Infinity Ward removes Modern Warfare 2 video because of homosexual slur

Man, I'm sure it's going to sell a ton anyway, but dang... Infinity Ward can't seem to stop stepping on its own d*** when it comes to promoting this game.
 
All my knowledge comes from comedy routines too. Especially comedy routines from straight white males, amirite?

So essentially since when you're a kid and you've co-opted words from adults which you don't know the meaning for (and hence you call a kid a $$$$$$ not knowing that it's a disparaging word for a homosexual) that means that when you grow up you should be able to call everyone a $$$$$$ because of that previous ignorance? Rather than growing up and respecting the fact that it doesn't mean what you think it means?

$$$$er is a bit more serious. Replace $$$$$$ in his comedy routine with $$$$er and then defend it. Tell me it's perfectly okay to say it as long as you didn't know what it meant when you were a kid.
 
[quote name='pitfallharry219']"Look at me, look at meeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"[/QUOTE]

Sad, sad pitfallharry. No one is going to look at you when you link one of my world famous blogs. :roll:

P.S. On CAG, blogs are posted not to be read.
review_bizarro_1.jpg
 
[quote name='CheapyD']The most shocking thing to me is that there is someone working at Infinity Ward and/or Activision that approved this. Was there really any other possible outcome from releasing this thing? What an incredible lack or foresight and common sense! People get fired over shit like this.[/QUOTE]

Agreed, it was very unprofessional, which is okay if it is a small title with a niche market, but COD is a big title. You would never see a game like Halo pull this garbage. Not to mention, why did that Phillies player even agree to do this?
 
[quote name='mykevermin']Thanks for bringing up this part. I think your thread reaction will bear out exactly what you describe above. And that will be straight white teenage males defending this kind of humor.

Just the other day on CAG a thread appeared about a kid getting arrested for hitting his mother, who was sweeping the carpet near his console while he was playing. In a few hours it turned into a series of sickeningly racist stereotypes and banter.

This won't be any different. If you're a straight white male, it's your duty to make sure that you get on the internet and criticize and belittle anyone and everyone who is slightly different from you. And if someone dares to try to tell you that you're offensive, you can choose to either go right after attacking them, or simply wash it off by claiming you were joking.

Internet ad nasueum.[/QUOTE]

Yep. It's a losing battle to fight that attitude on the internet as well unfortunately.
 
Well...it is the most used word in these type of games online, is it not?

Kidding aside, realistically this won't affect sales. On the other hand the fact that there is a conversation going on sensitive issues like these can't be a bad sign either.
 
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http://gameinformer.com/blogs/edito...2-video-and-the-insanity-of-social-media.aspx

Phil Kollar has a good write-up on the whole situation.

To his own credit, Robert Bowling provided the following explanation for the video in an e-mail to me:

"There is a production group that is working on a new series that is part live action and part taking place 'inside' Modern Warfare 2. The project, while containing Modern Warfare 2 assets and partially being created in-game for certain scenes, is actually unrelated to Infinity Ward or the game directly. Most importantly, this video was not intended as an official trailer or advertisement for the game, hence no branding, logos, or even mention of the game. A confusion I take blame for as it WAS posted on the Official Infinity Ward YouTube which made it seem that way. However, I endorsed the video via my Twitter and therefore endorse the content of the video, so any criticism justly rests on me for that and why I pulled the video.

"This specific clip, which isn't part of the upcoming series, but was more of a proof of concept for the in-game portion of the series that they sent over for us to check out. The premise was hilarious, Cole Hamels speaks out against random grenades, and how they're a cheap tactic. Something a lot of players in our community can appreciate. The concept was hilarious, which is why I decided to share it with our fans and community via Twitter. Regretfully, by doing so, it came off as an endorsement of derogatory statements which was not the intent of the video or my intentions in sharing it."
Click to expand...
 
That's good and I'm glad it isn't "official." They're good at making mistakes though...unless it's all for publicity.
 
I think the PR peeps at Activision are laughing at getting a ton of free press at Destructoid, Joystiq, and Kotaku over this. Now, they got many CAGs talking about it; you can't buy publicity like that. Well, EA tried to buy it with Dante's Inferno, but that's another story.

And that "We didn't know about it" line is complete bullshit. Dozens of PR people have to OK the silliest stuff; not one of them thought people might be offended by the video? That's either one of the worst cases of groupthink I've ever heard, or shrewdly calculated social marketing.

BTW- What kind of epitaph can people use to describe the coders at IW who don't insert any repercussions for lobbing grenades aimlessly? Closeted co-facilitators? Ok, that was bad...
 
