The Anti-Woke Right Can’t Figure Out How to Stop ‘Grand Theft Auto VI’

反“觉醒”右翼势力无法阻止《侠盗猎车手6》

Rockstar Games’ best-selling Grand Theft Auto series wasn’t often accused of political sensitivity during its legendary run from the late 1990s through the early 2010s. 在从 20 世纪 90 年代末到 21 世纪 10 年代初的传奇历程中，Rockstar Games 最畅销的《侠盗猎车手》（GTA）系列很少被指责为具有政治敏感性。

In fact, parents and activists denounced the franchise for exposing children to a seedy world of sex, violence, crude humor, and wanton crime. Elon Musk even claimed that he couldn’t get into the last installment, GTA V, because he was mortified to play as a character who shoots police officers. 事实上，家长和活动人士曾谴责该系列游戏，称其让儿童接触到了充斥着性、暴力、粗俗幽默和肆意犯罪的阴暗世界。埃隆·马斯克甚至声称他无法沉浸在上一部作品《GTA V》中，因为他对自己扮演一个射杀警察的角色感到非常难堪。

But times (and moral panics) change. In the 13 years that fans have waited for Grand Theft Auto VI—finally out on November 19—the American right-wing grievance machine has drifted from fears of impressionable kids turning to a life of larceny to concerns that they will grow up “woke.” And despite knowing very little about the forthcoming game, the agitators of the latter movement have decided it must amount to a stealth campaign to poison the youth with depictions of gender equality, LGBTQ acceptance, and racial diversity. (Rockstar did not immediately return a request for comment.) 但时代（以及道德恐慌）在变。在粉丝们等待《侠盗猎车手6》（最终于 11 月 19 日发布）的 13 年里，美国右翼的怨气机器已经从担心易受影响的孩子走上盗窃之路，转向了担心他们长大后变得“觉醒”（woke）。尽管对即将推出的游戏知之甚少，但后者的煽动者们已经认定，这必然是一场通过描绘性别平等、LGBTQ 接纳和种族多样性来毒害青少年的隐秘运动。（Rockstar 未能立即回复置评请求。）

Since the height of Gamergate in 2014, an angst-ridden subset of male gamers have maintained a paranoid vigil against what they see as the creeping influence of women and LGBTQ developers in the gaming world. Between the feverish anticipation for GTA VI and the various delays of its release date, they’ve had ample opportunity to foment a preemptive backlash to what is sure to be a massive hit, not unlike the failed furor over supposedly “woke” elements of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. 自 2014 年“玩家门”（Gamergate）事件达到顶峰以来，一部分充满焦虑的男性玩家一直对他们眼中女性和 LGBTQ 开发者在游戏界日益增长的影响力保持着偏执的警惕。在对《GTA 6》的狂热期待和多次延期发布之间，他们有充足的机会对这部注定会大获成功的作品煽动先发制人的抵制，这与此前针对克里斯托弗·诺兰《奥德赛》中所谓“觉醒”元素的失败抗议如出一辙。

“GTA 6 is a humiliation ritual for all male gamers,” an X user with the handle @Wokenessisevil complained on Tuesday, sharing a clip of the game’s two lead characters, Lucia Caminos and Jason Duval, who are in a relationship that evolves based on the player’s choices. In the scene, Lucia, the series’ first mandatory female protagonist, asks Jason to pick an outfit for her and expresses mild annoyance when he seems more or less indifferent to the options she presents. “《GTA 6》是对所有男性玩家的羞辱仪式，”一位名为 @Wokenessisevil 的 X 用户周二抱怨道，并分享了该游戏两位主角露西亚·卡米诺斯（Lucia Caminos）和杰森·杜瓦尔（Jason Duval）的片段，两人的关系会根据玩家的选择而发展。在这一场景中，该系列首位强制性女性主角露西亚让杰森为她挑选一套服装，当杰森对她展示的选项表现得漠不关心时，她表达了轻微的恼火。

It’s an exchange that could have been lifted from any sitcom of the past 50 years, yet it seems to have fueled a reactionary narrative about the game’s male protagonist being subjugated to a nefarious feminist agenda. Another X user recently claimed, contrary to the clip’s bog-standard depiction of a heterosexual couple, that Jason has a “gay vibe,” since no straight man would know what sequins are or use the word “cocktails,” as he does in the clip. 这段对话完全可以出自过去 50 年里的任何一部情景喜剧，但它似乎助长了一种反动叙事，即游戏的男性主角正屈服于邪恶的女权主义议程。另一位 X 用户最近声称，尽管片段中对异性恋情侣的描绘非常普通，但杰森有一种“同性恋气质”，因为没有直男会知道什么是亮片，也不会像他在片段中那样使用“鸡尾酒”这个词。

“The script is definitely written by a woman who has no clue what a man thinks or how he talks,” they wrote. “Jason is written as a caricature, much like what a delusional woman thinks a ‘man’ should be.” “剧本绝对是一个根本不知道男人怎么想、怎么说话的女人写的，”他们写道。“杰森被写成了一个漫画式的人物，就像一个妄想症女人认为‘男人’应该有的样子。”

Similarly, a gaming YouTuber seethed that Rockstar was appealing to women and gay men by showing Jason shirtless in another scene. “Gone are the days of edgy based masculine GTA games,” he wrote on X. “I could be wrong but right now it’s looking like it will be a woke fest.” 同样，一位游戏 YouTuber 愤怒地表示，Rockstar 通过在另一个场景中展示杰森赤裸上身来迎合女性和男同性恋者。“那种前卫、硬核、阳刚的 GTA 游戏时代一去不复返了，”他在 X 上写道。“我可能是错的，但目前看来这会是一场‘觉醒’狂欢。”

