Does Call of Duty Believe in Anything?

almost six move into the first floor is this game political No [Music] we'll just make the game that seems insane it seems it the same to get political to me [Music] call of duty modern warfare released on October 25th 2019 and sold six hundred million dollars worth of games in its first three days that is if we're keeping track roughly double the amount Avengers endgame made in North America in the same amount of time call of duty modern warfare is the ninth Call of Duty developed by Infinity Ward and the sixteenth Call of Duty game released in the last 16 years call of duty modern warfare is the fourth game in the Call of Duty series to be called call of duty modern warfare unlike the previous year's game black ops confusion about Roman numerals this fourth call of duty modern warfare has a single-player campaign a Redux of the first call of duty modern warfare campaign with similarly named characters in totally new situations still with me and if you followed call of duty modern warfare marketing you'll know the Infinity Ward wanted you to know that this single-player campaign was about modern warfare it's not your daddy's modern warfare or the modern warfare you played 12 years ago this is a story about proxy wars about non-state actors and serious acts of terrorism these are morally complex stories where there is no black and white or pure evil or pure good it's the gray in the middle of all that and finding your line is a hard thing to determine says narrative director Taylor Kurosaki this game deals with some capital T themes themes like colonialism and occupation and independence and freedom but while this is a game about modern warfare about colonialism about occupied countries about the meaning of freedom there is one thing it's not is this game political no hmm so to be fair is this thing political is a question that can be interpreted in many different ways and to their credit the writers of modern warfare actually gave us a pretty direct explanation of what they feel their game would have to be in order to be political when I feel examine for me to honestly say if you wanted a situation where I would say that yes it is a political story I would have to be telling a story about specifically the exact administration's and governments and events in our world today so there we go a straightforward definition of what it means to them to have a political story it would have to be specifically about the exact administration's and events in our world today now look everyone can have an opinion on this sort of thing but I feel like we can also recognize that this definition is absurd let's list some stories that are not political by this definition house of cards the west wing veep mr. Smith goes to Washington 1984 Atlas Shrugged Animal Farm brave new world Fahrenheit 451 Huck Finn by this definition Jacob Minkoff has made the idea of political allegory impossible there ain't room for metaphors in this definition either either saying Donald Trump told me to do this or your story is not political there's the cynical way of taking this of course it's all marketing language they know that gamers are sick of having these pesky SJW politics forced into their games about imperialism a quick glance at the comments on this game and former video confirms it hundreds of people celebrating the fact that this game isn't political the cynical take is that these writers don't actually care what they're saying or the publishers have told them to keep out of politics whatever it takes as long as it sells copies and keeps their fanbase happy but I think that they feel sincere and moreover even if they do have ulterior motives for claiming a politicize 'im this interpretation paints a fascinating picture of Call of Duty's base assumptions about the military and the world we live in first things first though the plot and the broadest possible strokes in a fictional Middle East country named Isaac Stan many forces are vying for control there's a hostile invasion from Russia there's a fictional terrorist group called alcohol and there's the Erick militia after terrorist attacks in the non-fictional city of London and the looming threat of chemical weapons by Russian forces a number of SAS and CIA agents team up with the members of the Ehrlich militia to stop the bad guys I played the game like two days ago but writing up those three sentences was weirdly difficult and there's a good reason for that modern warfare is a game about individuals we don't spend time with the kersek militia really we spend time with fara she's a leader in the group she's absolutely committed to her people as a child her father was killed during a chemical weapon attack by Russian forces and so she hates the invading Russians she hates chemical weapons she hates being controlled I remember her character far more than I remember exactly what she was trying to do same with Captain John price a mustachioed SAS captain who knows that doing the right thing off the means getting his hands dirty but that's a burden he's willing to take we get daddy and old studies clean or CIA officer Alex who empathizes so strongly with the Ehrlich militias flight that he literally leaves his post to go fight with them or had near a fair his brother who fights just as passionately for independence but has put it odds with Farah and the rest of the squad when he uses chemical weapons against Russian forces this focus on character over story is very much Modern Warfare's intent I think the writer said many times that they wanted you to empathize with the individual this is the story