Kohl Calhoun 5/29/13 War, Media & Culture Media Analysis Paper The effect of war on our media

cannot be denied. Not just news media either, but films, books, TV shows and video games are all affected by the influence of war in our society. Almost symbiotic in relationship, the effect of war on our media inturn has a great effect on us as consumers of media. With countless video games and films coming out involving armed conflict each year, how could we not be affected? The rise in filmed and interactive content that involves war and was made either inconjunction with the U.S. Military or containing the blessing of the U.S. Government has led many scholars and insiders, such as Stephen Stockwell and Adam Muir from Griffith University, to refer to this as the military-entertainment complex. (Stockwell & Muir, 2003) Some of this content, such as the 2002 release of the U.S. Army produced computer game Americas Army, was deliberately released as a recruitment tool, allowing people as young as 13 years-old to play in a simulated warzone. This was a huge success for the Army. A 2008 article by Rune Ottosen cites a survey of 16 to 21 year-olds that said 29% of those surveyed felt Americas Army was the most effective recruitment tool (Ottosen, 2008). The Army took this one step further, introducing a series of storylines and characters based on real-life soldiers in Iraq into the game, as well as licensing a series of action-figures based on these real heroes (Krebs, n.d.). Media such as this has been met with controversy, however nothing has been done to stop these incidences of so-call militainment. Going back to the beginning of civilization, satire has been used to comment on

controversial issues and make people question the status quo. With the advent and popularity of film, satire has been able to reach audiences on a broad scale. In 2009, the film Gamer was released. Co-directed and written by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the film takes place in the near future where video games are played using real human beings as avatars. The film puts a particular focus on the fiction game Slayers, a shooter video game where players control real-live death row inmates in a fight to the death. The most successful inmate in the game, played by Gerard Butler, is controlled by a 17 year-old kid played by Logan Lerman. Their combined success makes them very popular and the kid controlling him a wealthy celebrity. From a conceptual standpoint, this film seems to be making a critique about the effect that war and technology has had not only on video games, but also on how those video games affect our society. However, if anything the film actually glorifies the violent nature of video games and the potentially negative impact they have on our society with its presentation. In this paper I will discuss the elements of this film and how an idea that as a review in RVA Magazine says, tries to criticize the commercialization of violence, even though it itself is commercialized violence. (Film review: Gamer, 2009) Ill start off my examination by stating that this film did not receive good reviews. It currently holds a 29% rating on the film review website Rotten Tomatoes. In addition to the above review, Edward Douglas of comingsoon.com states that the film is nothing more than the meeting of Hollywood "What if" high concept with two young filmmakers' idea of what young males want to see at the movies.

(Douglas, 2009) A slightly more positive review by Brian Crecente from kotaku.com comes off as a back-handed compliment, saying Gamer isn't nearly as bad as you'd expect, but it's not nearly as good as it should be. Instead, the film is lost in that grey area between egregious mishandling and untapped potential. (Crecente, 2009) The film opens with advertising for the game Slayers prominently posted in New York Citys Times Square and on the Great Pyramids in Egypt among other places (Neveldine & Taylor, 2009). Also advertised is the owner and creator of Slayers, Ken Castle, portrayed by Michael C. Hall. The film portrays Castle as a brilliant, yet psychotic manipulator who has invented the technology to remotely control the motor functions of other humans. Castle first tested the technology on John Tillman, Butlers character, and his friend Scotch, who were soldiers in the military at the time. Castle, controlling Tillman, kills Scotch. This lands Tillman on death row, where he volunteers to be a part of Slayers and becomes known as Kable. Castle has used this technology to make billions of dollars and gain the partnership and support of the United States Government, who supplies Castle with the inmates to keep Slayers up and running. The game itself, as previously mentioned, is a shooter where players from around the world control death row inmates. The inmates are told before volunteering that if they can survive for 30 consecutive matches that they will earn their freedom. This proves easier said than done, with most not even reaching 10 before they are killed. The only person to come close is Kable, Butlers character, who starts the film with 27 consecutive victories. Other less serious convicts are told they can earn their freedom by surviving one round. However, unlike the

human controlled inmates, these convicts are put on pre-determined paths as nonplayable characters, have no control over their actions and are often brutally killed by the players via their avatar. The game play is styled after games such as Call of Duty and Gears of War, with the convicts being forced to use strategy and tactics with real weapons in an urban warfare setting. Like many online video games, there is often a lapse-of-time, or lag between the players command and the inmates reaction, which ultimately leads to many deaths. Slayers is a massive success worldwide. It is mentioned that a single round of Slayers, which are shown on pay-per-view to spectators around the world, brings in an absurd 650 million buys. This is in comparison to the current real-life most successful PPV of all time, the 2007 boxing match between Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather, Jr., which did 2.4 million buys (Oscar de la, 2013). After Kable wins his 28th match in a row, large groups of people in cities all over the world, such as Los Angeles and London, are seen celebrating the victory (Neveldine & Taylor, 2009). The film even shows huge crowds in non-westernized cities such as Baghdad and Beijing cheering their excitement at the game. Even the players of the game are massively successful and celebrated, with Kables player Simon Silverton, played by Lermon, being portrayed as a big celebrity by the media and receiving sexual advances from multiple women online. Since the game is so popular, the media is extremely focused on promoting Slayers as well as Castle, largely ignoring the brutal nature of both the game and its sadistic creator, as well as other important world events. Prior to an interview with Castle on a late-night talk show called The Gina Parker-Smith Show, one

