Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, a first person shooter video game, revolves around terrorist attacks and takes place in the Middle East. Although the game takes place in the Middle East it is only told through the western viewpoint. The two protagonists are Sergeant John "Soap" MacTavish of the SAS (Special Air Services) of the United Kingdom Special Forces, and the secondary character is Sergeant Paul Jackson of the United States Marine Corps Force Reconnaissance. Both characters are from the west and the game is seen through their perspective. The antagonists in the game are either ultra nationalist Russians or a separatist group of the Middle East that are shown wearing turbans and act dangerous running around with AK-47s. The game shows a the Middle East as a frantic, violent, and unorganized place whereas in real life they observe a culture different from the West. Some places in the Middle East are unstable, however this game doesn't project that the minority of the places are unstable it displays all of the Middle East as unable to succeed without the assistance of the West.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
What Edward "Said"
Edward Said described the situation when the West encountered the cultures of the East and developed their first impressions on the people and their civilizations. The western developments viewed the east strange and exotic therefore the term Orientalism developed as the study of these different cultures. Said used the binaries "Occident" civilized and "Orient" uncivilized. The Europeans thought of themselves as superior to the Orientals and whatever the Europeans were then the orients were not. These beliefs created a boundary between the cultures and a prejudice against the orient people. This boundary was reinforced with propaganda and teachings and is still present in today's society. Today one of the main groups that suffer from Orientalism in our society are the Arabian people who obtain prejudices from our society that associate them with terrorist groups.
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I think this is a really interesting post, especially relating the perspectives in the video game to the perspectives of the Europeans believing that the Middle East needs their assistance. Nice tie between the two.
ReplyDeleteI love how you referenced the Call of Duty game and when I really think about it, basically all of the Call of Duty games are based off of a terrorist attack by an "eastern" person.
ReplyDeleteI think it is really cool that you were able to relate this subject to a modern day portrayal in video games.
ReplyDeleteI never knew that these types of video games were like this, so this post gave me a revelation! I think it's also really interesting when you take our post-9/11 into consideration because Americans' fear and resentment against Middle Eastern people is heightened now more so than ever.
ReplyDeleteThat's a really good example! I'm not the best person to ask because I haven't played them myself, but I think a good counter point would be the first Assassin's Creed game. My brother is really into the Assassin's Creed series, and he maintains that it is in the Middle Eastern perspective and that the game producers put extensive effort and time into researching the ancient Middle East to accurately portray it. Assuming that his analysis is accurate, it's nice to know that at least there's an example of a game striving to go past Orientalism. Unfortunately there are so many more examples like the one you gave...
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