In a stunning piece of irony, Fox News has "borrowed" the logo of the critically acclaimed 2013 shooter Bioshock: Infinite for a segment it calls "Defending The Homeland."
If you don't know what Bioshock: Infinite is all about, the game is essentially about the dangers of nationalism taken to the extreme. The main villain, Zachary Comstock, creates a floating city that is his ideal version of what America should be. Citizens worship the founding fathers, immigrants are banned from entering and celebrations culminate in the stoning of interracial couples. It can basically be boiled down to a story about the dangers of founding father worship, xenophobia, nationalism and racism.
What makes the use of the Bioshock: Infinite logo so beautifully ironic is that it was used in an interview with Republican and Texas Governor Rick Perry in a segment about immigration problems. Anyone who has played the game should be fully aware of why this is so ironic.
Fox News is using a logo for a game that speaks about the dangers of letting xenophobia and nationalism run rampant in a segment about "Defending The Homeland" from illegal immigrants. There is likely a Bioshock fan in the Fox News graphic department somewhere. That fact isn't missed on Bioshock creator Ken Levine.
"It's irony," Levine tweeted out when asked about it by a fan. "It's not the irony of that Fox News thing that bothers me so much. It's the typesetting.," he then quipped.
What's worse is that this isn't the first time conservative leaning groups have used imagery from the game in all seriousness. Last year a Tea Party Facebook group used an image of a mural from the game featuring George Washington holding the Ten Commandments and the Liberty Bell with the words "It is our holy duty to guard against the foreign hordes" underneath as racist depictions of foreigners look up to Washington in despair.
The image is supposed to invoke repulsion from players of the game with its blatant racism and xenophobia, but the Tea Party group held the image as a kind of an ideal the group looked up to. Players of Bioshock: Infinite were quick to point out the irony and the page took down the image.