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[quote name='DesertEagleXIX']I think the PR peeps at Activision are laughing at getting a ton of free press at Destructoid, Joystiq, and Kotaku over this. Now, they got many CAGs talking about it; you can't buy publicity like that. Well, EA tried to buy it with Dante's Inferno, but that's another story.

And that "We didn't know about it" line is complete bullshit. Dozens of PR people have to OK the silliest stuff; not one of them thought people might be offended by the video? That's either one of the worst cases of groupthink I've ever heard, or shrewdly calculated social marketing.

BTW- What kind of epitaph can people use to describe the coders at IW who don't insert any repercussions for lobbing grenades aimlessly? Closeted co-facilitators? Ok, that was bad...[/QUOTE]

Nonsense. This game is selling bajillions anyway. Activision is not the kind of company that is willing to take on controversy that might threaten their bottom line. They're a straightforward, no hold barred conventional capitalist company.

This is not a game that needs controversy anyway. This reeks of naivete and fuck ups, unlike the kind of talk generated by EA's brilliant marketing for Dante's Inferno. Now *there's* how you market a game via blog/forum discussion. Not via homophobia.
 
Relegating this whole thing as publicity ranks on the same level as Coke and Pepsi still advertising during the Super Bowl.

As Lewis Black said, any one of us could piss that stuff straight for a week.
 
[quote name='blader16']Happy Birth-Day, gothic.[/QUOTE]

Thanks.

This isn't the place I expected that to to turn up. :lol:

[quote name='Trakan']http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/251889[/QUOTE]

This probably isn't reflected by the online version, but when it aired the main sponsor for the episode was none other than Modern Warfare 2. I have no idea if that was intentional, but the part of me that's convinced that Activision did this all for cheap publicity thinks it was.
 
I'm going to propose that was coincidence, Walrus, if only because ad space generally needs to be sold far in advance. Maybe not so much in cyberspace, but there's got to be an incubation period of sorts.

Further, IW made some (bullshit, in my opinion) excuse that the company who made this video to begin with isn't actually IW, has nothing to do with IW, etc etc etc, as if IW wouldn't approve it at all. Which is to say, this thing wasn't supposed to be seen.

Of course, that gives credence toward it being publicity, because I never believe anything leaks unintentionally...
 
[quote name='Trakan']http://www.southparkstudios.com/episodes/251889[/QUOTE]

They took on the "f-word" instead of any of the myriad ethnic/racial/sexist slurs you hear from the same kind of kids in the same kinds of venues (school, home, gaming). They try to claim that children have this noble concept of redefining a word to not apply to homosexuals, but to general irreverent assholes. Which is a ridiculous premise that is wholly without merit.

They didn't have the guts to substitute the "n-word," the holy grail of obscenities. Since they did not, their entire argument falls apart.

Before anyone tries to say "oh, it's just a tv show/comedy/cartoon," it was linked and posted in this thread. As such, the only reason it would be posted here would be to remain pertinent to the conversation at hand. Someone decided to use a cartoon that defends a hateful and myopic viewpoint in order to bolster their argument, failing to see how lacking in credibility the argument is.
 
They did attack the n-word recently, shortly after the whole thing with Kramer.

Wondering if you are aware of that.

The point there was largely the same - that definitions can evolve over time and so forth. I don't know how much this honestly fits into this discussion though.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']They took on the "f-word" instead of any of the myriad ethnic/racial/sexist slurs you hear from the same kind of kids in the same kinds of venues (school, home, gaming). They try to claim that children have this noble concept of redefining a word to not apply to homosexuals, but to general irreverent assholes. Which is a ridiculous premise that is wholly without merit.

They didn't have the guts to substitute the "n-word," the holy grail of obscenities. Since they did not, their entire argument falls apart.

Before anyone tries to say "oh, it's just a tv show/comedy/cartoon," it was linked and posted in this thread. As such, the only reason it would be posted here would be to remain pertinent to the conversation at hand. Someone decided to use a cartoon that defends a hateful and myopic viewpoint in order to bolster their argument, failing to see how lacking in credibility the argument is.[/QUOTE]

Like Strell said, definitions can evolve and change over time. Like it was mentioned in the South Park episode, (if you even watched the whole thing) the word "$$$" had three or four definitions before it was a derogatory term for homosexuals. (Unlike the "n-word," which once again, Strell mentioned South Park had the "guts" to do a while ago.)