While multiple leaks and a 27-minute “extended look” preview on Netflix have revealed key details of the game, and Rockstar creatives declared their intent to realistically portray the diversity of the Miami-inspired setting and bring a fleshed-out female character into the spotlight, would-be detractors are still straining a bit for reasons to pronounce it dead on arrival. One YouTuber has convinced himself that it will subliminally brainwash players with “bisexual lighting.” 尽管多次泄密和 Netflix 上 27 分钟的“加长版”预告片已经揭示了游戏的关键细节，且 Rockstar 的创意人员也声明了他们旨在真实描绘迈阿密风格背景的多样性，并将一个丰满的女性角色推向聚光灯下的意图，但潜在的批评者们仍在绞尽脑汁寻找理由来宣判该游戏“出师未捷身先死”。一位 YouTuber 甚至说服自己，游戏会通过“双性恋灯光”（bisexual lighting）对玩家进行潜意识洗脑。

Other men have simply defaulted to rank sexism, griping that Lucia’s breasts are too small because of “they/thems” working at Rockstar or posting jokes such as: “female lead in GTA 6? i thought the whole point of GTA was to be able to drive.” An AI enthusiast used an image generator to replace a woman of color in a crop top on the game’s cover with a white blonde in a bikini. 其他男性则直接诉诸赤裸裸的性别歧视，抱怨露西亚的胸部太小是因为 Rockstar 雇佣了“非二元性别者”（they/thems），或者发布诸如“《GTA 6》有女主角？我以为 GTA 的全部意义在于能开车”之类的笑话。一位人工智能爱好者使用图像生成器，将游戏封面上穿着露脐上衣的有色人种女性替换成了一位穿着比基尼的白人金发女郎。

While each new snippet of content has become grist for more manufactured outrage, the tantrums over the ideological trajectory of GTA began long ago. In 2022, for its remastered version of GTA V, Rockstar removed a number of gags and non-playable characters that critics had described as transphobic, leading to complaints from some fans. 虽然每一段新的内容片段都成为了制造更多愤怒的素材，但围绕 GTA 意识形态轨迹的闹剧早在很久以前就开始了。2022 年，在《GTA V》的重制版中，Rockstar 删除了许多被批评者描述为恐跨的笑话和非玩家角色，这引起了一些粉丝的不满。

The following year, after the game publisher released a trailer for GTA VI, trolls floated the groundless theory that the Lucia character was a transgender woman. Last month, when former video game executive Mark Kern, known for his crusades against “woke” content, deemed Lucia attractive, his followers disagreed in openly racist and misogynistic replies. 次年，在该游戏发行商发布《GTA 6》预告片后，网络喷子们散布了露西亚是跨性别女性的毫无根据的理论。上个月，当以反对“觉醒”内容而闻名的前游戏高管马克·克恩（Mark Kern）认为露西亚很有魅力时，他的追随者们在回复中表达了公开的种族主义和厌女情绪，对此表示反对。

Much of this ire is aimed directly at the Rockstar team, who have been blasted for allegedly embracing “identity politics,” reportedly making efforts to avoid punching down against marginalized groups in the game’s storyline, and allowing women to contribute in any way to the franchise. A photo of female staff at the company’s studio in Scotland, shared on social media in 2019 to commemorate International Women’s Day, has circulated widely with sneering comments about how they likely ruined GTA VI. 这种愤怒大部分直接指向 Rockstar 团队，他们因被指拥抱“身份政治”、据称在游戏剧情中努力避免攻击边缘群体，以及允许女性以任何方式为该系列做出贡献而遭到抨击。2019 年为纪念国际妇女节而在社交媒体上分享的一张该公司苏格兰工作室女性员工的照片，被广泛传播，并附带了关于她们可能毁了《GTA 6》的嘲讽评论。

Yet a few prominent streamers on the right, including Zack Hoyt (better known as Asmongold) and white nationalist Nick Fuentes, have taken a wait-and-see approach, declining to bash the game before checking it out for themselves. Fuentes went so far as to mock those bemoaning its creative direction. “Just go outside, touch grass,” he told one viewer who brought up the topic in his live chat. 然而，一些右翼的知名主播，包括扎克·霍伊特（Zack Hoyt，更广为人知的名字是 Asmongold）和白人民族主义者尼克·富恩特斯（Nick Fuentes），采取了观望态度，拒绝在亲自体验之前抨击这款游戏。富恩特斯甚至嘲笑了那些哀叹其创作方向的人。“出去走走，接触一下大自然吧，”他在直播聊天中对一位提出这个话题的观众说。

If any of these gamers entertain fantasies of an actual boycott or commercial failure, they are bound to be disappointed. According to one estimate of preorders from a third-party data analytics firm, Rockstar has already sold 5.28 million copies of GTA VI, taking in more than $500 million in revenue. Though it is likely the most expensive game ever made, with a budget somewhere north of a billion dollars, the studio stands to easily recoup that cost, possibly by the day it comes out. 如果这些玩家中有人幻想真正的抵制或商业失败，他们注定会失望。根据一家第三方数据分析公司的预购估算，Rockstar 已经售出了 528 万份《GTA 6》，收入超过 5 亿美元。尽管这很可能是史上制作成本最高的游戏，预算超过 10 亿美元，但该工作室很可能会轻松收回成本，甚至可能在游戏发布当天就能实现。

That might call for a moment of reflection from the culture warriors—or so you’d… 这或许会让那些文化斗士们进行片刻的反思——或者你本以为……