Dear WarGirlGames

I am asking WarGirlGames a question about their planned release, My Little Dictator. Since KickStarter doesn't allow open comments on projects without pledging money, in case the creator chooses not to answer it publicly I'm also posting it here. I see Nazi imagery used so frequently in the games and comic industry and I'm just so tired of ignoring it, so, yes, I get angry. Who wouldn't?

Dear WarGirlGames,

I was wondering what possibly possessed you to think that this project could be okay.

Not only, in cutesy-fying the image of brutal dictators, are you disrespecting the people that are still alive today who suffered directly at their hands, you're disrespecting the people who continue to suffer from the repercussions. People are still hurting, you wally, you just utter tub of mindless consumerist nonsense, they're hurting from knowing their entire families were eradicated. There are over two MILLION PEOPLE DEAD that we have NO IDEA WHO THEY ARE BECAUSE THEIR ENTIRE COMMUNITY WAS WIPED OUT SO EFFICIENTLY. And that's just that died at Hitler's hand, not counting the death tole under Stalin. People are still getting killed because of the political agenda these dictators that you are so set on banging, people still get yelled things in the street and written on their doors and on their GRAVES. This isn't something that is dying out, this is something that is getting a terrible, awful resurgence.

Maybe that's it. Maybe you're so wrapped up in making this about you- about re-servicing events so they fufill YOUR needs that you just aren't thinking. People are still alive and shouting about the holocaust being a lie, or it not being a big deal, or people needing to get over it already. This isn't the fall of Rome you're talking about! I'm trying to think the best of you- that you're not doing this on purpose to intentionally soften the image of fascists, that you're just some misguided incompetent designer, and the only explanation for such a massive dick move as this is that you just don't realise that WWII wasn't some hot event where people wore hot costumes and had banter and it was fine. I'm trying to think the best of you but the more I see of your project the harder it is, I mean, so much time had to pass, you've had to have these ideas for so many hours for them to come to this level of completion that I just have to believe you understand but are actively ignoring the repercussion of your actions.

And now let's sit back and have a bit of a think about these characters you've created. Teenagers! And let's be honest, mate, we both know these are young looking teenagers. You want to know how hard it is to be a fourteen year old girl in our shitty world right now? Go onto any porn site and see how hard you have to look for a 'teenage' category. Look at the way models and their youth are presented. Then have a listen to all the things they're being told not to be. Being a teenage girl is hard and dangerous but what is apparently more important in your mind is that they live up to being some cute little persona that you can get your rocks off to.

Yeah, I know you're allowed to do this project, and people are probably going to give you money, but I'm also allowed to call you and massive fucking clod for doing it. You could have created anything, and this is what you chose to create, and I'm asking you why.

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The creator responded.

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I've answered messages like this before when I first announced I was starting this project, so I'm just going to reiterate what I said then:

I'm very aware some people may be offended by this. I'm very aware that, for some people, WW2 is still a hot-button topic. And I'm very very aware of many of the tragic things that went on in those dark days. Yet I'm still making the game. And you want to know 'why'? Simply put, because I want to.

People get offended by things every day. It's not my job to pussyfoot around people that don't like what I do. It's my job to try to create entertaining products for people. I'm a writer and a designer - I'm interested in catharsis for my readers and a nice aesthetic. I don't necessarily want to hurt people but I'm also entitled to my freedom of expression, and I'm going to exercise that right as much as I wish. What may offend one person may be entertainment for another. I'm not too interested in expressing a political view or anything of the sort, I'm just trying to make a fun game.

You point out the Fall of Rome. A long and convoluted period in history but let's just roll with it. Because of the gap in time between those events and your own birth, you don't rate the deaths, the symbolism, the feelings of the people or the atrocities that occurred. That gap in history is enough for you to not feel bad about media that depicts it. The Napoleonic Wars are just far back enough for people to not feel bad about their depiction in videogames. Think about how some people must have felt about Blackadder Goes Forth when it first went out, since veterans were still alive. But it's entertaining. People still like it. The holocaust won't be a point of satire or joyous entertainment for quite some time (although I do like Life Is Beautiful). But this game isn't about the holocaust. This game isn't about the gulag system. It's about teenage girls put into ridiculous positions as leaders. It's about going on dates whilst also having to win battles.

