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New COD under fire on Twitter for allowing they/them pronouns as performative .
- Thread starter Phendrift
- Start date
imo treyarch should simply Don't make games about how war crimes are cool and John Birch Society-style paranoia is correct and then people will probably give them less of a hard time
They already did JFK. If you are covering Cold War, especially in the 80s, Reagan is it unfortunately.
Basically yeah. I'm not looking for my Queer Rep in their weird military marketing propoganda corporate art; I'm just here to enjoy the irony
They already create fictional Arab, African and Slavic leaders to be the bad guys. There's no reason why they couldn't just do an alternative history and make a fictional president for the Cold War. But leaning heavily into "history" will open you up to criticism like we're seeing now.
FYI Reagan was around a lot more recently than that. It's not too improbable to think there are still people around who were personally victims of gender identity and sexuality that will play this game.
I guess the alternative would be not to write a dumb fucking narrative, but when the games want to push a pro militant narrative I guess that's harder?
Call of Duty: Blackest Ops will release in 2040 in which the protagonists, a group of special operators, will be called by President Trump in 2020 to form a special group to investigate COVID-19 and unveil a terrible conspiracy involving Russia and China to destroy the world. To avoid controversy and show inclusiveness the whole squad will be formed by black people.
I thought "them/they" are referring to a group of people, not just one person? The Call of Duty games arent centered around just one character, after all.
Wow, you have...really no idea what this thread is even about, do you?
It's been confirmed that in the game, you can choose a non-binary gender. As a result the pronoun people use for you will be "them/they".
I admit I don't know a lot about the history so I will say sorry and move on.
v. upset to learn that CoD 2021 is not going to be realistic at all. Sad departure for the series.
Advanced warfare was far removed from real life politics and the villain was literally Kevin Spacey as a corporate overlord so that opens another can of worms
Treyarch makes great games but their plotlines are always absurd and over the top. I wish Call of Duty could be used to tell a more progressive, anti-war story but maybe that's just not possible.
Yeah there isn't much you have to work with lol. It's walking into a shitshow either way, and outrage culture will find a way to be upset no matter what.
Reagan doesn't use non-gendered pronouns: people are upset that COD isn't progressive in year 2020 and ask for this added in future entries.
Reagan uses non-gendered pronouns: people are upset that COD is propaganda because Reagan would have never said those things.
I mean, Elliott Abrams - as just one example, who was found Guilty during the Iran-Contra scandal, is in the CURRENT Trump Administration in roles as Special Representative for Venezuela and Iran
The Reagan era had massive effects still felt today and never forget he ran the original Make America Great Again campaign, straight-up Fascist rhetoric, which goes without saying.
Yes these are the only two choices. You need Reagan giving a rousing speech about how commiting heroic war crimes is a defense of freedom. It's a mandatory game design step after all; totally essential. So then you have to make a call on the pronouns and it's lose lose cus of that damn outrage culture. If only there were some other choices you could make, but sadly there are not.
I don't think anyone should really be surprised at this point about what Call of Duty is and has always been. I mean, this game series has been running for 15+ years, with at least one game every year. It has always glorified war, patriotism, and nationalism. It has almost always glossed over or revised history. It has almost always excused literal war crimes and war criminals. It has always lionized soldiers and national leaders, even when those people were shitheads. This is just what the series is, and probably what it will always be. I don't see a way that you get away with a game named "Call of Duty" and make it about how war is genuinely bad.
I'm admittedly a huge fan of the series for its multiplayer gameplay (I couldn't give two shits about the campaigns and the story, I honestly don't even play them most of the time). The games are and always have had problematic elements at best, and have been downright awful at worst. I don't blame anyone for hating it. I'm just kind of surprised the "fuck Call of Duty" backlash took this long.
I'm admittedly a huge fan of the series for its multiplayer gameplay (I couldn't give two shits about the campaigns and the story, I honestly don't even play them most of the time). The games are and always have had problematic elements at best, and have been downright awful at worst. I don't blame anyone for hating it. I'm just kind of surprised the "fuck Call of Duty" backlash took this long.
He was the President at the time. Thats probably about as much thought as went into this. But yeah, it terribly tone deaf to say the least lol
Perhaps they shouldn't put war criminals' likenesses in games in the first place. But nah, it's just Call of Duty Cold Propaganda anyway.
