Manifest Destiny 2.0: Genre Trouble in Game Worlds (Postwestern Horizons)

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Synopsis
At a time when print and film have shown the classic Western and noir genres to be racist, heteronormative, and neocolonial, Sara Humphreys&’s Manifest Destiny 2.0 asks why these genres endure so prolifically in the video game market. While video games provide a radically new and exciting medium for storytelling, most game narratives do not offer fresh ways of understanding the world. Video games with complex storylines are based on enduring American literary genres that disseminate problematic ideologies, quelling cultural anxieties over economic, racial, and gender inequality through the institutional acceptance and performance of Anglo cultural, racial, and economic superiority. Although game critics and scholars recognize how genres structure games and gameplay, the concept of genre continues to be viewed as a largely invisible power, subordinate to the computational processes of programming, graphics, and the making of a multimillion-dollar best seller. Investigating the social and cultural implications of the Western and noir genres in video games through two case studies—the best-selling games Red Dead Redemption (2010) and L.A. Noire (2011)—Humphreys demonstrates how the frontier myth continues to circulate exceptionalist versions of the United States. Video games spread the neoliberal and neocolonial ideologies of the genres even as they create a new form of performative literacy that intensifies the genres well beyond their originating historical contexts. Manifest Destiny 2.0 joins the growing body of scholarship dedicated to the historical, theoretical, critical, and cultural analysis of video games.
Copyright:
2021

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
186 Pages
ISBN-13:
9781496224781
Related ISBNs:
9780803268470
Publisher:
Nebraska
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
University of Nebraska Press
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
Nonfiction, Literature and Fiction, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Social Studies, Language Arts
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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