My point is that people need to get over it. They didn't even come out and say the word "$$$." It was four words that when combined made up the word. Obviously intentional yes, but not meant to be offensive. Yeah, I say the word quite often, not meaning it as an offensive slur, but as someone who I consider an inconsiderate asshole. People who spam grenades every chance they get are $$$s.

If IW had actually come out with a video that said "People who throws grenades are fuckING $$$S!" Then maybe I could understand.

And before you say "Well, what if they made fun of your lifestyle?" Go ahead. Let 'em.
 
Even if it was intended to be offensive, I don't see what the problem is. Games will never be taken seriously as art if it isn't allowed to be offensive to someone or thing.
 
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But you don't get to dictate to other people what they can and can not be offended by. If $$$, in its current context, is offensive to homosexuals but not you, who gets the right to say to use it or not? Why must you and others insist that it should not be offensive to homosexuals?

Why *must* you use that word, and not show some semblance of creativity in your slurs?

Moreover, you totally ignore the ridiculously false idea that children cognitively separate '$$$' from 'gay.' You can't prove that at all, and to take away its offensive power is to take away and deviant incentive to use the word in the first place - like $$$$er, like pussy, like cunt, like cocksucker, like all those other words that belittle people who aren't straight, white, and male.

You're defending a perspective that's based on a laughably foolish assumption that children are trying to reclaim a word to mean something other than its popular definition - trying to use it external to its definition instead of *because* of its definition.

The word vagina, in Latin, refers to a sheath for a sword. It is, of course, no longer used for that, and anyone expecting to free the word from its anatomical link for the purpose of bringing it back home into terminology for the military and fencing might find themselves on the receiving end of many peculiar looks when they say something like "pardon me while I look for my vagina." Referring to what words meant in the past has some useful historical context, but they are not wholesale excuses that help in severing the relationship between the words and its current definition.

Just like the argument that the kids use this particular term as an insult to help in the noble cause of liberating homosexuals from being insulted. That's just a garbage argument.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']But you don't get to dictate to other people what they can and can not be offended by. [/QUOTE]

Where in my post have I dictated how other people to feel? If they are offended than that is their problem not mine. If we allowed your kind of thinking go ahead world will be filled with people who will be too afraid to say anything incase they offend someone out there.
 
I offend you and you only if I state that you're a narcissistic asshole who has delusions of grandeur if you're so damned foolish so as to think I was spending my time responding to your tiny line of text, and not the broader conversation that relates to south park and several posts well before you showed up.

I'm proudly politically correct as fuck, and I'm not so lazy as to need to offend an entire class of people to be offensive, fuckwit.

Now, leave the grown ups alone so we can talk.
 
Come on!!!! People are really offended by this? $$$'s definition is "a bundle of sticks". Clearly noone saw this week's South Park either and that was hilarious! I haven't seen the bikers of America up in arms over the use of "$$$S" in that episode. I'm a white male and I wouldn't be offended if Tyler Perry had a viral marketing campaign for his latest travesty of modern day blaxploitation cinema in which he spelled out "CRACKER" to sell more movie tickets. People need to grow the fuck up and get over their insensitivities. That's the problem with society as a whole today. All people do is cry, bitch, and moan about their feelings and how the world nor nothing in it is fair to them or the group from which they hail. Grow the fuck up pussies of the world and get out there and get a LIFE! Just think how much more productive we could be if stopped clogging our airways from Oprah to Rush Limbaugh with people's gripes about everything and focused on the positive side of things. We don't necessarily need to all "GET ALONG" but we sure as shit need to "MOVE ALONG"!
 
[quote name='mykevermin']But you don't get to dictate to other people what they can and can not be offended by. If $$$, in its current context, is offensive to homosexuals but not you, who gets the right to say to use it or not? Why must you and others insist that it should not be offensive to homosexuals?

Why *must* you use that word, and not show some semblance of creativity in your slurs?

Moreover, you totally ignore the ridiculously false idea that children cognitively separate '$$$' from 'gay.' You can't prove that at all, and to take away its offensive power is to take away and deviant incentive to use the word in the first place - like $$$$er, like pussy, like cunt, like cocksucker, like all those other words that belittle people who aren't straight, white, and male.

You're defending a perspective that's based on a laughably foolish assumption that children are trying to reclaim a word to mean something other than its popular definition - trying to use it external to its definition instead of *because* of its definition.

The word vagina, in Latin, refers to a sheath for a sword. It is, of course, no longer used for that, and anyone expecting to free the word from its anatomical link for the purpose of bringing it back home into terminology for the military and fencing might find themselves on the receiving end of many peculiar looks when they say something like "pardon me while I look for my vagina." Referring to what words meant in the past has some useful historical context, but they are not wholesale excuses that help in severing the relationship between the words and its current definition.

