“Let’s face it; we live in a violent world. We can see it in many aspects of our surroundings, and if we miss it we have a chance to see it played out again and again in the media.” [1]
Why villains in video games such as Call of Duty are typically represented to be of a foreign background and what ideologies are being promoted through this?
Video games are now one of the most predominant forms of new media is the 21st century. First Person Shooters are one of the leading video game genres and have reached their pinnacle in sales over the last year. Yet with benefits such as making huge sales come drawbacks, the video game industry has gained heavy criticism from around the world, one of the main controversial facts that goes against the industry and the first person shooter genre is the representations of foreign cultures and their dominance in today’s media and in particular video games such as the Call of Duty franchise. “Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, which went on sale in November last year, made an estimated $550 million in its first five days. It has now sold around 15 million copies, making it one of the best-selling video games of all time.”
The First Person Shooter has come a long way since its first officially title First Person Shooter, a landmark 1993 first-person shooter video game by id Software, Doom. It is widely recognized for having popularized the first person shooter genre, pioneering immersive 3D graphics, and networked multiplayer gaming. Typically, in first-person shooters the players move through maze like corridors and rooms filled with adversaries controlled by other players or the computer and through stealth or more accurate shooting try to outlive their opponents. However as the years have passed, technology has evolved as well as its consumers, first-person shooters have become more advanced, there are new ways to kill ‘the other’, with new weapons, perks and advancement in the A.I. of the opponents.
The creators of the Call of Duty franchise, Infinity Ward, make games that suit their audience’s preferences which show to be of a first-person genre which includes a lot of violence, blood and action. The Call of Duty franchise is predominantly aimed at males and only a minority of females who play video games aged 18 and over, yet researchers have found that players below the age of 18 have been exposed to the 18 rated content and have caused an up haul of criticism to the video game industry, on the other hand some would say that the fault should be directly aimed at the parents of those who are able to get their hands on and play 18+ rated games.
Players of video games in the twenty-first century have the advanced technology at their fingertips the internet has created a new world for gamers alike, a virtual world. In Call of Duty players can connect online via their multiplayer account and play with people from around the world, to defeat the enemy. With advancements in technology ever increasing most players can now communicate by word of mouth to other players around the world or their next door neighbour, by using this foul language cannot be monitored or censored, which doesn’t help the fact that under eighteens are playing not only violent but are exposed to inappropriate language.
The video game genre has opened a new door into reality yet creating it in a virtual world, this where some players become immersed into the games being played for example Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 which set the bar to a new height in next generation graphics and total immersive feel. “The advances in technology over the past few years have been remarkable. The dramatic increase in speed and graphic capability has allowed for more realistic violence than ever before possible. The characters in game respond realistically to different shots depending on where in the body they are being shot, with what weapons and from what distance. For example, shooting a character in the arm at close range with a shotgun rips the arm from the socket. Of course now, in this first decade of the twenty-first century, even more graphically violent games are available to virtually anyone who wants to play them, regardless of age, and there is evidence that children are spending increasingly amounts of time playing video games.” [5] With this said “Eighty-nine per cent of the teens in Walsh’s (2000) survey reported that their parents never put limits on how much time they are allowed to play video games.” Ibid pg. 8
Within many texts whether it is on television, film or in this case in video games, violence and foreign minorities in particular Islam and Muslims are constantly stereotyped in the media and are a growing concern. “One could argue that as humans we are intrigued by violence, and it is possible that this fascination “satisfies some basic human needs. The adrenalin rush, the satisfactions of imagination, fantasy, and vicarious adventure, probably explain why millions of nonviolent people enjoy violent entertainment.” [6] “The word ‘representation’ refers to the construction of meaning about the world through symbols and images. In the digital age, videogames have established themselves as a form of mainstream media that shapes our comprehension and understanding of the world by constructing, conveying and iterating various representations”. [7]
There is a growing stereotypical representation of Islam and Muslims in First-person shooters mainly as villains in video games such as Call of Duty. Vít Šisler stated that “In-game representations of Arabs and Muslims have to be contextualized in a broader narrative structure that covers Islam as it appears in news and popular media. The dominant mode of representation of Arab and Muslim cultures in European and American media generally exploits stereotypical generalizations and clichés.” [8] “Games are produced with their consumers in mind and tend to reflect their expectations and tastes. So, the prevalent notion of the Middle East and Islam as it appears in popular culture and people's imagery is extended into video games.” [9] Hence the on-going links to Islam and the 9/11 attacks, “To be sure, they existed before. Yet the scale and spectacle of the twin towers and pentagon attacks, and the reaction to them, has thrust a certain type of orientalist stereotype firmly back onto our cinema and television screens, into our new media, and into the mouths of politicians who either lack the historical sense to understand where they have come from, or whose agendas are best served by ignoring their provenance.”
