Red Dead Redemption: History, Myth, and Violence in the Video Game West (Volume 1)

by John Wills (Editor), Esther Wright (Editor)

While the Western was dying a slow death across the cultural landscape, it was blazing back to life as a video game in the early twenty-first century. Rockstar Games’ Red Dead franchise, beginning with Red Dead Revolver in 2004, has grown into one of the most critically acclaimed video game franchises of the twenty-first century. Red Dead History, Myth, and Violence in the Video Game West offers a critical, interdisciplinary look at this cultural phenomenon at the intersection of game studies and American history.

Drawing on game studies, western history, American studies, and cultural studies, the authors train a wide-ranging, deeply informed analytic perspective on the Red Dead franchise—from its earliest incarnation to the latest, Red Dead Redemption 2 (2018). Their intersecting chapters put the series in the context of American history, culture, and contemporary media, with inquiries into issues of authenticity, realism, the meaning of play and commercial promotion, and the relationship between the game and the wider cultural iterations of the classic Western. The contributors also delve into the role the series’ development has played in recent debates around working conditions in the gaming industry and gaming culture.

In its redeployment and reinvention of the Western’s myth and memes, the Red Dead franchise speaks to broader aspects of American culture—the hold of the frontier myth and the “Wild West” over the popular imagination, the role of gun culture in society, depictions of gender and ethnicity in mass media, and the increasing allure of digital escapism—all of which come in for scrutiny here, making this volume a vital, sweeping, and deeply revealing cultural intervention.
 

Genres: Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

Published March 30, 2023

About the author

Professor of American Media & Culture at the University of Kent

Reviews

[Jamie · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book is too heavily focused on the Red Dead series' protagonists as able-bodied, cisgender white men. The only praise is for the artwork of the digital landscape and the portrayal of tuberculosis in RDR2. Otherwise, it criticizes everything else.

Two particular essays leave out key points. Soren Schoppmeier, in essay 1, laments the lack of story behind the duels in the games, making them seem random. He must have missed Jack's duel at the end of RDR1 because the WHOLE GAME is the story behind the duel. Arthur's duel with Jim Boy Calloway in RDR2 has the whole side quest story behind it, tracking down other gunslingers who knew Calloway and finding out his stories were exaggerations. Shannon Lawlor, in essay 2, discusses fatherhood and mentions that Arthur has no son to pass on his traditions, making it sound like that is the only reason for Arthur's jealousy of John. She leaves out how Arthur did have a son who died; his anger at John comes from John not appreciating his own family, while Arthur liked having a family but lost it.

In the last essay, Soraya Murray spends the first half bashing the Western genre as a whole and then admits she didn't even want to play RDR2--so why did she bother playing if she hates Westerns and then write an essay just to say she didn't want to play? Why was the essay included?

Overall, the book is a disappointment. The essayists dislike the game and many of their arguments are flawed.

[Silva · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has an author per chapter. I particularly enjoyed Arno Görgen’s chapter on medicalisation and Poppy Wilde’s chapter on Undead Nightmare. I think the concept of the zombies as other being zombies-as-outlaw is really interesting. But Ashlee Bird please never fucking write again holy shit. The argument made is so fucking weak what do you mean the discrimination wasn’t in depth enough but also it was too historically accurate what the fuck are you talking about?? Saying players are playing historical dress up (‘virtual black face, red face…’) by playing characters who don’t completely resemble themselves?? And it doesn’t get thicker than claiming the game is anti-native american because mr villain bad mcterrible main antagonist over the whole two games Dutch takes advantage of them. Who fucking let this idiot participate in this book?? It is also clear that this person A. Did not play the game and B. Did not research the game. Bird says the player ‘can shoot and leave abandoned as many bison […] as they want with […] zero punishment on their honour.’ THIS IS NOT TRUE??? This is straight up completely and utterly false. If you kill too many of the same species without collecting their pelts etc, your honour drops. So this is straight up a lie. Saying essentially that the game has gruesome violence directed at minorities is an interesting take when every single god damn character suffers from the same violence. ‘Lenny was shot down’ yeah and this was less than one fucking minute after Hosea was shot down like a dog in the street in cold blood. ‘Javier is tortured’ Arthur was tortured, shot by a shotgun in the shoulder, hung upside down for hours and left for dead. I don’t understand nitpicking character violence to serve a point that is baseless. This becomes evident through a LACK of information mentioned. Aside from Lenny and the optional death of Javier, the minorities in the game mainly live to see another day. The characters who are brutalised and killed has nothing to do with race, gender, sexuality etc. They die because of their interaction with different characters and roles in the plot and their personality. Hosea died because Milton was a childish cold hearted bastard and Lenny died just after because he was first on the roof to come into contact with the law. The player isn’t supposed to ‘feel good aiding people because they’re minorities’ [reworded], they’re supposed to feel good aiding individual people because Arthur (the player) is having a fucking REDEMPTION.