The world is weird when they think they're being progressive for putting gender neutral pronouns in games but also putting Ronald fucking Reagan in it.
The world is weird when they think they're being progressive for putting gender neutral pronouns in games but also putting Ronald fucking Reagan in it.
There are some English guides that insist that, but in reality, "they" and "them" has been used to refer to a single person without specifying gender for a long time; at least 700 years. Everyone will understand a singular "they".
It was always bad, but they are getting bolder and bolder into directly glorifying alt-right rethoric.
I'm glad people who are non binary get to use the pronouns they want to.
But also, COD is trash for turning war into something idolized.
But also, COD is trash for turning war into something idolized.
For all we know Reagan could be a sleeper Russian agent. I think we should wait until the game comes out to judge. I watched the trailer and didn't think much of it. Them adding they/them pronouns was probably not the best idea considering it's a period piece and I can see why people would be annoyed by it considering it paints Reagan as a "favorable" super open human being which he wasn't.
Reagan is a war criminal who allowed thousands of lgbt people to die during the AIDS epidemic because he's a bigoted piece of shit. Also the Cold War didn't take place in the 40s.
We have enough Call of Duty games to judge though don't we? It's pretty clear what they are.
President Reagan won the cold war 2 against the Nazi KGB spies and saved freedom and now these enby children are disrespecting him?! This snowflake generation smh. Bush should've sent more of them to Vietnam.
I've seen the criticism of using Bezmenov in their marketing (including the tweet you embedded earlier in the thread) and I just don't buy that including video of his interview in their marketing is some kind of far-right dogwhistle. I realize the dude himself is a total shithead and floated some awful ideas, but as it is used in the teaser trailer I see it more of a warning about tactics used by foreign powers against the US, and I don't think it really has anything to do with the leftist or Marxist ideology stuff. And I think they used it because it's interesting how we have factually seen many of his warnings play out in real life. It's an undeniable truth that Russia has attempted to sow chaos and discord in foreign nations, including the US, through contributing to social unrest. (And yes, I'm sure the US has done the same or similar things. Everyone is bad, I get it.)
You can say I'm being naive if you want, but I genuinely don't think anyone involved in making these games is saying "haha, we'll sneak this anti-socialist messaging into our game, this is how we get them!"
I mean the last like 7 or 8 games have all been based on completely fictional events, countries and wars. Obviously the game glorifies military and shooting but I really don't think they have portrayed shitty politicians in a positive light.
There's male, female and Classified. Classified is referred to as them I believe.
I wish my gender was classified. It would make for some cool forms
The series is famous for its death screens featuring quotes from famously wonderful human beings such as Winston Churchill and fucking Robert E. Lee.
No, it didn't. The event that happened in-universe referred to as the "Highway of Death" is a completely separate fictional event from the real-life "Highway of Death" that the US perpetrated. The game never attempts to conflate the two events beyond the use of the name. It's possible that it was an unfortunate accident, it's possible it wasn't. But either way, the game was never trying to say "this real-life thing that happened, perpetrated by the US, was actually perpetrated by the Russians."
I know this sounds stupid and like splitting hairs but I think it's important to clarify because I see this claim thrown around a lot.
What are you even talking about, what does this war crimes speech have to do with gender pronouns?
There's a difference between "realistic" and white washing us history.
Why are we presuming Reagan is a good guy? He happened to be President at the time this narrative is told a bad one. Also why are we presuming that the game allowing players to be gender neutral means characters it will have more than a superficial implementation.
Bezmenov, the dude used in the Trailer, was a real person nutjob that spread the conspiracy about leftists, feminists and minorities were some kind of Russian inside job to destroy the american society or something. And the trailer uses civil protests imagery to show how that 'conspiracy' is working and how he issued a chilling warning about all that.
The problem with what are you saying is that they are using civil right protests to show how the Russian are 'destroying' the american way of life or something. Maybe is not intentional, maybe the team are not a bunch of alt-righters, but the message is there even if that wasn't the intention.
Not complicated mate? You said "it's a shitshow either way theres no pleasing the outrage people". My point is that, like, they didn't need to put Reagan in the game at all. There were options other than the two you listed.
why is that an issue? It's not real. I think this is getting kind of ridiculous where we can't even have fake made up wars. Movies, books and television do this all the time.