There is currently a very funny, kind of sad dust-up over Helldivers 2, in which self-proclaimed “anti-woke” gamers have previously heralded it as a rare game where they believe “politics” does not play a factor. Their faith was been shaken by an Arrowhead community manager they believed they found to be (gasp) progressive who was then subsequently harassed, but their head-scratching reading of Helldivers 2 as a “non-political” game is worth examining.
The only thing that makes sense is that these players have the shallowest of surface-level readings of the game. You are a patriotic soldier serving Super Earth. You must kill bugs and evil robots trying to hurt your brothers-in-arms and innocent citizens. There are no storylines to insert progressive causes into, everyone wears helmets so no “forced diversity.” Therefore, no politics.
Of course, this is…wildly off the mark, as Helldivers 2 is about the most blatantly obvious satire of militaristic fascism since the film that inspired it, Starship Troopers.
I want to make a movie so painfully obvious in its satire that everyone who understands it lives in perpetual psychological torment inflicted on them by all the people who don’t.
Brutal. He did it too, he did it.
But he still toned it down from the book…
The first chapter is them taking a village of anthropomorphic insects over. They didn’t have any soldiers, it was just a random village and there’s a part where a mother and infant are hiding in a closest, get blasted by a flamethrower, and as the soldier jetbacks away he just shoots rockets everywhere because they get in trouble if they return with any unused ammo.
Just completely blasie about genocide.
Trimming it down to just the one 100% bug race really made it easier to write them off as monsters. But makes sense for a movie.
Those weren’t bugs, those were “Skinnies”, humanoid aliens.
They showed up in the animated series, but not the movie.
humanoid aliens.
I never watched the cartoon, and it’s been a while since I read the book, but for some reason I always pictured them like the aliens in Invincible where they’re humanoid aliens, but bug like.
I dunno. That’s the thing about books, our brains just fill in the gaps.
Yeah, if I saw that movie I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to sign up to go kill bugs after I saw it.
Maybe it should be rebooted as a gritty, Vietnam-esque series.
I mean wasn’t the author of the book saying that’s how things should be run? I had always heard the movie was basically mocking the premise of the book.
Nah, dude was a Naval officer that became disillusioned and wrote Stranger in a Strange Land. Hippies called that one “The Hippy Bible” because, well it basically was.
Then there’s his modern retelling if Job.
Like, if you read the Lazarus Long novels, there’s gonna be some sexism and toxic masculinity, along with some libertarianism shit. But we’re talking late 60s/early 70s pulp SciFi. It would be like judging current media because there’s always sex scenes and huge explosions.
Its rarely there because the creators want it there, it’s there to sell the media.
Starship Troopers is basically about what he feared the military could easily become if it took over the government.
That was kind of Heinleins whole style, you enjoy a book all the the way thru, but by the end everything is completely different and almost unrecognizable from chapter 1.
Paul Verhoeven is about as subtle as a brick to the skull with his messaging, and people still think movies like RoboCop are pro-police
Speaking of which, they made a Robocop videogame recently, too. I haven’t played it but I can’t imagine it goes any better than this game does, as far as authentically delivering the message of the movie. If you’re the cop holding the gun, how does the story deliver the message that police authority is just gang violence done for the rich and powerful?
It’s always going to fly over the heads of conservative chuds no matter how obvious you make it. Helldivers 2 is absolutely blatant with its satire, and people still miss the point. I’ve never played Spec Ops: The Line, but I’ve heard it praised for its brutal depiction of the horrors of war, and people completely missed the point with that one, too.
Some people are so media illiterate that a dictionary to the face would miss them, and conservatives are wilfully ignorant to these messages because it supports their worldview to take things at face value and never dig any deeper. If they thought about things, they wouldn’t be able to stay assured in the righteousness of their hatred or the belief that they’re the real victims of any situation.
Especially brutal considering the average quality of right wing humor in media across the ages, a merciless yet very revealing index of the capacity of the average right winger to gets what is humor and what is not
That’s so much more polite than the commentary that is warranted for that very same capacity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSXKzPOcYDU
Some more news ftw!