“Videogames originating in the United States have to be similarly contextualized within broader media constructions of the Middle East and its distinctive characteristics (Mayer 1998; Wingfield, Karaman 2001; Pintak 2006; Karim 2006). The dominant mode of representation of Arabs and Muslims in European and American media generally exploit stereotypical generalizations and clichés.” As Bushra Karaman has noted, “the Arab world – twenty two countries, the locus of several world religions, a multitude of ethnic and linguistic groups, and hundreds of years of history – is reduced to a few simplistic images.”
"Stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims in the media are not new. They have been a persistent part of discussing the Middle East, terrorism, and Islam. These stereotypes are not restricted to Hollywood films or news media broadcast but also occur in video games. “The Call of Duty franchise represents the Muslim people to be the villains and leaders of violence; this is presented in Modern Warfare 2 where the player’s opposition are portrayed to be of an Islamic or Muslim culture. This develops the concern of a moral panic in our society, yet is absorbed by the notion of playing first person shooters such as Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 where the ‘other’ can be overcome following violence and destruction. Also the theory of “Generating a moral panic in which young Muslims of Arabic descent or hailing from other ethnic minority groups were framed as what Cohen calls “folk devils” or targets of the moral panic.”
Moral panic is created only from images shown in the media, portraying Muslims and Islam as the terrorists. Muslims are seen to be a threat to our society, yet such threat has been overcome by the leaders of the terror organization Al-Qaeda, being crossed of the list of the most wanted people in the world. However this does not take away the face that producers of videogames are still persistent in portraying the ‘other’ as being of a foreign background.
“(At the time it was the worst such massacre in American history; the events in Littleton, Colorado, just over a year later would claim that awful distinction.) It was March 24, 1998; a schoolyard shooting… and two boys, ages eleven and thirteen, were convicted of murder.” The two boys had shown links to media violence in particular video games, which also had direct links to the Paducah shooting of 1997, which lead fourteen year old boy to steal a gun from his neighbours house and firing at students in his school during a morning prayer. “A new ingredient in the media violence equation has come with the introduction of violent video games.” Such events have cause great caution toward video games and media violence overall and enforce the concept of society becoming unstable and creating moral panics due to the horrific details of some stories told with the guilty one being of such young age, making it easy to point the finger at video game developers and other media distributers alike.
In “Representation and Self-Representation: Arabs and Muslims in Digital Games,” Vit Sisler argues that Arabs and Muslims are consistently represented either in fantastical settings that draw from an exotic idea of the Middle East as foreign or they are represented as the enemy.” Modern Warfare 2 and other instalments in the Call of Duty franchise portray the player’s team as American and “the opposing human team members as enemies (the OPFOR or opposing force). OPFOR teams are portrayed as coming from one of a variety of broad ethnic backgrounds (Latin American, Arab, and European) depending on the (anonymous) geography of the mission scenario.” [8] Despite the game’s self-proclaimed correctness, the concern has been raised that the Arab or Afghani enemies are predominant and the American soldiers are only of Caucasia or Afro-American origin. Ibid pg. 30
There are growing concerns about video games and how their portrayal of violence is affecting our children. With advancement in technology increasing rapidly, more and more games like Modern Warfare 2 and its counterpart Modern Warfare 3 will continue to evolve and become more graphically intense and violent; the affects have already been acted out in reality yet have not caused enough damage in today’s society for those against such acts to put a stop to the violence. However there is research to back up the video games in positively affecting players, “After years of focusing on the bad - and there are still legitimate concerns, for instance, about the psychological effects of certain violent games - scientists are increasingly examining the potential benefits of video games. Their studies are revealing that a wide variety of games can boost mental function, improving everything from vision to memory. Still unclear is whether these gains are long-lasting and can be applied to non-game tasks. But video games, it seems, might actually be good for the brain.” As more and more teenagers are exposed to such graphics and language, the likelihood of another one of these horrific incidents will occur unless there is some force stopping those underage to play such games. However with everyday media whether it is in video games, televisions, or in newspapers, todays and tomorrow’s youth cannot catch a break from the on-going scenes of violence and the portrayal of the enemy in the media.
