The 5 Most Whiteboy Moments in "The Gamechangers""The Gamechangers", a one-off BBC drama about the creation of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and the subsequent lawsuits that followed its release, was already a mess long before it aired. Earlier this year, Rockstar North (usually referred to as Rockstar), the company behind GTA and every other successful game you can think of, sued the BBC for trademark infringement, stating: "It is our obligation to protect our intellectual property and unfortunately in this case litigation was necessary." An overreaction? Maybe, but one thing is for certain - they sure as hell dodged a massive embarrassing bullet by not attaching their name to this.
Despite what was going on outside of the production, The Gamechangers very well could have been a new, interesting take on the game industry and game culture. Given that it didn’t go down the same route when it comes to telling stories about games, i.e ‘they’re bad and they make people kill other people’ and other similar, humdrum narratives. It’s a shame then that is exactly what we got. Even worse, it was a product of archaic anti-gamer propaganda, disguised as a pro-gaming film. Sam Houser, one of Rockstar’s founders and the main protagonist in the film (played by Daniel Radcliffe) is written to to such a degree of revile it’s remarkable that they could even achieve such a height, considering that he is utterly void of any personality. None. Zilcho. It’s a weird juxtaposition that you think couldn’t be possible (contradictory, no?), but it is. I’ve seen it. All we know about him by the end of the film is that he likes ping pong. And he is a super white boy. Like, really white. What is that about anyway? The horrific amount of cringe-worthy whiteboy moments in The Gamechangers is alarming. Daniel Radcliffe’s presence alone reeks of it (Dan, I’d love to go for a drink down the pub with you mate, but this role is not for you, buddy. At all.) and the rest of the events that follow. You’re making a film about Grand Theft Auto for christs sake. Rather than opting for an angle that hasn’t been delved into before, the lead character is as lifelessly dull as possibly can be, and when not focused on him, it looks at the drab life of the antagonist lawyer Jack Thompson (Bill Paxton) who tries to sue Rockstar and the video game industry because they’re all BAD and SCARY for our children. Yes, it’s another ‘not the children's’ crusade’. Except with more doses of whiteboy-ness. So here’s some of those moments which will no doubt be ever stored in my bank of memories I just want to forget, so, so badly. 1. “Remember when the Crips and the Bloods were fighting in the eighties?” 
The Gamechangers begins as Sam finds out that Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the follow-up to the first GTA, has sold a million units. He calls a meeting with his team about the pressure to come out with a sequel to Vice City in just a year; one that has to be bigger and better than both its predecessors. Sam passionately pitches a more “Boyz in the Hood, Menace II to Society” feeling story, something with a “fucking cool vibe” as he puts it; a “black hood game” Terry (Mark Weinman), one of the other co-founders of Rockstar, enthusiastically pipes in. “Remember when the Crips and the Bloods were fighting in the eighties?”, Sam remarks, eyes looking at the very white, very wealth-off and very middle-class team he’s assembled. If there is one thing in life I can be pretty sure of, is that this fictional Sam Houser doesn’t know about it, or really remember, because, you know, he can’t - it’s growing up young and black and being dragged into gang life in Compton. Doesn’t matter though because that stuff, as Sam said, is fucking cool and by God that’s the style they’re after. “We’re British, we know nothing about it,” retorts Jamie (Joe Dempsie), Sam’s emotional punching bag who occasionally (twice, if you’re counting) served as a mouthpiece to my complete shock that a real person wrote and made Daniel Radcliffe say certain words out loud and recorded him doing so. Harry Potter just said "Crips and Bloods". Think about that for a bit. Jamie’s right, though, but he doesn't mention the only remotely intelligent thing said throughout the film again - only briefly when he, Sam and Sam’s brother/other co-founder, Dan (Ian Keir Attard), are being shown around Compton for ‘research’ purposes. The word "British" here is just used to equate it with whiteboy-ness without saying explicitly saying the word. 2. "Let's take it black" 
Smug little shit.
