Returning Fire: Interventions in Video Game Culture

Synopsis: Video games like Modern Warfare, America’s Army, Medal of Honor, and Battlefield are part of an exploding market of war games whose revenues now far outpace even the biggest Hollywood blockbusters. The sophistication of these games is undeniable, offering users a stunningly realistic experience of ground combat and a glimpse into the increasingly virtual world of long-distance, push-button warfare. Far less clear, though, is what these games are doing to users, our political culture, and our capacity to empathize with people directly affected by the actual trauma of war. For the culture-jamming activists featured in this film, these uncertainties were a call to action. In three separate vignettes, we see how Anne-Marie Schleiner, Wafaa Bilal, and Joseph Delappe moved dissent from the streets to our screens, infiltrating war games in an attempt to break the hypnotic spell of "militainment." Their work forces all of us -- gamers and non-gamers alike -- to think critically about what it means when the clinical tools of real-world killing become forms of consumer play.
Language: English
Country: United States
Year of release: 2011
Year of production: 2011
Subjects: Social Studies; Media studies; Psychology
Keywords: computer games; psychological investigation; war; violence

Name: Media Education Foundation
Email: info@mediaed.org
Web: http://www.mediaed.org External site opens in new window
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Fax: +1 413 586 8398
Address: 60 Masonic Street
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Massachusetts 01060
USA
Notes: The MEF produces and distributes documentary films and other educational resources to inspire critical reflection on the social, political and cultural impact of the mass media, particularly in the US, with emphasis on gender, health, politics, race and commercialism. Sale on DVD.

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