concerned producer says that he would much rather they cover the once mentioned three Asian wars that are apparently occurring at the time this film is set in, to which another producer responds nobody cares about dead Orientals, they care about Ken Castle. After the interview itself, despite attempting to ask tough questions to Castle and insinuating the vote that passed the legislation that made Slayers legal was tainted with alleged digital fraud, Gina Parker-Smith herself confesses her love of watching Slayers and flirts with him. The only real opposition to Castle and his game, other than from the inmates that have second thoughts of their choice to participate, is an underground activist group called the Humanz. This group, whose main face to the world is portrayed by actor/rapper Ludacris, is shown hijacking Parker-Smiths show, crashing Castles other game Society, hacking into Slayers and hacking Silvertons home computer system to speak directly with him. The Humanz main goal is to expose Castle as evil and stop his supposed plans to bankrupt the U.S., become a financial savior and use his brain control technology to enslave a great deal of the population. Although they free Tillman from Slayers and his wife from Society, the Humanz are generally regarded with disgust from the majority of the population. When they take over Parker-Smiths show, the Humanz are seen as more of a nuisance by Castle, Parker-Smith and the production crew, rather than a legitimate threat. Likewise, in a news report regarding the aforementioned crashing of Society, the news crew says of the incident was fucked up and calls the Humanz cock suckers. Ultimately, during the films climax, Castle shows Tillman on a video screen his men quickly

killing off all of the known Humanz, a sequence that takes around ten total seconds of screen time. The group is never mentioned again after that point. Once again, this film conceptually seems to criticize the effect of war and technology has on our video games and society as a whole. However, the execution of Neveldine and Taylor is what turns this film from a potentially thought provoking piece into essentially a really cool commercial for a violent video game that doesnt exist. The films concept seems to criticize violence in video games as morally wrong. However, a majority of the film is made up of highly stylized, brutal, video game styled violence and set to hard rock and heavy metal music, such as Marilyn Manson. The films characters, instead of intelligently conversing with each other, are relegated mostly to cursing at each other while delivering important plot information. Also, inclusions such as American flags next to advertisements of Slayers, as well as the inclusion of actor Keith David, whos voice is well known from his voice-over work for U.S. Navy advertisements, blur the line between attempted satire and furthering the military-entertainment complex. Why does this matter? Because it is another example of the effect that war and technology has had on our society. Sure, there are far more blatant examples of films that are more or less advertisements for the military. The Michael Bay films The Rock and his Transformers trilogy come to mind, as does Ridley Scotts Black Hawk Down. The problem with films like Gamer is that they promote violent war video games, while still giving off the feel that they are criticizing them. Michael Bay films are so blatant in their patriotism that an intelligent viewer will know exactly what messages they are receiving. With films like Gamer, the main message the

average viewer is getting is that violent video games are cool. Its irresponsible film making like this that is responsible for the furthering of the military-entertainment complex that can ultimately lead to the furthering of the military-industrial complex and the further desensitization of our society towards the horrors of war and violence.

References
Crecente, B. (2009, Sept. 9). Gamer movie review: More second life than counterstrike. Retrieved from http://kotaku.com/5354630/gamer-movie-reviewmore-second-life-than-counter strike Douglas, E. (2009). Gamer. Retrieved from http://www.comingsoon.net/news/reviewsnews.php?id=58793 Film review: Gamer. (2009, Sept. 4). RVA Mag, Retrieved from http://rvamag.com/articles/full/4893/film-review-gamer Gamer (2009). (2013). Retrieved from http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/gamer/ Krebs, R. (n.d.). Myths of the all-volunteer force: Rethinking military recruitment and the fate of the citizen-soldier. Informally published manuscript, Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, Retrieved from http://www.polisci.umn.edu/~ronkrebs/Publications/Myths of the AVF (complete).pdf Neveldine, M. (Director), & Taylor, B. (Director) (2009).Gamer [DVD]. Oscar de la hoya vs. floyd mayweather. In (2013).Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_De_La_Hoya_vs._Floyd_Mayweather

Ottosen, R. (2008). Targeting the audience: Video games as war propaganda in entertainment and news.Bodhi, 2(1), Retrieved from http://nepjol.info/index.php/BOHDI/article/view/2862/2532 Stockwell, S., & Muir, A. (2003). The military-entertainment complex: A new facet of information warfare. The Fibreculture Journal, (1), Retrieved from http://one.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-004-the-military-entertainmentcomplex-a-new-facet-of-information-warfare