"Portal 2" Video Game's Adoption Jokes
Oct. 1st, 2012 08:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
7rinFrom Adoptive Families Circle
Are you familiar with the Portal video games? You play as a a character, Chell, and solve various puzzles as you progress through the levels. As you work on the puzzles, you are challenged by an artificial intelligence character, GLaDOS.
Portal was released in 2007, and Portal 2 in 2011. In the original, it was told in Chell’s backstory that he was adopted.
While playing Portal 2, an adoptive father was shocked to hear two characters teasing Chell about being adopted.
An online character Wheatley says, “Alright, fatty. Adopted fatty. Fatty, fatty, no parents,” which GLaDOS follows up on by whispering to Chell, “For the record, you are adopted, and that’s terrible, but just stick with me.” Click the above link to see this footage from the game.
The father, Neal Stapel, was playing the game with his 10 year-old daughter, adopted from China. Luckily, she didn’t seem to have fully heard this conversation. Her father however was very upset by the character’s conversation.
He is unsure what to do about it. He and his daughter still play the game, but just avoid the level where the adoption teasing took place. He did alert the local media about this part of the game in hopes that other adoptive families don’t have to hear the game’s adoption “jokes.”
What’s your reaction to this?
What do you think should be done?
If you, or your child, has played the game, did you hear these adoption “jokes”?
Why do you think this is acceptable by the makers of this game, which is made to be played by children?
Are you familiar with the Portal video games? You play as a a character, Chell, and solve various puzzles as you progress through the levels. As you work on the puzzles, you are challenged by an artificial intelligence character, GLaDOS.
Portal was released in 2007, and Portal 2 in 2011. In the original, it was told in Chell’s backstory that he was adopted.
While playing Portal 2, an adoptive father was shocked to hear two characters teasing Chell about being adopted.
An online character Wheatley says, “Alright, fatty. Adopted fatty. Fatty, fatty, no parents,” which GLaDOS follows up on by whispering to Chell, “For the record, you are adopted, and that’s terrible, but just stick with me.” Click the above link to see this footage from the game.
The father, Neal Stapel, was playing the game with his 10 year-old daughter, adopted from China. Luckily, she didn’t seem to have fully heard this conversation. Her father however was very upset by the character’s conversation.
He is unsure what to do about it. He and his daughter still play the game, but just avoid the level where the adoption teasing took place. He did alert the local media about this part of the game in hopes that other adoptive families don’t have to hear the game’s adoption “jokes.”
What’s your reaction to this?
What do you think should be done?
If you, or your child, has played the game, did you hear these adoption “jokes”?
Why do you think this is acceptable by the makers of this game, which is made to be played by children?