Reading done on May 27, 2019
"Rhetoric and Rising Sun: The Emergence of the War-Brother Topos"
- by Jason C. Thompson - 2013
- from The Game Culture Reader, 188-209
- accessed on May 27, 2019
"War games employ rhetorical persuasion that may operate below a common threshold of perception; the overarching purpose of these deeply nuanced tactics is to exert hegemonic pressure on game players" (Thompson 2013, 189).
"The cover of the game, when compared to an image of the 9/11 attacks, makes three visual, anachronistic analogies: burning towers, diving planes, and unprepared Americans. Here, the war-brother topos offers fragmented evidence that adds up, enthymematically, to an argument linking Pearl Harbor to 9/11" (Thompson 2013, 197-198).
"The game cover offers a strong visual analogy between the scene of Pearl Harbor attack and the scene of the World Trade Center attack by emphasizing their damaged towers, a shared quality" (Thompson 2013, 198).
In conclusion, the author claims that "[t]he notion of a stable and uniform masculinity, one protected from historical change and immune to cultural disequilibrium, remains appealing for many, as the games, films, and texts described here attest. However, the return to an ideal masculinity—one characterized by nostalgia and the strong, silent type of man—proves to be a utopia, a place that does not exist" (Thompson 2013, 207).
"It is tempting to assert that war games, in representing preferred US conflicts such as WWII, insist on a universal “hegemonic masculinity” that boils down to global dominance; however, just as masculinity can best be seen as “a way of positioning” the term “hegemonic masculinity” can best be understood as existing on a spectrum that includes subordinated, agentive masculinities" (Thompson 2013, 207).