about the morally grave remember and you know what that's fine Wars especially the proxy wars this story is ostensibly about are fought by individuals including freedom fighters like Farah humanizes parts of a conflict we often think about only in broad strokes but modern warfare seems to think by sidelining real-life and government and administrations and events in favor of individuals it's able to dodge politics this isn't a story about Congress or Parliament it's a story about people simply responding to the situation's they're puttin in their mind the personal cannot be political but simultaneously there are constant reminders on the many real-life wars that have been fought and the many thinkers that have stemmed from them at least there are if you're bad at the game I die an Ellie Wiesel tells me that nothing can nothing will justify the murder of innocent people and helpless children I die and John Paul Sartre tells me that when the rich wage war it's the poor who died I die and Chris Kyle tells me that it was my duty to shoot the enemy and I do not regret it or any of these quotes what the game is about not really but it's what Call of Duty has done for years drape itself and non-fictional accoutrement while insisting it can't function as a commentary on any of those things Modern Warfare uses real guns real quotes and 1/2 real countries but is this game political no because there's a second part to Minkoff definition that's probably even more important to their self-identification as non political are you ready for it here we go and governments and events in our world today we are talking about thematic things we would also have to have I think a perspective on it and and what we don't we we want to present the different perspectives we don't want to say that one of them is correct [Music] call of duty modern warfare does not have a perspective on modern warfare that is their official position what what do you even do with that colonialism and occupation and independence and freedom we would also have to have I think a perspective on it is freedom good is war bad this game has no idea come and play the game series named after the phrase we say when we're honoring soldiers a series completely neutral on the ideas of war all right all right so what's interesting here taking them at their word is what the writers of Call of Duty think a perspective list story looks like early on there's a mission in modern warfare set in London in the opening of the mission sergeant Kyle Garrick and a squad are tracking a potential terrorist group he asks if there are snipers in place and is told that they don't have a backup because they don't want to upset the public immediately afterward terrorists detonate a van in the middle of Piccadilly Circus in the following mission you as Garret fight through the chaos arists are mixed in with the crowds the mission is designed so it's exceedingly difficult to not accidentally shoot one of the dozens of fleeing civilians once all the terrorists are killed and cleanup begins Erik laments that this attack could have been prevented sorry large cigar sauce there shouldn't have happened in the first place Erik says that they had actionable Intel to stop the attack because they had been tracking this terrorist cell for weeks the reason him and his squad hadn't was because of a an unnamed they weren't willing to take the gloves off we don't stand a chance in hell with these rules of engagement captain they can't tell us where they can tell us Wed don't tell us out remember trekking us several weeks Taiyo eric has a perspective clearly he wants more autonomy for his individual squad more leeway to use force more resources allocated at Homeland Security and terror attack prevention and it makes sense that he would feel this way he just experienced the worst possible result of not having autonomy leeway and a resources Call of Duty's writers say they want to present the different perspectives we don't want to say one of them is correct but how are we as an audience supposed to take this scene Eric thinks that if his squad had the discretion to take out potential targets without higher approval he would be able to prevent terrorist attacks and in this scene he is proven right on every measure sure the game doesn't force you in real life to agree with Garrett's point but I have trouble thinking of a way it could more persuasively frame him as correct a game standout mission clean house presents a similarly implicit perspective clean house it is from a purely game design perspective a pretty remarkable achievement for Call of Duty far from bombastic this mission is an incredibly tense and quiet path through a single house every single room is its own separate and count every bathroom could have someone hiding and at every blind corner as a potential bullet and just like Piccadilly Circus civilians are mixed in with the terrorists but even more so in this instance a man is using a woman as a human body shield assuming you take him out cleanly he lets go if the woman who immediately lunges for a gun surprise she was a combatant too in one of the rooms there's a woman and a baby obviously you shouldn't shoot them in fact if you shoot them multiple times the game shows a message that says are you serious and kicks you back to the main menu when you finish clearing the house you find two things at the top a treasure trove of information on terrorist activities and a detonator if you hadn't shot that last woman the whole house would have gone up in smoke here again we have a level that presents a controversial real-life operation in this case