’s break this down.
Whenever I see gamers say that games didn’t used to have politics, I think about Will Wright telling me how the message of The Sims was supposed to be that owning more things doesn’t necessarily make you happier, or if it does, it adds a higher upkeep cost to your life.
— Old Man Schubert, Design Crank (@ZenOfDesign) December 11, 2018
For a long time, there has been a contingent of people demanding that we ‘get politics out of games’. This was a cornerstone of GamerGate, of course, but these diseased outrage junkies have attacked creators in almost every genre of popular culture you can think of. Right now, the pathetic manbabies that populate the ranks of Comicsgate gets the most attention, but they’ve also attacked movie directors and studios, television creators, and in gameing, communities around Dungeons & Dragons, Magic the Gathering and Board Games in general have had to deal with this simpering fuckwaditude.
They exist in the board gaming space too, claiming “SJWs are ruining board games these days with politics”. Even though the original Monopoly from 115 years ago was created by a leftwing feminist as a warning about the evils of unchecked capitalism.
— Barry Hood (@bazzyh) December 11, 2018
The outrage junkies are peddling falsehoods, of course. Politics have been inherent in all of these media since their early inception. The first megahit movie was basically a Klan recruitment video. The first issue of Captain America had him punching Hitler in the face, and his best runs have been about the line between patriotism and nationalism. Radio’s finest moment may have been when the Superman radio serial humiliated the Klan. I could go on.
But then again, the same people who rant about ‘politics infecting my media’ aren’t mad about V for Vendetta being an ode to anarchy. They somehow manage to love both the Winter Soldier and the Dark Knight despite the fact that the two movies give pretty much opposing views to the concept of citizen surveillance. They have no problem with the fact that most realistic shooters have a political message being ‘the only solution here is to kill brown people’, or the fact that winning a game of many flavors of Civ often requires you to embrace ecological responsibility.
What bothers them – the thing that gets them riled up – are putting a woman in the battlefield in World War 2. Having the two leads of the new Star Wars films not be white. Making Thor a woman. Giving Iceman a gay kiss. Making Heimdall black. Having a female Doctor Who.
They’ll criticize these as decisions driven by ‘politics’. They aren’t, really – in most cases, they are decisions driven by a desire of media creators to leverage diversity to reinvent their brands and expand their markets. But the results ARE political, and by attacking these as bad politics, the outrage junkies are making it clear which politics they prefer – one that leads to a world where straight, white males are the only significant movers and shakers.
Gee, what political movement does THAT sound like?
If people consistently say something there is a good chance they’re on to something even if it’s not exactly what they’re actually saying. You might think of the inverse of this scene fro m Stilman’s Barcelona
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIbg7oiXECE
People are really talking about the “text” of games more than the subtext (as you talk about with The Sims).
They exist in the board gaming space too, claiming “SJWs are ruining board games these days with politics”. Even though the original Monopoly from 115 years ago was created by a leftwing feminist as a warning about the evils of unchecked capitalism.
Of course, Monopoly only became really successful when Parker Brothers stripped the game of that political text and created a very different set of ludic texts and subtexts.
They somehow manage to love both the Winter Soldier and the Dark Knight despite the fact that the two movies give pretty much opposing views to the concept of citizen surveillance.
– leverage diversity
Why doesn’t the concept of “diversity” as practiced by popular culture get examined as a political concept? Leveraging Diversity could mean a whole mess of different ideas it doesn’t mean in practice (e.g. I’m thinking of an old article praising of Fallout New Vegas for it’s use of Religion in Honest Hearts DLC). Anyways, it does seem that “gay Iceman” style controversies is dealing with swapping text not subtext or politics embedded in game design.
Yes. People accept this sort of “political media” while rejecting another sort. Of course, the flip side is that I’m deeply unimpressed with WS as a homage to “70s political films” such as three days of condor (Fiege’s comparison not my own). People will engage with political content if they can also enjoy media on a apolitical level without politics being “rammed down their throats..” I imagine The Dark Knight would have been less well received if people saw a billion think pieces championing how “Bush did nothing wrong” as reflected in the film.
– The first issue of Captain America
“punch Adolf in the jaw” isn’t a strike into deeply contentious domestic ethno-cultural issues. A quality argument about “politics in media” needs to deal with this sort of discrepancy.
– They have no problem with the fact that most realistic shooters have a political message being ‘the only solution here is to kill brown people’,
I’ve always found this to be a dumb argument (which also ignores how a huge number of games are really focused on killing russians/slavs as a way to avoid this). It’s often plausible to make this argument but it’s rarely an intentionally embedded argument (unlike ideas behind V or the Nolanverse). It’s nearly always a stretch caused by trying to read politics into something people experience apolitically. Call of Duty isn’t Bioshock. I have no doubt you’ll disagree with this paragraph and it’s a root disagreement centered around “you’re reading the game incorrectly” that has existed on the internet for over a decade. If I’m focused on purely changing your mind it would probably be better to cut this paragraph as it reinforces “culture war” borders.
Hopefully the comment I made didn’t come off as too rambling. I think this is a fascinating topic that is too often given a glib dismissal with a smug retreat to one’s own “culture war corner” and misses capturing the lived experience of all sides in these frequently updated debates (why does no one quote Superboy Prime in reference to gamer/comic-gates…this isn’t a social media phenomena).
Not too rambly, the blog just has a spam problem so I have to have everything require approval.