Yeah, but you realize we don’t apply this logic to other media? I mean Gone With the Wind is pretty racist, but was acceptable for the time, if I go out and buy a DVD of Gone with the wind, it’s going to be the same movie released ages ago, just in some better quality. Same if I look it up on a streaming service or if I buy it on Blu-ray.
I mean if you were remaking Gone With the Wind or Metal Gear Solid then yeah, sure you would probably update elements of it. Kind of like how the modern remake of Birth of a Nation, does not side with the clan, but if I go out and watch the original on a screaming service, it’s still going to be the same fucked up KKK propaganda bullshit.
But for some reason, we feel the need to censor video game re-releases, sometimes not even re-release it, look at Undead and undressed or skullgirls, games that existed for over a decade without controversy, suddenly getting a patch out of nowhere that sensors content to be compatible with today’s sensibilities. Causing fans to be distressed by the fact that the product they paid for is no longer the product they have, and it wasn’t as if you had a new influx of players fully embracing the fact they can now play a version of Skullgirls with weaker Illusions to police brutality or version of Undead and undressed that doesn’t use the word trap.
An argument could also be made that, we cannot get a more Progressive Society if we keep censoring the artwork of the past. After all you can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you have been, by pretending that the world is always been this inoffensive Bastion of Tolerance, we actually damage future progress that we could make towards a brighter tomorrow. We should be able to look at old media, and take note of what no longer flies and why these things were problematic.
Because if I’m watching a version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show that doesn’t have the song about being a Sweet Transvestite from transsexual transylvania, then I’m not watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show.