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I mean, if he didn’t want us killing bugs he shouldn’t have made it look so cool.
Luckily, our fascists aren’t cool at all.
These are the same people that thought the machine RATM was raging against was a refrigerator or something.
Thats amazing… also Jeez he is old… oh jeez… I’m old…
Also that Homelander was someone to idolize.
Same thing happens with WH40k and GW has to put out memos telling Nazis to fuck off every few years.
Media literacy is apparently difficult
Simple solution tho, ‘american gods’ nailed it.
See, they knew they were gonna have a Nazi problem; having one of the main characters be ‘sleazy grifter ultra american Odin on a quest to restore The Old Ways’ even though he’s transparently a total piece of shit and everyone knows it and hates him. (Especially with an actor that good playing him)
So they added a bunch of really explicit queer Fucking every season. Just gayed it UP. You think the taxi driver doesn’t do anything for the plot? He doesn’t directly. But he does keep the Nazis away for a whole season.
We just need to do this with all media! Just add long explicit queer fucking to everything, with no warning. Yeah it might be boring when the big climactic fight cuts from its beautifully choreographed martial arts set piece to some side character sucking his girlfriend’s dick outside, including foreplay and pillow talk, but I think we can agree; it’s worth it.
If anyone says their favorite primarch is Konrad of the night lords… Keep an eye on em
There are still people who think that Starship Troopers should be taken seriously. This despite the fact that it has Neil Patrick Harris in it, a man who sings and dances in every possible opportunity.
Just the other say I saw a facebook comment saying Starship Troopers is not a satire of fascism but its about patriotism and serving your country
Is there any chance that comment was satire?
Nope
I first saw it as a kid and didn’t like it too much because I took it too seriously. Rewatched it years later and I didn’t like it because the satire was just so way too obvious and forced to be enjoyable.
So I can kinda understand how it could over someone’s head since it did over mine (when I was like 10).
Of course it’s age restricted so you’re not really supposed to watch it at 10. But anyway a 10-year-old isn’t really the target demographic, at that age you’re not going to have a developed understanding of politics yet so that’s not really a problem.
When I first watched the matrix I didn’t really understand what that was about either.
You missed Goldilocks zone for watching it, apparently.
Yeah. I’m hoping I’ll still hit it at some point in my life. The action is and always was awesome, but the overall tone went from way too scary to way too cheesy for me.
I don’t like it because I think it was both bad at being a Starship Troopers movie and bad at satirizing Starship Troopers.
At least read the whole book, Paul. Maybe then you’d have known Johnny Rico was Filipino and that particular reveal was actually a rather important detail when it was written. You did a white washing by accident, you crazy Dutch bastard.
Nazies are too stupid to even draw a swastika properly. There is zero hope they are capable of understanding satire.
I don’t think any cultures spell nazis with an added E but I could be wrong. Nazies would be the Plural form of a Nazy.
A nazy sounds like some sort of cute little thing that old ladies make.
Political = this game contains things I disagree with.
The usual things. Black people. Trans people. Women who aren’t just a set of tits with a gun.
I remember when some of them kicked up about Far Cry 5 because the villains were all white (which was relevant to the games setting) and they accused the devs of demonising white people LMAO
More because they were a white Christian doomsday cult.
Clearly a little close to home for some people out there.
The complaints about Wolfenstein becoming political really took the cake for me.
What? Wolfenstein the Nazi killin game is political? /s
Next thing you’ll say BJ wasn’t killing Nazis for Jesus
"I want to make a movie so painfully obvious in its satire that everyone who understands it lives in perpetual psychological torment inflicted on them by all the people who don’t.”
Wellcome to the post-internet era, where u can no longer tell if that obviously idiotic argument was written by a bot, a troll, your average right-winger or a twitter justice warrior.
Poe’s law was a concern even before its inception by known bigot and casual science fiction writer Edgar Allen Poe. Satire is a corpse animated in allegory to any cause the reader sees fit.
The same thing happened with Fallout: New Vegas when chuds realized Joshua Sawyer is a Socialist
And The Boys with Homelander when they realized he’s a caricature.
