One of the really nasty things that
happens when you get your social justice mixing with your video games
is you start to lump in artistic displays with actual problems. I
will openly admit that, due to video games being a sort of 'boys
club' for so long, that ingrained attitudes and storytelling
techniques will seep into the finished products that represent
outdated and/or harmful attitudes, but there's been a disturbing
trend of pointing fingers at things that really don't need fingers
pointed at. Some of these things range from ham-handed to clever in
their depictions, but they're still just that. Depictions.
In 2011, the sequel to the
amazingly well-received and well-crafted Batman: Arkham Asylum was
released in Arkham City, with a story that spanned most of the
terrifying Rogue's Gallery of the Bat-Family, with cameos from
civilians Jack Ryder and Vicki Vale, the League of Assassins,
Calendar Man and a disturbing Rabbit-masked sequence with the Mad
Hatter. The game expanded on the amazing gameplay and storytelling of
the first in the series, introducing new mechanics, a vast city, and
an entirely new gameplay style and playable female character with the
Catwoman levels. Now, it could be argued that some of the female
characters were a bit sexualized, but that's not what we're after. In
the Catwoman levels, the thugs called her a bitch. Repeatedly. In
anger. This was deemed, on the front page of Kotaku no less, to mean
the game was sexist.
In March of this year, the Tomb
Raider franchise was rebooted. Scripting the new game was one Rhianna
Pratchett, daughter the one and only Terry Pratchett. Gone were the
cheesecake tank-and-short-shorts of yesterday, replaced with battered
cargo pants and sturdy boots. The pixelated boobs that were
nigh-on-infamous were replaced with a more realistic female frame.
The cocky, cold-blooded demeanor was replaced with a young, nerdy
student who was eager to chase her ideas and turned out to have a
spine of tempered steel. The things that Lara Croft endured in this
game would have probably made me give up after the first 20 minutes
or so. Every time I overcame a major obstacle, I felt a sense of
accomplishment for myself, and a sense of awe at the personal
fortitude that this woman was displaying. For context, this island is
full of men that came from crashed aircraft or ships that have washed
up on the island under similar circumstances to how Lara's ship was
marooned. In the pre-release trailer for the game, one of them
corners Lara, clearly intending her harm. For a half a second, his
hand rests on one of her hips. The public outcry overwhelming. Lara
Croft, rape victim. Rhianna Pratchett was crushed when she found out
that's what people were taking away from her story.
That same month, Bioshock Infinite
was released. The setting was a city in the sky founded by a
religious zealot and set in the year 1912. The game was gorgeous,
with a deep storyline, a fantastically well-crafted companion AI, and
an ending complicated enough that Casey Hudson over at Bioware was
probably steaming as the ending credits rolled. The Bioshock series
has always dealt with serious political, social, and religious themes
in a very serious manner. Bioshock Infinite was no different with the
city of Columbia, a display of American exceptionalism run rampant.
The city was a product of its time, with the wealthy white folk
enjoying the carnivals and clean streets, the Irish providing the
bulk of the manual labor, and the black population relegated to
cleaning toilets and using servant's entrances. I think by now you're
probably seeing a trend here. There were people that latched on to
these things and decried the game and its creators as racists.
Now, I feel I'm getting a bit
long-winded on the subject, so I'll take a break for the time being,
and you'll get further ruminations on this in my next installment.
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