#Like good grief. I’m a tree-hugging hippie. I don’t want to get messages that say “TRUMP WOULD LIKE TO TAKE A SELFIE WITH YOU” at 9:00 PM

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

So I’ve been getting a shitload of Trump supporter political texts calling me “Steve” with links I never clicked on. And I just got fucking tired of blocking every different number they texted me on, so I texted “stop” on three of them, with the addition of “and if you don’t stop sending these stupid messages to me, I’m going to report you to the police.”

I got four “you have been unsubscribed from this call list” messages — not instantly; within a minute — as if someone had read them.

[theheavymetalmama]

I’m going to regret this...

Because old memes die hard...

Oh, I’m going to get some riveting emails for this, aren’t I?

I realize this is a volatile subject and that no shortage of people would sooner dunk their heads in a giant anthill before bringing this up in any forum or discussion. And for once, I agree. This is something I really don’t want to talk about, as I’ve been down this particular rabbit hole before and all I got was nothing but grief, with some people still butthurt at me and still give me rations of shit to this day because I had the audacity to suggest that if AAA developers so desperately crave an audience expansion like they always bang on about then maybe they should reach out to audiences besides young straight white men and small boys and that women and girls~as in one half of the world’s whole fucking population~would be a good place to start. Seriously guys (you know who you are,) it’s been one third of a decade since then. Cry a river, build a bridge, and get over it!

Anyway, like I said, I’d much rather not talk about this because no matter what, I’m going to get all forms of shit and glue-huffing guff blasted at me from both ends. In one corner it’s the immovable objects that fight tooth and nail to keep gaming in one specific way and rail against any and all forms of change and innovation while screeching “SJW pandering” at any game where the main character doesn’t look like Nathan Drake or one of his eight billion derivatives and then wonder why gaming is still dismissed as a childish waste of time, and in the other corner it’s the red-pill swallowing, fedora tipping Star Wars haters who branded a movie where Tom Hardy walks into the mist with nothing but a knife and a small bag of homemade explosives against a tank boiling over with gun-toting lunatics and emerged unscathed as “feminist propaganda.” No, fucking really, that actually happened.

Basically what I’m saying is that I really don’t want to do this because all in all it’s a headache I really don’t fucking need right now....but this needs to be said all the same.

So lately there’s been a very loud demand to keep politics and entertainment separate. Everything from movies to comic books and everything in between. Those are discussions in and of themselves, so let’s stick with video-games for the moment. On one hand, I can certainly see where these people are coming from. They say that brevity is the soul of wit, and if that is indeed the case then for all its’ pros the gaming industry employs some of the most witless motherfuckers in entertainment when it comes to writing. Let’s face it, even the good writers in gaming aren’t exactly good at subtlety. However, the fish starts to stink pretty fast once this falls under scrutiny. Let me make one thing perfectly clear.

You can’t remove politics from video games.

No, you can’t. And before you try and argue that video games never had politics before, with the possible exception of Pong and a few Atari games you’re wrong. Politics, or more to the point political views and ideologies, have been part of all forms of media since the dawn of media and entertainment itself and video-games are no exception. You can’t remove politics from games anymore than you can remove the heart from the human body and expect it to still function. Now you can argue how on the nose or how politics and ideals are presented, and you certainly don’t have to agree with them, but they can’t be removed. In fact, some of the best games, movies, comics, books, and whatever are heavily political. Don’t believe me? Well, lace up your shoes and grab your backpack, because I’m about to take you to school. Let’s start with Gears of War.

“What?” some of you are probably thinking. “Gears of War? A game about double-muscled linebackers shooting aliens? Come on, that’s not political at all!”

