Cyborg Orgy, part II

As cyborg orgy, MW3 instantiates the nightmare of Haraway’s cyborg. As Haraway writes, “the main trouble with cyborgs, of course, is that they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism” (151). MW3 is clearly an outgrowth of, and complicit in the reproduction of, both militarism and patriarchal capitalism. Indeed, as the current genre-defining FPS, MW3 represents a union of militarism and capitalism that is perhaps unique in consumer culture. MW3 markets itself as “Modern Warfare”; its appeal is that it provides access to a simulation of the latest military technology. There is a dizzying array of possible weapons to use: rifles, submachine guns, sniper rifles, shotguns. Each weapon can be customized with various gadgets and attachments. In other words, you can quickly create your own custom solider, your own unique virtual warrior identity. As with other attempts at identify formation within consumerism, however, you ultimately are still only able to choose within a predetermined set of options; while you might have the illusion of choice, your identity is really predetermined.

MW3 eroticizes modern warfare. The game makes war and its modern technologies objects of desire. As a consumer object, the game satiates the fetishes of a particular consumer demographic: young white males. As Joker says in Full Metal Jacket, “I wanted to be the first kid on my block to get a confirmed kill.” MW3 answers our desire to wield the weapon technologies we see on television and movies… and to kill with them. Part of the appeal of Modern Warfare is that it’s Modern Warfare: the game lets us kill with real world weapon systems, and while the physics of the game are impossible, it certainly aims for a high-level of visual fidelity, right down to the brand names featured on the holographic weapon sights.

The multiplayer game completely removes the consequences of deploying real world weapons technologies, including even the potential for fratricide. The game’s most destructive weapons can be wielded with no possibility of killing team members, which is a relatively recent development in FPS. No friendly fire fits in with other attempts to make MW3 as mainstream and accessible as possible. Whereas other FPS games in the modern warfare genre aim for tactical gameplay and realism with an accompanying steep learning curve, MW3 includes a series of ingenious design features that ensure new players can pick up the game and score kills right out of the box.

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“But illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins" (151).

As the above quotation suggests, Haraway believes that cyborgs have subversive potential, but I don’t know if they do in MW3.

Battlefield 2, a PC game released several years ago, shares a lot with MW3. However, when wielding this game's most powerful weapon, jet aircraft that could rapidly attack any part of the map (the ultimate eye-weapon-phallus within this particular cyborgic system), you always faced the potential of team killing. The lethality of your weaponry could always work both ways. Even this limited ethical responsibility is missing from MW3...