You can't 'just keep politics out of it'

boing
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I don’t think ad hominem attacks really furthers anyone’s point.

I fully understand that everything is political by its nature, and that no work is created in a social or political vacuum. But on the other hand I also understand that having politics forced on you can be pretty annoying. I’m currently replaying old handheld Zelda games, and if I pause a bit and look at them I can see all sorts of deeper baggage, but I really don’t care, I’m just trying to have some mindless fun. When some on jumps up and starts yelling all this baggage at me, and how my social conscience should be outraged, it does nothing but annoy me. I’m not engaging in this bit of art for the outrage or message; but to kill some time between other tasks.

If that is what you want to get from it, that is fine. There is no problem with people engaging with a work in different ways, and taking home different meanings from it. Life doesn’t have to be a constant social war, not everything has to be approached as if it is seeped in deeper meanings.

I can read a novel just for the mindless enjoyment of it, or I can “deep read” it for all of its subtexts, contexts, etc… Both of these are fine approaches to the same book. This isn’t to say that anyone should ignore the context, or that it doesn’t exist, but there is also no problem with approaching something as a thing in itself from time to time.

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I was going to simply suggest that no-one is yelling baggage at you, but the idea of ZELDA yelling baggage at you is just too fabulous to ignore.

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On a similar note I have zero interest in Battlefield: Hardline no matter how much fun it might be because I can’t stand how militarized police departments have gotten and feel very uncomfortable having any semblance of support in the matter in a fairly realistic game. It would just take me right out of the game every time I ever tried to play.

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I can’t imagine anyone is “forcing politics” on you. I’ve heard this statement a lot lately, and it always confuses me a bit, because it’s usually a reaction to someone writing honestly about their own experiences and observations. You hear it quite a bit in the backlash associated with games that have a “non-traditional” protagonist (i.e. someone other that a cis, white, hetero man in his late 20s to early 30s). Or you hear it in response to a game that examines a perspective outside the “core gamer” demographic.

These developers are not forcing you to think about politics by making their games, and certainly no one is forcing them to change their games to appeal to some social cause. These folks are merely exploring narratives and ideas that fall outside the typical white male experience, and it’s perfectly reasonable for them to do that. They also generally want you to enjoy yourself while playing their games, so maybe think about the concept of enjoying a game while also acknowledging its value as a commentary on some more serious topic.

Lastly, for all of the “social issues” that developers decide to depict in their games, there are people out there who have to think about these issues every day, whether they want to or not. For folks outside the “core demographic”, it’s not a matter of deciding on a “light read” of a book that minimizes their experiences or forgets they exist. Being able to enjoy a game without any consideration for the social implications behind it is a privilege, not a universal feature.

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Try thinking of it from someone else’s perspective, though… Some things might not seem important to you, but when faced with daily issues of gender or race, it’s hard NOT to think about it. When it’s your life, every day, in a hundred little ways, it adds up, and it matters. And it’s exhausting and demoralizing. All some people are asking you to do is to maybe take a step back and think about it from someone else’s perspective. No one is asking you to join a picket line, or write to a congresscritter, or anything proactive… just. Think. You don’t have to stop playing games, or not have a fun little escape. But just maybe take a second to try and see something from someone else’s eyes.

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It’s a subculture that includes, to a large degree, game developers as well. The industry has, until recently (with the indie explosion) been highly successful at self-selecting for developers whose lives revolved around games to the detriment of anything else in their lives (including, too often, sleep). The references for games were other games and the occasional Hollywood action movie. Even the ambitions for games were lamentably insubstantial - games aspired only to be “fun” (something that, as a description of a work in any other medium would be to damn it with faint praise at best, but more likely would simply be a dismissal of the work). Games didn’t aspire to be art - they didn’t even know what that meant. (For the longest time, there was confusion in the industry that “games as art” referred to their graphics being well rendered.) This sounds terrible, but I’d say that up until recently, fundamentally no one in the industry was really thinking about what it was they were making - it was difficult to expect more thought from those observing and commenting on games.

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You’re asking for empathy and compassion. As I’m sure you are well aware, there are people that don’t want to have empathy and compassion for people that are different from themselves, especially when they see themselves as “normal” and don’t want to unpack that backpack of privilege.

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A strange corollary, but functional, nonetheless: Take your forced politics talk to the young women being harassed on city streets…for being women. Or to the young women who’ve gotten message after message to the effect of “show us your tits” when they’re playing online. Or any other woman or person of color who has been, for quite a long time, portrayed as people who are, metaphorically, less-than.

As for your reading a novel “just for the mindless enjoyment”, it sounds like you would get the same thrill reading a telephone book as you might by reading a work by E.E. Cummings or J.C. Oates. In fact, if “mindless enjoyment” means skipping all the context and theoretical linkage within a particular text, then why the hell would you bother to read anyway? Isn’t that kinda the point of reading?

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Yeah, I know, but I got to keep at it. But that’s exhausting and demoralizing, too.

