Exploitation and Rapture, how Bioshock Represents Capitalists and Workers
The value I find in the once heralded Citizen Kane of Video Games is tasteless, reflexive catharsis. There’s a special kind of thrill in gunning down the fictional racists and bigots of Bioshock Infinite’s grotesque American theme park of Columbia. Though none of their lampooned hatred is specifically directed at me or trans women in general, “they’re still bigots and racists” my horrible mind goes, “surely if they’re most probably also transphobic”. This is my quick, cheap, and problematic stand-in for the trans revenge B movie I most certainly need. Inglorious Sisters, Trans Lady Vengeance, etc. But Infinite is lengthy for a shooter, and the rickety framework that upholds my enjoyment is far from watertight. For starters, the game punches both up and down with astounding carelessness, it’s a game overtly hostile to both the evil cartoon racists and the “bloodthirsty” revolutionaries who oppose their systemic oppression. The only mode of player interaction is “extraverted”, hatred of Comstock, hatred of Fitzroy. Infinite indulges in the slaughter of racists and revolutionaries alike, resulting in precious little time for meaningful “introverted” reflection because Booker ultimately stands for so little. Conversely, the original Bioshock is drowned in the tragedy and disappointment of the city’s many poor denizens as well as its structural and ideological architects. From the game’s many audio diaries to Rapture’s very infrastructure, disillusion and despair in Bioshock is all-encompassing. An ocean unto itself. It forces players to reckon with Rapture as an idealistic scam, those poignant feelings of heartache after the burn are magnified by unrestrained exploitation and violence.
“Ryan frees us from the phony ethics that held us back. Change your look, change your sex, change your race. It’s yours to change, nobody else’s…”
Ryan’s pitch is a beautiful lie, those promises of choice and autonomy, while preached with the veracity of a believer, are ultimately a ploy for unrestrained exploitation. Rapture is Ryan’s toy house, an ill-considered meritocratic wonderland which propagates its own familiar social strata. Though Bioshock doesn’t acknowledge the social biases that influence the decision process regarding immigration into Rapture, it’s fair to say that ideology wasn’t the only factor considered, subconscious or otherwise. The persistence of “topside” systemic and social biases is implicit, though evident, in the game’s presentation of the racial and gender dynamics. Women are, despite Rapture “egalitarian” structure, expected to wear dresses and work within gender-coded occupations, ensuring that men are the game’s predominant businessmen and workers. Marketing for cosmetic plastic surgery is heavily gendered in Rapture’s medical wing, while black men like Charles Milton Porter are asked why they don’t “splice white”. Even gendered violence exists in Rapture — players witness an attempt at rape in Bioshock 2, while Ryan himself has murdered a woman to protect himself. How those “old biases” surface in the depths of Rapture is only textually addressed in Bioshock 2, when the jazz singer-turned governor, Grace Holloway, claims that prejudice in Rapture became overt when they city went to hell. But, then again, the Rapture elite is predominantly white.
Regardless of intent, class, race, gender, and authority have always persisted in Ryan’s city. The poor and marginalized citizens become confined to the Rapture’s slums and forced to bargain their well-being in exchange for whatever passes for survival. Players become steeped in the suffering of these people: human experimentation under the knife of J.S. Steinmen, forced conversion of Little Sisters, even inaccessibility to water and oxygen. Part of Bioshock’s strength is derived from its numerous audio diaries, a gaming faux pas in 2017, that are nevertheless impacting catalogs of the disappointment and tragedy. It’s important that Bioshock allows these people to speak for themselves, to voice their disillusion and eventually decry their exploitation. These first hand accounts engender an articulate empathy for Rapture’s marginalized denizens, not only due to their immense human suffering at the hands of their oppressors, but because their stories are contextualized by the violent mode of player interaction, i.e. shooting splicers. The game, through its “extraverted” and violent gameplay, forces the “introverted” act of player reflection. Pity, disgust, even relief linger around death, but combat is never fun in Bioshock. Unlike in Infinite, there is no catharsis.
“I realized… trees… trees! Never saw one before, thought they were monsters. Oh, Sammy, maybe we never should have come to this place…”
Rapture feels like a failed model city. A grand and enticing snare, whose denizens are trapped within abhorrent living conditions and cast spitefully into into the ocean for the principles of the city’s inception. The architecture, even beyond the disrepair and leaking pipes, communicates how the city is a cheap and cruel facade by design. The grandest halls, like the mall in Fort Frolic or Rapture’s Welcome Center, look as though an occupancy of thirty is a tall order. Rapture’s claustrophobic arcades impart the designer’s climb for aesthetic heights without regard for practical considerations, resulting in impractical, oftentimes hostile conditions. Moreover, proportions between rooms and props, like beds and desks, are distended and warped, meant to trick the eye into overestimating Rapture’s shockingly limited square footage. This is most apparent in the city’s many bathysphere ports, where decorative objects that are meant to look far off are actually just smaller. Rapture feels more like an ideological diorama than a fully-equipped city. Certainly not a structure meant for thriving life. Chalk it up to the constraints of videogame development and I’d agree, but show me a husk of cityscape that betrays its cheapness in every white tile, 90° angle boxy storeroom and you’ll get me to empathize with the fictional people who live there.
