Machinima in the Crosshairs
Hot on the heels of my posting some positive Machinima events, comes that not-so-comfortable feeling.
I just completed watching an ABC Nightline segment on the machinima titled "Sonic Jihad", created using Battlefield 2 by a filmmaker named Samir. It's mostly gameplay footage, and the film starts with soundbites lifted from Team America: World Police - the Trey Parker/Matt Stone puppet-fest (specifically from Middle Eastern character who speaks of why he became involved in the war).
Sonic Jihad isn't the most compelling of Machinima works, but here it gets star treatment because of the focus given to it last month by the House Intelligence Committee, where the machinima was held up by "experts" as propaganda and recruiting material for terrorists. The great blog, Game Politics, gives the whole scenario a thorough once-over. The sum of this silliness is that the machinima itself was labeled an advertisement for a Jihad-friendly video game - which, of course, doesn't exist.
The film is an interesting cousin to Alex Chan's The French Democracy, with much less of a message. However, given the flavor of the game and its content, this machinima comes under extreme scrutiny - particularly at a time when video games are already a polarizing subject matter in political circles. My personal concern is the possible ripple effect these actions can have. Just as Hot Coffee was initially targeted as flaws of the mod community, Sonic Jihad can be held up as yet another scapegoat, and possibly impact how Machinima is viewed by publishers and developers overall.
Thankfully, the ABC piece is a bit of fresh air in the current reporting climate. In fact, they interview Georgia Tech's Ian Bogost - of who I'm a big fan - to get the skinny on what the House was looking at. He tells them straight up that Sonic Jihad is just a film posted by a player of the game - but not the Jihadistic material as it was labeled. Additional kudos to ABC reporter Jake Tapper, who takes Pentagon official Dan Devlin to the mat for misleading the House on what was posted.
Is the Internet being used to express anti-American sentiments? Sure. Can Machinima be used for unfavorable purposes? Absolutely. But saying American made games, their associated mods and Machinima are the vehicles for these messages is a bit of stretch - at least in this instance.
More importantly, the House should look to more savvy experts on how to qualify when and where the net is being exploited for hostilities to the US and its allies. That's the real moral to this story.
Now, excuse me while I jump into a quick game of America's Army.
I just completed watching an ABC Nightline segment on the machinima titled "Sonic Jihad", created using Battlefield 2 by a filmmaker named Samir. It's mostly gameplay footage, and the film starts with soundbites lifted from Team America: World Police - the Trey Parker/Matt Stone puppet-fest (specifically from Middle Eastern character who speaks of why he became involved in the war).
Sonic Jihad isn't the most compelling of Machinima works, but here it gets star treatment because of the focus given to it last month by the House Intelligence Committee, where the machinima was held up by "experts" as propaganda and recruiting material for terrorists. The great blog, Game Politics, gives the whole scenario a thorough once-over. The sum of this silliness is that the machinima itself was labeled an advertisement for a Jihad-friendly video game - which, of course, doesn't exist.
The film is an interesting cousin to Alex Chan's The French Democracy, with much less of a message. However, given the flavor of the game and its content, this machinima comes under extreme scrutiny - particularly at a time when video games are already a polarizing subject matter in political circles. My personal concern is the possible ripple effect these actions can have. Just as Hot Coffee was initially targeted as flaws of the mod community, Sonic Jihad can be held up as yet another scapegoat, and possibly impact how Machinima is viewed by publishers and developers overall.
Thankfully, the ABC piece is a bit of fresh air in the current reporting climate. In fact, they interview Georgia Tech's Ian Bogost - of who I'm a big fan - to get the skinny on what the House was looking at. He tells them straight up that Sonic Jihad is just a film posted by a player of the game - but not the Jihadistic material as it was labeled. Additional kudos to ABC reporter Jake Tapper, who takes Pentagon official Dan Devlin to the mat for misleading the House on what was posted.
Is the Internet being used to express anti-American sentiments? Sure. Can Machinima be used for unfavorable purposes? Absolutely. But saying American made games, their associated mods and Machinima are the vehicles for these messages is a bit of stretch - at least in this instance.
More importantly, the House should look to more savvy experts on how to qualify when and where the net is being exploited for hostilities to the US and its allies. That's the real moral to this story.
Now, excuse me while I jump into a quick game of America's Army.
8 Comments:
Funny it's the same night that the Daily Show had a bit of machinima of its own. They "reported" on a senate committee discussing the dangers of videogames. Seeing as how Jon Stewart's a big time gamer, you can imagine which side Daily Show took.
During the segment, Samantha Bee reported "live" from San Andreas...as in GTA: San Andreas.
this stuff is soooooo american politics it makes me want to vomit. It's the reason america has such a bad reputation all over the world.
While it seems ok to recruit people to fight for the american idea of justice and freedom, killing people from almost every other nation in the world , people that turn things upside down are "a serious threat" to america.
Boy, what serious thread is america to the world if you would measure by the same meanings then?
This is just embarrassing.
Its not surprising, nor new, to see the government over react to incidences of appearingly anti-american propoganda surfacing on the web. I was reminded of a story I had read, pre-9/11.
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/9947,boal,10334,8.html
If anything, this most recent example of governmental hyperbole continues to highlight how disconnected DC is with America. More scarily, it shows how our pentagon is either misreading 'inteligence' or is deciding to hype misconstrued evidence as threats.
The Daily Show skit was pretty funny (we get it a day later in the UK). I particularly liked Jon Stewart's proposed alternatives for the 'M for mature' rating : D (Dropout), W (Wastoid) and CMB (Child In Man's Body). Nice to see the report 'live from San Andreas' as well. I sat there bouncing on the sofa shouting "Look, look! Machinima!" My wife-to-be, who's used to this by now, just muttered "Yes, dear" and carried on reading her magazine. Okay, so it wasn't really machinima - more in-game footage with a reporter green-screened in front of it - but it's still progress.
Paul, you're right to say that Sonic Jihad is being used a s a scapegoat. It's just another example of the invisible dangers facing our children and our freedom and our way of life and our jobs and fill in as appropriate, blah blah blah. As is becoming all too prevalent, knees were jerked before facts were obtained. That the US House Intelligence Committee was willing to listen to these non-facts is worrying indeed.
Out of interest, has AMAAS been approached for a comment at all, or has nobody actually done enough research to warrant it?
fiezi said: "..this stuff is soooooo american politics..."
Yeah, but are politics any more intelligent anywhere else?
And when the daily show played the montage of clips from san adreas shown to the house of reps committee (the usual killing and mayhem with no context) they threw in their own clips taken from us bombs zeroing in on iraqi bunkers. That got the message across real quick.
Thanks for putting this up, ever since I was shown Sonic Jihad and heard about what had happend with it and have been looking (although not very hard) for some news on it. I think its a business as always with politics, where people have an opinion and then grab only parts of the story that reinforces their viewpoint. As I am not from the United States this issue did not make any news in my country so I'm glad was able to find more about it here. Thanks for putting up some more information for me to read about this.
Here's part of the Daily Show skit for those who missed it (or who live somewhere that doesn't syndicate).
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