Joystick Warriors (2013)

For years there has been widespread speculation but very little consensus about the relationship between violent video games and violence in the real world Joystick Warriors provides the clearest account yet of the latest research on this issue Drawing on the insights of media scholars military analysts combat veterans and gamers themselves the film trains its sights on the wildly popular genre of firstperson shooter games exploring how the immersive experience they offer links up with the larger stories we tell ourselves as a culture about violence militarism guns and manhood Along the way it examines the game industrys longstanding working relationship with the US military and the American gun industry and offers a riveting examination of the games themselves showing how they work to sanitize glamorize and normalize violence while cultivating dangerously regressive attitudes and ideas about masculinity and militarism