First-Person Shooter Games: Misogyny as Entertainment?

The video game market reached $20.8 billion in 2012, with historical first-person shooter games as a significant genre. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (set in a fictional WWIII) made $775 million in its first five days. And with thirteen million units sold by 2012, Rockstar Games’ critically acclaimed Red Dead Redemption (RDR, set in the Wild West) was applauded for its realism and called a “tour de force” by the New York Times.¹ But as these games proliferate through our culture, what are we learning as we are launched back in time and into the worlds of these games?

1 DESCRIPTION. Red Dead Redemption features John Madsen, a white outlaw turned federal agent, who journeys to the “uncivilized” West to capture or kill his old gang members. Within this game, gamers encounter breathtaking vistas and ghost towns with saloons, prostitutes, and gunslingers; large herds of cattle; and scenes of the Mexican Rebellion. Shootouts are common in towns and on the plains, and gamers earn points for killing animals and people. The New York Times review notes that “Red Dead Redemption is perhaps most distinguished by the brilliant voice acting and pungent, pitch-perfect writing we have come to expect from Rockstar.”

2 ANALYSIS. RDR may have “pitch-perfect writing,” but a certain tune emerges. For example, African Americans and Native Americans are absent from the story line (although they clearly were present in the West of 1911). The roles of women are limited: They are portrayed as untrustworthy and chronically nagging wives, prostitutes, or nuns—and they can be blithely killed in front of sheriffs and husbands without ramifications. One special mission is to hogtie a nun or prostitute and drop her onto tracks in front of an oncoming train. One gamer in his popular how-to demo on YouTube calls this mission “the coolest achievement I’ve ever seen in a game.”²

1 INTERPRETATION. RDR may give us a technologically rich immersion into the Wild West of 1911, but it relies on clichés to do so (e.g., macho white gunslinger as leading man, weak or contemptible women, vigilante justice). If the macho/misogynistic narrative possibilities and value system of RDR seem familiar, it’s because the game is based on Rockstar’s other video game hit, Grand Theft Auto (GTA), which lets players have sex with and then graphically kill hookers. GTA was heavily criticized for creating an “X-Rated wonderland,” and was dubbed “Grand Theft Misogyny.”³ Indeed, Rockstar simply took the GTA engine and interface and overlaid new scenes, narratives, and characters, moving from the urban streets of “Liberty City” to the American frontier towns.⁴

4 EVALUATION. The problem with Red Dead Redemption is its limited view of history, lack of imagination, and reliance on misogyny as entertainment. Since its gameplay is so similar to GTA, the specifics of time and place are beside the point—all that’s left is killing and hating women. Video games are fun, but what effect do they have on men’s attitudes toward women?

5 ENGAGEMENT. Talk to friends about games like GTA, RDR, and Rockstar’s latest, L.A. Noire (set in 1940s Los Angeles, it also contains scenes with nudity and graphic violence against women). Comment on blog sites about the ways some games can provide a mask for misogyny. And write to Rockstar itself (www.rockstargames.com), demanding less demeaning narratives regarding women and ethnic minorities.