Playing with Fire: Enemy Dolls - Gonzalo Frasca
The situation is similar in video games. Generally, Western media is outraged when a non-Western video game features Americans or Israelis as the bad guys. However, commercial video games where you have to shoot Arabs are easily available in any Western game store. You may think: “What is the big deal? After all, it is just a game!” That is actually true: games are not the same as real life. However, people do take them seriously. If you do not believe me, go ahead and fire up a copy of the radical Islamist game Night of Bush Capturing on your notebook next time you are on an airplane. You may try the “it’s just a game” line with the undercover Marshall but I bet he’ll not be laughing. The fact is that nobody likes to be shot at. This applies both to reality and games. Virtual shooting may be technically harmless since nobody really gets hurt but it can still be troubling. Your enemy’s toys can certainly be disturbing but they may also allow you to view the world from a different perspective. In Halo, Master Chief is the good guy and he kill as many Covenant soldiers as possible. However, at a certain point in Halo 2, the player suddenly gets the chance to step into the shoes of a Covenant character. This change of perspective is enlightening, since for the first time the player is encouraged to understand the enemy’s motivations and may realize that the game’s space war is a bit more complex than “us versus them”. Still, the experience is quite limited due to the fact that both the human and alien characters are pretty much bounded by the same actions: walking and shooting. It would be interesting to also be allowed to know the aliens through their particular limitations, differences and alternative strategies. Clint Eastwood recently released two films that tell the same historical event –WWII’s battle of Iwo Jima– alternatively through the eyes of American and Japanese soldiers. Many video games –particularly multiplayer games– also allow players to play either side of a conflict. However, the difference in perspective is minimal and mainly applies to allowing the player to use an alternative set of weapons. If we really want to understand our enemy’s mindset, we also need to explore his motivations, beliefs and constraints. So far, first person shooters have not been very subtle when it comes to ideology. Still, Halo 2 is definitively a leap forward in the right direction, and I am looking forward to more video games that challenge the player’s assumptions in the way this game does. About the bin Laden doll, now I regret not buying it because that little piece of plastic was disturbingly ambiguous. Depending on the player, the doll could be interpreted either as mocking or supporting bin Laden. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder then toy ideology is in the hand of the player. A simple doll will probably never change my political beliefs. However, that doll’s ambiguity reminded me that some people do not share my views. And that is a tiny but essential step towards better understanding this crazy world of us.
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