The Fallout franchise of games take place in an alternate universe, one in which the United States totally embraced nuclear weapons and technology after winning World War 2 without ever evolving from the culture and politics of the 1950′s and post-war American life in general. 100 years into this future, nuclear war annihilates most life on earth, save for those chosen few “vault dwellers” who were invited to hide underground in corporate subsidized Fallout shelters. The central protagonist in every Fallout game tends to be of of this number, and Fallout 4 is no different. In it, you play as a man or woman with a fridged partner, a missing son and a world full of incongruously zany adventures to be had.
One thing irritates me, like a rock in my shoe, as I wander the irradiated wasteland of Boston and its encircling suburbs: if Fallout imagines a future born from the ashes of 1950’s cultural norms, where is the racism? The world your character awakens in is one that reflects a Gene Roddenberry-esque vision of utopian racial harmony. Not to say there isn’t plenty of oppression visited upon the last dregs of humanity. It’s just that whether from roving bands of bloodthirsty outlaws, or slavers, or mafia-like crime lords it is visited in an entirely colorblind way. Slave camps (which appear in much of the series), a relic of America’s ugly historical relationship with its black population, are populated with people of every race and gender. And the roster of villains themselves are as diverse as a Benetton catalogue. It’s a world where race is relegated to the realm of phenotypic distinction, down to the roll of the dice, emptied of social significance. …continue reading on Medium