The problem with arguing that featuring these subjects brings awareness to them is that these depictions lack the contexts that make them meaningful. It flattens a complex subject in order to package it up for entertainment. It assumes the “how” of a depiction is less important than the “what”. Instead of turning the lens outward towards how history erases these facts, the arguments justify the original act of erasure committed. Is it okay to depict one of the worst conflicts of the last century with the cool of a Hollywood blockbuster if a few people go on to read a Wikipedia page on it? Is it admirable to have your characters tortured and raped if a games writer suddenly realizes that the government commits atrocities under the justification of wartime fear?

These stances are absurd, but they’re the product of an insular games culture still insecure about its legitimacy as a medium, while simultaneously attempting to distance itself from the culture that created it. They avoid self-reflection and present exploitative and ahistorical depictions of events as a net positive, a means to bring awareness of a subject to a larger critical audience. The games are both too fantastical and over the top for their political violence to be taken seriously, but also important to draw attention to that violence. Their arguments echo a popular one that Noah-Caldwell Gervais uses to deflect critique of Call of Duty’s uneasy racial dynamics:

Noah-Caldwell Gervais’ Complete Call of Duty Critique. skip to 1hr 19min if the link doesn’t work.

In his critique of the campaign, Gervais argues that the overall tone of Modern Warfare 3 is so absurd, and so downright stupid, that leveling criticism at it for racism is a mistake. It’s so brilliantly tone deaf the entire time that the fact that you frequently murder people of color in exoticised, stereotypical depictions of other countries is no more absurd than the rest of the events. Modern Warfare 3 is incoherent and color-blind, rather than incoherent and on top of that, racist. In this messaging , Gervais not only ignores that the proliferation of racism occurs on a cultural level and doesn’t require intentionality, but handwaves racial depictions that contribute to the spread of those ideas. Within the larger space of the critique, this sets up Call of Duty a series both capable of serious rumination on war, something to be taken seriously, and a consumerist product so stupid it shouldn’t be taken seriously.

This contradictory approach mirrors those of the previous authors, and the larger attitude towards games. Videogames are a serious medium capable of genuine empathy and spreading awareness when we need legitimacy, and an absurd corporate thrillride when we wish to deflect critique from the way it participates in the worst of our culture. Its part of a defensiveness that comes from a continued cultural critique of the medium, attempts to link it to real world violence and even governmental legislation. But if videogames are to accept a place within the cultural canon we have to to also accept the uglier aspects of the medium. We have to accept that videogames contribute, at times directly, to a military-industrial complex that drives policy. That war games traffic in jingoistic, and yes, even racist ideas that reinforce popular attitudes. Maybe its uncomfortable that the ultimate show of strength in Call of Duty is to kill 20 people in a row and then drop a nuke on the entire battlefield. Like other media, videogames exploit real world events and troubling attitudes. That idea can exist alongside the pleasure of it. Let’s stop trying to excuse it.