Offensive? I thought that was the point. Okay, now the rest... Your logic and ideas are correct on the surface. But they are far from true. Yes, maybe they shouldn't be shoving a founding father onto a poster with negative messages. But they can, it's the message, the propaganda matters, not the truth. The world of Bioshock is based around propaganda and making the ideals of a people VERY VERY obvious and at the same time point out how it is false. As for the no foreigners imagery, the US had the chinese exclusion act in place in the 1890's we stopped immigrants of all kinds from europe coming into our country too. We stopped people and did the SAME thing with less propaganda.
Does anyone else find Bioshock Infinite's propaganda posters offensive?
- Thread starter Hammartroll
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Not sure if serious.
Did you play the original Bioshock? It was a mockery of Randyan objectivism, or a follow of it anyway, showing how a civilisation would tear itself apart (or how even the greatest minds needed some dunce to mop their shit out of public toilets). Add plasmids and civil unrest as a result of a poor government becomes all out war.
This is pretty much the same, taking a dig at the politics.
It's meant to show a broken side of the policies, the bad side, the side where things can go wrong. That's the entire point of the games (even 2 followed suite with it's approach to socialism).
Sorry to join the bandwagon because you seem to be relatively knowledgeable but mate, you've missed the point, missed it by a long shot.
Did you play the original Bioshock? It was a mockery of Randyan objectivism, or a follow of it anyway, showing how a civilisation would tear itself apart (or how even the greatest minds needed some dunce to mop their shit out of public toilets). Add plasmids and civil unrest as a result of a poor government becomes all out war.
This is pretty much the same, taking a dig at the politics.
It's meant to show a broken side of the policies, the bad side, the side where things can go wrong. That's the entire point of the games (even 2 followed suite with it's approach to socialism).
Sorry to join the bandwagon because you seem to be relatively knowledgeable but mate, you've missed the point, missed it by a long shot.
1. You missed the point
2. The US had a fairly enthusiastic program of sterilising and lobotomising largely harmless people, sitting there and denying it is disingenuous at best and downright offensie at worst.
2. The US had a fairly enthusiastic program of sterilising and lobotomising largely harmless people, sitting there and denying it is disingenuous at best and downright offensie at worst.
Lmao I think you've missed the entire point of this game, but well done for making an ass of yourself on the internet 
Did you create an account just to call him out on that?Maria Summers said:Lmao I think you've missed the entire point of this game, but well done for making an ass of yourself on the internet
Look up the Emergency Immigration Act 1921 and the National Origins Act 1924, they may not be the time period represented by that poster but they definitely represent the values expressed by the poster and the views of the people of the time period. If an immigrant couldn't be used for a slave they couldn't be used at all was the mindset of the people, whether it was the mindset of the politicians or not. Who politicians are matters jack shit when they're being interpreted by the people, so when you get extreme right wing ultra-nationalists and combine the mindset of the people you get Columbia.
I think you're forgetting that Columbia represents the very bottom of right wing USA. They're the xenophobes you see on TV asking what's being done about the immigrant problem made worse; they're the guy who stares at you while you eat because you look a little too 'coloured' to be a WASP made worse; they're the prick under the hood made worse. That is what Columbia is, not the US directly.
I can see why you may be offended, but I think you're both missing the point and taking the poster too personally.
I think you're forgetting that Columbia represents the very bottom of right wing USA. They're the xenophobes you see on TV asking what's being done about the immigrant problem made worse; they're the guy who stares at you while you eat because you look a little too 'coloured' to be a WASP made worse; they're the prick under the hood made worse. That is what Columbia is, not the US directly.
I can see why you may be offended, but I think you're both missing the point and taking the poster too personally.
