The American Social Metaphor Of "Grand Theft Auto V" History

The American Social Metaphor Of 

"Grand Theft Auto V" History

Left Wing vs Right Wing

While satirizing capitalists, GTA5 strongly criticized right-wing conservatism, which was reflected in the animated short films broadcast by the TV stations in the game. For example, the short film "Moorehead Strikes Again" takes the perspective of a private investigator who integrates machismo, racism, and conservatism to review how McCarthyism swept the United States in the 1950s. In this political turmoil, the extreme right forces have overshadowed the sky and persecuted the American leftist civil rights activists, union members, Hollywood playwrights and directors. Tens of millions of Americans have been subject to political censorship, and a large number of innocent people have been politically persecuted, and even lost their jobs and imprisoned them. In the short film "Kung Fu Rainbow Laser Team", a superpower team composed of five high school students, led by a teacher who denies that he is homosexual and ethical, opposes multiculturalism, defends Christian doctrines, opposes premarital sex, and defends elites. Ism, and use violence to exclude dissidents.

 

However, GTA5 is not one-sided support for left-wing liberalism, and game makers have also made a bitter satire on some extreme left-wing ideas. Among them, the animated short film "Incompetent Rage Man" is the most representative. The protagonist, Furious, is a left-wing liberal defender who hates evil and hates. He is generous, not close to women, fights for the rights of disadvantaged groups, and is committed to environmental protection. However, he always succeeded less than failed. For example, in order to help workers protesting against long working hours and low wages, he directly killed entrepreneurs, causing all workers to lose their jobs; environmentalists protested against gas company hydraulic fracturing mining, and furious people mistakenly thought they were against homosexuality The group kicked the protesters out of the earth. The villain Uberman in the play represents the right-wing conservative forces. He does not consider sustainable development, uses fossil fuels, and refuses to be vegetarian, but he can always defeat the furious.

 

GTA5 also used the campaign slogan of the governor candidate Sue Moli in the game to ironic the unrealistic utopian ideas of some left-wing liberals, extreme environmentalists, and feminists. For example:??

 

Children are our future, but half of them are in prison. Let us close the prison.

 

The sale of gasoline and cars is prohibited.

 

Ban all guns and replace knives with plastic spoons...

 

In addition, GTA5 also expressed its disgust for groups and individuals that profit under the guise of left-wing liberalism. The Hammerstein & Faust law firm advertisement in the game satirizes some lawyers in the name of protecting workers' rights, using political correctness to play litigation games, encouraging the idea of ​​getting nothing for nothing, and seriously damaging the rights of employers/entrepreneurs.

 

Joking About History And Politics

 

GTA5 hides the criticism of history and politics in a shooting game called "Justice Butcher 7: Modern Art of Killing" that made Mike's otaku son Jimmy extremely addicted. For example, the mission description of the first level of the game: "Polar Pranks: Use drones to kill the Eskimos and burn their igloos! Let them go to hell!", criticizing European colonists for slaughtering North America and natives and plundering land ; The third level: "Rainforest Annihilation War: A primitive tribe holds the secret to solve the American energy crisis-there is oil under their land! The seventh level: "Landing in Cuba: John F. Kennedy and Castro, armed with nuclear weapons and a large group of attendants, merged on the moon," alluding to the Cold War that lasted for half a century caused by the US-Soviet hegemony after World War II. This arrangement also cleverly alluded to the "Call of Duty" series of games in the real world, implying that such games are not only easy to indulge young people, but also lack depth, entertain history, and make people forget the cruelty of war.

 

A task in GTA5 called "According to the Rules" is the highlight of criticizing current affairs. In this task, FIB agent Steve coerced Trevor to torture an innocent Azerbaijani worker Ferdinand. Trevor tortured him with beatings, electric shocks, tooth extractions, and water injections to obtain information about terrorists hiding in Los Santos. After the terrorist was successfully assassinated, Steve ordered Trevor to kill and kill Ferdinand. Unexpectedly, the murderous violent Trevor chose to release Ferdinand privately, and expressed to him that he did not approve of the government's use of torture to interrogate prisoners and obtain information. In 2003, the media exposed the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by the US military, which aroused worldwide attention. A year later, another prisoner abuse scandal broke out in the US military prison in Guantanamo, and the US Department of Defense publicly defended the abuse. The GTA5 production team clearly opposed the US government’s torture of prisoners to extract confessions. They chose to use a special way to show players the cruelty and horror of torture and condemn the abuse of prisoners. Anti-violence in crime-themed games and fighting drugs with drugs, GTA5 can be said to have created a precedent in the game industry.

 

In addition, GTA5 also showed disappointment and helplessness in the multi-party democratic election system through some details. For example, the graffiti "It’s useless to vote for anyone" downstairs in an apartment implies that the result of a democratic election system is that the two parties take turns to sit in the office. The politicians in power only care about their official career and interests, and they don’t care about the suffering of the people. They will not. It is also unable to solve the various social problems in the United States; the Stars and Stripes graffiti hidden on the side of the highway, "This thing is broken, can I return it?".

 

Campaign advertisements on TV and radio satirize hypocritical politicians, who write empty checks to the people, but fail to honor their promises after being elected, and even help the rich and powerful to exploit the poor. Among them, the Su Mori campaign advertisement is quite interesting: "I used to be a primary school teacher...I know how to use the academic language of the third grade to educate a group of excited idiots condescendingly and get the results I want. I have the ability to execute, I will make sure that 1% (of people) take care of the rest with due diligence-get what you deserve from people who work hard." The 1% mentioned in this campaign advertisement is based on the 2011 American Occupy Wall Street Movement The famous slogan shouted by the Chinese protesters: “We represent 99% of society, and we no longer tolerate the 1% greed and corruption.” In this “Occupy Movement” that lasted more than two months, tens of thousands of Americans People marched to Wall Street in the financial center of New York to protest against the greed of banks and capitalists, money politics, and many social injustices. Similar protests have swept more than 120 cities in the United States and spread all over the world. The New York police imposed a forced clearance of Wall Street on November 15, 2011, and the campaign has failed.

Ironically, the graffiti and campaign advertisements in GTA 5 accurately predict the fact that the United States is difficult to control the widening gap between rich and poor. The vigorous Occupy Wall Street movement has not changed American society. In May 2018, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Philip released a report stating that the United States has become the Western country with the worst polarization between rich and poor. In 2016, the wealthiest people, who accounted for 1% of the total population, owned 38.6% of the country's wealth, while the total wealth and income levels of ordinary people continued to decline.

To Be Continued...

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