The most recent Call of Duty release proved to be one of the top selling video games of all time. With sales surpassing over 1 billion dollars on December 22nd (Raman 1), it has clearly shown that along with being a true power house industry, the kind of impact it could have is beyond what anyone can imagine. The fact that we do not tap into the full potential of what we can achieve through video games like Call of Duty is completely baffling. A teaching machine is defined as any mechanical device used for presenting a program of instructional material. But we can instead turn to video games to have one of the largest potential to be a major teaching machine to today’s culture and historical knowledge concerning American history. One simple fact remains clear; the possibilities to teach almost anything can be achieved through video games.
Most people, who never played Call of Duty, or COD, know of actual content besides the killing in multiplayer, but in ‘Campaign’ mode there is a whole other side most people ignore. Having played it and beaten it on all difficulties, the kind of story it provided about the Cuban missile crisis, Russian spies all across America, and a conspiracy to release Nova 6 gas (mustard gas) all over the United States was one of the most jaw dropping storylines ever put together. Especially since during the last level, it was revealed to the main character by a Soviet warlord that he actually was the one to kill his own president, President John F. Kennedy.
Most of the specific history the game talks about is untrue, or at least that’s what most historians would probably say. Most of the things that went on in the video game we’re highly classified. Which one could argue that it really did happen, but it’s one of those blacked out documents and pages in American history. Perhaps it’s a business industries attempt to release the truth about what actually happened during those years, or really just a well thought up story line that could actually fit into today’s history.
If we look at Medal of Honor: Frontline, the first level you play on is invading the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. No history book or lecture can ever teach someone the horrors of what those men went through. The video game and movie Saving Private Ryan may give it some justice. But for most people, seeing the heartbreak, anguish, and life altering events in epic battles like that really give people a true sense of what really happened on the beaches of Normandy. This type of lesson is showing what real life is all about, what the price of freedom truly costs, and how we should be thankful others rose to the occasion to fight for our freedom.
Although Henry A. Giroux argues in his paper, that having teaching machines, like television, are problematic and have no place in todays world because he believes they are not effective. Well what is exactly wrong with that? The famous comedian Chris Rock once made a joke that no one knows the law because no one reads the books, and if they put it in a Beyoncé video, then they’d know it. Well as troubling as that sounds, most people know that if you want to sell something, the best way to sell it is put a pair of boobs in behind it and it will sell like crazy, at least to the male demographic. Look at what television has provided for us today already, the history channel, the discovery channel, TLC, National Geographic channel, the news. All of those are definite teaching machines that exist without us fully realizing it. Although Giroux offers Disney’s movies and stories as teaching machines, it is now extended into characters in pop culture that esstenitally control a large demographic, like Justin Bieber. They are truly effective, but in today’s society with 3D video games and 3D movies, TV. is slowly becoming obsolete. So then we can look to video games, and think to ourselves, which drone on teaching history, when we can show it? Then go even further, why just show it when we can truly be a part of it?
In context, we can realize that most of the veterans of those wars are dead or close to dying, most of their stories will be passed on through their families and kept there, but keeping the story alive through a video game (even with a factitious character) will forever preserve the knowledge of what few people know of what happened on June 6, 1944.
Call of Duty can have this same potential, as well as games that are going to be coming out later, like Homefront, can teach us plenty of what our past, present and future will hold. Especially since Homefront’s story line is where the Korea’s are united to form the Greater Korean Republic, where they spend most of the first half of the current decade to take over all of Asia, then move on to Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) the United States and invading her borders. This kind of video game suggests something crazy and somewhat impossible since most people wouldn’t consider Korea the greatest threat right now. But it is still a possibility and shouldn’t be ignored so lightly.
We can also look to what actual first person shooters do to all the game players, in the video ad released for Black Ops, titled “There’s a Soldier in everyone”, it shows that everyone who plays could someday be fighting in wars like the ones presented in the video game. From personal experience I can tell you the video game will not prepare you for the kick back on an actual weapon (especially Light Machine Guns) and you won’t respawn (or come back to life) every time you die. Your health won’t recover over a period of time and you don’t get little kill streak (multiple kills in succession) rewards like an C4 remote control car or attack dogs to sic on the enemy, but the kind of rush it gives you when you’re playing in certain games modes where you’re the last one left on your team and you must finish the mission. There are plenty more aspects of the video games that plenty of my Army, Navy and Marine buddies would argue definitely wouldn’t happen in real life, but there are plenty of ways to prove that video games could and should have a larger impact on today’s pop culture.
Giroux’s insurgent cultural pedagogy is unique in the field of cultural criticism because he not only deals with the pedagogical aspects of popular culture, he engages and wants to transform the political structures that are given purpose in part through a highly refined system of public pedagogies. Recognizing the historical importance of other work, Giroux nevertheless distinguishes himself from other social critics. But in reality video games are always going to be a part of our society today, and ignoring their potential will eventually be a mistake to teaching the many ignorant Americans, and will ultimately throw away the potential to save and preserve our history, along with allowing people to be apart of it.
Works Cited
Raman, Manikandan. "Call of Duty: Black Ops Sales Top $1 Bln - Entertainment & Stars."International Business News, Financial News, Market News, Politics, Forex, Commodities - International Business Times - IBTimes.com. Web. 04 Mar. 2011.
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