The American Construction of Childhood via the State’s Conversations on Violence in Video Games

• In Event: 308 - Section on Sociology of Sex and Gender Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 01.Sexual Violence and Masculinity

Abstract

Drawing from Kathryn Bond Stockton’s The Queer Child, I studied the Congressional hearings that were held in response to the production of a handful of graphically violent games in 1993 and 1994; using Foucault’s concept of archival knowledge, I argue that Congress took action because children’s predilection for violent games interfered with the structure of what I call the archive of children. Congress held these hearings in order to preserve its concept of the innocent, violence-free child. Given that most video games inherently involve some level of violence, I argue that that the Congressional hearings illustrate that the archive of children excludes realistic violence, not violence per se. Essentially, Congress argued that realistically re-produced violence was harmful to children, whereas I argue that Congress used video games as a medium to re-produce and reify aspects of the constructed condition of childhood. I also posit that Congress displays a kind of moral exceptionalism (borrowing from Jasbir Puar) when its members condemn realistic video game violence and condone actual violence in terms of warfare. The hearings attempt to contrast a non-violent American population with greedy video game executives who are willing to destroy children’s innocence if it will increase profits; the discourse allowed Congress to re-produce and reify American moral exceptionalism via the amoral profit mongering of video game company executives re-producing an us/them binary.

Author

• Benjamin Joseph Nobile Kampler, Boston University