I should be glad that ignorant comments about black people were finally left at the door about half an hour in. But they couldn’t let the ‘black culture equals violence’ thing go until they had one last good stab. No, that would have almost been too big a missed opportunity. When out at a pub after work, Dan tells Sam in order to take San Andreas to the next level they need a black lead character. “Yeah, let’s take it black”, Sam replies simply because no one has done it before (at least at the time). Nothing about the fact it may not be the best thing to do, considering that black people have little-to-no representation in games - still to this day in fact -, and to have a game which perpetuates stereotypes about black communities being just thugs wouldn’t exactly help. It’s “fucking cool”, though, right? Really Boyz in the Hood-like. After all, being “outsiders”, as Sam had referred to their Britishness (aka whiteness) earlier on, means they are more equipped and knowledgeable to comment on American culture (aka their definition of black culture). Because, duh, that logic makes total sense. White middle-class (and yes, British boys), are way more able to comment on experiences lived by working-class, black Americans living in poverty. I got you. 3. Everything about this scene. 
Researching for San Andreas, Sam, Dan and Jamie are taken on a tour of Compton by DJ Dog (Richard September), dressed in snapbacks, chains and jerseys (discrete and totally ‘hood’) and filming everything they see to take back to the office. This whole scene, I’m sure, will make you want to throw your laptop across the room, like it did for me. The boys are chilling, just doing their thing. This is how you do research for a game - by playing literal fancy dress and trying to act like roadmen. The scene was played so straight that it was hard to guess whether it was meant to be funny or not.. Either way, it did a damn fine job of making me nearly wet myself. As Sam and co. are trying their very hardest to blend in (by being as whiteboy as possible), a group of guys drive by, quickly noticing how much they stick out with their Los Angeles repping shirts and shades when it’s barely sunny, awkwardly bopping like they’ve studied the ‘swag’ of Vanilla Ice. The oh-so scary gang (good to point out here that there are basically no people of colour in this film unless they’re, you guessed it, the token ones, in a gang, or in jail) threaten Sam, Dan and Jamie. DJ Dog defends the bros, letting slip they’re the creators behind GTA. What can bring white, middle-class bros together with a bunch of black guys, whose culture the former think is all about guns and violence and beating people up, better then GTA? How sweet. 4. What would Don Simpson do? 
“Was this real?” is probably the closest I could get to a coherent thought when I watched the first scene referencing film producer Don Simpson. I paused this on BBC iplayer to take a moment to breathe, get a little bit of clarity and realise I wasn’t having a weird hallucination about Don Simpson. This was actually happening. It’s real. Every last word. Even saying "Don Simpson" is weird. Dom Simpson. Whenever there was a scene referring to Don Simpson (sorry, I can’t stop typing his name), it followed with a speech about power and greatness, before I zoned out from struggling to listen to such unbearable nonsense. A good few minutes of it, too. It didn’t explain how Sam was being what could be classified an awful human being to everyone he encountered - which, I assume was the film’s way of trying to give him some kind of emotional depth. The only thing it succeeded in was showing that Don Simpson could possibly be the pinnacle of whiteboy worship. 5. Wearing trainers to court 
After the release of San Andreas, Peter (Gideon Lombard) a GTA moder living in Holland, hacks the game to find a hidden sex scene; originally designed to be included in the final version. As San Andreas was released under a Mature rating, rather than an adult one, Rockstar were to find themselves dragged into a difficult legal situation. Sam, when talking to his lawyers about the case, is utterly grilled and left slightly demoralised (probably the first time that anyone has upped him on something), as they snidely ask him to wear a suit to court. Since Sam is portrayed to think like a ten year old child, he is all ‘screw you, mum’ and rocks up in a suit and trainers to the court. Stick it to the man, Sam, stick it to ‘em. Such a rebel. So fucking cool. Your whiteboy-ness prevails you. Man, it's easy to see why Rockstar wasn't pleased with how this movie portrays them. Have you seen "Gamechangers"? Did you cringe a lot? Share your thoughts in the comments below and let's get this movie out of our systems. Together. 
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