Is Madden NFL Just 'Plantation Cosplay?'
RIP John Madden
Sometimes having “a lot of opinions” on something doesn’t mean you should necessarily share those opinions with the wide world—or at least don’t expect people to take your opinions seriously. For instance:
This comes just metaphorical moments after that ridiculous Bloomberg piece on Horizon Zero Dawn protagonist Aloy and how she’s basically the only acceptable female in video game history!
When it rains (hot takes) it pours (hot takes).
Dr. Andrew McGregor has a lot to say about Madden just hours after the celebrity sports commentator’s death at age 85. Mostly he argues, without any evidence, that the video game Madden NFL somehow dehumanizes players, exploits black labor and glorifies violence.
I would respond with an argument of my own, but McGregor offers up no arguments. Just statements. He calls the video game “plantation cosplay” which strikes me as a rather awful thing to say, likening slavery to the success of black athletes in the NFL.
He also says, in another tweet that “Management and control are at the heart of video games and fantasy sports. Players want to build super teams to win. They build rosters to compile stats and make big plays. Doing it with computer generated players dehumanizes real ones, and augments our relationship to violence.”
Yes, and Call Of Duty causes school shootings and GTA V will make you kill hookers and blah blah blah do you people ever get tired of being such pompous, out of touch scolds? Or is this like smelling your own farts—you just can’t get enough?
I made a video about this one also, in which I rant about these silly tweets and about the ridiculousness of making literally everything about race and how that invariably dilutes the entire conversation until phrases like “white supremacy” lose all meaning. Enjoy:
Racism is real. We need to confront it, just like we need to continue to combat sexism and various other “isms” but this new wave of “white fragility” laced bullshit is not helping. It’s just masking the real problems people face in the real world behind social media driven scolding and censoriousness. Intellectuals and media types have shamelessly hopped aboard this destined-to-crash-and-burn bandwagon and I can’t wait for the whole edifice to topple spectacularly.
Honestly, I don’t know much about John Madden but I know it’s not classy to dance on someone’s grave. I know that video games don’t cause real world violence and I know that black NFL athletes, just like all NFL athletes, are paid handsomely for their talents. There are certainly real issues facing football players—like very real concerns about health, brain damage and so forth—but that all happens on the field, not in a digital game.
Lord what fools these mortals be.