BrandorKP posted:

I just thought of one that is overtly ideological: Thomas and Friends. But it's conservative.

I mean watch this:
http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Friend...+of+the+diesels

It's straight up anti-union, anti-workers rights propaganda.

E-Tank posted:

Sounds good to me. I don't want to discuss Gamergate or journalism, I want to discuss the messages in the games themselves. And I want to start the discussion with what is in my opinion the biggest piece of triple AAA poo poo that has ever existed.

Call of Juarez: The Cartel.

In the Cartel, you play between three different characters, each terrible in their own right. Early on they say that a character is skilled at their job, but also imply that they only got that job because of affirmative action. The entire crux of the plot is so stupid it almost boggles the mind how someone sat there and thought "Yeah, this would work as a plot."

The entire plot is based around Mexican drug lords coming to America to kidnap women to sell as sex slaves in Mexico. Which makes no loving sense. The danger, the costs involved would far outweigh any possible profits. The opposite is much more likely. If anyone is going to be involved in human trafficking it'd be the drug cartel selling Mexican women to Americans. But we can't have America looking bad so they swapped the villain roles.

There's also a really *stupid* level based in LA, called 'gangbang'. Its about trying to stir up some gang warfare between two gangs and is the only level where every single enemy is African American. It is also the only level where you receive an achievement for killing a certain number of enemies in the level.. The name of the achievement? 'Bad Guy'. So there is literally an achievement for killing 40 black people whom are following the right wing rhetoric of 'violent thugs'.

The game is awful, it's badly done and the gimmick of the co-op (Don't let your co-op buddy do illegal things to upgrade his weapons) makes no goddamn sense because if you're doing that, you're hamstringing both you and your partner. It continues the myth of a cop being the one thing standing between you and a band of vicious animals. It fucks up the history and truth of the Mexican drug cartel wars, which is such a big thing it could do with a topic on this forum all by itself, and it once again ingrains the idea that Americans are better than other people in every single way.

I touched on a few things here but really, I'm gonna credit Extra Credits for most of this. They also have a *really* good explanation and discussion of Propoganda games, found here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP4_bMhZ4gA and the next video they did was in fact on the Cartel where I cribbed a lot of the info.

BrandorKP posted:

It's all CGI now. But a lot the old Thomas stuff had some ideological bias too. All that business about being "useful" engines is very Anglican. Which makes sense because the author of the books was an Anglican minister.

Shbobdb posted:

Many cartoons, such as he-man, present a strongly negative caricature of skeletons.

Shbobdb posted:

Many cartoons, such as he-man, present a strongly negative caricature of skeletons.

Doug TenNapel posted:

When asked on what grounds he opposed gay marriage, TenNapel said, "The same argument I have against letting a man take a dump in the ladies room.
And (sic) office appropriate for one sex isn’t automatically appropriate for another, no matter how much a man loves taking a dump in the ladies room."

Shbobdb posted:

Many cartoons, such as he-man, present a strongly negative caricature of skeletons.

Freakazoid_ posted:

Your argument is going to confuse the gently caress out of anyone still using the sjw->skeleton filter.

MonsieurChoc posted:

Mother.loving.Oliver.North.

KomradeX posted:

I played BLOPS2 thanks to cause I swore off paying for a COD game after BLOPS1 but I was writing an article for my college's politicization political magazine about ideology in pop culture so I played the game just to have some first hand experience and it was Fox News the game, evil wealth redistributing poor and Hispanic people, Christ you go back to Afghanistan in the 80s and and after you beat back the Soviets with the Mujahideen, they suddenly turn on you and talk about how your the real enemy America was always the real enemy and I turned that poo poo off right there I was so floored by that.

Though hell it's not like the Vietnam levels in the first game were any better, but I think those flew under the radar more just because of the popularity of counterfactual back to Vietnam action movies especially from the 80s.

J.A.B.C. posted:

BLOPS felt more like a pastiche of action movies than anything, with the references to everything from Terminator to Rambo to The Deer Hunter and The Manchurian Candidate than any sort of serious exercise in storytelling. It was the opposite of the first Modern Warfare in a decent way, instead playing off the jingoism and military fetishism whereas MW dove right into 'war sucks and the people who make war suck' storyline that was forgotten by MW2.

