A separate conversation basically came about in one of my other topics and it seemed like an interesting one.
Do you give media with overtly militaristic motifs a chance ( Call of Duty, Vince Flynn novels, Black Hawk Down) or do you steer clear from them?
The ones I have encountered over the years are generally harmless and I enjoy them for the most part. Personally, what I actually find more threatening is when politicians admit they want to ban or censor particular games.
I use to play the Command & Conquer games a lot as a kid (as far as a war game). The most violent would probably be the Resident Evil games, and militaristic would be Metal Gear Solid, but that was around 7+ years ago (skateboarding replaced video games in middle school). Other than that I’d rather go read (or skate), I tend to irritate myself if I remain unproductive for too long. Yet, lately if I’m bored I’ll play Donkey Kong 64 and Super Smash Brothers Brawl at my girlfriends.
My stance on video games is more along the lines of: how can you sit for hours and plays those games while not actually taking in anything from it? It’s more on the lines of how unproductive can you become.
I boycott the mainstream 99% of the time. Both for idealogical reasons and quality… the independent stuff is so much better on all fronts. You just have to know where to look.
The only exception maybe is comic books… vertigo’s main releases are actually pretty good most of the time.
I can definatley see where these movies & games can be viewed as a tool to indoctrinate your average joe into a pro-war mindset. Personally I find them quite harmless, I don’t think I have heard of a person playing call of duty and then signing up with the military the next day.
I agree that the bigger problems comes from folks like Thompson who want to censor/ban games with rather violent content… have you seen the Penn & Teller BS episode on this? Pretty funny.
The movies, no matter how politically or historically inaccurate, tend to increase my fear of violence and aggression. For example, I was watching Band of Brothers the other day, and now that I am older I find myself just thinking "how the f**k were these guys able to face death and war like this, the idea of it to me is horrifying to me… I get the same feeling watching the msnbc prison specials, I just can’t fathom confronting that sort of reality on a daily basis.
Also (from an observational standpoint) how many people do you know or have encountered who actually play Call of Duty (and other similiar games) countless hours a day would be military material? About everyone I talk to who plays those games would never join the military.
Its not about joining the military its about the view of the military it feeds to the populance.
It makes war cool and exciting, where a bunch of white guys and uncle-tom minorities use high tech gear to overwhelm the bad guy. In real life war is terrifying, fought by poor people, and the enemy often hasn’t done anything wrong.
The result is that people turn a blind eye to the military industrial complex, and these fux can keep getting rich off these endless ideological wars, which are waged nominally against bad guys but kill many more innocents in the process.
Most films are boring these days. And the same is true for most games. But there are a few that squeak by like Portal, TF2, Braid, and a number of other titles which are true sparks of imagination and enjoying to play. The rest are rehashes of old cruft.
There aren’t really any properly militaristic motifs in US popular culture, they are just pro-military. There are products dripping with propaganda, but it is a different type of propaganda. It is there to get people used to the idea that Arabs and Russians are enemies and more cartoon characters than people. And it is there to show that war isn’t really a big deal. Almost all show war in a very sanitized version. Properly militaristic societies did not pretend war is a video game. They understood war was terrible but they embraced, even celebrated, the terror and the severity of it.
That’s a bit extreme. I agree that movies and games can be blamed for people turning a blind eye, but there are much larger factors at play in term of poeples ignorance.
If we lived in a free society where wars were jsut history and everything was generally peaceful would you have the same stance against games or movies that simulate wars?
Where else doe americans get information about our military? Please don’t say the media… its the same song and dance as the videogames/movies.
I probably wouldn’t hate them as much, but i could still critisize them for being unrealistic. Analogous to, how what if no one did drugs in a free society then meth would still continue to be bad.
Perhaps you are right about learning actual logistics and technical info about our military. As far as people turnign a blind eye to the military industrial complex then absolutely the media. I think we may be arguing two different things, one is the influence games have over someones politically beliefs, the other is the reality of physically being in a war is like. In the latter I agree with you, but I don’t think movies and games play as much of a factor in making people get goosebumps when the government sounds off it’s war trumpets.
And I don’t think violent video games / movies are analogous to meth, mainly becuase we have established meth is bad but we debate the implications of violence in art.
I enjoy video games and most things electronic. They bring a bit of a different dimension to life.
I roll my eyes into the back of my head because they put me into a coma. The question is why other people like it.
I think this video answers why:
Regardless that CoD 4 is mud on it own merits and in contrast to Crysis, he still likes it. It seems to come down to whether the game sends a thrill up your spine or not.
Ha the media…Andrea Tanteros just makes me shake my head. She’s good looking until she opens her mouth.
I don’t understand how Neocons are still relevant in the political spectrum. Their approach was tested and it failed miserably, when they speak I feel like bashing my head against a wall.
The first Mass Effect was terrible, decent story, but the game mechanics were all over the place! Seriously! I don’t understand how anyone could tolerate that land vehicle! It drove me insane!
I used to love war movies, but ever since my experience with the Army I try to avoid them. But, I am still interested on war topics in literature (i.e. military history), although my view now is purely “scientific”.
I’ve found that people who play those types of games like to atleast pretend they are in the military. You can find heaps of these role players playing Project Reality. They’re easy to set off like loose cannons, since “realistic and tactical simulations” are serious business.
What is Project Reality you say? Well it’s “As close to war as you are going to get when it comes to the Battlefield franchise” (TotalBF2.com). Run around in a zig-zag (shout “Affirmative! Rendezvous at foxtrot and catch my six!” for a greater effect), follow orders like drone, verbally abuse the commander for use two voice command in one minutes, and you too can be a seasoned PR veteran!
PR in a nutshell (minus the realistic and professional military gamer lingo):
