SPEAKING ABOUT RACE: BIOPOWER AND RACISM IN THE VIDEOGAME LANDSCAPE A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Sambo Srauy May 2014 Examining Committee Members: Jan Fernback, Ph.D., Advisory Chair, Mass Media and Communication Hector Postigo, Ph.D., Mass Media and Communication Nancy Morris, Ph.D., Mass Media and Communication Casey O’Donnell Ph.D., Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media at Michigan State University, Outside Reader ii © Copyright 2014 by Sambo Srauy All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT This dissertation explores how discourses surrounding race and economics inform the way in which videogame creators understand their world and use that understanding to create content. Employing a Foucauldian discourse analysis, the content of two videogames, Skyrim and Max Payne 3, were analyzed. The analysis of Skyrim revealed that race is constructed as an inherently biological phenomenon. Moreover, culture is constructed as emerging from biology. The analysis of Max Payne 3 revealed that capitalism grounds the construction of race so that biology and culture serves to justify the economic position of light-skinned and dark-skinned Brazilians. These constructions come from various sources such as the works of J. R. R. Tolkien and film noir. The dissertation also interviews videogame developers using semi-structured interviews to examine the extent to which content creators are aware of these discourses and how industry norms and economics affect those discourses. Videogame developers revealed that these discourses stem from a market pressure to make videogame narratives understandable and sellable. iv I dedicate this work to my brilliant and wonderful wife, Amanda, and to our amazing daughter, Madeline. You never cease to inspire me. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This work would not be possible without the tireless work of my dissertation committee. Thank you all for your help. I especially want to recognize the support I received from my dissertation committee chair, Jan Fernback, whose research support was invaluable. I also want to recognize and thank the bravery of my research participants. Like many industries, the North American videogame industry can be an insular place. Regardless of anonymity, speaking to a researcher about any sensitive topic is difficult. Mostly, I want to recognize and thank my extended family whose tireless editing prowess made this dissertation possible. Thank you all. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iii DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................................................................v CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................1 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................6 Defining race: The indelible link between race and economics ..................8 Narratives and discourses as ways of articulating reality and identity ......14 More than words: Discourse as the concretization of ideas .......................17 Constructing identities through storytelling...............................................18 Co-constructing corporate identity through individual narrative identities .....................................................................................................20 The culture industry and the transmission of ideology ..............................24 Economics incentives at the micro-level of the firm and the individual ...29 Biopower ....................................................................................................34 The political strategy of “truth-testing” through markets ..........................36 Sovereign power ........................................................................................38 Pastoral power ............................................................................................41 Color-blind racism as a form of biopower .................................................42 vii Biopower in digital spaces .........................................................................45 The collective act of identity construction .................................................49 3. METHODS ............................................................................................................54 Disclosure of scholarly identity .................................................................60 Operationalizing race .................................................................................62 Operationalizing biopower.........................................................................62 Discourse analysis ......................................................................................65 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Max Payne 3 ..........................................68 Sampling texts ............................................................................................70 Qualitative interviews ................................................................................74 Questions to be posed to game developers ................................................76 Analyzing the interviews ...........................................................................77 4. PUTTING SKYRIM INTO CONTEXT .................................................................79 Background of the game and the game’s “races” ......................................80 Biopower: The strategy and practice of race construction in Skyrim ........87 Through the lens of the Dragonborn, the Dovakin sees clearly .................94 Minimization of Racism ............................................................................95 Abstract Liberalism ....................................................................................96 The intersection of Naturalization and Cultural Racism..........................100 From a slippage of biopower discourses toward race wars .....................111 viii The economic pressures of narrative construction ...................................116 5. “THE GREAT AMERICAN SAVIOR OF THE POOR” ...................................126 Film noir, urban spaces, and (invisible) bodies .......................................133 6. A VIEW FROM THE INSIDE ............................................................................154 Methods and recruitment .........................................................................159 Videogame developers and the perception of race discourse ..................162 Color-blind racism (biopower) in the development of videogame narratives ..................................................................................................168 Biopower discourses about race, economic pressures, and industry practices ...................................................................................................174 Two conflicting economic pressures .......................................................182 Idealizing the indie game world ...............................................................183 7. SUMMARIZING THE POINTS AND FINDING SOLUTIONS .......................191 Past narratives in videogames: How videogame developers contribute to discourses about race ...............................................................................193 Tumbling out: A small proposal for fixing race discourses .....................197 Strengths, weakness, and future research ................................................200 Closing remarks .......................................................................................202 REFERENCES CITED ....................................................................................................205 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION MCI’s commercial, Anthem, is seductive with imagery and voiceover that declares the Internet as a utopian space where racial, gender, age, or disability inequity does not exist (as cited in Nakamura, 2002, p. 87). This notion is echoed in the New Yorker cartoon that states, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” (Steiner, 1993). Undergirding this belief is the promise of an easy technological solution to reboot and fix troubling and persistent offline racial inequality. Yet, what is now apparent is that race-based inequity offline and in various forms of media followed societies into the new media environment. The Internet utopia, it seems, is no utopia after all. Media such as videogames depend on users’ ability to access the Internet with sufficient speed and reliability to view trailers, participate in game forums, and, in some cases, actually play the games. Looking beyond videogames, all media are online in the contemporary world. For instance, television programs often have webi-sodes (e.g., L. S. Miller, 2009), radio stations stream their content, and apparently offline media have at least a website. What complicates this utopian dream is that whites are still more likely than non- whites to have broadband Internet, which is critical for bandwidth intensive content such as streaming video, Skype, and online videogames (Smith, 2010; Washington, 2011). On the other hand, 46% of blacks and 51% of Latinos rely on mobile technology such as smartphones