The Pennsylvania State University the Graduate School Department of Communication Arts and Sciences WAR GAMES: CITIZENSHIP and P
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The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School Department of Communication Arts and Sciences WAR GAMES: CITIZENSHIP AND PLAY IN POST-INDUSTRIAL MILITARISM A Thesis in Communication Arts and Sciences by Roger J. Stahl © 2004 Roger J. Stahl Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2004 The thesis of Roger J. Stahl was reviewed and approved* by the following: Thomas W. Benson Professor of Communication Arts & Sciences Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Rhetoric Thesis Adviser Chair of Committee Rosa A. Eberly Associate Professor of Communication Arts & Sciences and English Stephen H. Browne Professor of Communication Arts & Sciences Charles E. Scott Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy James P. Dillard Professor of Communication Arts & Sciences Head of the Department of Communication Arts & Sciences *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School iii ABSTRACT Post-industrial war is increasingly portrayed as an object of consumption rather than civic contemplation, a particular kind of “militarism” with a strong component of play. The viewer is called into the role of citizen-soldier with ever-greater access to the front lines, though the image of this real-time war is sanitized for easy digestion. Using television war coverage as a starting point, War Games examines the stories told about citizenship in war film, military recruitment ads, video games, and toys. Two major discursive strands are identified: war as extreme sport and war as video game. Not only are the games themselves suffused with the signs of war, but official war discourse (journalism and military recruitment) is increasingly suffused with the signs of consumer play. This integration and confusion restricts possibilities for critical citizenship. War Games concludes with a discussion of strategies for dissociating the citizen from the consumer, thereby reopening spaces for critical deliberation on matters of state violence. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES .....................................................................................................vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.........................................................................................ix Chapter 1: Breached Boundaries………………………………………………….1 Citizens and Soldiers…………………………………………………………………3 Critical Citizenship and Media Wars………………………………………………..10 Virtual Soldiers at Play………………………………………………………………14 Preview……………………………………………………………………………….21 Notes…………………………………………………………………………………28 Chapter 2: The X-game and the Post-industrial Body Politic…………………..35 Fun with Death……………………………………………………………………...36 The Global Body Politics of Extreme Sports……………………………………….47 War as X-game in Popular Film…………………………………………………….58 Beyond the Movies…………………………………………………………………78 Notes………………………………………………………………………………..80 Chapter 3: Armies of One and Crafting the Citizen-Soldier……………………85 Advertising and the Millennial Military…………………………………………….92 Armies of One……………………………………………………………………….97 Bodies at Risk……………………………………………………………………….100 v Techno Fetishism………………………………………………………………….109 Acceleration: The Navy and War as High-tech X-game………………………….115 An Army of Fun and the New Citizen-Soldier…………………………………….120 Notes……………………………………………………………………………….124 Chapter 4: Virtual Citizen-Soldiers……………………………………………..128 Simulating War…………………………………………………………………….130 Recruits: Public Virtue and Virtual War……………………………………………139 America’s Army……………………………………………………………………153 Virtual Citizen-Soldiers in Real Time………………………………………………166 Notes………………………………………………………………………………..170 Chapter 5: Reclaiming Citizenship……………………………………………….175 Gulf War II: The Movie, the Ride, the Action Figure……………………………….180 The Military-Consumer Complex……………………………………………………193 Contested Consumption: Reclaiming the Citizen……………………………………195 Notes…………………………………………………………………………………213 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………217 vi LIST OF FIGURES Chapter 2: The X-game and the Post-industrial Body Politic Figure 1. Fear Factor cartoon from Playboy magazine……………………….57 Figure 2. Extreme Ops opening sequence……………………………………..60 Figure 3. Extreme Ops train sequence…………………………………………61 Figure 4. Extreme Ops terrorist confrontation………………………………...63 Figure 5. xXx bridge jump…………………………………………………….66 Figure 6. xXx, Xander Cage as extreme soldier………………………………69 Figure 7. Behind Enemy Lines closing frames………………………………..74 Figure 8. Behind Enemy Lines infrared view…………………………………76 Figure 9. Behind Enemy Lines Navy recruitment ad………………………….77 Chapter 3: Armies of One and Crafting the Citizen-Soldier Figure 1. Navy NASCAR…………………………………………………….95 Figure 2. Army of One film cover…………………………………………….99 Figure 3. Ice Soldiers and Marine mountain climber ads…………………….102 Figure 4. Desert Run ad………………………………………………………103 Figure 5. Victory Tower ad………………………………………………….106 Figure 6. “What It’s Like to be a Soldier”……………………………………107 Figure 7. Air Force cliff jump ad……………………………………………..108 Figure 8. “War on Terror” and “Axis of Evil” TV news headers…………….111 vii Figure 9. MSNBC’s “Situation Room”………………………………………111 Figure 10. MSNBC’s “Countdown Question”……………………………….112 Figure 11. Air Force model airplane ad………………………………………114 Figure 12. Navy ad 1………………………………………………………….116 Figure 13. Navy ad 2………………………………………………………….119 Figure 14. Navy surfing print ad………………………………………………120 Chapter 4: Virtual Citizen-Soldiers Figure 1. Real War and Full Spectrum Warrior………………………………136 Figure 2. