Introduction
A. Given the relatively new and developing nature of the military video game genre and its popularity, its sociological effects and inspirations (especially as it pertains to race relations and foreign policy) are still unknown.
B. Research question: Do the treatment of enemies, characters and game mechanics in military-style video games (such as Call of Duty) reflect issues of Orientalism, racism and colonialism present in modern-day America; if so, in what ways?
Thesis: Military video games do enforce a hegemonic and Orientalist view of the Other, trading in even-handed foreign policy for brazen shoot-em-ups that act as soft recruitments for the armed forces, as well as tacit approval of the military-industrial complex and the problematic War on Terror.
I. Video game technology is advanced, complex, and has a decided effect on our neurology.
A. Video games force us to hone our sense of visual attention to selectively process what we see.
i. Visual attention is defined as "the set of mechanisms by which relevant visual information is selected while irrelevant information is suppressed, thus allowing the observer to function in a world made up of nearly infinite visual information" (Green and Bavelier 222).
B. Subjects exposed to video games are most improved in visual selective attention, and therefore have an innate effect on the brain and our perception.
i. Video gamers are shown to have "perceptual and cognitive skills far beyond those observed in non-gamers" (Green and Bavelier 214).
II. Military video games are a very popular genre in video games, most games dealing with a fictionalized version of the War on Terror.
A. Action games and shooters make up more than a third of the highest selling video games in America.
B. The Call of Duty series showcases various fictionalized scenarios based around Middle Eastern, Russian or Asiatic countries and peoples being a threat to America.
C. America’s Army is effectively a recruitment tool, directly funded and created by the United States military to drum up interest in recruitment.
D. Full Spectrum Warrior takes place in a fictional country dubbed “Zekistan,” and showcases a media-filtered version of the Middle East.
III. Depictions of the Other and the military experience in military video games are problematic and rooted in Orientalism.
A. Orientalism is "a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between 'the Orient' and (most of the time) 'the Occident'" (Said 2).
i. Orientalism is used by European mindsets to alienate and segregate themselves from the Other, projecting all manner of undesirable and confusing characteristics onto them to make them more exotic or dangerous.
ii. Western/European attitudes classify the Other as something either mystified, glorified or vilified.
a. Orientalism can lead to both good and bad stereotypes (e.g. Jews as Holocaust survivors, or wealthy, litigious misers).
B. Upon closer examination of many military video games that are currently popular, Orientalism is present in their texts.
i. The Call of Duty series features Middle Eastern terrorists and ultranationalists as its villains, as well as other Orientalizing stereotypes.
a. The villain of Modern Warfare is Khaled Al-Asad, depicted as aturban-wearing maniac who shouts monologues about America’s destruction.
b. In one early scene in Black Ops, the player must go on a covert mission to kill Fidel Castro, showing a bloody bullet going through his head in slow motion.
c. In Modern Warfare 2, a level takes place in the infamous Brazilian favelas, in which the abject poor are shown as window dressing to frame this exciting, violent gunfight the player must engage in.
ii. Full Spectrum Warrior features an especially jingoistic depiction of the Middle Eastern conflict.
a. The country is named ‘Zekistan,’ playing into the idea that all Middle Eastern countries are indistinguishable from each other.
b. Many villain characters are radical Muslim militants, wearing turbans, firing RPGs and donning earth-toned rags.
iii. Close Combat, another game in the Middle East, has especially egregious stereotypes.
a. Insurgents wear garish red turbans, and the player must navigate through bombed out, anonymous cities in the Middle East to find them.
b. Hostility is the only interaction given to the natives by the player; the only Arabs in the game try to kill you.
V. The nature of the military-entertainment complex makes these depictions dangerous and pervasive.
A. The military-entertainment complex (MEC) is the series of complex interactions between the military and entertainment industries to support each other both through profitable, popular media and positive depictions of the military.
i. The MEC has already existed for decades in the film business, with pro-America war and action films fetishizing military service and linking it to positive values such as patriotism and freedom.
B. America’s Army attempts to combine entertainment with direct recruitment for the armed forces.
i. "Not only does America's Army encode the Army's values into the game play, but it is also designed so that veterans, military personnel and civilians can play together, creating an Army-owned space to interact with the public" (Squire 19).
VI. In order to address these issues, discourse and transparency are paramount.
A. Greater media literacy must be cultivated in order to create the conditions necessary for proper rejection of these stereotypical depictions of the Other.
B. Open discourse about the meanings and symbolic significance of these representations and the role of the military in framing war as entertaining must be examined.
C. Understanding the role of the MEC and the effect of military video games on our perception of the Other is vital to ensuring a greater control over how we process the images we take in.
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