this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2026
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[–] MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world 5 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I don't get why it's always assumed that a particular character is intended to represent an entire gender or race.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 6 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

One of the ones I remember the most is in the original COD4: Modern Warfare. A blog highlighted so savagely the fact that your squad is sent down to rescue a female chopper pilot who's been downed and wounded. Then, a nuke goes off, killing everyone, suggesting they could have gotten out of the blast radius if they didn't save her - meaning a woman in distress was the death of the whole squad. The blog lambasted Infinity Ward for giving such a horrible treatment to the game's only major female character.

Of course, that's a relatively disingenuous interpretation. That same mission has you rescuing whole squads of pinned soldiers moments before (all men). The chopper pilot gets her great moments of heroism in the process. And it's very likely the writers intended for the squad to be killed by a nuke no matter what happens.

And there have probably been COD games out there with NO notable women in them. So somehow, the move to include one in this particular game struck them as worse than if they'd done nothing at all.

[–] MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

That's crazy. She was a woman combat helicopter pilot? That sounds pretty bad-ass to me. I don't see how that's "horrible treatment".

[–] technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

COD is disgusting imperial propaganda. Absolutely zero surprise that it's also misogynist.

[–] MiddleAgesModem@lemmy.world 4 points 2 hours ago

I think his point was that it WASN'T misogynist. The character is a combat helicopter pilot. That means she's intelligent, highly trained and skilled and of course brave. Those are bad things?

The fact that she was shot down doesn't reflect on her gender, it could happen to any pilot in that situation. It's war, it's inherently dangerous.