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, Moments………………………………142 Figure 3. Conflict: Desert Storm and Operation Desert Hammer…………….144 Figure 4. Quest for Saddam and Saddam Hunt………………………………..146 Figure 5. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3………………………………………..149 Figure 6. Invisible War and The London Mirror………………………………150 Figure 7. Draft Card ad from Medal of Honor: Rising Sun……………………152 Figure 8. Freedom Fighters……………………………………………………152 Figure 9. America’s Army……………………………………………………...158 Figure 10. Aerial bombardment and AC-130………………………………….166 Chapter 5: Reclaiming Citizenship Figure 1. Flag merchandise…………………………………………………….179 Figure 2. Military bears………………………………………………………..182 Figure 3. G.I. Joe……………………………………………………………….184 viii Figure 4. Miscellaneous post-9/11 war toys…………………………………...186 Figure 5. Forward Command Post……………………………………………..188 Figure 6. Topps’ “Enduring Freedom Picture Cards”………………………….189 Figure 7. Bush, bin Laden, and Hussein action figures, fireworks…………….192 Figure 8. Gulf Wars: Episode II………………………………………………..203 Figure 9. Toy parodies………………………………………………………….205 Figure 10. Video game parodies………………………………………………..206 Figure 11. Velvet-Strike………………………………………………………..209 ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to extend my gratitude to Ted Heine for providing the seed idea for this project, his valuable insight regarding the media rhetoric behind Operation Iraqi Freedom, and friendship. Incalculable thanks to Rosa Eberly, who took me mercifully under her wing and without whose care, intelligence, and humor I would surely be lost. Thanks to Thomas Benson for his wisdom, encouragement, and editorial eagle-eye. Thanks to Stephen Browne, Charles Scott, Alphonso Lingis, Jon Leon Torn, Mitch Reyes, Dora McQuaid, Christine Harold, and Pat Gherke, from whom I have taken a good part of my education. Thank you Doug Morris and Lee Rensimer for their day-to- day consciousness-raising Thanks to my father, Duane for teaching me how to work hard, and my mother, Judy, for teaching me how to love well. Finally, thank you Kate Morrissey, my spiritual advisor. x The warrior never goes to War War runs away from the warrior’s mouth War falls apart in the warrior’s mind The Conquered go to War, drafted into shadow armies, navy’d on shadow oceans, flying in shadow fire. - Allen Ginsburg Chapter 1 Breached Boundaries If wars are fought, as some believe, primarily because man is “warlike,” instinctually “aggressive,” an animal who kills for sport, for glory, for vengeance, or for the sheer love of blood and violent excitement, then kiss those [nuclear] missiles goodbye. – Marvin Harris1 All efforts to render politics aesthetic culminate in one thing: war. – Walter Benjamin2 The word “militarism” can mean many things. A militarized society may be one that is governed by the rule of force rather than the rule of consensual and participatory law. The rule of force is always accompanied by the signs of power, fear, and surveillance such as the open display of weapons, show trials, executions, and military uniform. This is militarism as a kind of repressive discipline, the regulation of bodies in a prison economy or police state. Here, space is colonized to the detriment of privacy, free speech, and free assembly (or any mode of organization threatening to the ruling structure). A second definition of “militarism” might be an economic one: the collective mobilization of personnel and resources in times of war. This type of militarism also entails a discipline internal to the state, but unlike the first, human and material resources are mobilized for external purposes, not simply the maintenance of the political status quo. Massive mobilization for twentieth-century world wars in the United States – in the form of conscription, factory retooling, and rationing – are quintessential examples. Perhaps the most famous commentary on U.S. militarism, Dwight Eisenhower’s 1961 2 farewell address, invokes both of these first two conceptions. Eisenhower claimed that a “military-industrial complex” was emerging out of technological, political, and economic trends of the day. World War II had presented the opportunity for a massive merger of state