Why discuss a fictional group from a Japanese video game? Very simply because as the extraction of mako threatens the world of our characters, so too does the extraction and burning of fossil fuels threaten the death of our own. We see a similar trend among ecological movements here too. Groups such as Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion and Earth First!, though correct in their analysis that climate change is a matter that will have catastrophic effects on us all, have disconnected the ecological movement from the broader class struggle, missing the forest for the trees, if you’ll indulge me.
Tag: video games
What Actually was a Gulag? – Call of Duty’s 2020 Red Scare
The Soviets are frequently represented in fiction as comically excessive villains. The gulag is held up as the pinnacle of this malevolence, but is this focus on demonising socialist states a way for developers to avoid more relevant social criticism at home?
A Marxist Analysis of Grand Theft Auto V
Grand Theft Auto is a series with a justified reputation for excessive violence and hedonistic lifestyles, but is it possible to draw an anti-capitalist narrative from what might otherwise read as glorification?