Attempting Irony in a Muslim Massacre
On the day that Pakistani soldiers fired in the general direction of American troops attempting to cross over into Pakistan and thereby somehow managed to deter them, allow me instead to divert your attention to the latest storm in a teacup.
Theres a new video game out on the web. Players of the game control a green sports bra wearing American soldier sent to 'wipe out the Muslim race'. The game header opens as follows:
"The United States of America, a leader and role model for all in the modern world, is taking drastic measures to secure the freedom and safety of the world. Having born witness to the atrocities of the followers of Islam time and time again, it has been decided that the entire Muslim race shall be wiped from the surface of the Earth."Shock! Outrage!
Balls. All things considered, an online game where the protagonist must carry out religious holocaust is really just a leap towards the inevitable. There are already hugely popular games premised on the acts of bullying, murder and serious crime, and those too are for mainstream consoles like the XBOX 360 and Playstation 2, whereas "Muslim Massacre" is an Internet game, independently developed in a basement by a 22 year old Australian asshat.
The mission statement for the game's protagonist is as follows:
"You, the American Hero, have valiantly volunteered to make landfall in the Middle East and ensure that no Muslim man or woman is left alive. Your mission priorities are to seek out and neutralize the Muslim leader Osama bin Laden, their radical cult leader Muhammad and finally Allah, taking down any targets you meet on the way."
Thats right. The final boss battle is with Allah, which is kind of funny, in a completely ridiculous "Derka Derka" kind of way. For an explanation of 'Derka Derka' please see the clip below, from the movie 'Team America: Global Police'. In this scene an American secret agent with pubes on his face and a towel on his head attempts to speak in Arabic, which incidentally comprises only of eight words, namely Derk, Derka, Bak, Haka, Sherpa, Muhammad, Jihad and Allah.
It goes without saying that the game is pissing people off. According to Mohammed Shafiq of the the Ramadhan Foundation, “[e]ncouraging children and young people in a game to kill Muslims is unacceptable, tasteless and deeply offensive.” Sure. But isn't this sort of stuff too silly to take seriously?
Perhaps the only thing worthy of comment in all of this is the creators hilarious defence of his game. In the Something Awful (SA) Forums, Eric 'Sigvatr' Vaughn is quoted as having said:
“The Muslims represented in the game aren't meant to be based on actual Muslims, they are more like 2002 Fox News Terrorist Jihadist everybody panic Muslims. So, a more fitting title is "Stereotypical Muslim Massacre" but that just doesn't have the same ring to it.Brilliant. It is the equivalent of Fox News running the New Yorkers controversial caricature of Obama dressed up as Osama bin Laden, and claiming with plausible deniability that it was doing an ironic send-up of popular misconceptions.
If I was to try and come up with a meaning for the game at this moment, it would probably be something along the lines of metaphorically destroying the stereotypical depiction of a Muslim..”
It would have been more entertaining had Vaughn maintained the facade, unfortunately he ruined everything by coming out and saying the following:
"I think it's pretending to be legitimate commentary and I'm sure there will be lots of people who defend it on those grounds, but ultimately it's just a game where you blow the gently caress (i.e. 'the Fuck') out of arabs... Anyone is free to believe whatever they won't (sic) though, because I don't even know how to interpret it myself anymore. the bottom line is that I enjoyed making it and it's fun to play..."Now its just plain old racist and boring. Way to lose the edginess bro. Anyways. I will leave you with an entertaining exchange from game users on the SA forums:
SurprisedMango: As a muslim, I was wondering if you could do a version called "Catholic Massacre"Wow. Two Obama references in an post about a video game. It really is all about the US elections these days.
GT Chizmack: Come on, you know you wanted to say "Jewish Massacre."
Jarf: I would imagine Catholics would make for pretty boring cannon fodder though. From a stereotypical viewpoint.
Belgurdo: Blowing up the Vatican and fighting a reincarnated (pope) JPII might be pretty interesting, actually
Warezed Quake: Muslims own so I can't really get behind this game you know. Make a new thread when Christian or Middle Class Whites massacre comes out.
Zand: I like it but I dont like clicking so much because it hurts my hand. I think the last boss should be Barack Obama unless that is illegal.
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8 comments:
It's rather entertaining to play in an old-school, nostalgic manner. Dunno why everyone's up in arms though. There's far worse things we should be worrying about. Besides, don't we have mullahs in our madrassas and mosques preparing their students for 'catholic/american massacre' anyway?
Oh heavens. I hope the fundos here don't get to hear of this. After all the chaos from Denmark et al, this is just going to be another excuse for a bloodbath and school holidays.
@Asfandyar
Sure we do. But this is about their bigotry dammit, not ours!
The reaction is relatively muted actually (though admittedly the bar has been set pretty high). Im guessing it wont be too long till you see catholic and jewish and black and scientologist mods of the game. Should be fun. Im also pretty sure Barack Obama will feature as a boss in all of them.
@Majaz
I certainly hope not. Im hoping that after the cartoons and the teddy bear business, everyone is just bored with getting angry. I think our negative energies are spent, for the tie being.
People waiting to buy food and supplies are actually lying in wait to be angry at something, anything. Religious devotion is one of those extremely sensitive issues in the Pakistani society which can be ignited in a matter of moments.
I will continue to hope this remains a subject matter in the blogosphere alone.
I remember reading about this game somewhere and being mildly irritated and peeved. Strangely enough there is a similar game like this that targets blacks. I bet all the white supremicists in Tennessee have a blast with that one.
What I want to know is: how much fun is it to play?
AKS:
tremendous fun. It starts of with a Bushism too, which I can't remember now :(
Laila said,"I remember reading about this game somewhere and being mildly irritated and peeved. Strangely enough there is a similar game like this that targets blacks. I bet all the white supremicists in Tennessee have a blast with that one."
There absolutely is not any video game that targets blacks being sold in the USA.
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