Most of them still haven’t figured it out as far as I can tell.
Keep in mind, these are the same people who watched the Colbert Report unironically for years. I genuinely believe that there is a certain portion of the population which lacks the cognitive tools to process satire.
1000% There were some sad posts on the subreddit. I thought they were trolling at first but, no.
Do you mean Joshua Graham?
No, Joshua Sawyer, the Project Lead. He wrote characters like Arcade Gannon, told Gonzales to add dialectics to the Legion, etc.
He has shown up on Communist podcasts and is vocally a Socialist on Twitter.
“I don’t enjoy killing, but when done righteously, it’s just a chore, like any other.”
I never played the game but watched some trailers and gameplay videos. I’m 99% certain that Helldivers 2 is following the Starship Troopers formula and purely making fun of patrionism, propaganda, war, the military, military personnel, “freedom”, heroism, politics and military advertisements and turning that into a game. There’s just so many obvious signs, it seems impossible to miss. In other words, it is a political game. Or maybe I just really don’t get either of the two.
You nailed it. It’s 100% inspired by Starship Troopers and is a criticism of US propaganda in the same vein while also being an incredibly fun co-op game.
The only thing you’re missing is just how obtuse some people are. It runs into the same thing as the Warhammer 40k universe, where the humans are obviously just as bad as everybody else, but people praise their fascist military industrial complex society. Either people are so incredibly media illiterate that it makes your head spin, or they’re wilfully ignorant because it supports their worldview. Take your pick, but I go for a little of both.
It’s an easy worldview. Those people need the world to make sense, and fascism and authoritarianism give easy answers.
I mean, the game is really on the nose with its parodic elements, how could they possibly not see that? Just talk to the supply officer ladies in the back part of the ship.
They are full of gems like “the bot society is wholly built on war. If they ever won they wouldnt know what to do“ (paraphrased), or the ministry of truth which ensures all citizens are properly
indoctrinatedinformed, or the ministry of economy which makes sure resources flow to the “most deserving”.Because actual fascists are hearing shit they agree with. Yes, it’s over the top, but they’re also too stupid to understand satire. If they had the critical thinking skills to realize they were being made fun of, they wouldn’t be fascist in the first place. A fun little catch 22.
And the loading screen tip (I think?) saying that the bots are socialists
Poe’s law
See: Does Call Of Duty Believe In Anything?, by Jacob Geller.
Conservatives think they’re the default. They don’t have an ideology, a religion, a sexuality, or an ethnicity. They’re normal. It’s everyone else who’s different.
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So, I think there’s something weird about the nature of the satire in Helldivers 2 that might lead to some problems.
I don’t feel like it’s that controversial to say that the game is pretty obviously ripping off Starship Troopers. Like to a point that goes way beyond mere homage. Now I don’t view this as an inherent problem, because I don’t believe IP should be a thing, but this fact, combined with the way they’ve adapted it into a game leads to some issues.
The game basically has all the aesthetic elements of the satire of Starship Troopers: The over the top patriotism, nationalism, militarism, the devaluing of the individual and life, etc. On it’s own, this is enough for people who have already become disillusioned with the US war machine to get what it’s saying. However, to someone who’s deep in the propaganda that America is a force for good in the world that is simply fighting evil enemies who hate freedom and democracy, there is no cognitive dissonance there. Of course we’re gonna be all patriotic about fighting against some big bad enemy that’s threatening us.
Not that people didn’t also misunderstand Starship Troopers, but a key difference it has in driving it’s point home is that moment at the end of the movie when they capture one of the bugs and learn it feels fear and then they all cheer. We see that no, the bugs aren’t some unthinking monsters bent on destroying us, they’re intelligent creatures and we’re the invaders, but the people are so indoctrinated at this point that this fact doesn’t even phase them.
