Duke Nukem Forever and 'Rape'

[Levethian]

RE: Jim Sterling Desctructoid review [http://www.destructoid.com/review-duke-nukem-forever-203658.phtml] & the resulting moral outrage

As much as I like Jim Sterling, he's issued some Destructoid flame-bait, and I've gone and bitten, sorry.

Associating Duke Nukem Forever with criminal rape and calling everyone who likes the game ?sociopathic and mentally maladjusted? is something of an overreaction. While Fox news and Mary Whitehouse would undoubtedly applaud the sentiment I don't think it does anyone much good (Except Jim, our champion of morality), inhibiting many people from enjoying what is essentially a fun, harmless, stupid game.

An alien parasitic infestation is not 'rape' in the sense that he would have us understand it, any more than someone with schistosomiasis has been raped, whether or not someone inappropriately and unamusingly tells them 'you're f**ked'. - Except that would be far worse because schistosomiasis is a nightmarish, real affliction while being infected by alien organisms is not real nor relevant to anything real and certainly not linked to real-world rape culture. At least I didn't notice a link. Maybe I just don't think about rape enough. Perhaps if I dwell on rape more I will see rape all around me, just like those people who can't look at towers without projecting phallic imagery.

Duke is a farcical parody through and through. Players know it and adapt their sensibilities to take this into account, why can't reviewers? And it would be totally out of character for Duke to condone rape anyhow, as a passionate long-standing 'defender of babes'.

Taking the Hive scene so very seriously and slamming it for condoning and laughing at sexual violence may be part of an industry-wide agenda to distance itself from Duke Nukem Forever, perhaps to pursue the status of 'games as art'. But for whatever reason the witch-hunt aspect to some of the reviews has been a little disheartening.

[sarcasm] Having said that, Jim's outrage reveals an in-depth emotional attachment to the Holsom Twins that speaks volumes about Duke Nukems rich character writing and portrayal. Given the broad definition of art as 'made with the intention of stimulating thoughts and emotions', no higher praise can be offered to a game. So, Destructoid, thank you for lending Duke Nukem Forever such artistic credibility.[/sarcasm]

Anyway, divisive nonsense aside, it's good that it's finally been released. There is promise for Duke Nukem 5, so long as Duke doesn't have what little personality he has beaten out of him by the tirade of moral authoritarians enjoying their 15-minutes of clear conscience.

EDIT: a poll self-destructed, asking 'were you offended'.

 

[Levethian]

Agree with every word.

They might have been "raped", but thats only some sick fantasy of the player. Overthinking the scene will only be as gross as ones imagination is.

That's the annoying hypocrisy of it: it could be that those who are outraged are abnormally preoccupied with ideas of rape. Now I can't enjoy the game without feeling somehow dirty. Well, dirtier.

 

[Kahunaburger]

ITT: We let a guy who was trolled by a crappy game in turn troll us.

 

[Levethian]

True - all the same themes of alien fertilisation have carried over from Duke 3D:

http://images.wikia.com/dukenukem/images/8/8e/Standingbabe.jpg

Strange that anyone would be surprised by that. It was the joke that triggered the disgust.

I'm so-so on Jim. He's motivated and usually speaks sense, but he's a shameless attention-grabber.

Was anyone offended by the scene?

 

[Valiance]

This happened in Duke Nukem 3D as well and no one cared. The babes would even plead you to kill them in pained whispers if you tried to interact with them while they were cocooned or strapped down or impaled (not kidding).

Obviously it's to demonize the enemy and give you more of a motivation to keep playing, to bring those "alien bastards" who did this to justice. Duke is nowhere near the first place we saw anything like rape (or possibly-implied rape in this case), and it will not be the last. I think 90% of the scenes in Heavy Rain are much more emotionally painful, but that's all subjective. I'm sure some people get off on the concept as well, but that's neither here nor there.

Rape is a horrible thing, but generally speaking, people joke about it a lot these days. In online games, or even among friends, you might hear "oh we got raped in that match" or "I got raped at work today, it was so damn busy," or something. This really undervalues the trauma or terribleness of rape, much more than some game having a couple struggling females die on the floor to some chest-bursting aliens or whatever the hell happens in the Hive level.

 

[aaronobst]

Its just more oversensitivity than I'm sure gearbox expected, get over it Jimmy

 

[Busdriver580]

I laughed when he said "You're fucked" That level was kind of a downer though, it was fairly un-entertaining on the whole. If the level had been a set-up to a hilarious joke, no one would have given a shit, you can cross all the lines you want as long as it's funny, so it's idiotic that we're act all high and moral into a DUKE NUKEM game.

If people had found it funnier, it wouldn't have been offensive in the slightest.

