Wesley W Wilson, 2010
Behind The Pixels: Invisibility, Whiteness, and Race in Video Games
Introduction
For reasons which will quickly be made clear I will preface with this simple fact: I love video games. Video games affect millions of people on a daily basis. They are currently the largest grossing form of entertainment media. A blockbuster game like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 can sell 4.7 million units (Itzkoff, 2009) and log 5.2 million hours of gameplay (Magrino, 2009) within the first 24 hours of release. A common trend in games such as Modern Warfare 2 is to feature highly detailed graphical representations of human characters. With the steady increase in the technological capabilities of games comes a direct correlation to rising amounts of highly defined, realistic looking characters. By creating representations of humans for gamers to play as, level up, generally idolize and worship, developers are engaging in a cultural rhetoric. What happens, however, when there are no complex representations of minorities or non-whites in video games?
The phenomenon of video games being exclusively white is well documented. In a study published in 2009 a group of researchers played and documented every game released over the course of an entire calendar year (Williams et. al., 2009). Factors were recorded for each discrete character appearing onscreen such as race, gender, age, and whether or not they were playable (i.e. can the player take on the role of that character). Outside variables were also noted for each character such as ESRB rating and genre of the game. The 150 most popular games (based objectively on sales records) were, in the end, included in the census. The results appeared as both weighted and unweighted scores, where in the weighted results a character from a game which sold 20 million copies counts twice over a character from a game which sold 10 million games. This was done to contrast differences between games made and games sold. A factor which was not recorded in this objective format was the types of power and agency afforded to minority characters and the extent to which they were based on stereotypes.
The Indiana Jones Effect
A game is a set of rules which players choose to interact with in (Galloway, 2006). In video games these rules are expressed using a competitive sense of progression, using levels, storytelling, statistics, collection of items, or most commonly all of these things. The "story mode" of games provides the most noticeable form of this, though in online multiplayer modes it is equally present.
I would like to propose that every (playable) character in a game has at the very least the godlike power of the respawn, in which the player can always revive the character simply by playing the game. Beyond that, additional power is added onto each character through plot and dynamic meaning. Dynamic meaning (as terminology) was specifically defined for video games by game theorist/indie game developer Jonathan Blow in his 2008 lecture to the Montreal International Game Summit. It it is used to describe the specific cultural rhetoric created by every actual action that the player performs in the game. This includes what is possible or not possible in how the game is coded. All games engage in this. The following excerpt is taken from the chapter on "Games as Cultural Rhetoric" in Rules of Play (Salen et. al., 2003):
What is the relevance of cultural rhetoric to game design? Creating games is also creating culture. and therefore beliefs, ideologies, and values present within culture will always be a part of a game, intended or not. For example, what are the winning conditions of your game? Amass the most resources? Destroy the enemy's units? Arrive at a balance of powers? Each of these victory conditions implies a particular set of values, fleshed out through the game rules, materials, and experiences of play.
Using this understanding of the choices made by developers it is relatively straightforward to examine what power each game character has. The ultimate character power, I am claiming, is the ability to exist within any type situation (strength, charm, etc.). To demonstrate, I will use a character originating outside of video games (though there are excellent spinoff games with this character as protagonist). That character is of course Indiana Jones. Doctor Jones, in addition to being a badass who hardly breaks a sweat in taming lions, Nazis, and indigenous peoples, is also an anthropologist and archaeologist who fits in perfectly into the world of academia. To this end, he can appeal to both sides of gender roles. Gerard Jones, in his book Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make Believe Violence, elaborates:
[Indiana Jones] was a perfect fantasy for Janice as she worked hard to be a good girl and a good student, while also yearning to charge off, risk dangers, and make things happen. Indy sort of played off the 'good girl' himself, in his professor identity, and then tossed off the restrictive clothes, grabbed the whip, and came alive. (Jones, 2002)
Professor Indiana is a dynamic character, able to conquer completely ordinary situations with charm and intellect or out-brawn baddies with his violence when he feels the need. In video games we see many white adult male characters who are similarly able to fit any role and accomplish anything: Gordon Freeman, Harry Mason, Leon Kennedy, Gabriel Knight, Bruce Wayne, and Max Payne are just a few that jump to mind. There are also countless white male characters leaning to one side of this spectrum or the other, placing particular emphasis on either their brute strength/physical abilities or intellectual prowess, cleverness, and charm. The list of (awesome) white male game protagonists who embody any role or any type of agency is endless, growing ever longer with the release of each new game. Yet there is hardly a single non-white character who can fit these ideas of complexity and normality.
