This weekend, I heard probably one of the dumbest things of the year. But these people are mad for all the wrong reasons:
People are outraged that there are female characters playable in the upcoming WWII CoD game.
Yup, you heard it. WOMENZ IN UR WWII GAEMEZ. Blasphemy! Outrage! Despair! Woe and shame unto the Call of Duty franchise! How dare they!? Oh, wait. There totally were women who served in World War II all across the world. In fact, World War II was the first war that women served in an official capacity, despite having been a part of every battle since the Revolution. I keep forgetting that people don’t pay attention to history, or the world around them. So, that’s the current thing people are kvetching about, and I frankly don’t understand why. It’s not that shocking that someone would loudly whine on Twitter, or other social media though. I recall when the main character on the Battlefield 1 box was revealed, there was quite the uproar. This one’s going to be brief, but I could not believe it. The idea is that ordinary men and women banded together to save their homelands, fighting for a common cause. Were the combatants overwhelmingly white men? Sure. A “band of brothers” if you will. But does that mean they can’t highlight women or men of color who also fought in World War II? It’s very much a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario because nobody can be happy and nobody can be satiated.
I frankly don’t see the big damn deal. Do I feel that “diversity for the sake of diversity” can be taken too far? Sure. When there are “token” characters shoehorned into a spot for the sake of creating diversity that was not there before, or not so much of it, what do we do? Who is to blame here? I’m not really sure where I stand on it, but I do know that adding female soldiers to the newest Call of Duty game is not such a big deal to me. There were female combatants in World War II; honest and for real. I think people that are complaining, are complaining about the wrong thing. They shouldn’t be bitching about women in the game, but perhaps people creating a “diversity checklist” to make sure everyone is included. If you want a historically accurate war simulation, you may not always have a diverse cast. That’s… that’s just how it is. I am in no way saying “Hey! Don’t put those people in those roles!” because that’s absurd. If historically they were not there, there’s no need to add them. Historical fiction is a whole different kettle of fish; do whatever, there! That’s terrific! However, if this is supposed to be a work that accurately recreates the lives and times of people in WWII, I want it to be accurate. Don’t shoehorn crap in to make me feel things that didn’t actually happen.
That said, I still am pretty excited for the game. It’s been a while since we’ve had a real, quality, current gen WWII shooter to play. And I’m a bit tired of the wannabe-Halo CoD games.