Lol na just couldn't remember my old login infoRealitycrash said:Did you create an account just to call him out on that?Maria Summers said:Lmao I think you've missed the entire point of this game, but well done for making an ass of yourself on the internet
Alternate history. Caricature. The game isn't out to make a political statement, it's just creating a world that is defined by extreme versions of some viewpoints which were sadly present at the time.Hammartroll said:
Hm, I can liken this to the 'British National Party' (basically a single-issue party focused on migration policy; it is often accused of being racist and being pro-Nazi/having Nazi sympathies) whom used the image of Winston Churchill in their propaganda for their party:
Britons who were against BNP party policy took offence. So I can understand how people may take offence when certain 'sensitive' aspects of their country's history are used as propaganda.
Britons who were against BNP party policy took offence. So I can understand how people may take offence when certain 'sensitive' aspects of their country's history are used as propaganda.
As one of the offended Britons, I can confirm that. Still there's quite a difference. Though you might not think it to look at their ridiculous troll logic, the BNP are/were a serious political party. By contrast, Bioshock's Columbia is totally fictional, hell, it's intended as a perversion of America's founding ideals.the_honey_badger said:Hm, I can liken this to the 'British National Party' (basically a single-issue party focused on migration policy; it is often accused of being racist and being pro-Nazi/having Nazi sympathies) whom used the image of Winston Churchill in their propaganda for their party:
Britons who were against BNP party policy took offence. So I can understand how people may take offence when certain 'sensitive' aspects of their country's history are used as propaganda.
It might also be worth pointing out that Churchill was a steadfast imperialist who supported colonial control of India, just like the Founding Fathers were far from spotless. IMO, work portraying them as racists or Churchill as an oppressor would have a strong, though probably exaggerated, grounding in reality.
Themstocles? as in the Athenian general that fought in the Persian Invasion circa 500BCE?kidd25 said:
What does he have to do with the Bioshock games at all?
I agree, it's why I won't be buying this game. Too many Liberals in America have a tendency to ludicrously exaggerate their portrayal of Conservatives into Nazi like Strawmen. I am moderate, and even I am just outright disgusted by how people like Ken Levine tend to portray traditional America and the Average American. It is a problem throughout many fanchises. Marvel comics entire X-men franchise basically runs on the concept that the average American is stupid and bigoted.Hammartroll said:The purpose of Columbia, the flying city in Bioshock Infinite, is to show the greatness Jeffersonian Democracy can achieve, which is an interesting idea, but the propaganda posters scattered around the city misrepresents it's values. Here's the main culprit:
First off most of the United States founders were Freemasons or at least approved of Freemason beliefes, and for the most part Deists. Freemasonry encouraged equality among all groups of people no matter their backround or religion, so having a picture of a founder refusing people entrance into the US simply because they're foreign as well as holding Christianity up as the prefered religion misrepresents American values, both in the 1700s and 1900s.
And to further examplify my point I want to refer to the poem "The New Colossus" which was written in 1883, a point in time very close to when Infinite takes place (basically the guilded age), and was engraved on the Statue of Liberty (which was pretty much a huge welcome sign to foreigners) in 1903.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
Now take another look at that propaganda poster, does it really represent American views or values? It obviously dosen't, infact it's an insult. It's a perversion of what the US really did stand for. I can understand making a modern political commentary about immigration even if I don't agree with the stance; just don't act like it's our founder's fault.
I also want to point out how inconsistant an idea it is to have a flying city designed to show off and encourage Jeffersonian Democracy to other nations around the globe, but have posters telling those people they're cretans and to stay out. Columbia might as well be a giant flying middle finger.. and posters like this certainly dosn't help:
I understand there was a eugenics movement in the United States some time in the 20s, but it's purpose was to breed out the crippled and mentally ill, basically burdens of the state, not promote a particular race; that was just the Nazies. So once again the game is wrongly portraying the US as racist.
I know the US has been involved in some questionable activities both today and through out history, but to miscontrue us as total bad guys and disregard the strides in equality and humanity America has made is just looking at things in black and white and if anything, it's a sign that the creators of this game are victims of anti-American propaganda themselves.