Oh yes it is. Not only is there commentary between the action set-pieces about how the military mindset of ‘Shoot first, shoot some more, blow shit up, and for good measure bomb them to the stone age and back, then maybe ask some questions’ is a short term gain and a long term loss, but throughout the games there’s an underlying theme about how humanity’s unquenchable thirst for natural resources is what doomed the whole planet in the first place. In this case, a fictional superfuel called ‘imulsion.’ What starts as a ‘dwarves of Moria digging too greedily and too deep and awakening something dark and dreadful’ situation gradually gets worse and humans start getting sick from constant exposure and by the time Gears 3 comes along it turns into a full blown zombie apocalypse. It’s only after humanity swears the stuff off forever and seeks alternative fuel sources when things finally start to get goo...when things finally start to get bet...when things finally start to get less shit.

Still not convinced?

Skyrim ~ The future of both this land and the Empire rides on who wins the civil war. So which side are you on? The side of the Empire that’s ruled and controlled by snobbish elitists who look down on others? Or the side of the Stormcloaks lead by a xenophobic asshat who segregates people because he thinks Skyrim and everything in it belong to Nords and ONLY Nords? Hmm, elitism or racism. Choices, choices...

Bioshock, 1 & 2. ~ Hey, ever read Atlas Shrugged by the objectivist author and real-life Loony Toon Ayn Rand? Guess what, these games are going to show you how that and right-wing ideologies are big steaming piles of whale shit while you kill spliced up mutants that used to be the people who followed said ideas!

Bioshock Infinite ~ Oh, so you thought that from the first two games and the first half of this game that right-wing politics and theocratical rule are bogus and that the answer lays with the left-leaning Vox Populi, right? Guess what? Fooled you! They’re just as bad as the other guys!

Final Fantasy VII ~ Mega-corporations are greedy monsters who care so little for the planet or the people who live on it that they try and crossbreed humans and monsters by locking them in a glass cage and forcing them to bump uglies (fucking really) and humanity’s only chance is to stop the corporate establishment and bring the green back to the Earth! Oh, what’s that? Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and so on all seem less badass now that you know they’re actually tree-hugging hippies? Too bad, they are.

Resident Evil ~ Speaking of mega-corporations, look what happens when a company that makes Wayne Enterprises look like a simple mom and pop shop is left unchecked and deregulated to the point that they can do whatever they want and almost get away with it; like create an unkillable super-solider to sell to the highest bidder but can’t because the serum to create said super-soldier only works on a handful of genetically specific people and turns everyone else into flesh-eating zombies, mutant dogs, and other forms of Eldritch nightmares that eventually gets so bad the US military is forced to nuke an entire city. Oops...

Doom ~ Monsters and demons from Hell are a motherfucker, but they’re only attacking because a greedy mega-corporation (do you sense a recurring theme here?) decided that wind and solar energy just wasn’t good enough and decided to harvest energy from Hell. Who in the name of Zeus’ BUTTHOLE thought that was a good idea!?

Sonic the Hedgehog ~ Come on. The environmental and pro-conservation messages are so NOT subtle that the Saturday morning cartoon made it the central theme.

The Fallout Series ~ We’d be here all fucking day.

Deus Ex, Beyond Good and Evil, Just Cause, Dead Rising, Call of Duty when it was still good, Mirror’s Edge, Grand Theft Auto, Starcraft, Metal Gear Solid, Saints Row, the fucking Mario Bros., I could go on and on. Politics are everywhere. You can’t remove them from games or media in general anymore than you could stop the tide. Again, you can argue the merits of said politics, the subtlety or lack thereof, and you most certainly don’t have to agree with them, but removing them is not only impossible on a grand scale...it’s just an outright bad idea. Remember Gears of War? They tried removing the politics inherent in the series once and tried to make it a typical AAA shooty-shooty bang-bang dudebro-pandering power fantasy, because the studio that bought the franchise and booted the OG developers away listened to their focus groups of 12 year olds and frat boys said that games making them think made their heads do an owie. The result was Gears of War: Judgement, and there’s only one way to describe Gears of War: Judgement.

And it’s not just video-games. Hey, you know that comic ‘The Dark Knight Returns’ who’s more rabid fans and supporters basically want you dead if you don’t validate their obsession with what’s maybe the 14th best Batman story? Well if you want politics removed from comics then you’d better run that shit along with Watchmen, Demon in a Bottle, What’s Funny About Truth Justice and the American Way, and countless other great comics through a fucking paper shredder and burn the remains because there’s more political commentary and media satire in The Dark Knight Returns than there is Batman.

