this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2024
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I know you aren’t actually interested in hearing any more examples, so I’ll keep this short and name the example that comes right off the top of my head: Timespinner. Every bad guy is a straight white man and none of the characters considered sympathetic are more than one of those three things. And its writing is the worst thing about it.
If you’d care to show me some examples of games which are recent, western-made, high-budget, and have a white male protagonist who isn’t constantly getting put down by the game’s own narrative to prop up someone more politically correct, I’d genuinely love to hear them.
I've never heard of that game so I looked it up...do you mean the 8bit game released in 2018 that was made by a single person and got mixed reviews? I believe you that the story may have been obnoxious, but is that the best you've got?
I'm not sure why I have to come up with high-budget Western games if that's your example and I'm struggling to even think of any recent games with a protagonist you couldn't customize.
I looked through the a bunch of Western games from 2021-2024 and the only ones I saw with a fixed main character were:
GTA V (male)
Far Cry 6 (female)
Alan Wake (male)
Jedi Survivor (male)
Tell you what, I’ll concede that yes, that was an unfair thing to ask. I asked it specifically because those sorts of games are the ones that people complain about the most and I was feeling irritable that day. Instead, I’ll simply ask you to consider that, in the same vein, it’s equally unfair to demand specific examples of games being “political” (which, I will reiterate, is not the same thing as a game being about politics).
I believe this for two reasons. First, because bigoted sentiment doesn’t have to be overt to be noticeable - or, alternatively, game developers at least believe that to be the case, because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t feel the need to make public statements about microaggressions. Second, because when people notice something that they consider prejudiced against them or their way of life, due to the way cognitive dissonance works, their brain will have a tendency to block out that memory unless it’s something so exceptionally angering as to be worth ranting about online. Combined, these cause a situation where a person will eventually feel discriminated against at an institutional level, but will not be able to articulate why, because the only examples they can name are the especially bad ones that get dismissed as outliers (Spider-Man 2’s “no removing the pride flags” controversy, Suicide Squad’s female-on-male sexual harassment, Starfield’s “FUCKIN’ PRONOUNS”, etc.)
By now you’re probably already thinking, “yeah, that happens with racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia too, what’s the difference?” Which is a fair point. The difference is that when someone says those specific forms of bigotry are happening to them, people on the internet will typically take their word for it. When a straight white cisgender man says he’s being discriminated against, it gets dismissed as whining, or worse, as deserved on the grounds of “white privilege” or something else of that sort. I don’t even need to give examples of it, you can see it in this very thread. But what those people fail to understand is, anyone who bases their opinions on the belief that white people are inherently advantaged in society is, by definition, a white supremacist.
My post kind of trailed off, but my point is, I believe that the reason the “gamers are all a bunch of racist white boys” angle being spread online by the likes of Sweet Baby is offensive is not because it’s racist against white people (which it is, but that’s beside the point), but because, the longer you think about it, the more apparent it becomes that it’s even more racist against everyone else. It actively works to tear people apart instead of bringing them together, and actively works to undermine the agency of marginalized groups by encouraging them to think of themselves as outcasts or victims of society instead of members of it. No matter how you slice it, the so-called DEI agenda is anti-diversity, anti-equity, and anti-inclusion.
I want to start by saying that I get where you're coming from and I don't mean anything I say here in a rude way. I had similar thoughts (as a white male) during the years surrounding the Me Too movement. My friend's now-wife was one of those annoying people online who routinely misattributed the wrongdoings of some men to ALL men and it really fucked with my self esteem.
But I do think you are, like I was, being a bit oversensitive about it. In the same way that she was extrapolating a data point incorrectly, I think you are, too. (It seems like) You are hearing the vocal minority and assuming it's the prevailing opinion but it is not.
There is absolutely pandering happening in the film/game insustries and some of it is undoubted forced (Blizzard releasing a pansexual then a non-binary character and ...in a pvp game where sexuality/gender are not relevant as a recent example) but the majority of "controversies" I've seen aren't that - simply having a gay/black/female character is enough to rile up the neck beards.
It would be hypocritical of me to assume you fall into that category for the same reason I called out earlier - it's a vocal minority. Not wanting to be associated with that side of the debate is what led me to reconsider my views.
However, I do wholly disagree with one of your points and I will clarify it's not an opinion:
That is not the definition at all. Using similar words, a white supremacist is someone who believes white people should have an advantage in society.
I have always hated the term "white privilege" because it implies that we are getting more. In reality, white people get the baseline and minorities get less. It should be called Minority Disadvantage because in much of the country, they receive less than the baseline.
But the concept is not a myth and it unfortunately applies to many different things...getting loans, proper medical care, government positions...even social acceptance in a mixed race environment. There is an endless amount of examples both historically and recently. This doesn't mean that white people have it "easy" as I'm no stranger to hardships myself.
To me, it was the framing of "privilege" that affected my outlook because I was not personally zooming ahead in life. It made me bitter and jaded.
DEI and the like are not inherently bad when you consider that many people in power DO have racist/sexist bias. We have decades of data showing that white job/school candidates routinely get accepted over more-qualified candidates...and framing it as an "agenda" is a very Fox way of looking at things. Using governments as an example, the ratio of white to non-white political officials is staggering compared to the constituents they're supposed to represent. Institutional racism is absolutely real but to be clear, it doesn't mean that everyone is a bigot. There's just an inherit bias that a not-insignificant amount of people carry. DEI is about shaking that bias and to help the less-intelligent people among us see that we're all human.
So to wrap it up, we are both bystanders expected to pick a side between two small groups of vocal whiners accusing the other of being bigoted when the reality lies somewhere in the middle. I believe that there was a lack of diversity in games/films and that big steps have been made in the right direction. I also believe that some developers/producers are awkwardly inserting diversity as a means to make more money but the "woke" is a bad descriptor for the vast majority of media with non-white male characters. I believe that women and minorities suffer from our white male-centric society and that it's important to change that without hurting the white men who aren't actively keeping people down. BUT I don't believe that having a female, black, gay, or whatever protagonist in a game hurts anyone at all.