 

[Vrex360]

I saw the scene in question on youtube... and I was repulsed.
I'm sorry, but I can't just pretend that everyone offended by it was some kind of moral guardian. The fact is, this was a level where naked women were weeping in pain and agony and misery with rape being STRONGLY implied... and they were joking about it.
Duke sees two women about to die in the process of being forcibly impregnated and says:
"Looks like you're fucked!"

Which in turn, made me shiver with disgust. It's one thing to have a woman be used as a 'flag' in a redone 'capture the flag' gametype, it's another thing altogether to ridicule and in some places almost eroticise (all the big naked boobs throughout the scene) sexual violence against women. I don't like it, and I don't think it should have been a part of the game.

I'd go as far as to say that I don't think it should have been a part of any of the OLD Duke Nukem games either, common sense would dictate that this is wrong and it should still be wrong regardless of what year it it. Racism is always racism whether it's in the year 2011 or 1975, and eroticized, 'humorous' depictions of rape are always misogynist no matter what year it is.
Perhaps people complained less because it wasn't as graphically detailed or because back then we weren't as concious about social issues as we are now. I don't know why Duke Nukem Forever is getting criticism for it now, but I do know that it deserves it.

What this level tells me is:
A. Someone on the team decided to have a pointless jarring shift between dicking around and grotesqu imagery.
B. Someone on the team saw this and decided it wasn't a problem.
C. That someone at some point looked at this and decided to fill it with jokes, because apparently the depiction of women being tortured was just sooo funny.

It wasn't funny, it wasn't clever and it wasn't needed. It was vile and even though I was looking at it on a youtube screen I still felt like my eyes needed washing. Look, I'm fine with offensive humor or clever controversial issues being made into jokes. But only if said jokes were well told and had some degree of intelligence behind them.
But this is not either, there is no joke beyond just looking at women being tortured with strong implications of rape and there isn't even much of a brain behind it.
Here I'm just looking at a big AAA game shouting 'LOL RAPE!' and seemingly expecting me to laugh. No Duke, I won't laugh.

Christ guys, not everything that happens in games deserves to be defended. If people want to hate on this to distance themselves, and the game industry as far away as they can from this debacle. I'm all for it.
It's better then us all praising it and wanting to see more.

Oh, one more thing.
Here are a few of the comments by the people on the youtube page defending that scene (I took the liberty of censoring the really bad bits):

"HAHAHAHAHA, KEEP CRYING YOU PUSSY LITTLE BITCHES. OH WAIT, DUKE NUKEM ISN'T EVEN FOR YOU. GTFO!"

"Duke Nukem has always had explicit content, all of you n*ggers are fucking retarded."

"well, you and the other 6million people can suck my dick."

"I don't give a shit bro. This isn't even the whole game & kids like you should stay away from Duke Nukem, shit you don't know anything about. Don't expect everyone to be on your side like these other whiteknight faggots. Since when did I mention I was a guy? Dumbass, even though I am.

"This is fucking awesome, I can't wait to play this. Best premise ever."

"No, you're pretty much just a pussy."

"What an ocean of ******'s tears this video's comment section is - If you can't handle the Duke, do us all a favour and BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS"

"lol what sort of ****** would have a problem with this level.were your balls cut off as a child or something?"

"People need to learn to stop taking fucking video games so seriously. And stop being a bunch of feminazi pussies whenever a woman gets hurt or killed in fictional media."


Can you really blame people for NOT wanting to be associated with the kind of people who would defend this? If nothing else, having a huge big AAA game like this that depicts graphic rape with a smile on its face doesn't really do wonders for the game's industries already less then perfect image.

EDIT: Also it's worth noting I don't often agree with Jim Sterling, but I have to agree here.

 

[funguy2121]

snip

I'm unsure of all of the internet "laws" out there, but I'm sure you've violated a few of them. You compared Jim to Fox News in a manner that's really beyond unfair. I followed the link and read the review before reading your post. 2 things immediately came to mind.

"I'd go as far as to call him a pussy. " --referring to Duke's fighting ability. This was just hilarious.

"One level in particular takes place in an alien nest where Earth's women are being inseminated by giant penises. The women writhe and moan in a fairly humiliating fashion, and they regularly sob with no small amount of implied misery. In essence, the women look like they're getting raped. In fact, they are. That's the big joke of the level. The aliens are raping the women to create babies. Now, I'm a fan of offensive humor, but the "joke" in this level is so morbidly presented, so dark and downright unsettling, that I simply do not know if Gearbox intends for us to laugh or to throw up. I certainly found I was in danger of doing the latter over the former.