"But this is History. Distance yourselves. Our perspective on the past alters. Looking back, immediately in front of us is dead ground. We don't see it, and because we don't see it this means that there is no period so remote as the recent past. And one of the historian's jobs is to anticipate what our perspective of that period will be... even on the Holocaust." - The History Boys, Alan Bennett

And being able to laugh, to have fun, to bring down bad figures like Hitler and Stalin to the audience's level, is the best way to discredit their memory. What is offensive to some, is humor to others. How do you think the dictators themselves would feel about being depicted as young girls that can be romanced by the reader? I'm pretty certain I'm not aiding any movements with such a depiction.

"I was never crazy about Hitler...If you stand on a soapbox and trade rhetoric with a dictator you never win...That's what they do so well: they seduce people. But if you ridicule them, bring them down with laughter, they can't win. You show how crazy they are." - Mel Brooks.

Just one or two links, since I'm certain people also find them offensive. But people also find them entertaining.

Springtime for Hitler:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCUfkMkVbwo

Heil Honey, I'm Home:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWjCkcAmzDc

My main point overall is that it's not my job to determine what is and isn't acceptable to people. It's my job to make games. And this is one I decided to roll with. Whether or not people like it, we'll wait and see.

I'm certain you'll still think I'm wrong for doing this, and you're entitled to feel however you want about this. There was no need for you to swear or question my intelligence, upset as you may have been. I hope that answers your queries.

Regards
DesertFox

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So, of course, I responded.

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Of course you're entitled to do what you want in accordance with the law, I made that fairly clear. What's made me contact you is the fact that you are part of a larger trend within the entertainment industries of making 'cutesy' Hitler references, and if I can get one person to contribute less to the fact I cannot take my friends and family to the industry conventions where my work is sold because I can't explain why people think it's fine to make or dress as characters based off of a man who killed entire branches of their loved ones. Men, women and children with mundane and exciting lives and dreams and hates. Not just a statistic that you learnt in school or from the Daily Mail, real, actual people, who are gone. I suppose, even though I know I cannot physically stop you from creating this kind of content, I hope I can get you to learn a little basic human empathy and think about why it is you believe your cribbed work matters more then not being a dick.

In fairness to me in regards to questioning your intelligence, I tried incredibly hard to think of ways that meant you weren't being an idiot, but unfortunately it came down to either thinking that you were stupid or thinking that you were being an awful person on purpose, and I honestly think that my first assumption was the better one (even though it apparently didn't turn out to be true. Congratulations! You aren't unaware, you are actually just terrible).

Your intent means diddly squat, unfortunately. You may not mean to hurt 'some' people (yours and my view of some seemingly to differ wildly; mine is a couple here or there rather then the millions of genocide survivors and their children who you refer to, not counting the around twenty major fascist neo-Nazi organisations active in the U.K currently) but you are. You may not mean to make a political view, but you are absolutely doing that. Is it just too much to ask you to think about what you create?

I'm pretty amazed that you can possibly think you and Mel Brooks compare, it's apples and oranges here. Mel Brooks was a Jewish man who saw WWII first hand making absurdist comedy, you're a guy who is trying to make a game where you try not to pop a cheeky boner to a borderline under-age representation of what is apparently your favourite fascist dictator. And Blackadder Goes Fourth! Good grief, it's bordering on delusional. Political satire isn't making something soft and cute and consumable, it's mocking it, it's making it stupid, it's taking the fear away from them. Brooks and Atkinson weren't making their work because they 'liked the aesthetic' of the period, they aren't creating work detached from the subject matter and they aren't trying to make likeable, cute little dictators. I have no idea what it would take to get this through to you.

(So I guess we're not going to talk about the negative consequences of your representation of teenage girls then. Wouldn't want to get real human feelings in the way of your good time?)

There are plenty of ways you could've taken on this subject matter without using WWII references. Look at Long Live the Queen, a game which if you haven't played I absolutely recommend for its ability to be a sweet, Japanese inspired little game about a kid going on dates and running a country while also acknowledging how totally messed up that is. It also references fascism in a way that doesn't hurt people!

I think this is just a terrible situation where the most realistic thing here I can hope for is that it turns out that you're just a headstrong, confused 19 year old and in five years you're going to look back on this failed project as a more loving person and cringe.