Helldivers 2’s Politics Appear To Be Flying Over The Heads Of Some

https://lemmy.world/post/14026155

Helldivers 2’s Politics Appear To Be Flying Over The Heads Of Some - Lemmy.World

There is currently a very funny, kind of sad dust-up over Helldivers 2 [https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2024/04/03/helldivers-2-players-given-free-malevelon-creek-memorial-day-item-to-claim-right-now/?sh=42c966c44537], 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 an infant are hiding in a closest, get blasted by a flamethrower, and as the soldier jetbacks away he just shoots to kets 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.

I don’t remember that in the cartoon, but maybe I missed that episode.
A skinny joined the squad in the Roughnecks cartoon. It seems that you missed the whole cartoon.
Or I just forgot 😂

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.

No. It’s a story. It’s a thought exercise. The movie didn’t mock the book because the two have nothing in common really. Really the book is about you need to contribute to society to earn the right to vote. That nothing should be given as it has no value. It’s well worth a read.
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.

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.

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.

If conservatives had any media literacy, they wouldn’t be conservatives anymore.
This is why the humanities are important
Really? I’m fed up with one humanity. Can’t think I can handle any more. 🫠
Oh the humanities.

humanities

Hue-manatees*

Hue manatee

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Because people disagree about whether a certain ideology is desirable, you could have an accurate portrayal of it accepted as positive by its supporters and negative by its opponents. The supporters aren’t necessarily missing “satire” - maybe they see the same thing that the opponents do, but they like it.
conservatives do not comprehend satire

It’s very dangerous to oversimplify your opponents (in a strategic sense). Generalization is also very risky.

Also, to label them as particularly different from yourself/your social group in some way (especially a way that you consider to be inferior) is the first step on the path to dehumanizing them, as a basis for justifying disdain/anger/hatred/etc. It’s far more likely that they have different life experiences from yours which have lead them to understanding the world differently, but are generally similar otherwise. They “do not comprehend satire” in the same way that you do, that does not mean they are incapable broadly.

I never played the game but watched some trailers. 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. Or maybe I just really don’t get either of the two.
You definitely get it. Pure satire.

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.

fascism and authoritarianism give easy answers

Because you don’t have to think about it, big brother does that for you. You just have to cheer the loudest and not ask any questions.

To be fair, some Warhammer writers also don’t understand that they’re writing satire. The Imperium lights it’s spaceships with candles because they’re too religious for common sense, and yet some claim only a fascist government is efficient enough to save humanity.

The Administratum is such a tangled and immense bureaucracy that entire planets are a rounding error to them. Their propaganda says this is because the Imperium is too big to manage efficiently. But the true reason is, fascists are bad at math

I mean, yeah. That was extremely obvious.
Maybe these people are too young to know Starship Troopers. How old is it now?
Even when the movie came out, people didn’t get that it was satire and thought it was 100% serious.
I don’t disagree with this synopsis, but I’m sadly unsurprised that your familiarity with the source material stops at the movie — which, in fact, was preceded (nearly 40 years) & inspired by a (far better) book of the same name from Heinlein. 😅😶
Starship Troopers - Wikipedia

The main difference from the film being that the novel isn’t a satire–Heinlein was being sincere.
You’re not wrong. I have no idea why people are downvoting you

While it is no secret that Heinlein was a closeted auto-fellating fascist with a fetish for ubermensch fantasies, neither is it argued that he was disingenuous in writing the book as unabashed bootlicking propaganda. His earnest attempt to aggrandize the measuring of individual citizens’ worth by hardline nationalism, et al, is precisely why Starship Troopers is an unintentional satire.

The 1997 movie underscores this in its simplicity, and the chucklefucks described in the article above are yet more reasons why the rest of us need to be vigilant against the normalization of this bullshit.

We're dealing with people who read at a fifth grade level at best. They barely understand the text, let a lone the subtext.
They’d have to know what the concept of subtext meant first, and then be able to perceive such, before Even beginning to understand the blatant (to most anytime else in the human species) undertones of eviscerating sarcasm.
I think you are criticizing the movie for not being more overt in its political messaging. As a counterpoint, I think that if it had been more overt, it would have been less accessible overall and particularly to those who most need to be exposed to that message. It’s intentionally subversive, which means that it can exist in homes, in conversations, and in minds where a more direct stating of the same idea would be rejected out of hand.
I apologize if I gave you that impression, as that is incorrect and I completely agree with your assessment: the movie was a cult classic for many reasons that include it being just subtle enough to almost feel sincere but overt enough to deliver the cheeky dark humor that Heinlein himself was too fervent a fanboi to grasp.
Ah, OK… then what did you mean about the book being far better?
Those that don’t need their subversive undertones delivered with the subtlety of an axe handle behind the wood shed might recognize that the book is a far more effective source of multilayered and sardonic humor.
These are the same people that thought the machine RATM was raging against was a refrigerator or something.
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZ202WNUwAAR7YS.jpg](Reminds me of this gem)
Thats amazing… also Jeez he us old… oh jeez… I’m old…
Also that Homelander was someone to idolize.

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.

Does Call of Duty Believe in Anything?

Some time after the looting, the locked gates,the US tank stood idle in a gallerySupport me: https://www.patreon.com/JacobGeller Follow me: https://twitter.c...

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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

The game does of course have a political message, but I think there is a slightly different take that could have merit. The “political” part of the game is to make fun of the interventionist foreign policy of the US. This was a major culture war issue from the 80s to the 2000s, but since the 2010s, the culture wars have shifted towards identity politics. The ‘self-proclaimed “anti-woke” gamers’ are right in pointing out that Helldivers avoids these topics.

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 indoctrinated informed, or the ministry of economy which makes sure resources flow to the “most deserving”.

Poe’s law
Doesn’t really apply outside of text. It’s entire tone of the cutscenes is very blatantly satirical
And the loading screen tip (I think?) saying that the bots are socialists
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.

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

Some people somehow miss the over the top, in your face satire of the Starship Troopers movie so I’m not surprised.

Professional reviewers missed the satire of the movie. Or pretended to as fake outrage sells papers better and being the loudest to scream offense means you’re the most right.

Honestly, I can’t tell anymore what’s an act, what’s shitposting being misread and what’s genuine. There’s no way to tell what’s a widely held belief and what’s a hand full of idiots in the corner being put on blast. Take Forbidden West and Stellar Blade. How many of the people making hours long rants about either actually play games? How can they? They’re spending all their time just chasing the outrage algorithm.

I personally choose to believe the people complaining about Aloys peach fuzz have never seen a real woman