By the time Duke Nukem finally makes a "You're fucked," joke, which he makes in front of two girls who are about to die in the process of getting sexually assaulted, Duke does not come across as cool, witty or likable in the least. He comes across as a vile, callous, thoroughly detestable psychopath."

You took a very thorough, thoughtful statement about a shitty attempt at a shitty joke that indulged some shitty lingering views of women and turned it into an accusation that a game was linked to actual rape, which was straight-up dishonest of you, and then you accused him of labeling fans psychopaths, when in fact Jim was describing the way that Duke came across and not any actual humans. I have trouble believing that was a mistake on your part. Though Jim did say that if you enjoy the visuals you have to be clinically insane. Before I read that I thought to myself "jaggies? Really? In a current gen game?"

I think you lack sophistication in your definition of satire, and while all satire isn't sophisticated, without a developed appreciation for parody it becomes very easy to excuse shitty, unfunny, pandering entertainment of this sort as satire after the fact. Simply recreating something isn't satire. I could make a snuff film and then say that I was satirizing snuff films, but I'd be full of shit. Duke may have originally been intended as satire, but it was definitely intended throughout its history to sell to virginal minors, which is exactly what Duke's creators think of gamers based on the content of all the games. Duke steals lines from cult classics that many Duke fans are unaware of. He shows you tits and says/does shady things to titillate (fuck it, I already typed it) the gamer. The developers think you're a simple-minded teen who couldn't talk to a cute girl to save your soul and will giggle uncontrollably at the smell or mention of a fart.

Jokes about rape are not funny. They're look-at-me controversial, and take away from REAL humor which is controversial with purpose. They also highlight the originality to be found elsewhere.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

Somehow I feel the need to insert how the facehuggers in the Alien movies were meant to represent sex and rape, but I'm not entirely sure how I could say it.

I've got your back!

Quote from Dan O'Bannon, one of the two writers for Alien (1979)...

"One thing that people are all disturbed about is sex... I said 'That's how I'm going to attack the audience; I'm going to attack them sexually. And I'm not going to go after the women in the audience, I'm going to attack the men. I am going to put in every image I can think of to make the men in the audience cross their legs. Homosexual oral rape, birth. The thing lays its eggs down your throat, the whole number.'"

Quote was taken from The Alien Saga, a 2002 TV documentary on the film series.

 

[DaHero]

Okay we get it, duke nukem sucked, the alien rape (denial is admittance here, they're being raped whether you want to deny it or not) was all they had to rely on for controversy, and Gearbox has yet to make something we can consider worthwhile (Borderlands was so-so).

Tasteless sexism for a tasteless game, get over it. If this is what being a gamer is like, defending an alien rape scene by saying "well that's only in your mind" then I am disgusted to be considered a gamer. Little known fact: The DN3D never once mentioned the women were being raped. Hell it makes more sense to say kidnapped. In DNF they're being raped until they explode. No it's not funny, yes I'm nauseas just to think it's gotten this far, and no I'm not an affiliate of Fox news.

Thing is? If Fox news wants to call DNF out for its sexism/rape stuff, I'd have to side with them. Gamers like myself are trying to prove we're decent people, but then Duke comes out with this crap and the argument is completely out the window. Seriously, this game sucked and I say we just let Duke die out with his fanBOYS. Randy Pitchford himself even went so far as to think all the "cool" gamers will be playing DNF...

No I'm sorry, only the immature gamers will, the rest of us will wait for something worth the time and effort (for me, SKyrim, others BF3/MW3)

No this is not the same as No Russian, and no we can't defend it like the Mass Effect lesbian fiasco. Duke should have died 14 years ago, and if the Supreme Court rules in favor of California, taking away video game's first amendment rights, it will be because of games like this.

We have to be better, we have to put it down. The dead horse has been shot, enough crying on it and move on.

I saw the scene in question on youtube... and I was repulsed.
I'm sorry, but I can't just pretend that everyone offended by it was some kind of moral guardian. The fact is, this was a level where naked women were weeping in pain and agony and misery with rape being STRONGLY implied... and they were joking about it.
Duke sees two women about to die in the process of being forcibly impregnated and says:
"Looks like you're fucked!"

Which in turn, made me shiver with disgust. It's one thing to have a woman be used as a 'flag' in a redone 'capture the flag' gametype, it's another thing altogether to ridicule and in some places almost eroticise (all the big naked boobs throughout the scene) sexual violence against women. I don't like it, and I don't think it should have been a part of the game.

I'd go as far as to say that I don't think it should have been a part of any of the OLD Duke Nukem games either, common sense would dictate that this is wrong and it should still be wrong regardless of what year it it. Racism is always racism whether it's in the year 2011 or 1975, and eroticized, 'humorous' depictions of rape are always misogynist no matter what year it is.
Perhaps people complained less because it wasn't as graphically detailed or because back then we weren't as concious about social issues as we are now. I don't know why Duke Nukem Forever is getting criticism for it now, but I do know that it deserves it.

