Returning Fire - Trailer - Available on DVD

http://www.mediaed.org

Returning Fire
Interventions in Video Game Culture

a film by Roger Stahl

Video games like Call of Duty, America's Army, Medal of Honor, and Battlefield are part of an exploding market of war games whose revenues now far outpace even the biggest Hollywood blockbusters. The sophistication of these games is undeniable, offering users a stunningly realistic experience of ground combat and a glimpse into the increasingly virtual world of long-distance, push-button warfare. Far less clear, though, is what these games are doing to users, our political culture, and our capacity to empathize with people directly affected by the actual trauma of war. For the culture-jamming activists featured in this film, these uncertainties were a call to action. In three separate vignettes, we see how Anne-Marie Schleiner, Wafaa Bilal, and Joseph Delappe moved dissent from the streets to our screens, infiltrating war games in an attempt to break the hypnotic spell of "militainment." Their work forces all of us -- gamers and non-gamers alike -- to think critically about what it means when the clinical tools of real-world killing become forms of consumer play.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• MEF
• militainment
• roger stahl
• war
• violence
• video games
• call of duty
• america's army
• medal of honor
• battlefield
• counter-strike
• joseph delappe
• anne-marie schleiner
• wafaa bilal

[DesmondE]

@NorthCorp

I think this is not an attack on your first amendment rights at all. It's really about how disconnected we can be from the consequences of war. Soon there will be no difference between the simulation of war and the actual war itself. Instead of war fighters on the ground, we can have rooms full of "gamers" controlling high tech armaments remotely. Thus removing a vital deterrent for war, the cost to ourselves. This has to be obvious to you, no?

[koolagoo]

At first I thought this is just another absurd blame of increasing violence on videogames. But it's something totally different! There's a great review of it at V-radioblog. Apparently it is about how video games make war seem more "unreal". It makes our emotions about terrible events happening in the world every day much less intense. We just see rockets launching as button pushing, we don't see people with ripped off legs...

[Hikarilover123]

@utmax85 This documentary better be 20 hours long for it to be that much.

[Maiyaee]

Excellent !

[Iriatv]

Oh that's right, Private Pyle, don't make any fucking effort to get to the top of the fucking obstacle. If God would have wanted you up there he would have miracled your ass up there by now, wouldn't he?

[TZMBigsteelguy]

The movie Gamer from hollywood is one of those examples of how kids of the future can play a game that is so realistic, that they would have no idea that they are controlling real people. Like in the movie Prisoners were turned into soldiers to be mind controlled, and the young kids had no idea that it wasn't a game. That's where we are heading folks if we continue down this path.

[utmax85]

it says the dvd is $250

[peachesandsunshine9]

@DesmondE Those are some good points. We also observe war through a screen, whether it be a computer or a television, and we also play video games on that same screen. It's not an issue of 1st amendment rights like what other people have been saying, but rather the issue of separating real war consequences from a video game emulating similar features within the war. Video games separate the war into smaller objectives that should be completed, but never really delve into the socioeconomic toll.

[NorthCorp]

I fought we got over this when Jack Thompson left the scene, the reason these games sale well because of games designers knowing how game play works ,these games are not a realistic simulation of war, you could not learn how to use a real gun from a game.

like movies/TV. we have the right to create media that has a relevance to the world we live in today. no matter the subject.

[usintelreport]

CM

I disagree with you this time

we have a 1st amendment