Or how about the movies? Keeping with comics, let’s go with Iron Man, the movie that kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Oh, a silver spoon-in-mouth billionaire who’s genius intellect is only matched by his monumental ego and his affinity for booze and booty has him so distracted that he doesn’t notice a high-up in his own company is selling weapons to terrorists? Yeah, that’s not political or topical at all! *chuckles*

I honestly could go on, but I think by now you get the picture. Politics are in all forms of media, even if you don’t realize it. Some of the best works of fiction are also heavily political in one shape or form, and the same goes for some of the worst fiction.

Now, I’m only speaking from personal experience here. But one thing I’ve noticed is that when someone says “Keep politics out of video-games/comic books/movies/whatever,” what they almost always mean is “stop talking about problems of women/minorities.” It’s not always the case, but it’s enough of the case to seem like it’s always the case. So Horizon: Zero Dawn was a great game, right? Yeah, it was. But despite selling nearly 3 million copies, a sizable chunk of people never played it and never will because they took one look at the female protagonist and dismissed it as ‘SJW propaganda.’ Which is completely idiotic because the game never brings up social justice at all and the fact the main character is a woman only comes into play during one minor part of the whole story.

That’s not an isolated incident either. It happens pretty much every time a game comes out where the main character isn’t either a talking animal or a 30-something white dude with brown hair, blue eyes, and a bit of stubble on his face. Virginia because the main character was a black woman, Dishonored 2 because one of the playable characters was a woman, DragonAge Inquisition because they argued that women swinging swords wasn’t realistic in a game where dragons and magic exists, everyone dresses like a Judas Priest album cover, there’s two fucking moons, and if you wanted to you could have gay sex with this guy.

And yes, you are the bottom in that relationship because.....fucking duh!

Or for a more recent example, the people who lost their fucking minds because the multiplayer mode in Call of Duty: World War II will feature female soldiers. Because according to these guys the single player mode being a bigger sausage party than Sausage Party as well as whiter than a Starbucks in Toronto just isn’t enough. Oh, and by the way? Anybody who thinks that women and black people didn’t fight in World War II, I hope a history buff as well as the still-living vets of WWII line up and take turns slapping the stupid out of you.

Now you can argue how big this particular group of asshats actually are, but they do exist and they do this shit on a routine basis. They come about all the time and they always the same tired-ass “I’m not racist, but” type of logic when talking about keeping politics out of games. See, they don’t actually care about politics in games. They just don’t like it when someone who doesn’t think like them and isn’t them gets what they want for a change, like a game having a gender option, a female body-type besides “underwear model” being represented, or acknowledging that more than just white dudes fought, bled, and died during historic events, they always find something that doesn’t fit their own narrow worldview and personal “but papa AAA industry said I was his special little snowflake” persecution complex to bitch about. I suppose its’ no surprise, considering these are the same people who are still fighting the tired-ass censorship war from the 90′s during a time where sex MMOs are a dime a dozen and vile, repugnant shit like Hatred, Ethnic Cleansing, and ZOG are available for anyone to just download and play.

But I’m getting sidetracked.

Politics can’t be removed from games. Or comics, or movies, or any form of media. ALL media is political. You can argue the merits and subtlety (or lack thereof) of politics all day as well as debate how on the nose they are, and you certainly don’t have to agree with them. But you’re seriously going to demand that politics be removed from video-games while you have copies of Bioshock, Deus Ex, or The Dark Knight Returns sitting up on your shelf while insisting that politics and social issues were never part of comics/games/whatever in a world where a movie based on the real life event of how a writer used Superman to take down the Ku Klux Klan is being made, I’d say that you’re being just a bit disingenuous OR you’ve been hiding down in the safety bunker for too long and it’s high time you came up for some fresh air.