Formulaic Otherness
"Indeed, outside of sports games, the representation of African Americans drops precipitously, with many of the remaining featured as gangsters and street people in Grand Theft Auto and 50 Cent Bulletproof." (Williams et. al., 2009) Minority characters in video games are stereotyped in nearly every case case, with only a handful of exceptions.
When difficult and complex topics such as race are brought up in the gaming community the most common defense I have seen white players use to defend game content is a claim about the degree of separation caused by the fantasy content of the video game. For example, the declaration is (frequently) made that if a minority is stereotyped in a game it is a harmless stylistic decision because all characters are stereotypes. This is completely wrong for a variety of reasons. The surface level reason is that the claim implies game characters don't effect the player. Game characters are an important source of formulating ideas of what is normal (i.e. whiteness) and what is different and abnormal (non-white markers). They also show us what is cool. It is true that white characters often play highly stylized roles in games. However, you can easily find white male characters playing a wide variety of roles, in games available at any game store or Walmart. There are more powerful white game heroes than any list could contain because they increase in numbers with every single game released. The second reason that these minority stereotypes are not harmless is because of who is making these games, and why. It implies white people exerting their power to define the other.* Third and last, stereotyping white and stereotyping non-white has different ramifications because of everything in history.
[*Due to length considerations I am choosing not to discuss the implications of American minority stereotypes coming from Japanese games (Postcolonial Theory, etc.) other than to say that they are no less problematic.]
Behind The Pixels
Racial stereotypes are based on ideas crafted by Carl Linnaeus in his taxonomy book Systema Naturae (1735). This is the beginning of the propagation of scientific racism. Phrenology was a study of skulls which supposedly could tell bad traits by skull shape. The hypothesis was that white skulls showed intelligence, etc., while black skulls somehow were deficient. Samuel Morton's mustard seed experiments for intelligence and criminal thinking are derived from anthropology, which began as the field of study in which white colonizing powers learn about the colored "animals," and take advantage of them and their culture while taking over (colonization). The mustard seed test was notoriously riddled with subjective, unrepeatable, biased experiments. Different seeds were used on different skulls, different heights of people were selected from each group, the white skulls were tapped to pack more seeds in, etc. All of this was documented in the Linneas' notes. This formed the basis for legitimizing slavery since Africans and other colored people were not really human beings. Friedrich Tiedemann repeated Samuel Morton's tests with greater objectivity and found no differences across "races"; his findings were used to support Britain's abolition of the slave trade. With the invention and refinement of genetic testing, race has proven to have little to no correlation to DNA:
Genetic markers associated with Africans can turn up in people who look entirely white. Indians and Pakistanis may have dark skin, but genetic markers show that they are Caucasians. Another complication is that African-Americans are, on average, about 17 percent white: they have mitochondria (maternally inherited) that are African, but they often have European Y chromosomes. In other words, white men raped or seduced their maternal ancestors. (Kristoff, 2003)
This seems logical considering that race is based on current definitions of ever changing geographic-political borders, cultural identity, religion, and perception, none of which is biological. Forensic anthropology is the contemporary form of phrenology, used as a study of skulls to tell race. While forensic anthropology is specifically used as a method of investigating crime scenes, it also frequently misinterpreted. In the the television show Bones, for example, they claim to be able to determine country of origin, which portrayed as real science offensive impossible.
Stereotypes of minorities have different ramifications than stereotypes of whites because of the oppressive colonial power exercised by whites throughout history the world. Context and history cannot be ignored and denied, regardless of how awesome the game is.
