Nasties under the bed

Just found, in Games and culture...

“This paper explores the characterizations of enemies in military-themed video games, with special attention given to the games Conflict: Desert Storm and America's Army. I demonstrate how the public enemy of America's Army is one not confined to any nationality, ethnicity, or political agenda. This marks a significant departure from games such as Conflict: Desert Storm. I argue that the production of this abstract enemy--what I call the unreal enemy''--is significantly shaped by a biopolitical system that intertwines the military and electronic entertainment industries. This arrangement delocalizes power, distributing it through a network of institutions and subjects. Throughout, I use ethnographic examples that explore how this abstract enemy has been constructed and juxtaposed against more concrete and personal figures, such as the America's Army Real Heroes, individuals upheld as the embodiment of personal achievement in the U.S. Army. I conclude by asserting that the unreal enemy of America's Army is, ultimately, an enemy that is not exclusive to a video game, but one that exists as an anonymous specter, ever present in the militarized American cultural imaginary.”

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Late addition, 2011-07-19. The following is a comment to this post, by Dr.C, but seems worth promotion to full visibility here.

“I am not sure I completely agree with this. At the present time the generic "enemy" seems to be more of mid-Eastern extract. There are examples where people will refuse to fly in an airplane next to anyone who is swarthy. The irony is, of course, that we invaded "them" and not the opposite.”

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• Robertson Allen, "The Unreal Enemy of America's Army". in Games and Culture, 2011. 6(1): p. 38-60. DOI 10.1177/1555412010377321