Matt recently noticed that Marvel Comics will be releasing a mini-series this year that contains similar overtones to his Brave New World role-playing game.
In the upcoming Marvel series, superheroes of the Marvel Universe will come into conflict after the United States government begins a program requiring superheroes to register and work for the government. The heroes pick sides and conflict ensues. Marvel's story will surely raise that hackles of conservative cultural critics like Michael Medved and Laura Ingraham, which I am certain Marvel intends to do. No press is bad press. Mark Millar is using this narrative as a social commentary on how he perceives the current political climate in the United States from his house in Glasgow, Scotland (snarkyness intended). Millar discussed the upcoming series with the NY Times and was asked his thoughts:
Are these stories getting too heavy for comics readers looking to shut out real-world tensions?
Not really, say the Marvel writers. "Civil War," Mr. Millar said, will work on two levels: "At the core, it's one half of the Marvel heroes vs. the other half." But, he added: "The political allegory is only for those that are politically aware. Kids are going to read it and just see a big superhero fight."
Forbeck's game, Brave New World was released in 1999 and presented a dystopian world where the Kennedy assassination, or rather attempt, led to restrictions on superhumans and required registration. By the present day, 1999, the United States had become a near fascist regime where a small resistance force is struggling to help America become the country its founding promises. I always viewed the game as a kind of an anti-fascist version of Red Dawn with superpowers.
There are similarities between the two products. Both have supers required to register with the government. Both have potentially noble people having to fight against one another when more justice could be achieved by the noble among them working together. Both are also commentaries on the trade off between liberty and security, a timely discussion indeed.
But where I think they differ is that Forbeck's presentation is more timeless. His game was not a reaction to a perceived climate, more on that in a minute, rather it was a what if asked during a time when no one was really asking the question. Marvel's product seems to be a ploy taking advantage of concerns some people have about the "current climate" of free speech, security, etc. In fact, given the openly discussed political beliefs of most of Marvel's authors, I think it is them using the medium as a means to make topical political argument rather than to entertain.
As I stated above, the importance of the question brought up by Forbeck, is timeless, at least until we live in that magical "Just Regime" where all things are rainbows and flowers. But in the comments discussion following his excited post about Civil War Matt expressed concern that his game could be published today.
I don’t know if AEG would have wanted to pick it up from Pinnacle in the current climate. I recall having to convince a business parter or two that making the cover a burning American flag was the right thing to do. That was provocative back in ‘99. Today, I would have a harder time winning that argument.
As for art and life, I created a world that asked one of the questions that concerned me most back then. It concerns me even more now.
I was snarky above about Marvel and their politics, but I am not going to be snarky about Matt's response. I firmly believe, and I am perfectly willing to admit I could be wrong, that Mark Millar is acting in a knee jerk, predictable, fever swamp, foreigner on his high throne, manner. Matt, on the other hand, I believe is genuinely concerned about the "current climate" and whether or not his game, which asks a central question of political philosophy in game format, could be published today.
And that is what worries me, because I think the fear is unfounded. That doesn't mean that the fear isn't real. That doesn't mean I think that AEG would publish the game today. What it means is that I don't truly believe that the "current climate" is any different than 1999, at least in most ways. I think Matt's game should be republished in a second edition, one that makes clear how much "brick" characters can lift and carry, tommorrow and in a third edition during the next Democratic Presidency. I also believe that there is no formal, official, government, or even broad societal climate of speech restriction.
Sure, I see a lot of movies, comics, books, and television shows talking about how brave it is to speak out against the current administration. But the fact is that I do actually see these things. They aren't Samizdata smuggled from shacks in the Alaskan wilderness or published in secluded, secretive, locations. These are mainstream publications. Free speech, with the exception of the current cartoon conflict, is alive and well in America, and it is deeply loved by America's citizens. Freedom, and dissent, is ringing loudly today. We often hear speakers, like Cindy Sheehan, who mirror Thoreau's comments about Civil Disobedience:
The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others, as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders, serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it.
The only place I find the current climate "silencing" is in the practice of self censorship. Which is exactly what concerned Matt about AEG publishing his game today, but self-censorship is a self-created climate. And one that I believe, in this case, is based on an expected but not existant reaction.
"But what about Janet Jackson?" one might ask.
"The reaction to her wardrobe malfunction would have been the same or worse in earlier times," I say.
Sure, if Matt managed to publish a second edition of his game, or at least get the first edition available in pdf format with those aforementioned rules additions regarding carrying capacity, he would get a lot of flack from many on the right. Some of his critics would include gamers, but one of his supporters would be me.
And in the "current climate" I am often compared with a fascist by people on the left. I am pro-gay marriage, pro-immigrant, pro-environmental regulation, and I am a broad free-speech advocate. But I was also a supporter of Joe Lieberman (no, not of his video game policies) because I have a Wilsonian view of spreading democracy. I agree with Peter Beinart, and disagree with George Bush, that "In the long term, the spread of democracy may indeed promote U.S. prosperity and security. But the long term is not "now." Now, America must promote democracy even though it sometimes collides with national interests. And, because Bush won't acknowledge that--because he won't admit that, in practice, American beliefs and American interests are not the same--his intellectual dishonesty is corroding his democratization efforts from within."
I know that this piece was rambly and snarky, but that's what happens when someone rants. And the fact that Matt was concerned about whether his game, which is great, could be published today pissed me off. It also reminded me that I am in many ways the type of person who Matt might think wouldn't buy his game, and that pissed me off too.
0 comments:
Post a Comment