Awesome Power Fantasies
As a white, physically able, heterosexual male growing up in the south with an obsession for gaming culture, I can speak very personally about the influence of video game characters. It was never enough just to play the games growing up, I also talked about games, traded games, and had my parents subscribe me to multiple video game magazines so that I could keep informed about games. This may sound pompous, but when I play games I literally see representations of myself (characters that look like me). Sometimes this mirroring reaches the point of eeriness. For example, I was very excited when I got the Nintendo Wii game console and the first thing I tried was making my avatar (the "Mii"). The only options I needed for completion of my Mii was to select "start from scratch," "male," and finally "save and quit." The default avatar came equipped matching absolutely every customizable aspect including head shape, hair style, skin color, and eyes to my own. All of my friends laughed about this, but of course it was pretty much expected. In the single player mode of Modern Warfare 2 you begin the game following around and being saved by the character Captain "Soap" MacTavish. He is the ultimate hero warrior in the game, and once this is made clear he becomes the character that you play as later in the game. With a simple change of hairstyle in real life (he features a short buzzed Mohawk in the game), I took on the appearance of that character.
Fictive Invisibility
The lack of diversity in games also affects the perception of the other by white people, particularly in every community and social group within the United States lacking diversity. What happens when there is not a real live person to fit a perceived racial identity or ethnic group? The people in the non-diverse community nonetheless form ideas about these racial/ethnic groups. For example, "when children in Georgia were asked their opinions about Japanese, the majority who had never seen a Japanese before used the adjective 'sneaky,' no doubt strongly influenced by old Hollywood movies" [6, p.68]. Also influenced, I conjecture, by video games. Consider this quote in relation to both Asian Americans and the pan-Asian game character diaspora. Generally if a game character is racialized as Asian they are one of the obvious kung fu masters in a fighting game like Soul Caliber, Tekken, Dead or Alive, Battle Arena Toshinden, Street Fighter, Virtua Fighter, or a ninja in the long list of ninja games such as Tenchu, Mini Ninjas, Ninja Gaiden, Onimusha, etc., etc., etc. If the only visibly accepted roles for Asians in games is as ninjas, "sneaky" would almost make sense. And while demure, helpless, scantily clad ninja-assassin-babes is certainly one (offensive) stylistic choice, it should not be the only stylistic choice made for all characters whose visual markers are explicit supposed to be Asian.
To summarize, when minority groups aren't represented in real life and are represented in media solely through damaging stereotypes, that media defines said minority group to both the group fitting majority identity population and to the minority group itself. Because there is not enough variety in media to debunk the stereotypes, nothing challenges the stereotypes for the viewers. Therefore the media creates one-dimensional, hurtful images of colored people that hurt minority groups' sense of development, self-esteem, and image, and bolster the championing of whites over colored people since they can have complex identities and defy stereotypes. I see this whenever a family member tries to convince me that China will soon invade the United States. Also, representation and nonrepresentation illustrates who is important, who people value, and who people want to see. Visibility and invisibility in media shows who we value, and hints at disparities in real life. The overrepresentation of whites, paired with similar treatment of race across media and real life, indoctrinates us to a normality and percieved "truth" behind racism.
Separate But Equal?
A documentary filmmaker in 2005 repeated the Clarks’ “doll experiment” from the 1940’s which was used as a crucial arguing point in the landmark Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, which led to desegregation of schools in the United States. Utilizing investigatory play with 21 young black children at a New York daycare center, Davis created the video art piece A Girl Like Me (Davis, 2005). The outcome of the experiment showed the same numerical results as the original test, which was that many black children still preferred white dolls and identified black dolls as “bad.” These same children, when asked which doll represented themselves, also pointed to the black doll, showed that they understood “who was bad, who was good,” and that their own identities embodied the "black doll.” In an interview with NPR in 2006 Davis stressed that even at four or five years old, you can still tell what America values and what it doesn’t.
Conclusion
It may seem unfair that I am singling out video games versus other forms of media. I have high hopes for the future of video games and take them very seriously as a medium. As a visual artist I very much believe that video games are the future not just for entertainment, but for art and education as well.
There were many examples which I did not cover, such as the gross underrepresentation of Latinos and the most invisible minority of all, Indigenous Americans. In the overall numbers of all characters logged by The Virtual Census (Williams et. al., 2009) Latino characters weighed in with only 2.71%, and Native Americans represented a whopping 0.09%. Neither group featured a single primary character. For an excellent primer on every notable Native American featured in video games since the 1980's and the stereotypes in these games (ranging from depictions of headdress wearing savages dancing around open fire to gain mystical power to Indian Empires which are obsessed with war and are somehow structurally and functionally the same across unrelated native communities), consult Searching for D.I.H.: Digital Indigenous Heroes (Sheyahshe, 2007). Many more examples are easily accessible to those who look.
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