Ludic Populism and Its Unpopular Subversion
The commendable critical tendency to increasingly consider the politics of video games in general is routinely met with resistance on the part of those who insist on their apolitical nature, in parallel to other areas of popular culture. In this contested discourse, it is all the more important to b...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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European Association for American Studies
2021-09-01
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| Series: | European Journal of American Studies |
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| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/17259 |
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| _version_ | 1841558283389763584 |
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| author | Sascha Pöhlmann |
| author_facet | Sascha Pöhlmann |
| author_sort | Sascha Pöhlmann |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | The commendable critical tendency to increasingly consider the politics of video games in general is routinely met with resistance on the part of those who insist on their apolitical nature, in parallel to other areas of popular culture. In this contested discourse, it is all the more important to be specific about what it actually means to claim that video games are political, and this essay offers one particular way in which to address this issue. Understanding the political as a way of imagining a community as a political actor through symbolic practices, either in the interest of creating the sovereign of democratic systems or an ethnicity, I argue that video games may employ a populist imagination in constructing ‘the people’ as a basically unified group (usually in implicitly or explicitly essentialist ways) as much as they may resist or subvert this populist fantasy of homogeneity. I am especially interested in games that dialectically combine both these aspects at the same time by way of dissonances between their representational elements and their gameplay. Focusing on strategy games and action games, my examples include Civilization V, Democracy 3, Tropico 4, BioShock Infinite, Just Cause 3, and Far Cry 4. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-ce70a648b9ef46d9be9747f564dc66f2 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1991-9336 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2021-09-01 |
| publisher | European Association for American Studies |
| record_format | Article |
| series | European Journal of American Studies |
| spelling | doaj-art-ce70a648b9ef46d9be9747f564dc66f22025-01-06T09:08:40ZengEuropean Association for American StudiesEuropean Journal of American Studies1991-93362021-09-0116310.4000/ejas.17259Ludic Populism and Its Unpopular SubversionSascha PöhlmannThe commendable critical tendency to increasingly consider the politics of video games in general is routinely met with resistance on the part of those who insist on their apolitical nature, in parallel to other areas of popular culture. In this contested discourse, it is all the more important to be specific about what it actually means to claim that video games are political, and this essay offers one particular way in which to address this issue. Understanding the political as a way of imagining a community as a political actor through symbolic practices, either in the interest of creating the sovereign of democratic systems or an ethnicity, I argue that video games may employ a populist imagination in constructing ‘the people’ as a basically unified group (usually in implicitly or explicitly essentialist ways) as much as they may resist or subvert this populist fantasy of homogeneity. I am especially interested in games that dialectically combine both these aspects at the same time by way of dissonances between their representational elements and their gameplay. Focusing on strategy games and action games, my examples include Civilization V, Democracy 3, Tropico 4, BioShock Infinite, Just Cause 3, and Far Cry 4.https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/17259politicspopulismvideo gamesunpopular culture |
| spellingShingle | Sascha Pöhlmann Ludic Populism and Its Unpopular Subversion European Journal of American Studies politics populism video games unpopular culture |
| title | Ludic Populism and Its Unpopular Subversion |
| title_full | Ludic Populism and Its Unpopular Subversion |
| title_fullStr | Ludic Populism and Its Unpopular Subversion |
| title_full_unstemmed | Ludic Populism and Its Unpopular Subversion |
| title_short | Ludic Populism and Its Unpopular Subversion |
| title_sort | ludic populism and its unpopular subversion |
| topic | politics populism video games unpopular culture |
| url | https://journals.openedition.org/ejas/17259 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT saschapohlmann ludicpopulismanditsunpopularsubversion |