What this level tells me is:
A. Someone on the team decided to have a pointless jarring shift between dicking around and grotesqu imagery.
B. Someone on the team saw this and decided it wasn't a problem.
C. That someone at some point looked at this and decided to fill it with jokes, because apparently the depiction of women being tortured was just sooo funny.

It wasn't funny, it wasn't clever and it wasn't needed. It was vile and even though I was looking at it on a youtube screen I still felt like my eyes needed washing. Look, I'm fine with offensive humor or clever controversial issues being made into jokes. But only if said jokes were well told and had some degree of intelligence behind them.
But this is not either, there is no joke beyond just looking at women being tortured with strong implications of rape and there isn't even much of a brain behind it.
Here I'm just looking at a big AAA game shouting 'LOL RAPE!' and seemingly expecting me to laugh. No Duke, I won't laugh.

Christ guys, not everything that happens in games deserves to be defended. If people want to hate on this to distance themselves, and the game industry as far away as they can from this debacle. I'm all for it.
It's better then us all praising it and wanting to see more.

Oh, one more thing.
Here are a few of the comments by the people on the youtube page defending that scene (I took the liberty of censoring the really bad bits):

"HAHAHAHAHA, KEEP CRYING YOU PUSSY LITTLE BITCHES. OH WAIT, DUKE NUKEM ISN'T EVEN FOR YOU. GTFO!"

"Duke Nukem has always had explicit content, all of you n*ggers are fucking retarded."

"well, you and the other 6million people can suck my dick."

"I don't give a shit bro. This isn't even the whole game & kids like you should stay away from Duke Nukem, shit you don't know anything about. Don't expect everyone to be on your side like these other whiteknight faggots. Since when did I mention I was a guy? Dumbass, even though I am.

"This is fucking awesome, I can't wait to play this. Best premise ever."

"No, you're pretty much just a pussy."

"What an ocean of ******'s tears this video's comment section is - If you can't handle the Duke, do us all a favour and BLOW IT OUT YOUR ASS"

"lol what sort of ****** would have a problem with this level.were your balls cut off as a child or something?"

"People need to learn to stop taking fucking video games so seriously. And stop being a bunch of feminazi pussies whenever a woman gets hurt or killed in fictional media."


Can you really blame people for NOT wanting to be associated with the kind of people who would defend this? If nothing else, having a huge big AAA game like this that depicts graphic rape with a smile on its face doesn't really do wonders for the game's industries already less then perfect image.

EDIT: Also it's worth noting I don't often agree with Jim Sterling, but I have to agree here.

There's a lot worse on there now, just saying.

See, THIS validates everything I just said. THIS is where the game culture has branched into. It's come down to THIS, where gamers with some form of morality are treated like trash, where being a gamer is now, if anything more, a badge of shame.

This is high school stuff, no, this is WORSE than high school. If it's not ended now, we're ALL going to be stuck playing Hello Kitty 8 because Battlefield 4 was considered too violent for teenagers.

 

[Saelune]

Well...they are being raped by the aliens
But its not new. The series had it in Duke Nukem 3D, and the Alien series had alien rape in a similar way with similar results.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

The problem was that it turned Duke from an (almost) loveable, Benny Hill-sexist, bum-slapping court jester into a misogynistic, heartless ****.

 

[Still Life]

--

I'd just like to point out, in regards to the youtube community, that those comments you quoted are stock-standard for most video game related videos. I'm not defending them and I don't want to be associated with such 'people', but this is hardly a rare social phenomena. Therefore, these comments aren't exclusive to DNF related videos.

 

[synobal]

I think he sort of missed the part where it was spoofing the whole hentai scene, you know tentacle porn and such?

 

[Zhukov]

Fact of the matter is, there is a scene in which the player encounters naked (or near-naked) women who are bound to the walls or ceiling of an alien hive. Some of them are bound to large, obviously phallic alien growths. They make various overtly sexual moaning and sobbing sounds. Sometimes their stomachs explode and little baby aliens pour out and attack you. The only way you can interact with the women is by killing them. If you do, Duke will sometimes drop a one liner. Examples include: "Damnit, why do they always take the hot ones?" "Not even I can save you now, babe." "She wasn't human anymore."

So... is anyone here going to say that they can't see how that could be connected to rape? Seriously?

Anyone?

Personally, I didn't think too hard about it. The scene in question is a couple of hours in. By that stage the game had me bored out of my mind and I was operating entirely on autopilot.