Helldivers 2 doesn’t really have that anywhere within the main “text” of the game. Sure, you can read some lore and get a bit of that from some conversations with NPCs on the ship, but that’s not really how people interact with games, or at least a game like this. Most people are going to load into a lobby, pick a mission, maybe mess around with their loadout, then go jump into a game where the bugs ARE horrible unthinking monsters who represent an existential threat to humanity. In the ways the game lets you interact with it, there’s no option where you make peace with the bugs or come to understand the horror of what you’re doing. The bugs are just enemies and you have an assortment of guns and bombs to interact with them.
So since the mechanics of the game itself don’t really mesh well with the message of the satire, what it relies on is either a) You already having seen Starship Troopers or b) You already understanding imperialism, fascism, and recognizing those traits in America’s military culture.
It’s kind of a weird place for a piece of media to be when it’s message only makes sense in the context of another similar piece of media or when the player/reader/viewer already agrees with it’s message.
It’s not terribly surprising that it hasn’t had any success breaking through to the people who need their minds changed.
They kinda threaten to send you off to freedom camp if you disagree with them. The fascisim ain’t subtle.
Maybe I missed it, but do they say that anywhere in the course of the gameplay or required interactions for getting into the gameplay? If it’s missable, it’s going to be missed. That’s fine for some stuff, but if your messaging relies on people with the most incurious ideology actively seeking it, you’re going to be disappointed.
Blaming the game devs for making it not obvious enough is really highlighting the lack of media literacy. The game is not subtle at all, man.
We’re talking about it because it is something people misunderstood. You can’t wholly blame the audience without acknowledging the flaws of the media. Not that they bear no responsibility for their reading of it, but it’s not without value to critique the way the message was delivered.
Idiots will always misunderstand shit, however obvious and in front of their faces. It’s like flat earthers etc. nutjobs.
It’s not that wierd or hard to get dude. For a teen maybe. Please get real. You talk about the indoctrination, that’s what explains some of the wierd reactions. That and teens. It’s a super clear tone you see immediately in the opening cinematic, and not hidden in text lore on the map. It’s humor, joking about very serious things as the backdrop to a coop shooter. Not a wierd place for a game to be in any way.
I wonder if when extreme satire flies over someones head, outside of not consuming the media critically enough, the difference between heavy satire and pantomime can be subtle. A quick example being One Punch Man, I’d categorize that show as a Pantomime of Anime Cliches rather than satire, as while its playing up the ridiculousness of common anime tropes, its clear it’s doing so with a full love of the medium, and indeed the tropes its making fun of
I wonder if conservative fans of One Punch Man miss the progressive politics in there, too.
I’m a Leftist who watched One Punch Man, doesn’t that show imply that gays are rapists and that anyone without a job most be lazy? Not very progressive…
They definitely make fun of the rich though with the guy who’s building has a golden turd on top of it.
I don’t remember any part that implied anything about gays being rapists, what part are you referring to?
Purdy Purdy Prisoner is both gay and a rapist, and the two aspects aren’t presented as orthogonal.
Lol, how could I have forgotten that character.
I never got that impression that the two aspects were inseparable. And he is a very exaggerated representation of a gay man, so maybe it’s that exaggeration that hints at it making fun of those who think gay people are all flamboyant rapists.
Though, I admit it sounds like a stretch.
Given that he’s the only gay character in the show…
This IS Japan we are talking about, anime FREQUENTLY draws black women more muscular than men, and other such shit thats noooooot the greatest
The show’s sole gay character being Putty Putty Prisoner?
I mean if they’re missing that
Super TroopersHell Divers is satire, then probably xDStarship Troopers?
lmao, you’re right, I got the name mixed up with the cop one
The satirical nature of Helldivers 2 is obvious, but in Starship Troopers the bugs flung a meteor at Earth which destroyed a major city and killed millions. I would argue that Starship Troopers has a bit more of a serious vibe with subtle satire, aside from some of the commercials like the one of soldiers giving kids guns. In Helldivers 2 the intro video shows that bugs are killing civilians, which could be true or could be purely propaganda. But yea, anyone who doesn’t understand that Helldivers 2 is satirical is a fucking idiot. It all makes fun of militaristic imperialism, you can literally name your ship “King of Democracy”.
