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Of course, the façade is gradually removed. As well as its picturesque welcoming center, you are taken to Columbia's slums. But this supposed balancing of perspectives betrays not BioShock Infinite's impartiality, or its writers' integral journalism, but an absence of conviction. Instead of expanding on what they can or can't, should or shouldn't talk about, BioShock Infinite does what video games have always done: try not to piss off any customers.Documentary maker Adam Curtis describes how politicians today, rather than leaders are perceived as "managers of public life." His film The Trap scrutinizes a style of government, practiced by both the American neo-conversatives and British New Labour, which relies heavily on focus testing, statistical analysis, and constant canvassing of opinion. Such a managerial style is echoed by Infinite's refusal to take a side or make, concretely, any point—its politicizing may be visible, but it's always safe. And in this election year, such a quotidian approach to real-world issues may prove costly. If Clinton is struggling to ignite both young and floating voters, it's because, unlike the unpredictable, entertaining Trump, she's perceived like one of Curtis's managers, a president as usual. When the Republican candidate is as perilous as this year's, one is glad for a steadier, saner Democrat. On the other hand, when you replay BioShock Infinite and imbibe its evasive, watery politics, you cannot help but envy the right wing and its privilege of fierce, definite rhetoric."Instead of expanding on what they can or can't talk about, BioShock Infinite does what video games have always done: Try not to piss off any customers."
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Perhaps, if you squint your brain, there is some truth to its central, cynical assertion. But in modern America, juxtaposing a rich white character and a poor black one, in order to make a point about equality—equality of power, responsibility, and culpability—ignores an overwhelming amount of real-world context. Father Comstock, Infinite's white villain, does many bad things. Daisy Fitzroy, his impoverished, black opponent, does bad things also. Implying that makes them equally immoral however fails to account for either the characters' respective backgrounds or the real-life social circumstances by which they are inspired in the first place. When in 2016 almost five out of every million black people are killed by US police, as opposed to two out of every million whites, and when black American women are paid on average 19 percent less than white American women, it's hard to simply agree—for example—with Infinite's tacit implication that Comstock and Fitzroy can have their actions or characters compared on the same moral grounds.BioShock Infinite implies punching up is as bad as punching down; stealing bread to feed a family is as criminal as stealing it just because you can. These are moral absolutes and in dispassionate, purely academic discussion they may serve fine. But they make no accommodation either for people. At best, Infinite is the equivalent of book learning. It purports to be taking the pulse of a nation, and capturing the voice of the population, but in favor of its own middlebrow posturing ignores the contexts governing that population's wildly varying experiences. The opposite of good journalism—the opposite of rending the zeitgeist—the game cares primarily about what and who without really asking, let alone trying to understand, why.
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