Grand Theft Auto Gone Gay

I've been getting into Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad Of Gay Tony over the past few days and I have to say that, yet again, Rockstar has done something brilliant with their GTA series. Not only is the stand-alone-ish expansion to GTA IV one of the only games that features a Latino protagonist, it is one of the only games that has an unabashedly gay man as a lead character. There's no hiding that he's gay, he's not in the closet, there's no "subtle" innuendo, it's not up to how you play the character… Tony is just plain gay. And a bit fabulous, if not just a tad stupid.

As many gamers have, I've been in love with the Grand Theft Auto series since III came out many years ago on the Playstation 2. They defined the sandbox genre for consoles and it's subsequent sequels (and even III to an extent) sought to attack social issues as untactfully as possible while still maintaining a sense of irreverence, all while finding ways to do so without pissing off every minority group known to man. Rockstar walks a very tight rope with their GTA series, and in my opinion they do so very well. The Ballad of Gay Tony is no exception.

I had almost forgot how much I enjoyed GTA IV until I loaded up Gay Tony, but Gay Tony adds another level to the series that I am loving. Within an hour or so of launching the base game GTA IV, players are inundated with a tirade of anti-gay slurs, many of those slurs persisting throughout the game. It was a bit infuriating at first, but it was used more to show those characters' ignorance and helped frame particular characters as the jerks they were. While I was not pleased to hear the F-bomb tossed around so much in that game, I understood its purpose and appreciated the perspective it provided.

In Gay Tony, we are presented right away with Tony's sexuality. He talks about it, runs a gay club, and you even meet his crappy boyfriend within a few missions. The protagonist even defends his gay boss to his buddies in many of the side conversations that occur during missions with your childhood friends. Again, it's not so awesome to hear some of these epitaphs tossed around, the game finds a way to use them to enlighten rather than embolden. Even some of the more homophobic characters have a turn of face due to your character's actions, which is also nice to see in game.

The game even handles some of the more interesting debates that are currently being argued within the gay community today and presents players who may otherwise be ignorant of them with some food for thought. For instance, Gay Tony constantly gripes about the societal shift within the gay community toward a more mainstream lifestyle. Many gay people today are focused on Marriage Equality and Adoption and Workplace Protections, which are all important issues, but this shift has caused many gay people to loose sight of what use to be our lifeblood: the gay bar. Gay culture use to put heavy focus on gay bars as our primary social scene, but as more LGBT community centers open and as LGBT folk become more accepted in the wider American culture, our sub-culture is shifting more to the mainstream. While that may not be a bad thing, it is one more way in which the gay community is losing its Identity. Tony's complaints are more about losing profits, but the overall debate is still important and valid.

The Ballad of Gay Tony, like the other GTA entries, is great fun mixed with deep characters and a grand sense of sociopolitical debate, all disguised inside what is essentially a third-person-shooter/racing/mafia-sim hybrid. And for all that, it is brilliant. For anyone that has enjoyed the GTA series, I'd certainly recommend picking up either the DLC for Gay Tony if you still own GTA IV or grabbing the Episodes From Liberty City (Amazon link, show us some lurve) disc, which is stand-alone and does not require GTA IV to work.

- Dickie