no-knock raids but also presents a right way through if someone surrenders you don't shoot them if they have a gun you do there's even an achievement called golden path for going through the house perfectly using one bullet per viable target and at the end it was absolutely worth it you got information that led to saving lives again the game doesn't actually force you to agree with the actions of the characters here you could play this level and be absolutely horrified that a state military would carry out this kind of action you could reasonably point out that it's an understandable response to try and shoot back when you wake up and find your house full of men with guns you could recognize that the Golden Path isn't perfect at all that it's only really rewarding the efficient executions of but if you were to do that you would be fighting against every message that the game is giving you in the game if you alerted the people in the house that you were there you never would have found that life-saving information in the game if you didn't shoot that woman in the head she would have grabbed the detonator and killed everyone mother and baby included the game doesn't say all no-knock worries are effective but it shows you one and that one inarguably was Modern Warfare's writers say they're just presenting ideas here without a stance just showing off the real situations that military operators might face but their presentation of these situations contextualized within the story as always appropriate and game ax fide with a correct way through implicitly says otherwise Call of Duty knows that these missions won't vibe with everyone but they never call those conflicts political because of course the position is that the game isn't political they just use a big catch-all word for anyone who takes issue before the game's release clean house was a central pillar of the marketing campaign for modern warfare and much of the marketing was centered around how much of a departure this story was for the series previous Call of Duty's had been silly explosive there this was real they emphasized how many military experts they consulted with how much care they took in recreating real-life military operations and those real-life operations like clean house might be controversial but that's what you needed to do if he wanted to accurately represent modern warfare but far from this actually being a departure for the series Call of Duty has continuously market itself on its gritty controversies modern warfare 3 writers said that they wanted to show certainly in some particular cases we wanted to show the effects of war civilians are a part of that innocent people are a part of it accordingly they vaporized the little girl Modern Warfare 2 needed to believably so why Russia would attack the US and that's why you shot up an airport full of civilians all of Duty drapes itself in surface-level controversy all the time but the controversy always boils down to kind of the same thing can you believe we're showing this in a video game the controversy never goes as deep as say acknowledging the time that the u.s. bombed a retreating army and all the civilians along with them that honor is shifted to a fictional Russian operation and honestly many of their big controversial levels feel like quickly more than anything no Russian is completely disconnected from the rest of the game and even the original team really has no consensus on what it meant this family getting killed by a car bomb is well it's just that it is a momentary unpleasant surprise that it's quite well into a headline as Kempster or Aaron signal pointed out the issued a baby scene and modern warfare is absolutely manufactured the game doesn't even let you pull the trigger in a situation that would be friendly fire hard as I try I can't shoot Captain Price I can shoot this baby Call of Duty's marketed controversy is completely superficial they show terrorist attacks and child death and end a player into a shell-shocked acceptance of whatever actions are taken in retaliation [Music] call of duty modern warfare x' campaign is overflowing with torture Farah the freedom fighter is waterboarded at the hands of the Russian villian in a questionable choice the torture is actually turned into a minigame you turn your head to avoid the stream and the villain says things like oh boy there's also a scene where you enter a mansion to find that the villain has been torturing men two of them resisted one gave up everything there's also a scene or Captain Price and Sergeant Garrick are interrogating a guy named of the butcher when he refuses to give up information Pryce brings in the butcher's wife and kid he warns Garrick that worth the gloves off they're often a reference to Garrett's frustration early on with the lack of autonomy they were given in the treatment of terrorists you as Garrick have the choice to leave or not if you don't price gives you a revolver the potential death of his wife and child finally prompt the butcher to give up the needed information and then he piece out of there with your new mission you can kill him if you want it doesn't really affect the story either way [Music] this in microcosm is what callofduty believes war is hard and often brutal but there are a few good people who have the guts and the clarity of vision to do the right thing whatever it takes those people are always those who actually have their boots on the ground and never the ones who would let short-term morality stand in the way of long-term success this isn't really even an ends justify the means ideology one of the curious things about