Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a realistic shooter in a harsh military setting. Actually not the place where you look for aesthetics. Nevertheless, a handful of gamers seem to be drawn to the character Ghost, who became known for his iconic skull mask. Some fans don’t like it at all. There is a dispute.
Which man is it about? Simon “Ghost” Riley is a key character in the Modern Warfare campaign, one of the story’s protagonists and a member of the famous Task Force 141. His trademarks are a headset, sunglasses and a skull mask – so he appears fully hooded.
In the original Modern Warfare, Ghost was actually killed by a betrayal. As a fan favorite, he later returns as a playable operator in Modern Warfare (2019) and is now back in the latest CoD offshoot. Because Modern Warfare 2 is set in an alternate timeline where Ghost is still alive.
This pleases many fans, some of whom are not only interested in the cool soldier Ghost, but also in the attractive man Simon Riley.
What’s going on there? In some tweets and videos on TikTok, which are no longer comprehensible, a few fans expressed their interest in Ghost. They find him “sexy” and introduce themselves to the soldiers in erotic moments.
This isn’t necessarily uncommon in gaming, but it’s more common in female characters. Overwatch in particular regularly has to deal with a veritable flood of porn. With Ghost, however, opinions differ on how far “sexualization” should go.
Here is a little insight into the campaign of Modern Warfare 2:
CoD: Modern Warfare 2 Shows Off Campaign In Launch Trailer – Fans Think “This Will Be One Of The Best Call Of Duty Games”
Community is annoyed by double standards: “But it’s okay with women?”
The discussion only started with the question of whether it’s okay to find Ghost sexy or not. After all, the man is a soldier and you can’t tell anything about him anyway. But it is precisely this mystery that seems to be quite appealing.
However, some users get very involved in the debate and sometimes put forward questionable arguments. Longtime fans of the series, for example, complain that those who find Ghost attractive just don’t seem to have a clue about Call of Duty and Modern Warfare.
It’s about war and serious issues there, there’s no room for sexualization. One now-deleted comment even went so far as to suggest that sexualizing Ghost is worse than sexualizing children (via TikTok).
Many a streamer in Call of Duty has already made a fool of himself on TikTok:
CoD MW2: Cheater streams live on TikTok with hacks enabled, fails anyway, gets laughed at
On TikTok, there are now many clips under the “ghost sexualized” category that want to take the discussion ad absurdum. They complain, for example, that people are upset about sexualizing Ghost as soldiers – with female military and police officers like D.Va and Tracer from Overwatch, Tifa Lockhart from Final Fantasy or Jill Valentine from Resident Evil, this is generally accepted (via TikTok) .
The discussion is currently becoming more and more inflated and it looks as if the fronts are hardening rather than a compromise being found. Fortunately, however, most members of the community seem to just stay out of it or provide more pleasant news:
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