Now I’m a sad panda. Maybe I should be a mad panda…

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Yup. I couldn’t really wrap my head around the statement that politics shouldn’t be part of gaming. I thought the point was that games can be everything to everyone and the power of the consumer was in simply not buying the things you don’t enjoy.

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But that doesn’t stop some influential YouTube personalities from making weird statements like these.

There’s a way of stopping influential YouTube personalities from making weird statements? We need to get on this.

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OT, but: Your name, tho!

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Once upon a time, there was a pond with two fish, a red fish and a blue fish. A man went fishing in the pond and caught the red fish. The hook went in its mouth, and it was dragged out of the water. It flopped and flipped around on the deck, trying to breathe, flapping its gills desperately. It struggled and gasped and, through monumental effort, flipped its body back into the the pond.

It went to the blue fish, fear in its eyes. “Brother!” he said, “There is a place just above us where the water ends and you can’t breathe!”

The blue fish rolled his eyes. “Okay, but I’m just here swimming around and that’s not my problem.”

The red fish was shocked. “No, brother, you see, this water that we are in, it doesn’t go on forever, and it can end! I don’t want it to end for you like it did for me! I don’t want it to end for us both!”

The blue fish put his fins against his ears. “Quick forcing your agenda on me, Red. I don’t want to hear it.”

The fishes swam in circles for a bit. The red fish smiled and said, “Wow. We are so lucky to be in this pond right now, and not outside of it where there is no water.”

“Listen, I really don’t care,” said the blue fish, “I’m just trying to enjoy swimming in circles here, you’re ruining it with your political rants.”

The red fish looked up at the lake’s surface. “You know, we should be careful around hooks. They’re dangerous, they might yank us out of the pond.”

The blue fish sighed and moaned. “Life doesn’t have to constantly be about gasping for breath,” said the blue fish. “Not every worm needs to be approached as if it might have a hook in it. I can eat this worm here just for the mindless enjoyment of it. If you want to hem and haw about this waterless void you’re on about, that’s fine, but I don’t need to care.”

The blue fish took a bite of the worm and was yanked straight up.

The red fish was sad to lose his brother, even though his brother was kind of a dick.

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I think you’re referring to “Spec Op: The Line”, in which the message is in your face to the point that it’s considered to be edgy for the sake of being “Edgy”.

A perfect example of politics in game done right is the Metal Gear series.

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People can overthink it. I don’t think many people do. If you read the article, it’s very clear that most games are too complex to apire to apoliticism. If you want to argue the politics of 2048, I’d agree with you, but people just aren’t. At least not meaningfully or extensively. In the case of Missile Command, the creator actually meant it to be political on some level. Again, read the article, or watch the embedded video from Errant Signal, where they point to games that are EXPLICITLY political.

Then there’s the simple fact that once a work goes out, be it a movie, book, or game; it no longer belongs to its creator. It just doesn’t. Don’t believe me? Ask Ray Bradbury what Fahrenheit 451 is about, and then ask everybody else. Ray Bradbury was writing about television at a time when not everyone had a television. What everyone did have, was fresh memories of Nazi atrocities and news from an oppressive Communist regime in Russia. People are sensitive to their cultural context. Hypothetically: Let’s say that Flappy Bird came out when, I dunno, while people in Ferguson, MO were all uniting under the symbol of a yellow-duck-- it wouldn’t be ridiculous to wonder what the game is supposed to mean. Simplicity, either in graphics or gameplay, is not to be confused with a lack of substance.

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I have no issue whatsoever with people who want to make overtly political games. I actually find it a fascinating exploration of the medium, and sort of refreshing. Most of these games aren’t things I would play normally, but I still respect them. My issue is with people telling me that I need to pay attention to the context of existing games or else I’m somehow “doing it wrong” or socially irresponsible. Sometimes I just want to play a game, and not engage in deep discourse about the “meaning of x”.

And this is fine, until they start shouting and telling me that enjoying something they don’t is a deep reflection of my character. Is there a point where I, as an individual, can say “I get what you are saying, can I now just enjoy something guilt free?”. Being on guard constantly is exhausting, and kind of defeats the purpose of why I play games.

Don’t get me wrong, deep reading is a thing of joy. Its one of the things we do in our house (I went to college for philosophy, and my girlfriend was a lit major). But occasionally engaging in a bit of “fluff” is also refreshing. Sometimes you don’t want to watch a David Lynch or Lars Von Trier movie, sometimes you just want to watch car chases and explosions. Obviously, the best media is both fluffy and deep.

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Being constantly told, in a million little ways that who i am is not good enough, is exhausting, too. Having to be twice as good in order to get basic recognition for what I do is exhausting. Having to put up with discrimination, on a daily basis, is exhausting.

Sorry that having to acknowledge that is so tough for you.

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Yeah, I’m a big Philip K Dick guy. :slight_smile: Also, dogs are nice.

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I’m sorry, is writing articles about it the same as having a gun to your head? Shall I call the whaambulance?

You shouldn’t let random people into your house while you play video games, then. I can see how that would be disruptive. Wait, what? You’re not doing that? You’re just coming across articles and reviews online and choosing to read them? And that’s everyone elses’ fault, how?

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