BLOPS 2 didn't take the hint, and instead of giving us a play on 'future war' media like Universal Soldier or Verhooven 'Starship Troopers', it dove right into the right-wing otherism and 'set upon priveleged' bullcrap. No small wonder why an rear end in a top hat like North would endorse it.

J.A.B.C. posted:

BLOPS felt more like a pastiche of action movies than anything, with the references to everything from Terminator to Rambo to The Deer Hunter and The Manchurian Candidate than any sort of serious exercise in storytelling. It was the opposite of the first Modern Warfare in a decent way, instead playing off the jingoism and military fetishism whereas MW dove right into 'war sucks and the people who make war suck' storyline that was forgotten by MW2.

Klaus88 posted:

It was a thoroughly unpleasant experience that made me ashamed to have paid 50 bux for what seems like a game designed sorely to profit off illegal immigration fear mongering. It was homefront with higher production values, and it made me ashamed to call myself an American.

quote:

I’m going to tell you a little bit about the story quickly and we'll circle around, here. There's this kingdom, an event happens, and the king needs heroes. So, he puts out a call for heroes to gather and one of those is this guy Link. He sees this audition, basically, ‘Heroes needed; apply here.’ And, that's the start of his adventure.

The story calls for this sort of legend/prophecy where heroes will come together to help solve a problem. And in that, they are male characters. So, because the game is set with that as the story background, you cannot choose a gender; you are a male character.

Freakazoid_ posted:

Your argument is going to confuse the gently caress out of anyone still using the sjw->skeleton filter.

E-Tank posted:

You know, just like how movies sometimes get funding from the US Military for showing the army/navy/whatever in a good enough light, you have to wonder if video games can get the same thing. I wonder if that's what happened here. Military soldiers are all good guys, fresh faced heroic American Soldiers who love their mothers and apple pies. They're super human but still human enough to be upset when one of their own gets injured or killed, but not enough of a pansy to let that whole loss of a close friend keep them from going on and killing dozens of russians terrorists nazi enemies of the week.

majormonotone posted:

There was at least one game where Actual War Criminal Oliver North did consulting. Not to mention the game that the Army put out a while back

Black Baby Goku posted:

This thread is awesome. Great job analyzing childrens cartoons everyone!

E-Tank posted:

I heard some kind of good things with Homefront, like it pointed out the pointlessness of it all and poo poo, but yeah I'd heard Ghost was basically Propaganda: Right Wing Rhetoric the video game. Sad to hear exactly how terrible it was. Mind explaining a few of the points that they made?

Randalor posted:

So... you play as the bad guy in COD: Ghosts? Because I was getting a definite "Hans... are we the baddies?" vibe reading that summary.

Klaus88 posted:

I'm not sure how to parse this post.


Oddly enough the new Wolfenstein games are pretty good about not otherizing anyone, even the Nazis.

Where to start?

Well- the enemy has shifted from Russian fascists and Islamic terrorists to :HISPANICS! as we're told that the entirety of South America has united into one giant generically named coalition called, "The Federation". The game completely misses the opportunity to make a ton of Star Trek jokes, which I feel would have lightened the oppressive air that lingers over everything in COD: Ghost.

The narrative centers on a character who happens to be generic white guy number 89857089 and his brother, generic white guy number 89857090. They left such a strong impression on me I can't remember their names. The brother's father grizzled older mentor number 77894735 is also along for the ride, and the story opens with him recounting the story of a previous COD game through a stylized flashback while they're all camped in the woods like TRUE AMERICAN MEN!

Then poo poo hits the fan of course. It turns out the Federation is pissed about petty poo poo like the whole "Monroe doctrine" and CIA hit squads and propping up brutal dictators and have seized control of an orbital weapons satellite. That the United States built. I think weapons in orbit are outlawed by international treaty but this is COD land where such petty concerns do not apply. At which point the Federation blows up a bunch of American cities and kicks off a war.