Just like the argument that the kids use this particular term as an insult to help in the noble cause of liberating homosexuals from being insulted. That's just a garbage argument.[/QUOTE]

Lol. Have you ever seen South Park? Is anything those kids do possible in a real life scenario? Of course not. South Park is the current status of American culture. They make fun of anything and everything.

There's no difference between my uncreative "slur" and your example of a sheath for a sword. Just because I use it at what I feel is its current definition doesn't mean that people who hear me say it should judge me or think that I'm being offensive towards homosexuals.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']I offend you and you only if I state that you're a narcissistic asshole who has delusions of grandeur if you're so damned foolish so as to think I was spending my time responding to your tiny line of text, and not the broader conversation that relates to south park and several posts well before you showed up.

I'm proudly politically correct as fuck, and I'm not so lazy as to need to offend an entire class of people to be offensive, fuckwit.

Now, leave the grown ups alone so we can talk.[/QUOTE]

That's funny. Have some more? If you ddin't want my reply, you should have used quote fuction to make sure we all understood who you were replying to.

I think the problem is the people who take everything so seriously. They hold grudges and turn into pycho killers.
 
[quote name='laaj']Even if it was intended to be offensive, I don't know see what the problem is. Games will never be taken seriously as art if it isn't allowed to be offensive to someone or thing.[/QUOTE]

Being juvenile and being offensive aren't interchangeable, and even if the latter purports to some mythical noble purpose like you're saying (which is only the case a fraction of the time), it doesn't mean it instantly translates. That's a cop out.

Re: South Park

Despite the ultimate message the episode gave, it still doesn't wholly address the issue, since the final point is "they are just words," more or less spruced up with a "language changes over time" flavor, which only pertains a fraction of the entire discussion here.

We're situated on rhetorics right now, and that's getting us nowhere.
 
[quote name='Strell']Being juvenile and being offensive aren't interchangeable, and even if the latter purports to some mythical noble purpose like you're saying (which is only the case a fraction of the time), it doesn't mean it instantly translates. That's a cop out.

We're situated on rhetorics right now, and that's getting us nowhere.[/QUOTE]

OK. Lets call it juvenile. I still don't see what the problem is. Infinity Ward as a company can do what the hell they want and only thing we can do is whether decide to purchase their games or not. We can't make them change their games.

If you don't like Infinity Ward for this: NO SOUP FOR YOU!
 
[quote name='laaj']OK. Lets call it juvenile. I still don't see what the problem is. [/quote]

That's sort of the issue at hand here.

thing we can do is whether decide to purchase their games or not.
Click to expand...

Yeah. But people on internet forums would still lambaste someone if they made the claim that they won't buy MW2 because its developers played some role in a juvenile slur. Which is to say, it'd be pretty easy to stir up a tizzy amongst a lot of gamers who claim they are jaded with this whole thing.

We can't make them change their games.
Click to expand...

You can do precisely this by not buying them, but that's up to the person themselves. And really another discussion entirely.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']But you don't get to dictate to other people what they can and can not be offended by. If $$$, in its current context, is offensive to homosexuals but not you, who gets the right to say to use it or not? Why must you and others insist that it should not be offensive to homosexuals?

Why *must* you use that word, and not show some semblance of creativity in your slurs?

Moreover, you totally ignore the ridiculously false idea that children cognitively separate '$$$' from 'gay.' You can't prove that at all, and to take away its offensive power is to take away and deviant incentive to use the word in the first place - like $$$$er, like pussy, like cunt, like cocksucker, like all those other words that belittle people who aren't straight, white, and male.

You're defending a perspective that's based on a laughably foolish assumption that children are trying to reclaim a word to mean something other than its popular definition - trying to use it external to its definition instead of *because* of its definition.

The word vagina, in Latin, refers to a sheath for a sword. It is, of course, no longer used for that, and anyone expecting to free the word from its anatomical link for the purpose of bringing it back home into terminology for the military and fencing might find themselves on the receiving end of many peculiar looks when they say something like "pardon me while I look for my vagina." Referring to what words meant in the past has some useful historical context, but they are not wholesale excuses that help in severing the relationship between the words and its current definition.

Just like the argument that the kids use this particular term as an insult to help in the noble cause of liberating homosexuals from being insulted. That's just a garbage argument.[/QUOTE]
Yes! 100% agree. And it is obnoxious seeing media sources trying to get the word $$$ to be more acceptable, like it isn't already. My understanding is if a word was EVER commonly used to put another group or person down, that you should not say it no matter what YOUR beliefs are towards it.

