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I was there when it happened. I remember it, seared into my mind’s eye like a searing brand. After a year of social turmoil, PlayStation tweeted their support for Black Lives Matter, complete with a theme for your PS4.
Clearly, Sony had been poisoned by the same groups of people who are trying to pressure Spyro The Dragon into a polyamorous relationship with Sweet Tooth and Sir Daniel. Once I’d realized my favorite brand was about to be sunk like when Atlantis crashed into the Titanic, I wept to my Xbox sales representative while making sure the tears rolling down my face didn’t obscure my PIN number as I soaked in my sense of betrayal and self-pity. Why would they support a movement that benefits people, the exact demographic Sony wants to sell Playstation 5s to?
Put down your pitchforks, I’m calling Poe’s Law. But it’s true, nowadays people are so on edge that nearly any mention of real-world events is enough to get them whining about the sovereign borders of fantasy. We got this again with the release of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales when the hero, a proud Black man, got a Black Lives Matter suit located near a mural.
As media outlets reported on it, plenty of comments sections looked like a Spider-Man had just embraced fascism. Which brings us to today’s topic, why do these scummy politics keep working their way into videogames?
Hey so uh. People Matter.
I think the thing most people forget when they’re self-entitledly consuming their favorite media is that there’s a 100% chance that media was made by a person. And unfortunately, nothing is inherently apolitical, no matter how much the authors will try to deny it.
Think of it like shitting your pants. You could stand up, bang your glass with a fork and tell the whole restaurant how you’re sitting on a cigar right now. That’d be actively declaring it. Or, you could just sit there, as every waitress noticeably scoots 3 feet away from your table. You may not have intended to tell the entire restaurant you soiled yourself, but boy do they know now.
It’s the same thing with videogames. Like it or not, your favorite videogame probably has said something political, whether it wanted to or not. And whether subconsciously or not, it probably has a horrible parallel to something in the real world.
- Final Fantasy 7 features a corporation killing the planet for their own profit. They are not subtle about this, like, at all.
- Detroit: Become Human goes with the ever-tired trope of “What if Black People were robots?”, even going so far as to have a poor-taste scene of Clara, the Whitest android in existence, have her suffering validated by a Black woman trying to sneak her over the borders.
- Doom 2016 has a company so devoted to their bad energy source, they start having pre-built alerts for Demonic Invasions that come as a result of messing with something as obviously-a-red-flag as hell energy.
My point is, that political messages are in games whether you want them to have it or not. So maybe you’re not upset about political messaging in general, but about a specific type of message.
Privilege Information
Does that make you racist? I’ll leave that to you to decide. I’m a journalist, not your therapist. But I do know one thing: the ability to say “I want creators to stop injecting parts of their real-life experiences into my consumable media” is one made of privilege.
You may get to think playing videogames is a personality and call it a day, but not everyone has that. Many marginalized groups can’t be who they are without getting into all sorts of trouble, not just Black people. For some, whether they like it or not, conflict over their very existence is a part of their lives. So excuse them if that starts seeping into their work a little.
At the end of the day, it’s impossible to not have at least part of someone’s beliefs show up in their work. And one way or another, that’s going to sometimes be “political”. Maybe once you accept that most of the things you drape over with a naughty blanket of “politics in muh videogames” are actually normal, you’ll stop seething long enough to unpack why seeing two girls kiss or a black fist makes you so angry you go back to Dr. 4Chan’s office.
The idea that your life *isn’t* impacted somehow by “political” matter on default is not the standard, and you’re probably really lucky to be in that position. Or worse, you’re simply not aware about it.
“Just Shut Up And Play The Game”
Of course, there are also reversals to this. In an economy built around hate-clicks, sometimes even supposedly well-meaning people start reaching, making very real groups of people look bad.
Back when GTA V came out, Arnita Sarkeesian made a lot of people’s hate lists for implying that the open world sandbox promoted violence against women because you could, well, shoot women in the game.
It’s extra funny because I would absolutely call Grand Theft Auto as a series that’s way more political than it lets on, with plenty to say about things like Consumerism and the American Government. You could also argue for its misogyny, sure. But promoting violence against women is a little much, considering how at no point does the game ever force you to beat up a woman, unlike its torture scene.
Won’t Somebody Think Of The Corporations?
There’s also people who call on statements from corporations regarding big social issues. This one’s a bit more of a landmine, since obviously the contentious nature of situations would make a lot of corporations less eager to stick their necks out.
From a business sense, staying quiet makes sense. After all, you were probably getting hate mail all the time anyways, making a statement just seems like more work for the same result. Additionally, plenty of people simply don’t like corporations on principle, so them jumping in on big statements can just seem like a quick cash-in since it takes all of 15 minutes to write a half-assed statement of support.
See what I mean? It’s a lose-lose.
That being said, it’s less business sense and more moral obligation. With issues like Black Lives Matter, it is actually a fundamental issue of “do you think these people who make up your consumer base deserve to die?”. In which case, you know what, random corporation? I *would* like your answer on that.
Corporations aren’t real people, but they can have very human values. It doesn’t matter how many minorities your company hires if, during a particularly hard time for said minorities, the company has decided to sit on the fence. As a powerful corporation with reach to spare, you can’t just see a fire and say “who knows? It’s not my place to put it out”.
Take Care Of Yourself
On that note, it’s a dark rabbit hole once you start paying attention to the sociopolitical minefield of media. If you start trying to shed every piece of “problematic” media, you’ll soon find yourself incredibly short on things to like.
I’m not telling you to suddenly start being okay with blackface or swastikas. Rather, I’m just saying: Let yourself like *something*. The rubrics of what’s acceptable, I leave entirely up to you. Like I said, I’m just a voice on the Internet, not your therapist.
But your emotions are very much muscles, and if you spend every waking moment only looking for the bad in things, you’ll soon find yourself forgetting how to enjoy stuff.
And remember, if you’re upset about Black Spider-Man having a suit that references Black issues, that probably says a lot more about you than it does the game.
