“You Don't Play, You Volunteer”: Narrative Public Memory Construction in Medal of Honor: Rising Sun

Abstract

Narrative and ludological analysis suggests that Electronic Arts’ Medal of Honor: Rising Sun constructs a narrative of World War II that selectively retells history and constructs an Orientalist representation of the Japanese Empire. The gaming environment exists as an interactive museum that immerses gamers into history so that they experience warfare in their homes. Combining newsreels, fictional letters from home, and interviews with veterans of the “Good War,” Medal of Honor: Rising Sun retells a history that omits details of Japanese internment or atomic weapons. The intertwined themes of personal revenge for the loss of a family member and historical revenge for the attack on Pearl Harbor guide gamers through an “educational” experience of the war. Finally, its failure to simulate violence means that Medal of Honor: Rising Sun invites a critical blindness to commemorating war.

Keywords:

• Public Memory
• Ludology
• World War II
• Video Games

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Cheree Carlson, Karen Stewart, Linda Steiner, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments.

Notes

1. In international business news publications, Medal of Honor Rising Sun was consistently ranked among the top ten best-selling games (see “Weekly top ten,” 2004). Notably, the game was popular in Japan, although this means, effectively, that players kill Japanese soldiers to defeat their own country (see Thompson, 2004).

2. The word ludology comes from the Latin word ludus, or game. Ludology takes an interdisciplinary perspective, combining computer sciences, social sciences, and humanities.

3. The notion of rescuing a single person in the midst of war highlights a similarity between the game and Saving Private Ryan; this may be intended to engage audiences familiar with the film. This act also seems to reinforce the nature of personal responsibility for a world war, which accentuates the sense of both film and game as pushing for a contemporary return to nationalistic pride, as Biesecker (2002) argues.

4. Gamers may also recall war scenes from Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers, or Pearl Harbor and their narratives of lost comrades, fraternal bonding, and romance within tragedy. Viewers familiar with Pearl Harbor or Tora! Tora! Tora! may recall scenes of floating bodies in the water, or skies with hundreds of Japanese bombers approaching Hawaii. Other cultural artifacts may assist in connecting Medal of Honor into a larger public dialogue of World War II popular culture.

5. The use of emaciated bodies also seems to call forth other images from World War II familiar to gamers. Specifically, images of rescued Holocaust prisoners in concentration camps, also with emaciated bodies, come to mind as a part of the moral obligation to fight in the war.

6. Similarly, the construction of Tanaka indirectly references the politics of suspicion at the time. In one scene, Tanaka reappears after a brief absence. As he approaches, he makes his presence known, shouting, “Don't shoot! It's me, Tanaka!” This alerting of the player to his English language presence shifts the focus from his racially-constructed body.

7. Ehrenhaus (2001) goes beyond analysis of text in Saving Private Ryan to consider the nature of national remembrance.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aaron Hess

Aaron Hess is a doctoral student in the Hugh Downs School of Human Communication at Arizona State University