High Tech Blackface -- Race, Sports Video Games and Becoming the Other David J
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High Tech Blackface -- Race, Sports Video Games and Becoming the Other David J. Leonard High-Tech Blackface In a recent interview, Adam Clayton Powell III referred At 20, Jeremy Deberry surely is the best football to video games as "high-tech blackface," arguing that player at Central Piedmont Community College in "because the players become involved in the action … Charlotte, N.V. He practices six days a week, they become more aware of the moves that are pro- plays both ways and is generally regarded by his grammed into the game." [4] With this in mind, this peers as among the nation's elite performers, hav- paper explores the ways in which sports games reflect ing earned the moniker the Champ. Few address a history of minstrelsy, providing its primarily white cre- the sophomore as anything but. [1] ators and players the opportunity to become black. [5] In doing so, these games elicit pleasure, playing on white fantasies as they simultaneously affirm white The accolades above were not directed at a high privilege through virtual play. school all-American or even a finalist for the John Wodden award, but a video game player. Jeremy According to historian Eric Lott, minstrelsy was a Deberry is one of many talented virtual athletes, cash- "manifestation of the particular desire to try on the ing in on hand-eye success with fame and fortune. accents of 'blackness' and demonstrates the perme- Donning jerseys, talking trash, and working from ability of the color line." He writes that blackface "facili- excessive levels of testosterone, these virtual sporting tate[s] safely an exchange of energies between two competitions are a ripe source of critical inquiry. otherwise rigidly bounded and policed cultures." Like Whether examining the performativity of masculinity, minstrelsy, video games may be "less a sign of heterosexuality and whiteness, these emerging public absolute power and control than of panic, anxiety, ter- competitions replicate the ideologies and nature of ror, and pleasure." [6] Video games break down these nineteenth century minstrelsy. The resemblance to same fixed boundaries with ease, given their virtual minstrelsy transcends the fact that white cyber athletes realism, allowing its participants to try on the other, the primarily compete, but with the ideologies, images and taboo, the dangerous, the forbidden and the otherwise power that define this high-tech form of blackface. unacceptable. [7] The sports gaming industry is the crown jewel of the video games world. It is a one billion dollar per year Like minstrelsy, video games may industry; sports games account for more than thirty percent of all video games sales. While Tony Hawk be "less a sign of absolute power and other extreme sports games, all of which deploy and control than of panic, anxiety, race (whiteness) in particular ways, are growing increasingly popular, the most popular games remain terror, and pleasure." Video those sports dominated by black athletes. Since 1989, games break down these same over 19 million units of John Madden football have fixed boundaries with ease, given been sold. In 2002 alone, EA sports sold 4.5 million units. [2] "Today's gaming resides squarely in main- their virtual realism, allowing its stream America, and for them fantasy means Tigers participants to try on the other, and Kobes. [3] As such, sports games represent a genre in which characters of color exist as actors (pro- the taboo, the dangerous, the for- tagonists) rather than victims or aesthetic scenery. bidden and the otherwise unac- Eight out of ten black male video game characters are ceptable. sports competitors; black males, thus, only find visibili- ty in sports games. Just in larger society, the video game industry confines (and controls through image and ideology) black men to the virtual sports world, A Return to Minstrelsy: Sports in limiting the range and depth of imagery. It is our task its Purest Form to examine briefly the range of images, in terms of Imitation, in both the real and virtual worlds, is not the both individual and communal representations, demon- highest form of flattery. Norman Mailer, in his often strating the ideological and representational connec- cited, 1957 piece entitled "The White Negro" asserts, tions between minstrelsy and the virtual sporting world. "it is no accident that the source of hip is the Negro for Intelligent Agent 4.4.2 gaming.leonard.01 he has been living on the margin between totalitarian- The Virtual Black Athletic Body ism and democracy for two centuries." Video games It becomes quite clear through these games that reflect this cultural reality, bespeaking black coolness blacks dominate America's major sports and do so through its ubiquitous articulations of white suprema- because of genetics. In each of the sports games, the cist ideologies, grounded in a belief of black savagery emphasis lies with black male bodies, whether physi- and animalism (athleticism). These powerful ideologies cality and muscularity, or pure athleticism. The cover emanate