EP 220: Bioshocked: Part III, Bad Rep, No Depth: Exploring the subtle racism of the Bioshock Franchise

Bioshock had many problems when it came to portraying several groups. Here’s what co-hosts Tete DePunk and Fortunus Games both noticed when playing the games and watching others’ gameplay videos.

• Many fans will argue that the racist depictions, such as the Rapture vending machines, like El Bandito, are products of their time. The disturbing caricatures featured heavily in Columbian propaganda are also attributed, sadly, to real-life media depictions throughout American art and entertainment. However, how can we explain the stereotypes of characters such as Grace Holloway? 

• Why is Charles Milton Porter racist to you?

• Why is Daisy Fitzroy from Bioshock Infinite problematic?

• Why do you think a wildly outrageous and offensive racial caricature of “Yellow Peril” such Dr. Yi Suchong would be greenlighted in a work that came out in 2007? Even Burial at Sea, released in 2013, repeated this offensive depiction of the infamous Dr. Suchong. What does this say about the franchise’s treatment of characters who are Eastern Asian? 

• Dealing with a more evasive topic- characters such Tennebaum and Dr. Steinman appears borderline anti-Semitic. Yet the franchise’s creator, Ken Levine, reportedly draws from his Jewish-American upbringing. Would these depictions of stereotypes be seen as inverted through a self-critique, or viewed, upon closer inspection, as internalized racism?