Speaking of Heads in C&C: Generals

Any given sentence contains within its confines a host of meanings; that of the topical definition of the sum of words, that of an intended idea implied both in and around the meanings established through topical definition and, often, as a consequence of this composite, a potentially unintended meaning. I personally hold that any given writer or speaker is responsible for the overall understanding of his words, whether intended or not. Generally, this holds up well enough in the day-to-day life of reading and hearing and understanding through transitions between media types do not prove difficult. With this in mind, I’ve chosen to look at a presumably unintended implication of a particular computer game: Command and Conquer: Generals.

In C&C:G, the player chooses from one of three different armies, each having different units and structures, and each with the intent of killing the hell out of whomever deigns to oppose them. This is pretty standard stuff as far as contemporary real-time strategy games go - since Starcraft, most major RTS releases have had, at minimum, three different factions/races that the player can choose from. What separates C&C:G from most other RTS games, however, is that it decided to incorporate real-world factions, and all of the weight that each culture brings.

Those three factions are the People’s Republic of China, the United States of America, and the GLA - the Global Liberation Army. As stated, each army has different units, although there are clear similarities amongst the three. For example, all three of the factions have a basic, rifle-armed soldier that is responsible for doing a great deal of the grunt work that their factions require of them. I am not particularly interested in the similarities of the three gun-toting grunt soldiers, but rather their differences - and even then, I’m interested only in the perceived and implied cultural differences among them as established by Electronic Arts, the game’s developers.

What I found to be the most interesting undertone in C&C:G are the voices of individual units. Similar again to Starcraft, each unit has a different set of speeches that issue forth depending on what you order them to do, or even if one merely selects the unit. The Ranger - the USA’s grunt soldier - says things like, “Always prepared,” “Ready for action,” and “We’ll lead the way.” These are pretty standard tropes for American troops to fall back on, boyscout-like in presentation and always spoken from a position of military dominance. Things get more interesting when one looks to the Chinese, however, whom say things like “We are the red guard,” “Defenders of peace,” and “China, do not forget me!”

The Chinese voice responses from units mostly revolve around China as a collective, communistic entity; the “we” invoked by the Chinese is entirely dissimilar to that of the American “we,” suggesting for the Chinese that they are part of a far larger organization that supersedes even the military conflict and harkening to the Red Army as a whole (and a key component of China), whereas the American “we” is simply “we” in the context of that particular military unit - the soldiers that are immediately present. These strings can be found throughout the unit voices for both armies, China continually emphasizing Communistic and collective ideas and the USA considering its military force to be the sole consideration.

More or less, the two ideas presented here are clear and aren’t particularly controversial - at least, when one extrapolates China and Communism a few decades into the future. What I do find to be particularly controversial, however, is the treatment of the third faction, the Global Liberation Army.

The GLA aren’t merely another player in a global war, but rather a similar extrapolation to that of China - only with various Muslim/terrorist groups found throughout the Middle East. I do not use ‘Muslim groups,’ or even ‘terrorist,’ lightly, as every image and voice presented by EA for the GLA are inarguably Islamic stereotypes and extrapolations of current images. Even the name of the basic grunt troop for the GLA - “Rebel” - is suggestive of something more sinister than anything either of the other two armies can provide. As with the China/USA paradigm, things grow more interesting when adding another faction.

Almost every member of the GLA is suicidal and fanatical, with such choice phrases as “No cost is too great!” and “The higher order shall reign.” The former hardly needs explanation; it’s a pretty clear image of a suicidal soldier fully-prepared to die for his cause. Not to say that the Americans and the Chinese aren’t willing to do the same, but neither of these factions actually voice it with the conviction - or even voice it at all - of the GLA. “The higher order shall reign” is also an almost-damning statement; although it doesn’t quite directly state it, when taken with consideration of the rest of the highlights of the GLA faction, it’s almost the same as saying, “Allah is the one true God” or even, “Islam will dominate everything!” A final GLA quote, “Our courage will be seen by all!” is even further different from anything the other two factions say; whereas the USA and the Chinese are focused on securing military objectives, defeating their enemies, and winning battles with their voice-overs, the GLA seems to, inexplicably, be terribly concerned with how their actions are perceived by “all.” “All” is another tricky term; do they mean the people of the world as a whole? Their brethren soldiers and the enemy? Just one of them? Regardless, it shifts the focus from the intent of their actions and their goals and into the realm of public opinion.

This is particularly troubling because, while China and the United States arguably have a national identity, at least militarily, that is effectively portrayed by C&C:G, EA decided to instead use stereotype and fear to paint the portrait of a generic, Islamic nation. Although in the course of the game it is stated that the GLA arises from no clear nationality and is made of a variety of groups, it nonetheless combines Wahabism with terrorism with absolutely no remorse, or even second thought. Why is it that this region of the world - culturally, philosophically, and politically - can be represented through such gross and inaccurate stereotypes while the far West and East are not? EA doesn’t say, and I would be remiss to put words in their collective mouths.

None of these ideas would be particularly relevant had the factions been based on fictional groups of people. There’s a certain power in creating almost-entirely fictional warring cultures, as it allows statements like those above to be made without actually suggesting anything about real-world counterparts; creative and poetic license can go a long way. But when groups are so clearly based from real-world groups, doesn’t that mean that anything said about them in the confines of the game are more or less also being said about them in real-life?

Not all Muslims - and certainly not all of the soldiers found in that part of the world - are fanatical, suicidal terrorist figures, and yet they are presented as such in C&C:G. Why is it that the American stereotype attributes - egotism, a sense of entitlement, and an absolute belief in their superiority - aren’t displayed in as damning of terms as that of the GLA? The same for Chinese collectivism; it’s looked down on in the game (especially when taken in consideration with the structures the Chinese have, like Propaganda Towers), but it isn’t given anywhere nearly the negative connotation that the GLA are.
Further emphasizing this disparity of tone and, indeed, likeability of the factions, are the units themselves; while I’ll not drag this post out even further by examining them, I’ll leave you with this: the auxiliary foot troop for the Americans is the medic, the auxiliary foot troop for the Chinese is the computer hacker, and the auxiliary foot troop for the GLA is, well, the terrorist - a suicide bomber that kills himself to do an amount of damage to an enemy unit or structure.