modern warfare storytelling is it's so jam-packed with missions events and explosions that I can't even really tell you what the intended ends were it's more just the means are always fine if they're done by the right person I know the people who would make the right decisions Captain Price would do the right thing no matter the situation he's cited by the writers as one of the heroes of the story even when he uses a man's wife and child to torture him we understand that it's okay because he's one of the people who makes the right decisions officer Alex would do the right thing no matter the situation and that's why the story doesn't condemn him when he leaves the CIA and joins they classified as enemy or xik militia the story wants you to understand that the higher administration's just don't get the warlike ground-level troops do it's why in the story Alex parts amicably with the whole squad instead of being called a traitor or treasonous or whatever fareth the freedom fighter would do the right thing no matter the situation she's strong empathetic and extremely cooperative with the US and British militaries you know who can't be trusted to do the right thing her brother hadir because while they both want to free their country from internal terrorism and external occupation hadir is willing to do anything to accomplish those goals including in one of the game's pivotal scenes using chemical weapons against the invading Russian army from this moment on hadir is completely sectioned off from the rest of the cast talked about in the same lingo as an enemy combatant Hedi across the line and the game's story never forgives him for it and I mean fair choice chemical warfare is a valid thing to call completely unacceptable a captain price and Sergeant Herrick threatened to kill a man's wife and child in front of him and both of those characters still come out painted as heroes no I think the actual reason hadir becomes a persona non-grata is because of his refusal to be fully subservient to the American and British military that come in to assist in the liberation I genuinely think that if there had come a point in the story where price had decided to use chemical weapons against the enemy the game would have framed it as a tough choice but we need people that can make those tough choices to protect our freedom I mean for Christ's sake in 2009's modern warfare 2 at different universes captain price and detonated a nuke directly above Washington DC but we understood then as we do now that he's a man that can make the hard decisions Modern Warfare's story and virtually every other Call of Duty plotline is one that valorizes the individual troop above civilians ethics and oversight it's a story that tells us that we can't understand what's happening on the ground unless were the people there and as such we shouldn't question the decisions of the soldiers who are it's a worldview where we base our moral judgments of actions completely on the predetermined morality of the person carrying those actions out and it's a perspective that has enormous ramifications in our unavoidably political reality michael behenna was an Army Ranger who stripped a suspected al-qaeda member naked during an unauthorized interrogation then shot him twice Matthew Goldstein is an officer who murdered a civilian in Afghanistan a civilian he claims was a bomb maker in his 2017 deployment special ops chief Edward Gallagher killed a 15 year old captive with a hunting knife while the boy was receiving medical attention he also spent days in a sniper perch claiming to kill an average of 3 people a day for 80 days to separate SEAL snipers on the same team reported that they watched Gallagher shoot a girl in the stomach from his sniper nest one of them guessed that she was about 12 years old he was known to park an armored truck on a bridge and fire indiscriminately into neighborhoods he was known to fire rockets at houses for no apparent reason and 2014 Gallagher was detained at traffic stop where he allegedly tried to run over a navy police officer in 2010 Gallagher shot through an Afghan girl to hit the man carrying her killing them both all three men have since received a presidential pardon Asma Hannah's lawyer said we know we have a president who is very sympathetic to the very difficult situation that soldiers sailors and Marines were put in during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars they in the collective cultural imagination are the men who make the right decisions yes their actions might seem immoral bordering on inhuman from our comfortable homes but as we're shown again and again those inhuman actions aren't a fault they're an imperative these men are willing to do anything anything to come out on top and ultimately their willingness to set aside ethics and morals is the only way we can preserve ours this is what callofduty believes [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Jacob Geller

Views: 729,255

Rating: 4.8430033 out of 5

Keywords: call of duty, politics, essay, analysis, modern warfare, torture, critical, jacob, geller, highway of death, breadtube

Id: FtCV421T52s

Length: 25min 30sec (1530 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 14 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Time_Terminal]

So true. The game jumped from being political to "not political" on the surface every couple of minutes.

I think what they were aiming for in the game was good - political ideologies of the individual. But they should have stuck with that instead of pandering to Activision's requests to tell the media that the game isn't political at all.