through these games, and reflect their con- of NFL Street embodies the racial text of sports video nection to minstrelsy. Elijah Anderson, a professor of games. A muscle bound Ricky Williams, who bulges sociology at University of Pennsylvania, argues that out of the box, is breaking free from a tackle of abundance of racial stereotypes reflects longstanding Shannon Sharpe. While the emphasis on their mus- fascination with blackness as mysterious and cool, cles (ten times their life size), and tattoos plays to while simultaneously playing to deep-seeded desires authentic visions of blackness, the depiction of each and needs of white game enthusiasts. "Blacks have man as virtual gorillas situates this game within the always been the other in this country. Many people liv- larger project of black minstrelsy. ing in the suburbs admire this fire and this funk they see in blacks, a kind of aggressiveness a lot of them Beyond the images, black virtual athletes invariably want too. A lot of these suburban, white-bread kids reflect dominant visions of blackness as it relates to hunger for this kind of experience." [8] As with the his- athleticism. Whereas white athletes succeed because tory of minstrelsy, sampling of the other is neither liber- of hard work, the mastery of black athletes emanates atory nor transgressive -- it does not unsettle dominant from their God-given/genetic talents. The discursive notions through breaking down barriers or increasing articulations within both the virtual and the real worlds exposure. The ideas of blackness introduced through that positions black athletes as genetically athletics video games reflect dominant ideologies, thereby pro- dialectically reinforce one another, articulating and dis- viding sanction for the status quo, legitimacy for white seminating this widespread racial project. supremacy and evidence for the common sense ideas of race, gender, sexuality and nation. Jumping as high as the sun, knocking their competi- tors through concrete walls, and making unfathomable Sports games represent a site in which white hatred moves on the court, sports games reveal both innate and disdain for blackness and its love and adoration black athleticism and their superhuman strength, for blackness is revealed through popular culture. In endurance, speed, and jumping ability. The few white borrowing from Eric Lott's work on minstrelsy, video players who do appear within NBA Street, NFL Street, games reflect, "the dialectical flickering of racial insult and several other games have nowhere near the ath- and racial envy, moments of domination and moments leticism or the muscles of the black players. The white of liberation, counterfeit and currency." [9] In other player's dominance comes from their ability to shoot, words, these games reveal white supremacy in the which comes from hard work and long hours on the form of both contempt and desire. The contempt mate- court, not good genes. rializes in different ways, but in reflecting an opposi- tional binary, sports games legitimize stereotypical The genre of sports games represents a site of pleas- ideas about black athletic superiority and white intel- ure in which game players secure happiness through lectual abilities. The adoration materializes in the virtually occupying black bodies. C. Richard King & approval and value we offer black athletes, whether Charles Springwood argue that the "black athlete has through financial rewards, posters on our walls, or imi- been constructed as a site of pleasure, dominance, tation. Video games fulfill our desire to not only emu- fantasy, and surveillance." While certainly not writing late Allen Iverson's killer crossover, Shaq's thunderous about video games, they further argue, "African dunks, Barry Bonds' homerun swing, or Barry Sanders Americans have been essentially invented, policed spins, but allow the virtually occupation of black bod- and literally (re)colonized through Euro-American ies. It provides the means to experience these suppos- ideas such as discipline, deviance and desire." [10] edly unattainable skills, while deriving pleasure Identical to real the world of sports, and its surround- through black male bodies. The desire to "be black" ing discourse, sports games indulge white pleasures because of the stereotypical visions of strength, ath- as they affirm stereotypical visions of black bodies, as leticism, power and sexual potency all play out within physical, aggressive and violent, while simultaneously the virtual reality of sports games. As Janis Joplin minimizing the importance of intellectualism and hard once noted, "being black for a while, will make [you] a work in understanding the supposed dominance of better white." Video games, like hip-hop and Malcolm black athletes. X hat, provide this opportunity, facilitating a process of racial cross-dressing in which a primarily white game A majority of sports games, from those based in real playing population sample the other, experiencing an life to the extreme fantasy, depict black males as phys- imagined coolness associated with America's vision of ically and verbally aggressive and having unusual blackness.