Despite an expanded scope of level design and diversified artistic assets, Bioshock 2’s presentation of Rapture is coherent with the first game’s slapdash, artificial feel. Bioshock 2 is set in the city’s oldest districts, tucked below a crumbling metro system, where the black, poor, and working class citizens have been confined by the Rapture elite. Space is more open in Pauper’s Drop and Skid Row, the proportions certainly more believable, but it’s less private than its affluent counterparts in the original Bioshock. Once again the effect is cheap imitation, a cruel reminder of communal city blocks where real-world workers convene for town meetings and recreation. But unlike communes on the surface, diners and pharmacies jut out from the concrete floors like kiosks in shopping malls. Even local businesses find their niche in consumption and utility. Unlike Rapture’s upper levels, there’s no Farmer’s Market in Pauper’s Drop, a structural design which mimics the oppressive conditions of real-life food deserts. No fresh food means expensive meals, no plants means no oxygen. Precious little is free in Rapture, and the game uses these levels to communicate how and why the poor cling to Fontaine’s breadlines and Lamb’s familial embrace, unaware or uncaring of the cost. The living conditions are miserable, the infrastructure’s cheapness just another aspect of its cutthroat ideological design. Ornate Art Deco furnishings mean little when living space is so confined and segregated by class and race. Rapture may be a cartoon city with exploitative structural and social systems, but the first two Bioshocks never forgets that its inhabitants are flesh and blood replete with personal concerns, dreams, and flaws.
“You will not believe me, but there was a time when this place was all so beautiful …”
From the infrastructure to the social systems, Bioshock impresses upon players that Rapture’s majesty exists in idea only. It’s a figment of capitalist social systems that steal labor from real-life workers. While Bioshock’s representation of an exploited working class is commendable, the game’s infatuation with Ryan’s downfall is emblematic of the game’s equal parts admiration and distaste for his aspiration. In the 50 Best Games of 2007 issue of Gameinformer, Andrew Ryan was ranked as the fifth best villain of the year. A blurb underneath Ryan's picture reads “his methods and morals are highly suspect, but it’s hard to hate a guy who bucks the system and chases a dream…” Ryan’s reception and presentation flirt with the myth of a tragic, white, Icarian businessman. Wings equal parts ambition, nobility, and hubris. It’s critical to acknowledge that, existing within oppressive structures ourselves, Bioshock’s players and creators interpret and produce art submerged in the very social systems which Andrew Ryan lampoons. This is evident in both the fan reception to Ryan and, less directly, in how Bioshock Infinite claims that Comstock and Fitzroy are somehow “made for each other”. Juxtaposing Ryan’s portrayal with Daisy Fitzroy’s reveals how Infinite’s disdain for black, working class revolutionaries is immersed in similarly capitalist, racist social biases as Bioshock’s unwillingness to equate white scam artists like Frank Fontaine with white businessmen like Ryan.
Following Ryan’s story is entertaining, but the first Bioshock uses Rapture’s exploited people as a backdrop for Ryan’s story rather than to explore these peoples’ humanity under oppressive systems. Since the game presents Ryan as a figure to both disagree with and respect, it feels as though the writing fetishizes his zealous ideology just as it imbues the fiction with charisma and depth. Ryan’s failure is undeniably compelling, especially when traces of ideological doubt peak through his larger than life facade. It makes him an easy man to empathize with both because of the game’s presentation and the common real-world ideals of equality, meritocracy, and hard work which he represents — myths which are well worth criticizing.
While both games feature characters who speak against Ryan, Bioshock 2’s Grace Holloway is the most poignant reminder that Ryan is an man who climbs to the sun upon the backs of marginalized people. She’s a black jazz musician who gives a voice to the poor, but to Ryan she’s dangerous reminder that capitalism only works as intended when it exploits marginalized people. In Ryan’s mind, silencing her upholds his own social dominance. Because Bioshock 2 is set in Rapture’s working class districts ten years after Ryan’s death, the sequel does a much stronger job of demystifying Ryan’s legacy by emphasizing diverse perspectives from the city’s disenfranchised skeptics and putting distance between the space and the man himself. These classes and districts are a sign of Rapture’s internal and exploitative systems working as an inconvenient intentionality — these people aren’t recognized by the elite, but tolerated regardless for the purpose of an unspoken exploitation. Even a businessman like Augustus Sinclair understands this dynamic, having built Rapture’s only detention facility to profiteer off of the city’s collapse.
As a sort of mythological businessman, Ryan strikes his figure as an ill-fated but noble individual, a man chasing his vision rather than wealth. This is a narrative which frames his exploitation of marginalized people as abstractly sympathetic because it’s in service to his story rather than theirs. The first game lingers just a little too long on his bravado for the game’s own criticisms to hit home. Even Ryan’s death feels more like a selfish and grand ideological demonstration, similar to the city’s own demise. Because the city’s romantic collapse is conflated with Ryan’s personal downfall, it creates an engaging and charismatic villain while simultaneously undercutting the narrative cogency of the marginalized people depicted.