Other than that I generally agree with about half of this book. John is not a good parent - that’s the whole point of him. Don’t pretend that he is and that he’s rewarded for that. He’s not and he isn’t. The whole point is the world is changing and they (Dutch, John, Jack etc) can’t change who they are in the cycle of violence they are trapped in. They don’t fit in the the world any more so long as the cycle remains unbroken. John’s redemption means naught in the end when his past of murder and wrongdoings catch up with him.

Making a point and ignoring to include all the evidence is interesting. The only people reading this book are people who have played the game. Saying that only 2 women (both white) are important in RDR won’t make me magically forget how instrumental Luisa is to the Mexican revolution. Without her, the rebels will be lost. Not sure why this is just ignored?? Calling Sadie etc masculine because she’s violent? That is just not how that works.

Also good job on critiquing the main characters being straight white men (Harlow is half Native American 🫶) in every chapter and then only delving into misogyny and racism. Not a single criticism of the ‘straight’ issue.

‘In rockstar’s other games, they also don’t star wome-‘ sad but totally irrelevant. If you wanted to yap about that, you should have called the book ‘Rockstar’ not ‘Red Dead Redemption’.

Unrealistically twisting the importance of characters to fit your narrative does NOT change the actual events and characters in the games. ‘Mexican character is not that important’ He’s literally one of the three main antagonists in the first game AS WELL as being a side character in the second. Mentioning that people didn’t enjoy the game because it felt ‘too big’ feels a little irrelevant like are we going to delve into every single opinion people have of the game? Clearly it’s not their type of game - maybe Pac-Man would be better suited.

[Via · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, it's not *surprising* that people are so mad about a book that acknowledges the many problems with this game, but it is rather disappointing. The essays feature a ton of highly specific insight into various aspects of the game, and I found it very valuable for my own work. Note that it is an academic work. IMO it's approachable as academic writing goes, but I think the low ratings are partly due to people struggling with that. And of course it can be difficult to hear something you love criticized (especially when the criticisms are valid). But there's so much great information here! A truly insightful and valuable body of work.

[Ben Isbel · Rating 1 out of 5]

only the second book I've never been able to finish. got a few chapters in and kept skipping, going through each chapter to find a half decent one.

this book is inane drivel. i can only imagine its beginnings came about as a skit from portlandia of fred and carrie as the women and womens first bookshop owners, deciding to write a book how evil video games are at perpetuating the patriarchy.

the title is completely misleading. a more appropriate title would be 'an analysis on why rock star creates video games about white able bodied cisgendered men'. I am actually a bleeding heart who supports the green movement and loves drag race so when I say this is way too much you should believe me. there is more too it than identity politics though, you can also enjoy deconstructing period video games through the neoliberalistic captialistic lens.

The structure and prose of the writing is also amatuer. every chapter begins with here is our position and we will argue this this and this and conclude with this... its clunky, repetitive word soup.

if you hate red dead redemption and enjoy critising everything through divisive group politics this is the book for you.

if you enjoyed the game and are looking for some history and myths from the era then this isn't the book for you.

[Cid · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was pointless.

The main focus was on how having a White male as the lead for the story is bad unless you can have equal representation of others based on gender, sexuality, race, religion, etc...

There is very little focus on the actual parts of History, Myth, and Violence as the main point of the book is just to complain about everything the auther wishis was in the video game.

Waste of time.

[Kartikeya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really disappointing set of essays

[Cowpal]

Never felt nerdier.