There is a bunch of game play and boring story and gadgets that make weapons contractors hard but it's not interesting so I'm gonna skip ahead to the next bit of story that is important. The ghosts seem to be some kind of poorly defined special forces that wear very stupid masks all the time and speak entirely in jargon and acronyms. It turns out that the Federation war effort is being led by "GASP" an ex-ghost! Because those dirty spics can't do anything right without a white man in charge. It also turns out that while the Federation was getting on its feet, the United States sent a force to stomp it too pieces and assassinate its leader. Because that has worked out so well in the past right?

Anyway more poo poo happens and you have to blow up an oil derrick that is capable of supplying the entirety of South America by itself in order to cripple the enemy. Someone one to run the numbers on how much of a disaster that would be? The derrick is located in the south pole.

Through some Bond bullshit, you learn that those dirty Feds are making and launching their own orbital weapons systems, and if they come online America is pretty much finished. It all comes down to one big battle and risking the United State's "last Carrier" to seize control of the Feds weapons Satellites. I wondered what happened to the other 10 carriers personally and what dumb gently caress Admiral got them all sunk but whatever. More poo poo happens, stuff blows up, you grab control of the weapons statallie and sink the Fed's fleet and everything is happy and the all go home for apple pie.

There is also a very shameful post-credit squeal hook at the game's end but I won't be wasting anymore money on Call of Duty every again.

PATRIOTIC EDIT: This is all based on a very imperfect recollection of the game and I write best when I just type my thoughts out as fast as possible without really bothering to filter anything so sorry if that makes it difficult to read.

Black Baby Goku posted:

This thread is awesome. Great job analyzing childrens cartoons everyone!

Randalor posted:

So... you play as the bad guy in COD: Ghosts? Because I was getting a definite "Hans... are we the baddies?" vibe reading that summary.

Klaus88 posted:

SpaceDrake posted:

Parsing, understanding and analyzing all-ages popular culture, especially when those cultural products are in fact consumed by all age groups, is enormously helpful to understanding the directions wider culture is going in and what kinds of messages younger minds are receiving, overtly or otherwise. hth.

Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:

Something like this really should be in the OP since it's kind of the underlying assumption of the thread, unless we want to collectively pretend that Jaws had nothing to do with modern societal views of sharks. (protip: Jaws has a lot to do with modern societal views of sharks.)

quote:

But how many "don't feed the bears" signs had to be put up because of Yogi Bear just wanting a pic-a-nic basket and people not knowing bears are kinda dangerous?

E-Tank posted:

Yeah, the BLOPS 2 debacle discussed earlier was it, I think. And America's Army is kind of terrifying because while it doesn't shy away from saying that being in the military is dangerous, it downplays the fact that while you're told 'oh you're the good guy, they're the bad guy' in the game, in reality it's not so cut and dry.

Klaus88 posted:

You poor sheltered soul.



It really is one of those "extremism in defense of freedom is completely justified" pieces of media, devoid of all critical thought and self examination.

Fulchrum posted:

Alot of people think it's intentional self parody at this point.

WarpedNaba posted:

A lot of people are wrong.

Acne Rain posted:

so apparently a producer for tmnt 2012 said “Anytime a girl’s on the show they’re usually too powerful… This happened on Teen Titans… I’ve been fighting it with April to not let her get too powerful… Sometimes guys are a lot cooler and easier to deal with… [With Karai and April as the token bad girl and token good girl] we’re kinda maxed out a little bit.”

Tmnt 2012 got maligned by the usual crowd looking to be offended by something not being what is was when they were kids, just looking at the designs and then crying about how their childhood had been raped, but seasons 1 and 2 were really high quality stuff. It was the best show on Nick since Avatar, really. But the show pretty much turned to garbage season 3. The tviv thread's fallen off the map as season 3 started weak and continued to be noticeably not as amazing throughout. I don't feel like checking at the moment who's in charge of what but it would be really funny if this guy was in charge of season 3 or something because this kind of goes against the premise of how april was reimagined in this series JUST so she'd be able to fight and be useful in the turtles battles and hang out with them more and other stuff.

WarpedNaba posted:

A lot of people are wrong.