Video: Adam Sessler Calls Out Infinity Ward On His Latest "Soapbox"
This weekend's Modern Warfare 2 offensive viral video fracas has gone way past just GayGamer. Many other sites have come out to express their dissatisfaction with the video which used a "hidden" gay slur in it's messaging. The video has since been pulled but it left a lot of people wondering how it got produced and approved in the first place.
G4's Adam Sessler has joined the fight with his latest "Sessler's Soapbox." Adam has been a long time friend of GayGamer and has always been outspoken when it comes to issues of gay rights and hate speech. This time is no exception and once again he comes out with both guns blazing.
Thank you, Adam, for all you've done and continue to do to help make the world of gaming a better place to be.
Fruit Brute
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games, Videos on 5 November 2009
· Comments (13)
Other stuff like this: call of duty, hate speech, infinity ward, slur, video
Awesome breakdown Adam!
I'm not a fan of FPS games [bar Timesplitters], though, so I wasn't gonna be picking this game up anyway.
I should watch the 'Soapbox' more often...
Always been fond of Adam and Morgan, the only remaining people from TechTV.
Good for him to again stand up and voice his concerns over the video.
Very well said, Adam. Bonus points for acknowledging the fact that this type of horrible behavior is far too common on XBox Live, when it seems like everyone else would rather just sweep it under the rug.
The only thing more offensive about this whole debacle than the viral video itself is how much free press IW has gotten for their bad behavior.
Bleeping out 'shit' in that video I can sort of understand... though it wouldn't happen here.
but... bleeping out 'hell' at the end? O.o
Adam constantly amazes me with how outspoken his has been for diminishing such hateful speech and his obvious support of equality across the board.
With that said, I'm aware that G4 as a network, as well as this site, as writers - both of which who make your income off of the industry - has to keep in good company with these big companies. But I'm sorry - I'm not buying IW's excuse of how they didn't realize it. It's not like it didn't take any effort from editors and vfx people to put the video together. They damn well knew what they were playing with, they made and OBVIOUSLY bad call, and now they won't man-up and accept responsibility. Instead they're trying to back peddle and say how unfortunate it was, and it was an error that slipped past them. An acronym that spells out such an obvious word got by them.
FUCK THAT. They owe a real apology. And I wish the writers of this blog/Adam/G4 would be a little more serious about that part of this 'situation.' But again, I realize why they aren't being more directly called out - everyone needs to remain cordial between each other to keep business moving along.
While I appreciate Adam's intentions, but I still think people are still going about the wrong way. I still believe that trying to tell people what they can and can't do isn't going to get them to accept us.
People know what they're doing when they say Fag. They're trying to hurt the other person, regardless of whether or not they are gay. It's an insult, pure and simple. You're giving people too much credit to think that they're using the word without understanding that it's hurtful to gay people, and mistaken to think they don't want to. And trying to form and outcry like this is only going to make it worst for us because it just shows them that they can continue to hurt us with three stupid letters.
Randy, as opposed to what? Not saying anything and allowing it to continue? You say that it's "just showing them that they can hurt us." Well, fact of the matter is, that word does hurt, and I don't see how it's any better to be hurt in silence than to try and actually do something about it. I agree that it's unreasonable to think that anyone can change everyone's mind, but to take the stance that it's not even worth trying is just, well, sad.
And just like it's unreasonable to think that you can change everyone's mind who uses hateful words like that, it's similarly unreasonable to think that you can just say "well don't be hurt by that word anymore." It's a hateful word, and people who are offended by it have every right to be, and every right to speak out about it.
This gets a two thumbs up from me. Absolutely amazing. I know Adam is a gay rights defender, but not until now have I actually sat down and watched anything like this of his, and I have to say, I'm blown away.
Rock on, man.
When I hear "lol gay" on World of Warcraft, I don't bother dealing with it. Fighting about that word at this point ends up being unnecessary strife that I won't want to put up with during my entertainment time. If someone's abusive I mute them and report them with a chatlog and go about my business.
But when a company is releasing a multi-million dollar title and will be raking in ass loads of money, I do expect them to be a lot more sensitive and responsible.
This isn't some kid on Xbox making gay slurs, Randy. This is a company that probably has gay employees endorsing a video put together by an advertising agency that probably employees gay people, giving tacit approval to call people an offensive slur in a video game. I don't get how you still continue to try and diminish the relevance of this fact, and the level of offense it has.
And it doesn't seem to matter that the largest outcry about this has been picked up in heterosexually-dominated media and complained about predominantly by straight people-- this is still something that the whiny homos are complaining about and we're somehow hurting ourselves by doing that. Bollocks.
This was a great video. Thank you very much for it, Adam.
Yea pretty much done with this. I am already not buying this game because the lack of a proper PC version ... oh we gave you a graphics control menu LOL. No Console. No DS ... WTF IF. Now this shit????
I have plenty of other good games this fall to play to skip this POS.
Was it ok for south park to use the F word?
They used it in a very similar manner
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/254811
if we learned anything from eric cartman, it's that f*a*g*s are clearly noisy bikers. i really don't think IW would actually be THAT stupid in this day and age, or cole hammels didn't see that and think "hmm". sure it was stupid, and offensive to bikers. they shoulda picked a different word. the brits should also stop calling smokes, fags as well, even if they are burning sticks.