And I have never seen the word "$$$" describing something that isn't gay or gay like.
 
Do people actually get offended by words...? Who gives a shit if somebody offends you, especially over the internet.
 
[quote name='Moffman82']Come on!!!! People are really offended by this? $$$'s definition is "a bundle of sticks". Clearly noone saw this week's South Park either and that was hilarious! I haven't seen the bikers of America up in arms over the use of "$$$S" in that episode. I'm a white male and I wouldn't be offended if Tyler Perry had a viral marketing campaign for his latest travesty of modern day blaxploitation cinema in which he spelled out "CRACKER" to sell more movie tickets. People need to grow the fuck up and get over their insensitivities. That's the problem with society as a whole today. All people do is cry, bitch, and moan about their feelings and how the world nor nothing in it is fair to them or the group from which they hail. Grow the fuck up pussies of the world and get out there and get a LIFE! Just think how much more productive we could be if stopped clogging our airways from Oprah to Rush Limbaugh with people's gripes about everything and focused on the positive side of things. We don't necessarily need to all "GET ALONG" but we sure as shit need to "MOVE ALONG"![/QUOTE]
Except that the controversy isn't really about the offensive nature of the word, but it was about Robert Bowling officially endorsing its use in the online multiplayer community on Infinity Ward's behalf by uploading it to the official IW Youtube page and spreading the word on the video himself. No publisher or developer would intentionally do that since they'd be instigating an inevitable shit storm that none of them wants, which will be why he probably won't be doing anything without someone else's approval for a while. Also, he pretty much invalidated his call for developers to handle the marketing for their own games only a few days after he said it. It was a big blunder that could have been easily avoided by changing the title and focus on the core joke about grenade spam.
 
Here's a thought. What if IW planned all this and are laughing about the shit storm it generated. History has proven controversy sells. GTA 3/4, Mass Effect, etc.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']They took on the "f-word" instead of any of the myriad ethnic/racial/sexist slurs you hear from the same kind of kids in the same kinds of venues (school, home, gaming). They try to claim that children have this noble concept of redefining a word to not apply to homosexuals, but to general irreverent assholes. Which is a ridiculous premise that is wholly without merit.
.[/QUOTE]

Just out of curiosity. Myke, how old are you?



As a person who was in elementary school less than 10 years ago, I can definately say that from my experience this is almost exactly what happened with the word "$$$"

There was no noble intention to reclaim the word, we just didn't even know what homosexuality was. I do remember that once we were old enough to actually understand the connotations behind it, it did fall out of use to a degree. However, years of using such language can produce habits, even with knowledge of the actual cultural meaning of the word. I still use the word occasionally in the appropriate, as much as can be...anyways, setting.






I also think that your example of vagina in comparison to $$$ is a bit lopsided, as (I assume, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) vagina has been in common use far longer than $$$ for their current cultural meanings. Even doctors call female genitalia the vagina, which suggests some form of scientific (or something) credibility to greater society, whereas it is quite the opposite with $$$.
 
^ 30. I don't get why that's relevant. It was more commonly used in the past, actually, as it wasn't something edited out of television shows.

[quote name='laaj']Here's a thought. What if IW planned all this and are laughing about the shit storm it generated. History has proven controversy sells. GTA 3/4, Mass Effect, etc.[/QUOTE]

I think people know MW2 comes out this week. Activision wouldn't allow for this kind of controversy.
 
Part of the joke in South Park was that the kids were comically ignorant of the link between "$$$" and gay people. That might work up to 9 or 10 years old, but that's about the limit. Kids are usually not unaware of that definition and adults definitely aren't. Just like how "gay" is used as a general word like "lame" to mean bad, but kids aren't unaware that "gay" means homosexual. And obviously nobody is actually trying to redefine the word, they just desperately want to use it for some reason.

Aside from that, South Park was a little disingenuous with the definition changing of the word (not that I'd expect them to really research it, they come up with ideas maybe a few months ahead and make the shows a week to a few days before they air). The way the slur has been used has definitely changed, but it hasn't jumped around seemingly randomly as it may seem in the show, the running theme is derogatory regarding women. Burdensome women, a bundle of sticks used to burn witches, etc. and eventually to describe gay men, who are insulted because they're effeminate, they act more like women than they "should". The word has evolved essentially within that framework. Even at one point in the episode they compared the harley dudes to 16 year-old girls.

But anyway, for the love of god don't try to pull actual arguments from South Park, wtf?
 
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