Are you sure it was the bugs that launched the meteor
As per the lore of Starship Troopers, yes I’m sure. There is no evidence even slightly that it was done by humans in that universe. On the other hand, in Helldivers 2 the intro video is clearly staged and prerecorded produced by the “Ministry of Truth” with the statement “scenes like these are happening all over the galaxy” making it clear that it was a staged video.
https://starshiptroopers.fandom.com/wiki/Bug_Meteor
The bugs in Starship Troopers even tried to send another one which was stopped:
"Later, at a certain point, the Arachnids launched a second meteor towards Earth. Fortunately for the Federation, it was destroyed by a Missile defence turret on Luna Base. The meteor would have slammed into southern Africa, possibly at Cape Town. "
So the thing is that it’s not just the movie and novels that should be taken as separate canons, it’s the first movie and everything else built off the movie that should be taken as separate, including the pre release materials.
The novel wasn’t a satire of fascism (and wasn’t fascist either, but that’s a whole other thing).
The movie was, but Verhoeven fairly famously didn’t read the book, and everyone around him knew what “due diligence” means so they did the bare minimum, so all the other material built off it has a different direction.
That said, Buenos Aires was definitely a false flag/accident in the movie.
I don’t know if you know much about space, but a small amount of energy applied to an object at a distant point can have significant implications for the trajectory of, say, an asteroid traveling through space.
We see the asteroid that hits Buenos Aires, and a Federation ship bumps into it in space.
It couldn’t possibly have been on a ballistic path to take out Buenos Aires, that bump would have made it miss.
But, okay, maybe it was just lobbed in Earth’s general direction, and that was just a tragic accident? (This is what the supplementary material goes with btw)
With what technology?
The bugs in the movie show absolutely zero technological use. Not one bit.
These are the questions Verhoeven wanted you asking. They’re also the ones every other bit of material ignores, despite the clear criticism (if not actually fair to source) laid out by the movie.
The bugs aren’t even in the same solar system as Earth. An asteroid would take centuries or millennia to travel from a different system. The whole premise is ridiculous, which makes it perfect for a satirical false flag.
Yep. That’s what Verhoeven wanted.
Too bad for him the marketing team decided there needed to be some 5d Bug plan centuries in the making to… Kill one single city by sheer accident?
Now you’re applying real laws of physics to a movie which clearly breaks the laws of physics many times throughout the movie, by that logic none of their spaceships would function at all realistically. Just make believe whatever you want at that point, it’s all fiction anyway, I was trying to go off of the fandom lore, now I don’t care.
There’s usually some kind of technological leap that gets around the light barrier in space travel sci fi and fantasy. It’s possible they are just using a “space isn’t that big” model, which would make it possible. The movie doesn’t really go into how they travel, which I was ok with because it is all made up, but I did end up making a “they figured out ftl travel” assumption.
Federation ships explicitly have warp drives in the movie, allowing FTL travel.
That said, Buenos Aires was definitely a false flag/accident in the movie.
Not true.
With what technology?
https://starshiptroopers.fandom.com/wiki/Plasma#Arachnids
Not replying after this as to not waste my time.
Well, I can’t say I’m surprised to find someone going to bat for the movie Federation despite everything in the gaming sub.
Got any opinions on how Caesar’s Legion is the only hope for New Vegas?
Got any opinions on how Caesar’s Legion is the only hope for New Vegas?
There was actually supposed to be lore backing that up, and making the decision more complicated that “NCR good, legion bad” but they ran out of development time
🤢
Also, btw, the game wasn’t “NCR good.”
They’re an openly genocidal republic beset with corruption and slavery with extra steps.
It’s almost like they were a deliberate mirror of America in the Westward Expansion/Pre Civil War era…
But they had the coolest uniform, and that’s ultimately what people care about.
I think for myself using the official movie’s lore to make my judgments, but you can bend it however you’d like.
Funny, because I just actually watched the movie and knew the director’s stated intent.
This could be right and maybe I’m under a rock but I am suspicious of articles that reference dumb things people are supposedly saying without any quotes or citations
I grow so tired of culture war stupidity. Who upvoted this drivel?
