I know I've told this story before, but I feel like I should continue to repeat it, because it's something that needs to be drummed on until people get it, and The Discourse (TM) has made it relevant today.

Why Call of Duty is our generation's Triumph of the Will.

Back when I was in high school and university, I actually quite enjoyed military FPSers. Medal of Honor: Frontline, in particular, really hooked me in. I knew it was "historically dubious" but it was entertaining, and took me on a ride, so I let myself enjoy it on those terms.

What changed was when I went to an art gallery in Japan, on one of my first trips there. At the time they were commemorating some kind of war anniversary (I actually forgot which), but they were holding a special exhibition of war paintings from WW1 and WW2.

Naturally, fascinated by Japanese history as I was, this was a big opportunity for me to see something I just wouldn't otherwise, so I went in... and was immediately struck with how familiar these paintings were.

It was real "light in the darkness" and "the noble warriors in the horrors of war" stuff. And then I realised why they were *so* familiar as art works, when I had never seen a Japanese military painting before.

It was exactly the aesthetic and tone of all those military FPSers.

We all agree that Japan was a Bad Thing in World War 2. By extension, we must also agree that propaganda painted in support of that war effort is bad.

We have a popular example of this, too: Triumph of the Will. We ALL agree that film is Bad with a capital "B", though we also acknowledge that as a technical and cinematic achievement, it's a masterpiece.

So good art can be terrible because it works as propaganda. We know this.

So let's get back to military FPSers. Having now come to the sobering realisation that war propaganda is *exactly the same* aesthetically and tonally, and CoD et al is *exactly the same* as Japanese and German WW2 war propaganda, we need to ask ourselves something here:

1) Do we believe that military propaganda is righteous and good because it's in support of our side (Bad Opinion)
2) Do we believe that Call of Duty is not propaganda because it's not entertaining nor influential (Bad Opinion, fails to understand how propaganda works)

OR:

3) Call of Duty is insidious, and just like how the Germans were more than okay with Triumph of the Will, and the Japanese were okay with those paintings, because all of society was motivated around making them okay, so too are we okay with CoD.

But we shouldn't be okay with CoD. We should be not okay on a level that goes well beyond shrugging our shoulders at the silly pew pew game. We shouldn't *dismiss* the game. We should actively work to make sure people understand what it does and champions.

I don't think the CoD games are bad games. Precisely the opposite. I think they're deeply concerning precisely because they're good games, and people are able to view them as simple entertainment.

Until we see them as we see Triumph of the Will, we're doing it wrong.

Fin.